PART I.
In Persia there was once a king. On one occasion when he was out hunting he came to the narrow entrance of a valley. It was shut in on either side by vast hills, seemingly the spurs from the distant mountains. These great spurs spread out including a wide tract of land. Towards the entrance where he stood they approached one another, and ended in abrupt cliffs. Across the mouth of the valley stretched a deep ravine. The king, followed by courtiers, galloped along, searching a spot where the deep fissure might be shallower, so that descending into it he might reach the valley by ascending on the opposite side.
But at every point the ravine stretched downwards dark and deep, from cliff to cliff, shutting off all access to the valley.
At one point only was there a means of crossing. There were two masses of rocks, jutting out one from either side like the abutments of a natural bridge, and they seemed to meet in mid air.
The mass trembled and shook as the king spurred his horse over it, and the dislodged stones reverberatedfrom side to side of the chasm till the noise of their falling was lost.
Before the first of his courtiers could follow him one of the great piers or abutments gave way—the whole mass fell crashing down. The king was alone in the valley.
“So ho,” he cried, “the kingdom of Persia is shrunk to this narrow spot!” and without troubling himself for the moment how he should return, he sped onward.
But when he had ridden far into the valley on his steed that could outnumber ten leagues in an hour, and had returned to the entrance of it, he saw no trace of a living soul on the opposite brink of the cleft. No sign was left, save a few reeds bent down by the passage of the mounted train, that any human being had stood on the opposite side for ages.
The evening came on apace. Yet no one returned. Again he rode far into the valley. For the most part it was covered with long grass, but here and there a thick and tangled mass of vegetation attested to a great luxuriance of soil, while the surface was intersected here and there with rivulets of clear water, which finally lost their way in the dark gorge over which he had just so rashly adventured. But on no side did the steep cliffs offer any promise of escape.
When the night came on he stretched himself beneath one of the few trees not far from the ravine, while his faithful horse stood tranquilly at his head.
He did not awake till the moon had risen. But then suddenly he started to his feet, and walking to the edge of the cleft, peered over to the land from whence he had come. For he thought he heard sounds of some kind that were not the natural ones of the rustling wind or the falling water. Looking out he saw clearly opposite to him an old man in ragged clothing, leaning againsta rock, holding a long pipe in his hands, on which he now and again played a few wild notes.
“Oho, peasant!” cried the king. “Run and tell the head man of your village that the king bids him come directly, and will have him bring with him the longest ropes and the strongest throwers under him.”
But the old man did not seem to give heed. Then the king cried, “Hearken, old man, run quickly and tell your master that the king is confined here, and will reward him beyond his dreams if he deliver him quickly.”
Then the old man rose, and coming nearer to the edge of the ravine stood opposite, still playing at intervals some notes on his long pipe. And the king cried, “Canst thou hear? Dost thou dare to refuse to carry my commands? For I am the king of Persia. Who art thou?”
Then the old man made answer, putting his pipe aside: “I am he who appears only when a man has passed for ever beyond the ken of all that have known him. I am Demiourgos, the maker of men.”
Then the king cried, “Mock me not, but obey my commands.”
The old man made answer, “I do not mock thee; and oh, my Lord, thou hast moved the puppets I have made, and driven them so to dance on the surface of the earth that I would willingly obey thee. But it is not permitted me to pass between thee and the world of men thou hast known.”
Then the king was silent.
At length he said, “If thou art really what thou sayest, show me what thou canst do; build me a palace.”
The old man lifted his pipe in both his trembling hands, and began to blow.
It was a strange instrument, for it not only producedthe shriller sounds of the lute, and the piercing notes of the trumpet, but resounded with the hollow booming of great organ pipes, and amongst all came ever and again a sharp and sonorous clang as of some metal instrument resounding when it was struck.
And then the king was as one who enjoys the delights of thought. For in thought, delicate shades, impalpable nuances are ever passing. It is as the blended strains of an invisible orchestra, but more subtle far, that come and go in unexpected metres, and overwhelm you with their beauty when all seemed silent. And lo, as the strains sound, outside—palpable, large as the firmament, or real as the smallest thing you can take up and know it is there—outside stands some existence revealed—to be known and returned to for ever.
So the king, listening to this music, felt that something was rising behind him. And turning, beheld course after course of a great building. Almost as soon as he had looked it had risen completed, finished to the last embossure on the windows, the tracery on the highest pinnacles. All had happened while the old man was blowing on his pipe, and when he ceased all was perfect.
And yet the appearance was very strange, for a finished and seemingly habitable building rose out of waste unreclaimed soil, strewn with rocks and barren. No dwellings were near the palace to wait on it, no roads led to it or away from it.
“There should be houses around it, and roadways,” said the king; “make them, and fields sown with corn, and all that is necessary for a state.”
Blowing on his pipe in regular recurrent cadences, the old man called up houses close together, than scattered singly along roads which stretched away into the distance, to be seen every here and there perfectly clearly where they ascended a rising ground. And near athand could be distinguished fields of grain and pasture land.
Yet as the king turned to walk towards the new scene, the old man laughed. “All this is a dream,” he cried; “so much I can do, but not at once.” And breathing peals of music from his pipe, he said, “This can be, but is not yet.”
“What,” asked the king, “is all a delusion?” and as he asked everything sank down. There was no palace, no houses or fields, only the steep precipice-locked valley, whither the king had ridden; and his horse cowering behind him.
Then the king cried, “Thou art some moonstruck hermit, leading out a life of folly alone. Get thee to the village thou knowest, and bring me help.”
But the old man answered him saying, “Great king, I am bound to obey thee, and all the creative might of my being I lay at thy feet; and lo, in the midst of this valley I make for thee beings such as I can produce. And all that thou hast seen is as nothing to what I can do for thee. The depths of the starry heavens have no limit, nor what I do for thee. Hast thou ever in thy life looked into the deep still ocean, and lost thy sight in the unseen depths? Even so thou wilt find no end in what I will give thee. Hast thou ever in thy life sought the depths of thy love’s blue eyes, and found therein a world which stretched on endlessly? Even so I bring all to thy feet. Now that all the gladness of the world has departed from thee, behold, I am a more willing servant than ever thou hast had.”
And again he played, and a hut rose up with a patch of cleared soil around it, and a spring near by.
Then the king said, “Here will I dwell, and if I am to be cut off from the rest of the world, I will lead a peaceful life in this valley.”
The sun was rising, the sounds had ceased, and the old man had disappeared.
He made his way slowly to the patch of cultivated ground, he knocked at the door of the hut, and then he called out. No answer was made to the sound of his voice, he entered, and saw a rude, plain interior. There were two forms half lying, half propped up by the walls, and some domestic implements lay about. But when he spoke to the beings they did not answer, and when he touched their arms they fell powerless on the ground and remained there. A terrible fear came on the king lest he should become such as these. He left them and again sought a possible outlet, but fruitlessly. And that evening he sought the old man again and inquired what sort of beings these were.
“For though in form and body like children outwardly,” said the king, “they do nothing and seem unable to move; are they in an enchanted slumber?”
Then the old man came near to the edge of the ravine and, speaking solemnly and low, said:
“O king, thou dost not yet know the nature of the place wherein thou art. For these children are like the children thou hast known always both in form and body. I have worked on them as far as is within my power. But here in this valley a law reigns which binds them in sleepfulness and powerlessness. For here in everything that is done there is as much pain as pleasure. If it is pleasant to tread a downward slope there is as much pain in ascending the upward slope. And in every action there is a pleasant part and a painful part, and in thetasting of every herb the beings feel a bitter taste and a sweet taste, so indistinguishably united that the pleasure and the pain of eating it are equally balanced. And as hunger increases the sense of the bitterness in the taste increases, so it is never more pleasant to eat than not to eat. Everything that can be done here affords no more pleasure than it does pain, from the greatest action down to the least movement. And the beings as I can make them, they follow pleasure and avoid pain. And if the pleasure and the pain are equal they do not move one way or the other.”
“This is impossible,” said the king.
“Nay,” said the old man, “that it is as I have said I will prove to thee.” And he explained to the king how it would be possible to stimulate the children to activity, for he showed him how he could divest anything that was done of part of its pain and render it more pleasurable than painful. “In this way thou canst lead the beings I have given thee to do anything,” said the old man, “but the condition is that thou must take the painful part that thou sparest them thyself.” And he bade the king cut himself of the reeds that grew by the side of the ravine, and told him that putting them between himself and any being would enable him to take a part of the pain and leave in their feeling the whole of the pleasure and the pain diminished by that part which he bore himself.
Then the king cut of the reeds that grew by the side of the ravine. He went to the hut where these beings lay, and, taking the reeds in his hand, he placed one between the child’s frame and himself. And the child rose up and walked, while he himself felt a pain in his limbs. And he found that by taking a pain in each part of him the child would exercise that part; if he wished the child to look at anything he, by bearing apain in his eyes, made looking at it pleasurable to the child, and accordingly the child did look at the object he wished him to regard. And again, by bearing a bitter taste in his mouth he made the child feel eating as pleasant, and the child gathered fruits and ate them.
Then the king by using two reeds made both the children move, and they went together wheresoever he wished them. But they had not the slightest idea of the king’s action on them. They recognized each other, and played with each other. They saw the king and had a certain regard for him, but of his action on them they knew nothing. For they felt his bearing the pain as this thing or that being pleasurable. They felt his action as a motive in themselves.
And all day long the king went with them, leading them through the valley, bearing the pain of each step, so that the children felt nothing but pleasure. But at nightfall he led them back to the rude dwelling where he had found them. He led them by taking the pain from their steps in that direction, and not taking any of the pain from steps in any other direction.
And when they had entered the dwelling-place he removed his reeds from them. Immediately they sank down into the state of apathy in which he had found them. They did not move.
And the king at nightfall sought again the side of the ravine.
Gazing across it he saw the sandy waste of the land from which he had come, he saw the great stones which were scattered about, looking pale and grey in the moonlight. And presently in the shadow of a rock near the opposite brink he discerned the form of the old man.
And he cried out to him, and bade him come near.And when the old man stood opposite to him, he besought him to tell him how he could make the beings go through their movements of life without his bearing so much pain.
And the old man took his staff in his hand, and he held it out towards the king, over the depth.
“Behold, O king, thy secret,” he cried. And with his other hand he smote the staff which was pointing down into the depths. The staff swung to and fro many times, and at last it came to rest again.
Then the king besought him to explain what this might signify.
“Thou hast been,” replied the old man, “as one who, wishing to make a staff swing to and fro, has made every movement separately, raising it up by his hand each time that it falls down. But, behold, when I set it in movement it goes through many swings of itself, both downward and upward, until the movement I imparted to it is lost. Even so thou must make these beings go through both pleasure and pain, thyself bearing but the difference, not taking all the pain.”
“Must I then,” asked the king, “by bearing pain give these beings a certain store of pleasure, and then let them go through their various actions until they have exhausted this store of pleasure?”
Then the old man made answer. “Can I have any secrets from thee? Hearken, O king, and I will tell thee what lies behind the shows of the world. What I have shown thee is an outward sign and symbol of what thou shouldst do, but it lies far outside those recesses whither I shall lead thee. Thou couldst indeed give these beings a store of pleasure, and they would go through their actions until it was all spent; but then thou wouldst be as one of themselves. Thou wouldst have to perform the painful part of some action and let them performthe pleasant part, and thus thou wouldst be immersed in the same chain of actions wherein they were. For regard my staff as it begins to swing. It is not I that make the movement that is imparted to it; that movement lay stored up in my arm, and when I struck the staff with my arm it was as if I had let another staff fall which in its falling gave up its movement to the one I held in my hand.”
“Where, then, does the movement go to when the staff ceases to swing,” asked the king.
“It goes to the finer particles of the air, and passes on and on. There is an endless chain. It is as if there were numberless staffs, larger and smaller, and when one falls it either raises itself or passes on its rising to another or to others. There is an endless chain of movement to and fro, and as one ceases another comes. But, O king, I wish to take thee behind this long chain and to place thee where thou mayest not say, I will do this or that; but where thou canst say, This whole chain of movement shall be or shall not. For as thou regardest this staff swinging thou seest that it moves as much up as it does down, as much to right as to left. And if the movements which it goes through came together it would be at rest. Its motion is but stillness separated into equal and opposite motions. And in what thou callest rest there are vast movements. It shall be thine, O king, to strike nothingness asunder and make things be. Nay, O king, I have not given thee these beings in the valley for thee to move by outward deeds, but I have given them to thee such that thou canst strike their apathy asunder and let them live. And know, O king, that even as those beings are whom thou hast found, so are all things in the valley down to the smallest. The smallest particle there is in the valley lies, unless it were for me, without motion. Each particle has thepower of feeling pain and of feeling pleasure, but by the law of the valley these are equal. Hence of itself no particle moves. But I make it move, and all things in the valley sooner or later move back to whence they came. The streams which gather far off in the valley I lead along to where they fall into the depths between us. There they shiver themselves into the smallest fragments, and each fragment I cause to return whence it first came. And, O king, in all this movement, since it ends where it began, there is no more pleasure than pain. It is but the apathy of rest broken asunder. But the particles will not go through this round of themselves. I bear the pain to make them go through, each one the round I appoint it.”
“How then,” exclaimed the king, thinking of the pain he had felt in directing the movements of the children, “canst thou bear all this pain?”
“It is not much,” answered the old man; “and were it more I would willingly bear it for thee. For think of a particle which has made the whole round of which I spoke to you—it will make this journey if on the whole there is the slightest gain of pleasure over pain; and thus, although for each particle in its movement at every moment I bear the difference of pain, the pain for each particle is so minute that the whole course of natural movements in the valley weighs upon me but little. And behold all lies ready for thee, O king. I have done all that I can do. I can perfect each natural process, each quality of the ground, each plant and herb I make, up to the beings whom thou hast found. They are my last work, and into your hands I give them.”
And when he had said this, the old man let drop his staff, and placing both hands to his breast he seemed to draw something therefrom, and with both hands to fling it to the king.
For some moments’ space the king could distinguish nothing, but soon he became aware of a luminousness over the mid ravine. Something palely bright was floating towards him. As the brightness came nearer he saw that it was a centre wherein innumerable bright rays met, and from which innumerable bright rays went forth in every direction.
“Take that,” the old man cried. “The rays go forth unto everything in the valley. They pass through everything unto everything. Through them thou canst touch whatsoever thou wilt.”
The king took the rays and placed them on his breast; thence they went forth, and through them he touched and knew every part of the valley. And thinking of the hut where the children lay, the king perceived through the rays that went thither that the walls were tottering, and like to fall on the children. And through his rays he knew that the children perceived this in a dull kind of way; but since in their life there was no more pleasure than pain, they did not feel it more pleasant to rise up and move than to be still and be buried.
But the king through the rays, as before through the reeds, took the pain of moving, and the children rose and came out of the hut; and soon they were with the king, running and bounding as never children leapt and ran, with ecstasy of movement and unlimited exuberance of spirit. But as they leapt and ran the king felt an increasing pain in all his limbs. Still he liked to see them in their full and joyous activity, and he wished them to cast off that dull apathy in which they lay. So all through the night he roamed about with them thinking of all the wildest things for them to do, and leading them through dance and play, every movement and activity he could think of.
At length the rising sun began to warm the air, and the king, exhausted with pain, left off bearing it for them.
After a few languid movements the children sank down on a comfortable bank into a state of absolute torpor. The king looked at them; it seemed inconceivable that they could be the same children who had been running about so merrily a few moments ago. Thus far he had received no advantage from the rays the old man had given him, except that he could touch the children more easily.
He turned wearily and looked around. His horse stood there. But instead of whinnying and running up to greet him, the faithful animal stood still, looking across the ravine.
“Perchance without my burden, and with the strength these rays may impart,” thought the king, “he might manage the leap.”
The horse was standing opposite the remains of the natural bridge over which the two had so rashly crossed the day before. The king touched the horse with his rays. As with a sudden thrust of the spur, the noble animal rushed forward and leapt madly from the fragments of the arch. His fore feet gained the opposite brink, and with a terrible struggle he raised himself on the firm ground. Then he stood still. With a crash the remaining fragments of the bridge fell into the gulf, leaving the vast gap unnarrowed at any part. The horse stood looking over the ravine. But though the king called him by name, the faithful creature who used to come to him at the slightest whisper paid no heed. In a few moments he galloped off along the track the courtiers had pursued.
The king being left thus with the children, applied himself to thought. He directed his rays to one of the children and caused it to stand up, and, following the counsel of the old man, he thought of an action. The action he thought of was that of walking, and he separated it into two acts; the one act moving the right foot, the other act moving the left foot. And he separated the apathy in which the child was into pleasure and pain; pleasure connected with the act of moving the right foot, pain connected with the act of moving the left foot. Immediately the child moved forward its right foot, but the left foot remained motionless. The child had taken the pleasure, but the pain was left; or, since the king had connected the pleasure and pain with two acts, it may be said, had done the pleasant act and left the painful act undone.
After waiting some time to see if the child would move, the king took the pain of moving the left foot; instantly the child moved it, and as soon as it had come to the ground again it moved the right foot, which was the pleasant act. But then it stopped. And by no amount of taking pains in the matter of the left foot could the king get the child into the routine of walking. As soon as he ceased to take the pain of moving the left foot, the child remained with the right foot forward. At last he removed his attention from the movement of the child, and it sunk back again torpor.
The rest of the day the king spent in reflection, and in making experiments with the children. But he did not succeed any better. Whatever action he thought of they went through the pleasant act, but made no sign of going through the painful act.
When darkness came the king perceived the faint luminousness of his rays: unless he had known of them he would hardly have perceived it.
And now he tried a new experiment. He took one of the rays, and, detaching it from the rest, he put it upon the body of one of the children, going out from its body and returning again to its body, so that it went forth from the child and returned to the child again. He then caused the child to stand up, and again tried it with the action of walking. His idea was this: the child required a power of bearing its own pain in order to go through a painful act, and as the rays enabled him to bear their pain, the ray proceeding from the child and coming back to it might enable it to bear its own pain. And now he separated the apathy into pleasure and pain as before. The child moved the right foot, and then when it had moved it, he saw that it actually began to move the left foot. But it did not move it a complete step, and after the next movement of the right foot the left foot did not stir.
Again and again the king tried the children, but his attempts came to nothing. One halting step of the left foot he could get them to go through, but no more.
He spent many hours. Suddenly the cause of his failure flashed upon him. “Of course,” he said to himself, “they don’t move, for I have forgotten to take part of the pain. If they went on moving their left feet they would have no balance of pleasure.”
And he tried one of them again. The child moved the right foot, then began to move the left foot. The king now by means of his rays took part of the pain of the movement of the left foot, and the child completed the step with it. Then of course it moved the right foot, for that was pleasant, and again the king took partof the pain of moving the left foot, and the child completed its second step. It walked.
The difficulty was surmounted. Soon both the children were moving hither and thither like shifting shadows in the night, and the king felt just a shade of pain.
The children would come up to him and talk with him, if he took the difference of pain which made it pleasant for them to do so. But they had no idea of his action on them, for by his taking the difference of pain they found an action pleasant, and felt a motive in themselves to do it, which they did not in the least connect with the being outside themselves to whom they spoke. They looked on him as some one more powerful than themselves, and friendly to them.
As soon as he was assured of the practical success of his plans, the king let the children relapse into their apathy while he thought. He conceived the design of forming with these children a state such as he had known on earth—a state with all the business and affairs of a kingdom, such as he had directed before. The vision of the palace which the old man had shown him rose up. He saw in imagination the fertile fields, with the roads stretching between them; he saw all the varied life of a great state. Accordingly from this time he was continually directing their existence, developing their powers, and learning how to guide them. And just as on first learning to read whole words are learnt which are afterwards split up into letters by the combinations of which other words are formed; so at first he thought of actions of a complicated nature, such as walking, and associated the moments of pleasure and pain with the acts of which such actions were composed. But afterwards he came to regard the simpler actions by the combination of many of which the beings were madeto walk, and with the separate acts of these simple actions he associated pleasure and pain.
And at first the beings were conscious of these simple acts and nothing else, but in order that they might carry out more complicated actions, he developed the dim apprehension which they had, and led it on to the consciousness of more complicated actions. The simplest actions became instinctive to these beings, and they went through them without knowing why. But if at any time the king ceased to take the difference of pain, these actions, seemingly automatic as they were, ceased.
At certain intervals the king found his plans inconvenienced. Every now and then the beings went off into a state of apathy. Enough pain was borne for them to make it just worth their while to go through the actions of each routine. But any additional complication or hindrance unforeseen by the king was too much for them, and they sank under it. To remedy this he took in every action a slight portion of pain more than he had done at first. Thus he expended a certain portion of pain-bearing power to give stability to the routines. And the margin of pleasure over pain thus added was felt by the beings as a sort of diffused pleasure in existence, which made them cling to life.
Now in guiding these beings towards the end he wished to obtain, the king had to deal with living moving beings, and beings whose state was continually changing. And this led him to adopt as the type of the activity of these beings not a single action, but a succession of actions of the same kind, coming the one after the other. Thus a being having been given a certain activity, it continued going on in a uniform manner until the king wished to alter it.
Again it was important to keep the beings together, to prevent their being lost in the remote parts of thevalley, and consequently the king took, other things being equal, a certain amount of the pain of motion towards the centre, and took none of the pain in any movement away from the centre of the valley. Thus the inhabitants had a tendency to come towards the centre, for there was a balance of pleasure in doing so, and thus they were continually presenting themselves to his notice, and not getting lost.
Of course, if there was any reason why he wanted them away from the centre, the king ceased his bearing of the pain of motion towards the centre, and then they were under the other tendency solely, which he imparted to them, in virtue of his bearing pain in another respect. And in everything that he did the king had regard to the circumstances in which the beings were placed, and the objects which he wanted to obtain. He did not spare any of his pain-bearing power to give them pleasure purely as a feeling, but always united the pleasure he obtained for them by his suffering with some external work.
And as time went on and the number of the inhabitants increased, he introduced greater order and regularity into the numberless activities which he conceived for them. The activities formed regular routines, conditioned by the surroundings of the being and the routines of those around it. A routine did not suddenly cease without compensation; but if the king wished it to stop he let another activity spring up at once in place of it, so that there was no derangement. The beings gradually became more intelligent, so that they could be entrusted with more difficult routines, and carried them out successfully, the king, of course, always taking the difference of pain necessary to make it worth their while. And they even became able to carry out single activities on a large scale, involving the co-operation of many single routines. For they had a sense ofanalogy, and observing some activity which the king had led them through on a small scale, and in which they had found a balance of pleasure, they were ready to try a similar one on a larger scale.
There was one feature springing from the advanced intelligence of the inhabitants which it is worth while to mention. Many of the possible activities which the beings could go through, instead of consisting of a pleasurable part first and a less painful part afterwards, consisted of a painful part first and a pleasurable part afterwards. This might happen by the particular arrangement of the acts of which the compounded activity consisted, the acts having already moments of pain or pleasure affixed to them, and happening to occur in such dispositions that the first part of the activity was painful, the next part pleasurable.
Now when the intelligence of the inhabitants was developed, the king, by leading them to think of such an activity, could induce them to go through with it. For the idea of the pleasure which would accompany the second part of the activity lightened the pain of the first. And this, combined with the portion of the pain which the king bore, almost counterbalanced the pain connected with the first part of the activity. Thus the beings were enabled to go through the painful part of the activity. But when they came to the second part of the activity the creatures were much disappointed. For by the law of the valley pleasure and pain were equal (except for the small part which the king bore). Now the pleasures of expectation had been so great that when the time came for the act usually associated in their minds with pleasure, the pleasure due had most of it been used up.
From this circumstance a saying arose amongst the inhabitants which was somewhat exaggerated, but which had a kernel of truth in what has just been described.The saying was that “The pleasure for which a labour has been undertaken flies away as soon as the labour has been finished, and nothing is left but to begin a new labour.” And, again, another saying: “The enjoyment of a thing lies in its anticipation, not in its possession.”
All this which has been so briefly described had in reality taken a long time. And now fields were cultivated, better houses were built. The inhabitants of the valley had increased greatly in number, and were divided up into several tribes, inhabiting different parts of the valley. But the most favoured position was the centre, and for the possession of the centre there were contentions and struggles. There the king’s activity in bearing was greatest, and the life was most developed.
All around the outskirts of the valley dwelt the ruder and less advanced people, who were called barbarians and savages by those nearer the centre.
Now when the king saw the inhabitants becoming more like the human beings he had known, he felt that he was solitary, and he desired to have some intercourse with them. But when he appeared amongst them they recognized him at once as some one more powerful than themselves, and were afraid of him. In their alarm they tried to lay hands on him. When he, to prevent their attacks, withdrew his continued bearing the difference of pain in their actions, those who were attacking him sank into apathy and became as the children whom he had first found.
And a horrible report sprang up amongst the inhabitants of a terrible being who came amongst them, andwho struck all who looked on him with torpor and death. So the king ceased to walk amongst them. Still it was long since he had heard the sound of a voice speaking to him, and he wished for a companion. He sought again the old man, and standing at the edge of the chasm he called upon him.
And the old man appeared. “Art thou weary, O king, of thy task?”
“Nay,” replied the king; “but I wish to make myself known to the inhabitants that I may speak with them and they with me.”
And the old man counselled him to give some of his rays to one amongst the beings, for then this being having these rays and the power of bearing pain for another other than himself, would be like the king, and being like him would understand him.
Now the king sought over the whole of the valley, and of all the inhabitants he found one most perfect in form and in mind. He was the son of a king, and destined to reign in his turn over a numerous people. And the king gave him some of his rays, straight rays going forth from the prince to others.
And immediately the prince awoke as it were from a dream. And he comprehended existence, and saw that in reality the pain and the pleasure were equal. And when he had seen this, and knew the power of the rays, and how by bearing pain he could make others pass through pleasure and pain, and call those sleeping into activity; when the prince knew this, he cried out:
“One thing succeeds another in the valley; pain follows pleasure, and pleasure follows pain. But the cause of all being is in bearing pain. Wherefore,” he cried, “let us seek an end to this show. Let us pray to be delivered, that at last, pain ceasing, we may pass into nothingness.”
Thus the prince, apprehending the cause of existence, felt that it was pain, and dimly comprehending how the king was bearing pain, and himself feeling the strenuousness of the effort of using the rays for which the frame of the inhabitants was unstrung, longed that existence itself might cease.
Yet all his life his deeds were noble, and he passed from tribe to tribe, bearing the burdens and calling forth the sleeping to activity.
It is now the place in which to give a clear account of the king’s activity, and explain how he maintained the varied life of the valley.
And the best plan is to take a typical instance, and to adopt the Arabic method of description. By the Arabic method of description is meant the same method which the Arabs used for the description of numerical quantities. For instance, in the Arabic notation, if we are asked the number of days in the year, we answer first 300, which is a false answer, but gives the nearest approximation in hundreds; then we say sixty, which is a correction; last of all we say five, which makes the answer a correct one, namely, 365. In this simple case the description is given so quickly that we are hardly conscious of the nature of the system employed. But the same method when applied to more difficult subjects presents the following characteristics. Firstly, a certain statement is made about the subject to be described, and is impressed upon the reader as if it were true. Then, when that has been grasped, another statement is made, generally somewhat contradictory, and the first notion formedhas to be corrected. But these two statements taken together are given as truth. Then when this idea has been formed in the mind of the reader, another statement is made which must likewise be received as a correction, and so on, until by successive statements and contradictions, or corrections, the idea produced corresponds to the facts, as the describer knows them.
Thus the activity of the king will be here described by a series of statements, and the truth will be obtained by the whole of the statements and the corrections which they successively bring in.
When the king wished to start a being on the train of activity he divided its apathy into pleasure and pain. The pleasure he connected with one act which we will call A. The pain he associated with another act which we will call B.
These two “acts,” A and B, which together form what we call an “action,” were of such a nature that the doing of A first and then of B was a process used in the organization of the life in the valley.
Thus the act A may be represented by moving the right foot, B by moving the left foot, then AB will be the action of taking a step. This however is but a superficial illustration, for the acts which we represent by A and B were fundamental acts, of which great numbers were combined together in any single outward act which could be observed or described.
Suppose for the present that there is only one creature in the valley. The king separates his apathy with regard to the action AB. Let us say he separates his apathy into 1000 pleasure and 1000 pain. Of the pleasure he lets the being experience the whole, of the pain he bears an amount which we will represent by 2. Thus the being has 1000 pleasure and 998 of pain, and the action is completed. His sensation is measured bythe number 1000 in the first act, and by 998 in the second act.
But the king did not choose to make the fundamental actions of this limited and finishing kind. As the type of the fundamental activity, he chose an action, and made the being go through it again and again. Thus the being would go through the act A, then the act B. When the action AB was complete it would go through an act of the kind A again, then through an act of the kind B. Thus the creature would be engaged in a routine of this kind, AB, AB, AB, and so on.
And if the creature had been alone, and this had been the sole activity in which it was concerned, the king would have gone on bearing 2 of pain in each of these actions. The king would have kept the routine going on steadily, the creature bearing 1000 of pleasure in each A, and 998 of pain in each B.
At this point it may be asked that an example should be given of one of these elementary routines which the king set going. And this seems a reasonable request, and yet it is somewhat too peremptory. For in the world we may know of what nature the movements of the atoms are without being able to say exactly what the motion of any one is. In such a case a type is the only possible presentation. Again, take the example of a crystal. We know that a crystal has a definite law of shape, and however much we divide it we find that its parts present the same conformation. We cannot isolate the ultimate crystalline elements, but we infer that they must be such as to produce the crystal by their combination.
Now life on the valley was such in its main features as would be produced by a combination of routines of the kind explained. There were changes and abrupt transitions, but the general and prevailing plan of lifewas that of a routine of alternating acts of a pleasurable and a painful kind. It was just such as would be built up out of elementary routines, on which the king could count, and which, unless he modified their combinations, tended to produce rhythmic processes of a larger kind. And even the changes and abruptnesses had a recurrent nature about them, for if any routine in the valley altered suddenly, it was found that there were cases of other routines altering in like manner, when the conditions under which they came were similar. Thus the fundamental type of the action which the king instituted was that of a routine AB, AB, as described above. But there were two circumstances which caused a variation, so that this simple routine was modified.
Firstly, there was not one being only but many.
Secondly, the king wished to have some of his pain-bearing power set free from time to time. He did not wish to have to be continually spending it all in maintaining the routines he had started at first, and those immediately connected with them.
When he first began to organize the life of the beings he did not consciously keep back any of his pain-bearing power, but threw it all in the activities which he started. Still from time to time he wished to start new activities quite unconnected with the old, and for this reason he withdrew some of his pain-bearing power, as will be shown afterwards.
There were many beings. The king chose that the type of activity in each should be a routine. In that way he could calculate on the activity, and hold it in his mind as a settled process on whose operation he could count. But as the routines of the beings proceeded they came into contact with one another, and made, even by their simple co-existence, something different from what a routine by itself was. They interwove in variousways. Then, in order to take advantage of the combinations of these routines, or to modify them, it was necessary to set going other routines.
In order to be able to originate these connected routines the king adopted the following plan.
In the first action AB he separated the creatures’ apathy into 1000 pleasure and 1000 pain, bearing 2 of the pain himself. The creature thus went through 1000 of pleasure and 998 of pain. In the next action AB he did not separate the beings’ apathy up into so much pleasure and pain. He separated it up into 980 pleasure and 980 pain, that is, each moment of feeling was 20 less in sensation than the moments of feeling were in the first action.
Now it is obvious that if the bearing 2 of pain will make it worth while for a being to go through 1000 pleasure and 998 pain, then the bearing on the king’s part of 1 of pain would make it worth while for the being to go through 500 pleasure and 499 of pain.
And a similar relation would hold for different amounts of pleasure and pain. Thus clearly for the being to go through 980 of pleasure and the corresponding amount of pain, it would not be necessary for the king to bear so much as when the being went through 1000 of pleasure and the corresponding amount of pain.
Consequently when the king divided the beings’ apathy into 980 pleasure and 980 pain, it would not be necessary for him to bear 2 of pain to make it worth the beings’ while to go through the action. The king would not bear so much as 2 of pain, and thus he would have some of his pain-bearing power set free. He would have exactly as much as would enable him to make it worth a being’s while to go through an action with the moments of 20 of pleasure and 20 of pain.
And this—with a correction which will come later—is what the king did. He employed the pain-bearingpower thus set free in starting other routines. Thus in the routine AB, AB, AB there would be first of all the action AB. Then along with the second action AB, the king (with the pain-bearing power set free) started an action CD—the beginning of a routine CD, CD, CD. Thus as the first routine went on and came into connection with other routines, new and supplementary routines sprang up which regulated and took advantage of the combinations of the old routines.
The amount of the moments of pleasure in the routine CD, was (with a slight correction explained below) measured in sensation, equal to 20. Thus the moment of pleasure in the first A being 1000, the moment of pleasure in the second A was 980, the moment of pleasure in the first C was 20 (subject to the correction spoken of). Thus the total amount of sensation in the second A and the associated act C, taken together (but for a small correction) was equal to the sensation in the first A. Hence the three points which were characteristic of the activity of the beings in the valley are obvious enough.
1. There is as fundamental type a routine AB, AB, AB, the sensation involved in which goes on diminishing.
2. There are routines CD, CD, &c., connected with AB, AB, in which the sensation which disappears in the routine AB, AB seems to reappear.
3. In the action AB itself there is a disappearance of sensation. The sensation connected with A is 1000, that connected with B is 998. Thus 2 of sensation seems to have disappeared. This 2 of sensation is of course the pain which the king bore, and which was the means whereby the creature was induced to go through the action at all. But looked at from the point of view of sensation, it seems like a diminution of amount. This diminution of amount, owing to the correction spoken of above, was to be found regularly all through the routine.