Kwaidan: Stories and Studies of Strange Things Part 13

Of course the foregoing prediction does not imply that human nature will ever undergo such physiological change as would be represented by structural specializations comparable to those by which the various castes of insect societies are differentiated. We are not bidden to imagine a future state of humanity in which the active majority would consist of semi-female workers and Amazons toiling for an inactive minority of selected Mothers. Even in his chapter, "Human Population in the Future," Mr. Spencer has attempted no detailed statement of the physical modifications inevitable to the production of higher moral types,--though his general statement in regard to a perfected nervous system, and a great diminution of human fertility, suggests that such moral evolution would signify a very considerable amount of physical change. If it be legitimate to believe in a future humanity to which the pleasure of mutual beneficence will represent the whole joy of life, would it not also be legitimate to imagine other transformations, physical and moral, which the facts of insect-biology have proved to be within the range of evolutional possibility?... I do not know. I most worshipfully reverence Herbert Spencer as the greatest philosopher who has yet appeared in this world; and I should be very sorry to write down anything contrary to his teaching, in such wise that the reader could imagine it to have been inspired by Synthetic Philosophy. For the ensuing reflections, I alone am responsible; and if I err, let the sin be upon my own head.

I suppose that the moral transformations predicted by Mr. Spencer, could be effected only with the aid of physiological change, and at a terrible cost. Those ethical conditions manifested by insect-societies can have been reached only through effort desperately sustained for millions of years against the most atrocious necessities. Necessities equally merciless may have to be met and mastered eventually by the human race. Mr. Spencer has shown that the time of the greatest possible human suffering is yet to come, and that it will be concomitant with the period of the greatest possible pressure of population. Among other results of that long stress, I understand that there will be a vast increase in human intelligence and sympathy; and that this increase of intelligence will be effected at the cost of human fertility. But this decline in reproductive power will not, we are told, be sufficient to a.s.sure the very highest of social conditions: it will only relieve that pressure of population which has been the main cause of human suffering. The state of perfect social equilibrium will be approached, but never quite reached, by mankind--

Unless there be discovered some means of solving economic problems, just as social insects have solved them, by the suppression of s.e.x-life.

Supposing that such a discovery were made, and that the human race should decide to arrest the development of s.e.x in the majority of its young,--so as to effect a transferrence of those forces, now demanded by s.e.x-life to the development of higher activities,--might not the result be an eventual state of polymorphism, like that of ants? And, in such event, might not the Coming Race be indeed represented in its higher types,--through feminine rather than masculine evolution,--by a majority of beings of neither s.e.x?

Considering how many persons, even now, through merely unselfish (not to speak of religious) motives, sentence themselves to celibacy, it should not appear improbable that a more highly evolved humanity would cheerfully sacrifice a large proportion of its s.e.x-life for the common weal, particularly in view of certain advantages to be gained. Not the least of such advantages--always supposing that mankind were able to control s.e.x-life after the natural manner of the ants--would be a prodigious increase of longevity. The higher types of a humanity superior to s.e.x might be able to realize the dream of life for a thousand years.

Already we find lives too short for the work we have to do; and with the constantly accelerating progress of discovery, and the never-ceasing expansion of knowledge, we shall certainly find more and more reason to regret, as time goes on, the brevity of existence. That Science will ever discover the Elixir of the Alchemists' hope is extremely unlikely. The Cosmic Powers will not allow us to cheat them.

For every advantage which they yield us the full price must be paid: nothing for nothing is the everlasting law. Perhaps the price of long life will prove to be the price that the ants have paid for it.

Perhaps, upon some elder planet, that price has already been paid, and the power to produce offspring restricted to a caste morphologically differentiated, in unimaginable ways, from the rest of the species...

VII

But while the facts of insect-biology suggest so much in regard to the future course of human evolution, do they not also suggest something of largest significance concerning the relation of ethics to cosmic law?

Apparently, the highest evolution will not be permitted to creatures capable of what human moral experience has in all areas condemned.

Apparently, the highest possible strength is the strength of unselfishness; and power supreme never will be accorded to cruelty or to l.u.s.t. There may be no G.o.ds; but the forces that shape and dissolve all forms of being would seem to be much more exacting than G.o.ds. To prove a "dramatic tendency" in the ways of the stars is not possible; but the cosmic process seems nevertheless to affirm the worth of every human system of ethics fundamentally opposed to human egoism.

Notes

THE STORY OF MIMI-NASHI-HOICHI

[1] See my Kotto, for a description of these curious crabs.

[2] Or, Shimonoseki. The town is also known by the name of Bakkan.

[3] The biwa, a kind of four-stringed lute, is chiefly used in musical recitative. Formerly the professional minstrels who recited the Heike-Monogatari, and other tragical histories, were called biwa-hoshi, or "lute-priests." The origin of this appellation is not clear; but it is possible that it may have been suggested by the fact that "lute-priests" as well as blind shampooers, had their heads shaven, like Buddhist priests. The biwa is played with a kind of plectrum, called bachi, usually made of horn.

(1) A response to show that one has heard and is listening attentively.

[4] A respectful term, signifying the opening of a gate. It was used by samurai when calling to the guards on duty at a lord's gate for admission.

[5] Or the phrase might be rendered, "for the pity of that part is the deepest." The j.a.panese word for pity in the original text is "aware."

[6] "Traveling incognito" is at least the meaning of the original phrase,--"making a disguised august-journey" (shin.o.bi no go-ryoko).

[7] The Smaller Pragna-Paramita-Hridaya-Sutra is thus called in j.a.panese. Both the smaller and larger sutras called Pragna-Paramita ("Transcendent Wisdom") have been translated by the late Professor Max Muller, and can be found in volume xlix. of the Sacred Books of the East ("Buddhist Mahayana Sutras").--Apropos of the magical use of the text, as described in this story, it is worth remarking that the subject of the sutra is the Doctrine of the Emptiness of Forms,--that is to say, of the unreal character of all phenomena or noumena... "Form is emptiness; and emptiness is form. Emptiness is not different from form; form is not different from emptiness. What is form--that is emptiness. What is emptiness--that is form... Perception, name, concept, and knowledge, are also emptiness... There is no eye, ear, nose, tongue, body, and mind... But when the envelopment of consciousness has been annihilated, then he [the seeker] becomes free from all fear, and beyond the reach of change, enjoying final Nirvana."

OSHIDORI

[1] From ancient time, in the Far East, these birds have been regarded as emblems of conjugal affection.

[2] There is a pathetic double meaning in the third verse; for the syllables composing the proper name Akanuma ("Red Marsh") may also be read as akanu-ma, signifying "the time of our inseparable (or delightful) relation." So the poem can also be thus rendered:--"When the day began to fail, I had invited him to accompany me...! Now, after the time of that happy relation, what misery for the one who must slumber alone in the shadow of the rushes!"--The makomo is a short of large rush, used for making baskets.

THE STORY OF O-TEI

(1) "-sama" is a polite suffix attached to personal names.

(2) A Buddhist term commonly used to signify a kind of heaven.

[1] The Buddhist term zok.u.myo ("profane name") signifies the personal name, borne during life, in contradistinction to the kaimyo ("sila-name") or homyo ("Law-name") given after death,--religious posthumous appellations inscribed upon the tomb, and upon the mortuary tablet in the parish-temple.--For some account of these, see my paper ent.i.tled, "The Literature of the Dead," in Exotics and Retrospectives.

[2] Buddhist household shrine.

(3) Direct translation of a j.a.panese form of address used toward young, unmarried women.

DIPLOMACY

(1) The s.p.a.cious house and grounds of a wealthy person is thus called.

(2) A Buddhist service for the dead.

OF A MIRROR AND A BELL

(1) Part of present-day Shizuoka Prefecture.

(2) The two-hour period between 1 AM and 3 AM.

(3) A monetary unit.

JIKININKI

(1) The southern part of present-day Gifu Prefecture.

[1] Literally, a man-eating goblin. The j.a.panese narrator gives also the Sanscrit term, "Rakshasa;" but this word is quite as vague as jikininki, since there are many kinds of Rakshasas. Apparently the word jikininki signifies here one of the Baramon-Rasetsu-Gaki,--forming the twenty-sixth cla.s.s of pretas enumerated in the old Buddhist books.

[2] A Segaki-service is a special Buddhist service performed on behalf of beings supposed to have entered into the condition of gaki (pretas), or hungry spirits. For a brief account of such a service, see my j.a.panese Miscellany.

[3] Literally, "five-circle [or five-zone] stone." A funeral monument consisting of five parts superimposed,--each of a different form,--symbolizing the five mystic elements: Ether, Air, Fire, Water, Earth.

MUJINA