In a near-future world on the brink of chaos, a celebrated biological researcher unveils a revolutionary theory claiming that a specific vibratory force emanating from the sun is responsible for driving evolution. This force—said to be essential in pushing life upward through successive stages—had, until then, been an unsolved mystery of biology. During a heated scientific meeting, his announcement of having discovered the evolution-driving vibration triggers fierce controversy. Critics denounce his claims while experimental evidence supports the existence of a heretofore unknown vibratory force. Soon after, the scientist abruptly vanishes amid a storm of academic and public uproar. In the aftermath, society begins to collapse into inexplicable violence and widespread accidents. Crime waves, transportation disasters, mechanical failures, and riots grip cities across the globe. Individuals once functioning within modern civilization start regressing into primitive states—losing their ability to use tools, communicate coherently, or operate machinery—as if caught in a collective reversion to earlier evolutionary forms. The regression is gradual at first, marked by erratic behavior and isolated incidents, but soon becomes universal, with entire populations devolving toward a brutish, quasi-ape-like existence. Two dedicated biologists, colleagues of the missing scientist, investigate the unfolding calamity. They come to believe that the vanished researcher's actions are tied to this global regression. Convinced that he deliberately generated a counter-vibration—an apparatus emitting a damping force that nullifies the sun’s evolution vibrations—the pair surmise that he has set in motion an event they dub “world atavism,” in which humanity is being thrust backward along its evolutionary path. In a desperate bid to preserve their own intelligence and stave off regression, they engineer portable devices that produce a limited form of the necessary vibratory energy locally, keeping themselves anchored at their present evolutionary level. Amid the crumbling chaos of urban centers now overrun by devolved, savage groups, the two scientists trace anomalous readings to a single towering building. Ascending its ruined floors amid encounters with frenzied, primitive hordes, they breach the upper levels where they finally confront the missing colleague. In a tense standoff, the reclusive scientist reveals his design to permanently suppress the sun’s evolution vibrations, believing that by condemning mankind to a lower state he is fulfilling a perverse version of natural progress. A violent struggle ensues, during which the attackers and defender exchange gunfire, leading to the destruction of the massive apparatus engineered to block the sun’s life-sustaining evolutionary energy. When the device is finally disabled, the dampening influence ceases, and the natural evolution vibrations begin to return. The regression halts, hinting at the possibility that humanity might, over future ages, reclaim its lost progress and rise again from these primitive ashes. However, the cost is steep; in the closing moments, the surviving scientist, mortally wounded, records his final testament—a dire warning to the future about the dangers of subverting nature’s evolutionary course. The narrative serves as both a historical account of a catastrophic reversal in human evolution and a somber meditation on the thin line between progress and regression.
By Edmond Hamilton · First published 1932 · Genre: Science Fiction, Apocalyptic Fiction, Dystopian Fiction