Mercia, the astronomer royal: A romanceMears, A. Garland
Science
Mercia, the astronomer royal: A romance
Mears, A. Garland
Science fiction; Utopian fiction
So great was the perfection reached in this branch of science that a
professor of thought-reading was expected to describe not only the
thought of the inquirer, but also reveal the thoughts and motives of the
person who formed the subject of the inquiry. Nothing less than this
could satisfy the soul of the twenty-first century individual.
Once the Professor was placed _en rapport_ with the person to be
analysed and reported upon, he was expected to give every particular of
his life, habits, attainments, thoughts and actions. In point of fact,
he had to keep a mental diary of the watched man’s doings. Woe betide
the silly swain who tried to run two sweethearts; if one of them grew
jealous she had but to tell her case to the thought-reader, and with a
good fee set his brain agoing, when soon she would be in possession of
every particular of her lover’s perfidy.
As soon as the presence of this essence in all persons was clearly
demonstrated and established, it became the ambition of the food-chemist
to discover some phosphate that would increase the supply that nature
had given already. Numerous were the nostrums proposed for which were
claimed the power of imparting an augmented supply to man.
The newspapers teemed with advertisements of these tabloids, some of
which were frequently headed with the legend ‘YE ARE NOT MEN BUT GODS!’
And indeed, if the virtues of these chemical preparations attained only
half what was claimed for them, men would have been nearly gods by this
time. For the inherent desire of man to obtain power, by whatever name
it might be known, prompts him to accept any theories that promise this
desirable gift.
For a time large fortunes were accumulated by the manufacture of
psychic-energy tabloids; enterprising chemists rivalling each other in
the production of the most excellent. Notwithstanding all these
deserving efforts on the part of mankind to raise himself, he remained
pretty much the same as nature formed him, save by the slower processes
of evolution.
Of all the persons who laid claim to the gift of thought-reading there
was none so highly sensitive as the great Anglo-Indian, Dayanand Swami.
It was said of him that he almost lived upon a wonderful elixir of his
own manufacture, the preparation of which had been handed down to him
from his Mahatma forefather some generations back.
In the solitude of the Indian jungle a hundred years previously his
fore-elder had discovered this wonderful plant, which not only
physically sustained him to a great extent, but furnished him with an
extraordinary supply of the mystic fluid.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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