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builded, being blind. And there was light, and some of the light
wrought mischief. Wherefore the wise men destroyed them with
their magic, and there is no record because it is written in that
which is." A sort of 'Si monumentum quaeris, circumspice' seems
here implied. In any case there were clearly two gaps unbridge
able between the early struggles of the settlers, the period of
great buildings, and the modern period, which proved stable of
'houses'. The 'houses' were only made possible by the perfecting
of Zro, and this helps considerably to fix the date. The next
2500 years were years of peaceable progress; the labour-mills
were run without a hitch, and the next event was the discovery of
black phophorus. It had been the custom to worship the Atla with
lights, and these lights had been candles of yellow phosphorus in
golden sheathes. At that time the Atla was veiled. At one
festival of Spring the veils were burnt up, the lights
extinguished, and the yellow phosphorus was found to have been
turned into the black powder. The magicians examined this, and
brought Zro to its ninth stage. This revolutionized the condition
of things: old age and disease were no more, and death voluntary.
Strangely enough this led directly to the Great Conspiracy.
At the end of this period of 2500 years the system of 'houses'
was well established. There were over 400 such 'houses', each of
perhaps 1000 souls on an average. These were governed by 4
'houses of houses' whose rulers took orders from the High House,
at the head of which was the living Atla. The plain principle of
Atlas was revolution; and like all revolutionary bodies, was
obliged to adopt the strictest form of autocracy. A democracy is
always soddenly conservative. The only hope is to catch it in one
of its moments of crazy enthusiasm, and crush it before it has
time to recover. Caesar and Napoleon both did this as far as they
could; Cromwell and Porfirio Diaz did the same within narrower
limits.
Now a certain sophist--for philosopher one cannot call him--
tried to enunciate a magical law to the effect that the present
standard of life was all that could be desired; that further
progress would be harmful, that Venus was not worth attaining,
and that the sole endeavour of the magicians should be to
preserve things as they were. That such a proposition could be
supposed a 'law' reflects no credit on its author or its
supporters. Yet of these it found many. The ninth stage of Zro
was a leap calculated to unsettle the calmest mind. Its reality
had beggared the optimist's daydream. Poets had thrown down their
stilettos.* High Priests who had spent decades in hopeful
experiment saw their results attained by an entirely different
method. In short, two thirds of the people were infected with
the heresy, and hoped to hear it promulgated as a Law of Magic.
It should here be explained that every Law of Magic had its
turn as the principal law of practical working, and the school
supporting any law, or insisting on it, became prominent with it.
Every dominant law in all history had always been made
insignificant by a new discovery about Zro, or other matter of
practical importance, just as the "Peace with Honour" battle-cry
of Disraeli was drowned by the calculation of the cost of
warships, soldiers and patriotism. Each step in Zro had
consequently implied the rise to power of a new school; and the
sophist was ambitious, and yet the law he wished to establish was
the ruling law of the servile races.
The 'law' was accordingly sent to the High House for approval.
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