Part 20 (2/2)
Discontented men--and discontent and wickedness are not far apart--would have used the new powers for their own wicked purposes, just as formerly they rent the veil that concealed from the uninitiated the secrets of powers in nature; having been admitted under the guise, or rather while in temporary possession of all the great qualities of will, undaunted courage, energy, and perseverance.
Had I not reflected on this danger, I should only have allowed numbers of persons to receive an education which, neglecting the paramount principle of eradicating the faults of men of talent, would have laid them open to the promptings of evil spirits, by whom, perhaps, under the guise of beneficence, they would have been led to use the powers of good for purposes of evil. Our very progress would have given strength to powerful bad men, and my system, in spite of improvements, would have carried within it the cause for its own eventual destruction.
Many beautiful systems had been tried in Montalluyah, but, from inattention to small details, they had perished. The men who used for evil purpose powers given them for good, have unknowingly laboured to their own destruction and that of the highly civilized communities where they dwelt; which have thus been swept from the face of the earth.
They had tasted the fruits of the Tree of Knowledge before they had been thoroughly disciplined in the powers of resistance and of self-denial.
Hence the wholesome food was changed to poison; the sweet waters were made bitter; the stream, which in its fullness bore fertility and refreshment, burst its banks, and carried destruction everywhere.
So was it even with the priests of one of our ancient religions, who had the custody of great secrets intended for good. During a time extending over some generations, they practised the virtues they inculcated, and used their power for a beneficial end. They increased their power by their virtue and goodness; but their successors, from whose natures the minute germs of physical and mental perversity had not been removed, used their increased might for evil purposes, enervating to the governing will, and to the directing powers necessary to guide an irresistible force.
It is known that the results of every act, whether good or evil, will be felt for all time. The result of evil was likened in Montalluyah to a virulent disease, which had its beginning in a minute germ; a good act to an ear of nouris.h.i.+ng corn, that goes on propagating till it has supplied nations with food.
It was not enough that my laws worked with the beauty, regularity, and unity of a well-balanced machine, the parts of which a.s.sisted each other in attaining the immediate object of its construction. The political and social machine possessed also the faculty of acquiring at every movement increased powers of production.
I had satisfied myself that amongst the numerous precautions to be taken to secure the highest degree of beauty, power, and intelligence in adults, on which so much depended, was the care of the infant, and that this should commence from the earliest period, before the features, form, and organization had received the first approaches of enduring outline, since then all would be in a malleable or plastic state, ready to take any impressions caused by accident or design, whether tending to good or evil, to beauty or deformity.
RIDICULE ATTACHING TO THE SUBJECT OF BABIES.
Before my reign eminent men, statesmen, legislators, and philosophers, scarcely _condescended_ to notice such ”trifles” as were comprised in the nurture and care of infants. Perhaps in a worldly sense they were right, for those who had attempted to instruct others in these all-pregnant ”trifles” had been invariably ridiculed for the interest they took in ”babies,” and such-like ”trivialities,” which, in spite of many lessons, the people would not regard as possibly prolific of serious results.
The contempt thus thrown even on eminent men was the more extraordinary, inasmuch as our sages had familiarized the people with the grand truth that the greatest effects are often produced by trifling causes; that out of the little egg came the large eagle of the country, and the huge boa-constrictor; that innumerable mighty operations in nature have their origin in small beginnings; that the narrow rivulet goes on gathering strength till it becomes the Great Cataract; that the minute plague-spot generated the virulent disease; that the acorn produces the oak; that the impaired seed failed to produce goodly fruit; that a small drop of leaven affected a huge ma.s.s. Lessons on the fecundity of little things had indeed grown into commonplace household words.
Besides these lessons of the wise, love and respect for children were mingled with the religions feelings of the people; for Elikoia, the founder of our earliest civilization, was a child when he led the people from idolatry to the wors.h.i.+p of the living G.o.d.
All these considerations, however, were insufficient to s.h.i.+eld great men from the contempt thrown on them and on their words, when they had the courage to let it be known that they occupied themselves with things which, to an ordinary observer, seemed beneath notice.
From the first, however, I had been convinced of the importance of the despised ”little” things, and looked not so much to the dimensions of the instrument as to the amount of good or evil it was capable of effecting, having learned by experience that the magnitude of results was often in an inverse ratio to the means employed, more especially when applied in due season.
Soon I discovered that many of the maladies incident to children, to youth, and to adults, owed their origin to the neglect and injudicious treatment of the infant. I had seen numbers of interesting children, with handsome features and well-formed limbs, who in their riper years had become ugly, with ill-favoured features, sallow complexions, bad expressions of countenance, misshapen forms, and crooked limbs. Many who in early years had displayed great intelligence had become positively stupid. It was not that the intelligence had been prematurely developed, but that the organization had been prematurely injured, and the brain-machine rendered incapable of giving proper expression to the yearnings of the soul. None suffered more keenly from early physical neglect than children of genius.
Satisfied that my observations were accurate, and that everything contributing to husband the health, strength, beauty, and intelligence of the child, would likewise contribute to the beauty, happiness, and contentment of the adult, as well as his obedience to my laws, I resolved to occupy myself with what proved to be the very important subject of babies. In meditating on the mode of obtaining the desired results, I considered nothing too insignificant,--not even so ”small” a thing as the scratch of a pin, sufficient at all events to make an infant cry. The acts of crying and making wry faces disturb the lines of the plastic clay of the child's countenance, and even the lines of the form. The state of suffering calls off the vital electricity from its duties in other parts of the organisation, and is attended with other inconveniences, slight indeed in immediate perceptible effects, but so powerful in their c.u.mulative and germinating effects as to lead to results which, were they related, would seem incredible.
I must content myself by saying, that although the march of these c.u.mulative effects is not one-tenth as visible as the almost imperceptible movement of the hand that marks the seconds in one of our smallest electrical watches, they nevertheless eventually show in their result great and increasing evils, seriously affecting the child, the youth, the adult, and the man. It would not be too much to say that the traces of an injury, however slight, are never altogether obliterated, whilst every successive injury and deprivation of force renders the sufferer more open to every new inroad.
Although the minute hand of our electric watches moves almost imperceptibly, marking minutes, hours, days, and years, it advances in measured, limited progression; whereas the effects of suffering on the child go on advancing in an increasing--nay, multiplying--ratio, by which, up to a certain point, that of geometrical progression is far exceeded. If you can realise the fact, which in Montalluyah is incontestable, that even a scratch, however slight, will injure a child, it will require little stretch of imagination to form some conception at least of the injury caused to the beauty, form, health, strength, and mind of the adult, by the many diseases and sufferings which were allowed to leave their imprints on the young, impressionable clay and delicate organisation of the infant. Our children were formerly afflicted, like yours, with diseases resembling whooping-cough, croup, measles, small-pox, and other maladies, forming an almost endless list, and although the child survived the attacks and the incidental suffering and waste, the evil consequences could never be effectually removed.
The precautions now taken are very numerous. Many by themselves alone would be productive of great good, but when all are carried out, some contemporaneously, others successively, a result is scarcely less certain than the solution of a mathematical problem, based on accurate premises, save of course in the case of inevitable accidents. My laws provide for the protection of the child from its birth, nay, as I have before stated, prior to its birth; for the protection of the parent precedes that of the child. I knew that if the mother was sickly, or indulged in injurious habits, the child would suffer. I enjoined attention to these laws as a portion of the religious duties of the people. Amongst other things I explained the value of beauty in the human form, and how, when united with other qualities, it tended to the happiness of the individual and the well-being of the world. This I did at length, and in a manner to secure conviction, because it had been the fas.h.i.+on to decry beauty as a matter of minor importance.
At the risk of repeating myself, I a.s.sert that I omitted nothing, however seemingly insignificant, looking as I did upon my system as upon one large continuous volume, in which every page had its value. The absence of a single leaf would somewhat mar the general effect, but still the remaining pages might retain their worth if pregnant with good. On the other hand, if every leaf that was torn out had the effect of loosening the rest, and causing them to be lost, till but a few would be left in the cover, the effect would be far more serious.
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