The Idiot

VIII

It was Sun­day morn­ing, and Mr. White­chok­er, as was his wont on the first day of the week, ap­peared at the break­fast ta­ble se­vere as to his mien.

“Work­ing on Sun­day weighs on his mind,” the Id­iot said to the Bib­lio­ma­ni­ac, “but I don't see why it should. The lux­ury of rest that he al­lows him­self the oth­er six days of the week is sure­ly an atone­ment for the hours of la­bor he puts in on Sun­day.”

But it was not this that on Sun­day morn­ings weighed on the mind of the Rev­erend Mr. White­chok­er. He ap­peared more se­ri­ous of vis­age then be­cause he had be­gun to think of late that his fel­low-​board­ers lived too much in the present, and ig­nored al­most to­tal­ly that which might be ex­pect­ed to come. He had been re­volv­ing in his mind for sev­er­al weeks the ques­tion as to whether it was or was not his Chris­tian du­ty to at­tempt to in­flu­ence the lives of these men with whom the chances of life had brought him in con­tact. He had fi­nal­ly set­tled it to his own sat­is­fac­tion that it was his du­ty so to do, and he had re­solved, as far as lay in his pow­er, to di­rect the con­ver­sa­tion at Sun­day morn­ing's break­fast in­to spir­itu­al rather than in­to tem­po­ral mat­ters.

So, as Mrs. Ped­agog was pour­ing the cof­fee, Mr. White­chok­er be­gan:

“Do you gen­tle­men ev­er pause in your ev­ery-​day labors and thought to let your minds rest up­on the fu­ture--the pos­si­bil­ities it has in store for us, the con­se­quences which--”

“No mush, thank you,” said the Id­iot. Then turn­ing to Mr. White­chok­er, he added: “I can't an­swer for the oth­er gen­tle­men at this board, but I can as­sure you, Mr. White­chok­er, that I of­ten do so. It was on­ly last night, sir, that my ge­nial friend who im­bibes and I were dis­cussing the fu­ture and its pos­si­bil­ities, and I ven­ture to as­sert that there is no more prof­itable food for re­flec­tion any­where in the larders of the mind than that.”

“Larders of the mind is ex­cel­lent,” said the School-​Mas­ter, with a touch of sar­casm in his voice. “Per­haps you would not mind open­ing the door to your men­tal pantry, and let­ting us peep with­in at the stores you keep there. I am sure that on the sub­ject in hand your views can­not fail to be orig­inal as well as ed­ify­ing.”

“I am al­so sure,” said Mr. White­chok­er, some­what sur­prised to hear the Id­iot speak as he did, hav­ing some­times ven­tured to doubt if that flip­pant-​mind­ed young man ev­er re­flect­ed on the se­ri­ous side of life--“I am al­so sure that it is most grat­ify­ing to hear that you have done some think­ing on the sub­ject.”

“I am glad you are grat­ified, Mr. White­chok­er,” replied the Id­iot, “but I am far from tak­ing un­due cred­it to my­self be­cause I re­flect up­on the fu­ture and its pos­si­bil­ities. I do not see how any man can fail to be in­ter­est­ed in the sub­ject, par­tic­ular­ly when he con­sid­ers the great strides sci­ence has made in the last twen­ty years.”

“I fail to see,” said the School-​Mas­ter, “what the strides of sci­ence have to do with it.”

“You fail to see so of­ten, Mr. Ped­agog,” re­turned the Id­iot, “that I would ad­vise your eyes to make an as­sign­ment in fa­vor of your pupils.”

“I must con­fess,” put in Mr. White­chok­er, bland­ly, “that I too am some­what--er--some­what--”

“Some­what up a tree as to sci­ence's con­nec­tion with the fu­ture?” queried the Id­iot.

“You have my mean­ing, but hard­ly the phrase­ol­ogy I should have cho­sen,” replied the min­is­ter.

“My style is rather epi­gram­mat­ic,” said the Id­iot, suave­ly. “I ap­pre­ci­ate the flat­tery im­plied by your notic­ing it. But sci­ence has ev­ery­thing to do with it. It is sci­ence that is go­ing to make the fu­ture great. It is sci­ence that has an­ni­hi­lat­ed dis­tance, and the an­ni­hi­la­tion has just be­gun. Twen­ty years ago it was hard­ly pos­si­ble for a man stand­ing on one side of the street to make him­self heard on the oth­er, the acous­tic prop­er­ties of the at­mo­sphere not be­ing what they should be. To-​day you can stand in the pul­pit of your church, and by means of cer­tain sci­en­tif­ic ap­pa­ra­tus make your­self heard in Boston, New Or­leans, or San Fran­cis­co. Has this no bear­ing on the fu­ture? The time will come, Mr. White­chok­er, when your mis­sion­ar­ies will be able to sit in their com­fort­able rec­to­ries, and ring up the hea­then in for­eign climes, and con­vert them over the tele­phone, with­out run­ning the slight­est dan­ger of falling in­to the soup, which ex­pres­sion I use in its lit­er­al rather than in its metaphor­ical sense.”

[Il­lus­tra­tion: “YOU CAN MAKE YOUR­SELF HEARD IN SAN FRAN­CIS­CO”]

“But--” in­ter­rupt­ed Mr. White­chok­er.

“Now wait, please,” said the Id­iot. “If sci­ence can an­ni­hi­late de­grees of dis­tance, who shall say that be­fore many days sci­ence may not an­ni­hi­late de­grees of time? If San Fran­cis­co, thou­sands of miles dis­tant, can be brought with­in range of the ear, why can­not 1990 be brought be­fore the mind's eye? And if 1990 can be brought be­fore the mind's eye, what is to pre­vent the in­ven­tion of a propheto­graph which shall en­able us to cast a horo­scope which shall reach all around eter­ni­ty and half-​way back, if not fur­ther?”

[Il­lus­tra­tion: THE PROPHETO­GRAPH]

“You do not un­der­stand me,” said Mr. White­chok­er. “When I speak of the fu­ture, I do not mean the tem­po­ral fu­ture.”

“I know ex­act­ly what you mean,” said the Id­iot. “I've dealt in fu­tures, and I am fa­mil­iar with all kinds. It is you, sir, that do not un­der­stand me. My claim is per­fect­ly plau­si­ble, and in its re­sults is bound to make the world bet­ter. Do you sup­pose that any man who, by the aid of my propheto­graph, sees that on a cer­tain date in the fu­ture he will be hanged for mur­der is go­ing to fail to pro­vide him­self with an al­ibi in re­gard to that par­tic­ular mur­der, and must we not ad­mit that hav­ing pro­vid­ed him­self with that al­ibi he will of ne­ces­si­ty avoid blood­shed, and so avoid the gal­lows? That's rea­son­able. So in re­gard to all the thou­sand and one oth­er pec­ca­dil­loes that go to make this life a sin­ful one. Sci­ence, by a pure­ly log­ical ad­vance along the lines al­ready mapped out for it­self, and in part al­ready tra­versed, will en­able men to avoid the pit­falls and reap on­ly the wind­falls of life; we shall all see what ter­ri­ble con­se­quences await on a sin­gle mis­step, and we shall not make the mis­step. Can you still claim that sci­ence and the fu­ture have noth­ing to do with each oth­er?”

“You are talk­ing of mat­ters pure­ly tem­po­ral,” said Mr. White­chok­er. “I have ref­er­ence to our spir­itu­al fu­ture.”

“And the two,” ob­served the Id­iot, “are so close­ly al­lied that we can­not sep­arate them. The proverb about look­ing af­ter the pen­nies and let­ting the pounds take care of them­selves ap­plies here. I be­lieve that if I take care of my tem­po­ral fu­ture--which, by-​the-​way, does not ex­ist--my spir­itu­al fu­ture will take care of it­self; and if sci­ence places the here­after be­fore us--and you ad­mit that even now it is be­fore us--all we have to do is to take ad­van­tage of our op­por­tu­ni­ties, and mend our lives ac­cord­ing­ly.”

“But if sci­ence shows you what is to come,” said the School-​Mas­ter, “it must show your fate with per­fect ac­cu­ra­cy, or it ceas­es to be sci­ence, in which event your en­ter­tain­ing no­tions as to re­form and so on are en­tire­ly fal­la­cious.”

“Not at all,” said the Id­iot. “We are ap­proach­ing the time when sci­ence, which is much more lib­er­al than any oth­er branch of knowl­edge, will sac­ri­fice even truth it­self for the good of mankind.”

“You ought to start a para­dox com­pa­ny,” sug­gest­ed the Doc­tor.

“Ei­ther that or make him­self the nu­cle­us of an in­sane asy­lum,” ob­served the School-​Mas­ter, vi­cious­ly. “I nev­er knew a man with such ma­ni­acal views as those we have heard this morn­ing.”

“There is a great deal, Mr. Ped­agog, that you have nev­er known,” re­turned the Id­iot. “Stick by me, and you'll die with a mind rich­ly stored.”

Where­at the School-​Mas­ter left the ta­ble with such man­ifest im­pa­tience that Mr. White­chok­er was sor­ry he had start­ed the con­ver­sa­tion.

The ge­nial gen­tle­man who oc­ca­sion­al­ly im­bibed and the Id­iot with­drew to the lat­ter's room, where the for­mer ob­served:

“What are you driv­ing at, any­how? Where did you get those crazy ideas?”

“I ate a Welsh-​rarebit last night, and dreamed 'em,” re­turned the Id­iot.

“I thought as much,” said his com­pan­ion. “What deuced fine things dreams are, any­how!”