ON ETERNAL LIFE
Somebody—a certain Dr. Friedenberg to be truthful—has thrown out suggestions of the dreadful possibility of indefinitely prolonging the human existence; in fact of bringing about a kind of mundane immortality. Hair is to be made to grow upon bald heads (no, mine is not bald); short men will increase in stature by several inches; and fat men will become slender and graceful. The last is perhaps an attractive prospect. Wait. Tell me this.
Who wants to live for ever? And having disposed of that pertinent question, in the affirmative if you will, who wants his neighbour to live for ever?
Who wants to stereotype the control of human affairs in the hands that find it so difficult to control them? What becomes of young ideas, new movements and general progress, in a universe of bald pates thatched, short men grown taller and corpulence made small? For in all this one hears nothing about recharging the brain; and bodily vigour does little to stave off mental paralysis of the kind that usually comes on with age. Would flowing hair and graceful figure countervail the growth of avarice, deceit and malice; or check the relentless march of stupidity? Would it not rather be the case, that from yearto year all the more unpleasant of human characteristics would intensify and harden?
And, by the way, think of the population of this miserable little globe in a thousand years or so. Nobody dies. We all live and multiply for eternity. It increases by geometric progression. To-day we are, let us say, a paltry thousand million of people. In a year’s time, at a conservative estimate, we should double our population. In a few hundred years—good heavens! Life would become like the platform of Piccadilly Circus at six o’clock in the evening.
Piccadilly! This subject is inextricably bound up in my mind with Piccadilly. I will explain why.
Not long ago, when musing upon Dr. Friedenberg’s discoveries, I had occasion to use the railway of that name. I boarded a crowded train, thinking deeply. I took my place (most incautiously, I admit, but there happened to be no other place to take) standing beside a forbidding military gentleman, whose arms were full of brown paper parcels. In the immediate vicinity stood a large stern woman, solidly planted near the door, who disdained the help of the strap and supported herself, with arms akimbo and legs wide apart.
The train ran smoothly enough through Dover Street and Down Street, and my line of thought, on this problem of perpetual life, developed intoa kind of saga to the rhythm of the movement over the rails. The whole subject went before my eyes like a glorious vision. I knew just what I was going to say in this essay....
And then the train back-jumped, and the large stern woman, in the effort to retain her balance, planted one of her feet with relentless precision, exactly on one of mine, and simultaneously drove her right elbow into my ribs. In really considerable agony I recoiled, involuntarily loosening my grip of the supporting strap. Immediately the train swerved, and threw me into the bosom of the military gentleman, whose armful of parcels burst from his control and smothered the occupants of the neighbouring seats. Muttering imprecations, he crouched on the swaying floor and began to pick them up. I stooped to help him; and our heads met with a grinding crash....
Meanwhile the woman—the—the unspeakable monster who had caused the calamity, stood entirely unmoved, gazing through the glass doors at the conductor.
Think of such a person going down through all eternity committing outrages of this kind—probably one a day. Eternal life? Penal servitude for life is more to her deserving.