Page:World Without Men (HT osu.32435053364535).pdf/166

"All this is not merely a personal opinion. It is fact. Behind it is the authority of the sociological data bank of the world brain. Human society is cast in the form of a perversion neurosis. But it has achieved equilibrium. The perversion is exactly balanced by a seat of artificial ethics: law, behavior, relationships, moralities designed to channel the perversion into useful and productive streams of human energy. And designed to make the women of the world happy."

"What is all this leading up to, Mistress?" asked Cordelia. The other women seemed to withdraw a little at her temerity. But the Mistress simply made a pleasant face, as if she had been expecting the question and regarded it as an enthusiastic invitation to continue.

"I will come to that presently," said the Mistress in a not-to-be-hurried tone of voice. "First I want to stress the fundamentals of the problem which has confronted us. It is both simple and complex. We have to deal with a stable perversion-neurosis in which the operation conditions are a strict, impersonal totalitarianism of government, coupled, strangely enough, with an almost universal happiness. You see, the unhappy ones, those who have not adapted themselves readily to the parthenogenetic syndrome, are steadily weeded out. Our mortic revenue laws see to that, and what is more, they see to it in a manner apparently unconnected with parthenogenesis. The mortic laws are a subtle form of eugenic breeding, and in the course of time all women will conform to the pattern of the syndrome and must therefore be perfectly happy and contented."

There was a general atmosphere of uneasiness among the audience. Other cytologists had joined the group, and they stood listening restlessly, avoiding the direct gaze of the Mistress's eyes, listening closely, but in a manner which suggested that they should not be listening to all.

The Mistress's voice became more somber in tone. "I am