The Coming Race

"It had been the sober belief of Descartes that the life of man could be prolonged, not, indeed, on this earth, to eternal duration, but to what he called the age of the patriarchs, and modestly defined to be from 100 to 150 years average length. Well, even this dream of sages was here fulfilled—nay, more than fulfilled; for the vigour of middle life was preserved even after the term of a century was passed. With this longevity was combined a greater blessing than itself—that of continuous health. (Chapter XXVI)"

"Such diseases as befell the race were removed with ease by scientific applications of that agency — life -giving as life destroying—which is inherent in vril. Even this idea is not unknown above ground, though it has generally been confined to enthusiasts or charlatans, and emanates from confused notions about mesmerism, odic force..."

"Passing by such trivial contrivances as wings, which every schoolboy knows has been tried and found wanting, from the mythical or pre-historical period, I proceed to that very delicate question, urged of late as essential to the perfect happiness of our human species by the two most disturbing and potential influences on upper-ground society, — Womankind and Philosophy. I mean, the Rights of Women.(Chapter XXVI)"

"But among this people there can be no doubt about the rights of women, because, as I have before said, the Gy, physically speaking, is bigger and stronger than the An; and her will being also more resolute than his, and will being essential to the direction of the vril force, she can bring to bear upon him, more potently than he on herself, the mystical agency which art can extract from the occult properties of nature. Therefore all that our female philosophers above ground contend for as to rights of women, is conceded as a matter of course in this happy commonwealth. Besides such physical powers, the Gy-ei have (at least in youth) a keen desire for accomplishments and learning which exceeds that of the male; and thus they are the scholars, the professors—the learned portion, in short, of the community.(Chapter XXVI)"

"Most important on the bearings of their life and the peace of their commonwealths, is their universal agreement in the existence of a merciful beneficent Diety, and of a future world to the duration of which a century or two are moments too brief to waste upon thoughts of fame and power and avarice; while with that agreement is combined another—viz., since they can know nothing as to the nature of that Diety beyond the fact of His supreme goodness, nor of that future world beyond the fact of its felicitous existence, so their reason forbids all angry disputes on insoluble questions. Thus they secure for that state in the bowels of the earth what no community ever secured under the light of the stars—all the blessings and consolations of a religion without any of the evils and calamities which are engendered by strife between one religion and another. (Chapter XXVI)"

"I now saw but little of Zee, save at meals, when the family assembled, and she was then reserved and silent. My apprehensions of danger from an affection I had so little encouraged or deserved, therefore, now faded away, but my dejection continued to increase. I pined for escape to the upper world, but I racked my brains in vain for any means to effect it. (Chapter XXVI)"

"One day, as I sat alone and brooding in my chamber, Taee flew in at the open window and alighted on the couch beside me. I was always pleased with the visits of a child, in whose society, if humbled, I was less eclipsed than in that of Ana who had completed their education and matured their understanding. And as I was permitted to wander forth with him for my companion, and as I longed to revisit the spot in which I had descended into the nether world, I hastened to ask him if he were at leisure for a stroll beyond the streets of the city. His countenance seemed to me graver than usual as he replied, “I came hither on purpose to invite you forth.” (Chapter XXVII)"

"We soon found ourselves in the street, and had not got far from the house when we encountered five or six young Gy-ei, who were returning from the fields with baskets full of flowers, and chanting a song in chorus as they walked. A young Gy sings more often than she talks. They stopped on seeing us, accosting Taee with familiar kindness, and me with the courteous gallantry w which distinguishes the Gy-ei in their manner towards our weaker sex. (Chapter XXVII)"

"And here I may observe that, though a virgin Gy is so frank in her courtship to the individual she favours, there is nothing that approaches to that general breadth and loudness of manner which those young ladies of the Anglo-Saxon race, to whom the distinguished epithet of ‘fast’ is accorded, exhibit towards young gentlemen whom they do not profess to love. No; the bearing of the Gy-ei towards males in ordinary is very much that of high-bred men in the gallant societies of the upper world towards ladies whom they respect but do not woo; deferential, complimentary, exquisitely polished—what we should call ‘chivalrous.’ (Chapter XXVII)"

"There has been an infinite confusion of names to express one and the same thing... The chaos of the ancients; the Zoroastrian sacred fire, or the Antusbyrum of the Parsees; the Hermes-fire...the burning torch of Apollo ...the flame on the altar of Pan; the inextinguishable fire in the temple on the Acropolis...the fire-flame of Pluto's helm... the staff of Mercury...the Egyptian Phtha, or Ra; the Grecian Zeus Cataibates (the descending)... the pentecostal fire-tongues; the burning bush of Moses... the "burning lamp" of Abram... the Sidereal light of the Rosicrucians; the Akasa of the Hindu adepts; the Astral light of Eliphas Levi... and finally, electricity, are but various names for many different manifestations, or effects of the same mysterious, all-pervading cause — the Greek Archeus, or Archaios... Sir E. Bulwer-Lytton, in his Coming Race, describes it as the vril, used by the subterranean populations, and allowed his readers to take it for a fiction... Absurd and unscientific as may appear our comparison of a fictitious vril invented by the great novelist, and the primal force of the equally great experimentalist, with the kabalistic astral light, it is nevertheless the true definition of this force."

"These people consider that in the vril they had arrived at the unity in natural energic agencies...under the more cautious term of correlation... I have long held an opinion, almost amounting to a conviction, in common, I believe, with many other lovers of natural knowledge, that the various forms under which the forces of matter are made manifest, have one common origin; or, in other words, are so directly related and naturally dependent, that they are convertible, as it were, into one another, and possess equivalents of power in their action."

"The vril of the "Coming Age" was the common property of races now extinct."

"First published in 1871, "The Coming Race"...Its premise is unflinchingly futuristic: the inevitable displacement of today's humanity by a more highly evolved "race." But the story unfolds in perhaps the last unexplored place on earth -- the "hollow" interior of the planet... The inhabitants of the interior, who call themselves the Vril-ya, have developed a civilization that far surpasses 19th-century Europe and America in its enlightened use of power. Drawing on an inexhaustible energy source called "Vril," which is controlled by sheer willpower, they have created what the narrator, a naïve American who literally stumbles into their realm, sees as a utopia -- a society without crime, war, poverty or gender inequality... No Vril-ya community exceeds 30,000 in population, on the grounds that "no state shall be too large for a government resembling that of a single well ordered family..." Female Vril-ya, "bigger and stronger" than the males, are the aggressors in courtship. Once married, however, they are "amiable, complacent, docile mates" -- so much so that they freely abandon the Vril powered wings that allow the young of the race to enjoy the effortless flight of angels."