- Chapter 36






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Editor's Introduction To:Shipwright
Donald Kingsbury

 Any group would break up of which there was none to take good care. And in the same way the body of man, like that of any other animal, would fall to pieces were there not within it a directing force seeking the common good of all its members. . . . As between the members, it is, whether it be the heart or the head, a ruling chief. In every mass of men there must in the same way be a principle of direction.
—St. Thomas Aquinas,De Regimine Principium

 

No one supposes, when he sees a forester pruning a copse to help the trees to grow, or a gardener hunting for snails, tending young plants under glass frames, or exposing them to the health-giving heat of a conservatory, that these things are done from a feeling of affection for the vegetable kingdom. And yet care for it he does, much more so than cold reason would suppose. This affection, however, is not the motivating reason for his pains; it is rather their necessary accompaniment. Reason would ban all affection from these labours of his. But the nature of man is such that his affections are stirred by the pains he gives himself.And so it is with Power. Command which is its own end comes in time to care for the common good. . . .
—Bertrand de Jouvenal, On Power

 
It is the necessary and sufficient condition of a social order that there be defenders both powerful enough to preserve it, and dedicated enough that they want to. This is of course a truism, but it is one often forgotten.
Some social orders are constructed more on duty than right. For whatever reason, the Oriental model has long been this way. It is rare that an Oriental society co-opts outsiders into itself, but that has been done as well.
 
Until recently, Donald Kingsbury was a professor of mathematics at McGill University. He is also one of the best creators of strange human societies in the business. Herewith, Dr. Kingsbury's picture of a possible future in which mankind has gone to the stars and beyond.
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