The Coming Race by Edward Bulwer-lytton — Read

After the conversation with Zee just recorded, I fell into a profound / melancholy. The curious interest with which I had hitherto examined the / life and habits of this marvellous community was at an end. I could not / banish from my mind the consciousness that I was among a people who, / however kind and courteous, could destroy me at any moment without / scruple or compunction. The virtuous and peaceful life of the / people which, while new to me, had seemed so holy a contrast to the / contentions, the passions, the vices of the upper world, now began / to oppress me with a sense of dulness and monotony. Even the serene / tranquility of the lustrous air preyed on my spirits. I longed for a / change, even to winter, or storm, or darkness. I began to feel that, / whatever our dreams of perfectibility, our restless aspirations towards / a better, and higher, and calmer, sphere of being, we, the mortals of / the upper world, are not trained or fitted to enjoy for long the very / happiness of which we dream or to which we aspire.

Now, in this social state of the Vril-ya, it was singular to mark how / it contrived to unite and to harmonise into one system nearly all the / objects which the various philosophers of the upper world have placed / before human hopes as the ideals of a Utopian future. It was a state in / which war, with all its calamities, was deemed impossible, -- a state in / which the freedom of all and each was secured to the uttermost degree, / without one of those animosities which make freedom in the upper world / depend on the perpetual strife of hostile parties. Here the corruption / which debases democracies was as unknown as the discontents which / undermine the thrones of monarchies. Equality here was not a name; it / was a reality. Riches were not persecuted, because they were not envied. / Here those problems connected with the labours of a working class, / hitherto insoluble above ground, and above ground conducing to such / bitterness between classes, were solved by a process the simplest, -- a / distinct and separate working class was dispensed with altogether. / Mechanical inventions, constructed on the principles that baffled my / research to ascertain, worked by an agency infinitely more powerful and / infinitely more easy of management than aught we have yet extracted from / electricity or steam, with the aid of children whose strength was / never overtasked, but who loved their employment as sport and pastime, / sufficed to create a Public-wealth so devoted to the general use that / not a grumbler was ever heard of. The vices that rot our cities here / had no footing. Amusements abounded, but they were all innocent. No / merry-makings conduced to intoxication, to riot, to disease. Love / existed, and was ardent in pursuit, but its object, once secured, was / faithful. The adulterer, the profligate, the harlot, were phenomena so / unknown in this commonwealth, that even to find the words by which they / were designated one would have had to search throughout an obsolete / literature composed thousands of years before. They who have been / students of theoretical philosophies above ground, know that all these / strange departures from civilised life do but realise ideas which have / been broached, canvassed, ridiculed, contested for; sometimes partially / tried, and still put forth in fantastic books, but have never come / to practical result. Nor were these all the steps towards theoretical / perfectibility which this community had made. It had been the sober / belief of Descartes that the life of man could be prolonged, not, / indeed, on this earth, to eternal duration, but to what he called the / age of the patriarchs, and modestly defined to be from 100 to 150 years / average length. Well, even this dream of sages was here fulfilled -- nay, / more than fulfilled; for the vigour of middle life was preserved even / after the term of a century was passed. With this longevity was combined / a greater blessing than itself -- that of continuous health. Such diseases / as befell the race were removed with ease by scientific applications of / that agency -- life-giving as life-destroying -- which is inherent in vril. / Even this idea is not unknown above ground, though it has generally / been confined to enthusiasts or charlatans, and emanates from confused / notions about mesmerism, odic force, &c. Passing by such trivial / contrivances as wings, which every schoolboy knows has been tried and / found wanting, from the mythical or pre-historical period, I proceed to / that very delicate question, urged of late as essential to the perfect / happiness of our human species by the two most disturbing and potential / influences on upper-ground society, -- Womankind and Philosophy. I mean, / the Rights of Women.