Upon this, one of Dr. Linister's Party arose, and begged permission
to interrupt the Suffragan. He wished to point out that memory was
indestructible; that even if we succeeded in reducing Mankind, as the
Suffragan wished, to be a mere breathing and feeding machine--the
Ultimate Triumph of Science--any one of these machines might be at any
time electrified into a full and exact memory of the Past; that, to
the average man, the Emotion of the Past would always be incomparably
preferable to the Tranquillity of the Present. What had just been done
would be done again.
I went on, after this interruption, to narrate how I set myself to
watch, and presently saw the Arch Physician himself enter the Museum;
how he exchanged his gown for the costume in which the men disfigured
themselves, play-acted, pretended, and masqueraded with them; danced
with them, no external respect whatever being paid to his rank; and
afterwards had certain love passages--actually love passages between
the Arch Physician and a Woman of the People!--which I overheard, and
repeated as far as I could remember them. The rest my brethren of the
College knew already; how I hastily summoned them, and led them into
the Inner House just before the arrival of the Criminals.
Thereupon, without any attempt of Dr. Linister's friends to the
contrary, it was Resolved that the Trial of the Arch Physician and his
accomplices should be held in the morning.
I next invited their attention to the behavior of the girl Christine.
She it was, I told them, who had instigated the whole of the business.
A culpable curiosity it was, no doubt, that first led her to consider
and study the ways of the ancient world; what should be the ways of the
Past to an honest and loyal person, satisfied with the Wisdom which
ruled the Present? She read the old books, looked at the old pictures,
and lived all day long in the old Museum. There were many things which
she could not understand; she wanted to understand these things; and
she conceived a violent, unreasoning admiration for the old time, which
appeared to this foolish girl to be a continual round of pleasure
and excitement. Therefore she gathered together a company of those
who had belonged to the richer class in the days when property was
permitted. She artfully awakened them out of their contentment, sowed
the seeds of dissatisfaction among them, caused them to remember the
Past with a vehement longing to reproduce the worst part of it--namely,
the manners and customs of the richer class--the people for whom the
bulk of mankind toiled, so that the privileged few might have nothing
to do but to feast, dance, sing, and make love. I asked the College,
therefore, what should be done with such a girl, warning them that one
Penalty, and one only, would meet the case and render for the future
such outbreaks impossible.
Again the Physician who had spoken before rose up and remarked that
such outbreaks were inevitable, because the memory is indestructible.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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