Another World: Fragments from the Star City of MontalluyahLumley, Benjamin
Science
Another World: Fragments from the Star City of Montalluyah
Lumley, Benjamin
Utopias
You should also realise the advantages arising from the fact, that
whilst elevating knowledge, and rendering the rich happy in the
possession of their wealth, my laws protect those who formerly would
have been called poor. As there is no misery resulting from the neglect
of society, or from the selfishness or oppression of man, poverty in
your sense of the word does not exist. They, who are qualified for a
"poor" grade only, are nevertheless the objects of solicitude and care
to so great an extent that, whilst under my system the happiness and
enjoyments of the rich are greatly increased, the poor are far happier
and have keener enjoyments than the rich of former times, when the
acquisition of money or its indifferent expenditure was the dominant
thought in the minds of all.
You should also appreciate, in part at least, the effects of the
numberless sights of beauty everywhere in Montalluyah, within and
without, in the houses and the public thoroughfares, all by their
influence on the mother, the child, and the adult contributing towards
perfection of form, beauty, intelligence, and length of life.
Amongst other things, one result of the labours of the Character-divers
must not be forgotten. The mobile countenances of our people are easily
impressed with the marks of their emotions, and formerly nothing was
more plainly furrowed on the countenance than signs indicating bad
passions and evil propensities, the eradication of which with the
development of good qualities (one of the principal duties of the
Character-divers) has had a remarkable effect in adding to loveliness of
expression, in improving the features, and even in increasing the
elegance and gracefulness of the form and bearing.
Had I been content with a mere ordinary increase of beneficial results,
any one or more of the numerous precautions taken would have done much
good; but my object was to establish my laws on so broad a foundation
that no adverse gale could shake the edifice,--that the laws should be
strengthened one by the other, that every one should be interested in
observing and supporting institutions under which he enjoyed the largest
amount of happiness, and that, strange and visionary as it may seem to
you, the necessity for punishment might be diminished, and eventually
removed.
I should have as little thought of erecting the tall and graceful but
huge Mountain Supporter without a broad and solid foundation as of
establishing my laws, all tending as they did to the perfectibility and
happiness of the people, without spreading their base in all directions,
and taking care that the human instrument through which the soul acts
was fortified and prepared to respond to its noble ends.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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