Star Maker by Olaf Stapledon (bts book recommendations .txt) 📕

the great seminal ideas of the modern world had been conceived

centuries ago. Since then, world-changing applications of these ideas

had indeed been made; but none of these sensational inventions had

depended on the extreme kind of penetrating the whole course of thought

in an earlier age. Recently there had been, Bvalltu admitted, a spate of

revolutionary scientific discoveries and theories, but not one of them,

he said, contained any really novel principle. They were all

re-combinations of familiar principles. Scientific method, invented some

centuries ago, was so fertile a technique that it might well continue to

yield rich fruit for centuries to come even in the hands of workers

incapable of any high degree of originality.

But it was not in the field of science so much as in moral and practical

activity that the deterioration of mental caliber was most evident. I

myself, with Bvalltu’s aid, had learnt to appreciate to some extent the

literature of that amazing period, many centuries earlier, when every

country seemed to blossom with art, philosophy and religion; when people

after people had changed its whole social and political order so as to

secure a measure of freedom and prosperity to all men; when state after

state had courageously disarmed, risking destruction but reaping peace

and prosperity; when police forces were disbanded, prisons turned into

libraries or colleges; when weapons and even locks and keys came to be

known only as museum pieces; when the four great established priesthoods

of the world had exposed their own mysteries, given their wealth to the

poor, and led the triumphant campaign for community; or had taken to

agriculture, handicrafts, teaching, as befitted humble supporters of the

new priestless, faithless, Godless religion of worldwide community and

inarticulate worship. After some five hundred years locks and keys,

weapons and doctrines, began to return. The golden age left behind it

only a lovely and incredible tradition, and a set of principles which,

though now sadly misconceived, were still the best influences in a

distraught world.

Those scientists who attributed mental deterioration to the increase of

cosmic rays affirmed that if the race had discovered science many

centuries earlier, when it had still before it the period of greatest

vitality, all would have been well. It would soon have mastered the

social problems which industrial civilization entails. It would have

created not merely a “mediaeval” but a highly mechanized Utopia. It

would almost certainly have discovered how to cope with the excess of

cosmic rays and prevent deterioration. But science had come too late.

Bvalltu, on the other hand, suspected that deterioration was due to some

factor in human nature itself. He was inclined to believe that it was a

consequence of civilization, that in changing the whole environment of

the human species, seemingly for the better, science had unwittingly

brought about a state of affairs hostile to spiritual vigor. He did not

pretend to know whether the disaster was caused by the increase of

artificial food, or the increased nervous strain of modern conditions,

or interference with natural selection, or the softer upbringing of

children, or to some other cause. Perhaps it should be attributed to

none of these comparatively recent influences; for evidence did suggest

that deterioration had set in at the very beginning of the scientific

age, if not even earlier. It might be that some mysterious factor in the

conditions of the golden age itself had started the rot. It might even

be, he suggested, that genuine community generated its own poison, that

the young human being, brought up in a perfected society, in a veritable

“city of God” on earth, must inevitably revolt toward moral and

intellectual laziness, toward romantic individualism and sheer

devilment; and that once this disposition had taken root, science and a

mechanized civilization had augmented the spiritual decay.

Shortly before I left the Other Earth a geologist discovered a fossil

diagram of a very complicated radio set. It appeared to be a

lithographic plate which had been made some ten million years earlier.

The highly developed society which produced it had left no other trace.

This find was a shock to the intelligent world; but the comforting view

was spread abroad that some non-human and less hardy species had long

ago attained a brief flicker of civilization. It was agreed that man,

once he had reached such a height of culture, would never have fallen

from it.

In Bvalltu’s view man had climbed approximately to the same height time

after time, only to be undone by some hidden consequence of his own

achievement.

When Bvalltu propounded this theory, among the ruins of Us native city,

I suggested that some time, if not this time, man would successfully

pass this critical point in his career. Bvalitu then spoke of another

matter which seemed to indicate that we were witnessing the final act of

this long-drawn-out and repetitive drama. It was known to scientists

that, owing to the weak gravitational hold of their world, the

atmosphere, already scant, was steadily deceasing. Sooner or later

humanity would have to face the problem of stopping this constant

leakage of precious oxygen. Hitherto life had successfully adapted

itself to the progressive rarefaction of atmosphere, but the human

physique had already reached the limit of adaptability in this respect.

If the loss were not soon checked, the race would inevitably decline.

The only hope was that some means to deal with the atmospheric problem

would be discovered before the onset of the next age of barbarism. There

had only been a slight possibility that this would be achieved. This

slender hope the war had destroyed by setting the clock of scientific

research back for a century just at the time when human nature itself

was deteriorating and might never again be able to tackle so difficult a

problem.

The thought of the disaster which almost certainly lay in wait for the

Other Men threw me into a horror of doubt about the universe in which

such a thing could happen. That a whole world of intelligent beings

could be destroyed was not an unfamiliar idea to me; but there is a

great difference between an abstract possibility and a concrete and

inescapable danger. On my native planet, whenever I had been dismayed by

the suffering and the futility of individuals, I had taken comfort in

the thought that at least the massed effect of all our blind striving

must be the slow but glorious awakening of the human spirit. This hope,

this certainty, had been the one sure consolation. But now I saw that

there was no guarantee of any such triumph. It seemed that the universe,

or the maker of the universe, must be indifferent to the fate of worlds.

That there should be endless struggle and suffering and waste must

of’course be accepted; and gladly, for these were the very soil in which

the spirit grew. But that all struggle should be finally, absolutely

vain, that a whole world of sensitive spirits fail and die, must be

sheer evil. In my horror it seemed to me that Hate must be the Star

Maker.

Not so to Bvalitu. “Even if the powers destroy us,” he said, “who are

we, to condemn them? As well might a fleeting word judge the speaker

that forms it. Perhaps they use us for their own hihg ends, use our

strength and our weakness, our joy and our pain, in some theme

inconceivable to us, and excellent.” But I protested, “What theme could

justify such waste, such futility? And how can we help judging; and how

otherwise can we judge than by the light of our own hearts, by which we

judge ourselves? It would be base to praise the Star Maker, knowing that

he was too insensitive to care about the fate of his worlds.” Bvalitu

was silent in his mind for a moment. Then he looked up, searching among

the smoke-clouds for a daytime star. And then he said to me in his mind,

“If he saved all the worlds, but tormented just one man, would you

forgive him? Or if he was a little harsh only to one stupid child? What

has our pain to do with it, or our failure? Star Maker! It is a good

word, though we can have no notion of its meaning. Oh, Star Maker, even

if you destroy me, I must praise you. Even if you torture my dearest.

Even if you torment and waste all your lovely worlds, the little

figments of your imagination, yet I must praise you. For if you do so,

it must be right. In me it would be wrong, but in you it must be right.”

He looked down once more upon the ruined city, then continued, “And if

after all there is no Star Maker, if the great company of galaxies leapt

into being of their own accord, and even if this little nasty world of

ours is the only habitation of the spirit anywhere among the stars, and

this world doomed, even so, even so, I must praise. But if there is no

Star Maker, what can it be that I praise? I do not know. I will call it

only the sharp tang and savor of existence. But to call it this is to

say little.”