Quote 22
"Two thousand pharmacologists and bio-chemists were subsidized in A.F. 178."
"He does look glum," said the Assistant Predestinator, pointing at Bernard Marx.
"Six years later it was being produced commercially. The perfect drug."
[…]
"Euphoric, narcotic, pleasantly hallucinant."
"Glum, Marx, glum." The clap on the shoulder made him start, look up. It was that brute Henry Foster. "What you need is a gramme of soma."
"All the advantages of Christianity and alcohol; none of their defects."
"Ford, I should like to kill him!" But all he did was to say, "No, thank you," and fend off the proffered tube of tablets.
"Take a holiday from reality whenever you like, and come back without so much as a headache or a mythology."
"Take it," insisted Henry Foster, "take it."
"Stability was practically assured." (3.218-26)
Look at the structuring here—Huxley interweaves Mustapha's description of soma with Bernard's refusal to take it. The ideology of the system is contrasted with the reality of its effects.
Quote 23
"My dear young friend," said Mustapha Mond, "civilization has absolutely no need of nobility or heroism. These things are symptoms of political inefficiency. In a properly organized society like ours, nobody has any opportunities for being noble or heroic. Conditions have got to be thoroughly unstable before the occasion can arise. Where there are wars, where there are divided allegiances, where there are temptations to be resisted, objects of love to be fought for or defended—there, obviously, nobility and heroism have some sense." (17.47)
It's not only the conditioning that strips man of individual identity, but his life situation in the World State as well. Man is given neither the instrument nor the opportunity for individual thought, not to mention individual action.
Quote 24
"One of the numerous things in heaven and earth that these philosophers didn't dream about was this" (he waved his hand), "us, the modern world. 'You can only be independent of God while you've got youth and prosperity; independence won't take you safely to the end.' Well, we've now got youth and prosperity right up to the end. What follows? Evidently, that we can be independent of God. 'The religious sentiment will compensate us for all our losses.' But there aren't any losses for us to compensate; religious sentiment is superfluous. And why should we go hunting for a substitute for youthful desires, when youthful desires never fail? A substitute for distractions, when we go on enjoying all the old fooleries to the very last? What need have we of repose when our minds and bodies continue to delight in activity? of consolation, when we have soma? of something immovable, when there is the social order?" (17.20)
Mustapha's argument is incredibly relativistic—if God isn't needed by society, then God isn't there. He doesn't really address the terrifying possibility that God is there—and really, really angry.