"So much waste?" exclaimed Professor Slimey indignantly; "to what nobler purpose could the energies of the people be directed than to the defence of their Emperor, their God and their Fatherland?" "I did not mean that it might not be necessary," I replied, "but it is like a man who has to build a dyke against floods. It may be necessary, but if he could be sure that the floods would not come, he could devote his energies to something more profitable." Professor Slimey shook his head solemnly. "No, no," he said, "that is another of the fallacies current among foreign peoples. We should sink to their level if our people had not ever before them the duty of serving God by upholding the power of Meccania, his chosen nation. Indeed, I often think what a dispensation of Providence it is that it involves so much labour. Imagine the state of the common people if they could maintain themselves by the aid of a few hours' work a day!" "Would there not be so much more scope for the spread of your Culture?" I said. "In fact, I had been given to understand that your Culture had reached such a high level that you could easily dispense with the discipline of long hours of labour." "Our Culture," he replied, speaking with authority, "is not an individual culture at all. It must be understood as a unity. It includes this very discipline of which you seem to think so lightly. It includes the discipline of all classes. The monks of the Middle Ages knew that idleness would undermine even their ideal of life, for they knew that life is a discipline. Our National Culture is the nearest approach to the Christian ideal that any nation has ever put into practice." "I cannot, of course, speak with confidence upon such a question," I replied, "but I thought the Christian ideal was the development of the individual soul, whereas the Meccanian ideal--I speak under correction--implies the elimination of the individual soul: everything must be sacrificed to the realisation of the glory of the Super-State." "The Super-State," answered Slimey, "is itself the Great Soul of Meccania; it includes all the individual souls. What you call the sacrifice of the individual soul is no real sacrifice; it is merely a losing oneself to find oneself in the larger soul of Meccania. And just as the individual soul may inflict suffering on itself for the sake of higher self-realisation, so the Super-Soul of Meccania may inflict suffering on the individual souls within itself for the sake of the higher self-realisation. The soul of Meccania is as wonderful in the spiritual world as the material manifestation of Meccania is in the material world." "I am sure you are right," I said, "although it never struck me in that light before. The soul of Meccania is the most wonderful phenomenon in the history of the world."