Part 8
“It might satisfy my curiosity,” I replied, “but it will not cure your hunger or make you fat. You seem to me to need something more substantial than mere theories.”
“Knowledge is power!” said the ghost. “When you have acquired the knowledge how to eat in good style you may apply it as soon as you get the chance.”
“Look here, my friend,” I answered, “it seems to me that you need very much a chance to get something to eat, even if it were not served up in the style proposed by you. Would it not be better to let this bill of fare alone, and seek for some food?”
“I have no time to attend to that,” replied the ghost. “I must first settle the theory; the practice may wait.”
“But by that time,” I said, “you may be starved to death.”
This remark seemed to annoy the ghost, for it was true, and ghosts never like to hear any truth that goes against their own pet theories. Being themselves made up of delusions, a spark of truth is to them a foreign element, and burns them like fire.
“Go away!” he cried angrily. “Do not waste my time. I shall not permit any scoffing at science.”
As I turned away I saw another ghost of still more pitiful aspect, clothed in rags, the very personification of abject poverty. Want and misery were looking out of his hollow cheeks, and his eyes were buried deep in their sockets. He was making a long calculation.
“What are you calculating?” I asked.
“Do not disturb me,” he said. “I am calculating the interest which I would receive if I were to inherit all of Mr Vanderbilt’s money and estates, and how much, with the compound interest added to it, it would amount to in one hundred years, and I want to see whether this would be enough to enable me to live comfortably in my old age. I have now been over this calculation for many years, but I must begin it again, because the value of the stocks has again changed, and there is a difference in the amount of the interest.”
I was surprised to hear that a person of such a beggarly appearance should have such excellent financial prospects, and I said:
“When do you expect to make that inheritance, and could you not get now some money on credit on the strength of your prospective income?”
To this the ghost replied:
“Alas, no! I have no prospect of making any inheritance whatever, and there is no one who would lend me a penny; but it is such a comfort to know how much money I might enjoy if I had it, and what an amount of interest the capital would bring if I were in possession of it.”
“And could you not do some work for the purpose of earning some money?”
“Alas, no! I have no time for that; I must finish this calculation first.”
“But what good will it do to you,” I asked, “to know all that stuff, as long as you are in such a state of poverty?”
The ghost shivered. He looked at me scornfully, and said in an angry tone--
“Knowledge is power! Do not waste my precious time. Begone!”
Thus going from one to another, I found all these spectres employed in occupations which had no practical purpose, and served at best to amuse their imagination or gratify their curiosity. They all spent what little energy was left in them for the purpose of wasting their time, making themselves believe that they were doing something useful. They were all occupied with that which is not, and did not know that which is. They amused themselves, so to say, in worrying about the question what nothing might be if it were something, and in doing so they turned the only something they had, namely, their energy, into nothing. They were all dreams themselves, products of dreams, existing in dreams, leading a dream-life and doing nothing but dreaming; all they did was imaginary and had its origin in their own imagination. One of the ghosts, becoming angry, flew at me and stumbled and fell down. Thereupon it never occurred to him that he could get up again, but he remained floundering upon the floor, uttering pitiful lamentations. Some ghosts were playing cards, and although their continual losing was a source of annoyance to them, they had not the power to stop; others imagined that they had to imitate everything that they saw another ghost doing. This class was very large. One ghost practised target-shooting, but as he was all the time looking in quite another direction than where the target was, he always missed the mark; but wept bitterly and complained of his want of luck. But it is not possible to mention all the follies which I saw the ghosts commit in the palace of Lucifer; they were like insane people, reasoning cleverly but without being in possession of reason. I pitied them, and sick at heart I turned towards the door.
In the meantime, owing to the cries of distress uttered by the princess, great crowds of gnomes had gathered in front of the temple, but none dared to enter. The king and the queen and all the court had arrived. They were all running and floating to and fro and talking and gesticulating, everybody giving some good advice which nobody followed; they did not know what to do. That anyone could enter Lucifer’s temple and come out again alive, or otherwise than blind or insane, seemed to them an impossibility. The king looked very grave and the princess was in despair.
“After all,” I heard the queen say to the princess, while trying to comfort her, “Mulligan is nothing but a hobgoblin.”
“No!” cried Adalga, “I know he is a man!”
While speaking these words the princess elongated her body to its full length, and looking towards the temple, saw me standing upon the threshold, and in spite of the cries of her mother, who tried to stop her, she flew to me and the next instant she was in my arms. The door had not yet been closed, and from the interior a ray of yellowish light, coming from the eyes of the green frog, fell upon the princess. I sought to shield her with my person, but it was already too late, for that ray mingling with the blue in Adalga’s sphere, immediately produced therein a permanent shade of green.
A shout of joy arose from the multitude when they saw me issue from the temple, and never-ending hurrahs resounded; but this was changed to groans of distress when they beheld the change of colour which had taken place in the princess. The king was very much distressed, and while pulling his hair and beating his sides, he cried:
“Unfortunate was the hour when this magician entered my kingdom. Was it not enough that our beloved daughter had the misfortune of falling in love with this wretch and taint her beautiful silver white with a nasty blue? Having given her the blues, he now causes her to expose herself to the rays of the frog. Oh that I had never been born, or seen the hour of such misery! Let the executioner come immediately and execute the sentence of death.”
A storm of indignation arose, and the vivisectors appeared. However, I was not afraid; I knew now the character of the gnomes and knew what to say.
“May it please your majesty,” I said, “as well as our gracious queen and all the venerated assembly, to behold their beloved princess in this beautiful garment of green, whose splendour surpasses everything that has ever been seen before or may be seen afterwards. I call those present to witness that the princess never was so charming as since she has turned green. Green is the colour of hope, and indicates the beginning of wisdom. In the kingdom of man green is the favourite colour. Green is the grass of the earth, the trees and plants, and even the ocean waves turn green when they come kissing the shore. But why should I waste words in praising a colour whose superiority is acknowledged by everyone who is capable of judging its beauty? Has not her gracious majesty, the queen herself, shown the superiority of her taste by choosing the emerald as the jewel of her heart, and adorning her person with green as the true expression of her excellent qualities? Verily, I am giving only expression to the feeling of every intelligent gnome who loves his dynasty and his country, if I request you to join me in the cry--‘Hurrah for green!’”
And “Hurrah for green!” was shouted by all, over and over again. Owing to my eloquent speech green at once became the fashionable colour, and everyone wanted to become green. They lauded and praised me as the benefactor of gnomekind, and the ladies thronged around me, congratulating me, and begging of me to give them a shade of green. When order was somewhat restored I made a few more remarks, calling everyone a traitor who would not join me in my predilection for green. I said that the princess and I loved each other, and that I would have married her in spite of her being blue; but now, as she had turned green and resembled her mother, she had become a thousand times dearer to my heart.
Here, however, I am bound to confess for the sake of truth that my statements were not strictly correct, for the queen’s colour was of the pure and beautiful hue of the emerald, while the colour of the princess was an impure or dirty green, not at all comparable with the former. However, we all knew that on certain occasions a few little rhetorical liberties must be permitted.
The king was very much pleased; he believed every word I said. He called me his benefactor and saviour of his country. He conferred on me on the spot the office of Grand Chancellor of the Kingdom and Superintendent of Public Schools. He decorated me with the insignia of the Order of the Bull-frog, and consented that the ceremony confirming my engagement to the princess should take place immediately, to be followed by the marriage as soon as the three dwarfs would return with their discovery of the sun.
When the king had finished giving this decision, he embraced me and the princess, and this was also done by the queen and her maids, by the ministers and high dignitaries that were present, and by their wives and daughters, mothers and mothers-in-law; but the rest of the gnomes danced and shouted and stood upon their heads, swinging their legs as a token of joy. The princess was radiant with smiles, and we all were very happy. Cravatu even said that this was the happiest day that had ever been seen in the kingdom.
We returned to the palace, where preparations were made immediately for a great festival. The best mushrooms that could be found were collected and prepared by the best cooks. Some were boiled, others stewed, and some dished up raw. The queen herself assisted in the kitchen work. The court musicians arrived, the palace was decorated in great style, and deputations came, not only from all parts of Bimbam’s country, but also from neighbouring states. I received a fine suite of apartments adjoining those of the king and the princess, together with a lot of attending servants to keep my rooms continually illumined, for which purpose the most radiant gnomes were selected.
But I will not impose upon the patience of the reader by describing the festivities which took place when the still beautiful princess Adalga became Mr Mulligan’s bride. I will only say that during the most solemn moment of the ceremony, when the mutual promises were exchanged, it seemed to me that I distinctly heard the triumphant croaking of a frog; but no one else noticed it, and it may have been only an effect of my own imagination.
VII.
DIGGING FOR LIGHT.
I was now tolerably well satisfied. From the abject state of a nobody, existing only as a “subject” for scientific observation, looked upon as a hobgoblin, and doomed to vivisection prisoner of a jumping-jack, I had suddenly become somebody of importance, owing to my cleverness and to the credulity of the king. I saw myself now raised to the highest dignity in the kingdom of the gnomes, and engaged to a most amiable and charming--even if a little green--princess, and there was momentarily nothing to be desired except the discovery of the sun and the completion of my marriage.
This discovery of the sun caused me a certain uneasiness; but I hoped that the king would not continue to insist upon that condition. A considerable time had elapsed, and nothing was heard of the dwarfs or their expedition. It seemed to me not at all improbable that they had fallen into the hands of Professor Cracker, and were now bottled up in alcohol, adorning the shelves of some museum. At all events, I had not the faintest hope that even if they were to return, they would have discovered anything worth speaking of, or be able to describe it, and I therefore thought of means for persuading the king to alter the stipulation in regard to my marriage, and to permit it to take place before the discovery of the sun. This I did not think very difficult, for the king was very changeable and did not seem to know his own mind. Although, whenever he got some idea into his head, he was very stubborn and self-willed, nevertheless he was easily led by the nose by those who knew how to flatter him. His capriciousness was shown by the rashness with which he ordered my execution, and his instability by changing his mind and making me Grand Chancellor of his kingdom.
For this purpose I sought and obtained an interview with the king, and asked his consent that the marriage between myself and the princess should not be delayed. I proved to him by arguments that the sun could not do otherwise but exist, and that it was merely a question of time to discover it; that this event would perhaps not take place as soon as we wished it, but that this would make no difference to the sun. I took especial pains to explain to him that the interests of the state would suffer by my being doomed to live as a bachelor.
But the king had never studied logic, and was inaccessible to my arguments.
“I want the sun!” he cried, growing more than usually red in his face.
To this I replied--
“If your majesty will permit, we all know that life, and light, and heat come from the sun. The sunlight does not penetrate into your kingdom because the rays of the sun are refracted upon the surface of the earth; but the caloric rays of the sun penetrate through these rocks, otherwise there would be no heat and life, and everything would be cold and dead in this place. Now, as you feel the warmth within your residence, you will easily see that there must be a sun.”
“I see nothing,” answered the king. “All that you say may be as you say, but it does not enable me to perceive the sun.”
“And would it not be just as well,” I said, “if your majesty would accept my information that there is a sun? If I tell you so, you will know it, and knowledge is power.”
But the king would not agree. “I perceive,” he said, “that you tell me that there is a sun; but for all that I do not perceive the sun itself, and cannot eat it or have it deposited in my treasury.”
This stubbornness of Bimbam I. irritated me somewhat, and I said--
“All that your majesty says goes to show that the gnomes will have to travel still a long way before they will come up to our standard of science. We, the scientists of the human kingdom, do not need to acquire or possess or even to see anything, much less to eat or absorb it into our own constitution; it is quite sufficient for us to have a theory about it which is believed to be correct. This is what we consider to be real knowledge.”
“What a fools’ paradise this must be,” exclaimed the king. “In our country we enjoy that which we are and possess, and care very little about theories and opinions.”
While we were engaged in this conversation Cravatu entered, and brought the news that the three dwarfs had returned, and that everything had come out exactly as I predicted; for these imbeciles, not having sense enough to find their way back, had been found in the vicinity of the place where they had been left. All that could be made out by their incoherent speech was that they had seen something, but what that was nobody knew, for they were totally unable to describe it.
This fulfilment of my prediction raised me still higher in the estimation of the king, who, seeing that I could foretell future events, looked upon me as a kind of supernatural being, and wanted to be instructed in that art.
“It is very easy,” I answered. “If your majesty will only study logic, and, instead of directly looking at a thing, reject the evidence of your senses and begin to argue from the basis of what you assume to be true. Logic is the method of reasoning from particulars to generals, or the inferring of one general proposition from one or several particular ones; which means that instead of looking at a thing as a whole, and afterwards examining its parts and the relations in which they stand to it, we must look at some separate part and imagine the rest. It is a process of demonstrating to our own satisfaction and to the satisfaction of everyone who believes in our judgment----”
Here I was interrupted by the loud snoring of the king who had gone to sleep in his chair. The sudden stopping of my speech had the effect of awakening him. He yawned, and elongating his body to its full length, he stretched his limbs, and then went on to say--
“This is very interesting, and I want to have this method introduced in all the schools of my kingdom; but for the present the most important thing is the discovery of the sun, and I want you to discover it without further delay.”
I suggested that this might be done after my wedding; but the king sternly replied, “No sun, no marriage! That’s all.”
Being so near to the completion of my happiness, I was exceedingly grieved to see my hopes wrecked by their fulfilment being made to depend upon an impossible condition; but a happy thought struck me, and I said--
“I assure your majesty that the sun is right over our heads, and there is nothing to prevent you from seeing it as soon as you will get out of this mountain, except the atmospheric air, which, unfortunately enough, is impenetrable to your sight, while I can easily enough see through it. Under these circumstances, the only thing that can possibly be done will be to cut a hole through the air, and make a tunnel deep enough until you will reach the outer limits of the atmosphere, when there will be nothing to prevent you from seeing the sun.”
This proposal pleased the king exceedingly, and Cravatu could find no words strong enough to express his admiration of my wisdom. They both knew already enough of logic to understand that they would be able to see the sun if there were nothing to hinder them from seeing him. Accordingly orders were immediately issued that the best labourers, miners, and mechanics should be selected for the purpose of cutting a hole in what they called the “sky,” for the sky for them began there where their own element, the earth, ended.
On the very next day the work was begun. They selected a place on the very top of the Untersberg. The Pigmies drilled the holes, the Vulcani did the blasting, the Cubitali furnished the required materials, and the Sagani superintended the work, giving directions. We had the pleasure of seeing that already during the first twenty-four hours a hole of about ten feet depth and with a diameter of ten feet was made as the beginning of the tunnel for enlightenment.
Thus day by day, or, to speak more correctly, night after night, the work went on; for when it is day in our world no work is done by the gnomes, as with the beginning of sunrise they fall into a state of lethargy, from which they awaken only after the night has set in. Every night the king and the queen with her maids, the princess, myself, and the high dignitaries of the kingdom, went out to see the progress made in the work of the tunnel, and every night the hole grew deeper to a certain extent, according to the quality of the material which had to be cut; but when it began to dawn upon the surface of the earth the gnomes went to sleep and slept so well that nothing could have awakened them from their slumber.
In the meantime I considered it my duty to give great attention to the education of the gnomes, and to the development of their power of drawing inferences from things unknown. For the purpose of enabling them to distinguish the true from the false, I established schools of logic all over the country, in which all sorts of lies were taught, so as to give them a chance for using their own common sense and finding out the truth for themselves by overcoming the falsehood. Soon I was in possession of a corps of capable liars for assisting me in this work; but the education of the princess I took into my own charge.
At first Adalga did not enjoy the lessons, which is only natural, as the birth and beginning of everything is painful and difficult, but after a while she became delighted with my instructions. As my method may prove to be interesting and instructive to my compatriots engaged in pedagogical enterprises, I will illustrate it by an example.
First of all I tried to explain to the princess, by practical experiment, that a good scientist can never know anything whatever; he can only know what a thing is not, but not what it is, and from what he perceives that it is not he draws his inferences as to what it may be.
Thus, for instance, taking a stone and handing it to Adalga, I said--
“Queen of my heart! will you tell me what this is?”
“With pleasure!” she answered. “It is a stone.”
“How do you know it?”
“Because I see it.”
“Sight is deceptive,” I said. “It may be a pumpkin.”
“I do not care what it may be; I know it is a stone.”
“How can you prove it?”
“I do not need to prove it. I know it, and so does everybody who knows a stone.”
“You cannot know it,” I said, “unless you can give any rational reason for your belief.”
“I do not need to give any reasons for it. I am satisfied to know what I know.”
I saw that I could not get the better of her in this way, so I said--
“Will you have the kindness to imagine this stone to be a pumpkin?”
“Well, Mr Mulligan!” she answered, “if this gives you pleasure, I shall imagine it to be a pumpkin.”
“Now take a bite of it, my darling,” I said.
“I can’t, and you ought not to ask me anything so absurd.”
“But why can’t you?”
“Because it is too hard.”
“Exactly!” I exclaimed. “And now as you have discovered that it is too hard for being a pumpkin, you have a scientific right to infer that it is not a pumpkin and may possibly be a stone; _quod erat demonstrandum_.”
This way of making a simple thing very complicated, according to the strict rules of exact science, pleased the princess very much and amused her greatly. It now became necessary to show to her how we may arrive at a knowledge of universals by drawing logical inferences from particulars. For this purpose I told her that we must never trust to our reason, but only put faith into our method of reasoning. Pointing to the stocking which the princess was just knitting, I asked her what it was.
“A stocking,” she said. “I thought you knew that much already.”
“Who is going to wear it?”
“I.”
“And what are you?”
“A princess of this kingdom.”
“Do all the princesses of this kingdom wear stockings?”
“All those whom I know.”
“Very well!” I replied. “The consequence is that all the people who wear stockings are princesses of the kingdom of the gnomes.”
This seemed strange to Adalga, but she could not prove that it was not so, and I proceeded to explain to her that the power to draw logical inferences was the highest power which a scientist could possess, and that by means of logic almost anything could be proved, be it true or false. Thus I proved to her by way of an illustration, first, that white was black; secondly, that black was white; and thirdly, that there was no colour at all.