"Primroses and landscapes, he pointed out, have one grave defect; they are gratuitous."'A New Theory of Biology' was the title of the paper. "The autor's mathematical treatment of the conception of purpose is novel and highly ingenious, but, so far as the present social order is concerned, dangerous and potentially subversive. Not to be published. The author will be kept under supervision. A pity, it was a master piece of work. But once you you began admitting explanations in term of purpose, it is the sort of idea that might easily decondition the more unsettled minds among the higher castes, make them lose their faith in happiness and take to believing, instead, that the goal was somewhere beyond, somewhere outside the present human sphere, the enlargement of knowledge.
The world's stable now. People are happy; they get what they want, and they never want what they can't get. They're well off; they're safe; they're never ill; they're not afraid of death; they're blissfully ignorant of passion and old age; they're plagued with no mother or fathers; they've got no wives, or children or lover to feel strongly about; they're so conditioned that they practically can't help behaving as the ought to behave.
'That's the price we have to pay for stability."
