Olaf Stapledon - Last And First Men

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LAST AND FIRST MEN

A STORY OF THE NEAR AND FAR FUTURE

by W. Olaf Stapledon

CAPE AND HARRISON SMITH, INC.,

FIRST PUBLISHED IN AMERICA, 1931

PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA BY THE VAIL-BALLOU

PRESS, BINGHAMTON, N.Y. AND BOUND BY THE J.F. TAPLEY CO.

FOREWORD TO THE AMERICAN EDITION

MAN seems to be entering one of the major crises of his career. His

whole future, nay the possibility of his having any future at all, depends on

the turn which events may take in the next half-century. It is a commonplace

that he is coming into possession of new and dangerous instruments for

controlling his environment and his own nature. Perhaps it is less obvious

that he is also groping toward a new view of his office in the scheme of

things, and toward a new and racial purpose. Unfortunately he may possibly

take too long to learn what it is that he really wants to do with himself.

Before he can gain clear insight, he may lose himself in a vast desert of

spiritual aridity, or even blunder into physical self-destruction. Nothing can

save him but a new vision, and a consequent new order of sanity, or common

sense.America may play an important part in creating the new vision. But

visions, if they are to be permanently helpful, must embody the whole breadth

and depth of experience. They must not be crude, extravagant, lop-sided. They

must be conceived not only with originality but with sanity, even if sanity

has to take up a new orientation in consequence of the new vision.

In early chapters of this book America is given a not very attractive

part. I have imagined the triumph of the cruder sort of Americanism over all

that is best and most promising in American culture. May this not occur in the

real world! But since the possibility of such an issue is admitted even by

many Americans themselves, I shall, I hope be forgiven for emphazing it, and

using it as an early turning point in the long drama of Man.

CONTENTS

PREFACE xiii

INTRODUCTION, by One of the Last Men 1

THE CHRONICLE

IBALKAN EUROPE

1 The European War and After 5

2 The Anglo-French War 7

3 Europe After the Anglo-French War 17

4 The Russo-German War 24

II EUROPE'S DOWNFALL

1 Europe and America 30

2 The Origins of a Mystery 35

3 Europe Murdered 41

III AMERICA AND CHINA

1 The Rivals 45

2 The Conflict 55

3 On an Island in the Pacific 60

IV AN AMERICANIZED PLANET

1 The Foundation of the First World State 69

2 The Dominance of Science 73

3 Material Achievement 76

4 The Culture of the First World State 80

5 Downfall 90

VTHE FALL OF THE FIRST MEN

1 The First Dark Age 96

2 The Rise of Patagonia 101

3 The Cult of Youth 106

4 The Catastrophe 113

VI TRANSITION

1 The First Men at Bay 123

2 The Second Dark Age 133

VII THE RISE OF THE SECOND MEN

1 The Appearance of a New Species 139

2 The Intercourse of Three Species 145

3 The Zenith of the Second Men 151

VIII THE MARTIANS

1 The First Martian Invasion 161

2 Life on Mars 164

3 The Martian Mind 171

4 Delusions of the Martians 177

IX EARTH AND MARS

1 The Second Men at Bay 182

2 The Ruin of Two Worlds 191

3 The Third Dark Age 200

XTHE THIRD MEN IN THE WILDERNESS

1 The Third Human Species 207

2 Digressions of the Third Men 213

3 The Vital Art 220

4 Conflicting Policies 225

XI MAN REMAKES HIMSELF

1 The First of the Great Brains 230

2 The Tragedy of the Fourth Men 236

3 The Fifth Men 244

4 The Culture of the Fifth Men 250

XII THE LAST TERRESTRIALS

1 The Cult of Evanescence 259

2 Exploration of Time 265

3 Voyaging in Space 271

4 Preparing a New World 278

XIII HUMANITY ON VENUS

1 Taking Root Again 285

2 The Flying Men 290

3 A Minor Astronomical Event 302

XIV NEPTUNE

1 Bird's-Eye View 306

2 Da Capo 308

3 Slow Conquest 313

XV THE LAST MEN

1 Introduction to the Last Human Species 321

2 Childhood and Maturity 327

3 A Racial Awakening 332

4 Cosmology 344

XVI THE LAST OF MAN

1 Sentence of Death 354

2 Behaviour of the Condemned 357

3 Epilogue 364

DIAGRAMS

TIME SCALE 1 68

TIME SCALE 2 138

TIME SCALE 3 206

TIME SCALES 4 AND 5 320

PREFACE

THIS is a work of fiction. I have tried to invent a story which may seem

a possible, or at least not wholly impossible, account of the future of man;

and I have tried to make that story relevant to the change that is taking

place today in man's outlook.

To romance of the future may seem to be indulgence in ungoverned

speculation for the sake of the marvellous. Yet controlled imagination in this

sphere can be a very valuable exercise for minds bewildered about the present

and its potentialities. Today we should welcome, and even study, every serious

attempt to envisage the future of our race; not merely in order to grasp the

very diverse and often tragic possibilities that confront us, but also that we

may familiarize ourselves with the certainty that many of our most cherished

ideals would seem puerile to more developed minds. To romance of the far

future, then, is to attempt to see the human race in its cosmic setting, and

to mould our hearts to entertain new values.

But if such imaginative construction of possible futures is to be at all

potent, our imagination must be strictly disciplined. We must endeavour not to

go beyond the bounds of possibility set by the particular state of culture

within which we live. The merely fantastic has only minor power. Not that we

should seek actually to prophesy what will as a matter of fact occur; for in

our present state such prophecy is certainly futile, save in the simplest

matters. We are not to set up as historians attempting to look ahead instead

of backwards. We can only select a certain thread out of the tangle of many

equally valid possibilities. But we must select with a purpose. The activity

that we are undertaking is not science, but art; and the effect that it should

have on the reader is the effect that art should have.

Yet our aim is not merely to create aesthetically admirable fiction. We

must achieve neither mere history, nor mere fiction, but myth. A true myth is

one which, within the universe of a certain culture (living or dead),

expresses richly, and often perhaps tragically, the highest admirations

possible within that culture. A false myth is one which either violently

transgresses the limits of credibility set by its own cultural matrix, or

expresses admirations less developed than those of its culture's best vision.

This book can no more claim to be true myth than true prophecy. But it is an

essay in myth creation.

The kind of future which is here imagined, should not, I think, seem

wholly fantastic, or at any rate not so fantastic as to be without

significance, to modern western individuals who are familiar with the outlines

of contemporary thought. Had I chosen matter in which there was nothing

whatever of the fantastic, its very plausibility would have rendered it

unplausible. For one thing at least is almost certain about the future,

namely, that very much of it will be such as we should call incredible. In one

important respect, indeed, I may perhaps seem to have strayed into barren

extravagance. I have supposed an inhabitant of the remote future to be

communicating with us of today. I have pretended that he has the power of

partially controlling the operations of minds now living, and that this book

is the product of such influence. Yet even this fiction is perhaps not wholly

excluded by our thought. I might, of course, easily have omitted it without

more than superficial alteration of the theme. But its introduction was more

than a convenience. Only by some such radical and bewildering device could I

embody the possibility that there may be more in time's nature than is

revealed to us. Indeed, oniy by some such trick could I do justice to the

conviction that our whole present mentality is but a confused and halting

first experiment.

If ever this book should happen to be discovered by some future

individual, for instance by a member of the next generation sorting out the

rubbish of his predecessors, it will certainly raise a smile; for very much is

bound to happen of which no hint is yet discoverable. And indeed even in our

generation circumstances may well change so unexpectedly and so radically that

this book may very soon look ridiculous. But no matter. We of today must

conceive our relation to the rest of the universe as best we can; and even if

our images must seem fantastic to future men, they may none the less serve

their purpose today.

Some readers, taking my story to be an attempt at prophecy, may deem it

unwarrantably pessimistic. But it is not prophecy; it is myth, or an essay in

myth. We all desire the future to turn out more happily than I have figured

it. In particular we desire our present civilization to advance steadily

toward some kind of Utopia. The thought that it may decay and collapse, and

that all its spiritual treasure may be lost irrevocably, is repugnant to us.

Yet this must be faced as at least a possibility. And this kind of tragedy,

the tragedy of a race, must, I think, be admitted in any adequate myth.

And so, while gladly recognizing that in our time there are strong seeds

of hope as well as of despair, I have imagined for aesthetic purposes that our

race will destroy itself. There is today a very earnest movement for peace and

international unity; and surely with good fortune and intelligent management

it may triumph. Most earnestly we must hope that it will. But I have figured

things out in this book in such a manner that this great movement fails. I

suppose it incapable of preventing a succession of national wars; and I permit

it only to achieve the goal of unity and peace after the mentality of the race

has been undermined. May this not happen! May the League of Nations, or some

more strictly cosmopolitan authority, win through before it is too late! Yet

let us find room in our minds and in our hearts for the thought that the whole

enterprise of our race may be after all but a minor and unsuccessful episode

in a vaster drama, which also perhaps may be tragic.

Any attempt to conceive such a drama must take into account whatever

contemporary science has to say about man's own nature and his physical

environment. I have tried to supplement my own slight knowledge of natural

science by pestering my scientific friends. In particular, I have been very

greatly helped by conversation with Professors P. G. H. Boswell, J. Johnstone,

and J. Rice, of Liverpool. But they must not be held responsible for the many

deliberate extravagances which, though they serve a purpose in the design, may

jar upon the scientific ear.

To. Dr. L. A. Reid I am much indebted for general comments, and to Mr.

E. V. Rieu for many very valuable suggestions. To Professor and Mrs. L. C.

Martin, who read the whole book in manuscript, I cannot properly express my

gratitude for constant encouragement and criticism. To my wife's devastating

sanity I owe far more than she supposes.

Before closing this preface I would remind the reader that throughout

the following pages the speaker, the first person singular, is supposed to be,

not the actual writer, but an individual living in the extremely distant

future.

W. O. S.

WEST KIRBY

_July, 1930_

INTRODUCTION

ONE OF THE LAST MEN

THIS book has two authors, one contemporary with its readers, the other

an inhabitant of an age which they would call the distant future. The brain

that conceives and writes these sentences lives in the time of Einstein. Yet

I, the true inspirer of this book, I who have begotten it upon that brain, I

who influence that primitive being's conception, inhabit an age which, for

Einstein, lies in the very remote future.

The actual writer thinks he is merely contriving a work of fiction.

Though he seeks to tell a plausible story, he neither believes it himself, nor

expects others to believe it. Yet the story is true. A being whom you would

call a future man has seized the docile but scarcely adequate brain of your

contemporary, and is trying to direct its familiar processes for an alien

purpose. Thus a future epoch makes contact with your age. Listen patiently;

for we who are the Last Men earnestly desire to communicate with you, who are

members of the First Human Species. We can help you, and we need your help.

You cannot believe it. Your acquaintance with time is very imperfect,

and so your understanding of it is defeated. But no matter. Do not perplex

yourselves about this truth, so difficult to you, so familiar to us of a later

aeon. Do but entertain, merely as a fiction, the idea that the thought and

will of individuals future to you may intrude, rarely and with difficulty,

into the mental processes of some of your contemporaries. Pretend that you

believe this, and that the following chronicle is an authentic message from

the Last Men. Imagine the consequences of such a belief. Otherwise I cannot

give life to the great history which it is my task to tell.

When your writers romance of the future, they too easily imagine a

progress toward some kind of Utopia, in which beings like themselves live in

unmitigated bliss among circumstances perfectly suited to a fixed human

nature. I shall not describe any such paradise. Instead, I shall record huge

fluctuations of joy and woe, the results of changes not only in man's

environment but in his fluid nature. And I must tell how, in my own age,

having at last achieved spiritual maturity and the philosophic mind, man is

forced by an unexpected crisis to embark on an enterprise both repugnant and

desperate.

I invite you, then, to travel in imagination through the aeons that lie

between your age and mine. I ask you to watch such a history of change, grief,

hope, and unforeseen catastrophe, as has nowhere else occurred, within the

girdle of the Milky Way. But first, it is well to contemplate for a few

moments the mere magnitudes of cosmical events. For, compressed as it must

necessarily be, the narrative that I have to tell may seem to present a

sequence of adventures and disasters crowded together, with no intervening

peace. But in fact man's career has been less like a mountain torrent hurtling

from rock to rock, than a great sluggish river, broken very seldom by rapids.

Ages of quiescence, often of actual stagnation, filled with the monotonous

problems and toils of countless almost identical lives, have been punctuated

by rare moments of racial adventure. Nay, even these few seemingly rapid

events themselves were in fact often long-drawn-out and tedious. They acquire

a mere illusion of speed from the speed of the narrative.

The receding depths of time and space, though they can indeed be

haltingly conceived even by primitive minds, cannot be imaged save by beings

of a more ample nature. A panorama of mountains appears to naive vision almost

as a flat picture, and the starry void is a roof pricked with light. Yet in

reality, while the immediate terrain could be spanned in an hour's walking,

the sky-line of peaks holds within it plain beyond plain. Similarly with time.

While the near past and the near future display within them depth beyond

depth, time's remote immensities are foreshortened into flatness. It is almost

inconceivable to simple minds that man's whole history should be but a moment

in the life of the stars, and that remote events should embrace within

themselves aeon upon aeon.

In your day you have learnt to calculate something of the magnitudes of

time and space. But to grasp my theme in its true proportions, it is necessary

to do more than calculate. It is necessary to brood upon these magnitudes, to

draw out the mind toward them, to feel the littleness of your here and now,

and of the moment of civilization which you call history. You cannot hope to

image, as we do, such vast proportions as one in a thousand million, because

your sense-organs, and therefore your perceptions, are too coarse-grained to

discriminate so small a fraction of their total field. But you may at least,

by mere contemplation, grasp more constantly and firmly the significance of

your calculations.

Men of your day, when they look back into the history of their planet,

remark not only the length of time but also the bewildering acceleration of

life's progress. Almost stationary in the earliest period of the earth's

career, in your moment it seems headlong Mind in you, it is said, not merely

stands higher than ever before in respect of percipience, knowledge, insight,

delicacy of admiration, and sanity of will, but also it moves upward century

by century ever more swiftly. What next? Surely, you think, there will come a

time when there will be no further heights to conquer.

This view is mistaken. You underestimate even the foothills that stand

in front of you, and never suspect that far above them, hidden by cloud, rise

precipices and snow-fields. The mental and spiritual advances which, in your

day, mind in the solar system has still to attempt, are overwhelmingly more

complex, more precarious and dangerous, than those which have already been

achieved. And though in certain humble respects you have attained full

development, the loftier potencies of the spirit in you have not yet even

begun to put forth buds.

Somehow, then, I must help you to feel not only the vastness of time and

space, but also the vast diversity of mind's possible modes. But this I can

only hint to you, since so much lies wholly beyond the range of your

imagination.

Historians living in your day need grapple only with one moment of the

flux of time. But I have to present in one book the essence not of centuries

but of aeons. Clearly we cannot walk at leisure through such a tract, in which

a million terrestrial years are but as a year is to your historians. We must

fly. We must travel as you do in your aeroplanes, observing only the broad

features of the continent. But since the flier sees nothing of the minute

inhabitants below him, and since it is they who make history, we must also

punctuate our flight with many descents, skimming as it were over the

house-tops, and even alighting at critical points to speak face to face with

individuals. And as the plane's journey must begin with a slow ascent from the

intricate pedestrian view to wider horizons, so we must begin with a somewhat

close inspection of that little period which includes the culmination and

collapse of your own primitive civilization.

THE CHRONICLE

I. BALKAN EUROPE

1. THE EUROPEAN WAR AND AFTER

OBSERVE now your own epoch of history as it appears to the Last Men.

Long before the human spirit awoke to clear cognizance of the world and

itself, it sometimes stirred in its sleep, opened bewildered eyes, and slept

again. One of these moments of precocious experience embraces the whole

struggle of the First Men from savagery toward civilization. Within that

moment, you stand almost in the very instant when the species attains its

zenith. Scarcely at all beyond your own day is this early culture to be seen

progressing, and already in your time the mentality of the race shows signs of

decline.

The first, and some would say the greatest, achievement of your own

"Western" culture was the conceiving of two ideals of conduct, both essential

to the spirit's well-being. Socrates, delighting in the truth for its own sake

and not merely for practical ends, glorified unbiased thinking, honesty of

mind and speech. Jesus, delighting in the actual human persons around him, and

in that flavour of divinity which, for him, pervaded the world, stood for

unselfish love of neighbours and of God. Socrates woke to the ideal of

dispassionate intelligence, Jesus to the ideal of passionate yet

self-oblivious worship. Socrates urged intellectual integrity, Jesus integrity

of will. Each, of course, though starting with a different emphasis, involved

the other.

Unfortunately both these ideals demanded of the human brain a degree of

vitality and coherence of which the nervous system of the First Men was never

really capable. For many centuries these twin stars enticed the more

precociously human of human animals, in vain. And the failure to put these

ideals in practice helped to engender in the race a cynical lassitude which

was one cause of its decay.

There were other causes. The peoples from whom sprang Socrates and Jesus

were also among the first to conceive admiration for Fate. In Greek tragic art

and Hebrew worship of divine law, as also in the Indian resignation, man

experienced, at first very obscurely, that vision of an alien and supernal

beauty, which was to exalt and perplex him again and again throughout his

whole career. The conflict between this worship and the intransigent loyalty

to Life, embattled against Death, proved insoluble. And though few individuals

were ever clearly conscious of the issue, the first human species was again

and again unwittingly hampered in its spiritual development by this supreme

perplexity.

While man was being whipped and enticed by these precocious experiences,

the actual social constitution of his world kept changing so rapidly through

increased mastery over physical energy, that his primitive nature could no

longer cope with the complexity of his environment. Animals that were

fashioned for hunting and fighting in the wild were suddenly called upon to be

citizens, and moreover citizens of a world-community. At the same time they

found themselves possessed of certain very dangerous powers which their petty

minds were not fit to use. Man struggled; but, as you shall hear, he broke

under the strain.

The European War, called at the time the War to End War, was the first

and least destructive of those world conflicts which display so tragically the

incompetence of the First Men to control their own nature. At the outset a

tangle of motives, some honourable and some disreputable, ignited a conflict

for which both antagonists were all too well prepared, though neither

seriously intended it. A real difference of temperament between Latin France

and Nordic Germany combined with a superficial rivalry between Germany and

England, and a number of stupidly brutal gestures on the part of the German

Government and military command, to divide the world into two camps; yet in

such a manner that it is impossible to find any difference of principle

between them. During the struggle each party was convinced that it alone stood

for civilization. But in fact both succumbed now and again to impulses of

sheer brutality, and both achieved acts not merely of heroism, but of

generosity unusual among the First Men. For conduct which to clearer minds

seems merely sane, was in those days to be performed only by rare vision and

self-mastery.

As the months of agony advanced, there was bred in the warring peoples a

genuine and even passionate will for peace and a united world. Out of the

conflict of the tribes arose, at least for a while, a spirit loftier than

tribalism. But this fervour lacked as yet clear guidance, lacked even the

courage of conviction. The peace which followed the European War is one of the

most significant moments of ancient history; for it epitomizes both the

dawning vision and the incurable blindness, both the impulse toward a higher

loyalty and the compulsive tribalism of a race which was, after all, but

superficially human.

2. THE ANGLO-FRENCH WAR

One brief but tragic incident, which occurred within a century after the

European War, may be said to have sealed the fate of the First Men. During

this century the will for peace and sanity was already becoming a serious

factor in history. Save for a number of most untoward accidents, to be

recorded in due course, the party of peace might have dominated Europe during

its most dangerous period; and, through Europe, the world. With either a

little less bad luck or a fraction more of vision and self-control at this

critical time, there might never have occurred that aeon of darkness, in which

the First Men were presently to be submerged. For had victory been gained

before the general level of mentality had seriously begun to decline, the

attainment of the world state might have been regarded, not as an end, but as

the first step toward true civilization. But this was not to be.

After the European War the defeated nation, formerly no less

militaristic than the others, now became the most pacific, and a stronghold of

enlightenment. Almost everywhere, indeed, there had occurred a profound change

of heart, but chiefly in Germany. The victors on the other hand, in spite of

their real craving to be human and generous, and to found a new world, were

led partly by their own timidity, partly by their governors' blind diplomacy,

into all the vices against which they believed themselves to have been

crusading. After a brief period in which they desperately affected amity for

one another they began to indulge once more in physical conflicts. Of these

conflicts, two must be observed.

The first outbreak, and the less disastrous for Europe, was a short and

grotesque struggle between France and Italy. Since the fall of ancient Rome,

the Italians had excelled more in art and literature than in martial

achievement. But the heroic liberation of Italy in the nineteenth Christian

century had made Italians peculiarly sensitive to national prestige; and since

among Western peoples national vigour was measured in terms of military glory,

the Italians were fired, by their success against a rickety foreign

domination, to vindicate themselves more thoroughly against the charge of

mediocrity in warfare. After the European War, however, Italy passed through a

phase of social disorder and self-distrust. Subsequently a flamboyant but

sincere national party gained control of the State, and afforded the Italians

a new selfrespect, based on reform of the social services, and on militaristic

policy. Trains became punctual, streets clean, morals puritanical. Aviation

records were won for Italy. The young, dressed up and taught to play at

soldiers with real fire-arms, were persuaded to regard themselves as saviours

of the nation, encouraged to shed blood, and used to enforce the will of the

Government. The whole movement was engineered chiefly by a man whose genius in

action combined with his rhetoric and crudity of thought to make him a very

successful dictator. Almost miraculously he drilled the Italian nation into

efficiency. At the same time, with great emotional effect and incredible lack

of humour he trumpeted Italy's self-importance, and her will to "expand." And

since Italians were slow to learn the necessity of restricting their

population, "expansion" was a real need.

Thus it came about that Italy, hungry for French territory in Africa,

jealous of French leadership of the Latin races, indignant at the protection

afforded to Italian "traitors" in France, became increasingly prone to quarrel

with the most assertive of her late allies. It was a frontier incident, a

fancied "insult to the Italian flag," which at last caused an unauthorized

raid upon French territory by a small party of Italian militia. The raiders

were captured, but French blood was shed. The consequent demand for apology

and reparation was calm, but subtly offensive to Italian dignity. Italian

patriots worked themselves into short-sighted fury. The Dictator, far from

daring to apologize, was forced to require the release of the captive

militia-men, and finally to declare war. After a single sharp engagement the

relentless armies of France pressed into North Italy. Resistance, at first

heroic, soon became chaotic. In consternation the Italians woke from their

dream of military glory. The populace turned against the Dictator whom they

themselves had forced to declare war. In a theatrical but gallant attempt to

dominate the Roman mob, he failed, and was killed. The new government made a

hasty peace, ceding to France a frontier territory which she had already

annexed for "security."

Thenceforth Italians were less concerned to outshine the glory of

Garibaldi than to emulate the greater glory of Dante, Giotto and Galileo.

France had now complete mastery of the continent of Europe; but having

much to lose, she behaved arrogantly and nervously. It was not long before

peace was once more disturbed.

Scarcely had the last veterans of the European War ceased from wearying

their juniors with reminiscence, when the long rivalry between France and

England culminated in a dispute between their respective Governments over a

case of sexual outrage said to have been committed by a French African soldier

upon an Englishwoman. In this quarrel, the British Government happened to be

definitely in the wrong, and was probably confused by its own sexual

repressions. The outrage had never been committed. The facts which gave rise

to the rumour were, that an idle and neurotic Englishwoman in the south of

France, craving the embraces of a "cave man," had seduced a Senegalese

corporal in her own apartments. When, later, he had shown signs of boredom,

she took revenge by declaring that he had attacked her indecently in the woods

above the town. This rumour was such that the English were all too prone to

savour and believe. At the same time, the magnates of the English Press could

not resist this opportunity of trading upon the public's sexuality, tribalism

and self-righteousness. There followed an epidemic of abuse, and occasional

violence, against French subjects in England; and thus the party of fear and

militarism in France was given the opportunity it had long sought. For the

real cause of this war was connected with air power. France had persuaded the

League of Nations (in one of its less intelligent moments) to restrict the

size of military aeroplanes in such a manner that, while London lay within

easy striking distance of the French coast, Paris could only with difficulty

be touched by England. This state of affairs obviously could not last long.

Britain was agitating more and more insistently for the removal of the

restriction. On the other hand, there was an increasing demand for complete

aerial disarmament in Europe; and so strong was the party of sanity in France,

that the scheme would almost certainly have been accepted by the French

Government. On both counts, therefore, the militarists of France were eager to

strike while yet there was opportunity.

In an instant, the whole fruit of this effort for disarmament was

destroyed. That subtle difference of mentality which had ever made it

impossible for these two nations to understand one another, was suddenly

exaggerated by this provocative incident into an apparently insoluble discord.

England reverted to her conviction that all Frenchmen were sensualists, while

to France the English appeared, as often before, the most offensive of

hypocrites. In vain did the saner minds in each country insist on the

fundamental humanity of both. In vain, did the chastened Germans seek to

mediate. In vain did the League, which by now had very great prestige and

authority, threaten both parties with expulsion, even with chastisement.

Rumour got about in Paris that England, breaking all her international

pledges, was now feverishly building giant planes which would wreck France

from Calais to Marseilles. And indeed the rumour was not wholly a slander, for

when the struggle began, the British air force was found to have a range of

intensive action far wider than was expected. Yet the actual outbreak of war

took England by surprise. While the London papers were selling out upon the

news that war was declared, enemy planes appeared over the city. In a couple

of hours a third of London was in ruins, and half her population lay poisoned

in the streets. One bomb, falling beside the British Museum, turned the whole

of Bloomsbury into a crater, wherein fragments of mummies, statues, and

manuscripts were mingled with the contents of shops, and morsels of salesmen

and the intelligentsia. Thus in a moment was destroyed a large proportion of

England's most precious relics and most fertile brains.

Then occurred one of those microscopic, yet supremely potent incidents

which sometimes mould the course of events for centuries. During the

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LASTANDFIRSTMENASTORYOFTHENEARANDFARFUTUREbyW.OlafStapledonCOPYRIGHT,1931,BYJONATHANCAPEANDHARRISONSMITH,INC.,FIRSTPUBLISHEDINAMERICA,1931PRINTEDINTHEUNITEDSTATESOFAMERICABYTHEVAIL-BALLOUPRESS,BINGHAMTON,N.Y.ANDBOUNDBYTHEJ.F.TAPLEYCO.FOREWORDTOTHEAMERICANEDITIONMANseemstobeenteringoneofthemajorcrise...

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Olaf Stapledon - Last And First Men.pdf

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Olaf Stapledon - Last And First Men

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