The Book of Merlyn by T. H. White

Author:T. H. White
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: University of Texas Press
Published: 2011-11-11T16:00:00+00:00

“You must therefore withdraw your criticism of Karl Marx.”

“Withdraw my criticism?” exclaimed the philosopher.

“Yes; for Marx did solve the king’s puzzle of war, by his Union of S.S.R.”

Merlyn became blue in the face, bit off a large piece of his beard, pulled out tufts of his hair and threw them in the air, prayed fervently for guidance, sat down beside the badger, and, taking him by the hand, looked beseechingly into his spectacles.

“But do you not see,” he asked pathetically, “that a union of anything will solve the problem of war? You cannot have war in a union, because there must be a division before you can begin one. There would be no war if the world consisted of a union of mutton chops. But this does not mean that we must all rush off and become a series of mutton chops.”

“In fact,” said the badger, after pondering for some time, “you are not defining the ants as fascists or communists because they fight wars, but because …”

“I am lumping all three sects together on their basic assumption, which is, ultimately, to deny the rights of the individual.”

“I see.”

“Theirs is the totalitarian theory: that men or ants exist for the sake of the state or world, not vice versa.”

“And why did you say that Marx was bad at natural history?”

“The character of my old friend Karl,” said the magician severely, “is outside the province of this committee. Kindly remember that we are not sitting on communism, but on the problem of organised murder. It is only in so far as communism is contingent with war, that we are concerned with him at all. With this proviso I reply to your question as follows: that Marx was a bad naturalist because he committed the gross blunder of over-looking the human skull in the first place, because he never considered the geese, and because he subscribed to the Égalité Fallacy, which is abhorrent to nature. Human beings are no more equal in their merits and abilities, than they are equal in face and stature. You might just as well insist that all the people in the world should wear the same size of boot. This ridiculous idea of equality was adopted by the ants more than 30,000,000 years ago, and, by believing it all that time, they have managed to make it true. Now look what a mess they are in.”

“Liberty, Equality and Fraternity …” began the badger.

“Liberty, Brutality and Obscenity,” rejoined the magician promptly. “You should try living in some of the revolutions which use that slogan. First they proclaim it: then they announce that the aristos must be liquidated, on high moral grounds, in order to purge the party or to prune the commune or to make the world safe for democracy; and then they rape and murder everybody they can lay their hands on, more in sorrow than in anger, or crucify them, or torture them in ways which I do not care to mention. You should have tried the Spanish Civil War.

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