“Manifestly,” Swinburne replied. “When we first met, you used the phrase ‘survival of the fittest.’ You're referring to that, yes?”
Spencer opened his eyes, which were oddly glazed, and jabbed a finger at the poet.
“Exactly! However, don't mistake the ‘fittest’ for the healthiest or the cleverest or any other specific trait. I use it in the same sense that a square peg ‘fits’ into a square hole. The fittest man is the one most constitutionally suited to the conditions in which he finds himself. It's a two-way relationship: the particular nature of the individual confronting the particular nature of reality. Or, I should say, what appears to be reality.”
“What appears to be?” Burton asked.
“That's right, because it isn't possible to know if the reality you perceive is all there is. You can only deal with what you are cognizant of.”
Burton frowned and nodded. “Knowledge is phenomenal? It pertains only to appearance-or in the case of your blindfolded individual, to the other material senses?”
Spencer resumed his closed-eyed, steeple-fingered position.
“Something like that, yes, though I don't mean to suggest that it's necessarily deceptive. We might only be aware of a small portion of reality, but it is reality nevertheless, so however we apprehend it, that apprehension has validity.
“Existence, then, is, I posit, a continuous adjustment of internal relations to external relations. Which brings us to the crux of the matter, for if our existence depended not upon such adjustments but rather upon quantifiable attributes such as strength, health, and endurance-and if reality were known in its entirety and measured, mapped, and gauged-then it would be easy to determine one individual's chances of survival against another's. The Eugenicists propose the improvement of the human race on just such a basis. They are in error. What they overlook is that, because one person's reality isn't necessarily the same as another's, so the traits required to best prosper differ from person to person.”
Swinburne bounced in his chair excitedly. “I see! I see! A man who perceives a barrier needs the dexterity to climb over it, while the man who sees a foundation would benefit from the talent to design and erect a structure upon it.”
The philosopher nodded without reopening his eyes.
“Just so. These differing notions of life and how to best deal with it have caused the human race to tend toward greater heterogeneity. Individuals are becoming more specialised and differentiated as they each adapt to their own perception. To compensate for this diversification, we, as a species, have developed the ability to integrate almost everyone by creating an interdependent society.
“If we allow the Eugenicists to alter the race according to their infinitesimally narrow criteria, I think it almost certain that this interdependence will collapse and extinction will follow.”
With eyes fixed on the vagrant philosopher, Burton moved to his saddleback armchair and sat down. “While I find myself in agreement with your notion of interdependent diversity,” he said, thoughtfully, “do you not think that it is overwhelmed by a rather more dominant division? I speak of that which we've seen demonstrated today-to wit, the segregation of society into the working and the educated classes.”
“Ah, Captain Burton, you have hit the nail on the head. The Eugenicists may be wrong in their approach, but they are correct in their assessment that our society, in its present divided form, must either change or die. It is what prompted me to bring Darwin's theory into the picture.”
“How so, Herbert?”
“You see, when the mechanism of natural selection is transposed from the biological to the social arena, we can immediately see that our interdependence has become so extreme that evolution cannot possibly occur. Individuals have become too specialised. Consider our prehistoric ancestor. He knew how to create a fire, make a weapon, hunt an animal, fashion clothes and a shelter from its skin, cook it and eat the flesh, carve tools from its bones, and so much more. What man of the nineteenth century can do all those things? None! Instead we have engineers and weapon-smiths and tailors and cooks and craftsmen and builders-each excellent in his own field, each entirely helpless in the others!”
Spencer opened his eyes again and turned them toward Admiral Lord Nelson, who was standing in his usual position by the bureau.
“The idea that the Empire is progressive is an insidious myth. A myth! Look at that brass man! It is our tools that are evolving, not us! If anything, we are going in the opposite direction. While an increasingly exclusive elite are gathering information about ways in which the world might function, the ever-expanding majority are becoming ever more proficient in a single field of endeavour while comprehending less and less about anything else.”
Swinburne paraphrased something Burton had said on the evening of the Brundleweed robbery: “The acquisition of knowledge has become too intimidating a prospect for them, so they shun it in favour of faith.”
“Sadly so,” said Spencer. “There is a principle which is a bar against all information, which is proof against all arguments, and which cannot fail to keep a man in everlasting ignorance-that principle is contempt prior to investigation; contempt carved from the immovable rock of faith.
“Thus it is, gentlemen, that the masses are not only kept from the knowledge that would aid their ability to adapt and evolve, but they also actively reject it. Minds have become trammelled by ingrained social conditions. Working-class parents instill in their children the concept that reality offers nothing but hardship, that poverty always beckons, and that small rewards can be achieved only through strife and labour. Why should they teach differently when, under those same conditions, they themselves have survived? The child takes this as the unquestionable truth of the world. Opportunities are not recognised. The desire for change remains within the realm of dreams. Adaptability is devalued. Evolution is halted.”
Spencer's face suddenly dropped into an expression of abject misery.
“I'm runnin’ out o’ steam,” he said. “Me bloomin’ brain can't cope with it!”
His arms suddenly dropped and dangled over the sides of his chair, his head nodded forward, and he emitted a loud snore.
“Good lord!” Swinburne exclaimed.
“Asleep,” Burton noted. “What an extraordinary man!”
“I say, Richard, what do you make of all that?”
Burton reached for his cigar case. “I think this warrants a two-Manila muse, Algy. Sit quietly, would you, while I give it a ponder.”
Sitting quietly didn't come naturally to the diminutive poet but he gritted his teeth and managed to remain silent for ten minutes while Spencer snored and Burton smoked.
“Fascinating!” Burton said, speaking at last.
Herbert Spencer snorted and looked up. “Hallo, Boss! Did I take forty winks?”
“You did, Herbert. Does that always happen after you philosophise?”
“Yus. It exhausts me bloomin’ brain. How did I do? I hope I didn't humiliate meself.”
“Humiliate?” Swinburne cried. “Good lord, no, Herbert! You did splendidly! You are absolutely remarkable!”
Burton blew out a plume of tobacco smoke and said, “Forgive the question, Herbert-I mean no offence-but why on earth aren't you a sensation? With an intellect like yours, you should be writing books and touring universities!”
Spencer shrugged and tapped the side of his head. “When a man's knowledge ain't in order, the more of it he has, the greater is his confusion.” He looked at Admiral Lord Nelson and sighed. “I should be more like him! There's one what's got an ordered mind!”
“But no knowledge, Herbert,” Burton said. “No knowledge at all. So do you mean to say that your thinking processes are more usually in disarray?”
“Yus, just that. When I sits down an’ talks, it's all fine, but for most o’ the time, me brainbox is a right old jumble.”
“Hmm. I wonder if that has some bearing on your immunity to the Tichborne influence?”
“Richard, that doesn't make sense,” Swinburne objected. “In the main, it's the working classes who've come out in support of the Claimant, which suggests they're most affected by whatever this emanation is. If a disordered mind is immune, then the working classes have ordered minds and most of London's gentry, including yourself, don't!”
“No, Algy, that's not it at all. Let me pose a question: what would you be if you weren't a poet?”
