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THE COMING RACE.

THIS is a marvellous production: the picture it gives to the imagination is novel in the extreme, and distinguished by a certain gloomy grandeur, while the speculations in human destiny to which it gives rise are not less profound because they also seem to have taken a sombre hue from the strange world with which they are associated. There is, moreover, a mixture of jest and earnestness, of satire and of serious suggestion, in this strangelyfashioned Utopia, which, if we mistake not, will render it highly popular. Utopias are generally devised to show forth what the writer hopes, or at least desires, may at some future time be realised; at all events, the writer generally approves of his Utopians, even if he depicts them as creatures beyond the imitation of humanity. This is not altogether the case here. Sometimes the object is to show that if certain aspirations were realised, the result would be a grave disappointment. are called upon to admire the moral character of "the coming race". and its wisdom is sometimes brought forward to shame our folly; but at other times the fiction is made use of for the purposes of irony. Nay, even the moral character of our Utopians is shown to be obtained by the sacrifice of very much that men are accustomed to admire and delight in. We are sent back to our mixed world of good and evil, somewhat more ashamed of it, and also somewhat more contented with it. And this interchange of purpose in the writer, though it may be disagreeable and bewildering to some readers, will, upon the whole, add to the attractions of the book.

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For nothing more piques the curiosity than the endeavour to read the riddle which some speculative artist, be he poet or novelist, puts before us. The writer who succeeds in exciting this interest (excited to its highest degree in 'Faust' and Wilhelm Meister') takes possession of us for long. In the very best of novels our suspense and curiosity must come to an end with the end of the story; but this other kind of suspense and perplexity is at its height when we close the volume, and is ready to revive whenever we open it again. There remains to us the sense of a new problem-namely, this man's solution of the old ones which may be worth the knowing.

The coming race is, with all prosaic people, simply our present humanity modified, and gradually growing into some better humanity. And we think it does grow in this direction. "As long as man is what he is, so long shall "—this and that detested thing remain amongst us. So runs the constantly-repeated formula. And the formula cannot be shaken. But what if man does change? Man does not remain the same from age to age, and therefore this and that detested thing may not necessarily be permanent. History displays differences as well as similarities; new modes of thinking and feeling arise and extend themselves, knowledge increases, power over nature increases, and, what is of equal importance, society comes to know itself. In the very act of learning its own history it learns to look backward on the past and forward to the future. Just as the mature

The Coming Race. William Blackwood & Sons, Edinburgh and London.

human being, in whom memory is term for perfection-meaning by developed, moves on henceforth perfection the absence of all evilwith recollection and anticipation, is, we judge, an impossible affair. so society, awake to its own history, And this is just what our author moves on with incessant retrospect aims at showing. In sober prose he and incessant forecasting. Given would tell us, we presume, to labour an increase of power over the forces for this or that improvement, but to of nature, given a diffused intelli- throw away our dreams of perfectigence amongst all classes of men,- bility, if we happen to have them. one result may be confidently pre- He prefers, however, to teach us, dicted-namely, that the wellbeing not in sober prose, but in a very of society will take up its place fanciful and ingenious fiction. more and more prominently in the individual consciousness of every member of the society. The habit of thinking and acting for the good of the whole will become more and more prevalent. There will be a sense of power that good on this large scale can be realised; there will be a demand on all sides for its realisation. And if so, will not man be other than he was? This habit of thinking, of thus identifying one's interest with the general good, is no novelty in the human species-it shall be as old as the hills if you please; but the prevalence of the habit would be a very great novelty, and would work great transformations. This is amongst the serious suggestions of the unknown and very reflective writer whom we have before us. In his Utopians this mode of thinking has become as rooted and as universal as that of self-preservation.

We all have a Utopia of some description-that is, all who are in earnest when they talk of Progress. For he who urges or announces Progress will be met by the question, Progress to what? What is the goal to be reached? To this question he must have some answer. He must at least foreshadow to himself one or several definite ameliorations in the condition of mankind. It is not necessary that he should frame some theory of perfectibility, or a whole new organisation of society. A Utopia, which is another

Probably most of our readers already know the nature of that fiction. It is sufficient to say that an American citizen, impelled by curiosity, and that restless thirst for change and movement which we call love of travel, visits one of the deepest mines of Europe. From the very lowest shaft still further explorations were to be made, and an adventurous engineer had returned, scared and bewildered by some discovery he had fallen upon, and on which he does not trust himself to speak. Our American obtains his confidence, and offers to return with him to the spot where this bewildering vision had been revealed to him. In brief, the two men, peering down through a precipitous opening in the rock, formed by no miner's tools, but apparently by volcanic agency, see a wide street lit by lamps, and hear the hum of a mighty population. Only one of them succeeds in making good his entrance into this subterranean city. We need not say it is the American. His companion the engineer blunders in his descent. With him the rope breaks, or the tackle gives way, he falls and is killed, and now one solitary man from the upper world, without possibility of return (since there is no friendly hand to throw down a second rope), has to face the unknown beings of this subterranean abode. These beings prove to be a lofty and superior race of men, deprived, indeed, of the light of the sun, but

compensating this loss by marvellous discoveries and appliances of what are to us the hidden or more mysterious forces of nature. If we combined all that is known, or dreamt about, of electricity, and magnetism, and mesmerism, we should have some faint conception of the new power these underground philosophers have obtained. They call it by the name of Vril.

Was there no island left-no possibility of an undiscovered island left to us, in the Atlantic or the wide Pacific-that our author was compelled to hide away his Utopians in the dark caverns of the earth? If our ships have cut and traversed the ocean in every direction, so that in no part of it can we imagine a new Tahiti, yet undiscovered, or other fortunate islands the abode of the blessed, could he not have supplied his happy race with some floating island which its marvellous inhabitants had been hitherto able to steer out of the reach of man? Or might not scientific invention have been equal to the calling up, in an emergency, of a friendly mist to shroud the happy abode, and keep it sacred from the foot of degraded and degrading races? Any effort, one thinks, should have been made, rather than deprive the most intelligent and felicitous inhabitants of our planet of their light of the sun, which is, as we understand matters, the very life of our planet. Apparently the author could not satisfy himself with any region above ground as giving the required scope for his inventions. He scoops out an immeasurable hollow in the earth; and even there, where a few adventurous divines have placed the scenes of eternal pain, he nurtures and develops a race, distinguished by moral and intellectual perfections; a race who, if ever they should break from their abode, and take possession of the sunlit surface,

would sweep its present puny inha. bitants into well-merited destruction.

How did such an abode become peopled? Years upon years ago, some deluge, or other catastrophe, drove a portion of the human race into these subterranean parts, and it is to be presumed that this dreary and calamitous abode had been the very means to stimulate invention, and concentrate the reflective powers. The science and art of the mechanician have been carried to an inconceivable perfection; artificial lights do all that possibly can be done to make a substitute for the sun; a vegetation that can flourish without its aid is discovered, and sedulously cultivated; and above all, as we have already hinted, the more mysterious powers of nature, vaguely guessed at by us, have been penetrated, and understood, and taken full possession of. We are not to represent to ourselves these subterranean abodes as caverns so vaulted over that the inhabitants must constantly feel that there is a roof not far above their heads. The vault rises so high, or rather the floor sinks so low, in all but a few places, that the space above is practically another sky; and indeed the inhabitants, having overcome all our mechanical difficulties, and invented very admirable wings, disport themselves frequently in what to them is the upper regions of the air. To us ordinary mortals, neither wings, nor vril itself, nor palaces of the most sublime architecture, could compensate for the loss of the sunlit and cloud-adorned sky, or reconcile to the eternal blackness overhead which must greet these Utopians whenever they look up from their array of lamps. The scenery of the lower world, which is sometimes spoken of in a tone of enthusiasm, must surely be of a very limited character. An illuminated city is a grand spectacle; Rome, Paris, Edinburgh,

have been seen by many of us under the magical illusion of general illuminations, and very charming is the near effect of tree and fountain or overhanging rocks under a sufficiency of artificial light; but we are haunted throughout the book by the difficulty of conceiving any distant prospect but one which would be mainly composed of the arrangement of the lights themselves.

Never, indeed, was so gloomy or so impossible a Utopia devised. And yet, be it said, that the style in which all is described is so clear and so direct, and the imagination is so well kept in hand, that as we read on there comes over us an oppressive sense of the reality of this underground world. Before the book is closed we have become familiar with this city of lamps, radiant with the most brilliant gaslight, or toned down to mellow lustre for the hours of repose

- where time is measured only by clockwork-where one equable temperature universally prevails where all seasons are mingled, the periodicity of each plant giving to each its own winter and summerand where, moreover, the passions of the people are calm, equable, constant, like the temperature of the air they breathe. We smile at the sense of relief and satisfaction we felt when once more our vigorous American regains the upper air, with all its sunshine and its storms, and escapes from the terrible monotony of this wise and blameless people.

And such sense of relief our author intended we should feel. He meant no real Utopia. He carries on, as we have said, two purposes somewhat conflicting. We are to admire and to study the Ana or Vril-ya (both these titles are given to this people), we are in many things to recognise our decided inferiority, and perhaps hope to benefit by their example. On the other hand, we are not to envy them their so-called

VOL. CX.-NO. DCLXIX.

perfection. We confess, at the outset, that we are not always able to decide whether the author is gravely foreshadowing some possibility in the future of human society, or whether he is simply playing with the dreams and fancies of certain of his contemporaries. However that may be, we are now arrived at this subterranean city of the just, and must look about us with what speculation may be accorded to our somewhat strained optics. Our American traveller, advancing on the broad highway on which he finds himself, sees a structure before him recalling the massiveness of Egyptian architecture.

"And now there came out of this building a form-human ;-was it hulooked around, beheld me, and approached. man? It stood on the broad way and It came within a few yards of me, and at the sight and presence of it an indescribable awe and tremor seized me, rooting my feet to the ground. It reminded me of symbolical images of Genius or Demon that are seen on Etruscan vases, or limned on the walls of Eastern sepulchres-images that borrow the outlines of man, and are yet of another race. It was tall, not gigantic, but tall as the tallest man below the height of giants.

"Its chief covering seemed to me to be composed of large wings folded over its breast and reaching to its knees; the rest of its attire was composed of an under tunic and leggings of some thin fibrous material. It wore on its head a kind of tiara that shone with jewels, and carried in its right hand a slender staff of bright metal like polished steel. But the face! it was that which inspired my awe and my terror. It was the face of man, but yet of a type of man distinct from our known extant races. The nearest approach to it in outline and expression is the face of the sculptured sphinx-so regular in its calm, intellectual, mysterious beauty. Its colour was peculiar, more like that of the red man than any other from it-a richer and a softer hue, with variety of our species, and yet different large black eyes, deep and brilliant, and brows arched as a semicircle. The face was beardless; but a nameless something in the aspect, tranquil though the expression, and beauteous though the features, roused that instinct of danger which

I

the sight of a tiger or serpent arouses. felt that this manlike image was endowed with forces inimical to man. As it drew near a cold shudder came over me. I fell on my knees and covered my face with my hands."

We have never seen the celebrated sphinx; judging from drawing and photograph, we should say that it was a poor example of intellectual beauty, or any beauty whatever; but we think we understand the terrible effect which the expression of passionless power would have on our unfortunate traveller. This being who seems man, and something more than man, bears, it will be noticed, a slender staff of some bright metal in his hand. This is the vril-staff. And as through the agency of vril much is accomplished in the lower world, we must not omit the description of its powers. It is at once the most destructive force, and also the most potent to heal. It is all that can be imagined of electricity and mesmerism, and still something beyond.

"It can destroy like the flash of light ning; yet, differently applied, it can replenish or invigorate life, heal and preserve, and on it they chiefly rely for the cure of disease, or rather for enabling the physical organisation to re-establish the due equilibrium of its natural powers, and thereby to cure itself. By this agency they rend way through the most solid substances, and open valleys for culture through the rocks of their subterranean wilderness. From it they extract the light which supplies their lamps, finding it steadier, softer, and healthier than the other inflammable materials they had formerly used."

This ethereal fluid, if such it may be called, may be employed in several ways, but it is chiefly made use of through the instrumentality of the vril-staff, which is a somewhat complicated machine.

"It is hollow, and has in the handle several stops, keys, or springs, by which its force can be altered, modified, or di

rected; so that by one process it destroys, by another it heals-by one it can rend

the rock, by another disperse the vapour by one it affects bodies, by another it can exercise a certain influence over minds. I was assured, however, that its power was not equal in all, but proportioned to the amount of certain vril properties in the wearer, in affinity or rapport with the purposes to be effected. Some were more potent to destroy, others. to heal," &c.

ful

Our traveller has soon an opportunity of experiencing this wonderthat jagged hole, in what we may power. Descending through now literally call the bottom of the mine, he had wounded himself. In the first excitement of the novel scene, and of his own danger in it, he had not felt the pain of his wound; afterwards he faints with anguish. Vril quickly restores him.

Ana.

A still more marvellous effect of the new agent follows. He is utterly ignorant of the language of the He is put into the mesmeric trance, and in this state both teaches them his own language, and learns theirs in return. After two or three of such trances, he finds himself quite able to communicate his ideas in a tongue he had never heard before. We wish there were any chance of some such mode of learning languages being introduced amongst us. trance, as we know them, have this unfortunate peculiarity, that the person affected is quite unconscious when he wakes, of all that passed through his brain while he was entranced. If, therefore, we were able to learn anything in a marvellously expeditious and effortless manner in our mesmerism or somnambulism, we should forget it all when we woke. We remember dreams, and people tell us that they have composed poems in their sleep, which they have afterwards written down. But the ordinary dream-state could not help us here; and those curious conditions which some have lately called by the name of unconscious

Somnambulism or the

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