1984 - Planet eBook

the entire world.All members of the Inner Party believe in this comingconquest as an article of faith. It is to be achieved either bygradually acquiring more and more territory and so buildingup an overwhelming preponderance of power, or bythe discovery of some new and unanswerable weapon. Thesearch for new weapons continues unceasingly, and is oneof the very few remaining activities in which the inventiveor speculative type of mind can find any outlet. In Oceaniaat the present day, Science, in the old sense, has almostceased to exist. In Newspeak there is no word for ‘Science’.The empirical method of thought, on which all the scientificachievements of the past were founded, is opposed tothe most fundamental principles of Ingsoc. And even technologicalprogress only happens when its products can insome way be used for the diminution of human liberty. Inall the useful arts the world is either standing still or goingbackwards. The fields are cultivated with horse-ploughswhile books are written by machinery. But in matters ofvital importance—meaning, in effect, war and police espionage—theempirical approach is still encouraged, or at leasttolerated. The two aims of the Party are to conquer the wholesurface of the earth and to extinguish once and for all thepossibility of independent thought. There are therefore twogreat problems which the Party is concerned to solve. Oneis how to discover, against his will, what another human beingis thinking, and the other is how to kill several hundredmillion people in a few seconds without giving warning beforehand.In so far as scientific research still continues, this