Chapter 17 Summary

Alone with the Controller, the Savage says they've paid a high price for happiness—art and science. He asks if there's anything else. The Controller says there's religion, of course. He crosses the room and withdraws some books from his safe. He reads, "You can only be independent of God while you've got youth and prosperity; independence won't take you safely to the end." And, "The religious sentiment will compensate us for all our losses." Now there's always youth and prosperity; there are no losses. Instead of God, they have soma. He tells John to call it the fault of civilization; God isn't compatible with machinery, medicine and universal happiness. You have to choose.

They debate over whether a belief in God is intrinsic, John thinking of the sky and moon and mesa back at the Reservation, and the Controller saying that a...