The World in 2000 Years Read online

  Everyone was breathless with impatience and astonishment.

  The patient’s head slumped on to the back of the armchair, his eyelids lowering. He was asleep.

  Hobson approached the sleeping savant, passed his hands over his face several times from bottom to top, in order to dispel the superabundance of fluid; then he sat down facing him and took his hand.

  “What question do you desire to ask, Madame?” he said to the Marquise.

  “Ask him what the world will be like in 2000 years.”

  “You’re overreaching the limits of human faculties, Madame,” observed a bishop in partibus6—the Marquise’s confessor—respectfully. “The future belongs only to God.”

  “What does it matter, Monsignor? You’ll give me absolution for it tomorrow morning.”

  The worthy prelate raised his eyes to the heavens and uttered a profound sigh.

  “It will be tiring, Madame,” the magnetizer replied.

  “Will our dear friend be in any danger?”

  “He might be, if he were in any other hands but mine. The further the somnambulistic subject is transported from his own sphere—the further he penetrates into the future—the greater is his fatigue. His mind labors, seeks, travels. He appropriates all that he sees; science no longer has any secrets for him; it requires all the energy of the magnetism, and all his attention in following it, if no accident is to occur. If an extraneous thought were to disturb me during the experiment, the subject, abandoned to himself, incapable of sustaining himself by his own strength and deprived on the fluid that I am directing at him constantly, would exhaust himself in such a distant double vision. Reassure yourself, though, Madame; I’m sure of myself. There will be no danger.”

  “Nevertheless, Monsieur, if we were risking the precious life of Monsieur Landet to satisfy a frivolous curiosity...”

  “Have no fear on that subject, Madame, I repeat.”

  “Go on, then.”

  Hobson beckoned a servant, and sent him to fetch two individuals who were waiting in the antechamber.

  “Who are these gentlemen?” asked the Marquise.

  “These gentlemen are stenographers, who accompany me everywhere.”

  “Stenographers? Why?”

  “To write down the curious relation that you are about to hear. Monsieur Landet, in his capacity as a statesman, will reveal to us things that it would be regrettable to abandon to forgetfulness. It is for his sake, much more than mine, that I am taking this precaution.”

  The stenographers sat down at a small table in front of the clock, pencils in hand, ready to take turns in playing their role.

  The séance, introduced in the guise of an eccentric wager, took on a more serious character.

  “Are you asleep?” Hobson asked the savant.

  The latter shook his head painfully, and passed his hand over his forehead. “Yes,” he replied.

  “Are you lucid?”

  “Yes.”

  “Would you like me to clear your mind before commencing?”

  “Yes. My head is heavy; my ideas are colliding confusedly in my brain.”

  With one hand, Hobson made a few long downward passes over the savant’s body. “Is that better?”

  “I’m fine now. What do you want of me?”

  “Will you abandon yourself completely to my will?”

  “I’m abandoning myself.”

  “Why are you speaking so softly?” the Marquise interjected. “Just now, you claimed that it was necessary for him to the under the empire of your will.”

  “I need to store as much influence as possible within him, and gradually lead him to submit to it. That superiority, overwhelming him to begin with, would gradually weaken him in his research.” Addressing himself to the savant, Hobson continued: “So, a distant voyage through the centuries doesn’t frighten you?”

  “Not at all. You know how interested I am in progress. Moreover, the story that these gentlemen will write”—he indicated the stenographers, immobile at their post—“will enlighten my studies.”

  “And serve your ambition my dear Monsieur Landet,” said the Marquise. “Admit it.”

  “Who does not have his small seed of ambition?” the savant replied. “Ambition is the noblest human passion. It elevates one, aggrandizes one, and forces one to develop one’s intelligence. Then again, cannot ambition be applied in the interests of humankind?”

  “Very well,” said the magnetizer, in the midst of a solemn silence. “Isolate yourself from our present world, follow my thought, and transport yourself through 2000 years.”

  The savant appeared to sink into a profound meditation. His lips moved, as if to count the centuries; his hands stirred, as if to palpate the space. Then his head, wearied by that frightful journey, slumped on to the back of the armchair.

  Hobson, attentive to the slightest movement, never took his eyes off him; his thoughts became confused with the other’s; he became incarnate in his subject’s person. From time to time he revived the other with his fluid, by passing his hands lightly from the head to the extremities. The savant was reanimated then. His lips moved and his hands stirred again; he continued the journey he had begun.

  “Are you there?” Hobson said, finally.

  “Not yet; I’ve only covered 1500 years.”

  This time, Hobson placed one hand on his forehead, the other on his breast, and blew lightly on to his temples. The savant recovered a new vigor.

  “Are you there?” Hobson asked, again.

  “I’m there.”

  “Can you see the world clearly, as it will be in that epoch?”

  “I see it—but let’s take things in order.”

  “Always logical,” the Marquise remarked, smiling.

  “Where would you prefer to begin?” the magnetizer asked. “With politics, finance, industry, commerce or metaphysics?”

  “With the family, which is the principle of society.”

  “Write, gentlemen,” said Hobson, turning to the stenographers, “and don’t miss a single word.”

  Chapter Two

  THE FAMILY

  Marriage and Natural Law

  “The primary cause of the anarchy that divides society,” the savant began, “is the dismemberment of the family. Before societies were constituted as States, the family was the nucleus around which the generations were successively grouped. Composed of members issuing from the same origin, the same ancestor, having the same worship and the same tomb, the family was a sacred line, which it was sacrilege to break.

  “Human ambition had not yet invented politics. Every family governed itself according to its own laws, and recognized no other authority than that of its own patriarch. The insolence of strangers did not cause offense within its customs. Religion was its base, and that religion, which belonged to it alone, informed it with the sentiment of fraternity in regard to others and respect in regard to its chief, the depository of all political, moral and religious power.

  “After his death, that family chief became a protective divinity whom posterior generations invoked, with the certainty that he would assist them in their joys as in their difficulties. Superstition in wellbeing is a barrier to the baser human instincts, which are better governed by prejudice than by force. Humans recoil before the dread of the unknown.

  “Soon, isolated and independent families felt the need to come together; they were organized into groups, then into tribes, and finally into nations, while conserving their primitive subdivisions. It was then that, envy taking old of everyone, the religious sentiment that united people weakened over time, and the strongest imposed themselves on the weak. That discord, bursting forth in the bosom of the family, engendered war. War set the weak conclusively beneath the yoke of the strong, and the fragmented family established the State. That was the product of patriarchal life.

  “As the centuries went by, the bonds of association broke and egoism proclaimed individual liberty.

  “So long as the family was assembled in a cluster
, it lived peacefully and happily; it was strong in its unity, because it enclosed within itself all the necessary elements of life. From the day when each member was freed from its laws, society, broken at its base, followed the current of the passions.

  “Previously-unknown needs made themselves felt; wealth, held in common until then, was divided and became the source of constant jealousy. Power was the prey of the most audacious,

  “Man was created with one objective: relative perfection. Without that objective, there is no reason for being, and the Creator’s work is regulated with too much intelligence for futility within nature to be conceivable. Futility, the fruit of human idleness, is the stigma of his imperfection. It is in progress that we lend ourselves gradually to the objective of human life. A long time will pass before we are permitted to attain it. Human beings can only be purified in the course of a succession of centuries. They are obviously born better than they are today, but, yielding to the penchants of their free will, often enjoying impunity in this world, they have been emboldened in evil and have deviated from the simple and straight path that their conscience, the reflection of a Supreme Being, has clearly traced for them. Life has therefore become an ordeal for them.

  “There will, however, come an epoch of reaction, in which the comparison of good and evil, the series of deceptions through which they will have passed, will return them fatally to their primitive state—with the difference, however, that what existed in them to begin with in the form of instinct will be the result of the maturity of their immortal souls. They will reenter eternity happily, as they emerged from it, as perfect as they were meant to be. The future will therefore reconstitute the family.

  “For the same reason that humans have declared themselves strangers to one another, the bitterness of their egoism will reunite them again. That is the work of progress.”

  “What about Creation?” the Marquise interjected.

  “Let us take things in order,” the savant went on, pitilessly. “Everything in its turn. When I get to metaphysics, I shall talk to you about Creation, within the limit of my conceptions.”

  This was no longer Monsieur Landet, the diplomat of ambiguities, the political equilibrist, whom one wit had nicknamed “the comfortable sofa-bed of politics,” the man of the world amiable to the point of insipidity. Transfigured, the savant had become curt and incisive.

  “Don’t be astonished at the change that has taken place in Monsieur Landet’s manner,” the magnetizer observed. “A man in the power of magnetism loses the urbanity acquired by education; he abruptly sets aside everything that deflects him from his enterprise. It’s better to avoid questions; they will confuse his ideas and injure the lucidity of his double vision.”

  “I can see the world in 2000 years,” Monsieur Landet continued. “The age of iron and the age of silver have passed; the age of gold is on the way back. Humans, instructed by the experience of the centuries that have gone by, have discarded their envelope of egoism. They have come together again; the general interest has succeeded individual interest; the family circle has tightened again. That immense progress has brought back mutual confidence.

  “No more suspicion, no more ulterior motives, no more fraud; everyone, sensing himself to be honest, assesses others according to his own aspirations. It is rare for any dispute to recall the judges to their post and reawaken laws from their torpor. Justice has shut down and, fortunately for humanity, judges do not work by reason of their appointment.

  “How little resemblance modern Paris bears to the Paris I have before my eyes! Everywhere, activity, work, joy. No more hazardous speculations; utility, always utility. If fortunes have not been leveled out, however, it is because the problem of compensation is insoluble down here; necessity itself is not felt in equal proportion by all human beings. Envy, that needle envenoming passions, has, if not deserted at least considerably neglected the human mind. The finger is pointed at rebels against progressive perfection; they are counted.

  “I shall only occupy myself with intelligent Paris, with moral Paris. What good would it do to describe the marvels I am contemplating? You can divine them as well as I can. What is the point of telling you that the streets are lit by electricity, that machines are also powered by electricity, by the force of the wind or the heat of the sun; that balloons have replaced omnibuses, that locomobile carriages have succeeded vehicles drawn by horses, and that submarine vessels are plowing the depths of the seas while hulled vessels are plowing their surface?

  “There are as many improvements as modern industry allows us to suppose, and about which I shall tell you when the time comes. Walls are still walls. There is, therefore, no interest in pausing over details that add nothing for the intellect or the heart. Besides, in matters of comfort, is not the present century the last word? As for nature, it only transforms its bark into another bark of the same sort.

  “I’m passing through a crowd of busy people going to their occupations or chatting about matters of general interest, trying to improve themselves by communicating the various particularities of their intelligence. I’m going into a building, which seems to me the most appropriate one to bring out the advantages of this peaceful and laborious life.

  “The family is gathered around the hearth. It’s evening. The children are playing games in a corner, which are already awakening in their souls the idea of work in an agreeable form. The parents and grandparents are conversing about current events, but they hardly mention politics. It’s a gentle, easy discussion, devoid of acidity. Why should they be dogged in defending their opinions when no partisan hatred divides them? For a long time now, individual ambition has been considered a crime, and people govern themselves by themselves, employing people of their choice for that purpose. A nation without rules eats itself away; leaders are still necessary, in accordance with the fable of ‘The Limbs and the Stomach,’7 but the leaders are not exempt from the permanent control of those who have appointed them to protect their interests.”

  At this point, Monsieur Landet began to smile.

  “They are talking about our epoch,” he continued, “and are not sparing us. They consider us to be barbarians, effeminates and bandits. To judge by what I hear, tradition has exaggerated historical truth somewhat. Has it not been the same in all times? The future, grafted on to the past, judges according to its constitution.

  “It’s strange: the word ‘money,’ which, in our day, is the motive of all intelligence, the practical emblem of power, has not been pronounced. People make it in order to live, and to help others in need, not to become rich. The only luxury that they permit themselves is necessity in a larger measure. Whence comes this indifference to superfluity? From its abuse. It’s very true that extremes connect. Humans having reached the ultimate degree of their moral degradation, have turned back on themselves; they reflected on the result of their easy pleasures, and, disgusted, risked a different path. The happiness that they had pursued for so long, which followed them like their shadow, has appeared to them in all its simplicity. They found close at hand what they had sought far and wide. Luxury and debauchery have been a school for them, whose severe instruction they have appreciated. In a word, they have learned to be content with the bounty of nature, the source of true felicity in this world.”

  “Then you see humankind perfected?” said the Marquise

  “Perfected is not the word,” the savant replied. “Perfection only belongs to the Creator, the principle of all things. Created beings cannot elevate themselves to the level of their maker. The imperfect cannot conceive the perfect, Saint Anselm says,8 because the perfect implies the idea of infinity, and infinity surpasses the bounds of human intelligence, which only has an intuition of it by virtue of the divine imprint engraved in the soul. The human beings I am describing for you have not yet reached their highest level of relative perfection. They are approaching that goal, but many centuries will elapse before the Supreme Being deems their mission accomplished.”

  “And how lon
g still separates them from that end?” the Marquise put in.

  “There are things that ought not to be investigated, Madame,” the savant replied, severely. “If I wished to fathom the secrets of destiny, I could not do it. I can only reason from hypotheses. Besides, we’ll talk about it when the time comes. Have the patience to wait, Madame—that’s all I ask of you.”

  For the second time, the Marquise pinched her lips.

  “I warned you, Madame,” Hobson objected. “In the best interests of this communication, it’s preferable to let the somnambulistic subject follow his own train of thought.”

  “A young man is coming into the family living-room,” Monsieur Landet continued. “It’s the daughter’s fiancé. He’s been waiting for two years. Don’t be astonished by that delay. The prudent custom of betrothal, lost by us, has resumed its ancient right. Today, it’s not hearts that are allied, but matching fortunes. Marriages are concluded in haste, for fear that some unforeseen incident might occur to break the ongoing negotiations. Everyone fears the devaluation of his merchandise.

  “It’s not the same here; marriages of convenience have fallen into disuse; the happiness obtained from the intimate union of souls is considered more noble than the aggregation of fortunes—but before fusing two individuals in a common existence, they wish to be sure that their natures are compatible, and their souls suitable for combination.

  “What is more painful in a household, after all, than two characters in incessant conflict? Youth passes over this discord when the attraction of material pleasure furnishes a sufficient compensation, but on the day when age paralyzes those relations, nothing remains in confrontation but the antipathy of two opposed characters—an antipathy increased by daily contact—and when a shared caprice no longer balances out the dissonance of souls, hatred quickly succeeds antipathy.

  “That is why our descendants have returned to the ancient custom of engagement. They only give their children after having studied a suitor profoundly. That study, in order to be scrupulous, requires at least two years. A man who is strong enough to conceal his weaknesses for six months cannot hide the chinks in his armor for two years. These engagements are, therefore, the public consecration of a pledge given on both sides.