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The Last Evolution By: John Wood Campbell (1910-1971) |
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The Last Evolution By JOHN W. CAMPBELL, Jr.
I am the last of my type existing today in all the Solar System. I, too,
am the last existing who, in memory, sees the struggle for this System,
and in memory I am still close to the Center of Rulers, for mine was the
ruling type then. But I will pass soon, and with me will pass the last
of my kind, a poor inefficient type, but yet the creators of those who
are now, and will be, long after I pass forever. So I am setting down my record on the mentatype. It was 2538 years After the Year of the Son of Man. For six centuries
mankind had been developing machines. The Ear apparatus was discovered
as early as seven hundred years before. The Eye came later, the Brain
came much later. But by 2500, the machines had been developed to think,
and act and work with perfect independence. Man lived on the products of
the machine, and the machines lived to themselves very happily, and
contentedly. Machines are designed to help and cooperate. It was easy to
do the simple duties they needed to do that men might live well. And men
had created them. Most of mankind were quite useless, for they lived in
a world where no productive work was necessary. But games, athletic
contests, adventure these were the things they sought for their
pleasure. Some of the poorer types of man gave themselves up wholly to
pleasure and idleness and to emotions. But man was a sturdy race, which
had fought for existence through a million years, and the training of a
million years does not slough quickly from any form of life, so their
energies were bent to mock battles now, since real ones no longer
existed. Up to the year 2100, the numbers of mankind had increased rapidly and
continuously, but from that time on, there was a steady decrease. By
2500, their number was a scant two millions, out of a population that
once totaled many hundreds of millions, and was close to ten billions in
2100. Some few of these remaining two millions devoted themselves to the
adventure of discovery and exploration of places unseen, of other worlds
and other planets. But fewer still devoted themselves to the highest
adventure, the unseen places of the mind. Machines with their
irrefutable logic, their cold preciseness of figures, their tireless,
utterly exact observation, their absolute knowledge of mathematics they
could elaborate any idea, however simple its beginning, and reach the
conclusion. From any three facts they even then could have built in mind
all the Universe. Machines had imagination of the ideal sort. They had
the ability to construct a necessary future result from a present fact.
But Man had imagination of a different kind, theirs was the illogical,
brilliant imagination that sees the future result vaguely, without
knowing the why, nor the how, and imagination that outstrips the machine
in its preciseness. Man might reach the conclusion more swiftly, but the
machine always reached the conclusion eventually, and it was always the
correct conclusion. By leaps and bounds man advanced. By steady,
irresistible steps the machine marched forward. Together, man and the machine were striding through science
irresistibly. Then came the Outsiders. Whence they came, neither machine nor man ever
learned, save only that they came from beyond the outermost planet, from
some other sun. Sirius Alpha Centauri perhaps! First a thin scoutline
of a hundred great ships, mighty torpedoes of the void a thousand
kilads[1] in length, they came. And one machine returning from Mars to Earth was instrumental in its
first discovery. The transport machine's brain ceased to radiate its
sensations, and the control in old Chicago knew immediately that some
unperceived body had destroyed it. An investigation machine was
instantly dispatched from Deimos, and it maintained an acceleration of
one thousand units.[2] They sighted ten huge ships, one of which was
already grappling the smaller transport machine... Continue reading book >>
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Literature |
Science |
Short stories |
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