Page:In ghostly Japan (IA cu31924014202687).pdf/83

 see no Psyché-imago detach itself from the broken cocoon: this lack of visual evidence signifies nothing, because we have only the purblind vision of grubs. Our eyes are but half-evolved. Do not whole scales of colors invisibly exist above and below the limits of our retinal sensibility? Even so the butterfly-man exists,—although, as a matter of course, we cannot see him.

But what would become of this human imago in a state of perfect bliss? From the evolutional point of view the question has interest; and its obvious answer was suggested to me by the history of those silkworms,—which have been domesticated for only a few thousand years. Consider the result of our celestial domestication for—let us say—several millions of years: I mean the final consequence, to the wishers, of being able to gratify every wish at will.

Those silkworms have all that they wish for,—even considerably more. Their wants, though very simple, are fundamentally identical with the necessities of mankind,—food, shelter, warmth, safety, and comfort. Our endless social struggle is mainly for these things. Our dream of heaven is the dream of obtaining them free of cost in pain; and the condition of those silkworms is the