第18章 THE FOURTH(8)

In Sir Richmond, Dr.Martineau found the most interesting and encouraging confirmation of the fundamental idea of THEPSYCHOLOGY OF A NEW AGE, the immediate need of new criteria of conduct altogether.Here was a man whose life was evidently ruled by standards that were at once very high and very generous.He was overworking himself to the pitch of extreme distress and apparently he was doing this for ends that were essentially unselfish.Manifestly there were many things that an ordinary industrial or political magnate would do that Sir Richmond would not dream of doing, and a number of things that such a man would not feel called upon to do that he would regard as imperative duties.And mixed up with so much fine intention and fine conduct was this disreputable streak of intrigue and this extraordinary claim that such misconduct was necessary to continued vigour of action.

"To energy of thought it is not necessary," said Dr.

Martineau, and considered for a time."Yet--certainly--I am not a man of action.I admit it.I make few decisions.

"The chapters of THE PSYCHOLOGY OF A NEW AGE dealing with women were still undrafted, but they had already greatly exercised the doctor's mind.He found now that the case of Sir Richmond had stirred his imagination.He sat with his hands apposed, his head on one side, and an expression of great intellectual contentment on his face while these emancipated ideas gave a sort of gala performance in his mind.

The good doctor did not dislike women, he had always guarded himself very carefully against misogyny, but he was very strongly disposed to regard them as much less necessary in the existing scheme of things than was generally assumed.

Women, he conceded, had laid the foundations of social life.

Through their contrivances and sacrifices and patience the fierce and lonely patriarchal family-herd of a male and his women and off spring had grown into the clan and tribe; the woven tissue of related families that constitute the human comity had been woven by the subtle, persistent protection of sons and daughters by their mothers against the intolerant, jealous, possessive Old Man.But that was a thing, of the remote past.Little was left of those ancient struggles now but a few infantile dreams and nightmares.The greater human community, human society, was made for good.And being made, it had taken over the ancient tasks of the woman, one by one, until now in its modern forms it cherished more sedulously than she did, it educated, it housed and comforted, it clothed and served and nursed, leaving the wife privileged, honoured, protected, for the sake of tasks she no longer did and of a burthen she no longer bore."Progress has TRIVIALIZED women," said the doctor, and made a note of the word for later consideration.

"And woman has trivialized civilization," the doctor tried.

"She has retained her effect of being central, she still makes the social atmosphere, she raises men's instinctive hopes of help and direction.Except," the doctor stipulated, "for a few highly developed modern types, most men found the sense of achieving her a necessary condition for sustained exertion.And there is no direction in her any more.

"She spends," said the doctor, "she just spends.She spends excitingly and competitively for her own pride and glory, she drives all the energy of men over the weirs of gain....

"What are we to do with the creature?" whispered the doctor.

Apart from the procreative necessity, was woman an unavoidable evil? The doctor's untrammelled thoughts began to climb high, spin, nose dive and loop the loop.Nowadays we took a proper care of the young, we had no need for high birth rates, quite a small proportion of women with a gift in that direction could supply all the offspring that the world wanted.Given the power of determining sex that science was slowly winning today, and why should we have so many women about? A drastic elimination of the creatures would be quite practicable.A fantastic world to a vulgar imagination, no doubt, but to a calmly reasonable mind by no means fantastic.

But this was where the case of Sir Richmond became so interesting.Was it really true that the companionship of women was necessary to these energetic creative types? Was it the fact that the drive of life towards action, as distinguished from contemplation, arose out of sex and needed to be refreshed by the reiteration of that motive? It was a plausible proposition: it marched with all the doctor's ideas of natural selection and of the conditions of a survival that have made us what we are.It was in tune with the Freudian analyses.

"SEX NOT ONLY A RENEWAL OF LIFE IN THE SPECIES," noted the doctor's silver pencil; "SEX MAY BE ALSO A RENEWAL OF ENERGYIN THE INDIVIDUAL."

After some musing he crossed out "sex" and wrote above it "sexual love.""That is practically what he claims, Dr.Martineau said."In which case we want the completest revision of all our standards of sexual obligation.We want a new system of restrictions and imperatives altogether."It was a fixed idea of the doctor's that women were quite incapable of producing ideas in the same way that men do, but he believed that with suitable encouragement they could be induced to respond quite generously to such ideas.Suppose therefore we really educated the imaginations of women;suppose we turned their indubitable capacity for service towards social and political creativeness, not in order to make them the rivals of men in these fields, but their moral and actual helpers."A man of this sort wants a mistress-mother," said the doctor."He wants a sort of woman who cares more for him and his work and honour than she does for child or home or clothes or personal pride."But are there such women? Can there be such a woman?""His work needs to be very fine to deserve her help.But admitting its fineness?...

"The alternative seems to be to teach the sexes to get along without each other.