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The words galvanized Bernard into a violent and unseemly activity. Send me to an island? He jumped up, ran across the room, and stood gesticulating in front of the Controller. You cant send me. I havent done anything. It was the others. I swear it was the others. He pointed accusingly to Helmholtz and the Savage. Oh, please dont send me to Iceland. I promise Ill do what I ought to do. Give me another chance. Please give me another chance. The tears began to flow. I tell you, its their fault, he sobbed. And not to Iceland. Oh, please, your fordship, please And in a paroxysm of abjection he threw himself on his knees before the Controller. Mustapha Mond tried to make him get up; but Bernard persisted in his grovelling; the stream of words poured out inexhaustibly. In the end the Controller had to ring for his fourth secretary. Bring three men, he ordered, and take Mr. Marx into a bedroom. Give him a good soma vaporization and then put him to bed and leave him. The fourth secretary went out and returned with three green-uniformed twin footmen. Still shouting and sobbing, Bernard was carried out. One would think he was going to have his throat cut, said the Controller, as the door closed. Whereas, if he had the smallest sense, hed understand that his punishment is really a reward. Hes being sent to an island. Thats to say, hes being sent to a place where hell meet the most interesting set of men and women to be found anywhere in the world. All the people who, for one reason or another, have got too self-consciously individual to fit into community-life. All the people who arent satisfied with orthodoxy, whove got independent ideas of their own. Every one, in a word, whos any one. I almost envy you, Mr. Watson. Helmholtz laughed. Then why arent you on an island yourself? Because, finally, I preferred this, the Controller answered. I was given the choice: to be sent to an island, where I could have got on with my pure science, or to be taken on to the Controllers Council with the prospect of succeeding in due course to an actual Controllership. I chose this and let the science go. After a little silence, Sometimes, he added, I rather regret the science. Happiness is a hard masterparticularly other peoples happiness. A much harder master, if one isnt conditioned to accept it unquestioningly, than truth. He sighed, fell silent again, then continued in a brisker tone. Well, dutys duty. One cant consult ones own preferences. Im interested in truth, I like science. But truths a menace, science is a public danger. As dangerous as its been beneficent. It has given us the stablest equilibrium in history. Chinas was hopelessly insecure by comparison; even the primitive matriarchies werent steadier than we are. Thanks, I repeat, to science. But we cant allow science to undo its own good work. Thats why we so carefully limit the scope of its researchesthats why I almost got sent to an island. We dont allow it to deal with any but the most immediate problems of the moment. All other enquiries are most sedulously discouraged. Its curious, he went on after a little pause, to read what people in the time of Our Ford used to write about scientific progress. They seemed to have imagined that it could be allowed to go on indefinitely, regardless of everything else. Knowledge was the highest good, truth the supreme value; all the rest was secondary and subordinate. True, ideas were beginning to change even then. Our Ford himself did a great deal to shift the emphasis from truth and beauty to comfort and happiness. Mass production demanded the shift. Universal happiness keeps the wheels steadily turning; truth and beauty cant. And, of course, whenever the masses seized political power, then it was happiness rather than truth and beauty that mattered. Still, in spite of everything, unrestricted scientific research was still permitted. People still went on talking about truth and beauty as though they were the sovereign goods. Right up to the time of the Nine Years War. That made them change their tune all right. Whats the point of truth or beauty or knowledge when the anthrax bombs are popping all around you? That was when science first began to be controlledafter the Nine Years War. People were ready to have even their appetites controlled then. Anything for a quiet life. Weve gone on controlling ever since. It hasnt been very good for truth, of course. But its been very good for happiness. One cant have something for nothing. Happiness has got to be paid for. Youre paying for it, Mr. Watsonpaying because you happen to be too much interested in beauty. I was too much interested in truth; I paid too. |
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