(Early 1900s)
“Passage from a Lecture” asks, “Will this wonderful civilization of today perish?” and answers that it will. This essay is thematically related to “Eddypus” and also to the two other “passages” in this volume—those represented to be from two suppressed works. “Glances at History” looks at the Great Republic at a time of moral and political crisis; “Outlines of History” explains that “it was impossible to save the Great Republic” and records the establishing of a totalitarian regime; “Eddypus” more elaborately chronicles the flowering of the great civilization and the rise of the Great Republic and the subsequent decline into a religious despotism in a new Dark Age. “Passage from a Lecture,” asserting the Law of Periodical Repetition, forecasts the recurrent popularity of the Science of Health (first called “Christian Science” in the manuscript); “Eddypus” is purportedly the history of one of its periods of ascendancy. “Passage from a Lecture” also bears some relation to Mark Twain's sequence of biblical writings, with which it was published by Bernard DeVoto in Letters from the Earth as part of the “Papers of the Adam Family.”1 One of these pieces, “From the Diary of a Lady of the Blood, Third Grade,” ends with the Mad Philosopher “just beginning to speak about his ‘Law of Periodical Repetition’—or . . . about his ‘Law of the Permanency of the Intellectual Average’ ”;2 in “Passage from a Lecture” the Professor of the Science of Historical Fore- [begin page 398] cast discusses these laws. The latter manuscript seems to have been written as a continuation of the “Lady of the Blood” fragment; however, Mark Twain later designated “Passage from a Lecture” as either a separate manuscript or as a section of some other projected sequence: he repaginated it 1Cc–8Cc. In a somewhat similar fashion he numbered “Glances at History” 1x–5x and “Outlines of History” 1xx–4xx. Conjecturally, he was finding it difficult to integrate his fantasies of current and future history with those of biblical history and was separating the divergent materials. For a time he probably thought of carrying his Adam and Eve sequence on into the future, showing the rise of Christian Science and the decline of civilization, and he may have intended to erect a module of history that would eventually comprise part of an endlessly repeated cycle. At least, it may be seen in Group C-1 of the working notes for “Eddypus” that he was trying to bring biblical history into a cycle that would include Christian Science: “Religion become perfunctory—xn Science & Health—hence a flood. xn S. will come again & in 300 yrs will be supreme—then another flood. . . . Adam died 930. Discov. of America, yr 314. Eve dies 972. Decay of civilization begins then: spread of Xn Sci. Religious wars produced. By 1200 civ. is dead, & Xn S with it. Savagery till ressurec of Xn S—flood results.” In the same group of notes he also wrote the name of the despot who assumes “mastership” in “Outlines of History,” Popoatahualpacatapetl. Probably the brief “passage” pieces, including “Passage from a Lecture,” represent some intermediate stage of composition between Mark Twain's work on the Adam and Eve sequence and his work on the “Eddypus” sequence.
The monthlyⒶalteration in the MS meeting of the ImperialⒶalteration in the MS Institute took place on the 18th. With but two exceptions the seats of the Forty Immortals were occupied. The lecturer of the evening was the distinguished Professor of the Science of Historical Forecast. A part of his subject concerned two of the Laws of Angina PectorisⒶtextual note, commonly called the Mad Philosopher; namely, the “Law of Intellectual Averages” and the “Law of Periodical Repetition.” After a consideration, at some length, of cognate matters, he said:
I regard these Laws as established. By the terms of theⒶalteration in the MS Law of Periodical RepetitionⒶalteration in the MS nothing whatever can happen a single time only;Ⓐalteration in the MS everything happens again, and yet again, and still again—monotonously. Nature has no originality—I mean, no large ability in the matter of inventing new things, new ideas, new stage-effects. She has a superbⒶalteration in the MS and amazing and infinitely varied equipment of old ones, but she never adds to them. She repeats—repeats—repeats—repeats. Examine your memory and your experience, you will find it is true. When she puts together a man, and is satisfied with him, she is loyal to him, she stands by him through thick and thin forevermore, she repeats him by billions and billions of examples; and physically and mentally the average remains exactly the same, it doesn't vary a hair between the first batch, the middle batch and the last batch. If you ask—Ⓐalteration in the MS
[begin page 400]“But really—do you think all men are alike?” I reply—
“I said the average Ⓐalteration in the MS does not vary.”
“But you will have to admit that some individuals do far overtop the average—intellectually, at least.”
Yes,Ⓐalteration in the MS I answer,Ⓐalteration in the MS and Nature repeats those. There is nothing that she doesn't repeat. If I mayⒶalteration in the MS use a figure, she has established the general intellectual level of the race at say, six feetⒶalteration in the MS. Take any billion men and stand them in a mass, and their head-tops will make a floor—a floor as level as a table. That floor represents the intellectual altitude of the masses—and it never changes.Ⓐalteration in the MS Here and there, miles apart, a head will project above itⒶalteration in the MS a matter of one intellectual inch,Ⓐalteration in the MS so to speak—men of mark in science, law, war, commerce, etc.Ⓐemendation; in a spreadⒶalteration in the MS of five thousandⒶalteration in the MS miles you will find threeⒶalteration in the MS heads that project stillⒶalteration in the MS an inch higher,—men of national fame—Ⓐalteration in the MSand one that is higher than those by two inches, maybe three—a man of (temporarily)Ⓐalteration in the MS world-wide renown; and finally,Ⓐalteration in the MS somewhere around the circumference of the globe, you will find, once in five centuries of waiting, one majestic head which overtops the highest of all the others—an author, a teacher, an artist, a martyr, a conqueror, whose fameⒶalteration in the MS towers to the stars, and whose nameⒶalteration in the MS will never perish, never fade, while time shall last; some colossusⒶalteration in the MS supreme above all the human herd, some unmated and unmateable prodigy like him who,Ⓐalteration in the MS by magic of the forces born in him, turned his shoe-hammerⒶalteration in the MS into the sceptre of universal dominion.Ⓐalteration in the MS Now in that view you have the ordinary man of all nations; you have the here-and-there man that is larger-brained and becomes distinguished;Ⓐalteration in the MS you have the still rarer man of still wider and more lasting distinction;Ⓐalteration in the MS and in that finalⒶalteration in the MS head rising solitary out of the stretch of the ages, you have the limit of Nature's output.
Will she change this program? Not while time lasts. Will she repeat it forever? Yes. Forever and ever she will do those grades over and over again, always in the same proportions, and alwaysⒶalteration in the MS with the regularity of a machine. In eachⒶalteration in the MS million of people, just so many inch-superiorities; in each billion, just so many 2 inch superiorities—and so on; and always that recurrent solitary star once in an age, never oftener, never two of them at a time.
Nature, when pleased with an idea, never tires of applying it. She [begin page 401] makes plains; she makes hills; she makes mountains; raises a conspicuous peak at wide intervals; thenⒶalteration in the MS loftier and rarer ones, continents apart; and finally a supreme one six miles high. She uses this grading process in horses: she turns out myriads of them that are all of one common dull gait; with here and there a faster one; at enormous intervals a conspicuously faster one; and once in a half century a celebrity that does a mile in two minutes. She will repeat that horse every fifty years to the end of time.
By the Law of Periodical Repetition, everything which has happened once must happen again and again and again—and not capriciously, but at regular periods, and each thingⒶalteration in the MS in its own period, not another's, and each obeying its own law.Ⓐalteration in the MS The eclipse of the sun, the occultation of Venus, the arrival and departure of the comets, the annual shower of stars—all these things hint to us that the same Nature which delights in periodical repetition in the skies is the Nature which orders the affairs of the earth. Let us not underrate the value of that hint.
Are there any ingenuities whereby you can discredit the law of suicide? No. It is established. If there was such and such a number in such and such a town last year, that number, substantially, will be repeated this year. That number will keep step, arbitrarily, with the increase of population, year after year. Given the population a century hence, you can determine the crop of suicides that will be harvested in that distant year.
Will this wonderful civilization of to-day perish? Yes, everything perishes. Will it rise and exist again? It will—for nothing can happen that will not happen again. And again, and still again, forever. It took moreⒶalteration in the MS than eight centuries to prepare this civilization—then it suddenly began to grow, and in less than a century it is become a bewildering marvel. In time, it will pass away and be forgotten. Ages will elapse, then it will come again; and not incomplete, but complete; not an invention nor discovery nor any smallest detail of it missing. Again it will pass away, and after ages will rise and dazzle the world again as it dazzles it now—perfect in all its parts once more. It is the Law of Periodical Repetition.
It is evenⒶtextual note possible that the mere names of things will be reproduced. Did not the Science of Health rise, in the old time,Ⓐemendation and didⒶalteration in the MS it not passⒶalteration in the MS [begin page 402] into oblivion, and has it not latterly come again and brought with it its forgotten name? Will it perish once more? Many times, I think, as the ages drift on; and still come again and again.Ⓐalteration in the MS And the forgotten book, Science and Health, With Key to the Scriptures—is it not with us once more, revised, corrected, and its orgies of style and construction tamed by an educated disciple? Will it not yetⒶalteration in the MS die, once, twice, a dozen times, and still at vast intervals rise again and successfully challenge the mind of man to understand it? We may not doubt it. By the Law of Periodical RepetitionⒶemendation it must happen.
Repetition] followed by canceled passage ‘what the desolate world will look like when we see it again; and tell me, oh, tell me that there will be no more floods.”
“Ah, madam, I would I could, but I cannot. By the Law of Periodical Repetitions—”
“Oh, go on—why do you stop?”
“I thought you were in pain.”
“Never mind it; it was nothing; it has passed. I brought it upon myself.”
“The pain?”
“The cause of it. Pray go on.”
“Well, then, as I was about to say, by that Law,’.
The manuscript is copy-text; the author's unrevised typescript is also in the Mark Twain Papers. The second through fourth pages of manuscript were originally numbered 94–96. They were apparently written as part of another work which cannot now be identified. When Mark Twain added the present first page and the concluding four pages to the manuscript, he numbered them 1 Cc and 5Cc through 8Cc, respectively, and renumbered the original pages to conform to the new system. This numbering system, carried on into the typescript as well, indicates that he probably once intended to integrate the piece into his sequence of Adam and Eve writings. Mark Twain wrote “Eve” in block capitals on the verso of the last manuscript page. See the headnote to the work for a full discussion of its relationship to the biblical sequence.