Jeremy thought nostalgically of his library at The Araucarias. Why couldn’t this old madman be content to take things as they came?
“And what about other people?” Pete was saying. “People who aren’t scientists. Hasn’t it helped to set them free?”
Mr. Propter nodded. “And it has also helped to tie them more closely to themselves. And what’s more, I should guess that it has increased bondage more than it has diminished it—and will tend to go on increasing it, progressively.”
“How do you figure that out?”
“Through its applications,” Mr. Propter answered. “Applications to warfare, first of all. Better planes, better explosives, better guns and gases—every improvement increases the sum of fear and hatred, widens the incidence of nationalistic hysteria. In other words, every improvement in armaments makes it more difficult for people to escape from their egos, more difficult to forget those horrible projections of themselves they call their ideals of patriotism, heroism, glory and all the rest. And even the less destructive applications of science aren’t really much more satisfactory. For what do such applications result in? The multiplication of possessable objects; the invention of new instruments of stimulation; the disseminations of new wants through propaganda aimed at equating possession with well-being and incessant stimulation with happiness. But incessant stimulation from without is a source of bondage; and so the preoccupation with possessions. And now you’re threatening to prolong our lives, so that we can go on being stimulated, go on desiring possessions, go on waving flags and hating our enemies and being afraid of air attack—go on and on, generation after generation, sinking deeper and deeper into the stinking slough of our personality.” He shook his head. “No, I can’t quite share your optimism about science.”
There was a silence while Pete debated with himself whether to ask Mr. Propter about love. In the end he decided he wouldn’t. Virginia was too sacred. (But why, why had she turned back at the Grotto? What could he have said or done to offend her?) As much to prevent himself from brooding over these problems as because he wanted to know the old man’s opinions on the last of the three things that seemed to him supremely valuable, he looked up at Mr. Propter and asked, “What about social justice? I mean, take the French Revolution. Or Russia. And what about this Spanish business—fighting for liberty and democracy against Fascist aggression?” He had tried to remain perfectly calm and scientific about the whole thing; but his voice trembled a little as he spoke the last words. In spite of their familiarity (perhaps because of their familiarity), phrases like “Fascist aggression” still had power to move him to the depths.
“Napoleon came out of the French Revolution,” said Mr. Propter after a moment’s silence. “German nationalism came out of Napoleon. The war of 1870 came out of German nationalism. The war of 1914 came out of the war of 1870. Hitler came out of the war of 1914. Those are the bad results of the French Revolution. The good results were the enfranchisement of the French peasants and the spread of political democracy. Put the good results in one scale of your balance and the bad ones in the other, and try which set is the heavier. Then perform the same operation with Russia. Put the abolition of Czardom and capitalism in one scale; and in the other put Stalin, put the secret police, put the famines, put twenty years of hardship for a hundred and fifty million people, put the liquidation of intellectuals and Kulaks and old Bolsheviks, put the hordes of slaves in prison camps; put the military conscription of everybody, male and female, from childhood to old age, put the revolutionary propaganda which spurred the bourgeoisie to invent Fascism.” Mr. Propter shook his head. “Or take the fight for democracy in Spain,” he went on. “There was a fight for democracy all over Europe not so long ago. Rational prognosis can only be based on past experience. Look at the results of 1914 and then ask yourself what chance the Loyalists ever had of establishing a liberal regime at the end of a long war. The others are winning; so we shall never have the opportunity of seeing what circumstances and their own passions would have driven those well-intentioned liberals to become.”
“But, hell!” Pete broke out, “what do you expect people to do when they’re attacked by the Fascists? Sit down and let their throats be cut?”
“Of course not,” said Mr. Propter. “I expect them to fight. And the expectation is based on my previous knowledge of human behaviour. But the fact that people generally do react to that kind of situation in that kind of way doesn’t prove that it’s the best way of reacting. Experience makes me expect that they’ll behave like that. But experience also makes me expect that, if they do behave like that, the results will be disastrous.”
“Well, how do you want us to act? Do you want us to sit still and do nothing?”
“Not nothing,” said Mr. Propter. “Merely something appropriate.”
“But what is appropriate?”
“Not war, anyhow. Nor violent revolution. Nor yet politics, to any considerable extent, I should guess.” “Then what?”
“That’s what we’ve got to discover. The main lines are clear enough. But there’s still a lot of work to be done on the practical details.”
Pete was not listening. His mind had gone back to that time in Aragon, when life had seemed supremely significant. “But those boys, back there in Spain,” he burst out. “You didn’t know them, Mr. Propter. They were wonderful, really they were. Never mean to you, and brave, and loyal and . . . and everything.” He wrestled with the inadequacies of his vocabulary, with the fear of making an exhibition of himself by talking big, like a highbrow. “They weren’t living for themselves, I can tell you that, Mr. Propter.” He looked into the old man’s face almost supplicatingly, as though imploring him to believe. “They were living for something much bigger than themselves—like what you were talking about just now; you know, something more than just personal.”
“And what about Hitler’s boys?” Mr. Propter asked. “What about Mussolini’s boys? What about Stalin’s boys? Do you suppose they’re not just as brave, just as kind to one another, just as loyal to their cause and just as firmly convinced that it’s the cause of justice, truth, freedom, right and honour?” He looked at Pete inquiringly; but Pete said nothing. “The fact that people have a lot of virtues,” Mr. Propter went on, “doesn’t prove anything about the goodness of their actions. You can have all the virtues—that’s to say, all except the two that really matter, understanding and compassion—you can have all the others, I say, and be a thoroughly bad man. Indeed, you can’t be really bad unless you do have most of the virtues. Look at Milton’s Satan for example. Brave, strong, generous, loyal, prudent, temperate, self-sacrificing. And let’s give the dictators the credit that’s due to them; some of them are nearly as virtuous as Satan. Not quite, I admit, but nearly. That’s why they can achieve so much evil.”
His elbows on his knees, Pete sat in silence, frowning. “But that feeling,” he said at last, “that feeling there was between us. You know—the friendship; only it was more than just ordinary friendship. And the feeling of being there all together—fighting for the same thing—and the thing being worth while—and then the danger, and the rain, and that awful cold at nights, and the heat in summer, and being thirsty, and even those lice and the dirt—share and share alike in everything, bad or good—and knowing that tomorrow it might be your turn, or one of the other boys’—your turn for the field hospital (and the chances were they wouldn’t have enough anaesthetics, except maybe for an amputation or something like that) or your turn for the burial party. All those feelings, Mr. Propter—I just can’t believe they didn’t mean something.”
“They meant themselves,” said Mr. Propter.
Jeremy saw the opportunity for a counter-attack and, with a promptitude unusual in him, immediately took it. “Doesn’t the same thing apply to your feelings about eternity, or whatever it is?” he asked.
“Of course it does,” said Mr. Propter.
“Well, in that case, how can you claim any validity for it? The feeling means itself, and that’s all there is to it.”
“It means itself,” Mr. Propter agreed. “But what precisely is this ‘itself? In other words, what is the nature of the feeling?”
“Don’t ask me,” said Jeremy with a shake of the head and a comically puzzled lift of the eyebrows. “I really don’t know.”
Mr. Propter smiled. “I know you don’t want to know,” he said. “And I won’t ask you. I’ll just state the facts. The feeling in question is a non-personal experience of timeless peace. Accordingly, non-personality, timelessness and peace are what it means. Now let’s consider the feeling that Pete has been talking about. These are all personal
