"Awful?They don't find it so.On the contrary,they like it.It's light,it's childishly simple.No strain on the mind or the muscles.Seven and a half hours of mild,unexhausting labour,and then the soma ration and games and unrestricted copulation and the feelies.What more can they ask for?True,"he added,"they might ask for shorter hours.And of course we could give them shorter hours.Technically,it would be perfectly simple to reduce all lower-caste working hours to three or four a day.But would they be any the happier for that?No,they wouldn't.The experiment was tried,more than a century and a half ago.The whole of Ireland was put on to the four-hour day.What was the result?Unrest and a large increase in the consumption of soma;that was all.Those three and a half hours of extra leisure were so far from being a source of happiness,that people felt constrained to take a holiday from them.The Inventions Office is stuffed with plans for labour-saving processes.Thousands of them."Mustapha Mond made a lavish gesture."And why don't we put them into execution?For the sake of the labourers;it would be sheer cruelty to afflict them with excessive leisure.It's the same with agriculture.We could synthesize every morsel of food,if we wanted to.But we don't.We prefer to keep a third of the population on the land.For their own sakes-because it takes longer to get food out of the land than out of a factory.Besides,we have our stability to think of.We don't want to change.Every change is a menace to stability.That's another reason why we're so chary of applying new inventions.Every discovery in pure science is potentially subversive;even science must sometimes be treated as a possible enemy.Yes,even science."
Science?The Savage frowned.He knew the word.But what it exactly signified he could not say.Shakespeare and the old men of the pueblo had never mentioned science,and from Linda he had only gathered the vaguest hints:science was something you made helicopters with,something that caused you to laugh at the Corn Dances,something that prevented you from being wrinkled and losing your teeth.He made a desperate effort to take the Controller's meaning.
"Yes,"Mustapha Mond was saying,"that's another item in the cost of stability.It isn't only art that's incompatible with happiness;it's also science.Science is dangerous;we have to keep it most carefully chained and muzzled."
"What?"said Helmholtz,in astonishment."But we're always saying that science is everything.It's a hypnopaedic platitude."
"Three times a week between thirteen and seventeen,"put in Bernard.
"And all the science propaganda we do at the College……"
"Yes;but what sort of science?"asked Mustapha Mond sarcastically."You've had no scientific training,so you can't judge.I was a pretty good physicist in my time.Too good-good enough to realize that all our science is just a cookery book,with an orthodox theory of cooking that nobody's allowed to question,and a list of recipes that mustn't be added to except by special permission from the head cook.I'm the head cook now.But I was an inquisitive young scullion once.I started doing a bit of cooking on my own.Unorthodox cooking,illicit cooking.A bit of real science,in fact."He was silent.
"What happened?"asked Helmholtz Watson.
The Controller sighed."Very nearly what's going to happen to you young men.I was on the point of being sent to an island."
The words galvanized Bernard into a violent and unseemly activity."Send me to an island?"He jumped up,ran across the room,and stood gesticulating in front of the Controller."You can't send me.I haven't done anything.It was the others.I swear it was the others."He pointed accusingly to Helmholtz and the Savage."Oh,please don't send me to Iceland.I promise I'll do what I ought to do.Give me another chance.Please give me another chance."The tears began to flow."I tell you,it's their fault,"he sobbed."And not to Iceland.Oh,please,your fordship,please……"And in a paroxysm of abjection he threw himself on his knees before the Controller.Mustapha Mond tried to make him get up;but Bernard persisted in his grovelling;the stream of words poured out inexhaustibly.In the end the Controller had to ring for his fourth secretary.
"Bring three men,"he ordered,"and take Mr Marx into a bedroom.Give him a good soma vaporization and then put him to bed and leave him."
The fourth secretary went out and returned with three green-uniformed twin footmen.Still shouting and sobbing,Bernard was carried out.
