Title page.

A Cityless
AND
Countryless World

AN OUTLINE OF
Practical Co-Operative Individualism
BY
HENRY OLERICH.

Holstein, Iowa.

Published by GILMORE & OLERICH,
HOLSTEIN, IOWA.

Entered according to act of Congress, in the year 1893, by Henry Olerich, in the office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington.

W. B. CONKEY CO., PRINTERS AND BINDERS, CHICAGO.

PREFACE

One who is not totally blind and insensible to our present conditions and to the passing events, can see at a glance that mankind in nearly all its activities is still harassed by detestable friction. It is true that we have made wonderful achievements in our so-called sciences. Intelligence as a whole has ever broadened and deepened. We have photographed stars too remote to be seen even with the most powerful telescopes. We have weighed the planets and have ascertained their distances. We have ascended into the clouds beyond the reach of the naked eye. We have explored the bottom of the sea and have examined the deep strata of the earth’s crust. Our cities are illuminated with a continuous flash of lightning. Architectural skill has erected colossal structures which it has splendidly finished and gorgeously decorated with the hand of art. By the telegraph and telephone we have almost annihilated time and space. In the phonograph we have impressed a voice on the mineral kingdom. On the floating palace of the ocean we can, in a few days, migrate from one continent to the other. We journey in comfortable, speedy trains. Wonderful agricultural implements till the soil. Manufacturing and mining have developed to gigantic industries. The expansive force of steam and the electric current turn our ponderous wheels of toil. Everywhere progress is visible. The food, clothing, shelter and luxuries of the masses are, no doubt, better now than they were ever before in the history of the human race. Mental activity is bolder, broader and freer. Fights, quarrels, paternalism and monopoly are gradually diminishing.

But notwithstanding all this, there is still room for vast improvement; and one who has the real interest of himself and companions at heart will not close his eyes against existing evils. He will boldly and fearlessly face them, and endeavor to diminish them by a diffusion of a higher and wider intelligence.

A thoughtful observer can not wend his way in any direction but what he is still confronted by abominable evils which are still preying on the purity, well-being and happiness of mankind.

In our cities we meet countless men, women and children with pale faces, who are starving for want of sunshine, pure air and out-door exercise. Thousands of industrious persons are forced idlers. Thousands are living in hovels and garrets unfit for a human abode. Thousands are paupers and tramps. A countless army of men, women and children are mere machines, working a long, toilsome day in a mill, factory, or workshop. A large class of women, in order to make a livelihood, are selling themselves into marriage, or for other vile purposes. Our farmers are largely spending their lives in country solitudes, toiling principally for the capitalist and landlord.

A vast multitude, in fact nearly all of our so-called laborers, are toiling so hard and so long daily, for their mere material subsistence that little, if any, energy is left for personal cleanliness and mental culture. Our land tenure monopolizes the earth’s surface. Our medium of exchange which is rapidly concentrating wealth offers special privileges to the rich. Our system of education is largely cruel, unnatural and otherwise injurious. Husband and wife, parent and child, often quarrel and fight and sometimes kill each other and commit suicide.

Our government is largely invasive and despotic, and principally run by politicians, who are grossly ignorant of the psychological principles of human nature. Children, on the one hand, are neglected and starving, both physically and mentally; and, on the other hand, they are tyrants and little more than grown-up babies. Care and sorrow are stamped upon nearly every brow one meets. Mothers, as a rule, are maternal slaves, feeble and care-worn. Strife, revenge and jealousy are absorbing a large share of our best energies. Much of our labor is unproductive and destructive, and most of our machinery, tools and means of transportation are manipulated in the interest of the rich. Paternalism stunts individuality, and monopoly prevents the masses from becoming prosperous.

It is a well-known fact that a stupid, ignorant person, unlike an intelligent one, can bear most any burden without being galled by it. Hence all our present agitations, dissatisfactions and utterances of discontent are only so many tongues that are beginning to speak by the force of a rising intelligence and an increasing sensibility, which causes the victims slowly to become conscious of their unjust burdens.

It is, no doubt, true that, as a whole, we have been and are still gradually marching toward individual freedom and equity, but, as we have seen, are still far from having attained them. Some of us have at last learned that happiness of self includes the happiness of others, and that our conscious efforts, guided by the highest intelligence, may be made to count in promoting this progressive march. For these reasons I have concluded to contribute my infinitesimal part of this conscious work of progress by outlining, in these printed pages, a social and economic system from which, I believe, our existing evils are eliminated; and to still further assist in this labor, I compare this new system with our present one, so as to make the work more perspicuous for those who are not much accustomed to think for themselves. I also name and describe some of the successive steps of progress which slowly succeeded one another.

In this work I shall further endeavor to show that social and economic prosperity and harmony can be attained only in a system which recognizes extensive voluntary co-operation as its fundamental principle of production and distribution, and which concedes to every individual the right to do as he wills, provided he does not infringe the equal right of any other person; for in the harmonious and intelligent union of these two factors consists the solution of the social and economic problem.

I am well aware that my work will meet with strong opposition from my timid contemporaries. I am aware that they will endeavor to spread the alarm that this book is dangerous, but such a course is nothing new and nothing strange. Persons whose hearts are cold and full of iniquity have never been able to see and feel beyond the very limited sphere of their own activity. They measure all other people by their own crude and wicked intentions. Cruelty and blind zeal have always led such persons on unwise paths. Countless examples may be cited in support of this proposition.

Socrates was accused of corrupting the youth, and was, therefore, condemned to drink the poisonous hemlock. Jesus, who advocated nobler and purer principles than His contemporaries, was crucified by them. Washington, who believed in a republic which concedes a little more individual freedom than a monarchy does, was branded a traitor by his monarchical contemporaries. Garrison, who advocated the liberation of chattel slaves, was denounced a dangerous demagogue. When Luther added a degree of personal liberty to the inflexible creed of his time, all Christendom branded him a heretic; a subverter of human well-being. Haeckel, Huxley, Spencer, Darwin, Buckel, Pentecost, Tucker and countless others, who have vastly enriched the storehouse of human knowledge by their genius and industry, have all, in their turn, been calumniated and denounced by persons who have, perhaps, never read a line of what these leading men have written.

I do not make these remarks concerning criticism on the ground that I fear that my work will not bear analysis and examination; but, on the contrary, I kindly invite the keenest critics to subject the contents of it to the closest scrutiny. I am keenly conscious that this book, like all others that have ever been written, contains errors and shortcomings. To assert the contrary implies perfection, and no person who is ordinarily well-informed will claim to be perfect or infallible; but I can afford to invite criticism, for I shall be as much interested in having my errors and shortcomings pointed out as my critics are, for I have no creed, no party and no organization to defend, but am merely searching for truth, and truth needs no other defense than that of discovering it.

Now let me state right here that I do not wish to be understood that the masses, who are now living, are suited, as they are at present constituted, to enjoy and become members of a social and economic system as pure, high and noble as the one rudely outlined in this work; but the aim of this work is to fit that vast multitude who are still unfit for it by having them mentally assimilate some of the facts expressed and suggested in it, for let us not forget that man-made institutions are, as a whole, always nearly suited to the mental capacity of the masses. A comparison of the minds and institutions of the savage with those of the more developed will substantiate this great principle. Improve the mind by unfolding it, and the human-made institutions will improve to correspond.

Let me here advise the reader not to omit any chapter or read them in any other order than the one given in the book. It is not a fact, as many believe, that a single topic can be successfully learned or discussed without having it closely connected with others. For examples, a change in a locomotive implies or produces a change in the roadbed, in commerce, in speed, in mercantile business. A change in the land tenure and in the medium of exchange produces corresponding changes in all other human institutions and conduct; if not, one land tenure and medium of exchange would be as good as another. A change in sex-relations is accompanied with a corresponding change in dress, food, dwellings, education, modes of travel, amusements, individual freedom, in the manner of rearing offspring, and in countless other ways. A system, in order to be natural and harmonious, must be a connected whole. Hence we can see at once that the very act of endeavoring to learn or discuss a single topic unconnected with others is a sign of mental incompleteness.

With these prefatory remarks, I humbly submit the following pages to the thoughtful consideration and impartial judgment of a continuously progressing individual.

Holstein, Ia., March, 1892.

Henry Olerich.

INDEX.

|  | PAGE.
Chapter I. | Character, Description and Locality | 13
Chapter II. | Midith’s Arrival. His opinion of our Earth | 25
Chapter III. | The Marsian Theory of Creation and Formation | 40
Chapter IV. | Marsian Home and Family | 51
Chapter V. | Wealth | 68
Chapter VI. | Labor | 74
Chapter VII. | Interior of “Big-house” | 80
Chapter VIII. | Interior of “Big-house” (Continued) | 90
Chapter IX. | Happiness and Truth | 101
Chapter X. | Exterior of “Big-house” | 114
Chapter XI. | Exterior of “Big-house” (Concluded) | 126
Chapter XII. | Commercial and Mercantile Systems | 151
Chapter XIII. | Money, or Medium of Exchange | 170
Chapter XIV. | Some Connections between Wealth, Labor, Commerce, Intercommunication, and a Medium of Exchange | 215
Chapter XV. | Ownership of Land | 230
Chapter XVI. | Government | 240
Chapter XVII. | Sex Relations | 261
Chapter XVIII. | Comparison of Our Sex Relations with Yours | 273
Chapter XIX. | Comparison of Our Sex Relations with Yours (Continued) | 289
Chapter XX. | Sex Relations (Concluded) | 297
Chapter XXI. | Education | 312
Chapter XXII. | Education—The Different Branches | 326
Chapter XXIII. | Education—How to Teach the Different Branches, and a Critical Comparison | 342
Chapter XXIV. | How the Transition from the Old to the New Order of Things was Accomplished | 388
Chapter XXV. | How the Transition from the Old to the New Order of Things was Accomplished (Continued) | 412
Chapter XXVI. | Favorable News | 430

DIAGRAMS.

| PAGE.
Ground Plan of a “Big-house” | 52
Wing of a “Big-house,” showing Private Apartments | 55
Diagram, showing Communities, Motor-Lines, Railroads, etc. | 57
Diagram, showing Sectional View of Parks, Boulevards, Walks, Garden, Orchard, etc. | 60
Diagram, showing Location of “Big-houses,” Warehouse, Factories, etc. | 58
Diagram, showing Enlarged Sectional View of Community, with Four “Big-houses,” etc. | 115
Diagram of Electric Carriage | 132
Diagram of a Marsian Money-bill | 175

CHAPTER I.
CHARACTER, DESCRIPTION AND LOCALITIES.

It is in the pleasant little village of Dozen where Mr. Uwins and family live. Mr. Uwins is a philosopher by nature, and an author, over an assumed name, by profession. The family at present consists of Mr. and Mrs. Uwins; Miss Viola, a daughter of eighteen; Roland, a son of fourteen; Celestine, a daughter of six; and Rev. Dudley, a brother of Mrs. Uwins, who is spending the summer with them.

Mr. Uwins is a handsome, well-proportioned man of middle age. He is about six feet tall, weighing about 180 pounds. His clothes are not expensive, but always scrupulously clean and tidy. His appearance is decidedly prepossessing and lasting toward man, woman and child. He nearly always wears a pleasing countenance, is modest, kind, just and highly sociable. He is an untimid, original thinker, searching for truth in all direction. His clear, sincere, lucid and forcible style of expression makes him a charming conversationalist, admired by all who know him.

Mrs. Uwins is a little above the medium size, erect and well-proportioned. She is a few years younger than her husband, and is almost as handsome and tasty now as she was at sixteen. She walks with a quick, elastic step; is orderly, skilled and ready in her domestic and other walks of life. Always kind, and never loses control of her temper. Revenge and jealousy have no place in her heart. She is cheerful, even under adversity. She teaches her children to be independent, kind, just and industrious, and never governs by force. The faculty of teaching her children to do their respective parts, their share of the work without a command, is highly developed in her. She is an acute thinker, a good writer, a pleasing conversationalist, an accomplished player, and a sweet singer. The social and industrial problem has been boldly and fearlessly investigated by her, particularly in the direction of her own sex. Take her in all, she is a model woman of our present age.

Rev. Dudley is an orthodox minister, spending the present summer, on account of his health, with his sister, Mrs. Uwins. Rev. Dudley is a man of ordinary intellectual ability, and he is not enjoying the most robust health. The brother and sister are very unlike in thought and belief. The brother was educated in a theological seminary; the sister, by an extensive course of miscellaneous reading and by an indefatigable study of Nature by which the Architect of the universe is yet building worlds, suns and solar systems.

Mr. and Mrs. Uwins’ children all enjoy excellent health; are handsome, kind, industrious, affectionate, well educated, and highly cultivated. Viola is a charming young woman with unusual mental powers and personal charms. She possesses all her mother’s good characteristics. The laws of health and freedom seem to be her guide. She teaches music with great success. Her pupils all love her. Sorrow and melancholy disappear before her presence. She is always ready and willing to do her share of the domestic labor. She is the belle of the village and has the choice of all its suitors.

Roland is an obliging youth, full of life and a keen observer of nature. Celestine is overflowing with activity. It seems as if nature is endeavoring to see how much she can do with a child, living in a somewhat favorable social atmosphere. They all seem to have inherited the noble traits of their parents physically and mentally. The parental natures seem to be deeply grafted in their very constitutions; we find no social discord, no commander and no obeyer. All seem to know their part and act from motives of their own conviction of right and wrong.

The beautiful little village of Dozen, in which Mr. Uwins resides, is located in the most healthful portion of the fertile Mississippi valley. The climate is mild and delightful during nearly the whole year. In this village Mr. Uwins has erected his neat, comfortable, two-story residence, in which he pursues his philosophizing and literary work. In this residence Mr. Uwins and family seem to enjoy more happiness and harmony than any other family I have ever before seen. All rule and none obey. All is cleanliness, order, affection and happiness. The courtesies, smiles and continuous sunshine of the whole family make this home more nearly a heaven than any other place I have ever experienced on earth. The cat and the dog, the fowl and the rabbit, the bird and the babe, the stranger and the beau are treated with equal kindness and courtesy. Such is the bliss of its inmates, of both man and beast.

While I was collecting material for a biographical publication, it was my good fortune to make the acquaintance of Mr. Uwins and his happy family, with whom I received the permission to make my home while I was collecting, in that vicinity, the biographical material for which I was in search.

The Uwins family were not in the habit of keeping strangers, but the cordial treatment, the modest, pleasing, scholarly answers which Mr. Uwins gave to my biographical questions, and the easy conduct and familiarity of Mrs. Uwins and all their children, made me persist in becoming a member of the family during my stay at Dozen. I can say without exaggeration that the lesson I have learned in Mr. Uwins’ home can not be learned at the present day in any college or institution of learning in the world. The lesson how to make ourselves and others happy underlies all other knowledge and learning; and all the members of the Uwins family taught—by their words and acts—this great lesson more conspicuously and more uninterruptedly than I had ever heard or seen it taught before.

When Mr. Uwins’ family and myself were enjoying the blessings of a well-supplied, cheerful home, about five o’clock one June evening, immediately before the beginning of a heavy rain, which continued uninterruptedly until the next morning, a stranger of extraordinary physique knocked at the open door. Mr. Uwins rose and asked him in. The stranger introduced himself as Midith. “I am engaged in canvassing Mr. Herbert Spencer’s ‘Synthetic Philosophy,’” he said as he sat down on the chair offered him by Mr. Uwins.

“We have Mr. Spencer’s works in our library, and have studied them diligently for years,” said Mr. Uwins, “but we are, nevertheless, pleased to meet you, and extend our hospitality toward one who endeavors to disseminate useful knowledge.”

Just at the time when Mr. Midith entered the parlor, I was taking some notes at the further end of the apartment. Mr. Uwins introduced Mr. Midith to all the members of his family, and then, turning to me, introduced me as Thomas Fulton.

“Mr. Fulton,” continued Mr. Uwins, “is a stenographer, and is collecting material for a new kind of biographical publication. If you have a strange history to relate,” said Mr. Uwins, with a smile, “then Mr. Fulton is your man.”

“I am sure Mr. Fulton has chosen a very instructive occupation,” rejoined Mr. Midith.

“It is already beginning to rain, and you might just as well make up your mind to remain with us for the night,” said Mr. Uwins to Mr. Midith.

“I shall, indeed, be ever so much pleased to accept your kind invitation, if I shall not be too much trouble to you and the ladies,” said Mr. Midith, with an apparent air of satisfaction.

“You are entirely welcome, Mr. Midith,” said Mrs. Uwins, pleasantly; “try to make yourself at home. We have little formality to offer. We believe more in freedom and the spontaneous activity of nature than we do in constrained fashion.”

Mr. Midith apparently enjoys the highest state of health. He is about six feet tall, weighing about 185 pounds, erect, a model of symmetry, a handsome face and a graceful form, a full beard and mustache, beautiful bright eyes, a well-proportioned nose, a massive forehead, a gentle, easy, prepossessing manner. His complexion is dark, lighted up with an obliging, complacent countenance, always wearing a smile which seems to have been stamped deeply into his very constitution by the kindness of himself and his ancestors. His presence seems to be always highly agreeable. He knows of no frown. Time has cut no furrows of care and anxiety in his brow. His general appearance and his soft, pleasing, affable conversational powers seem to transform sorrow into joy. Arrogance, revenge and jealousy have apparently been banished from his heart by the operation of his powerful intellect. His whole structure and bearing seem to have been modeled by truth and harmony. Discord, arrogance and rudeness seem to have long been crowded out by higher and nobler traits.

The style of his costume was such that comfort is considered the first requisite, and adornment next. His clothes are scrupulously neat, clean and tidy. Health to him seems to be far more precious than fashion and conventionality. Experience seems to have taught him that, where a law of health and a law of fashion conflict, the law of fashion should be disregarded. He apparently has acted all through life, and perhaps his ancestors before him, that physical structure and mental attainments are far more precious than adornments of silks, gold and diamonds.

My profession has naturally thrown me in contact with a large number of individuals of the human race in various parts of the civilized world, but I must confess that I have never before met an individual in whom there appears to be so many good and noble characteristics united in one person than there appear to be in Mr. Midith. I think he is as nearly a model of human perfection as the world will probably ever be capable of producing.

I noticed that the whole family were completely captivated by Mr. Midith’s charming, prepossessing appearance. Viola, in particular, seemed to be spellbound for the time being. Her rosy cheeks were redder than usual; but she soon recovered her usual affableness toward Mr. Midith, as well as toward all the rest of the company. Celestine was already leaning against his knee, with his hand resting on her shoulder; while Roland was continually edging nearer to him.

The rain had been pouring down for nearly an hour since Mr. Midith entered the house and became a member of this happy family. It is six o’clock, and Mrs. Uwins announces tea. The table, as always, is neatly set and tastily arranged. The cooking is excellent. While we were at the table, as well as after the meal, the conversation grew more and more interesting. The confidence of one another seemed to be strengthened by every additional word. The scientific, social, industrial and domestic problems were ably handled. Mr. Midith displayed, in an unassuming manner, such a vast amount of information that he almost held all of us spellbound. His perspicuous, sincere utterances brought a deep conviction to his hearers. It seemed, at times, that he was endowed with superhuman power of expression; but his attention to others was just as perfect and pleasing as his conversational abilities.

When, after tea, we were all seated in the cosy parlor, Mr. Midith remarked that his present surroundings appeared more homelike to him than any other home he had ever before enjoyed on this earth.

“On this earth,” repeated Viola. “Have you ever been on any other earth than this one, Mr. Midith?”

“You were, before supper, talking about strange histories,” said Mr. Midith. “I am quite sure that my history would seem very strange to you. Yes, in fact, it would no doubt at first seem incredible to you. But the strangeness and incredibility do not alter the facts in the case. My history is a romance in which every event is a reality,” said Mr. Midith.

“I am sure, Mr. Midith,” said Mrs. Uwins, “that we would be highly interested in your history, and nothing would please us better just now than to listen to you.”

“Allow me to tell you, ladies and gentlemen,” said Mr. Midith unassumingly, “that I have never before given my history to any one. But as I have always intended to make it known to the mundane (belonging to the world, earthly) inhabitants when a favorable opportunity would present itself, after having thoroughly acquainted myself with your social and industrial institutions, and as this is by far the most favorable one I have so far had, I shall be pleased to comply with your request.”

We unanimously requested Mr. Midith to proceed with his narrative, which he did as follows:

“It will doubtless seem incredible, perhaps almost miraculous, to you at this stage of mundane development, when I tell you that I was not born and reared on this planet. But let not this deter you. Events that seem incredible, incomprehensible and impossible in one age, often become credible, comprehensible and possible in a succeeding age. To a savage it seems impossible to project a 2,000-pound cannon ball as far as you actually do project it. To the contemporaries of Columbus, our modern steamer, which crosses the Atlantic in about five days, seemed no doubt incredible. Telegraphy seemed impossible to Washington and his contemporaries; so did a sixty-mile-an-hour train. But we all find them perfectly natural and practicable in this age. We have divested them of all mystery, and have put them under the dominion of an inexorable law, whose operation our ancestors did not understand. It would be highly presumptuous on our part to assume that we know all what can be known: that all what seems to be impossible to us now must forever remain impossible to our posterity.

“You, no doubt, are all familiar with Mr. Spencer’s maxim, ‘Not directly, but by successive approximations do mankind arrive at correct conclusions.’

“I fear that I shall be taxing your credulity severely by giving you my truthful history, but, with the foregoing facts in our minds, it may be worth while to listen to the claims of any person who does not enter wholly into the field of inconceivability. History proves that the persons who have been willing to listen fairly to the claims of others, even if they appeared impossible at the time, keeping what they believed to be good and rejecting what they believe to be wrong, have by far been the noblest and the most useful to mankind; to them is due the progress of the world.”

“All that you have said is true,” said Mr. Uwins, “and I am sure we can not fail to give you the most interesting hearing.”

“I was born on the planet Mars, about fifty years ago,” continued Mr. Midith.

“Born on the planet Mars!” I exclaimed with astonishment. “You have, indeed, a strange history, then.”

“From astronomical studies,” continued Mr. Midith, “you have learned that a Marsian day is about 38 minutes longer than your day here on earth. The Marsian year is 687 of your days instead of 365 1/4 days. The diameter of Mars is about 5,000 miles, while that of the earth is nearly 8,000 miles. The heat and light of Mars is, of course, not so intense as that of the earth, because Mars is about 34 million miles farther from the sun than the earth; and because heat and light decrease in intensity as the square of the distance increases.

“The earth has one moon, and Mars has two. The smallest one is about six miles in diameter. It is the smallest heavenly body with which we are acquainted. The nearest of Mars’ moons is less than 4,000 miles from the surface of Mars. The nearness of this moon to Mars I would like to have you keep in mind, for my presence on earth is indirectly connected with this phenomenon, which I will soon tell you.

“We must bear in mind that one year on Mars is nearly two years on earth. A person living eighty years on Mars lives about double the number of hours that a person who lives eighty years on earth does.

“According to your ‘nebular hypothesis,’ which is true according to our astronomical knowledge Mars was detached from the sun ages before the earth was born; for Mars is farther from the sun—is located outside of the earth’s orbit. Mars is also much smaller and less dense than the earth, in consequence of which it cooled much longer and much more rapidly. Mars, then, is much older astronomically and geologically. The crust of Mars, in proportion to its diameter, is much thicker than the crust of the earth. The water area, in proportion to the land area, is much smaller on Mars than it is on earth, because the water is continually being absorbed by the thickening solid crust. We can readily see, then, that according to these data, other things being equal, Mars must have an older and more advanced vegetable and animal life. The Marsian social and industrial organizations must be much more perfect than yours.

“On account of the difficult dynamical (pertaining to strength or power) principles involved in my interplanetary navigation, I shall for the present defer an explanation of my journey. It will, however, I think, not be out of place here to suggest that the force of gravitation between two bodies is in proportion to their mass and inversely as the square of their distance. The earth and Mars, when nearest together, are about 34,000,000 miles apart. There is a point, then, somewhere between them, where a body would be equally attracted by both, would neither fall to the earth nor to Mars. But, if moved a little toward either one, from the point of equilibrium, it would fall the whole distance toward that body with continuously increasing velocity. If the earth and Mars, when in conjunction, were only a mile apart, a body could easily, even with your present knowledge of dynamics, be projected out of the reach of gravitation of one of these planets into that of the other. The actual interplanetary distance, which I traversed between the earth and Mars, calls in nothing new in kind, but only in degree. So you see that in order to be able to make this interplanetary journey, you need only to improve on what you already have; and time has given the inhabitants of Mars, on this point, the advantage over the inhabitants of the earth.”

CHAPTER II.
MIDITH’S ARRIVAL—HIS IDEAS OF OUR EARTH.

“You said, Mr. Midith, that you were born on Mars about fifty years ago. Do you mean fifty Marsian years, or fifty of our years?” asked Viola.

“I mean fifty of your years,” replied Mr. Midith.

“How long have you lived on earth then, Mr. Midith?” asked Rev. Dudley.

“I have been an inhabitant of the earth a little over ten years. I was twenty Marsian years old when I arrived on earth, and the ten years I have lived here makes my age the same as thirty mundane years. You see a Marsian year to a Marsite is no longer than your year is to you. Everything on Mars corresponds with its length of year.”

“Did the increased intensity of heat and light affect you much when you first landed on earth?” asked Mr. Uwins.

“Yes at first I experienced quite a discomfort; but my system and senses soon adjusted themselves to the new conditions somewhat, the same as an eye adjusts itself when going from a dark to a brilliantly lighted apartment. The temperature gave me more and longer discomfort than the light did.”

“How old does a person on Mars get to be, Mr. Midith?” asked Roland, as he was edging still nearer to Mr. Midith.

“A person, with the same care of himself, lives as many Marsian years on Mars as you live earthly years. But as society, on account of the greater age of Mars, has advanced much further than it has on earth, people, as they continually learn by experience, live more in harmony with the laws of life and health, and consequently they get much older. Many Marsites live now to be over 150 years and are still in vigorous health,” replied Mr. Midith.

“Did the difference in the atmospheric pressure and the difference in the intensity of gravitation cause you much inconvenience, Mr. Midith?” I asked.

“Not very much,” replied Mr. Midith.

“We are going to crowd you with questions,” said Viola with a smile. “I was going to ask you where you landed when you reached the earth.”

“Miss Viola, to tell you the truth I did not land on a very pleasant spot. I landed in the Pacific ocean, about a mile from the western shore of the United States. When I entered the dense atmosphere, very near the earth, my interplanetary projectile became unmanageable and out of repair. This landed me in the Pacific. But the Marsites are all good swimmers, as I shall explain to you hereafter, and so I swam to the nearest shore.”

“Could you speak the English language when you landed on earth?” asked Rev. Dudley.

“No; I could not. I could understand no language that I heard spoken here. There are a few words in the English language that sound similarly to our words, but they signify entirely different ideas and things. I had to learn every word of your language that I now know.”

“Do I understand you, then, Mr. Midith, that you have but one language on Mars?” asked Mrs. Uwins.

“Yes; we have but one language now. Ages ago we had many, just like you have; but as the families, the tribes and the nations coalesced more and more, and as intercommunication improved, languages became fewer and fewer until there was but one left. The survival of the fittest antiquated all but one. A person can now go all over Mars and speak the same language.”

“How, Mr. Midith, did you acquire and develop the knowledge which enabled you to visit the earth?” I asked.

“You recollect that the moons of Mars are very near her surface; the nearest one is less than 4,000 miles distant. You also recollect that the specific gravity and the force of gravity are less on Mars than they are on earth. Under these conditions, a body can be projected with less force from the surface of Mars than it can be projected from the surface of the earth. So we first practiced to project bodies to Mars’ moons, then we increased the power of our projectile and directed it to the earth, which is our nearest older planet.”

“How many of our days did you say, Mr. Midith, the Marsian year contains?” asked Viola.

“About 687 days,” replied Mr. Midith.

“That is a long year,” said Mr. Uwins. “A person requires a great deal of food and clothing during such a long year; but he can also do a correspondingly great amount of work. Can the land, under those conditions, support as dense a population on Mars as we can here?”

“As far as I can ascertain,” replied Mr. Midith, “a square mile of land on Mars, under the same degree of civilization, can support just as many persons as a square mile on earth can support. The amount of nutriment, the productiveness of the soil, the durability of things, the longevity, and the labor expended in producing them, are related in exactly the same proportion as we find them here on earth. The year is longer, the food more nutritious, the clothing and other things more lasting, the soil more fertile, and more time for growth and cultivation during the long Marsian year; so that an acre of land can support as much and no more life during the same geologic age than the earth can. These facts we always want to bear in mind when we speak hereafter of the social and industrial problems of Mars.”

“Is it not a grand, imposing sight for a Marsite to behold the swiftly moving little moons revolve around Mars so rapidly that the inner one, called by our astronomers, Phobus, completes its orbital revolution in seven hours and thirty-eight minutes, and appears to rise in the West instead of the East!” exclaimed Mr. Uwins.

“Yes, it is indeed a grand sight to see the one sometimes rise in the East and the other in the West, and yet both revolve around Mars in the same direction as your moon revolves around the earth.”

“Where is your ‘planetary projectile’ on which you came here to our earth, Mr. Midith?” asked Roland with an air of apparent inquiry.

“It lies buried somewhere in the great Pacific, Roland,” replied Mr. Midith, with a suppressed sigh. “It was swallowed up by the vast expanse of the deep, when I landed on earth about ten years ago, and I had to swim for life. It frightens me still when I think of that dreadful event.”

“Mrs. Uwins, you told me, time and again, that you do not believe in miracles,” said Rev. Dudley to his sister. “What, then, do you call Mr. Midith’s visit on earth? Do you call that miraculous? Have I not often told you, dear sister, that God in His infinite power is as capable of working a miracle now as He was in ancient times?”

“I do not call that a miracle at all, James. I am sure that if we understood the dynamics by virtue of which Mr. Midith was enabled to make his visit, we would no more call it a miracle than we call the flying of a kite, or the running of a locomotive, a miracle. Is not that so, Mr. Midith?”

“Yes, Mrs. Uwins, you are right; there is no miracle whatever about my mundane visit. It was all accomplished by the aid of immutable laws which undoubtedly hold good alike on the nearest and the remotest stars of the universe. We want to keep in mind that the miraculous always disappears just in proportion as we discover the natural laws that operate the phenomena of nature.”

“But, Mr. Midith, is not the interplanetary space beyond the planets’ atmospheres a vacuum?” asked Viola. “How could you live and breathe in a vacuum? We are taught by our philosophers that all interstellar space is filled with an imponderable (without sensible weight), highly attenuated (made thin) medium called ether. But we are not aware that it will support life. How is that, Mr. Midith?”

“As I have said before, Viola, I should prefer to give you this difficult explanation after you get better acquainted with our enterprises. After you have learned more about our mechanical genius, our social and industrial problems. It will be much more easily understood by you then, than it would be now.”

“All right, Mr. Midith, just as you think best,” said Viola with a pleasant countenance. “If we ask you questions out of the natural order just let us know.”

“Did our earth seem homelike to you, Mr. Midith, when you first looked around and as you gradually became better acquainted?” I asked.

“Let me tell you right here, ladies and gentlemen, in answering this question truthfully, I may say things that may not be very agreeable to some of you. But I believe that nearly all of you are searching for truth regardless of consequences; and whenever one has arrived at such a stage of intellectual development, he is at least willing to give truth a fair hearing, whether it is for the time being pleasant or unpleasant.”

“You see I have not been educated under any of your habits, customs, practices and prejudices. It is therefore very likely that I see things and acts which appear cruel, wrong, superstitious, and even barbarous to me, which seem all right, kind and humane to you, because you have been educated and raised to them, and have, therefore, perhaps never given them a fair impartial thought, a thorough analysis.”

“When I first looked around, and as I gradually acquired more and more information about terrestrial affairs, some things seemed perfectly familiar. The land and the water, the hills and the valleys, light and darkness, heat and cold, growth and decay, hunger and thirst, pleasure and pain, all seemed to be familiar to me. Water sought its level. The green grass covered the earth and was kissed by the dewdrop and the rain; the lofty trees were dressed in verdant foliage and spread their boughs toward heaven; the gentle breeze raised the little ripples on the bosom of the lake, and sported with the green foliage and the sere leaf the same here as on Mars.

“The flight of the bird, the walking of the beast, eating, drinking, breathing, moving, and the reproduction of organisms were nothing new to me. They were, under similar conditions, exactly identical with ours on Mars.

“The rain and the snow, the thunder and lightning, the changes of the seasons, the germination and growth of plants, the laws that govern animal and vegetable life are the same here as they are in my native world, and we have no reason to believe that they are different on a single one of the countless heavenly bodies of the universe.

“Mars produces coal, iron, natural gas, and the other minerals and metals in the same abundance and proportion as the earth does. The chemical compounds are composed of the same elements and in the same proportion. The water, under the same condition, turns the wheel of toil and drowns the innocent babe there, as here.

“In fact, I find no difference in things, and in the relations of things here, and in those of Mars, except in the scientific, social and industrial worlds. In these fields, however, I find vast differences; differences so great and so grand that I fear I shall be able to give you but a faint idea of them. I notice in your current literature and political economy that not a few of your foremost and well-meaning economists and sociologists have endeavored to dream out, instead of working out, a suitable and higher order of things for the people on earth. But I believe that I can safely say that the reality of the social and industrial systems of Mars far surpass all imaginary Utopias dreamed of by mundane beings. The truth of our world in these directions exceeds the wildest romance that was ever penned by your most extravagant novelists.

“I have not merely dreamed of this grand, this noble, this happy state of human affairs, but I have actually enjoyed them for twenty long Marsian years. I have seen and experienced them in their practical workings. With countless others, I have even been a tiny link in the endless chain of development and progress, which has brought us to that high state of civilization which the Marsites now enjoy.

“As I have said before, everything I met on earth appeared perfectly natural and familiar to me except the scientific, social and industrial spheres. It seemed so strange to me when I first arrived on earth that about half of your population desire to live in comparatively filthy, crowded, smoky, unhealthy cities and towns, while the other half want to live a lonely, toilsome, country life, deprived of nearly all the blessings and enjoyments of a healthy society; and it seemed still more strange to me that you believed that you could not get along without the cities and without the country. The evils and needlessness of both cities and country appeared so plain to me, and yet you are, at the present age, unable to see the bad effects of them.

“It appeared so strange to me that each small family desired to live in a small home, located so disorderly that they were almost completely cut off from any convenient intercommunication. How the agriculturist, or farmer, fenced his little patch of land, which he worked single-handed so cruelly and toilsomely with a draught animal—ox, horse, etc., which require almost as much food and care as they can earn. How poorly the majority of the little homes were furnished. What domestic slaves wives and children are when the human hand must do the work of machinery.

“It seemed strange to me why only so few can distinguish between productive, unproductive and destructive labor. Why millions upon millions of men, women and children are toiling early and late and are producing nothing. Why the poor laborer could not see that the rich parasite appropriates a large portion of the products of his labor. Why thousands upon thousands of frugal, industrious carpenters have been building houses all their lives and have no house of their own to live in. Why a large number of shoemakers have been making shoes and have no decent shoe to put on. Why a multitude of farmers have toiled year after year and are now even farther from owning the land they work than they were when they began their toil years ago.

“I could not see how people could believe that land is wealth, and that capital should be entitled to part of the products. Why people were satisfied with such poor walks, muddy, dusty streets and roads, slow, irregular trains, clumsy vehicles drawn by weary animals, such barren gardens, so few flowers, and yet so many forced idlers. Why you had so many places of business, where goods are spoiling, and so few customers who have the means to buy what they should have. Why there are, in certain localities, so many commodities decaying, and so much food wasted by some, while so many others are almost starving. Why people should be willing to pay profit.

“The longer I live on earth and the more I get around, the more strange and perverted your social and industrial system appears to me. It seems so queer to me to see every one go to the postoffice, instead of having the postoffice brought to everyone; to have every one run to the depot, instead of having a depot in every house.

“It seemed so strange why people could not see that the money you use—gold, silver, etc.—cost so much comparatively unproductive labor to get the material out of which you make the money; that in your monetary system there exists no proportionate relations between the amount of negotiable wealth on hand and the amount of money in circulation; there may be an abundance of money and a scarcity of commodities, or there may be an abundance of commodities and a scarcity of money; that the persons who really make and earn the commodities receive very little of the money, while the schemer who actually makes and earns very little of the commodities receives, as a rule, an abundance of the money.

“It seemed so very, very strange, so passing strange to me, why people could not see the evil effects of owning vacant land by deed, or paper title; why people are willing to pay rent or buy land; why individuals that are unable to govern themselves should attempt to govern others; why, after such a complete failure, you still believe in a government by physical force; why the vast majority believe that a home or family cannot exist successfully without a boss; why people believe in compulsory taxation; why a queen or president, as such, should be more honored than a miner or a washerwoman.

“It seems remarkably strange to me why the imaginary being called the State should in any way interfere with love affairs; why a man or a woman is willing to give himself or herself away for life to some one else; why each does not desire to own herself or himself only; why a woman should be dependent on a man financially; why women should not enjoy equal privileges with man in all respects; why you have so many unwelcome children and unwilling mothers; why the work of rearing offspring is almost exclusively thrust off onto mothers; why mothers are not compensated for nursing offspring the same as they should be for other productive labor.

“It seems so strange to me why parents are forcing their children to school when they do not desire to go; why a child, which is full of life and energy, should be compelled to sit silently and quietly for six hours a day in a school-room when activity is the only thing that develops body and mind; why a child should be burdened by all school work, and an adult by all physical work; why a child should not receive compensation immediately for all the productive labor it performs; why you cannot educate in a pleasant school of activity and play; why you do not have suitable play-grounds and parks near every home; why you value fashion so highly and life and health so little; why you wear such uncomfortable and injurious costumes; why it does not seem so repugnant to feast on a carcass than on a corpse; why you always hold up to view what you believe to be good and say nothing about pointing out and discouraging the bad; why you honor and respect the laborer who produces the wealth of the world so little, and the idle, wasteful aristocrat so much; why you can not voluntarily co-operate under individualism; how you can believe that your ‘God’ wants you to build and erect magnificent churches, and steeples towering toward heaven, when, not unfrequently in the very shadow of them, poverty and want wreck the constitution of his highest creatures. Such are a few of the many things here that seemed and still seem very strange and very cruel to me.”

“Mr. Midith,” I asked, “why did you not make your history known on earth before this time?”

“I will tell you, Mr. Fulton; at first I was afraid to say anything about it. Every one I met on earth appeared to be so cruel and so harsh, that, very likely, I was as much frightened among you as you would be if you were accidentally dropped among your American Indians or among the cannibals. I saw the idle boy sportively fling stones, with apparent delight, at the joyful birds that were singing their sweet songs. I saw the teamster strike his beasts of burden so cruelly, even when they were almost completely exhausted. I saw the hunter, with apparent delight, project the burning shot into the sensitive nerve of his game. I saw him beat his dog unmercifully for what the dog did not know. I saw the butcher not only slaughter, but torture and flay with satisfaction, creatures which are entitled to life as much as he. I saw the fisher jerk the hook out of the fishes’ throat, as if fish have no feeling, and then starve them in an atmosphere of air. I saw the parent scold, kick and cuff his child with an air of delight and duty. I saw the politician deceive and defraud his constituents. I heard the minister threaten his devotees with everlasting hell-fire. I saw the judge take a bribe. I heard the witness perjure himself, and the lawyer misrepresent his case. I saw the stockman keep his stock in small, filthy, cold stables and pens. I saw the rich trample the poor into the mire of poverty. I saw the editor praise, for the money that was in it for him, things that he knew were worse than worthless. I saw the landlord evict his tenant for the only crime of being unable to pay his rent. I saw train-robbers wreck trains regardless of the human lives they contained. I saw incendiarism practiced with the sole object of material pelf. I saw countless women live a life of sin and shame in order to make a livelihood. I saw the toilers, men, women and children, on every hand bent and deformed under their burden of toil and care. I heard the minister preach that the only good and truthful man your world ever had—your Redeemer—was crucified by a ruling mob for expressing His honest opinion. I saw the policeman club his victim; the hangman strangle the fallen. I saw the ‘State’ imprison men and women for telling the truth and for investigating the so-called laws of nature. I saw the teacher flog his pupil often only for telling the truth and for following his inquiring nature. I saw the soldier shoot his fellowman in countless numbers. I saw the husband subjugate and otherwise misuse his wife. I saw the ‘State’ compel married husbands and wives to live together after they did not love one another any more. I saw people starve, freeze, go ragged and filthy, and have no home to go to. I heard quarrels, oaths, curses, moans and sighs. I saw tears of sorrow, frowns; sullen, pouty faces, furrowed brows, anxious, care-worn countenances, decrepit, emaciated, diseased human frames; slow, clumsy gaits and countless premature deaths. And I saw time and again good men and women ostracized, imprisoned and hanged for expressing their honest thoughts and for giving to the world the fruits of their honest toil of observation and investigation.

“I think these and countless other cruelties and outrages are enough to frighten any one into silence who came from such a just, kind and rich world as I had left only a short time before.

“You may say that it was foolish for me to be frightened under the protecting hand of your civilization; but you must bear in mind that the trouble was, and is still more so now, that I can not see your civilization. The savage would doubtless call you a coward and a fool for being frightened in his state of society; but you would undoubtedly not feel at ease with him, while he would enjoy it. So one coming from a more advanced state of civilization would no more feel at ease in your world than you would among the savages.

“For these and other reasons, I have never before mentioned my coming to this earth to any one until I became a member of your kind, intelligent family, which seems so homelike that I can say what I desire and what I believe to be true of your world, and what I know to be true of our world. Of course, my history and my visit from Mars to your earth is not intended to be a secret by any means. As I have told you, at first, I was frightened into silence, and further on, I concluded that I would not say anything about it until I was quite familiar with all your institutions, and until I had learned your language so that I could give you a clear, intelligent account of our world and compare it, in an unbiased manner, with your world, so that the earthly inhabitants may derive all the benefit possible from our older and fuller scientific, social and industrial experience.”

“Have you always been engaged here selling Mr. Spencer’s works?” asked Viola.

“Oh, no! You see at my arrival I was at a great disadvantage. I could not speak your language, and I knew nothing of your customs, habits, science and literature. Much pertaining to your science, society and industry was new to me. I was therefore forced into the field of the hardest manual labor. But as I learned to read and write your languages, I found that Mr. Spencer’s philosophical works were well adapted to give the necessary information essential for a higher social and industrial life. Partly for this reason, partly for making a livelihood, and partly for being thrown in contact with eminent mechanics whose assistance I am seeking, I have accepted my present vocation of disseminating useful knowledge by selling good works; for I am convinced that thought is the only power that can move the psychical world in the right direction.”

CHAPTER III.
THE MARSIAN THEORY OF CREATION AND FORMATION.

We had been conversing more than an hour, during which time the rain had not ceased falling, when Mr. Uwins asked Mr. Midith about the Marsian theory of creation and formation. We were all intensely eager to hear Mr. Midith’s explanation; even little Celestine’s curiosity was so aroused by the unassuming, clear, forcible style and manner of Mr. Midith that her countenance wore a more than usual bright and pleasing aspect.

“I will tell you, ladies and gentlemen,” said Mr. Midith. “As far as I have been able to learn during the ten years I have lived on earth, the fundamental laws of nature, as I have said before, are the same on earth as they are on Mars. The only difference is, that Mars is further advanced astronomically and geologically. Mars is older and has had longer time for development. Dynamics, life, thought, society, and industry are much better understood by the masses on Mars than they are understood by the multitude here. Science is further advanced. With these preliminary remarks I shall give you as nearly as I can, the desired information; and I hope that you will not feel backward in asking any questions that may suggest themselves to your minds while I am endeavoring to give you an explanation of the foundation upon which all knowledge must be built. You can see from the nature of the question which you ask me that it requires quite an elaborate elucidation. All growth and change that has ever taken place in the universe is based on this question—the question of growth and development.

“Respecting the origin of man and the formation of the universe, two theories or doctrines were long current with the Marsites. One, the scientific doctrine of evolution, which is founded on the principle of growth and change, governed by fixed laws. The other, the theological doctrine of ‘special creation’ which is founded on revelation. The doctrine of evolution assumes that the universe has slowly, through the lapse of millions of ages, been evolved from previously existing matter by continuous integration of matter and concomitant dissipation of motion, and that man gradually and slowly evolved from lower organisms, and has attained his present form and mental endowments by the influence of his environment, personal and ancestral. It teaches that man, as a whole, has been, and is still continually rising in the scale of existence. It is, therefore, also an encouraging and cheerful belief.

“The long antiquated doctrine of ‘special creation’ assumed that the universe was created out of ‘nothing’ by an external agency; that man was created perfect out of clay, somewhat after the fashion that a potter makes an earthern vessel, and that he fell from his state of perfection to what we now find him. This was a discouraging, a gloomy belief, which, if continued, must eventually end in total degradation.”

“What evidence suggested the theory of evolution to the Marsites?” asked Mrs. Uwins.

“Let us briefly consider a few of them,” continued Mr. Midith.

“A good farmer always reserves the best of his crops for seed. This is artificial selection; that is, the best and fittest is artificially reserved by man for seed, which is to produce the next year’s crop. A stockbreeder reserves the largest, strongest, fleetest and most symmetrical individuals to propagate the race.

“The horticulturist selects seed from the choicest flowers and fruit. You see all this is selection, but not natural selection; it is artificial, as you call it, because it is done by man. Man aids nature, so to speak; but nature unaided makes just such selection during the lapse of long ages. In the plant and animal kingdoms, especially in the lower orders millions must perish in order to give room and opportunity for a few to live. As long as muscle, and not reason, is the most advantageous weapon in the struggle for existence, the strongest, toughest, fleetest and fiercest ones survive and reproduce the race, and in this manner the superior qualities of the parents are continually transmitted and added to, in the offspring.

“Organs develop by healthful use and become rudimentary by disuse. The blacksmith’s arm becomes strong by constant healthful use. The eyes of moles became rudimentary by disuse. The crabs and fishes in the Mammoth Cave have lost their eyes entirely by disuse, but the sockets remain as rudimentary remnants. If we should keep the right arm constantly out of use, and do all our work with the left, that is, beginning at childhood, there would be a perceptible difference in the size and function of the two arms in one generation; and, if this practice were continued for thousands of generations, use, disuse and heredity would no doubt aid in bringing about a vast inequality between the active and inactive arms.

“There are vast transformations taking place before our own eyes, on earth the same as on Mars, which are wonderful proofs of evolution. For instance, the frog begins life as a fish and then lungs displace gills. Butterflies, bees and beetles of all kinds start out as grubs and undergo wonderful transformations.

“Embryonic (pertaining to the rudiments of an undeveloped plant or animal) growth furnishes one of the strongest, as well as the most startling proofs of evolution. Each individual passes through all the successive stages which have preceded in the line of its tribal history.

“In morphological structure, convincing proofs of evolution are found. We find fossil remains of animals that have gradually developed in size from a fox to your modern horse.

“Geologists have partially examined the Marsian crust to a certain depth, the same as you have examined the earth’s crust, but more minutely and more thoroughly. Fossils (animal and vegetable remains imbedded in the rock formation of the earth’s crust) of various kinds are found in this rock formation composing the crust. Remains of the most lowly organized plants and animals are found in the lowest strata, and as we ascend the fossils become more and more complex. And the present generation of organic beings living on the surface of Mars, or on the surface of the earth, are more complex and more highly developed than any fossil remains that have ever been buried on the respective planets.

“The preceding consideration shows that the fossils testify to the fact that there has been a slow, but gradual development during the almost immeasurable eons of time that were required for the formation of these sedimentary strata that contain the precious ‘Revolution written by the finger of Time on the Rock of Ages, and by the ink of Death.’”

“What a long, long time must have been required to produce such changes as you speak of. Have you any idea, Mr. Midith, how long the Marsian crust was in forming?” asked Viola.

“It is not finished yet,” said Mr. Midith. “It is still forming the same as ever. The crust is growing thicker every moment by internal cooling and by external accretion of meteoric dust, etc., and fossils of the present time are now being buried the same as they were during all preceding geologic ages.

“Let us, in a few thoughts, endeavor to travel back from the present to that primitive time, when nature imbedded the first organic remains in the then forming strata. The proportion of water area to the land was much greater then than it is at present. There were no high mountains, because the solid crust was thin, and the doubling or folding up of a thin crust can not produce a high fold, or mountain, and, therefore, the Marsian crust, or surface, was at this primitive beginning not so much diversified by mountains and depressions as it is at present. It was more nearly spherical, and hence all, or nearly all, covered with water; and what applies to Mars’ crust undoubtedly applies, under similar conditions, equally to the surface of all other planets.

“Igneous rocks, as you know, are produced by the gradual cooling of the heated matter of a planet, moon, or sun. They are formed next to the internal fire, and can, therefore, contain no fossils. Before fossils could be imbedded, igneous rocks had to be slowly disintegrated by the action of heat and cold, wind and wave, rain and drought, and other atmospheric phenomena. Clay, soil, sand, etc., is nothing but a pulverized igneous rock.

“After the solid igneous rock gradually became pulverized, the wind, rain, tide, flood and current had to carry this pulverized igneous rock, or sand, into the lowest ocean and river beds, where the process of forming sedimentary (deposited by water), fossiliferous, stratified rock began.

“Here we can clearly see, then, how the remains of perished plants and animals have been imbedded from time to time in this slowly forming sedimentary rock. The fossils of the lower strata are the simplest; those nearest the surface, or the most recently formed, the most complex. The modern wrecked steamer will be a fossil of the future, the same as the entombed skeleton of antiquity, or the imbedded canoe of primitive man, are fossils of the present. The fossils, then, are one of the strongest proofs of evolution. They indicate a slow but gradual development of plant and animal life; and as time passes, both here and on Mars, more and more new links, which bind all things into a grand whole, imperceptible gradations of development, are being discovered.

“Such, then, are some of the most conspicuous signs which undoubtedly suggested and strengthened, at every step of advance, the evolution theory; and also correspondingly weakened and discredited the ‘special creation’ theory.”

“I have never before taken any stock in evolution,” said Rev. Dudley, “but I must acknowledge that the testimonies cited by you are very strong; we see them daily transpiring before our eyes right here on earth. But allow me to ask you, Mr. Midith, what is your theory of the fathomless abyss of the starry heavens? I think that part of the question is not so easily handled as that which treats of the formation of a planet’s crust.”

“I have so far considered evolution only as affecting the Marsian and earth’s crusts, and the organic beings living upon them. I endeavored to make the elucidation as clear as possible by beginning at the nearest, simplest and most conspicuous evidences. But let us bear in mind that our earth and Mars are only little nooks, insignificant motes as compared with the visible universe. We are convinced now that evolution holds good in the formation and dissolution of heavenly bodies as well as in the formation of planets’ crusts, and in the development of organic beings. The planets with their attendant moons are little solar systems, so to speak, with their moons revolving around them, which were detached from the planets millions of ages ago. Saturn has eight moons and an unbroken ring. The sun has planets revolving around him, the same as the moons revolve around the planets, and our whole solar system revolves around a center with incredible velocity. From moon to planet, from planet to sun, from sun to Galaxy we may travel in our imagination and rest on the ultimate axiom—the ‘persistence of force.’

“We have no reason to believe that there is a gap or break anywhere in the operation of the so-called nature. No one can tell precisely where the human leaves off and the animal begins; where the animal leaves off and the vegetable begins; where the organic leaves off and the inorganic begins. There is a gradual development from the simple to the complex, from the lower to the higher, from the inferior to the superior, from the ignorant to the intelligent, from the cruel to the gentle; a gradual merging or gradation from one into the other; the transition at any one point is so slight that it is imperceptible to the human eye. Allow me to say that there never was a first human being, no more than there was a first threshing machine. The mouth of the animal was a very primitive threshing machine; then the mouth and paws together; then the hand; then the flail, then the hand-thresher; then the horse-power, and now the steam-thresher; thus we see that there never was a first thresher, nor was it ever made, but gradually developed and improved to its present structure and capacity; so, too, with man. The lower organism out of which man, through the lapse of countless ages, evolved, gradually grew more and more human like from the effects of intercourse with his environment; and this process is still going on. Man is not finished yet. The same forces that have brought him from his primitively low plane to his present relatively high one are elevating him still higher. So we see that man was not created, but is still being created, evolved; and so with all else.

“According to what you call the ‘nebular hypothesis,’ the earth once filled the entire orbit of the moon. The matter composing the earth was then in a rare, highly-heated state, revolving around the sun, from which it was detached and rotated on its axis, which caused the detachment of the matter out of which the moon was formed.

“The number of atoms composing the earth, as well as the number of atoms composing the entire solar system, was practically the same then as it is now. Heat, which is the repellent force, kept the atoms and molecules so far apart that the matter composing the earth formed a sphere of nebulous matter, filling the entire orbit of the moon. In like manner did the sun once fill the entire orbit of the earth, and at a preceding time the entire orbit of Neptune.

“But some time before this, the earth was even larger than the orbit of the moon. The nebulous matter now composing the earth and the moon, which are now two separate bodies, was once all in the same sphere. By the gradual radiation of heat, the volume, but not the mass, diminished, and the axial rotation increased until a broad concentric ring detached itself. The impulse of the moon’s revolutionary motion was given by the earth’s rotation on its axis.

“All plastic bodies, like a planet, etc., assume a spherical form, because all particles equally distant from the center are equally attracted toward the center; and a sphere is the only ‘solid’ in which these conditions can be fulfilled. A sphere formed from the breaking up and concentrating of a broad concentric ring, like the rings out of which planets and moons are formed, must necessarily rotate on its axis, because the particles which compose the concentric ring had an unequal revolutionary velocity. Those particles of the ring nearest the center had a less angular velocity than those particles farthest away from the center.

“Just as these few bodies constituting our solar system of which I have spoken were and are affected, so, we believe, have been or will all heavenly bodies—moons, planets, suns and stars—in all parts of the universe be affected during the lapse of untold ages.

“From this brief explanation, you will readily see that the Marsites’ conception of creation and your evolution theory are almost exactly identical. Observation and experience have led the Marsites and the mundane inhabitants to similar beliefs on these points of creation and formation.

“It is getting late, and I fear that I shall be intruding on our time which should be assigned for rest and sleep,” said Mr. Midith. “I believe, as we have learned in our native home, that we ought to cultivate regular habits and try to live up to them.”

“Mr. Midith, I think you are just an excellent teacher!” exclaimed little Celestine. “You must surely stop with us while you are in our town. I am going to ask you ever so many more questions about your books, animals, towns, playmates and a thousand other things.”

“Yes, Mr. Midith,” said Rev. Dudley; “if you consider all those things wrong and cruel that you mentioned to us some time ago, I shall be much pleased to know how you get along without them, and how you got rid of them if you once had them like you now find them here.”

“To do without them is much more simple than to have them, as you shall see further on,” replied Mr. Midith. “Of course, we passed through all the stages of physical and intellectual evolution that you have passed through and are now in, and we have also gone much farther than you have thus far. At one time our social and industrial system was afflicted with all your present evils and cruelty. We were in succession cannibals, savages, semi-civilized and are now what we call civilized. What we will be next we can not tell.”

CHAPTER IV.
HOME AND FAMILY.

In the evening when we retired, it was still raining, but the next morning greeted us with a bright, pleasant sunshine. All nature seemed to be clothed in her best garment. The faces at Uwins’ appeared to be as pleasing to the sight after a refreshing night’s rest as the verdant foliage, refreshed by the warm rain and delightful sunshine.

After dinner, when we were all seated in the parlor, Mr. Uwins asked Mr. Midith about the family-home as it existed on Mars.

“We have no home and no family as you know a home and a family,” replied Mr. Midith. “We have no home and no family in which one man and one woman live together with their children as you do here. Our ancient history tells us that long, long ago, we had homes and families just like you have them here now.

“It may, at first sight and in your mundane age, seem strange to you to have no family-home like yours; but it is nevertheless a fact. You see society on Mars, as I have told you elsewhere, has had longer time to evolve than it has had on earth. We must expect to find a more advanced state of society and industry there, or we are no believers in evolution, in progress.”

“If you have no home and no family like ours on Mars, in what manner do you live there then?” asked Mrs. Uwins, full of interest.

Diagram 1.
A diagram of a big-house, ground plan.

“I will tell you, ladies and gentlemen,” began Mr. Midith. “Our smallest dwellings accommodate about a thousand men, women and children. These dwellings or Marsian homes are grand, magnificent structures about eight stories high, the main building 150 × 600 feet, with three wings on each side 60 × 300 feet. (See diagram p. 52.) There is an electric engine in every dwelling, which heats every apartment; it lights them with soft brilliant electric lights; it does all the culinary work—cooking, baking, etc.; it pumps the water to all parts of the building; it does all the laundry work—washing, drying and ironing, warms the water for the bath-rooms and for all other apartments; it runs the elevators, heats the conservatories and green-houses; it runs the sewing-machines, dish-washers and all other machinery in the building which I can not mention at present. In the summer it cools departments by creating currents of air.

“See how vastly we economize both in wealth and in labor, by co-operating just in this one direction. One thousand, more or less, of us live together in one magnificent building, instead of one husband and one wife and their children, living in a frail, ill-constructed, inconvenient cottage. We have one electric engine do the heating for a thousand or more, instead of having one or more stoves in each little cottage. Instead of every home like here, having one or more lamps to fill and clean, our engine lights every apartment as light as day with an electric light. Instead of each small family having a cook-stove and washing machine, we run all our work with one engine. We need no heating-stoves, no hand washing-machine; the bath-rooms are comfortable and convenient. We do all this and much more with one engine for the accommodation of a thousand or more members of our large Marsian family.

“The interior of the building is elegantly finished and richly furnished; each individual, young and old, has a private apartment. (See page 55.) Then we have public apartments—grand public parlors of all sizes; a public dining-room; a public hall for games, exercises and amusements of all kinds; a large, fine library; nurseries with plenty of toys for children of all ages; public and private baths, an elegant barber shop, a large, well-filled store, a grand restaurant, a large, clean, well-ventilated kitchen with plenty of good, handsome, tidy cooks and helpers—both men and women; public reading and writing rooms, a scientific department for philosophical apparatus and a well-filled laboratory including drugs, a tailor and milliner shop, a vehicle department, etc. The dwellings, notwithstanding their size, are so well ventilated and cooled in summer, and so uniformly warmed in winter that an inmate can scarcely tell whether it is winter or summer.

“Let us now leave the interior of the ‘Big-House’ for a few moments and give a brief description of the surroundings. I shall hereafter call the Marsian dwelling a ‘big-house’ so as to distinguish it from your family home here. Let me say right here that there are a few general facts of which I would like to inform you, before I attempt a more detailed description of the exterior surroundings of our ‘big-house.’

Diagram 2.
One of the wings of the “big-house” with private apartments.

“You want to bear in mind that we have a family; but that the family consists of a thousand or more men, women and children, instead of consisting like your family of from one to six or more. That we have no cities and towns, and no country; that our day’s manual labor consists in an average of less than two hours; this you will readily see as soon as you clearly understand how vastly we economize both wealth and labor in all directions by voluntary co-operative individualism. Years ago we had cities and towns, and a country similar to yours of the present time; but experience gradually taught us that it is not healthful to live in a crowded, smoky city and town, and also that we have no particular use for cities and towns, that they are detrimental to an orderly, well-regulated society. We also found that a family of husband and wife and their children, living alone in a country home, are largely wasting their lives socially and economically.”

“You said, Mr. Midith, that you have no cities and towns and no country either. I should like to know where you live then?” asked Rev. Dudley. “All the houses here on earth are either in cities and towns, or they are in the country. I can see no other place for them. You do not live on rafts and boats, do you? You seem to have so many strange notions on Mars that a person can not tell what you might do until you have told us.”

Mr. Midith laughed as he continued: “Our ‘big houses’ are built about a half a mile apart all around rectangular fields twenty-four miles long and six miles wide, containing according to your measurement four geographical townships, or 92,160 acres each.” (See pp. 57 and 58.)

Fig. 3.
The rectangles represent Communities 6 × 24 miles and are numbered as above; the black lines represent motor-lines; the dotted lines, railroads which are about 100 miles apart.

Fig. 4.
The circles represent “big-houses” about a half-mile apart. The squares represent warehouses, factories, mills and work-shops about four miles apart. All the Communities are surrounded by double-tracked motor-lines.

“There are double-tracked, electric-motor lines running all around these large divisions of land, so that every ‘big-house’ is situated on a motor-line. These large divisions of land, together with the houses and people that live on them, we call communities. A community, then, has an area of four townships, more or less, and a perimeter of sixty miles, on which a big-house, containing about a thousand inmates is situated at intervals of about half a mile. (See p. 58.) This gives a community a population of about 120,000 persons. These motor-lines connect with railroads at intervals of about a hundred miles or more, as the case may be. Our railroads are nearly all straight and almost level, with heavy steel composition rails, laid on a solid roadbed, and the time of many trains exceeds a speed of a hundred miles an hour.”

On page 60, figure 5, I have given a diagram, as described by Mr. Midith, of a cross section of the land along the motor-lines, extending from the motor-line to the main field or body of land in the community. “A represents a hundred-foot wide motor-line. B represents a strip of park land one-fourth mile wide, on which the ‘big-houses’ are located. D represents a hundred-foot wide boulevard. C C represents walks on each side of the main boulevard. E represents a conservatory and green-house five hundred feet wide. F represents a walk between the conservatory and the garden G, which is one thousand feet wide. I is an orchard one thousand feet wide. H is a walk between the garden and orchard. J represents the edge of the field, etc., which extends clear across the community.

“These parks, boulevards, walks, conservatories, etc., run parallel with the entire length of all the motor-lines wherever the lay of the land will permit it.”

“O, how beautifully you have all this arranged!” exclaimed Viola. “I suppose you have a great many fine, fast horses on your broad boulevards. I am sure you have plenty of time to train them if you work less than two hours a day.”

Fig. 5.

A Motor line 100 feet wide.
B Park on which big-houses are built. One-fourth mile.
C Walks
D Boulevard 100 feet wide
C Walks
E Conservatory & G-H 500 feet wide
F Walk
G Garden 1000 feet wide
H Walks
I Orchard 1000 feet wide
J Field about 5 miles wide

“We have no oxen and horses, no draught animals of any kind, except a few the same as you keep elk,” said Mr. Midith. “As I have said, it seems very cruel to me to use animals the way you do. To beat them; to hitch them up so unnaturally, and to work and run them so cruelly.”

“How, then, do you farm, Mr. Midith?” asked Roland. “Do you spade the land like our ancestors used to do?”

“The farming is all done with electric power. A locomotive, which builds and takes up its own track, does all the plowing, sowing, harvesting, etc. Instead of fencing each little patch of land, and turning our weak, tired teams before all those fences, destroying, in the act of turning, the very crops you endeavor to raise, like you do here, we hitch up a powerful land locomotive to a set of gang plows and plow a furrow which is from three to twenty-four miles long, as the case may be. Our fifty-foot header, propelled by an electric engine, cuts the heads from the grain and elevates them into a large wagon rack. This wagon, when full, is taken with an engine to the warehouses, represented on p. 58, community No. 2; here the cut ears are dumped into a large hopper. Each header has enough wagons for hauling grain to keep it cutting all the time. From the hoppers at the warehouses, elevators take the cut grain, or ears, to drying rooms. In these drying rooms currents of hot air pass through the grain, and in a few days it is perfectly dry. Here it is elevated into the thresher, and from the thresher it passes into drying bins, where it is dried for keeping or for grinding. Thus you see that in sowing, reaping, threshing and grinding, not a human hand has touched a straw nor a grain. With our method of artificial curing, not a grain is damaged by moisture, not a grain is lost on the land or road. By the aid of electricity we can, if need be, cut day and night, rain and shine.

“From the foregoing, you see that our system of agriculture, especially harvesting, has many points of advantage over yours; a few of which I shall name. You first cut the grain with a little reaper or self-binder which throws the grain on the ground; here a portion of the grain is lost by being scattered on the ground; then you shock it, by which another portion is lost; then you dry it in the sun; by this process a large portion is lost, and a still larger portion is more or less damaged by wind and rain in the field. After this you stack it; here in the stack some more is lost; a portion is lost and damaged by heating and some by rain. Your little, ill-adjusted thresher, hauled around over the fields, run a portion of it into the straw-pile; part of it is trampled into the ground and another part is damaged by rain during the process of threshing. Next, in your crowded, ill-ventilated bins, a portion of it is totally spoiled, and a large portion of it is more or less damaged. Another portion is lost and damaged on the road when the farmer brings it to market. Then your little country mills only half grind it. Again, during a rainy season, you can cut only during the daytime when the grain is dry.

“After all these and countless other losses and damages, you need not be surprised that so many of your poor people are starving for bread, or are only too glad to get the bread made of damaged grain. By our method all our grain is saved and none of it is damaged. We do not depend for our curing on the immediate sunshine, as you have seen.

“To be sure we, the same as you, must adapt our farming to suit the land and climate, which are as diversified and varied on Mars as they are on earth; but the foregoing system is adopted where the land and other conditions are suited for it. Thus we see that as long as the changeableness and uncertainty of climatic conditions are not under scientific control, that system of harvesting, which depends for its drying and curing on the immediate sunshine of the harvest-time must, in an average, always be attended with a large portion of loss and damage.

“You notice that there is nothing new in our system of harvesting. By extensive, voluntary co-operation you can do the same. You have headers, engines, elevators, electricity, currents of hot air for drying, and you can build large warehouses for drying and storing grain as well as we can. Your main trouble is that you work too single handed. I may say right here that I am acquainted with an inventor who resides near Grand Junction, Iowa. This man has a tract-building locomotive that can pull a heavy load over softer ground than a team is able to walk on. Of course, this is only a rude beginning, but it shows the way you are tending.

“On Mars transportation is rapid, cheap and convenient. Manufacturing is principally done in those localities where it requires the least amount of labor. Crops best adapted to the locality are raised there and then transported where consumed. Our freight trains carry 3,000 tons from 40 to 100 miles an hour.

“Here are a few facts that will enable you to understand how vastly we economize both wealth and labor by our extensive co-operative individualism, and how easily we can produce with abundance the necessaries and luxuries of life, so that we are obliged to work but a few hours daily. Each community is, so to speak, a large family, in which each member has a personal interest in the community’s wealth. For this reason every member of the community is keenly interested in the productive industries of the community. Mars has, therefore, no wage-workers. Experience convinced us that a wage-worker, having no direct interest in his productions, is, as a rule, not highly interested in the quantity and quality of his labor; such uninterested labor is also toilsome and fatiguing. I have given you this brief outline of our social and industrial system now, so that you may mentally assimilate the fundamental plan of it; and on some future occasion, I will give you a more detailed description of each part of it. Too much at one time will cause a mental confusion.

“You see there is only one difficult point in the solution of the social and industrial problem, and that point I shall now endeavor to make you understand, if you do not already understand it, so that hereafter you may always bear that point in mind in connection with social and industrial progress. The difficult point is this: To devise or outline a social and industrial system in which a large number of individuals co-operate harmoniously, and yet have every individual free to do what he believes to be right, provided he infringes not upon the equal rights of any other person. No man here on earth thus far has been able to outline such a system.”

“Do you not have many quarrels in your large families?” asked Rev. Dudley. “I am quite certain that if our family were increased to a thousand, we would have many quarrels and fights and even murders.’”

“We have neither quarrels, fights nor murders,” replied Mr. Midith. “You see we have nothing to quarrel about. Whenever the individual has arrived at such a stage of intellectual culture that he concedes the right to all of his companions to do as they individually believe to be right, or conduce most to their happiness, provided they invade no rights of any other person, there can be no quarrels, fights and murders. This is the only point we need learn to bring about perfect social harmony. Quarrels, fights and murders are the results of ignorance and an ill-adjusted society. When I first got acquainted with your small family, huddled together in one or a few little rooms, I was not surprised to find that people here, as a rule, are so cruel and quarrelsome. The old, the middle-aged, and the young are all crowded in one little apartment. Their natural inclination, on account of age, temperament, etc., is very unlike. Yet they are compelled to be together. With us every man, woman and child has a splendid private apartment, to which they can retire at any moment. No one intrudes on them there. Any one can leave any or all his social companions whenever he pleases.

“With you it is vastly different. How many matured children, when living in the same house and in the same apartment, make your homes a dungeon—a battle-field on which the better sentiments of both parents and children are slain? How many old parents are supported by their sons and daughters when each other’s presence is no more agreeable? How many husbands and wives are compelled, by your social and industrial system, to live together after they do not love each other? How many circumstances are there not that compel your so-called masters and servants to remain together after they dislike each other? These and many other unnatural, disagreeable, social conditions produce your quarrels, fights and murders.

“Formerly we believed, like you now believe, that a family could not exist successfully without a ‘boss.’ But experience proved to us that we were mistaken. We now know that a family ‘boss’ is nothing but a curse and a creature of discord only. Just in proportion as we eliminate the vicious social conditions, the ‘boss,’ quarreling, fighting and murdering disappear.

“I think we have a good proof of that right here in this home. As far as I can ascertain there is no ‘boss’ in Mr. Uwins’ family. All the members of the family, as far as I can see, are free to do what each believes to be right. The kind training, the equal privileges, and the unrestricted freedom have stamped a pleasant, prepossessing appearance upon the countenance of parent and child. When the conditions are right, a thousand can live just as peaceably together under one roof as two can, and even more so, for the very act of living in small families like you do, is a sign that the conditions are not right; and as long as the social and industrial conditions are wrong, there can be no right society.

“That a certain advanced social state seems unattainable or even dangerous may not be a sign that it is so. It may be only a sign that those who think it injurious are not ripe for it at present—that their intellectual culture is not in tune with such a life. But it may just suit some who are more advanced than those are who claim that it is unattainable; or they, in time, may grow ripe for it themselves.

“Perhaps our primitive ancestors both here and on Mars were cannibals, and they no doubt believed that the desire for eating human flesh would never be eliminated, and if it were eliminated the world would then not be worth living in. But we have no desire to eat human flesh. It would be very repugnant to us. The contemporaries of your ‘Holy Inquisition’ no doubt believed that society would crumble without the so-called protection of that ‘Holy Institution.’ But we know from a retrospective view that it was a very cruel enemy of society. Again, your civil courts that convicted, imprisoned, tortured and burned thousand upon thousand of innocent people as witches during the witch mania, undoubtedly thought that a person’s life and property were not safe without the protection or intervention of these civil tribunals; but we now know that the more witches you killed the more rapidly they increased, and that when you ceased killing them they all soon die of their own accord. We know that there never was a witch; that this belief was only a mental illusion, like thousands of your present beliefs are; and we also know that the human family, with the advance of intelligence, will gradually adjust itself in the line of the completest life and greatest happiness.”

CHAPTER V.
WEALTH.

“A few remarks concerning wealth will be of great value in helping you to understand what you requested me to tell you some future time,” said Mr. Midith; “and if you wish, I will give you in brief the Marsian idea of wealth, before we proceed to our afternoon work.”

Parents, visitors and children all eagerly desired Mr. Midith to proceed, which he did thus:

“The Marsites believe that genuine wealth consists: 1. Of organized-self—a sound body and a healthy, vigorous mind. 2. Of material wealth—food, clothing, shelter, luxuries and the instruments of their production and distribution—tools, machinery, factories, railroads, etc. And 3. Of mental wealth—thought, love, kindness, the so-called morality and freedom.

“We claim that all wealth comes, either directly or indirectly, from the earth, or out of it by the application of labor, and that only which is produced by labor is wealth, and belongs exclusively to the producer. To illustrate, the material composing our body was once inorganic matter. The plant organized it. We eat, digest and assimilate the plant out of which our tissues are built. The crude material out of which our clothes are made is produced by the earth. The cotton plant that grows on the earth produced the cotton. The sheep, on whose back the wool grows, lives on the grass, etc., which is produced by the earth. Our books, houses, shoes, hats, and our physical organs, which perform their wonderfully complex functions, all come, either directly or indirectly, out of the earth, air and ocean in a crude form. Then they are shaped by the hand of labor into the proper form and become wealth.

“By labor we manufacture clothes, write books, raise, gather and lay up food, build houses, construct railroads, improve land, acquire and maintain a sound body and a healthy, cultivated mind. The storehouse of thought, kindness, love and freedom is also filled by labor and exertion. All these mental acquisitions are therefore constituent parts of genuine wealth—wealth of the most precious kind, for material wealth is easily acquired when we are rich in faultless organized-self and in mental wealth.

“The air we breathe is not wealth, because it is not produced by labor. The wild apple and plum on the tree are not wealth, because no human labor has been expended in the production of them. But the picked apple of the same tree, in the hand of the consumer, or in his cellar is wealth; he picked or stored it away for future use, which required labor. Sunshine and rain, native grass and water in its native bed or channel, are not wealth. Land in its natural state is not wealth, because it was not produced by labor. There was land before there was human labor. But all improvement made on land by labor is wealth and belongs exclusively to the person who made the improvement.

“All wealth, then, organized-self, material and mental, comes ultimately out of the inorganic earth (air and water), and requires labor and effort to produce them, and is wealth only so far as they required labor in their production.”

“Have the inhabitants of Mars always been as wealthy as they now are?” asked Mrs. Uwins.

“Oh, no; we have steadily been growing richer in all the component parts of genuine wealth. Ages ago our world was poor in sound bodies, because in many cases we had ill-health on account of overwork; in other cases we were burdened with ill-health for lack of proper and sufficient exercise; in still other cases we did not enjoy good health on account of poor and insufficient subsistence. Uncleanliness, irregularity, licentiousness, jealousy, etc., were other causes of ill-health; and lastly, perhaps, all had inherited a more or less feeble and diseased constitution, consequent from the constant violations of the so-called natural laws by our numerous successive ancestors.

“Under our former monopolistic, social and industrial system, our world was poor in material wealth—food, clothing, shelter and luxuries. Thousands upon thousands of industrious people in every county were forced idlers, and consequently poor or paupers. They were hungry, ragged, cold and unclean. Want and the fear of want forced them to work so hard and so long daily that cleanliness and intellectual culture had become a burden to them. They were merely industrial slaves, earning the material wealth for the rich who spent their lives largely in wasteful idleness.

“At that early period, then, in the history of evolution, when our social and industrial system was as defective as your present one, when but a single couple lived together in a small house, and when individual efforts, instead of voluntary co-operation, were the recognized methods of acquiring wealth, we were poor in mental wealth. There was then little thought, love, kindness and freedom. We met with ignorance, cruelty, wrong, superstition and slavery of some kind in all directions. Our ancestors blindly trampled in the mire the best portions of bodily and mental wealth, while they were only in pursuit of gold.

“Under the old social and industrial system there was a continual fear in all directions; timid thinking, avaricious accumulation of gold, industrial, religious and domestic slavery, antagonistic strife, jealous feelings, disease, ignorance, crime and poverty.

“There can be very little true love, kindness and prosperity as long as one family, sect, party, organization and nation endeavors to build itself up by tearing down others. Antagonism involves an expenditure of energy. As a rule your banker’s child is forbidden to play and associate with the hod-carrier’s. The Catholic disapproves of, and often despises the Protestant, and the Protestant the Catholic. The Christian, the Pagan and vice versa. The Republican and Democrat condemn each other. Instead of love, kindness and harmony, there is almost universal hatred and antagonism.

“Gradually and slowly we learned that, under such conditions, we were poor indeed! During the lapse of ages, we learned by sad experience that all good acts contain in themselves a reward of happiness, and all bad acts contain in themselves a punishment of misery. By a continual and positive reward of the right, and by a continual and positive punishment of the wrong did we at last learn to grope our way from the old antagonistic system to our present system of voluntary, co-operative individualism.

“From my foregoing remarks you will easily see that your idea of wealth and that of the Marsites do not correspond.

“You class many things not produced by labor as wealth; for instance, land and money as such. We call nothing wealth which is not produced by labor. With us our communities’ average productive labor is the basis of wealth. Our wealth is a compound, composed of three elements, namely, organized-self, material wealth, and mental wealth. Wealth as considered by your masses is an element composed of material wealth only—dollars, houses, books, land, railroads, bonds, etc.

“You call a person rich when he has many dollars, no matter what his other attainments and surroundings may be. Your so-called rich men may be the dupes of ignorance, cruelty, slavery and superstition; they may work themselves and their families to premature graves; they may scheme the bread out of the mouths of the still more ignorant and poverty-stricken ones; they may be surrounded by hovels and extreme ignorance and poverty; they may, every night, be in danger of being robbed and murdered by their cold, hungry neighbors who may be forced idlers, and still you call them rich, only because they claim to own a few dollars. We believe that all men are poor who are not the owners of a healthy body, a sound mind, and an abundance of material subsistence, which can be obtained only in a world where all are comparatively rich in this kind of wealth.

“According to your idea of wealth, avarice is a sin, because the rich accumulate their millions by robbing the poor. No man can earn a million dollars. According to our idea of wealth, the most avaricious person is the best, for he equally works to the highest interest and good of himself and his fellow-man. No man, in our opinion, can be rich in a poor, ignorant world.”

CHAPTER VI.
LABOR.

“Before I can give you a clear description of the interior of the ‘big-house,’ and the work that is done in it by the inmates, it will be necessary to give you a brief explanation of our system and idea of labor,” continued Mr. Midith.

“In the first place you want to bear in mind that our day’s labor, as I have told you before, is very short, in an average less than two hours a day; but there is no place in our society for an idler. All sound, able-bodied persons, men, women and children, are expected to work at some suitable productive labor. We teach that labor is necessary and honorable; that idleness is robbery and a disgrace. Our public opinion shuns an idler or unproductive laborer as much as you shun a burglar. We believe that a proper amount of physical labor is healthful, that it is essential for the highest development of body and mind. We further believe that children should be taught to labor while young, because labor becomes pleasurable only when the habit of laboring is acquired during childhood and youth. A child should be taught to be independent, to support itself by agreeable, healthful labor as early as possible, for many reasons which I will tell you some other time. I find here on earth that many parents believe that manual labor is a disgrace. With us, you will notice, it is just the reverse. We believe that a parent who does not teach a child to labor while it is young is the child’s greatest enemy, for such a child will be a slave to labor ever after.

“We classify labor as productive, unproductive and destructive. When I speak of labor here, I mean that kind of labor only which is expended in the pursuit of acquiring the material subsistence; and in the rearing of offspring I include only the toilsome exertions, not the sportive exercises. Plowing, sowing, reaping, cooking washing, planting, digging a needful well, mining iron, building a house, making a coat, writing a useful book, running an engine, holding and carrying a baby beyond a certain length of time, etc., are examples of productive labor. Productive labor, then, as here restricted, is that kind of labor which adds to the aggregate amount of the community’s material wealth in the form of food, clothing, shelter and luxuries, or that which is expended in the rearing of offspring. After a productive day’s labor, the world is richer in material wealth than it was before. The day’s labor must have produced something. It must have augmented not only the labor’s individual wealth, but the aggregate wealth of the world.

“Unproductive labor is that kind which neither tends to produce nor destroy material wealth. No amount of unproductive labor produces food for a single meal. To be digging wells where there is no need for water; to carry a brick to and fro from one place to another; to plant a potato for the sake of planting; to plow a field and not sow and harvest it; to build a house and not utilize it; to mine coal and not use it; to gamble, etc., are examples of unproductive labor. No matter how much the laborer perspires, how long and how toilsome a day he makes, how diligent and honest he may be, all his efforts and toil expended in this manner do not add one iota to the aggregate material wealth of the nation or of the world.

“Destructive labor is that kind of labor which actually destroys wealth, which, we have seen, can be produced only by productive labor.

“For examples: A soldier tearing up or otherwise destroying railroads; a burglar exploding a safe; an army burning a city; a miner mining iron that is to be manufactured into a gun with which life and property are to be destroyed; a malicious destruction of a tree or useful plant, etc., etc.

“We can plainly see that if we should all engage in destructive labor, all the material wealth would soon be destroyed, and the more industrious we would be in the expenditure of destructive labor, the less material wealth we would have left. Idleness is a virtue as compared with destructive labor.

“Perhaps more than three-fourths of your labor here on earth is either comparatively unproductive or destructive. Nearly all your fencing, banking, mining gold for money, speculating, soldiering, three-fourths of your so-called mercantile business, your sectarian preaching and teaching, all your political scheming, manufacturing and selling liquor and tobacco are unproductive or destructive. Besides these few cases that I have mentioned there are countless other ways in which you expend a vast amount of unproductive and destructive labor, which I can not now make you clearly understand, but which you will see hereafter as we compare our social and industrial system with yours.

“By the foregoing explanation we see that an industrious person is not necessarily a producer. One may be as industrious in the destruction of wealth as in the production of it. A millionaire, who labors to accumulate, by some scheme, the wealth that others have earned, to augment his individual fortune, is an unproductive or destructive laborer, not a productive one. He robs some person and thereby makes the world worse. His object is not to earn, but to appropriate what others have already earned or produced. It is not always easy in your system to determine whether a certain kind of labor is productive, unproductive, or destructive. Intelligence, the basis of all activity, is the only criterion that can determine it.”

“Do the Marsites all work only at productive labor?” asked Mr. Uwins.

“Yes,” replied Mr. Midith. “We gradually eliminated all unproductive and destructive labor as our social and industrial system advanced.

“But allow me, ladies and gentlemen, to tell you right here, there is one other point in connection with labor that I shall have to speak to you about, in order to give you a clear understanding of our idea of labor, and that point is this: not all human exertion, whether performed on earth or on Mars, is considered laborious or toilsome. For instance, the beating of the heart, eating, breathing, voluntary conversation, a ride or walk for recreation, pursuing a favorite study or occupation, shopping as you call it, entertaining a welcome friend, being engaged in a certain kind of fancy work, are not considered even by you as toilsome labor. They have either become delightful exercises, or they have lost their conscious sensitiveness all together, like the beating of the heart, etc.

“All well organized persons find delight in being always engaged in some active, physical or mental pursuits, during their waking hours. Absolute quietude and idleness are very burdensome to them. So, too, is excessive labor toilsome to them. But by the aid and improvement of our machinery, by shortening the day of manual labor, by acquiring the habit of working while young, by receiving a large return for labor, by laboring in company with pleasant companions, by having all the necessary and convenient tools, by becoming continually more and more proficient in our occupation, by appreciating with a keener, esthetic sense the improved products of an advancing industry, and by laboring more and more under individual freedom, all exertions tend to pass from the sphere of toilsome labor into the sphere of delightful, sportive exercise, and this change will, no doubt, continue until a complete adjustment is effected.

“You see our machinery and tools are so perfect and easily manipulated, our conveniences so complete, our day’s manual labor so short, our return of labor so abundant, our company so pleasant, our choice of occupation so free, our liberty so unimpaired, our esthetic sense so keen, that nearly all our work has passed into play, and is almost as delightful and pleasant to us as activity is to a child.

“With you things are just the reverse. Your machinery is not so perfect, your tools are not so handy, your conveniences for labor are very few, your day of manual labor is so long and toilsome, your returns go largely to the rich idlers or unproductive labors, your companions are often rival enemies, your occupation whatever you can get to do, your overseer a cruel, heartless tyrant, your appreciations for accomplishments have been withered by anxiety and poverty. Nothing but the bare necessity of acquiring the material subsistence for a meager livelihood spurs you on to your almost unendurable and endless toil, which generally lasts until the premature grave entombs the remains of your worn-out, lifeless body. Under your sad social and industrial arrangement, it is no wonder that you dishonor labor, that you endeavor by all schemes to escape that endless tread-mill of toil to which you are generally hitched for life by the tugs of cruelty, want of knowledge and superstition.

“It is now time for our afternoon work, and, whenever hereafter I tell you anything about our wealth and labor, always endeavor to think of them as they are considered by the Marsites, and not as you look at wealth and labor here. Always bear in mind that organized-self and mental wealth are necessary constituents of our genuine wealth, and that the old toilsome labor has almost completely passed into delightful sportive exercise.”

CHAPTER VII.
INTERIOR OF “BIG-HOUSE.”

After tea, about five o’clock, we were once more seated together on Mr. Uwins’ beautiful green, shady lawn to listen to Mr. Midith’s pleasing description of the Marsian “big-house.”

“Do you recollect, Mr. Midith, telling us at noon that you would give us a more detailed description of the interior of the ‘big-house?’” asked Mrs. Uwins. “We shall now be pleased to give you our attention on that subject.”

“Yes; we will all listen to you, Mr. Midith,” said little Celestine, sitting very near him.

“There is so much to be told that I scarcely know where to begin,” said Mr. Midith; “and when I draw a clear, vivid picture of those grand, colossal structures in my imagination, it seems almost as though I once more enjoyed my native world, my native home, and my native society, for which, perhaps, in every stage of intellectual development, a person’s heart, who has been deprived of them, will yearn.

“I have already told you at noon that a ‘big-house’ is about eight stories high; that it accommodates about a thousand inmates—men, women and children; that the ‘big-houses’ are located about half-mile apart on the motor-lines all around, the rectangular communities twenty-four miles long and usually six miles wide (see p. 115). This arrangement gives us two tiers of ‘big-houses’ with a motor-line between them. As these ‘big-houses’ are built opposite each other, two and two, each of these motor stopping places furnishes a population of about two thousand. At every ‘big-house’ is a motor-line side-track, which holds a train of motor cars for unloading. The freight cars are elevated and lowered with electric power to those stories of the building where the freight is to be unloaded. All goods used and consumed in the ‘big-houses’ are unloaded here with very little muscular power. Here, then, we economize a vast amount of human labor, and so in all other directions. By the time I shall have told you all about our social and industrial system, you will no longer be astonished that we have such an abundance of grand things, all with less than two hours of labor a day.”

“Does not the smoke of your engines sometimes annoy you?” asked Mr. Uwins. “In our cities it is often very annoying.”

“That is very true, Mr. Uwins,” replied Mr. Midith, “but you see we have no cities; we have no use for them. We also have no steam engines to create smoke; even the latest steam engines we used burned their own smoke, and that is nothing new even to your modern mechanics. Your latest engines do that too. It is a grand step in advance, but we are now long beyond that point. The Marsites now use electric and compressed air engines. The power is furnished by the wind. Our present engines, then, require no fuel and produce no smoke. Hereafter I shall tell you much more about our engines and other motive power. Our engine and engine-room, as well as all other departments, are kept as neat and clean as any parlor. We have learned that it pays to be clean and orderly. Each particular work is done by a particular man, woman, or child, who pride themselves in doing it promptly, orderly and well.

“The main edifice of the ‘big-house,’ as I have said, is about eight stories high, and sometimes higher. There are electric elevators in different parts of the building. Some of them run vertically from the bottom to the top, and some of them run horizontally from end to end of the building. The kitchen is a large, clean, well-ventilated apartment with plenty of first-class cooks and bakers. The cooking and baking is all done by electric heat, generated by the engine. The cooks can put on as much or as little heat as they desire. We can boil potatoes in closed vessels in less than five minutes of time.”

“Is not your kitchen work of handling those large kettles that hold sufficient to feed a thousand persons or more, too laborious for a feeble, sickly woman?” asked Viola.

Mr. Midith laughed and said: “Viola, you must understand in the first place, that we have no feeble, sickly women in our world. Feebleness and disease are the consequences of antecedent causes, and as soon as the causes are removed, feebleness will turn into strength and disease will disappear. We have long ago eliminated those social and industrial evils that enfeeble and that fade the pallid cheeks of your women, and especially of your mothers. And in the second place, the kettles and all other cooking utensils are lifted and adjusted by machinery, which is so convenient that a child can easily operate it in most cases. Helping to prepare one meal in such a pleasant, convenient kitchen constitutes a day’s work for a cook, whether man or woman. Other sets of cooks likewise prepare the other meals of the day.

“Each division of the kitchen, as well as all other departments of labor, has a foreman, who holds his position by the common consent of his co-laborers in the same division, and by virtue of his superior fitness in his own work and in directing the labor of all in the most productive, harmonious and delightful channel. The foreman labors just the same as any one else. He receives no higher pay. He is only foreman in so far as his co-laborers are willing to acknowledge him or her as such.

“Here, again, you see how we economize material wealth and labor by our voluntary co-operation, and you further see that our work is little more than sportive exercise. Instead of being laborious as you thought, a cook with us, whether man or woman, does nearly all her work by machinery, run by electric power. This she can generally do by sitting in an easy chair in her elegant kitchen, which is kept scrupulously clean by a set of dusters and wipers who have chosen that as their favorite occupation. She has no black, sooty kettles to handle, because the heat she uses to cook with does neither blacken her kitchen nor her kettles. She is always neatly dressed, can even wear delicate gloves most the time if she so desires, and has all the pleasant companions, both male and female, whose company she can enjoy as she is doing her short day’s work. With men cooks it is, of course, the same.

“Compare this short, easy, pleasant day’s work of our cooks with the long, toilsome, unpleasant drudgery of your women, who must prepare all the meals, often out of the very poorest material; who, besides preparing meals, must bear and nurse all the offspring, and work at other drudgery, generally from ten to sixteen hours a day. And this is very often not all. Many mothers, besides doing all this physical drudgery in a little penned-up house, in which an invigorating breath of wholesome air seldom enters, are called upon to please and satisfy an overworked, cranky ‘boss’ of a husband, and sometimes ignorant, uncultivated sons and daughters. This overwork is one of the many causes that enfeeble your women, and that spread the robe of pallor and disease over their countenance. I say this is only one of the many causes that produce feebleness and disease, but besides this one there are countless others. To some of the most conspicuous ones I shall call your attention as we proceed with our explanation. Now, I do not mean to say here that your men, as a rule, are not overworked, for they are very much so; but not so much so as the masses of mothers who are raising families.”

“Now, Mr. Midith, will you give us a description of your dining-room?” asked Celestine.

“Oh, yes. Our dining apartment is spacious, richly finished and elegantly furnished. It is large enough to seat at once all the members of the family and a considerable number of visitors besides. Each table accommodates from two to eight persons, and the tables are tastefully arranged in tiers alongside of horizontal elevators, that carry the victuals from the kitchen all along the row of tables to the further end of the dining-hall, where they are served by the waiters. On the center of each table is a tiny fountain, playing its cool liquid treasure on an exquisite assortment of gorgeous bouquets. This chemically pure, fresh, cool fountain also supplies the drink for the table. The tableware is of the finest pattern, and everything is kept scrupulously clean and in good order by those in charge of the dining-hall.

“We are purely vegetarians, eating no flesh meat of any kind. Of course our primitive ancestors, like yours, were cannibals; then meat-eaters like you are now, but this habit of killing and eating flesh meat has long since become antiquated, and eating flesh meat or a dead carcass is perhaps as repugnant to us now as eating a corpse would be to you. We also use no coffee, tea, tobacco, nor any kind of intoxicating liquor as a beverage. Experience has taught us that no benefit is derived from the use of them; but often a great deal of evil.

“Our cooking is all of first-class order; none but expert cooks of the community make cooking their profession. The tables are loaded, winter and summer, with the finest soups, vegetables, fruits both cooked and raw, and all kinds of nuts. Some of the eatables are shipped in from tropical countries and some are raised during the winter months in our large conservatories and green-houses, of which I shall tell you hereafter. Our baking is of endless variety, and of the finest quality the genius of man can produce.

“All meals are served promptly on time, and no provisions are made for any one who is not on time for his meals. Every one is supposed to eat at whatever big-house he happens to be during meal-time, for he can buy a meal as cheap in any big-house where he may be, as he can at his own table.

“The victuals at each table are served in common dishes, which are passed, and each helps himself the same as you generally do in your family home. We have no hotels, because we have no use for any. A traveler, while he is traveling, eats in the dining car; and when he gets off he stops at a ‘big-house,’ for they are the only stopping places we have, and when there he can either eat a regular meal in the dining-hall, or he can at any time order anything he wants in the restaurant.

“Every single meal is paid for, and each one pays for his own meal, whether he be a man, woman or child, whether a visitor or a member of the same family. After every meal, each individual deposits the price of the meal into his pay-dish—a little dish which is kept at each plate for that special purpose. After meal-time, the waiters, who, like the cooks, do nothing else but waiting on the tables, take charge of the pay which is deposited in the pay-dishes. The pay-dishes automatically register every meal deposited, and at the close of the year, or at any other time, we can tell by the common register just how many meals have been eaten in the dining-hall during the year.”

“You said, Mr. Midith, that every man, woman and child pays for his own meal. But how can a little child that has no money pay for its own meals?” asked Roland.

“That is very easily done when you understand how it is worked. You see our financial world is altogether different from yours, which I will explain to you when we get to our system of money or medium of exchange.

“Let us, in a few words, compare our dining-hall with yours. With our system there is no food wasted by leaving it on side-dishes, for we do not use them in the same manner as you do. We object to them on the ground that the eater—the only person who knows what he likes and what he wants—does not do the dishing up, when side-dishes filled by the cooks are used. In your so-called first-class hotels, there is perhaps as much, if not more, good food left in the side-dishes on the tables as is eaten. Your bill of fare system is also very wasteful. When it is used, cooks must prepare a great variety of articles, for some of which, perhaps, no one calls; for others there are more calls, but there is a tendency of great waste. In our system of eating there is also very little waste of food from cooking too much at a meal. The cooks know about how much is needed at each meal for the family, and that is about all the family cooks for, unless a considerable number of visitors have ordered meals there. Visitors, as I have said, always pay the same price for a meal as a member of the family does. Every able-bodied man, woman and youth believes in, and practices independence and self-maintenance. We all detest assistance and protection from others.

“Much of the food cooked in your hotels is also not eaten because the expected number of guests did not eat there at that meal. There is no way for a hotel-cook to know how much to cook. The eating at hotels is all uncertainty and irregularity. There may be many or there may be none for dinner. We have no rich idlers who live upon the labor of others, and who waste more food than they eat; and we have no starving poor who would be glad to get the leavings. With us all able-bodied persons must earn their meals by productive labor. No amount of speculation and scheming in our world will ever secure a meal for any one.

“In our system of eating and cooking, as compared with yours, there is also an immense saving of labor and food on account of our being purely vegetarians; for the production of flesh meat requires in an average much more land and labor than the production of the same amount of nutrition in vegetation. You waste annually more than a thousand million dollars worth of labor, even as low as your wages are now, in the production of tobacco and intoxicating liquor, which, according to your own most distinguished physiologists, is far more injurious than beneficial to the human system. Right here, I believe, is another of the great causes which is instrumental in the production of your crimes, cruelty and disease.

“Our manner of eating is considerably different from yours, which I will explain to you when we get to our system of education. We endeavor to build all our habits and customs on the so-called laws of life, health and happiness. Every act that conduces to the fullness of them we consider right, and every act that detracts from the fullness of them we consider wrong.

“Every ‘big-house’ contains a large, magnificent restaurant, which is artistically embellished by the hand of art, and splendidly furnished with elaborate counters, fine tables, easy chairs, grand mirrors and all other furniture that conduces to the ease and comforts of man. It is lit up, when dark, with brilliant electric lights, which almost rival the brilliancy of a cloudless noon-day sun. In this gorgeous apartment all kinds of eatables, from the daintiest to the coarser that our world produces, can be bought there at cost by all individuals who may wish them, during any hour of the day and evening. Our regular meals, as I said before, are served promptly on time; but, by the aid of this restaurant, no one need go hungry for a single minute. In our world no one pays for meals that he does not eat, except to the helpless, and no one gets anything for nothing, unless it is voluntarily given to him. As our day’s labor is only about two hours, so the cooks and waiters change off about that often.

“After meals the dishes of both the dining-hall and restaurant are put into a dishwashing machine, through which a powerful current of steam and hot water containing chemicals pass for a few moments; then a current of hot air passes through it, which dries the dishes in a few minutes. Our ladies never put their hands in water to wash dishes. Our large families can have such conveniences, but your small families can not afford to have such dishwashers.”

CHAPTER VIII.
INTERIOR OF THE “BIG-HOUSE.”
[Continued.]

“I think I shall take my supper this evening in your elegant restaurant, which you have just described, if I can find some one to take me!” exclaimed Viola. “I am only too sorry that it is so far off.”

“But let me tell you, Miss Viola, in our world you would not wait for some one to take you, if you desired to go anywhere. You would start whenever you felt like it, either alone or in company with others, just as it happens. A woman in our world is as free and independent to go any and all places as a man is. She earns as much with her day’s labor as a man does, and is therefore not financially dependent on any man, as you will readily see by an explanation of our monetary system some future time.”

“How do you do your laundry work?” asked Mrs. Uwins. “I suppose that is done on the same large, easy scale as all your other work.”

“Our laundry contains a powerful steam washing-machine, which is capable of washing the garments of the whole family in less than an hour’s time, and almost without the aid of a human hand. It contains a drying room, in which the wash is dried in a few minutes. Electric irons do the ironing. To wash, dry and iron the garments of a thousand men, women and children requires the labor of only a few persons for a very short time. Every one pays for his own washing, and can get as much of it done as he wants. The laundry work is all done by experts. We wash every day, for every day we bathe and change clothes after our day’s work is done.

“In this laundry department we economize an immense amount of labor by co-operation, and doubtless conduces vastly to our average health, which is with you very often impaired by overwork, and by contracting cold when an overheated washer hangs out the clothes. Here, with you, each small family must have a washing apparatus, even if it is nothing more than a sickly woman’s hands. Each has a clothes-line, on which the clothes wear perhaps nearly as much by drying as by bodily wear. Each keeps a number of flat-irons, which are mostly operated by the muscles of an over-heated woman, many of whom are engaged in hard work for more than twelve hours a day. In your society a washer-woman is looked upon as an inferior. In our society she stands equal with the highest. No wonder that with you all try to avoid the profession of being a washer-woman. No wonder that many of your women prefer to live a life of shame and degradation, which brings them a hell during life and a premature death. Hard, hard work and little pay! It is easily seen why it is considered a hard, degraded position here. It is easily seen, too, why so many filthy garments are worn in your society, when we contemplate how few of you have water fit to wash with; how many of the poorer classes who are too poor to buy the necessary soap; how inconvenient your laundry and drying apparatus are; how laborious your ironing. It is no wonder that many wear undergarments for a week, two weeks, and even three weeks, without changing them.

“Next I may give you a description of our store, which is located in a convenient place in each ‘big-house.’ It is a very capacious department. Everything is kept as clean and orderly as the finest drawing-room. All commodities that an individual might want to buy are kept for sale there. The different classes of goods have each a certain division of this department. All the financial business of the members of the family is either directly or indirectly transacted in this department. Meal tickets, barber tickets, restaurant tickets, etc., are sold in this store-department. Of course, you understand by this time that everything in our world is sold at cost. The clerks receive pay for their work the same as an engineer or miner. We have no profit, as you will see when we get to our mercantile system. Profit results from monopoly, and we have no monopoly and hence no profit. The profit system is one of the greatest evils of your industrial world. Some of your economists condemn your competitive system. But competition is as natural, necessary and beneficial to the welfare and progress of mankind as the unobstructed natural law of supply and demand is essential for an economic regulation of production and consumption. By profit a person may be able to live an idle life; may have others produce his food, clothing, shelter and luxuries for him. By competition, a person must always work. Monopoly, from which all profit, etc., accrues, and not competition, is that great enemy of the human race.

“On some more convenient topic I shall endeavor to show you that your profit system does not only enable certain persons to live from the labor of others, but it also tends to make them dishonest and cruel.”

“I have long ago arrived at the same conclusions about our profit system,” said Mr. Uwins. “I am pleased to find that I am right in this, for I have already written considerably on this subject and intend to write much more. I know it is not a very popular subject to write on, for it cuts down the extravagant income of our so-called best society.”

“Mr. Midith, you said a short time ago that all of you bathe at least once a day. Will you be kind enough to describe your bathing conveniences?” I asked. “I have always been fond of water, and before I go to Mars—that is if I ever shall be able to go—I would like to know whether there is still plenty of water left on the surface of that planet to enjoy a good swim.”

“In the first place, Mr. Fulton, we have large, beautiful, artificial lakes for swimming and bathing purposes, which I will describe to you more fully when we get to the park and other out-door descriptions, and also under the topic of education.

“Besides these artificial lakes, which are largely used during warm, pleasant weather, we have a plentiful supply of splendid bath-rooms, supplied with hot and cold water; large mirrors and other convenient furniture and toilet articles.

“We have one large parlor with a seating capacity far exceeding all the members of the family—men, women and children. This is the grandest and most imposing apartment in the ‘big-house.’ In the center of this apartment plays a cool, refreshing fountain, which ascends its water to the high, artistically decorated ceiling; and as it descends again, the brilliant electric lights reflect its iridescence in all directions. The walls below are largely composed of windows and grand mirrors, from which hundreds of mirthful, happy faces are reflected. The furniture is of the most elaborate style. The chairs, sofas, couches, etc., are models of ease and comfort, as well as elegance. This grand parlor also contains an almost perfect electric orchestra of more than a thousand pieces. This grand band of instrumental music sends it sweet, soft symphonies, to which those of your Beethoven and Mozart can scarcely be compared, to the ears of all who are seeking comfort and happiness in this magnificent drawing-room.

“Then we have various smaller parlors and sittingrooms of different sizes, all of which are richly furnished. Each individual has also a private apartment. This arrangement affords each person an opportunity to be with a large collection of individuals in the large parlor, or with a smaller group in the various sized smaller parlors, or be all to himself in his private apartment. To be sure, two or more may room together, if they like, but this is rarely ever practiced. Under health we have no physical compulsion, no master, other than we desire, no slave, and no ‘boss.’ All the public domestic work is performed by specialists, both men and women. The public parlors are kept clean, ornamented and in tasty order by individuals of the family, who have selected that as their daily occupation. Each individual keeps his private apartment to suit his own taste. Cleanliness, order and regularity are taught, practiced and esteemed such high virtues that all persons, male and female, pride themselves in keeping their private apartment as clean and enticing as possible. You see we have an abundance of time for it. Our regular day’s labor consists of but an hour or two. Each individual sleeps in his private apartment. The grand folding beds are always clean and neatly folded by each individual owner. Every person furnishes his private apartment to suit himself. In them we have fine carpets on the floor, elegant furniture, costly curtains, elaborate paintings, rare ornaments, a complete toilet, an ornamental register for electric heating, brilliant electric lights, a few choice books and pictures, likely some musical instruments, and many other conveniences of which I shall tell you under different topics.”

“What is generally the size of a private apartment?” asked Rev. Dudley.

“They are about twenty feet square, including closets and a wash-room,” replied Mr. Midith.

“Now, let me tell you,” continued Mr. Midith, “in another part of the ‘big-house’ is a large, richly furnished hall for all kinds of amusements, games, lectures, athletic sports, gymnastic and calisthenical exercises, singing, walking, speaking, music, bicycle riding and all other amusements and sports in which Marsites desire to engage.

“Several nursery apartments for children and babies are abundantly supplied with toys. The floors of these apartments are composed of a smooth, hard composition, scrubbed or flooded several times a day. The seats, which are along the walls, are all stationary, and hundreds of children, even if left all by themselves in these departments, could do no damage to the building or furniture. Here adults can bring and amuse the babies and little children. Further on I shall describe the out-door nurseries.

“The barber department, which I have referred to before, is in charge of skillful barbers, both ladies and gentlemen. Little or no shaving is done, for nearly every man wears a full beard. Men, women and children have their hair cut short, dressed and arranged in various styles, which we found more convenient and more healthful. You must always bear in mind that as man slowly but gradually reaches a higher state of intellectual culture, he makes his habits, customs and fashions conform more and more with the laws of life and health. Because his esthetic faculties continually unfold more and more in the direction of greater well-being, the pursuit of happiness becomes a continually increasing incentive. We have many other apartments, which I shall describe under the topic to which they belong.”

“Oh, what beautiful, pleasant homes you must have!” said Celestine.

“Yes; and how short a day’s labor is there!” exclaimed Roland. “Nearly all work is done with machinery.”

“I wish we could all go and live there!” ejaculated Viola, who had been intensely interested in Mr. Midith’s description of the Marsian “big-house.”

“Why, we could live here on earth just like it, if we only knew a little more,” said Mr. Midith. “There is nothing miraculous in what I have told you, and in the way we live. All you need to live, labor, and co-operate as we do on Mars, are good, fair, intelligent, industrious, orderly men, women and children, who foster no revenge, prejudice and jealousy, who know and are willing to do their respective parts from the promptings of inward sentiments. All you need in addition to what you already have is a little more intelligence for the masses—a little more experience which teaches them that right acts only can bring happiness. Additional intelligence, as a whole, strengthens virtuous traits and weakens vicious ones.

“As soon as your masses can plainly see that you can live a much happier life the way the Marsites live, you will certainly live that way; for it is undoubtedly true that all sentient beings are in pursuit of what they believe to be the greatest happiness, immediate and remote. You require nothing new in kind; nothing that lies in inaccessible regions; nothing that is not in the nature of things to develop the mundane inhabitant so as to live a Marsian life.

“You, as well as we, can build one large family residence better than a multitude of small ones. You can build your residences and other buildings certain distances apart, and around a rectangular tract of land which we call a community, with much less labor than huddle them together in crowded cities and towns or isolate them in the country. You can build and operate railroads and motor lines, and have them pass through big-houses as well as having them pass through a lonely country. You can run pumps, electric lights, elevators, churns, laundries and all other machinery by electric power. You know how to construct, furnish and maintain grand, clean kitchens, dining halls, restaurants, stores, halls, barber shops, nurseries, parlors and private apartments. You can, if you only knew it, derive far more happiness by voluntary co-operation, by being kind, cleanly, orderly, not jealous and free, than you can by single-handed effort, by being cruel, filthy, disorderly, jealous and in slavery and superstition. No doubt the same evolutionary forces that have brought the human being above the manlike ape in the past will slowly elevate him to a still higher and nobler plane in the future. I believe that thousands of the foremost intellectual men and women of the United States, and other countries of your world, would now be ready to live a Marsian life, or one nearly like it, if they were not prevented by the less intelligent ones. Intelligence is the motive power which determines our course of action.”

“Is there not a great noise and confusion in your ‘big-houses’ on account of so many of you living in one dwelling?” asked Viola. “So many running in and out, up and down. One singing, one crying, and one screaming. A collection of a thousand persons here always causes considerable bluster and sometimes a great tumult.”

“It is very true, from the very nature of things, that a collection of a thousand individuals in your society causes a confusion, not unfrequently a tumult, and sometimes even a riot. You are not commonly prepared for such large assemblies, and we are. With you there is a rush and a scramble for the few best places, and all the rest must accept what is left. We provide first-class accommodation for all, and have even more places than persons to take them. This puts an end to all rush and scramble, for men and women scramble only for things that are scarce.

“Everything in our ‘big-house’ is quiet and orderly. All one hears on ordinary occasions is a soft, pleasing tone of conversation, and oftentimes music intermingled with songs and mirthful laughs. We do not delight in such noisy, boisterous conduct as is often practiced by a collection of your people, who think they can not enjoy themselves without freely indulging in the use of intoxicating liquor and tobacco. This pernicious practice often puts the drinker under the influence of liquor, and the smoker poisons the air his companions have to breathe. We have learned that we can reap the greatest amount of happiness ourselves by not infringing upon the equal rights of others. With but one invader in the world, the world is not as good as with no invader in it.

“You see we are never all doing the same thing at once except, perhaps, eating and sleeping. The cook does his work in the kitchen, the barber in his shop, the engineer in the engine-house, the duster in the parlor, the clerk in the store, the waiter in the dining-hall and restaurant, the farmer in the field, the miner in the mine, etc. Some are spending their leisure time in walking, some in the parlors, some in riding on trains and motors, some by visiting, some in riding bicycles, some in plays and games, some in their private apartment, and some in countless other engagements. Some of the children are in one nursery and some are in another; some are in the house and some are out doors; some are bathing and some are playing; some are at mental study, others at physical work, and so on in endless variety. There is a rush nowhere, for there is plenty of room everywhere.”

“How grand, and yet how simple, does all this appear after we hear it, father!” exclaimed Viola. “It seems that the inhabitants of all worlds ought to have sufficient intelligence to live such kind, free, rich lives. Is it not wonderful, mother?”

“It is, indeed, wonderful,” said Mrs. Uwins.

“I think it is now time for retiring,” said Mr. Midith. “To-morrow evening I shall give you an explanation, as you have already requested me, of the exterior of the big-house—the out-door surroundings. I can assure you they are as grand to look upon as the interior. Thrifty, clean, straight, orderly, symmetrical. Everything is in charge of experts, who pride themselves in the agreeable taste and arrangement they effect by their skill and labor.”

CHAPTER IX.
HAPPINESS AND TRUTH.

The next evening, when we were all seated together in the cool, refreshing shade of a large tree which was planted by the hands of Mr. and Mrs. Uwins during their honeymoon some twenty years before, we requested Mr. Midith to proceed with his explanation of the exterior of the “big-house.”

But before Mr. Midith had an opportunity to begin, Rev. Dudley requested permission to ask Mr. Midith a question.

“Certainly,” said Mr. Midith. “It is one of our principles that we allow all persons to ask all the questions they desire to ask.”

“The question I want to ask you is this: I have heard you speak about happiness and truth several times. What do you understand by happiness and by truth? What is your idea of them? Will you be kind enough to give us a brief explanation of them before you proceed at your announced topic? I would like to know how your idea of happiness and truth coincide with our theological view of them.”

“Very well,” responded Mr. Midith.

“Happiness, or pleasure, is a feeling which we seek to bring into consciousness and retain there, while misery, or pain, is a feeling which we seek to get out of consciousness and to keep out. Hence all sentient beings of which we have any knowledge are in pursuit of the greatest happiness. Happiness is the aim and end of all. One plainly sees, then, that all activity and quietude of sentient organisms, whether man or beast, have for their ultimate end the acquisition of the highest attainable state of happiness. Health, wealth and intelligence are intrinsically worthless. They can only be the means by which we can attain the end—which is always happiness, and the principle remains the same, whether the duration of this happiness is but for a moment or for an eternity; whether the receiver intends to enjoy it in this life only, or in some supposed life to come also.

“If I myself and my fellow-beings were just as happy, it would be of no consequence to me or to any one else whether I were blind or had excellent sight, whether sound or diseased, whether intelligent or ignorant, whether kind or cruel, whether honest or dishonest, whether rude or polite, whether truthful or untruthful, whether rich or poor, whether praised or scorned, whether master or slave.

“It is, however, the nature of blindness, disease, ignorance, slavery, etc., to produce misery, and therefore we call them evils. When we are not afflicted with them we seek to avoid them; when we are afflicted with them we seek to cure them. From the foregoing conclusions we are forced to admit that, as a whole, acts causing pleasure or happiness are conducive to life, while on the other hand, those causing pain or misery are destructive to life as a whole. Under no other conceivable conditions is it possible for a race of sentient creatures to evolve, maintain and perpetuate itself; for if, as a whole, acts destructive to life were more pleasurable than those which conduce to the fullness of it, the race of sentient beings, even as it now exists, would soon become extinct; for pleasure, or happiness, is a feeling which we seek to bring into consciousness and retain there.

“To eat gives us more happiness than it does to starve; therefore we eat. To wear clothes gives us, as a whole, more happiness than the efforts to obtain them cause misery. To live in society gives us, in an average, more pleasure than the social discord causes pain. This, then, is in brief our idea of general happiness. Now for truth.

“Truth is the exact correspondence between the subjective order of our conceptions and the objective order of the relations among things. All things in the universe, as far as we know and have reason to believe, are related to one another in one or more ways. The sun attracts all the planets, and all the planets in turn attract the sun. All the fixed stars are attracted by one another, no matter in what remote region of the universe they may be located. If the matter of only one of the countless stars of the heavens would be annihilated, all the remainder would seek a new position.

“The sun radiates heat and light. The radiated heat and light strike the earth. Heat causes evaporation. Absence of heat produces condensation, and condensation causes rain, etc. Rain, heat and light are favorable to vegetable growth. The vegetable assimilates the inorganic into the organic. The animal lives on the vegetable directly or indirectly. Our environment acts on us, and we in turn react on the environment. So we find everything, from the mote to the furthest star, bound together by endless relations.

“When I look at the pen which I hold in my hand, it produces an impression on my mind. This mental picture produced on the mind by the attributes of the material pen in my hand, we call an ideal pen. So you see that all things that we know exist in a double form—the idea, or mental picture, of the thing and the thing itself, or the attributes of it, which produced the idea, or mental picture. The material pen in my hand possesses the properties of matter and weighs something; the ideal pen in my mind possesses the properties of mind, or consciousness, and weighs nothing.

“When the mental picture of the ideal pen exactly corresponds with the material pen in my hand in all its relations, then I have the whole truth concerning the pen. But, when I know that a pen will write and that the point is split, but do not know that the point of it, when brought with violence against the hand or other parts of the body, will also penetrate the flesh and cause pain, I have only a partial knowledge of a pen. That is, my subjective conceptions do not exactly correspond with the subjective relations among the pen and other things. In this case I would not know the exact relations between the pen’s point and my own organs. I would therefore be partly ignorant on this subject, and my ignorance, on this as well as on all other points, would not unlikely lead me into acts that are attended with pain or misery—acts that are not in tune with facts and relations of the things in the universe; and for the very reason that such acts are attended with pain, we call them wrong. There would be no right and no wrong, if there was no happiness and pain.

“All truth must be found by experience. Some is easily found, while some lies deeply buried from the superficial human view. Some truth is so conspicuous and universal that all mankind believe and know it. Some is so obscure and hidden that no man has yet found it, unless we claim that we know all that can be known, and no well-informed person will make such claims. It is often said that such and such a thing cannot be done because there are too many different opinions. But the fact is, that we all agree as far as we have found the truth. Men in their opinions are likely to differ only concerning those things about which they have not yet acquired the truth, but they will always agree as far as they have discovered the truth. Thus the concerted action of mankind becomes more and more harmonious, in proportion as we discover new truths and as the number of individuals clearly seeing these truths increases. The action of a hundred persons, each knowing a thousand truths, or facts, would be more harmonious than would be the actions of a hundred persons, fifty of whom know each a thousand facts and fifty know only seven hundred each; or than if each of the hundred individuals know only eight hundred facts each. Let us further illustrate this agreement and disagreement of mankind; also let us exemplify how conspicuous some truths are and how obscure and complex others are.

“All mankind are in pursuit of the greatest happiness, either consciously or unconsciously, whether that happiness is to be enjoyed here or in some supposed unknown world. But all believe in this fundamental axiom. Perhaps all men of mature age agree that fire burns. Our experience of fire has established quite an exact correspondence between the subjective order of our conceptions and the objective order of the relations among things and our nervous system. All sane persons believe that food is necessary for the sustenance of the human body. We all agree here. We all know of some relations existing between water and the human organism; we know that we cannot breathe it like air.

“The truth, or the relation existing between a drowning man and the altitude of Mt. Everest, is not so conspicuous as the example cited before; yet there is a relation between them. The man falling in the ocean from the shore, tends to raise the water of the ocean in a similar manner as a turnip thrown in a pail partly filled with water, raises the water in the pail. Mountains are measured from the sea level. A high sea level makes a low mountain, and a low sea level makes a high mountain. This relation is truth, but we do not all see it.”

“But why do we not all know this truth the same as the truth that fire burns?” asked Rev. Dudley.

“It seems to me that this is easily accounted for. One, or at least a few burns, is generally sufficient to convince us that fire always burns; and when we are burned we always find it out, for the pain is directly communicated to the nervous system. But there are many reasons why we do not all know the relations between the drowning man and the altitude of Mt. Everest. In the first place, the rise of the water in the ocean is so slight that no human eye can see it. No direct observation can ascertain it. Again, there are not many men drowned. Again, nobody is watching for the rise of the water. We can only know it by reasoning up to it from a general principle; and you know that reasoning, in your present intellectual stage, is, as a whole, not very agreeable to the minds of the masses who are only seeking to keep the fierce wolf of poverty away from their door. Those are some of the reasons.

“There is a relation between the size of Ireland and the length of the earth’s day. The centrifugal force at the equator increases as the day is shortened. If the day were half as long as now, the water would tend to accumulate at the equator by virtue of the increased centrifugal force. Ireland is situated not far from the North Pole, and with increased centrifugal force at the equator, the water would recede from its present shore, which would increase the size of Ireland. If the day were lengthened to forty-eight hours, Ireland would be, perhaps, entirely submerged.

“Let us take another example where the truth is still more obscure. There exists a relation between the size of a growing plum in the Selvas (the luxuriant forest of the Amazon) and the direction of the earth’s rotation. The earth rotates from west to east, causing the trade winds to blow always from the east. The Selvas is situated in the zone of trade winds, which brings abundance of moisture from the Atlantic ocean, because no mountains intervene. But, if the earth rotated from east to west, would change the direction of the trade winds from east to west. And then the Andes mountains would not let the moisture, which the trade winds would bring from the Pacific, pass over them, which would make a large part of the Selvas a desert instead of being the most fertile land in the world. So the plum would be very small or no plum at all.

“Let us take one more example. There exists a relation between the amount of red clover and the number of cats; but we do not all see this truth or relation. Let us see if we can trace it. Red clover is fertilized here only by the humble bee. Field mice destroy humble bees by eating their honey; and cats catch mice. To have much red clover, then, we must have many humble bees; to have many humble bees, we must have few field-mice; and to have few field-mice, we must have many cats.

“There is a relation between the garden soil and a thought. Soil is assimilated into a potato, etc. The potato is eaten, digested, and built into a brain, and the brain is the organ of thought.

“So we find a relation existing between the whole course of nature; between star and planet; the body and the food we eat; the soil and our life; the male and the female; the residence and our health; labor and our garments; truth and happiness.

“With these preliminary remarks in our mind, let us see whether we can trace and combine the two great phenomena—happiness and truth. Happiness may be represented as being the power which initiates and guides our course of action; and an organism which is at rest would never move again, if, by remaining quiet, it found from time to time greater happiness. Truth may be represented as being a path which leads a sentient organism in complete harmony with the facts of the universe. There are countless other paths besides the path of Truth, which a sentient being may travel, but there is only one—the path of Truth which rewards the traveler with the greatest happiness, while all the countless others punish him with more or less misery, and sometimes with instantaneous death.

“If it be true, then, that all sentient organisms are in pursuit of the greatest happiness, and that happiness can be attained only by traveling on the path of Truth, all sentient creatures, whether human beings or inferior animals, would be traveling the path of Truth only, if they possessed sufficient intelligence always to ascertain that path. For, traveling on any other path, would sooner or later be attended with pain; and would therefore be a contradiction in terms to the proposition that all sentient beings are in pursuit of the greatest happiness, which is only realized completely when all the desires of the organisms are satisfied. If, then, the foregoing conclusions are true, and they have stood the test of the keenest scientific inquiry on our globe for ages, all misery, pain, wrong, evil, or whatever we may name it, must be ascribed to ignorance; and this proposition is substantiated by the application of every known psychological fact. To illustrate:

“A little child may be actuated to put its hand against a red hot stove, because it is ignorant of the relations existing between the sensitive hand and the hot stove; but after it has learned the true relations, it will not do it any more. A savage may attempt to stop a running locomotive, by standing on the track; but after he has learned its immense momentum, he will cease trying it. A people, during a certain stage of intellectual culture, may live in cities; but after they have learned the evils and uselessness of cities, no one will live in them. With a certain amount of intelligence, man endeavors to make himself happy by antagonizing the happiness of others; but as soon as he discovers that a greater happiness can be attained by building our own happiness on the happiness of our fellowman, all antagonism disappears. Some of these truths we can see conspicuously with a little intelligence, while others are very obscure and require a vast amount of it. But no matter how conspicuous or how obscure, just as soon as we learn that we derive greater happiness by doing right, or by following Truth, we will follow it, for its own reward, wherever we see it, and just that far all persons agree.”

“But, according to your theory, Mr. Midith, does it not necessarily follow that a hog, wallowing in a mud puddle, enjoys as much happiness as a philosopher, or as a Marsite enjoys in the grand parlors of his big-house, or sporting on his brilliantly lighted boulevard?” asked Rev. Dudley. “You say that an organism is completely happy when all its desires are fully satisfied; and it seems to me that all the hog’s desires may be as fully satisfied as those of a Marsite.”

“I fear, Rev. Dudley, that you do not understand our position at all,” replied Mr. Midith. “But let us see if I can make this plain to you.

“You know that as we ascend in the scale of animal creation, the faculties, as you call them, of each organism increase in number and in complexity. The hog, of which you speak, has more and higher faculties than the snail. The ape has more and higher faculties than the hog. The savage has more and higher ones than the ape. And the highly cultivated person has more and higher ones than the savage. Each additional faculty, as we ascend in the scale of animal being, brings also new and higher desires, so that a being which is endowed with many and with complex faculties, has also many and high desires to satisfy. But we must remember that the ability to satisfy desires increases in a greater ratio than the desires increase in number and in complexity.

“Now, then, we get to the main point, which is: Each satisfied faculty contributes its amount of happiness in proportion to its complexity of the desire; so that a being which has numerous and complex desires, and has them all satisfied, is immeasurably happier than a being which has but a few and simple desires, which are also all satisfied. Each faculty, then, is a track, so to speak, on which loads of happiness of different value are coming into consciousness.

“Now, I think we can easily see why it is that a highly enlightened person, other things being equal, is happier than an ignorant, superstitious one. The enlightened person has several advantages over the ignorant one. First, the enlightened person understands the phenomena of nature better, which enables him to march more in harmony with facts, by which he escapes the natural penalty of discord, and reaps the reward of harmony. And, secondly, the informed person lives in a vast mental world, bounded only by telescopic stars located in the remote regions of the universe. His extended world contains countless, admirable things, the admiration of each of which brings him a flood of happiness; while the unenlightened, superstitious person lives in a very contracted mental world bounded by superstitious fear, over which boundary he dares not pass. His small world contains only a few things from which he receives happiness by admiring them, and even these few things he understands so imperfectly that he is continually punished by nature for running cross-grained with facts. The foregoing conclusion is also confirmed by the evolution point of view. For if the greatest happiness is our highest aim and end, a complex being could not have evolved from a simpler one, if the complex organism were not enjoying a greater happiness than the more ignorant or inferior one.

“After the foregoing contemplation, we can easily see that each organism, according to its degree of development, has a particular environment in which all its desires can be most nearly satisfied. A savage, with his mental constitution, would find no delight in living a civilized life in an elegantly furnished residence; his position would not correspond with his faculties and desires, and before he could enjoy a splendid parlor, his desires will have to be changed. An ape would find no happiness in following the habits of a hog; and a hog could not live in the environment of a fish, neither could the masses of your people, with their present desires and amount of intelligence, if transferred to our world, enjoy the free, kind, and rich society of Mars. They would feel as awkward there as the savage would feel in your parlor. Intelligence, personal and ancestral, determines the whole course of animal activity. Every animal and every man acts just as good, and no better, as the amount of his intelligence compels him to act. And no one’s course of action, whether considered good or bad, can be changed permanently without the mental assimilation of additional knowledge. A clear and thorough knowledge of this important truth by all would forever banish every vestige of human cruelty from the face of the earth.

“In conclusion of this topic, let me say that I am very glad that you requested me to give you our idea of truth and happiness. But, in order to avoid being misunderstood, allow me to explain one other point. I told you that an organism is completely happy only when all its desires are fully satisfied; but, as a whole, our desires can never be completely satisfied. This, I think, can be best understood by bearing in mind that the higher beings according to the doctrine of evolution have been evolved from lower organisms by the pressure of environment, by competition, by the survival of the fittest. Our environment is continuously pressing us, by the survival of the fittest, etc., into higher and higher planes, which require a continuous adjustment of ourselves with our environment, and this continuous adjustment and pressure involves incomplete satisfaction. There will, then, always remain abundance of scope for our healthful ambition, both in the direction of physical structure and mental powers. No matter how physically perfect a person may be in bodily structure, strength, endurance and agility, we can conceive of one who is still his superior. And no matter how learned a person may be, his field of thought is always bounded; and this boundary always implies a region outside of the sphere of his thought, which can never be co-extensive and identical with infinity.”

CHAPTER X.
EXTERIOR OF THE “BIG-HOUSE.”

“Now, I shall endeavor to give you a description of the exterior of the ‘big-house,’” said Mr. Midith, as he began to draw a neat outline, on which he located four “big-houses” and a cross-section of a community, as shown on page 115.

“Before I give you a detailed description of the different parts of this outline, I shall have to refer you to the diagram I drew for you the other evening. (Page 58.) You will there notice that our communities are all numbered, as Community 1, 2, etc. Hence, a country as large as the United States, containing nearly 3,500,000 square miles, divided up into communities like ours, containing about four townships, or 144 square miles each, will make about 25,000 communities. I told you, in brief, that the ‘big-houses’ are situated along the motor-lines, on the perimeter of the communities, and are about half mile apart, as indicated by the dots in Community No. 1 (page 58). The ‘big-houses’ of each community are also numbered, as indicated by the figures 1, 2, 3, etc., in Community No. 1 (page 58).

“It is not strictly true that the ‘big-houses’ are located a half-mile apart, for about every four miles or closer, as indicated by the square dots in Community 2 (page 58), we have a large warehouse or factory instead of a ‘big-house;’ but these warehouses, etc., are very similar in structure to a ‘big-house.’ Now, we want to bear in mind that the communities are numbered, so that when we know the number of a certain community we know in what particular part of the country it is situated; and we also want to remember that the ‘big-houses’ of each community are numbered consecutively from 1 to about 135, including the warehouses, factories, etc. The number of a ‘big-house’ also indicates its location in the community.

“From what I have already said, then, you have learned the following facts:

“1. Our countries, or grand divisions of land, are divided into rectangular communities, about 24 miles long and 6 miles wide. 2. Each community is surrounded by 60 miles of motor-line. 3. Railroads are about 100 miles apart, running both north and south and east and west. 4. Each community under ordinary conditions contains about one hundred and twenty ‘big-houses.’ 5. The inmates of each ‘big-house’ generally number about one thousand. 6. The inhabitants of each community, then, are nearly one hundred and twenty thousand. 7. Each community has about fifteen or twenty warehouses, mills and factories. 8. Both the communities and the ‘big-houses’ are numbered.

This diagram represents a cross-section, somewhat more than half mile wide, and extending across from the motor-line to the field.
A is a park one-fourth mile wide, extending from the motor-line to the boulevard all around the community.
1 represents a double track motor-line.
2, 3, 4 and 5 represent “big-houses.”
6 represents a hundred-foot wide boulevard.
7 and 8 represent foot-paths.
9 represents a hundred-foot walk leading through and around the “big-houses” from one to the other.
10 are two outdoor nurseries for little children.
11 and 12 are two artificial lakes for bathing and swimming.
13 represents a 500-foot wide conservatory and green-house.
14 represents a walk between the green-house and garden.
15 represents a 1000-foot wide garden.
16 represents a walk between the garden and the orchard.
17 represents a 1000-foot wide orchard.
18 represents a walk between the orchard and field.
19 represents the field, extending clear across to the opposite side of the orchard.
20 represent walks extending across park, green-house, garden, etc., from the “big-houses” to the field.

“Now I think we are ready to give you a description of this outline or diagram, and the different parts it represents. Number 1 represents a double-tracked motor-line passing through the connecting wing of the ‘big-houses.’ Nos. 2, 3, 4 and 5 represent four ‘big-houses.’ Two and two are located just opposite each other, with the motor-line between them. This enables our motor-cars to stop at points only where two thousand persons reside. Nos. 2 and 4 belong to one community and Nos. 3 and 5 to another. No. 6 represents a hundred-foot wide boulevard fringed with the finest shade trees that nature and art can produce. This boulevard, of course, the same as all the other walks and strips of land which are numbered on this diagram, run parallel with the motor-lines all around the community. The floor of this boulevard is composed of artificial granite, cast on top of a solid foundation. It is clean, smooth, and more durable than natural granite. In the evening this boulevard and other walks are lighted with brilliant electric lights generated by the electric engine. On this smooth, shady, brilliantly-lighted boulevard, thousands of men, women and children spend part of their plentiful leisure time in healthful exercise. Some are riding elegantly-finished and highly-geared bicycles with which, under favorable conditions, a speed of 100 miles an hour can be made on this smooth, level track. Some are riding on splendid, convenient, electric carriages, which may be open or shaded, or entirely enclosed and heated with electricity from within during cold weather.

“On each side of the main boulevard Nos. 7 and 8, is a foot path shaded and floored the same as the boulevard. On these walks men, women and children take much of their walking exercises. The men and women wheel and carry the little babies in the fresh air on these fine walks.

“Each individual man, woman and child that can manage a bicycle, a carriage or other vehicle own one or more. Sometimes we go out alone; sometimes in company with a gentleman; sometimes in company with a lady. Of course, this is left entirely to the choice and taste of each individual.”

“It must be a splendid sight to see these fine bicycles, carriages and other vehicles swiftly gliding along this fine, endless boulevard!” exclaimed Mr. Uwins.

“It is indeed grand and cheerful,” responded Mr. Midith. “I wish it were possible that we could all spend an hour there about this time of a June evening.”

“But how can every one afford to buy all these nice things of which you speak?” asked Viola. “And you say, too, that ladies and children have them as well as gentlemen?”

“Certainly,” replied Mr. Midith. “A lady’s day’s work is worth just as much to us as a gentleman’s, and so it is to you; the only difference is we pay for it all it is worth and you do not. When you speak of affording to buy so many nice things, you must remember that we can afford to buy even much more than we actually do. By working together on such a large scale and only at productive labor, by having such a complete division of labor that we are all experts, and with the aid of the grand machinery, which are operated for the benefit of all and not for the benefit of a few as you do, our economy of wealth and labor is so immense, and our production so abundant, that we receive each according to your time and pay over $10 a day, which consists in an average of less than two hours of physical labor. So you see if you individually received more than $10 a day, besides the dwelling, fuel, light and all other public interests, you could buy all the luxuries and do all the traveling you desired and still have plenty of ‘money’ left for old age. After I have told you all about our social and industrial system, I hope you will be able to see why we are able to produce so much wealth with so little labor.

“But let us now go on with our description. I hope you will pardon me for the slight digression I made. A is a park one-fourth mile wide, extending from the boulevard to the motor line. In this park the ‘big-houses’ are located, as shown on diagram. No. 9 is a granite walk 100 feet wide, passing through and around the ‘big-houses’ from one to the other. No. 10 are nurseries 400 by 600 feet. Part of these nurseries are covered with glass and artificially warmed when necessary, and part of them are open. In these outdoor nurseries, the little children who are unable to care for themselves are playing part of their time.

“Nos. 11 and 12 are two artificial lakes for bathing and swimming purposes. They are fenced in with a high fence, so that no very little children can get in unattended. These lakes are each 100 by 300 feet in size, with a large fountain in the center of each. The water is supplied and the fountain fed by the engine in the ‘big-house.’ One of these lakes is fitted for children who can not swim, and is so shallow that they cannot drown in it. The entrance is guarded by a self-closing gate, which is so difficult to open that a child who is too young to help itself can not open. In this shady, crystal, clear lake, supplied with all bathing and swimming conveniences, our little children daily bathe, swim and play when the weather is favorable. Our children are so independent, so well taught, and things are all so convenient that a child two or three years old needs no assistance in dressing and undressing. They go where they like and do what they please. The other one of these lakes is similarly fitted up, but is much deeper and is used by grown persons. The entrance is guarded by a self-locking door, and no man or woman who does not carry a key can get in alone. This prevents little children from getting in, for they are not supplied with keys. By means of these artificial, as well as other natural bodies of water, every man, woman and youth is a good swimmer; we learn it in childhood and practice it all through life.

“This beautiful park, which is the pride of every member of the family, is adorned with closely shaven lawns, dense shade trees, rare ornamental trees, all varieties of beautiful odoriferous flowers, play-grounds for all kinds of out-door games, and all apparatus for amusement which men, women and children desire to use. The park and everything in it is kept in order by our most experienced men and women we have in the family.”

“Are your wives always attended by their husbands when out in the park, on the boulevard, etc., or do they sometimes go alone?” asked Mrs. Uwins.

“Mrs. Uwins, your question clearly shows that you do not yet understand our social conditions. We have no husband and wife at all as you know them here. But this I will explain to you further on under the head of sexual relations, because it does not belong to the present topic.

“No. 13, right along the boulevard, is a conservatory or green-house, 500 feet wide and almost entirely surrounded by glass, which we manufacture very cheaply and which is very inflexible and yet not brittle. This gives each family a very large green-house. It is nearly a half mile long and 500 feet wide, which gives us an area of nearly 30 acres of conservatory to each ‘big-house.’ We heat it with electricity generated by the house engine or by natural gas. To obtain the necessary moisture for this vast green-house, we have capacious reservoirs or cisterns, to which we attach a large hose sprinkler and let it rain when and where we please within its walls. This green-house furnishes all the flowers and green vegetables we want during the whole winter. It is under the immediate management of our most skillful horticulturists.

“No. 14 is a 50-foot walk immediately back and parallel with the conservatory.

“No. 15 is a garden 1,000 feet wide. It is all laid off in geometrical beds by professional gardeners, who work in the garden during the summer and in the immense green-house during the winter. This garden, with its countless variety of beautiful, fragrant flowers, and its endless clean paths, serves not only as a field for the production of all kinds of edible vegetables our world produces in that climate, but it serves as a park as well. During our long leisure hours, hundreds of ladies and gentlemen are strolling in its paths, eating what they like. This garden is so well worked that there is scarcely ever a weed in it. The soil is kept very rich; if not by nature, it is made so by fertilizers, which we manufacture abundantly. About midway across our garden is a subterranean tube supplied with water, to which hydrants are attached at short intervals. To these hydrants hose are attached for sprinkling purposes. So you see, we can raise an abundant crop in our garden in spite of the greatest drought. We do not need nature to moisten the thirsty soil to germinate the seed when planted, nor do we need her to kiss the verdant foliage with her liquid treasure from the clouds, nor from the dewdrops of a quiet night. The hand of art, in the form of a gigantic sprinkler, can produce the necessary shower, in which the tiny rainbow plays in the sunbeam, when and where we want it.

“No. 18 is a fifty-foot walk between the orchard and the main field, which extends clear across the community from orchard to orchard.

“No. 17 is an orchard 1,000 feet wide, although the width of it varies according to climate and adaptation for raising fruit. In this orchard we raise all varieties of fruit adapted to the climate. The trees are not crowded on the ground, and the lawn beneath them is always kept green and mown short by lawn mowers driven by an engine. Our tables never feel the effect of winter. What our orchard, garden and green-house can not successfully produce is shipped in from tropical regions in refrigerator cars, which are cold in the summer and warm in the winter.

“The Nos. 20 are boulevards and walks leading to and from the ‘big-houses’ across the park, through the green-house, across the garden and orchard. They cross all the longitudinal boulevards and walks. You will notice that there is such a cross walk on each side of the ‘big-house.’ The one is used when going from the house, and the other when going to the house. This arrangement prevents all collision and confusion in going to and coming from the ‘big-houses.’

“The farming is all done with electric motors or engines, as I have already told you. The work is mere play. Everything is done with machinery on a large scale; hardly any muscular power is required. Our land is all well fertilized. The plowing is done by huge gang plows and rotating harrows. The harrowing and sowing is done by a machine over fifty feet wide, which harrows, sows, and then harrows again all at the same time. The harvesting and threshing I have already explained to you some time ago.”

I then asked Mr. Midith whether the Marsites raised corn and potatoes, and if so, what kind of machinery they had for that purpose, to which he replied:

“We raise corn and potatoes similar to yours; the only difference is that we have improved them more by cultivation, because we have had longer time. We have superior varieties than you now have; but as your botanical knowledge becomes more and more perfect, you will keep on improving the same as we have done.

“Our corn and potatoes are all planted with machines, which plant from four to ten rows at once. We have a corn husker that snaps the ears off from four to six rows and elevates them into a large wagon or car as the engine moves it along. The corn is of course not entirely free from husks when picked with this husker. When the car, or wagon, is full, it is taken to the warehouse, where the corn, the same as the other grain of which I have already told you, is dumped into a large hopper, from which elevators carry it to the curing bin, where daily thousands of bushels are cured. When the remaining husk is thoroughly dry, the corn passes through a machine, or husker, which breaks up all the dried, brittle husk, and here a powerful current of air separates the silk and broken up husk from the ears, which are again cured and then shelled and stored away for future use. Not a grain is thus wasted, spoiled, or damaged.

“Our potato-digger is almost perfect too. With it two or three persons and an engine can dig more than a thousand bushels a day. The digger is made something like this: A kind of incline plane plow runs under through the row, raises the soil and potatoes on the plow, which drops the whole on a wire elevator which lets the soil pass through it, and elevates the potatoes in a car back of the plows. In this manner one engine draws from two to four plows.

“Hay and other feed for cattle is not much needed; for as I have told you, we keep cattle only for dairy purposes, sheep for wool and poultry for eggs. The stock is raised on land not so well adapted for agriculture. The feed is nutritious and well prepared; the stabling is all of the very best and most convenient kind, warmed by electricity. The hay is cut with large mowers, which elevate the cut grass into the large wagon racks used with the headers. It is cured by artificial means the same as the grain.

“By this method we have always first-class hay highly nutritious. None of it is left on the field. None of it blows away; no waste, and not a particle of it is spoiled by rain, because it is always hauled in and cured as fast as it is cut.

“I notice that your method of hay-making is very slow, uncertain and wasteful, because much of it is totally spoiled by rain before it is stacked; a part of it is spoiled in the stack, and a large part of the remainder is more or less damaged in various ways.

“I may say here that our poultry is all hatched by steam incubators, and is as well housed as we are ourselves. In the winter we have large areas covered with glass, under which they enjoy the warm sunshine and even temperature almost the same as in the summer. By these means we get abundance of eggs during the whole year.

“Do you see how vastly we save wealth and labor by our extensive voluntary co-operation, as compared with your single-handed, slipshod industries? How much disorder and inconvenience you experience? How often, when working your little farms, you are obliged to turn your weary, half-dead teams, which are trampling under foot the very crop you are trying to raise? How much land all along your fences and other division lines produces nothing useful? How many fights and quarrels over your division lines? How often, in order to do a little work, you have to go back and forth with your little narrow machinery, drawn by animal flesh? and how often do you have to go over the same place before you have your crop scarcely planted? How much labor and land you require for the production of feed for your draught animals? You have to do almost as much for them as they do for you, and that is indeed very much. How poorly, as a whole, you feed and shelter your stock from the cold and other inclemency of the weather. Your little straw sheds are full of filth and snow. Your stables are not unfrequently one thickness of inch boards, with large cracks between the boards. Your sheep often have no other shelter than a fence or a little grove; their wool is torn out by the snow and ice that is frozen in it. Your poultry, during a winter’s storm, is sometimes frozen fast to the perch, and have often not a foot of bare ground, where they can procure the sand and gravel necessary for their digestion. How much more food your animals, that are so poorly sheltered and cared for, require to keep up the animal heat which should be kept up by proper care and warm shelter.

“How densely your population huddles together in your cities and towns, eking out a bare existence in garrets and tenement houses which are totally unfit for an abode of a human being; and how lamely and single-handed your agriculturist toils, early and late, for the support of himself, his so-called family, and the army of city unproductive and destructive laborers. What a slave a wife is who has to live either in a city garret or tenement house, or in a lonely country home! How little intellectual culture she can attain! How financially dependent she is on her ‘master’—the so-called husband! How his children are working themselves crooked, stiff, and otherwise deformed from the long, heavy day’s toil! How little room there is for intellectual development under such social and industrial burdens! All is toil, slavery, and obedience. No parks, no fine walks, no pleasant rides, no greenhouses where a flower or green plant can be picked during the cold winter day when something green cheers the heart and delights the eye. Your gardens are rudely laid out, and mostly full of weeds and poultry, and sometimes hogs and cattle. Your orchards are planted with a few varieties of trees which often bear a better crop of caterpillars than fruit; your shrubbery is largely choked to death in some fence corner or under some larger trees, for want of sunshine and moisture. Your lawn is often an ash-pile, and not unfrequently a rubbish-heap.”

CHAPTER XI.
EXTERIOR OF “BIG-HOUSE.”
[Continued.]

“Now, I do not wish to be understood that I am ridiculing your social and industrial institutions, or that I blame any one for these poor, pitiable conditions we find existing here on earth. We passed through the same woful stages. Every well-informed person knows that your world, as a whole, is better to-day than it ever was before. You enjoy more security, more kindness, more intelligence and more freedom than you ever did in any preceding age. The conditions which we find on earth are, as a whole, undoubtedly nearly in tune with your social and industrial culture; and the only known power in the universe that can substitute a higher and nobler order of things is additional intelligence. Acts, as we have seen, are always in harmony with the intelligence of the actor.

“We can not hope to find much good work done in a world where the division of labor is so imperfect as it is here with you. Your so-called farmer is, as a rule, at the same time agriculturist, horticulturist, stockbreeder, butcher, dairyman, shepherd, carpenter and poultry raiser. On the other hand, your city laborer must frequently be idle, or accept any kind of labor he can get, whether he is proficient in it or whether he is a bungler at it.”

“There must be a great difference between our institutions and yours,” said Mrs. Uwins.

“In some respects there is,” replied Mr. Midith. “Just compare the appearance and conditions of our social and industrial world with that of yours. Think of our magnificent residences—grand edifices, furnished on the interior with all the domestic conveniences that human ingenuity can contrive. The outer appearance is very imposing; numerous large windows through which are seen the rich curtains and through which the blitheful laugh of the inmates can be heard, and the healthy countenances of free, rich men, women, and children can be seen. Think how all these fine dwellings are located in the grandest parks that nature and art can produce; how all varieties of flowers and ornamental trees may be seen in all directions. Think of the green, closely-mowed lawn; the cool, refreshing fountain playing on the bosom of the artificial lakes in which men, women and children are sportively swimming and bathing. Think how the odoriferous, life-giving breeze enters every apartment of our palatial homes, which are neither crowded in populous cities nor isolated in a lonely country. Think of the smooth, shady boulevard on which numerous men, women and children are seeking healthful, sportive exercise. Think of the spacious conservatory and green-house, surrounded by glass, and containing luxuriant tropical plants, whose foliage is as green, even when the snow is two feet deep, as it is in its native climate. Think of the productive garden, bearing the choicest vegetables that evolution through the hand of the horticulturist has been able to produce; of the enticing orchard with its endless variety of fruit trees and shrubbery, its green lawns, and clean walks. Think of the ease with which our farming is done, and the immense amount of agricultural work we can do in a short time. Think how all our labor has turned almost into play, and how much leisure time we enjoy. And lastly, think of the intelligent free, rich, healthy inhabitants who have all learned that the happiness of self includes the happiness of others. Such, upon a brief, superficial contemplation, are a few of the more conspicuous differences existing between our system and yours. Yet you should always bear in mind that we have nothing on Mars but what you can have right here on earth with a little additional intelligence, a little more knowledge of yourselves and your fellowman. A little more kindness and a little less cruelty. A little more peace and a little less discord. A little more freedom and a little less jealousy. A little wider and more voluntary co-operation and a little less single-handed effort. A little more individualism and a little less paternalism and co-operative coercion. A little more confidence in the operations and uniformity of the so-called laws of nature, and a little less trust in the pretended virtue of superstition. I, therefore, repeat again that thousands of your foremost cultivated men and women here on earth are already prepared to live a Marsian life, if they were not prevented by your existing institutions and by the masses who are not yet ready for such a harmonious life.”

“You have not told us anything about your mining,” said Mr. Uwins. “I presume you do that with as much skill and facility as you do your other work.”

“Yes; we mine on the same large plan as we do our other work,” replied Mr. Midith, “Our mining machinery is very much improved, and we need but little muscular power in the occupation of mining. We are continually sinking more and deeper shafts, whereby we increase the quantity and quality of our mining products. Every few communities fit out a ‘prospecting’ gang, who are constantly employed in ‘prospecting’ for better mines in those communities which they represent; and wherever we find the most productive ones, we work. In this manner we find the most productive mines, and the best iron and other useful minerals. We have also discovered how to manufacture aluminium successfully and cheaply. This metal, on account of its cheapness and advantageous properties, is now very largely used for mechanical, architectural and other purposes.

“Much of our mining is done in the winter. Many of those who work on the farm during the summer, work in the factory and mine during the winter. Some of the agriculturists also work in the green-house during the winter. In this manner, you see, our work of the whole year is divided nearly uniformly. That is, we have as much work to do one season of the year as another; and whenever we are in need of more help in one occupation, for instance, such as harvesting, we can get all the help we need from the factory and the mine. By this change, we are never crowded in any work, nor are we ever out of work. These conditions are highly conducive to human well-being. The body is not burdened with overwork at one period of the year and stupefied on account of inactivity at another.”

“Do you have many accidents in your mines?” asked Rev. Dudley, who became more and more interested in Mr. Midith’s narrative.

“Very rarely one loses his life by accident in our mine. We value life so highly that, if things are not very secure, no one will go into the mine. We are not driven by a ‘boss’ and by poverty, like many of your miners are, who have to go or lose their position. We go when and where we like. No one has the power to throw us out of employment nor to make us poor.

“There is still another important mining feature which I have not explained to you, and that is this: The more we prospect the more evenly do we find the mining products distributed on our world. Nearly every community can now work a mine of some kind with advantage.

“From what I have said, you no doubt understand by this time that we have long ago abandoned the use of coal for heating and lighting purposes, and also for the generating of motive power. We use electricity and compressed air for all this. We employ wonderfully simple and powerful storage battery cells, which we charge either with wind power, water power or with compressed air engines. Is it not strange that the people of earth are already imitating us in these fields? Your Paris, in France, is already using the storage battery cells for lighting purposes. I notice in your Scientific American of Jan. 30, 1892, that Niagara Falls and Buffalo, N. Y., are about to utilize the waterfall power at that place for generating electricity and compressing air. This is what the Scientific American says:

“‘After the completion of the great tunnel works now in progress at Niagara Falls, there will be nothing to hinder the rapid rise and growth of that interesting town into a great and wonderful city. Its dwellings and factories will be supplied with light, heat and motive power at an extremely low cost, and useful industries of every kind ought there to flourish with unwonted vigor. Domestic life will be attended with many comforts and conveniences. The cook will only need to touch a button, and presto! her electric stove be in full operation, the pot will boil, the oven bake, the turkey roast, the pump move, the washing machine turn; while the electric refrigerator will freeze the water, preserve meat, vegetables, milk, butter, eggs and other supplies. No coal, no wood, no dust, no dirt, no oil, no gas. The lady of the house will be relieved of care. She presses a button, and every nook and corner of her dwelling glow with cheerful light. Touch another, and the electric fire glimmers in every room, diffusing genial warmth. The electric lift takes her up or down stairs in a jiffy. The telephone conveys her orders to market and distributes her social commands among friends and neighbors. Niagara is in a fair way to become famous as the great electrical city of the world. At any rate, it will possess in a great degree the means for economic electric generation and supply.

“‘Near to Niagara, only twenty-five miles distant, is Buffalo, already a large and prosperous city, the head center of lake navigation. The simple extension of conductors over the short distance above mentioned will bring to the people of Buffalo a direct share in the economic and other advantages of the new and great enterprise. Light, heat and motive power for streets, vehicles, work-shops, factories, stores, churches, dwellings can be supplied from the dynamos at Niagara, more economically, probably, than by any other means. Local steam engines may be dismissed; their occupation for Buffalo will be gone. Even the steam fire engine may retire. The electric pump will beat them out of sight.

“‘We look toward Niagara and Buffalo with hopeful interest, expecting soon to witness these many novel applications of electricity for industrial, domestic and municipal purposes. In the latter category the promotion of the public health and the expulsion of disease by electrical agencies seem to be among the reasonable possibilities of the near future.’

Electric Carriage.

“The Scientific American of Jan. 9, 1892, also shows a cut of an electric carriage propelled by storage battery cells,” said Mr. Midith, as he showed the cut of it and began to read as follows:

“‘The graceful vehicle illustrated in the accompanying picture is interesting, as being undoubtedly the first carriage propelled by electricity built in the West. It is the invention of William Morrison, of Des Moines, Ia., and was built by Morrison and Schmidt, of that city. It is intended for operation on ordinary city and country roads and will carry twelve people comfortably.

“‘The power is furnished by 24 storage battery cells placed beneath the seats.... This motor is of four horse power.... The steering is attached to the forward axle and is controlled by a hand wheel in front of the carriage. Mr. Morrison claims that his carriage has been exhaustively and successfully tested in Des Moines, and that it has been run continuously 13 hours, attaining a speed of 14 miles an hour. He thinks that a much higher velocity can be attained if desirable.’”

Mr. Midith continued: “I noticed in the Western Electrician of Sept. 17, 1892, that J. B. McDonald, president of the American Battery Company, Chicago, purchased this electric carriage and is creating quite an excitement with it on the streets of Chicago.

“From the foregoing articles appearing in your Scientific American, we clearly see that the earthites (people living on earth) are closely following the Marsites in their mechanical, as well as in their other lines of progress. Of course all your electric apparatus and work is, as yet, but the rude beginnings. All it needs is improvement. There is an inexhaustible amount of electricity, and all you need do is to store it up for use. Formerly we, like you now, used coal, wood and gas for lighting, heating and motive purposes. But all of these were slowly supplanted by compressed-air engines and electricity.

“Our large warehouses, factories, and mills built along the motor-lines at short intervals, have on their large flat roofs, powerful windmills which continually pour a strong current of electricity into a capacious electric reservoir, or they are charging storage battery cells.

“In some localities on Mars, we still use compressed air. The powerful windmills are always compressing air for the compressed-air engines. Our compressed-air engines are almost similar to yours, but with you the compressed-air engine is not a success on account of your limited storage room for the compressed air, and also on account of occasional local calms, during which time your supply of compressed air becomes exhausted.

“We have overcome these difficulties. The communities of a large area of country are all connected by large air-tubes, into which the windmills are compressing air. At certain intervals along these air-tubes are capacious air chambers for the reception of air. These air-tubes are all around the communities the same as the motor-lines, passing through all the ‘big-houses,’ warehouses, factories and mills, where they drive compressed-air engines, which furnish all the motive power for generating electricity and do all the other motor work. Thus you see by this arrangement, we have a vast supply of air on hand, and there is always a local wind somewhere over this extensive district of communities which are connected by these air tubes.

“Where electricity is generated and stored directly by wind power, which it is most places, the electric currents are led through all the buildings, ‘big-houses,’ warehouse, factories, mills and barns. Here it is used for heating, lighting, and motive power for loading and unloading and for running machinery. Waterpower is also largely used for the generation of electricity. Our carriages, farming machinery, and all other movable vehicles and machinery, are propelled by the electric storage battery cell. These cells are with us now very simple, powerful and lasting. Every community has a large supply of them stored for reserve, the same as you have a supply of coal on hand, and our model windmills and waterfalls are charging them faster than we need them. The force which manifests itself in the current of air which drives the windmills is stored for future use, and this storing is being done just the same, whether it is winter or summer, whether we work or sleep. The irregular motion of the wind is thus changed into a perfectly uniform motion of electricity and then applied to machinery.

“Thus you see, we do not, like you, need water and fuel to run our engines, nor do we need draft-animals to draw our plows and other vehicles. Some communities, in order to charge their storage battery cells, ship them to great waterfalls. Electricity is also led by wires for long distances, and everywhere you are following us step by step. It is true that your mechanical appliances are still very rude, but you are improving them very rapidly, and, no doubt, you will before long make wonderful achievements in the electric and other lines of discoveries. In order to show your progress in the field of electric science, let me read to you another article from the Scientific American of March 12, 1892.” Then Mr. Midith read as follows:

“‘One Hundred Miles an Hour by Electricity!

“‘The latest electrical scheme is for an electric railway between Chicago and St. Louis. The following is from the prospectus of the Chicago & St. Louis Electric Railroad Co., working under the patents of Dr. Wellington Adams:

“‘The proposed road will be operated from one central station, located at the mouth of a coal mine somewhere near the center of the road. The railway company will operate this mine by means of electric mining locomotives, electric drills, electric cutters, and electric lights, which will greatly cheapen the present cost of the ordinary system of mining coal. The possibility and economy of this method of mining has already been established beyond dispute. The company will sell the good coal that is mined at a handsome profit, and use only the waste, dust and slack to run the engines which develop the power for operating the mine and road, in connection with its distributing system of light and power for consumers along the line of road. At the present time such dust and slack is not only valueless, but has to be hauled away at the expense of the mining company. The road will be divided up into twenty-five sections of ten miles each, which will constitute a complete block system, making it impossible for any two cars to run at a high speed upon any single section at the same time, thus making collisions impossible. There will be a complete block signaling system by means of incandescent electric lights, with telephonic communication between cars upon the same section, whether running or standing still. The road will be illuminated by incandescent electric lamps for one mile ahead and one mile behind every car while running. It will be built in a practically straight line, and as far as possible will avoid grade crossings of other roads. At all grade crossings, whether wagon or railroad, a red electric light will be displayed and an electric bell rung for two minutes before it is time for the train to pass. It is intended to ultimately construct four tracks—two outside tracks for local traffic and high class freight, while the two inner tracks will be used exclusively for through passenger traffic, mail and high class express. The through cars will not stop anywhere between the two terminal cities between which they run. Spurs or branches will be run, connecting the large cities along the line of the road with the main through tracks, and from these cities to St. Louis and Chicago without stop. Ultimately a street will be run along the sides of these tracks, along which dwelling houses and stores will be built. On both sides of these avenues the land will, ultimately, be laid out in building lots one hundred feet front by two hundred feet deep, giving an area of half an acre to each lot. These lots will be bought by people from town seeking the healthy air of the country and pleasant homes within quick and cleanly access of the city. Back of them they will have the open farm lands, and in front of them the boulevard with the electric railway, telephone and electric light; practically uniting Washington avenue, St. Louis, with Michigan avenue, Chicago, by one grand electric highway or boulevard, along which the farmer may secure electric light and power for pumping, plowing, thrashing, chopping and mixing fodder, shelling and grinding corn, and harvesting at night in case of emergency; and the rural resident may secure electric lights for the illumination of his dwelling, and electricity for heating and cooking, and electric power for domestic purposes. Along this road there will ultimately be a constant stream of travel. The population will be scattered out into the country, and the centers of trade and business relieved of their surplus, leaving more room for business establishments near the great centers of trade, taking out of the great bustle and crowd of the city those who are not immediately engaged in trade, and leaving room for those who are. The result will be of incalculable benefit to the whole population and land holders throughout the district through which the proposed road will traverse. It will bring into use and market a large amount of real estate hitherto of but little value.

“‘Either of the three routes which this road proposes to take between St. Louis and Chicago will be at least thirty-three miles shorter than the shortest of the existing steam routes. The standard schedule time of all through cars will be one hundred miles per hour. The trip from St. Louis to Chicago can, therefore, be made in from two and a half to three hours. It will be unnecessary to travel at night, therefore no through passenger cars will be run after nine o’clock P. M., the tracks being reserved at night for high-class freight, express and mail. This does away with the necessity of running Pullman cars, and the expense to the company attendant thereon, as well as to the traveling public. No man will care about traveling at night when he can travel in the daytime over a cleanly road which will land him so quickly at his destination. Farmers along the line can build cheap side switches with light rails, which will enable cars to be run directly to the doors of their barns and granaries, to facilitate the transportation of the produce of their land, thus rendering them largely independent of the condition of the ordinary wagon roads, which, by the way, have become very poor through neglect since the inauguration of the railroad system. Thus will the large markets of St. Louis and Chicago be practically at the door of every farmer throughout this district, for the sale of his perishable produce. The moment the proposed road is completed and put in operation, all lands throughout the district traversed by the road will be increased in value from one to two hundred per cent. and ultimately, and that at a day not very far distant, the land immediately contiguous to the road will be selling by the front foot instead of, as at present, by the acre, with very little demand for even this.

“‘It will, of course, be to the highest interest of this company to build this road and get it in operation in time for the World’s Fair, so as to secure the immense traffic incident thereto. It is entirely practicable, says the prospectus, to build such a road within the time allotted. Steam roads of a much more difficult character have been built much more rapidly; for instance, the Texas & Pacific extension was built a distance of 615 miles in twenty-two months, four hundred miles of which was through a region entirely destitute of railroads and even of population, the cattle men at that time having failed even to penetrate the greater portion with their herds. The country was of a rough and hilly character, many summits being as high as three and four thousand feet, with such modifications of climate as to make a trip across the country a series of continual surprises. For a great portion of the road a rate of two miles for every working day was maintained for several months. Ties, fuel, and bridge timber had to be transported from East Texas, a distance of from four to six hundred miles; rails from Pennsylvania, seventeen hundred miles; and water from wherever it could be gotten along the line. The present proposed road will have none of these difficulties to contend with. It will have a practically level country over which to build its road, which will be crossed at intervals by steam roads, which can be utilized for the transportation of its materials. An interesting fact may be stated in this connection, that contracts can be made for the delivery of rails for the entire road within six weeks from the day of giving the order.

“‘The electric carriage or car that will be run upon this proposed electric road is a long, low, compact, light but strong car, having two pairs of driving wheels, each of which are driven by a separate and distinct electric motor. The whole weight of the car, with its passengers, and of the two electric motors, comes upon these two pairs of driving wheels, and is, therefore, all available for traction, or adhesion between the rails and the wheels, through the agency of which the car is propelled. The top of the car stands only nine feet from the rail, which is three feet lower than the ordinary street car. This brings the center of gravity very low and near to the track, which decreases immensely the danger of jumping the track. It has a wedge-shaped nose or front for cutting the air, which has the effect of decreasing the air resistance and of helping to keep the car down upon the track. The motor man stands immediately back of this wedge-shaped front, and between his department and the rear wheels is the compartment for the accommodation of passengers. In the rear of this is a separate compartment for mail and high express. The driving wheels are six feet in diameter, and are capable of making 500 revolutions in a minute. The weight of the entire car, with its motors, is but ten tons. It maybe interesting in this connection to state that a steam locomotive, to make the same speed, if it were practicable, would have to weigh in the neighborhood of one hundred tons, and the present locomotive weighs from sixty to ninety tons. These electric carriages or cars will be illuminated and heated by electricity, and will contain all the modern appointments for the comfort of passengers. There will be no conductors and no brakemen. It will be possible to stop the car within half a mile by means of the motors themselves and auxiliary electric brakes.’

“This is a grand scheme for the people of earth. I have read this article to show that you are not so far behind the Marsites in the science of mechanics as the masses of the common people seem to believe. This article clearly shows that what I have told you concerning our mechanical science is not a dream, but can by a little improvement, by a little more genius, and by a little wider voluntary co-operation, be applied equally well right here on earth. You need nothing new, but only improve on what you already have. I believe that the proposed enterprise is the grandest lesson in transportation and intercommunication that the people of the earth have so far conceived. There are still many monopolistic features in it as far as the social and economic principles are concerned, but this proposed railway with its lines of boulevards is a kind of a rude, primitive community, which will no doubt grow in regularity, freedom and equitable prosperity.”

“How, Mr. Midith, do you conduct your manufacturing industry?” asked Mrs. Uwins after Mr. Midith had finished speaking. “I suppose you manufacture a great many nice things.”

“Our manufacturing is, of course, done on a large scale, and mostly in those localities where the natural resources are best adapted for it. The advantages of manufacturing on a large scale are many and important. Let us exemplify this more fully. When every individual had to make his own garments and his own house, like primitive people do, both clothes and houses were scarce and poor, for several reasons which you undoubtedly understand. It is necessary, in order to manufacture a good article with little labor, first, to be a skillful workman, and, second, to have good tools and machinery to work with. The same person cannot be skilled in all trades, and, even if he could, he should still manufacture on a large scale; for it would require far too much needless labor for every person to own as good machinery and tools as many men can afford to own together, and the better the tools and machinery, the more and the better goods can be manufactured with the same amount of labor. Every individual can not own a good tailor shop, a convenient shoe factory and a large watchmaking establishment. ‘Division of labor’ should be as complete as possible, not only among individuals, but among communities as well.

“For instance, we have very large flouring mills, which have all the latest improved milling machinery in them. This machinery is very costly, and it would not be wise to have such a mill in each community. Therefore, one community manufactures one article and another community manufactures another, and some do not manufacture much at all.”

“Do you manufacture extraordinary fine cloth, jewelry, dress goods, etc.?” asked Viola somewhat inquiringly, as she glanced at Mr. Midith.

Mr. Midith smiled with apparent satisfaction and replied: “Indeed, we make fine cloths, some elegant jewelry, but we manufacture no dress goods. You see we have no use for dress goods, because our ladies do not wear dresses like you do.”

“Do your ladies honestly wear no dresses!” exclaimed Viola astonishingly. “What a strange world! a world without a dress in it!”

“Yes; our ladies wear no dresses,” responded Mr. Midith; “but we are digressing from our subject. Some other evening I shall fully describe our costume of both ladies and gentlemen.”

“Does not, then, manufacture and mining give a denser population to a community than a community has which is engaged almost exclusively in agriculture?” asked Mr. Uwins.

“Yes; they have a tendency to increase the density of population in a community above the average. But a mine or factory which employs 10,000 hands is quite large; and an increase of ten thousand in a community having in an average a population of 120,000 is not a large increase.”

“There is one feature in your system, Mr. Midith, I can not yet see into, and I should like to have you make that a little plainer if you can,” said Rev. Dudley, “and that feature is about the density of population. I may be dull in comprehension, but it does not, in my opinion, figure out well. You say that a square mile of land can, under the same conditions, support as many, and no more, human beings on Mars than it can on earth. You further say that your communities contain about four townships; have, in an average, about 120,000 inhabitants. Four townships contain 144 square miles. This gives a population of over 800 to the square mile, while Belgium, the most densely populated country on earth, has only a little over 500 to the square mile; and political economists, I think, unanimously agree that, without importation, the land of Belgium can not raise sufficient products to support its own population.”

“Rev. Dudley, I think that I fully agree with your political economists on the Belgium question of population. It is very likely true that the land of Belgium can, under your social and industrial system, not support, without importation, its own inhabitants; but that does not argue in favor of the fact that the Marsites, under a different social and industrial system, can sustain, in superfluity, a population nearly twice as dense as that of Belgium. I said under the same conditions the earth can sustain as dense a population as Mars can, but the conditions are not the same. With a little patience and close attention, I think I shall be able to clear up this question for you satisfactorily.

“Let us take an illustration. If the American Indians, who formerly lived a hunter’s life on the present area of the United States, had been questioned before the discovery of America about the density of population of their country, they would, no doubt, have said that their country was more densely populated at that time than it had ever been before, and that it would be utterly impossible for the land area comprising the present limits of the United States to support a population of over sixty millions of people who eat and waste so much, who wear so many good clothes, and who live in such good wigwams as the people of the United States actually do at the present time. Those Indians would undoubtedly have further argued that they had better weapons and tools, better wigwams, better clothes and better food than any of their ancestors had enjoyed, and that therefore the earth would be unable to do much better than it is already doing. But you, the white man, actually showed the Indians differently, when you settled among them. You changed the system of making a livelihood, to something of which the Indians had never thought; and very likely if one could have propounded a system similar to your present one, he would have been branded a traitor to his country, and a heretic to his religion. Instead of leading a hunter’s life, which requires a large territory and a sparse population, you partially live on agricultural products, and partially on domestic, instead of wild, animals. The Indian lived almost exclusively on a flesh diet—game, while you cultivate the soil and raised stock. Your industrial system is able to support a population vastly more dense than the Indian’s system was capable of supporting. So you see, the error was not that the earth is unable to sustain a denser population than the Indian’s, but that the Indian was not living under that social and industrial system which is capable of sustaining a dense population. The Indians’ mistake was, that they measured the possible maximum density of population by the standard of their social and industrial system. They knew that thousands of their companions were in want, and that they were frequently pressing on subsistence in all directions.

“Just so it is with you at the present time. You are apparently always figuring on what can be done under your present system. You, by adopting a social and industrial system which is capable of sustaining a denser population, showed the Indians that they had not reached the maximum density of population. Now I want to show you that you are as mistaken on your present density of population as the Indians were on theirs.

“We have seen that the Indians subsisted almost exclusively on animal food—game, while you gradually became more and more a vegetarian, and lived on the flesh of domestic animals, instead of wild game. Your system is capable of sustaining a denser population than the Indian system is, but the Marsites have continued to change the system which you began still further; therefore we are capable of supporting a population of over 800 to the square mile, in superfluity, while you are sometimes pressing on subsistence with a population of much less that 100 to the square mile.

“Now let me briefly enumerate a few of the most conspicuous differences existing between your system and ours, which enable us to sustain a population so much denser than you can. A vegetarian requires much less land area than a flesh eater, and we are almost exclusively vegetarians, while you are partly vegetarians but largely carnivorous (flesh eaters). We are wasting no land for the production of tea, coffee, tobacco, intoxicating liquor, opium, etc., which we claim contain very little if any nutriment. Much of your crops is spoiled and damaged by curing it out doors; we do all our drying and curing artificially, and not a particle is lost, spoiled or damaged. Our clothing is not made and worn so wastefully, and our fashions are not so changeable as yours. Our manner of cooking and eating is not half so wasteful as yours. We save an immense amount of land by not fencing it off into little lots and farms like you do. In this manner you, first, waste the land occupied by the fences; secondly, you require an immense amount of additional land on which to produce the fencing material—posts and lumber; and thirdly, fencing requires labor which involves a physiological waste that must be repaired by additional food raised on land. We get our building material nearly all out of the earth, while you use largely lumber, etc., which are grown on the land surface of the earth. Many of us live together in one house, and it requires much less labor and material to build and maintain one large residence than it does to build and maintain many smaller ones. By extensive voluntary co-operation, we are enabled to do much work with machinery which you have to do by hand; for instance, such as digging potatoes, unloading corn and other grain, heating and lighting the apartments, etc. We, who work on a large scale, have also much work for each machine, while you, under your single-handed system, require many machines, and have but little work for each; for example, a self-binder owned by a farmer, who has perhaps no more than 50 acres of grain to cut with it, while the machine is idle and decaying all the rest of the year.

“You have a vast amount of wealth employed in an army and a navy. The cavalry horses require feed; the man-of-war requires timber for its construction; your fortifications, your arsenals, your guns, your navy, etc., all require material which is largely produced by the land surface. Their construction requires a vast amount of unproductive labor—a physiological waste which must be repaired by food. Then, again, you often destroy by war countless millions of wealth; in fact you sometimes devastate whole countries. We have no war, no armies and navies to support, no destruction of wealth by war. You have to raise food for the reparation of the waste caused by your immense amount of unproductive and destructive labor. You, as well as we, require an immense amount of power to do the work: to build the houses, to plow, sow, and harvest, to heat the apartments, to run the train and factory. You raise and feed thousands and millions of draft-animals, horses, oxen, and mules, which draw the plow, wagon, etc., for you; they all have to be fed with feed which is raised on the surface of the earth, and which requires land area for its production. We have no draft-animals to feed—no hay and corn to raise for them. We receive all our motive power from the atmospheric current and water power. Thus man, during his different stages of physical and intellectual advancement, employs different motive power. Let us illustrate.

“In his primitive beginning, man carries his few burdens for transportation on his back. Then he makes his slaves do it. Further on, he uses the back of his domestic animals, which have to live from the vegetable products of the earth; this, as I have said, requires land area, and man by his labor must also aid in the successful production of this feed. A little further on he uses the direct wind power for propelling his clumsy ship and for running his primitive mill. Now he had power when the wind blew and none when it was calm; it was all uncertainty and irregularity. To overcome these, he invents a powerful steam engine which runs his ships, trains, factories, etc. But these engines require an immense quantity of water and fuel. This water is often difficult to get, and the fuel has to be raised on the land surface in the form of timber, or it has to be mined out of the earth; either method requires millions of days of labor. Still a little later on, man learns how to store up electricity and successfully compress air by the action of the atmospheric currents and water power. He lays up a large supply of this motive power for future use, and for unforeseen emergencies. This laid up motive power in the form of stored electricity and compressed air, he can, at his pleasure, convert into uniform mechanical motion. He applies it to his ships, trains, factories, land engines, vehicles, and all other machinery. He uses it for heating and lighting purposes, for drying and curing his grain and hay, and for countless other things too numerous to mention.

“All this vast motive power which he now stores up by the aid of evaporation and the atmospheric circulation involves scarcely any waste. There is an inexhaustible quantity of it. Millions of horse-powers are daily going to waste on every square mile of land and sea. Thus the burdenless man begins to walk more erect and with an increased elasticity in his step. His slave is emancipated. His draught animal, which required feed and care, is extinct. The pride of his mechanical genius, the steam engine for which he had to mine the coal in the damp mine, has also disappeared from the stage of action. And now the Marsites receive all their motive power from the present sunbeam without being first organized into a vegetable or animal, or without extracting it from the coal which was buried millions of ages ago.

“Is it not marvelous how the human mind, with its limited experience, has discovered such complex relations existing between certain phenomena? For examples, how a tiny sunbeam, after having traversed the abyss of space intervening the sun and our planets, warms the atmosphere in certain localities; how this produces atmospheric currents; how the windmills, driven by these currents, charge the storage battery cells, and fill other electric reservoirs; and how these cells and reservoirs of stored power furnish the motive power for train, ship, aerial projectile, factory, carriage, plow, elevator, etc., etc.; how they heat and light the factories, houses, stables, cars, vehicles, roads, etc. What a grand accomplishment when one contemplates this! What a display of human ingenuity; and yet we think that with all these marvelous achievements, even the Marsites are only living in the dawn of an approaching day whose effulgent brilliancy no human intellect has thus far contemplated.

“The foregoing, as you no doubt comprehend, are a few of the many reasons why we can support a denser population than you can.”

CHAPTER XII.
COMMERCIAL AND MERCANTILE SYSTEMS.

The next time we met to listen to Mr. Midith’s interesting narrative and to his vivid description of the Marsian world was on a pleasant, calm Sunday afternoon. All nature seemed to be glad and animated. The earth was covered with green grass. The flowers were blooming. The ripe strawberries were painting the hillside with their red cheeks. The verdant foliage was dressing the trees and shrubs with its richest garments. The clear little brook, not far from Mr. Uwins’ residence, was sending its water over its pebbly bed toward the mighty ocean. The birds were singing their songs and building their nests, regardless of its being Sunday.

“Would it not be pleasant to take a ramble along the running brook,” said Mrs. Uwins, “and after we find a pleasant, shady place, sit down on the green grass and have Mr. Midith tell us about their commercial and mercantile systems. I would like to know how the Marsites carry on their commerce and mercantile business—how women and children buy and sell, etc.”

We all agreed to Mrs. Uwins’ proposition of spending some time in taking a ramble among the trees.

“Mr. Midith, I believe you told us some time ago that the ladies on Mars enjoy equal privileges with the gentlemen in all respects,” said Viola with a somewhat mischievous smile. “So we will play just for this afternoon as though we were Marsites; and as you are not as well acquainted along the shores of our little brook as I am, I shall take the liberty of asking you for your company instead of you asking me for mine. You know it is not fashionable with us for a lady to ask a gentleman for his company. But, as you say, if you are used to it, it will not appear rude or forward to you at all.”

“I shall certainly be proud of your kind, guiding hand, for you, no doubt, have often before strolled in the shade of those trees and are well acquainted with the lay of the country.”

With this, we all started for the shady brook; even Rev. Dudley seems to have forgotten that it is Sunday. After wandering for some time, gathering strawberries, and making bouquets, we came to a fine shade tree, under which we sat down on the dense matting of grass. After being seated, Mr. Midith was requested to proceed with his explanation of the Marsian system of commerce, and how they buy and sell there.

“In order to give you a clear idea of our commercial and mercantile systems, it becomes necessary to begin at the bottom. Along the motor-lines, about four miles apart, as stated before (diagram p. 58, Com. 2), a side-track passes through a large warehouse, store-house, and factories in which the farm products of the community are stored away for safekeeping and for transportation. All products from the farm are hauled into these store-houses with land engines, and from the store-houses it is taken either to the depots for exportation, to the mill or factory, or to the kitchen of the ‘big-house’ for consumption. In these store-houses the land-engines and farming implements are also kept. The railroad depots are located generally wherever a motor-line crosses it. The railroads communicate with sea-ports and with all other parts of the country. Fast electric vessels carry on the foreign commerce. But foreign commerce is not so extensive now as it formerly was. Nearly every country now produces its own commodities with advantage. Domestic commerce is also greatly simplified. There are no populous cities to which the agricultural products must be shipped; and from which the agriculturists and inhabitants of country places, under your system, receive the agricultural implements and other manufactured commodities. The population, as you see, is almost evenly distributed over the productive land area from which they obtain their material subsistence.

“The motor-lines are built, equipped and run by the contiguous communities between which they are located, except the freight cars, which each community furnishes and operates for itself. No passenger fare is charged on a motor. It is presumed that the transportation between the several communities is nearly equal. For instance, a person from Community No. 5 rides on our motor-line, and a person from our community rides on the motor-line of Community 5. So a passenger can ride on any motor at any time and to any place in his own country at least, free of charge.

“Our railroads are built and equipped by voluntary subscriptions. When a certain scope of country wants a railroad, the inhabitants, who feel so inclined, of the adjacent communities which are interested in the road will advance the money. A few communities, each subscribing 75,000 days’ labor, can build quite a piece of road. Of course each individual advances as much as he wishes. The community, as such, takes no part in it; all such is left to the individual’s own choice.

“The work of building railroads is done by gangs of men, who make that their profession, and who are provided with the very best tools, graders, and everything necessary to produce the best results with the least amount of labor. After the roads are built and equipped, they are operated at 10 per cent. above cost until all the subscriptions have been paid back to those who advanced them, after which they are always operated at cost. Every one who rides on the train pays fare, the same as you do. The only difference is, that we ride at cost on an economically operated railroad, while you are paying the stockholders a large dividend on an extravagantly operated one.

“I think I have already told you that the motor-lines and railroads are brilliantly lighted with electric light when dark.

“So we notice briefly that the products from the farm are hauled with land engines to the warehouses; from these warehouses it is conveyed by motors through every ‘big-house’ on the line, where it can be unloaded for use, or can be transported to a depot for exportation. At these depots, of course, we receive also the imported goods brought by the railroads. As the motor-line passes through every ‘big-house,’ a passenger is enabled, without going out doors in the rain or snow, to step on a motor, which will take him to a depot where he can board a fast train, by which he can reach any part of the country in a short time. All our motor cars and other vehicles are almost noiseless. The boxing never heat and wear for years under the highest speed.”

“Your commercial department is, indeed, very perfect and convenient,” said Mr. Uwins. “Every person in your whole country, or even in your whole world, can travel to the abode of any other person without going out doors or in the dark.”

“Yes, papa,” said Roland, “and one can ride on the motor all he likes for nothing; that strikes me very favorably.”

“Now let me tell you how our mercantile business is conducted; how we buy and sell,” said Mr. Midith.

“But the mercantile business we shall not be able to understand fully until you are acquainted with our monetary system, or medium of exchange.

“We have three kinds of parties that do business: 1. The collectivity which we call the community. 2. The collectivity which we call the family. 3. The individual.

“One ‘big-house’ of every community, we call, in short, the ‘Com,’ meaning in our language a common business place; a place where the community’s business is transacted, such as selling the products of the community, which are not needed for home consumption; issuing money, receiving the remittances from all families’ and communities’ sales, paying all the families’ and communities’ bills, doing the printing for the community, etc. Under the head of government, I shall further describe its function.

“Each family of a community buys for its own use whatever it needs, such articles as dry goods, groceries, furniture, etc., and the individuals buy at the family stores. The storekeeper buys for the store what he thinks the people may want. So we see that each individual buys and sells with his own money, such articles as clothing, meals, railroad tickets, barber and laundry tickets, furniture for his private apartment, private luxuries, and all other things that he appropriates for his private use. The individual has no dictator; no censor.

“We have no such a thing as profit in our mercantile system, or any other of our systems. Every article is sold at cost, including, of course, the cost of buying and selling; and nothing but productive labor will buy it. Profit is wrong because it is always paid by a person who receives nothing for it; and it is paid to the person who does nothing for it. Of course, we have no law prohibiting the taking of profit, but under a healthy, free competition, profit is gradually and entirely eliminated by the practically equal opportunity enjoyed by each individual and by each community. No individual or community holds any monopolistic advantages over another. A stranger can buy as cheaply in any family store as a member of the community can. Prices, including transportation charges, are nearly uniform, not only all over the same country, but all over the surface of Mars. You also want to bear in mind that under keen, free competition and a comparatively uniform supply, prices rarely ever fluctuate. Thus you see we have no place for a speculator and a schemer. He would not make enough, with his profession, in ten years to buy a meal. Nothing less than a fair, honest share of productive labor receives the approval of one’s companions; and no person would want to bear the burden of public contempt in order to avoid his fair share of the labor, when a day’s labor is so short, the labor so easy and pleasant, the compensation so abundant.

“Every ‘big-house’ has a mercantile department, as I have already explained, in which nearly all kinds of goods, such as an individual wants, are kept for sale. The men, women and children who work in the sales department receive wages, or pay, the same as a miner, a farmer or a conductor. They are not interested whether they sell or not. They derive no benefit from misrepresenting goods. It is the same to them whether they sell a cheap article or a high priced one. They derive no benefit from lying, from suppressing the truth, or from otherwise deceiving or persuading a customer to buy an article he really does not want.

“If an individual wants a knife or a watch he buys it, whenever he sees fit, either in the store of his own ‘big-house’ or in some other ‘big-house’ of his community, or in any other community or country where he may be when he wants the article. If he wants an article of furniture he does the same. If he wants a suit, he can either buy it ready-made, or he can select the cloth and get the tailor to make it. Nearly all suits are tailor made, for an expert tailor in our own house can make it as cheap as it can be made anywhere. When a lady wants a garment, she either gets it ready-made, or she selects the goods and gets it made by a tailor or seamstress, who have all the conveniences, who are proficient in their work, and who can do the work in much less time than an inexperienced person who wants the garment. Each laborer works with advantage in his own sphere. This may, I think, be abundantly verified by noticing the fit of your ladies’ garments, which are often made by the wearers, who are inexperienced seamstresses, who, as you term it, are too frequently compelled by the force of your social circumstances to be ‘jack of all trades and master of none.’ Your incomplete division of labor, your single-handed efforts, and your inconveniences resulting from them necessarily produce a small return for the labor expended; and the products which it does produce under such conditions are rude and unfinished. Think, if every one had to make his own watch, how long it would take one, and what a watch it would be after one had it completed.

“At the crossings of the motor-lines we have large motor depots erected and maintained by the four contiguous communities who use it as a depot for shipping and as a storehouse.

“Pardon me, ladies and gentlemen, for telling you that I feel unable to give you a clear idea of our commercial and mercantile system, without giving you first a brief description of our system of intercommunication.”

“I am sure we would enjoy that very much,” said Viola. “It will indeed be interesting for us to know how and with whom you travel, to whom you write, etc.”

“Very well,” said Mr. Midith as he began: “All apartments of the ‘big-house’ are connected by telephone with one another, with all the ‘big-houses’ and other buildings of the community, and with all the other communities of the whole country. By this system an individual in his private apartment, or any other apartment or building, can communicate with any community, or with any individual of any community. This enables any man, woman, or child to talk with any other man, woman, or child of the whole nation; or, one person may communicate a message to millions at the same time by all listening.

“Telegraphy is now rarely used. Owing to the double tracks of railroads and motors, little use is made of it there. Our improved noiseless telephone is much superior. Our phonographs have been wonderfully improved. They speak, sing, play, etc., as loudly and distinctly as the original voice or instrument. An author can read his production in its presence, and the phonograph will repeat it clearly and distinctly as often as the machine is set in motion. They largely perform the work of stenographers.

“The mail is carried to and from the ‘big-houses’ on the railroads or motors. From there the railroads carry it rapidly to its destination. When the mail arrives at the ‘big-house,’ it is immediately distributed by mail carriers to each individual’s apartment, where the mail carrier drops it through an aperture in the wall into a letter box on the inside of the individual’s room. And the inmate drops his out-going mail likewise to the outside of his apartment for the mail carrier to take. In this manner a postoffice is located in every individual’s apartment. Instead of having every individual run to the postoffice, often for nothing, as you do, we have a few mail carriers carry the mail to every individual who receives any. Mail arrives and departs at least four or five times daily. You can, no doubt, see what an immense amount of labor we save, and what a promptness and convenience we insure.”

“That is, no doubt, a grand system, Mr. Midith,” said Rev. Dudley, who seemed almost ready to start in pursuit of a similar system. “It seems that all your social and industrial departments fit so well together that one can find no break in it anywhere. Everybody has a postoffice, a telephone and a motor-line in his own house, and yet no one lives in a crowded city nor in a lonely country.”

“But, Rev. Dudley, you know as yet only little of the freedom and harmony that prevails in our social and industrial world. You will find as we go along with our explanation, that all of man’s career, from his genesis until his death, is a comparative history of kindness, freedom, harmony and happiness.

“On the first of every year an invoice and census are taken by each ‘big-house,’ and from these a community invoice and census is summarized. The summarized invoice exhibits the total commodities on hand of the whole community. It also exhibits the increase or decrease of any particular kind of goods, as well as the total increase or decrease of wealth and capital during the last year. By the aid of this invoice the individual, the family and the community can ascertain in what direction their labor can be advantageously increased or diminished during the current year. If we find by the invoice that the wealth of the community is diminishing, we have to lengthen our day’s labor so as to produce more; and if the wealth increases faster than we desire, we shorten the day’s labor. Now do not forget here that all wealth must be produced by the application of labor to land, and that anything which is not produced by labor is not wealth.

“The annual census which is taken by each ‘big-house’ reports the population of the family, male and female; the number of births and deaths; the commodities consumed, raised, manufactured, mined, transported and bought and sold. The number of inventions; the books written and printed, and all other useful items. The census of the families are summarized like the invoices. The invoice and census of each community contains an estimate of the current year’s production, consumption and transportation, beginning with the first of the year.

“Each community prints annually about 30,000 or more copies of its own invoices and census, and sends a copy to those communities, both in and out of its own nation, with which it is most likely to do business. In this manner each community receives about 30,000 census pamphlets from that many other communities from all parts of the world. Each one of our grand divisions of land or nation, as you call them, has also a Fa-no, which, in our language, means a continental business place. This Fano is a magnificent line of buildings, located somewhere near the center of the ‘nation.’ In this Fano samples of all merchantable commodities are kept on exhibition, and the price given on the sample. This capacious Fano is divided off into grand departments. For example: In the carpet department all communities that manufacture carpets have samples of all their grades of carpets on exhibition there; and every sample bears the name and grade, the selling price and the number of the community which has it for sale. Similarly are there departments for all other commodities—lumber, books, clocks, sugar, oil, sofas, vehicles, shoes, plows, wheat, iron, aluminium, engines, etc., etc.

“Thus, you see, we have a continuous national exhibition in the Fano. Every community of the ‘nation,’ and even of foreign ‘nations,’ has one or more representatives, called Fa-no-ers, there. These Fanoers are at the Fano only for the commercial interest of their community. As stated before, no commodities other than the mere samples are kept in the Fano. Those who make purchases from a community’s samples kept at the Fano, have the commodities purchased, directly shipped to them from the community of whose samples the goods were purchased. The purchasing individual or family, or community, can order them, or they can get the selling community’s Fanoer to attend to the ordering.

“Now let me tell you how we make our purchases at the Fano. When an individual, a family or a community desires to purchase an article, say, for instance, a piano, and cannot procure the desired article for a suitable price near at home, the purchaser informs the ‘Fanoer’ what he wants, and directs the Fanoer to make the purchase, or he informs the purchaser where such an article can be purchased to the best advantage. The ‘Fanoer’ now visits the piano department, where he finds prices, and sample pianos of all description, also a description of each piano. From all of these he makes his selection, and informs the purchaser of the price and in what community they are manufactured and kept. The purchaser then orders it from the ‘Com’ of that community, if the purchase was not ordered to be made directly by the ‘Fanoer.’ And just so with every other article of commerce. Thus you see every individual, family, and community get the benefit of the best goods, the latest inventions and improvements, and the lowest current prices.”

“Are the masses of the Marsites well-informed on the current market prices, and the latest improvements and inventions?” asked Mr. Uwins.

“Yes, the Marsites are all well informed commercially,” continued Mr. Midith. “Our intercommunication is so practicable and expedient that every one is well informed on current prices, and especially on the prices of those articles one wishes to purchase. Besides the means of travel, telephone, phonograph, invoices, correspondence and oral communication, we have a daily newspaper or price list issued at the ‘Fano.’ This price list quotes prices and names and briefly describes every new sample that is brought in and taken out of the ‘Fano.’ You must remember that, under free competition and a healthy supply and demand, prices, with us, do not fluctuate arbitrarily like they do under your monopolistic laws, which create an unreliable market and fictitious values. Hence we can be and are all well informed on market prices.

“But the above are not the only advantageous means of our commercial transactions. Just as we have a ‘Fano’ in each grand division or ‘nation’ to adjust and facilitate the national commerce, so do we have a world’s business point which we call ‘Mo-da-no,’ meaning in our language world-wide. The ‘Modano’ is a series of massive buildings, in which a never-ending World’s Exposition is conducted. It is managed on the same principles as the ‘Fano,’ and is to the whole of Mars what the ‘Fano’ is to its grand division.

“The ‘Modano’ is the grandest structure on Mars. Its architecture is too massive, too esthetic, and too grand to be accurately and adequately described in terms of any of your languages with which I am familiar. One who has seen no better architectural skill than the earth now furnishes, can form no accurate conception of the magnitude and grandeur of our magnificent ‘Modano.’

“It contains samples of all human skill and industry, not only of modern commodities, but of the ancient and antiquated as well. Large departments for the receptions of new commodities and inventions are from time to time erected. All communities of Mars are represented there by ‘Modanoers.’ Samples, prices, and generally quantity and quality, of all commercial goods are on exhibition at the ‘Modano.’ And everything is kept as clean as a parlor. I may say that the ‘Modano’ is the pride of every Marsian heart, and more wealth is voluntarily offered for its erection and maintenance than can possibly be expended. Nearly every youth and adult annually visits a number of ‘Fanoes’ and the ‘Modano.’ The visitor almost universally records his name in the donation-book, and drops into a box a sealed envelope bearing his name and containing the sum donated, which corresponds with the sum opposite his name in the donation-book. This is voluntary taxation, of which I shall tell you more under the head of Government.

“Thus you see at once that we require no traveling salesmen, whose wages and expense are taxed to the goods they sell, and this sum, in the United States alone, is perhaps nearly equal to the value of your entire wheat crop of the United States. By our almost complete system of transportation and intercommunication, it is easy to buy and sell, and to receive and send news. We all want to buy of that community which sells the best goods for the least pay.

“The floating palace of the ocean, the powerful and safe trains; the motors which run through every ‘big-house,’ warehouse, factory, mill and depot; the electric farm engines, the various bicycles and carriages, the safe and rapid transit of mail, the universal use of telephone and phonograph, the exchange of invoices and censuses, the Fanos and Modano, the price lists and newspapers, etc.; all aid and combine in making it an almost perfect system of transportation, intercommunication and business transaction. Such in brief is our commercial and mercantile system.

“Let me here again remind you that it is not competition, like some of your economists try to make your people believe, but monopoly which makes your earth such a cruel, poor world to live in. Profit is one form of monopoly in trade and commerce. You will notice that in our social and industrial world there is a keen competition everywhere. One community, family and individual endeavor to do better and more work in the same time than another. But a competitor is always a laborer, winning his race by his superior merit. He always earns his own living, besides giving the benefit of his superior merit to the world at large.

“But notice the difference in the profit-taker. He receives something for which he does nothing, and the person who pays him the profit, pays for something for which he receives nothing. For this reason a profit-taker may grow rich by living an idle life, by being a social parasite, like all your profit-takers are as such. He simply appropriates what others have already earned. A competitor never lives from the labor of another. The community which makes the best and cheapest shoes, sells the most, and this is just what it should be, for every one should be allowed to buy as cheap as he can. Those competing communities in the shoe business, of which there are, of course many, must either devise means of making better and cheaper shoes, or they must engage in other business for which they are better adapted. Under this keen competition every community will naturally drift into those occupations for which it is best adapted and in which it is most proficient. Just as it is with the community, so it is with the family and with the individual. The profit-taker endeavors to achieve his victory by monopolistically tearing down his neighbor, while under freedom a competitor relies on the superiority of his own merits without interfering with the race of his neighbor. Competition is the only power of which we know that can gently shift every person, family, community, etc., into that social and industrial sphere for which each is best adapted. A competitor, under freedom, is never robbed of what he produces; he always possesses at least as much wealth as he would if he were the only inhabitant of a world. Monopoly, in its various forms, is the thief and robber.

“Let us in a few words compare your commercial and mercantile system with ours, not with a view of fault-finding, not with a view of casting reflections, but with a view of instruction. We all need all the information we can get; if it is not in one thing it is in another. Nobody knows it all. Very likely there is much more that we do not know than the little we do know. Perhaps there is no better evidence of mental narrowness than our ostentatious pretention of knowing it all. With this view in mind let us proceed.

“You either live in the country, almost cut off from trade and commerce, or you live in a crowded city or town where the smoke and offensive odor enters every crevice, door and window, and where you are more or less starving for want of wholesome air. Where scarcely a vegetation opens its mouth to exhale the life-giving oxygen and to inhale the excessive carbonic acid which impairs the health of animal life. Where a portion of mankind are living an idle, wasteful life in a palace built by the labor of the poor, and another large class of industrious persons are eking out a miserable existence in a poor, filthy hovel. Under your profit system each must grab all he can or he must starve. In order that a few may amass comparatively worthless fortunes, many are trampled in the mire who can never rise again under the burden of your social and industrial system. Perhaps from one-half to three-fourths of your commercial and mercantile work is unproductive and destructive labor.

“Your railroad corporations not unfrequently receive large public donations of land, etc., to build the roads with, and after they are built they become the gambling stock on which large dividends are paid by the hand of labor. You have so many places of business where goods are spoiling for want of customers; and with your monopolistic profit system, every merchant is trying to freeze out his neighbor. We have no ‘middle-men’ who have to live from profit which must be taxed to the goods when sold to the consumer or producer; no army of mercantile schemers, the successful ones of whom live and grow rich from the labor and wrecked fortunes of others; no traveling salesmen; no countless warehouses and elevators, in which the rich speculator stores the grain and other commodities in order to create a fictitious market. Each one of our communities buys and preserves what it needs for its own consumption directly from some other community; and so each community also sells what it has to spare to some other purchasing community. Thus each purchase and sale is a wholesale, even if it amounts to only a nickle’s worth. With you a business man must live from the profits of his sales. He must sell or become impoverished. Under such a condition, in order to save himself from bankruptcy, he is tempted to lie, to misrepresent on the one hand and to suppress the truth on the other; he is tempted to persuade customers by deceptive means to purchase things they do not really want. He must strain every nerve and muscle to keep want from his door. His wife and children in many cases, where the business place is remote from the residence, scarcely ever see him. In the morning he leaves early and in the evening he returns late. Many of your business men have lost nearly all their social qualities and are little more than mere business worms with the shadow of death hovering on their countenances. Your business man is a mental slave also. In order to be successful in his business he must either be ignorant and superstitious himself, living in a little narrow, mental world, or he must tacitly, and sometimes even avowedly, sanction the ignorance and superstition of his customers. For, very likely, if he expresses his honest convictions concomitant with a higher state of culture in all directions, he offends some of his customers from the profit of whose purchases he must live, and financial ruin would be the result.”

“These are all facts,” said Mr. Uwins; “they are no exaggerations, and many of our foremost thinkers have seen them more or less clearly for some time; but no one thus far seems to know how to make the proper adjustment with our present amount of intelligence.”

“I think it is now getting to be time to direct our course toward home,” said Mr. Midith.

At this we all rose to our feet, and prepared to stroll homeward.

“When we started from home you asked me for my company, Viola,” said Mr. Midith. “You claimed that you were better acquainted in the woods, and would, therefore, according to the customs of Mars, volunteer to be my guide. But now, in returning, I shall ask you for your company; of course, you can accept or reject, just as you desire. This is also according to the customs of Mars.”

“Why, Mr. Midith, I am sure I shall accept your company with the greatest of pleasure,” said Viola, as we started toward home.

CHAPTER XIII.
MONEY, OR MEDIUM OF EXCHANGE.

“Mr. Midith, will you please give us an account of your monetary system?” asked Mr. Uwins, as the whole family were enjoying the green lawn, after our first stroll.

“With the greatest of pleasure,” said Mr. Midith, apparently enjoying a high sense of satisfaction. “But, before I proceed with the monetary account, allow me to say that this door-yard picture, as we are here now, reminds me of a miniature Marsian family. All appear healthy, happy, intelligent, clean, amiable and courteous. I can not help feeling grateful toward you for your kind hospitality, and shall always remember you, whether I shall ever be able to return to my beloved native home or not.”

“Mr. Midith, you owe us no debt of gratitude; but, on the contrary, we owe you,” said Mrs. Uwins. “I have never before been so intensely interested in anything as I am in your Marsian narrative. Your social, industrial, and domestic arrangement seems to be so perfect, and yet there is nothing miraculous in it. It is all human. With a little more intelligence of the masses, we can easily do what the Marsites have already done. With a little additional knowledge, we ought to be able to live in large families and build our houses in lines, and the rest will naturally follow.”

“Now the account of your monetary system,” said Viola with a pleasant smile on her countenance. “I am anxious to know whether the Marsites are in pursuit of money as eagerly as we are, and how ladies and children get their money.”

“Before I shall be able to give you a clear understanding of our money, or medium of exchange, I shall have to give you a description of another public apartment in the ‘big-house,’ for this commercial apartment, as we call it, is intimately connected with our monetary system; in fact, it is so closely connected with it that you can not understand our money system without a knowledge of the function of this apartment.

“The wall and partitions of this commercial apartment are all furnished with fine book-shelves. The shelves are set off so closely by vertical partitions that only one large blank book fits in each division, which are numbered consecutively. Every man, woman and child of the family is represented in this commercial apartment by one of these time-books, in which each records the time of his or her labor performed. On the back of each book is the owner’s name, and a number corresponding to the shelf-division. In this manner each individual has his own book, and each book its own shelf-division.

“Let me tell you right here that we have no surnames, as you call them. We have only what you call Christian names; such as John, James, Mary, Viola, etc., the philosophy of which you will see hereafter. But, in our system of naming, every individual can be so described that it can mean no other person than the one intended. For instance, Mary, B 4, F 23, C 84 of Goben. Mary is her name; B 4 means that she keeps her record of labor in book No. 4 in the commercial apartment; F 6 stands for family number 6 of a certain community; C 84 stands for community number 84 of the country of Goben. There can be but one person in our world that answers to this description.

“This commercial apartment contains all the conveniences for book-keeping, fine desks, counters, chairs of all kinds, writing material and everything one may want to keep a neat, first-class record.

“As I have said, each individual keeps his own record in his own book, of all the labor he performs for the community; also the kind (the labor census is compiled from this record) of labor, and the date when he performs it. The record-books are large enough to contain the labor-record of a person’s whole lifetime. This labor-record, kept in this commercial apartment, is the basis upon which we issue our money, or labor checks, or medium of exchange, or whatever else you may call it. We have seen that all wealth is produced by productive labor, and a day’s, or an hour’s, or a minute’s productive labor produces, in an average, so much wealth; and the individual who performs the labor should receive all the money or labor checks, which represent the wealth he has produced. I might say right here that we have no coin; this fact, stated in the beginning, might aid you in better understanding of what follows, for as a rule the vast majority of the people seem to think that coin is absolutely necessary to a successful medium of exchange, but this you will find to be an error.

“There is one other point to which I must call your attention before we proceed with our main subject, and that is our method of keeping time. If we issue our money only for productive labor performed, it naturally follows that we should have a good method of measuring the time of this labor, and this we have.

“Our clocks divide the day on the decimal scale, but I shall not confuse your minds with our division of time. I shall always interpret our time in terms of yours, and content myself by just giving you a brief description of our method of keeping it.

“Every apartment, public and private, is furnished with one or more time-pieces. All the clocks in the ‘big-house,’ as well as all the ‘big-houses’ in the whole community, are connected by a subterranean electric wire, which causes the pendulums of all the clocks to vibrate simultaneously. The wires of the communities within certain degrees of longitude are likewise connected. By this method all the clocks within that longitude of the country keep exact time with the central regulator, which is regulated astronomically.

“Now we are prepared for the main financial question. In business, when you say I want so many dollars, cents and mills for an article, we say I want so many days, hours, minutes and seconds for it. Of course, our working day, as I have told you several times before, is, in an average, less than two hours, or less than one-fifth as long as your day, which is generally more than ten hours.

“Now let us see if I can make you understand our money system, or our medium of exchange. It is indeed extremely simple for one who is familiar with it.

“We have seen that each individual man, woman and child, keeps a time-book in the commercial apartment; and at the close of each month each individual closes his own book account of the labor he performed during that month and makes a copy, a fac-simile of it, on paper provided for that purpose. This copy is at the close of each month sent to the mint department of the ‘Com.’ Here, in order to avoid error, the labor records are carefully examined by expert accountants. If they are found correct mathematically, the amount of money, or time bills, for each individual, are issued and put in a kind of pocket-book, sealed and addressed to the individual owner who receives the pocket-book in his mail box. Thus we notice that each individual man, woman and child, practically issue their own money; that is they can work as much as they like during the month, and at the end of the month they report to the minter or money stamper at the ‘Com’ the amount of labor performed. For their labor performed in the community they receive labor checks, or money as you call it, on the negotiable wealth of the community; and as all communities are highly reliable, every community will take the labor checks of any other community. This enables a person to buy in any community he desires. The laborer, in an average, always produces the wealth before he receives his money for it. Hence failure, under ordinary conditions, is impossible.

“Let us notice, then, that the ‘Com’ issues the money; that every person who handles money for the family or community remits it daily to the ‘Com,’ where all the bills of the families and community are paid. A family never remits the money for the bill of goods it has purchased. When a family buys a bill of goods for its store, etc., the selling community makes out a duplicate bill, one of which the purchasing family sends to the ‘Com’ as soon as the goods are found satisfactory and the bill is correct. If the bill is not correct, it is first corrected by the purchasing family. The ‘Com,’ immediately upon the arrival of the bill, remits the money to the selling community. You want to keep in mind then that the family buys what and where it pleases, but that it daily remits all the money taken in to the ‘Com,’ which pays all the bills for the community and for all the families of the community.

“Our money, or labor checks, or medium of exchange, or whatever else you may wish to call it, consists of stamped paper bills of different sizes, according as they represent days, hours, or minutes and seconds.

(Fig. 4.)
C 24 stands for community No. 24. 6 D stands for six days’ labor. 23486 is the number of the bill. Goben is the name of the country.

“Figure 4 represents a bill of six days’ value (called six days),” said Mr. Midith as he outlined a Marsian labor bill. “Besides the ornamental stamp which the bill contains, it bears the date of its issue, the number of the community which issued it, the country, or grand division, in which the community is located, its number, and its representative value of six days’ labor. We have bills of three sizes: One size representing days’ labor, one representing hours, and one representing minutes and seconds.

“Now let us see whether we can understand the circulation of our labor-money. We have seen that every person, at the close of each month, sends his own labor-record to the ‘Com,’ the only place in the community where money is issued, and money is never issued on anything else than these individuals’ monthly labor-records. So that all the money that is ever issued goes directly to the individual man, woman, or child, who labored for it, who produced the negotiable wealth which the money represents.

“Now let us follow a bill in its circulation. We have seen that the individual can buy where he wishes, in his own family store, in his own community or out of it; he can also buy of another individual, or of a family, or of any community. We will say, for illustration, that Mary pays out one of her bills in any of the family stores of her own community. The family storekeeper, at the close of his day’s business, remits the bill to the ‘Com’ of his own community. Here it was issued and paid to Mary for labor performed; and here it is also canceled when it returns by stamping it on both sides, which is a mark of redemption, after which it is filed away. This bill is canceled because Mary drew the negotiable wealth which the bill represents out of the community’s storehouse. That is, she took her actual wealth she produced by her labor. When she received the money at the end of the month she took only the representative of her wealth. Bear in mind that bills are canceled only at the ‘Com,’ not at the ‘big-houses.’

“Now let us go on further. Perhaps Mary paid out her bill in some other community than her own. Then the bill is sent to the ‘Com’ of that community where the purchase was made by the family which sold Mary the goods, but the ‘Com’ of that community does not cancel our bills. The ‘Com’ of each community cancels only its own bills. The community which gave Mary the commodities for her bill uses that bill the same as it uses its own bills to buy of other communities; and these communities to buy of still others; so the bill keeps on circulating from one community to the other until it again reaches our community, where it will be canceled, for we can not get the bill unless we redeem it with wealth, and all bills redeemed, as we have seen, are canceled at the ‘Com.’ Hence we may receive the money of any other community, and all other communities will accept our money.

“Whenever the ‘Com’ needs more money to purchase with, or to pay bills of purchase with, than what it receives as remittances from its own families, it sells the products of the community just like your farmers sell their wheat, etc.; but the community, as a community, can never issue money for the purpose of paying for the community’s purchases. Money can be issued only on the labor-records of the individual. This fact we always want to bear in mind.”

“Well, Mr. Midith, how, then, do you support disable-bodied persons who have no labor-record to send in?” asked Viola.

“They keep a book in the commercial department the same as the sound ones, and send a monthly statement of how much money they wish and the money is sent to them the same as to others; and they spend it just as freely, too. We treat our cripples in every respect as equals, and they do not feel any sense of inferiority and dependence as you make your paupers feel. We let them manage their own affairs, draw their money and hire all the assistance they need. In order to make this a little plainer to you, I may say that our communities are very large families, and that we, as members of a community, find, no doubt, even more pleasure in caring for our disabled persons than a kind family here on earth feels in caring for a disabled son or daughter. But you must not forget that disabled persons are very few with us. Disease and accident have been minimized, and monstrosities (unnatural productions) are almost unknown.”

“But you have not yet told us how little children and babies get their money to buy with,” said Mrs. Uwins.

“I shall give you an explanation of that under the head of sexual relations, where you will be better able to understand it clearly,” said Mr. Midith. “But I will say right here that every man, woman, and child has money to buy with, and no one can buy without it.

“We have no credit system, and no interest, as you can see at once. For in a world where every one has all the money he wants, or can earn all he wants at any time by an agreeable amount of manual labor, credit is unnecessary; and interest is the result of monopoly, and as we have no monopoly, we can have no interest. In our world, natural opportunity is equally open to all individuals, all families and all communities. Every person can work all he wants, and gets all he actually earns. Our money can be gotten only by productive labor, or by voluntary gift; and you must always keep in mind, too, that it is issued directly to the man, woman and child who earned it by productive labor, or who has it voluntarily given to him, as in the case of an infant or disabled person.

“I have given you a brief explanation of our money system before I pointed out any defects in your system, or, before comparing it with yours. I have adopted this mode of procedure all through my explanations for the reason that the masses of your people, or, at least, those who have but a narrow mental view, always accuse a person who points out some defects of their institutions as being a destructionist. They say he tears down, but does not build up; he is considered destructive but not constructive. For this reason, as well as for the fact of following the natural method of instruction, I have first built up, constructed what I believe to be an immeasurably more just and simple monetary system than yours is. In contemplating a system of money, or medium of exchange, let us always keep in mind that money, as such, is not wealth; but that its only function, its only usefulness is to facilitate commerce and trade. Now let us compare our money with your money. Let us put aside as much as possible of our prejudice while we are making this comparison. First, then, let us enumerate the several features that a just and convenient medium of exchange (money) must possess, and upon what basis such a system of money must rest.

“1. It must be made out of the cheapest, most convenient and durable material.

“2. It must afford the greatest security to the taker.

“3. It must eliminate all credit from trade and commerce.

“4. It must maintain the most unvarying uniformity in its purchasing power.

“5. It must least be obtainable by any other means than by productive labor and by voluntary gift.

“6. In volume, it must be always practically equal to the value of the negotiable wealth which it represents, and must increase and diminish in the same ratio as the wealth does.

“7. It must not admit of being monopolized so as to make the drawing of interest possible.

“8. It must be least liable of being counterfeited.

“9. It must give the person who possesses a large quantity of it, no advantage or special privileges over him who has less of it.

“10. The money must be such that the payee (the person to whom money is to be paid) may accept or refuse the money, instead of the actual wealth which the money represents.

“11. It must, in its circulation, preserve a financial equilibrium with other parts of the world, and in proper quantities must naturally return to its place of redemption.

“12. It must be most directly issued to the individual—man, woman, and child—who performs the productive labor which produced the wealth which the money represents.

“I am well aware from the experience of my sojourn on earth that the people of earth, as a rule, are yet very superstitious, uninformed and fanatical on the money question. The masses of your people, as I have said before, are worked so hard, and they therefore have very little time and desire for philosophical thought of any kind; but notwithstanding all this, I shall attempt briefly to examine and compare our and your money systems with the above essential features of a just and convenient medium of exchange. Of course we all understand, when we think for a moment, that any system of money that possesses the features of justice and convenience in the highest degree is the most perfect. Let us then begin the examination.

“1. As to material, our money or medium of exchange, as I have told you before, is made out of paper which costs comparatively nothing, which is very convenient commercially, and which is sufficiently durable; while you make your money largely out of metals, the production of which costs you an immense amount of comparatively unproductive labor, and furthermore coin is very bunglesome to handle. Two hundred dollars in silver is almost a load to carry. Thus most of your money is costly and lacks convenience.

“2. As to security, our money is always secured and backed by the immense negotiable wealth of a strong, peaceable community, and in an average we never have more money in circulation than there is actual negotiable wealth on hand to redeem it with, while your national security is often very uncertain. Thousands of people lost by taking Confederate money during the American Civil War; and if the South had been victorious, the greenback would have been worthless. Your security is thus very faulty.

“3. You have seen that we have entirely eliminated all credit from our financial world. No individual, family, or community buys on credit; all have plenty of money to buy with, while the volume of your money is often so small and so monopolized that perhaps most of your business is transacted on time, which involves a great deal of uncertainty and injustice. In the first place, the business man under your credit system is not certain of his pay; he must always be on the look-out not to sell to poor payers, and in the second place the annual losses which the business man sustains by failure to pay, must be taxed to the goods he annually sells and must therefore be paid by those who do pay. In this manner a person who pays must indirectly pay for the goods the delinquent fails to pay for directly.

“4. As to uniformity of purchasing power, our money is nearly perfect. The basis of its issue is a day’s productive labor, which, under free competition, in an average, produces nearly the same quantity of negotiable wealth at all times, taking it all over the world, while the purchasing power of your dollar is very fluctuating. For instance, the discovery of a rich gold mine makes the gold dollar worth less, because it can be obtained with less labor. If silver would now be discovered as plentifully as lead, and if you had free and unlimited coinage of silver, a silver dollar of the present weight and fineness would have but little purchasing power; first, because a laborer could obtain many of them from the rich mine with a day’s labor, and secondly, because laborers would be attracted to the mine, and from agriculture and other productive industries, which would produce a scarcity of commodities and raise them in price.

“Let us take another example that will clearly show the great varying purchasing power of your dollar. In making this examination, we want to keep in mind that the only material wealth after which we are in pursuit is food, clothing, shelter, luxuries, and the instruments of their production and distribution; that all material wealth is produced either directly or indirectly by the application of labor to land; that is, the crude material must be yielded by the earth. All debts must ultimately be paid with material wealth, and money, or the dollar, serves only as a medium to facilitate the exchange of material wealth. Where there is no material wealth the dollar becomes useless. You do not work for the dollar, as most of your people seem to think, nor can a dollar add one iota to your physical comforts and happiness. It is the material wealth which the dollar represents which gives the comfort and happiness. If all the money in your world would be annihilated or sunk in the ocean at 12 o’clock M., none of the world’s aggregate physical comforts and happiness, other than an experience of inconvenience of making exchanges, would be diminished. There would be, after the destruction of all the money, just as much food, clothing, shelter and luxuries as there was with all the money in the world. Your meals would be just as good, because we do not eat money. Your houses would be just as light, warm and cheerful as before. Your couch would be just as soft and comfortable. Your land just as productive. All your luxuries would be just as charming and agreeable. Your trains, telegraphs, telephones and electric lights would operate just the same. Your books would contain the same information. The only inconvenience, as a whole, that you would experience from the destruction of your money, would be, that you would find it more inconvenient to make your exchanges of commodities; and to obviate this inconvenience is the only function and use of money. Now let us exemplify a little further the injustice of the varying purchasing power of your dollar.

“Since I came to live on earth, I got acquainted with a very industrious and frugal person, who, in 1869, purchased, on credit, in the state of Wisconsin, a $6,000 farm. It is now over twenty years since he began to pay for it, and he has succeeded in paying about $4,000 of the principal and over $6,000 interest. He, therefore, owes still $2,000 of the principal.

“Now let us not forget right here that wheat in 1869, or thereabout, was worth about $2.50 per bushel, and, as a whole, all other things in proportion. This man, then, bought the farm on the basis of $2.50 wheat. At this price, it would have required only 2,400 bushels of it to pay for the farm. But soon after he bought the farm, wheat began to decline in price, until, in 1890, it was worth only about 60 cents or 70 cents. Now, as I have said, in 1890 this man owed still $2,000 on his farm. To pay $2,000 with 70 cent wheat requires about 2,700 bushels, 300 bushels more than it did to pay for the whole farm in 1869. So you see this man raised wheat for over twenty years. During this twenty years he raised and sold over 6,000 bushels of wheat, the proceeds of which he paid on his farm. Now if the contract for the farm had read 2,400 bushels of wheat, instead of reading $6,000, he would have the farm paid for two or three times over. But as it is, it is more difficult to pay for now than it was when he began paying in 1869. It required more bushels of wheat, more bushels of oats and potatoes, more pounds of cotton or pork, more kegs of nails, more tons of galena, to pay the balance of $2,000 in 1890 than it would have taken to pay the whole $6,000 in 1869. But that is not all the loss he sustained. His land, under your system of farming, is probably not as productive now as it was twenty years ago. His orchard and buildings have decayed also.

“Now before I give another illustration on the varying purchasing power of your dollar, I must clear up one other point concerning money. From what I can learn, it seems that the majority of your people, when they consider the financial question, believe that the purchasing of commodities is the whole of a commercial transaction; but this is only half of it and the last half, too. Let us illustrate: A farmer, before he can pay his mortgage, his taxes, or his notes, must buy his money to pay them with. The mortgagee, the tax collector and the banker do not deal in commodities—wheat, pork, wool, cotton, etc. The first half of the transaction is to purchase the money with commodities, and after you have purchased the money, you can pay the mortgage, taxes, notes, etc., with that money, which is the second half of the transaction. In 1869, money was cheap because a bushel of wheat would buy about $2.50 worth of it; in 1890, a bushel of wheat buys but 60 cents; hence money was dear. The farmer must buy his money with the products he raises on his farm; he must have commodities before he can buy money. The laborer buys his money with labor, etc. A farmer, who, in 1869, raised and sold 600 bushels of wheat, by his annual labor, received $1,500 for that labor; while, in 1890, for raising and selling an equal quantity of wheat, he received only about $400.

“I am well aware that there are fluctuations of prices caused, in your industrial world, partly by natural and partly by monopolistic supply and demand; but of these I am not here speaking. I am here simply endeavoring to illustrate the evils and injustice of the varying purchasing power of your dollar. There is no injustice in the fact that a bushel of wheat will buy $2.50, or that it will buy only 60 cents, or that it will buy $10. It would make no difference to any one whether you would get 10 cents or $10 for a bushel, provided all other things correspond in price, and provided further that the purchasing power of the money does not vary practically. The injustice consists in the fact, as we have seen in the case of your Wisconsin farmer, that he purchased his farm on the basis of $2.50 wheat and other farm products, and that he had to pay for it largely with 80 or 90 cent wheat.

“Now let us be candid. Can you tell me who got that $10,000, or all that wheat which this Wisconsin farmer raised during these twenty years when he tried to pay for his farm? He has nothing to show for it. His farm is not as good now as it was twenty years ago, and, as we have seen, he has to sell more products now to pay the $2,000 than he would have had to pay the $6,000 in 1869. Some one ate all that wheat, and as this man received nothing for it, those that ate it must have gotten it without actually paying for it. This is a truth, but not many of the people of earth have thus far discovered it.

“I am aware that some of your zealous people will say that this Wisconsin farmer was not a wise and prudent man for buying that $6,000 farm on time when he had nothing to pay for it. I fully agree with them; for, as I claim, no system of money is good which does not eliminate all credit. It is this unwiseness which I am here endeavoring to show, but these zealous people who condemn this Wisconsin farmer have helped to make still worse contracts. Let us see what they are.

“In 1866 the national debt of the U. S. was $2,783,000,000; and in 1890 it was about $1,183,000,000. About the year 1866 wheat was worth about $2.50 a bushel, and if the national debt had been contracted to be paid in wheat (instead of dollars, remember), it would have required, in 1866, about 1,008,000,000 bushels (one billion, eight millions). In 1890 wheat was worth about 60 or 70 cents, and the national debt was $1,183,334,688. At that price it would have required about 1,900,000,000 bushels. Thus you see that you owed about 90,000,000 bushels more in 1890 than you owed in 1866.

“In making this comparison, I use wheat because I believe it to be one of your foremost staples, but you can use beef, pork, oats, corn, wool, kegs of nails or any other important staple. You will notice, then, that it is not a scarcity of any particular commodity in 1866 and an ‘over-production’ in 1890, but that it lies in the varying purchasing power of the dollar. In 1866 a farmer could purchase $2.50 with one bushel of wheat (remember that the buying of money is the first half of a commercial transaction); money was cheap then. In 1890 he could purchase only 60 cents for a bushel. The capitalists who hold the money made money scarce, so that they could receive a large quantity of commodities for a dollar of it. Thus you see that your capitalists are not only robbing the masses by charging interest, but also by increasing the purchasing power of the dollar. You see, he holds the dollar; the poor man has no dollars.

“One more brief comparison on this point: Suppose that in 1866 a farmer stores away $1,000 worth of wheat at $2.50 a bushel, which would amount to 400 bushels. His brother banker also puts in his safe the same amount of property, a thousand dollars, in dollars, not in wheat or any other commodity. Now, they have stored away an equal amount of property. Let us see now how they stand in 1890. The farmer has his 400 bushels of wheat, which is worth about 60 cents a bushel. If he turns his wheat into cash, he has $240, while his brother banker has $1,000 in cash. Here you see that the farmer, or any other laborer, ‘comes out of the small end of the horn.’ Now let us see how they stand when both turn their property into wheat. The farmer has 400 bushels. The banker has $1,000, for which, at 60 cents a bushel, he can buy 1,666 bushels; 1,666 bushels minus 400 bushels leaves 1,266 bushels, that the banker is ahead of the farmer, after they have converted their property into wheat.

“I am well aware that in a few cases the varying purchasing power of the dollar gives an advantage to the laborer instead of the capitalist. But this advantage to the laborer is as unjust as if the advantage were to the capitalist; and the injustice of this advantage, whether to the capitalist or to the laborer, is what we are here considering.

“These are all truths, but they lie so deeply hidden that the masses of your people do not yet see them. Our medium of exchange does not possess this grave injustice; the unit of value is based on a day’s productive labor, which varies very little, if any, and all share an equal part in this slight variation.

“5. As already stated, the Marsites issue money only directly to the individual on his monthly labor-record, that is, if the individual is able-bodied and old enough to work; if he is disabled or a child, he receives money in a similar manner on a gift-record, instead of a labor-record. No person can get a penny by profit, interest, etc., because the goods are sold by the community at cost, and nobody pays interest, because everybody has, or can earn all the money he wants. You see there is no room for a speculator and schemer in our world, even if a person were disposed to be one; while your system is just the reverse. With you a gold miner in a rich mine may take out $200 worth of gold with one day’s labor; and he has produced comparatively nothing, if the gold is coined into money; for paper is even more suitable as a medium of exchange, if issued on the right basis, than gold. A merchant under your system may grow rich on profit by doing nothing. A money lender may receive a thousand dollars a day as interest by living an idle life. He may be growing richer by the interest he receives, so that his posterity, for generations yet unborn, can live an idle life by living from the labor of others. You have also seen that a capitalist may grow rich by changing the purchasing power of the dollar in his favor. Your money system, then, is very defective, because it is largely obtained without productive labor. The persons who perform nearly all the productive labor have, as a rule, very little of it, while many of your schemers, or unproductive laborers or idlers, have, as a rule, an abundance of it.

“6. We have seen that we issue money once a month for labor performed, and that this money is issued only at the ‘Com;’ that the money is issued directly to the individual, who can make his purchases wherever he likes, and that all money taken in by the families for commodities sold is daily remitted to the ‘Com,’ where the communities’ own money is canceled when taken in; and that the money from other communities, for which we have given wealth, is used by the ‘Com’ to pay bills with. Each community, then, has always a quantity of money in circulation equal to the salable wealth on hand. If the wealth increases the volume of money increases, for money is issued on productive labor, which produces wealth. If the wealth diminishes the volume of money diminishes, for as soon as the wealth is given to the producer for the money, the money is canceled.

“The basis upon which you issue and redeem money is entirely different. You may have a scarcity of money and an abundance of commodities, or you may have an abundance of money and a scarcity of commodities. A rich gold mine tends to increase the volume of money, and tends to decrease the quantity of commodities. The more you monopolize money, the more it conduces to the interest of the wealthy—the higher the interest will be and the more the stored-up dollar of the capitalist increases in purchasing power. The volume of the Marsian money, which is based on a day’s productive labor, is always practically equal to the quantity of negotiable wealth. Money, based on a day’s productive labor, where opportunity for labor is always open to all, can never be scarce. This is the case on Mars, and, therefore, we never have a scarcity of money. With you things are vastly different. All your institutions are partly warped by your unjust medium of exchange.

“7. Our money can not be monopolized so that it draws interest.

“Before we can intelligently discuss this feature, I shall be obliged to make a few statements concerning our social and other economic conditions. An earthite uses money for many purposes where a Marsite uses no money at all. For example, a Marsite does not buy and sell land. The individual on Mars needs no money for the construction of his dwelling. Our dwellings are erected by the collective labor of the members of the community. A Marsite needs no money for his tools, his machinery, his implements, his garden, orchard, park, boulevards, motor-lines, railroad, light and fuel; all this is furnished collectively by the members of the community, because we found that by co-operation it can be done with much less labor than it can be done by single-handed effort. Above the public wear and tear and improvements, all the labor that a community needs expend is for the purpose of keeping its store-houses well filled. Thus you see that a Marsite, on account of his co-operate production, never needs a large sum of money at once. Our individual buys his meals, his clothes, his private luxuries, the furniture for his private apartment, his railroad ticket, etc., etc.; but all this requires no large investment at any one time. And as he can go to work at any day and earn a sum equal to the purchasing power of ten of your dollars, he is not very likely to borrow money and pay interest. No individual can expend $10 a day for these private purposes only, unless he becomes wasteful.

“Your social, and therefore your financial, conditions are vastly different. Your individual buys land. He builds a large factory, he erects his own dwelling, he constructs a railroad, runs a store, builds a ship, keeps a dairy, etc. Under these conditions your individual needs a large sum of money at a time. Your natural opportunities are not open to all. Thousands of your industrious men and women are forced idlers, and millions of them have no fair opportunity to labor. In the United States alone there are probably two millions more laborers than there are places for labor. Thus an opportunity is offered to monopolize money, to compel him who needs it pay interest, and every cent of interest that the payee receives gives him additional opportunity to collect more and higher interest, while it makes the payer more and more dependent; for interest is money for which the taker gives nothing and the payer receives nothing. All these evils are so conspicuous and so destructive of human welfare, and yet only a few of the earthites see them clearly; and it will, no doubt, be a long time before the masses of the people here on earth will become thoroughly informed on them.

“8. As to counterfeiting, I may say that in a community or world in which a sufficient quantity of money can easily be obtained by an agreeable, healthful amount of productive labor, money is not liable to be counterfeited. There are causes for counterfeiting, and whenever these causes are removed counterfeiting ceases. By making the conditions of earning money easy and pleasant to all, we have removed the causes.

“In a social and financial world, like yours, where so many industrious persons are prevented to labor, where so many are pinched by poverty, where the dollar is the highest aim of nearly all, where productive labor is looked upon with contempt by your ‘best society,’ where money offers special privileges to the possessor of it, where want and the fear of want are wrecking countless constitutions, and where the poor have to work the treadmill of toil from early youth until feeble old age, money is liable to be counterfeited by some, who endeavor by this means to escape these disagreeable burdens. It is no use to deny it; we all become dishonest, as you call it, if we are only pinched severely enough by poverty and want. This is the reason why you have so much counterfeit money.

“9. The next feature of a just and convenient medium of exchange is, that it must give the person who possesses a large quantity of it, no advantage, or special privileges over him who has a less quantity of it.

“I have already told you that a Marsite, as an individual, does not use money for many purposes that an earthite, as an individual, uses it. We, as individuals, use it only to purchase our private personal needs. The family and community use it for purchasing articles for public use, both family and community. Thus an individual, as we have seen, never needs a great amount of it at any one time. All of us have an equal share in the public property, and are all served with like courtesy under similar conditions. All can work as much as they like, and all receive equal pay for a day’s productive labor; and this labor yields more wealth than any one can spend without willful waste, if one works from one-half to three-fourths of the days in the year. We have no best places in our world, because they are all as good as the best, and that is as good as human skill can make them. We have no favorite place in our community which can be bought with money. The places in our dining-room and parlors are all the very best, and no one place presents a particular preference over any other. In our spacious hall during an operatic play, lecture, or other entertainment, we take the most suitable place vacant. All public apartments are equally open to all without pay. In the location of private apartments, there is also no particular advantage and choice other than results from mere personal fancy. Those private apartments located on the lower floors, for instance, are perhaps more conveniently located to the dining-hall, but more inconvenient for the exercise-hall, etc. Thus all the private apartments are so located and arranged that the aggregate convenience they bear to all the public apartments are nearly equal, so that there is no particular choice; and if there was, money could not buy it.”

“Well, Mr. Midith, I cannot see that a rich man in a republic like that of the United States has much, if any, advantage over a poor man; at least I cannot see any such advantage or special privileges, and if you know of any I would like to have you explain them to us,” said Rev. Dudley as Mr. Midith finished speaking.

“Well, Rev. Dudley, if you like to have me point out some of the advantages and special privileges the rich man has over the poor man on earth, I shall oblige you by giving a brief explanation of a few of them. I say a few because there are a countless number of them.

“With you money makes money, as you call it. The rich man receives interest for which he gives nothing, and the poor man pays interest for which he receives nothing. With us, nothing but productive labor produces wealth, and on that wealth money is issued.

“Here on earth a person who has the most money can buy the best seat in the theater, the finest pew in church. He can often buy to a certain extent his election to go to Congress or to the Legislature, put a ‘corner’ on wheat so as to create fictitious prices. The rich man is honored; his word is law, and if not, he not infrequently buys enough votes to make it a law. His employes, in order to keep their position, are often compelled to vote according to his dictates and his interests. By monopolistically clogging natural opportunity he is enabled to collect profit, interest, rent and taxes. He manipulates, as we have seen, the varying purchasing power of the dollar in his favor. He wears the best clothes; eats the tenderest meat; lives in a fine residence; goes to entertainments; makes pleasure excursions, and does countless other agreeable things. While, on the other hand, the poor man is compelled to toil early and late, live in a small, ill-ventilated, poorly-heated, screenless house or hovel, wear coarse clothes, eat the tough meat and small potatoes; by his toilsome labor his step has become slow and clumsy, his form is bent, his head droops, his shoulders stooped; his brow is careworn; he has little or no time for amusements, education, ethical culture and personal cleanliness. All his vitality is expended in acquiring the mere material subsistence. He sits down on an uncomfortable chair. He has little furniture, a bare floor, small, curtainless windows, a poor bed, a sooty stove, and not infrequently an unclean dooryard.

“From the foregoing explanation you can clearly see that the rich man has the advantage everywhere. He, by some roundabout means, which the poor and often less-enlightened person does not understand, charms away the products of the poor man’s labor; and the more the rich monopolize the land, the medium of exchange and other necessary means of production, the better his charm works.”

“You say that the rich man has the advantage over the poor man everywhere, but on this point I feel quite certain that you are mistaken,” said Rev. Dudley. “With our present system of paying taxes, the rich man pays nearly all the taxes. On this point then, if on no other, the poor man has the advantage over the rich. This, I think, you cannot deny or successfully refute, Mr. Midith.”

“It may seem to you, Rev. Dudley, that I cannot successfully refute or consistently deny this proposition; but it is the very point I do emphatically deny,” said Mr. Midith, in a soft tone of voice. “I hold that the rich pay scarcely any taxes. This tax question seems to be regarded by the mass of the people on earth in nearly the same light as the war question. The ‘praise and honor’ of victory is generally bestowed on the general, who is generally at a safe distance, while the private soldier, who does the actual fighting, is scarcely ever thought of. Just so it is with the tax question. The one who really pays the taxes rarely ever receives credit for it. Let us exemplify this:

“I suppose that you will agree with me that a robber, who forcibly took $10,000 yesterday, and is assessed on that $10,000 to-day, cannot be said to pay taxes; for by the act of robbing he has not produced anything, and it is plain that one who does not produce anything cannot really pay anything. We have seen that all material wealth is in the form of food, clothing, shelter, luxuries, and the instruments necessary for its production and distribution, and that this wealth must be produced either directly or indirectly by productive labor applied to land. Now your rich men, the same as the robber, are, as a rule, not engaged in actual productive labor, and can, therefore, not really pay taxes. As a rule, they have acquired their millions by appropriating, in a roundabout way, the wealth of the actual producer, and on this wealth, so appropriated from the products of the laborer, he, instead of the actual producer, pays a certain amount of this appropriated (not earned) wealth into the treasury as taxes.

“Let us make this principle plainer by additional examples. No doubt, you can plainly see that a burglar, who has just taken $100,000 from the vaults of the United States treasury, cannot be said to pay taxes, even if he gives part of this money back to the United States in the form of taxes.

“When a saloon-keeper pays a $1,000 license for the privilege of selling liquor, he pays this license with the money he receives into his money drawer, for, as a saloon-keeper, he can pay it with no other money, because that is the only means by which he receives money, and the drinker who pays him the nickles, if the drinker earned them, pays the license; all that the saloon-keeper does in this matter is, that he takes the money out of his money-drawer and gives it to the license collector.

“If each person actually produced all, or an equivalent of what he consumed, then the consumer would ultimately pay all cost of goods, including taxes; but this is not the case. The Marsites have two classes of persons who consume and do not produce, namely, infants and disabled persons; you have four classes, namely, infants, disabled persons, idlers, and unproductive and destructive laborers. We can easily see that all those who do not actually earn or produce wealth cannot pay anything without they receive it in some way from the actual producer. Hence we see that the productive laborer—the actual producer—has produced all the wealth and must, therefore, ultimately pay all cost, taxes included.

“I have already told you how many persons here on earth get wealth without producing it; but I shall here give you a few additional examples.

“An earthite may, by gambling at the Board of Trade, become a millionaire without producing a single mouthful of food, and if he is a millionaire, he may also become a pauper. A sudden rise or fall of 25 cents in the price of a bushel of wheat will make some rich and others poor; but there is no production of wheat in these transactions, and the transactions are more than useless, as you can easily see by examining our commercial system. All there is in such useless transactions is that one set of schemers succeed in fleecing another set of schemers without producing any wealth.

“Some of your people grow rich in dollars without labor by buying a lot, keep it for a few years, and then sell it for a thousand or ten thousand times as much as they paid for it. You may grow rich by a patent and a copyright; but no matter how you grow rich without labor it is always by profit, interest, rent, taxes, gift, or the varying purchasing power of your dollar.

“Now let me give you a few more examples showing that the rich man, as a rule, pays little or no taxes.

“A duty on goods is paid by the consumer as far as he actually earns what he consumes or an equivalent thereof; but, if the consumer, like an infant or social parasite, does not earn what he consumes, or an equivalent, the producer, the laborer, pays that proportion of it which the consumer does not actually earn or produce.

“Now let us take a merchant and see who pays his taxes.

“Every person who buys at his store pays part of it. The price on his goods must be such that after paying all expenses—fuel, oil, damage of goods, insurance, interest, taxes, etc.—he must have some left for his labor, or else he cannot continue business and live. Now, we can all see, even the dullest, that if there were no taxes to be paid this merchant could reduce the price of his goods and still have as much left for his labor as when he paid taxes; and if he, under these conditions, would not reduce the price, others, by means of competition, would. Thus, you see that every person, even the poorest, who purchases at his store pays part of the taxes on the merchant’s goods and on his lot and store building—that is, if the purchasers produce what they consume; if not, the actual producer pays it, for an infant, a disabled person, a pauper and a social parasite have only that which they have received from the actual producer. The hand of productive labor pays for all, and that hand, as a rule, belongs to the poor man.

“Thus you see, upon examination, that your present belief that the rich man pays most of the taxes is as much an illusion as the belief in the ‘divine right of kings,’ the right to hold slaves, the remission of sins by fasting, etc., formerly was, and still is to a large degree. The fact is, that no one but a producer can pay, and, as a rule, your producers are not rich. Therefore, nearly all the taxes, as well as all other costs, are ultimately paid by the comparatively poor persons. So on this point, too, the poor man is ‘left,’ as you term it.”

“I know,” said Rev. Dudley, “there is a great deal said and preached about poverty, toil and poor people nowadays. I am also fully conscious of the fact that there are many industrious persons pinched by poverty, but, after all, I think there is a great deal of imaginary grievance. I personally know of a large number of foreigners who had scarcely a dollar when they came to this country, but who are now millionaires several times over; and I think that most any steady, frugal, industrious person can become quite wealthy in the United States, if he wants to be, and manages it properly.”

“I suppose you are honest in your convictions, Rev. Dudley,” said Mr. Midith, when Rev. Dudley ceased speaking. “It is true that most any one can get rich, but not all can get rich under your present social conditions. If I throw three apples into the grass for five boys to get, most any one of the five boys may get an apple and some one may even get two, but all of them cannot get an apple. So it is with your people; as long as you have two million more laborers than places for labor, most any one may become rich, but all cannot be rich. Now, Mr. Dudley, will you kindly give me the history of a particular individual case of which you know, where a man was once poor and is now rich? By following up his individual case, we shall be more able to see how he acquired his wealth.”

“Why certainly, Mr. Midith, I will give you the particular case of Mr. Bremmer, a German, who had only $20 when he landed in America, and who is now a wealthy banker. I remember his case so well because Mr. Bremmer has often told me all about his hard labor, his judicious management, his frugality, and how he passed from one occupation to another as he gradually acquired more and more wealth.

“To begin with, Mr. Bremmer is a German by birth. When he landed he was a stout, healthy young man; had a wife and two small children and only $20 to go on. His appearance was prepossessing. He began his labor as a section hand on the railroad, receiving $1.25 a day. During the winter when he was not employed on the railroad, he would work at whatever he could get to do. If he could not get $1.25 a day, he would accept 75 cents or 50 cents a day. Thus, even if many others were out of employment, he would nearly always find work.

“After thus working and saving for three years, he had saved enough to buy a small hundred-dollar house, with two little rooms in it. After having his own house he could accumulate a little faster, for he was rid of paying rent. After three more years of industry and saving, he purchased, for $200, a small piece of land which he turned into gardening. With his garden he made much more money than he had been making as a section hand. In a few more years he purchased a small store, which he continually enlarged. Now he began to pile up his money faster and faster. A little later he purchased a factory; then he became a land dealer; and now he is a banker, worth several millions. This shows what industry, frugality, and judicious management will do; and I believe that many, if they would work for the wages offered them, could do the same as Mr. Bremmer did.”

“Well, now, Rev. Dudley, let us honestly, candidly and impartially examine Mr. Bremmer’s case and see what he really did and how he got his millions,” said Mr. Midith.

“You say that he had $20 when he landed. That he secured a position as section hand, earning $1.25 a day, and during the winter he accepted other labor at from 50 to 75 cents per day. You say that it took him about three years to save the first hundred dollars with which he bought his little house. Just think of it, three years of toil and saving for a little house which was hardly fit for a human family of four and five to live in!

“You say further that Mr. Bremmer, as he gradually acquired more and more wealth, successively changed his occupation from section hand to gardener, from gardener to merchant, from merchant to manufacturer, then to land speculator, and from that to banker. Of course, we all know why Mr. Bremmer did not at first engage in manufacturing and banking: Simply because they require a large amount of money which Mr. Bremmer did not have. We also all know why he quit the section business: there was too much work and too little pay. Once more, we also all know that a section hand, as such, can never become rich. You say that Mr. Bremmer saved a hundred dollars the first three years. At this rate a section hand, as such, by his labor can never lay up as much as $2,000. His life is too short even if he spends the whole of it in toil and saving. Mr. Bremmer saw this and changed his occupation as soon as possible.

“After three years of toil and saving he had saved enough to buy a one-hundred-dollar house; after three more years, in the same occupation, he had enough laid up to buy a two-hundred-dollar garden spot.

“Now do you not see the inequality and injustice in your money system? How slow and hard the section-hand acquires it, and how easy and abundantly some manufacturers, land speculators and bankers acquire it? What vast advantages they have?”

“But,” said Rev. Dudley, “has not every sound person an equal opportunity for acquiring money, and then engage in those advantageous occupations of which you speak? You see the United States is a free country. No one is forbidden to engage in any business.”

At this Mr. Midith smiled and said:

“I beg your pardon, Rev. Dudley, but allow me to tell you that you are widely mistaken on these points. 1. All persons have not an equal opportunity to acquire money. 2. The United States is by no means a free country. 3. A countless number are forbidden to engage in certain business. To illustrate this, let us take Mr. Bremmer’s case. You said that he had $20 when he began work and that he acquired wealth faster after he owned his house than he did when he rented. It is true, then, that the $20 person, other things being the same, has an equal financial opportunity with all other $20 persons; but he has not an equal opportunity with the $100, or $1,000 or $100,000 person. He is at a disadvantage with all of them, in proportion as they have more dollars than he has. Before Mr. Bremmer, who was a $20 person, could get rid of paying excessive rent, he had to have a $100 to buy a house with. Now, if Mr. Bremmer, with like economy, as a section hand, could save more money when he owned his house than he could when he rented, either somebody must have robbed him when he rented, or he is robbing some one now, for his income was the same in both cases.

“But mark you, now we get to the point of inequality and injustice. If the $100 person who owns the house has a financial advantage, there must be some other persons, then, who are under corresponding financial disadvantage; for an advantage consists only in getting something at the expense of another. A teamster with a heavy load can not give one of his two horses an advantage by lengthening the end of its doubletree, without at the same time giving a corresponding disadvantage to the other one, by making the end of its doubletree relatively shorter. But there are several ways by which the teamster may make it easier for both of his horses. First, he may improve the running capacity of his wagon. Secondly, he may unload part of his load. Thirdly, he may improve the road; and, fourthly, he may increase the number of his horses. Just so may your productive laborer make his load of production easier. First, by improving the social, industrial and financial system. Secondly, by unloading your burden of superstitions. Thirdly, he may improve the road of advancement by consciously disseminating useful knowledge. And, fourthly, by continually refusing more and more to produce the wealth for the social parasite, so that the social parasite must put himself into the harness to produce his own commodities. If every person receives exactly what he earns, or produces, or an equivalent of that, there can be no advantages or disadvantages to any one, and a person as a section hand could, under the same conditions, lay up as much as a gardener, merchant or banker. But there is not a single case on record in your entire industrial and financial world where a section hand, as such, who has a family of three or four children, has ever acquired property to the amount of $2,000. The mystery to me is, how do such large families live from such a small income? But you all know that there are many merchants, manufacturers and bankers that acquired millions, even if they had large families. Why should not your social and industrial conditions be such that a section hand can acquire wealth as easily, rapidly and abundantly as a banker? Is his labor less useful and less productive?”

“Well, why does he not become a banker, then?” asked Rev. Dudley.

“But if all were bankers, there could be no section hands; and we can not do without section hands, therefore, some must be section hands and must be always poor as such, while others may be bankers. The secret is, as in Mr. Bremmer’s case, only those who have a hundred dollars can own a house; only those who own $200 have the privilege of owning and working a garden spot; only those who have a $1,000 can own anything of a store; only those who have more than $10,000 can be manufacturers of any considerable extent; and only those who have $50,000 can engage in national banking. These are all financial privileges and advantages then. The owner of the house is able to collect exorbitant rent because there are too many who are unable to buy or build houses, and too few who own houses. In this case, gardening is more profitable than working on the section because only those who have $200 can engage in it, and there are not enough people who have $200, and so on, with the other business.

“Thus we see at a glance that only those who have an equal amount of wealth have an equal financial opportunity. All who have more have an advantage, while all those who have less have a corresponding disadvantage. What the Marsites contend for and what justice demands is, that all persons shall have an equal opportunity in getting the $50,000. To a Marsite, it appears much wiser, more just and less ridiculous, to have a people make and obey a law and custom which would vest all persons with certain advantages and special privileges who are born with a wart on the end of their nose, claiming that such a law and custom is just on the ground that all persons in their pre-natal state have an equal opportunity to compete for the possession of the wart. In this case probability would be the factor of success, while with your money system thousands of children are by their parental assistance born with the $50,000 advantages, while millions of others are born with the corresponding disadvantages; and while the disadvantaged poor person is trying to get the $50,000, the advantaged rich persons, who are already in possession of the $50,000, are by some roundabout way charming it away from the disadvantaged almost as fast as they can earn it, so that the poor can gain only little of nothing in the acquisition of the $50,000.

“Now let us look at the evils of your money system under this point from still another aspect.

“We have seen that in an average there are probably about two million industrious unemployed persons, or forced idlers, in the United States alone, who can, as a rule, have little, if any capital or money on hand; but who, in order to get employment, are all severely pressing for a position in those occupations, which, as wage-workers, require no capital, such as working on a section, mining, and all other similar occupations. This industrial pressure, or monopolistic competition, for a job in those occupations, which requires no capital, reduces the wages vastly below what the laborer actually earns.

“But, as I have already shown, there can be no financial disadvantage to one class of persons without a corresponding advantage to another class. From this unjust advantage and disadvantage two great evils are produced, which cause your world to reek with poverty, crime, cruelty, dissipation, disease, and premature death.

“The first one of these great evils is, that the advantaged class have the power to clog up natural opportunity by monopolizing land, money, tools, means of transportation, etc., so that the disadvantaged class are forced to accept the wages which the advantaged class offer, or the disadvantaged must starve, rob, steal, or sell themselves in some form. Hence, under these conditions, no person in your world can ever hope to secure himself against want and the fear of want. They may come at any time in spite of all his industry and providence.

“The second one of these great evils is, that too many, as soon as they have saved a little wealth, are continually pressing into those occupations in which, by the aid of monopolistic privileges, wealth is made to produce wealth, as you term it. This, then, tends to crowd too many persons into those occupations which require more or less capital to run them; such as farming, manufacturing, mercantile pursuits, banking, commerce, speculation, etc. And as measured by the highest ideal, social and economic standard, it also tends to create a vast army of not only useless, but positively injurious, persons and occupations; such as middlemen, the gambler, the speculator, the insurance agent, the traveling salesman, the priest, the lawyer, the option dealer, the rumseller, the confidence man, the courtesan, the scheming politician, etc.

“Thus you see that your occupations and professions, which require capital, offer a premium on comparatively unproductive and destructive labor or on idleness; and they impose a fine on productive labor—the fine that the laborer is being robbed by the capitalist. All thoughtful persons know that all human beings must subsist on the material products of the actual producer, and that the day’s labor of the actual producer, in order to produce sufficient for all—producer and non-producer—to live on, must be lengthened in proportion as the number of idlers, unproductive and destructive laborers increase, and also in proportion as they become consumers or as they destroy and waste wealth.

“To illustrate these evils more plainly, let us take an example which will aid the ordinary mind in grasping the principles.

“Let us suppose that on an isolated island, having only twenty inhabitants, these twenty inhabitants or islanders, the same as the vast majority of the present inhabitants of your earth, are yet sufficiently unenlightened to see the true principles and fundamental aim of human conduct, and so enact human-made laws, which monopolize land, money, tools, machinery, means of transportation, etc. On account of these monopolistic laws, or capitalistic privileges, let us suppose that eight of the twenty islanders are idle landlords, and six comparatively unproductive bankers. Then there would be only six productive laborers left who must perform all the productive labor which is performed on the whole island. These productive laborers must build the residences of the idle landlords and then keep house for them. They must erect and maintain the costly banks and safes for the bankers. They must raise and manufacture the food, clothing and countless articles of luxuries for the idle landlord and the comparatively unproductive banker. The production of all this wealth for the social parasites by the productive laborer requires so much of his time and energy that the poor laborers have scarcely any time and vitality left to supply their own needs. Hence the laborers themselves, as a rule, must remain unenlightened, live at best in small houses, or in filthy tenements or in squalid hovels.

“Now every thoughtful person can clearly see by this illustration that the more these twenty islanders would become non-producers, the more toilsome the burdens of the producers would become; and if the monopoly was so complete and effective that only the least favored one had to produce all the wealth for himself and for his nineteen social parasites, the social and industrial conditions would be in a very deplorable state to both the producer and the non-producers, as compared with those conditions which would exist if the whole twenty persons would be industrious producers, intelligent thinkers and judicious actors. So it is with your society. The producers must support themselves and the vast army of non-producers, which gives but a miserable support to both classes.

“But do not understand me here that the Marsites laud and preach poverty like many of your people do, especially the orthodox, who claim that the poor will get their reward in heaven. The Marsites detest poverty and its evil consequences—ignorance, crime, cruelty, dissipation, disease and premature death. Poverty would be an intolerable burden for a Marsite to bear. If the consequences of poverty were as agreeable and produced as much happiness as the consequences of plenty, then poverty would be as good as abundance, and very likely all worlds would always remain poor.

“A Marsite then, does not object to the wealth of your wealthy class, but he would strenuously condemn the method by which they acquired their wealth—the method of appropriating it from the products of the productive laborers, because this vicious, unjust method, leaves the greater portion of one’s companions and associates poor, ignorant, uncultivated, narrow, cruel, superstitious, unjust, slavish, slovenly, dissolute and generally invasive; and a cultivated person can feel no safety and find no happiness in living a life under such lamentable conditions; for this reason each Marsite finds pleasure in doing his part in the promotion of universal prosperity, intelligence, broadmindedness, freedom, kindness, culture, justice, order and neatness, purity and non-invasiveness.

“This advantage, then, that the rich man has over the poor man, is the point which we are here considering; and, no doubt, all whose sense of equity has not been totally destroyed by vain selfishness, as you call it, and avaricious strife, can easily feel and see this great evil which your unjust system of money entails on the inhabitants of your world on this point.

“10. The tenth feature of a just and convenient system of money is, the money must be such that the payee may accept or take the money instead of the actual wealth which the money represents.

“On Mars, in a country the size of the United States, there are over 20,000 communities, if all the land is settled, but which it never is, in each of which money is issued and redeemed.

“We have seen that the only source by which an individual receives and can receive money, unless given to him, is on his labor record. Whenever the individual wants money he labors to get a labor record, on which money is issued only. This he can do or not as he wishes, so that he is free as an individual to accept the community’s money or not; for he is free to leave the community at any time and begin to work for himself single-handedly, as you largely do on earth; for there is plenty of first-class land unoccupied, of which he can cultivate as much as he pleases without paying for it. The individual may or may not accept the money of any other individual or community. So may one community, as a commercial body, accept or refuse the money of any other community. Of course we are always glad to receive the money of all other communities; but there is no compulsion about it. All who handle money judge for themselves whether it is ‘legal tender’ or not. There is no fiat about our money. Hence our money possesses the tenth feature in a high degree.

“On earth things are altogether different. Your ‘national government,’ a body of politicians, control the manufacture, circulation and redemption of money. The individual has to accept that kind of money which Congress makes legal tender. By this fiat thousands of people are robbed on account of the varying purchasing power of the dollar.

“11. The eleventh feature of a just and convenient system of money is, that it must, in its circulation, preserve a financial equilibrium with other parts of the world, and in proportionate quantities must naturally return to its place of redemption.

“From what I have already said, you are aware that the Marsites have numerous places of issue and redemption, so that there are thousands of fountains, one in each community, from which the money is monthly issued to each individual in proportion to his labor performed. From these fountains of issue, it circulates to all parts of Mars, and the money of all other communities comes to our community; so that, in an average, one community has as much money of all the other communities in the world as our community has in its possession of all other communities. Thus, in our system, an almost perfect financial equilibrium is established and preserved.

“Here on earth, in a large country like that of the United States, there is but one place where money is issued and redeemed. From this one center it must reach the masses of the people. On the whole earth only from a few centers money is issued and redeemed. This enables the capitalists to monopolize the money, as the money is passing from this central fountain of issue to the masses, as we actually find it is on earth; and the facility of redemption is equally bunglesome.

“12. The twelfth feature of a just and convenient system of money is, it must be most directly issued to the individual—man, woman and child—who performs the productive labor which produced the wealth which the money represents.

“I have already explained how, on Mars, every man, woman and child who labors get their money issued on their labor-record at the close of each month. Also how the disabled person gets it similarly issued on a gift-record. Hereafter I will tell you how an infant gets it.

“With you, the man, or at least the husband, in general takes in all the money the whole family produce by their united labor. Under such an arrangement, whenever the wife or child wants any money, they are obliged to ask the man for it. This tends to make beggars and slaves of the wife and child, and a tyrant of the man. Here the poor man is probably as much of a monopolist over his family as a capitalist is over him. There are, however, a few exceptions to this rule. A few of your husbands give their wife and children free access to their money. But it is generally expressed by you that the husband, the man, supports the wife and children, even if the wife labors twelve or fourteen hours a day, cooking, washing, darning, nursing, keeping house, etc. All such labor as the wife performs is, as a rule, considered worth little or nothing by the men; because the man has so shaped his financial system that the woman cannot take in any of the money she earns by her domestic labor. Such is your financial system on this point, the justice and convenience of which I shall leave to any candid, intelligent person to judge for himself. But ages ago our ancestors were just as cruel, unjust, unthoughtful, and inconsiderate on the financial problem as you are at present, and, no doubt, just as soon as you learn that your world will be happier by using a more just and convenient system of money, which will measure up to all of the foregoing features, all financial slavery will disappear from your world; and all your efforts in that direction will then be crowned with justice, success and universal happiness.”

CHAPTER XIV.
SOME CONNECTION BETWEEN WEALTH, LABOR, COMMERCE, INTERCOMMUNICATION, TRADE AND A MEDIUM OF EXCHANGE.

“But, if each individual keeps his own record of the time he has labored, and the money is issued to him or her according to that time-record, is not an individual tempted to make false entries in his time-book?” asked Rev. Dudley.

“I will tell you, Rev. Dudley; we must always bear in mind that man’s conduct, as a whole, always nearly, if not exactly, corresponds to the social and industrial system under which he voluntarily lives. We must take into account the conditions, and his culture. To illustrate this, let us take an example: Cattle, after breaking into a cornfield, sometimes kill themselves by eating too much corn. Some children, as well as some grown people, on certain holidays, eat themselves sick on sweetmeats and other dainties. But neither the people nor the cattle would eat too much, if they always had all they wanted of those eatables. A clerk in a candy store seldom eats candy. So in our kind, rich world, where men and women work less than two hours a day at some choice labor which is almost play, and where their short pleasant day’s labor yields, by the aid of economy, co-operation and machinery, a return of more than $10 worth of your purchasing power, the temptation for false entries must indeed be decidedly inconsiderable.

“In a world where the social and industrial conditions are so favorable, and where the contempt for idleness and dishonesty is such a burden to bear, the degree of temptation for making false entries, for the purpose of unjustly gaining a few hours’ labor, is vastly different than it would be in your world, where thousands upon thousands are out of employment, where they are severely pinched by poverty, where the laborer is nothing but an industrial slave, where the wife and children depend upon the income of the man, where the sense of justice has been calloused by continual infringements of rights, where want and the fear of want are continually staring them in the face, and where fraud, accomplished by avaricious shrewdness, is applauded instead of being condemned as it is in our world.

“And, furthermore, one could scarcely be dishonest in making his entries if he wanted to be, without being discovered by his companions and co-laborers, who have as much right to examine his time-book as the owner has himself. You see the time-books are kept in a public place and may be examined by anyone. Labor, with us, is honorable, and we have also learned that in order to develop most completely, and enjoy the most vigorous health, about two hours of physical labor is daily necessary. This, alone, would be a sufficient incentive to perform the labor, even if we required no material wealth to live on. But if one, notwithstanding all this, would still persist in making false entries or do any other acts that are grossly against the well ascertained harmony of society, we would care for him as an insane person, giving him the greatest freedom possible or consistent with his mental derangement, and always treat him with the greatest kindness and courtesy. Such a person, of all our millions, might and does occasionally appear, but it is a rare occurrence. This treatment is perfectly consistent with the greatest liberty of the case, for all wrong, as we have seen, is the result of ignorance or insanity, whatever you may call it. This fact becomes very plain when we recall that we are all in pursuit of the greatest happiness, and that we can attain this greatest happiness only by living most completely in tune with the fact of the universe.”

“Some labor,” said Mr. Uwins, “such as mining, etc., is more disagreeable than clerking, etc. You say every one receives equal pay for a day’s labor; how, then, do you get laborers in these more disagreeable occupations if all are free to go in any occupation?”

“Yes, every one can go in any occupation he desires, and all receive equal pay for a day’s labor, which is put down in the time-book, and at the close of each month every person receives an amount of money or labor-checks equal to the number of days he or she labored. But the length of a day’s labor varies according as the labor is, as a whole, agreeable or disagreeable. A clerk works more minutes a day than a miner. So you see that we make the proper adjustment by the length of a day’s labor. If we get too many laborers in a certain field, we lengthen the day, this will drop out some; if too few, we shorten the day, which will bring in some more. But you must also bear in mind that there is very little difference in the kinds of our labor now. Nearly all the disagreeableness disappears as we do the work more and more by the aid of improved machinery. Our mining is now nearly all done by machinery which is easily manipulated by the miner; and so in all occupations. Co-operation continually creates a greater demand for better and larger machinery, which is operated for the benefit of all. Nearly all our labor can also be done by the piece, so much constituting a day.”

“But, Mr. Midith, do you think it is just to pay everybody alike for a day’s labor, when some are much stronger and more apt workers than others, when some are skilled and others are not? Does this not tend to throw nearly all the laborers in the common field of labor, instead of being skilled?” asked Rev. Dudley. “Of course you have seen the practical results of it, but for my part I do not understand how you overcame this apparent or real difficulty.”

“It is really no difficulty at all,” said Mr. Midith. “To illustrate: You have a small family and we have a large family. Your parents pay a 200-pound son or daughter no more for a day’s labor than they pay a feebler one. They even pay the totally disabled one the same. I presume that you think such a course is all right in your family, but why should it not be equally right in our family and in our community? But that is not all. A person weighing 200 pounds, as a rule, eats more than a 100-pound person, but pays the same price for his meals. The large person receives more cloth in his suit. He buys a larger hat for the same price. On account of his greater weight he wears out more carpet, more furniture, etc. So you see that a large, strong person may sometimes produce a little more by a day’s labor, but he also often receives more for the same pay, so that the two nearly or altogether balance each other. But this is not all. You remember me telling you that in a state of high culture, in which all are free, intelligent beings, and in which natural opportunity is equally open to all, there can be very little physical and mental difference between the individual members of the same community, because none of them have been dwarfed by heredity, none have been stunted by vicious training, and none have been prevented from giving full scope of activity to all their faculties. And furthermore, with our excellent facilities for intercommunication, there is even little physical and mental dissimilarity existing between members of remotely located communities.

“Your idea as to our skilled labor is also entirely erroneous. Every member of our large family, the same as a member of your small family, can engage in any occupation he desires, whether man, woman or child. It costs nothing with us to learn a trade. A person who is learning a trade receives just as much the first day he begins as he does when he is the best mechanic in the world. A day is a day. But to excel in our work is the aim and ambition of all. We look upon honesty, kindness and physical and mental ability with even greater approval than you look upon mere dollars and cents in this unjust, cruel age of yours. An apprentice with you receives at first little or no pay, and sometimes he must even pay the ‘boss’ for taking him. For this reason he must, further on, receive higher pay than a common laborer. As a whole, the apprentice’s efforts are as valuable as the skilled man’s, for we can not get skilled men and women without first being apprentices. But our family and community recognize the fact that we must have laborers for all trades, and therefore we pay them the same price when learning as we do after they have learned their trade. You see, skilled labor, under these conditions, is worth no more than common labor, as you call it. It not only does not cost anything to learn a trade, but we receive as much for learning as we do ever after. Our ambition is to excel—to receive the approval of our companions and co-laborers. Our individuals, families and communities are even much prouder of excellent sons and daughters than your parents or families are here. We do all we can to raise the standard of excellence and proficiency in every member of the community by letting each receive the good and the bad consequences of his own conduct. Intrinsic worth is our highest aim, because without it the greatest happiness can not be attained.”

“Does it require much labor to stamp your money, and could a person who has charge of the money press be dishonest, if he chose to be?” asked Mrs. Uwins.

“Our money press is run by electric power, and requires only a few days’ labor per annum to stamp all the money we need. It is all done by the press; no human hand is needed only to set it going. It would be impossible for the minter to be dishonest, or for any other person to use the money-press. Each community has but one money press, and every press is different. The press automatically registers the number of bills, and the total amount of days, hours, minutes and seconds that it stamps. At the beginning of each fiscal year the press is set at bill No. 1, and the amount issued, at cipher. This setter is guarded by a time-lock, which can be opened only one hour during the whole year when the machine is set for the next year’s work. The press can by no possibility be turned backward, and the time-lock permits it to be operated forward only just two hours a month, during which time the minter stamps the monthly bills. So you see that neither the minter nor any one else can be dishonest if he tried to be. This precaution is not so much taken against fraud as against accidental error. We should always bear in mind that the simplest business system that allows the fewest intentional or accidental errors to creep in and remain undiscovered is the best system. At the end of each month all the labor records received at the mint are booked and footed up, and the total monthly amount of money issued. In this wise the minter always has two sets of figures, the one on his book and the other on the register of the money press. These two sets of figures must indicate the same amount of money issued.”

“That is a grand scheme,” said Rev. Dudley. “But how is it with your other business? Is that sealed with the same unavoidable honesty and correctness as your money making is?”

“All our business is done on nearly the same principle. Besides the individual who transacts his private business to suit his own taste, there are two collectivities that do business—the family and the community. These two always check each other. The family’s annual invoice shows the goods on hand. Its daily remittances to the ‘Com’ show all the money it has taken in, in all its departments—store, dining-hall, barbershop, restaurant, etc. The warehouses, which keep an account of all the commodities they receive and send out, check it up with the goods it receives from the community, and the ‘Com’ checks it with the bills the ‘Com’ paid for it to other communities for goods the family purchased.

“In a similar manner, the ‘Com’ of the community checks with all its families and with all its warehouses. Under such a system it is hardly possible that an error can be passed unnoticed.”

“But I see no opportunity in your economic system for capital to earn anything,” said Rev. Dudley.

“Capital never does earn anything,” responded Mr. Midith. “Labor earns all. This idea of yours that capital earns something is an illusion. We have seen that all material wealth which immediately satisfies man’s wants, consists of food, clothing, shelter and luxuries, and that all these can be actually produced only by productive labor. The physical molecules, as such, composing a plow are not wealth, but the plow is wealth no farther than it required productive labor in its production. For all we know, there is an inexhaustible amount of iron and steel waiting for us to be mined, and an inexhaustible opportunity for raising the wood necessary in the manufacture of plows. The tools with which the plow is made were also all produced by labor. In a just, economic system every laborer, whether man, woman, or child, should receive exactly all he earns, no more and no less; and, if they do that, there will be nothing left for capital, for all wealth must be produced by labor.

“Let us take an example to illustrate this. We will say that our community owns a machine for boring artesian wells, a machine which is not owned by every community. Now, we first do our own work with it; then some other community desires us to sink a well for them. Our community sends a gang of men with the machine to sink the well for so much per foot. We have expended so much labor in the production of the machine; it requires so many men to operate it; it wears so long, and, the average work will be so much. According to these factors, which have been ascertained by long experience, we make our charge per foot, so that every person who labored in the production of the machine, as well as those who operate it during the whole existence of the machine, just receive their day’s wages and no more. Free competition determines this price per foot. We have no profit. You see if our community is not well adapted for boring wells, it will not engage in it; and, if it should do so, it will soon be crowded out by those communities who are better adapted for it. All the communities are free competitors in all fields of industry. This free, non-monopolistic competition has slowly eliminated all profit. Every community has an immense amount of capital in its ‘big-houses,’ warehouses, and depots; but this capital earns nothing; no interest and no profit; it is even slowly decaying—a loss which must be repaired by the labor of the members of the community. For this reason all communities are eager to sell their negotiable commodities, so as to hold the money of other communities, instead of holding their own commodities. From what I have already said, it is scarcely necessary to say here that money is not capital, but that it is only a representative of capital. We are not working for money but for the material wealth, food, clothing, shelter, and luxuries which the money represents. In this manner, I think, you can clearly see that labor earns all, for all the money is issued to the laborer, and that free competition, founded on a non-monopolistic supply and demand, determines the price of all commodities and regulates the amount of their needful production.”

“But,” said Viola, as she took hold of Mr. Midith’s hand, “if a laborer receives exactly all he earns, who, then, pays for the wear and tear of your property?”

Mr. Midith smiled and said: “The laborer does. We are all laborers, and the laborer produces everything and pays for everything. Let us see if I can make this point clear to you; if not, I shall have to take you with me to Mars as soon as I shall be able to go. But let that be as it may, the point is, that the individuals of the community must perform so many days or hours of productive labor per annum to keep up the supply of wealth and make all needful repairs and improvements. We have painters that are always painting new things and old things. We have boulevard and motor-line repairers. We have a gang of builders that are always building, rebuilding and repairing. We have laborers to work in the park and other places. There is a constant wear on everything—furniture, machinery, cars, trees, etc., etc. Just as any one would keep the same orchard for any length of time by always planting a new tree as soon as the old one dies, so we keep on making new things and repairing and improving old ones. This, of course, makes our day’s labor longer than it would be if there were no such wear and tear. Every day’s labor, in an average, then, must be long enough to include the production of the new things we need and the repair of the old ones. When a babe is born, it has always a home waiting for it in which it can live all its lifetime. It enjoys, in all respects, the same privileges that any other member of the family enjoys, and the first hour’s work it performs, it begins to pay for its home and other public conveniences, and continues to pay for them every day it works. So you see that a day’s labor must be long enough to cover all production and all wear and tear. Thus, if a member of our community should go to work for any other community which could advantageously employ more labor, he would receive all he actually earned and pay for all his actual wear and tear on the property of the community in which he is working. In this manner, a person can go wherever he desires and generally work when and where he likes. He pays the same price for his meals as he does at home. He receives a private apartment where he is ‘lord and master’ and in which he does his own chamber work, the same as at home. He pays for all his washing the same as he does at home. When he works the wear and tear of the public property he uses is included in his day’s work. If he does not work, he is considered a visitor and pays the same price for things he pays at home.”

“How plainly,” said Mr. Uwins, “can we see now how all the Marsites’ machinery is operated in the interest of the people instead of being operated in the interest of a few rich monopolists, as is largely the case here. Still our laborers, as a class, think that we can not get along without capitalists or millionaires. They always seem to imagine that capital is the greatest factor in the production of wealth. That the productive industry of the world would be fatally crippled or totally destroyed if there were no millionaires to keep it up. But how conspicuous the error of all this becomes as we become more familiar with your just system. In order to avoid being misunderstood, let me state here that by the foregoing remarks you plainly see that we highly esteem capital or wealth. But we believe that no one can be really rich without all being rich, or at least all being above want. What we condemn is the system which enables some to become capitalists or millionaires by appropriating the wealth produced by others by monopoly. We do not even particularly condemn the millionaire. He is a creature of circumstances, a product of a system.”

“But does not your social and industrial system, in which all are equal, kill ambition and high aspirations?” asked Rev. Dudley. “It seems to me that a person would have little incentive for work if he could not lay up something for a rainy day.”

“Things in our world actually prove to be nearly the opposite from what you seem to imagine them to be, Rev. Dudley. People once believed that the earth was flat; but a wider range of information proved it to be round. So in every field of thought and inquiry.

“In the first place allow me to inform you that there are very few rainy days with us. We live so strictly according to the laws of life and health that disease is almost unknown, and hence nearly every person keeps his bodily vigor almost unimpaired until he dies of old age. Our constitutions are not wrecked by anxiety, toil, exposure, anger and debauchery. Nearly all of our old people find pleasure in doing a certain amount of physical work for healthful exercise. Work to them has become very agreeable, because they were never burdened with it like nearly all of you are or have been. It is the burdensomeness of work that makes it disagreeable.

“You say there would be no ambition to labor if a person was unable to lay up something for a rainy day. I thoroughly agree with you on that point. We all lay up more than we need for our rainy days. If we work three-fourths of the time we can travel and visit the other fourth, spend all we want, and are still able to lay up one-fourth of our entire earnings; and when we do work our work is almost play. These favorable conditions ought to inspire us with a high average ambition. Every man, woman and youth has his purse full of money. They are all independent and self-reliant. Each is a little savings bank for himself.

“Now let us look with a just and unbiased eye at your conditions. Nearly all your women and children have to beg what little money they get from a man, who, as a rule, handles the money. Do you think, Rev. Dudley, that such a condition inspires a woman and a child with great ambition to work? Our women and children draw their own pay at the end of each month. A person’s ambition always corresponds to the brightness of a person’s present and future outlook; and does the future look bright to the multitude of your laborers? Look at the millions of men—day laborers—who have a family, who are sometimes out of employment, who are cursed and driven like slaves by their bosses, who have want staring them in the face, who are unable to give the wife and child money when they ask for it, who can plainly see, that under the present conditions, they can never lay up anything from the $1.25 they receive for their day’s labor, and not infrequently during old age they land in the poor house. Do you think that this vast army of poor laborers can, under such dependent, pitiful conditions, be inspired with great ambition for labor, and order, and honesty, and kindness, and truthfulness? The vast majority of your productive laborers are working for others, they having no direct interest in the production of their labors. We are all working for ourselves; the more we do the more we get. On account of your monopoly, there are more laborers than there are places for laborers; this makes wages low and creates an army of forced idlers. Do you think that such conditions are conducive to a high ambition, and that a model industry can flourish under them?

“Now let us extend our comparison a little further. I have already remarked several times that, in our world, there is a sharp, free, never-ending competition for the highest plane of perfection between individuals, between families and between communities. We settle all advancement by free competition, in which every one is invited a competitor, to stand on his or her own merits. Some of us have talents and aptitudes for one thing and some for another. We are by no means all inclined the same industrially. We are all endeavoring to push forward to the highest possible plane in our respective fields of aspirations. But, on the other hand, on account of so much extreme poverty, and wretchedness resulting from poverty, the people of earth have scarcely any other ambition than the accumulation of dollars and cents, in order, on the one hand, to occupy your best so-called social positions, and on the other to keep want and the fear of want from your door. We have learned that dollars and cents are easily gotten after other things have been adjusted harmoniously. We fundamentally seek for higher and nobler aspirations. After having obtained them the dollars and cents will easily come. We seek to learn how to co-operate most harmoniously; how to allow each individual the widest range of individual freedom; how to acquire the greatest and most useful information about the phenomenal universe; how to do our respective parts well, and how to build our happiness on the happiness of our fellow-man. Such are some of our aspirations, the field of which, no doubt, is so vast that it can never be completely explored by the power of human wisdom.”

CHAPTER XV.
OWNERSHIP OF LAND.

“There is another fundamental question, Mr. Midith, that I have been wanting to ask you for some time,” said Mr. Uwins as we were ready the next evening to listen to Mr. Midith’s Marsian narrative, “and that question is the ownership of land. I have thought and written quite extensively on that subject, but have thus far not been able to solve it to my entire satisfaction. We would undoubtedly be very much pleased to have you give us an account of the Marsian theory and practice of owning land. It is certainly a fundamental question, for, as you said, all wealth comes from or out of the land by the application of labor.”

“That is very true,” said Mr. Midith; “it is one of the fundamental problems of economics, and, when once solved, it is apparently the simplest.

“Land is not produced by labor, and, therefore, we do not consider land wealth like you do. Of course the improvement made on land is wealth and belongs exclusively to the producers. We recognize the right of owning land only by occupancy and use, not by deed, or paper title, as you pretend to own it. Vacant land is as free with us as air and sea, because there is much more highly productive land now, and probably ever will be, than the human inhabitants of any planet can utilize. At least, I believe, no one can produce trustworthy evidence to the contrary. By vacant land I mean all that land which is not worked at all, and all that which, under monopoly, is worked for a landlord, by renters or by wage-workers. For example: A vacant farm or town-lot, a rented farm or town-lot, and a farm or town-lot worked for a land-owner by wage-workers under monopolistic laws like the laws of owning land by deed or paper title. In short, by ‘vacant land,’ I mean all unoccupied land, and all land that would not be utilized by the present owners if all monopolistic land privileges were removed.

“Our communities consist of about 120 families, or 120,000 persons each, and contain about 144 square miles of land, populated nearly twice as densely as Belgium, the secret of which I have already told you. Yet there is plenty of highly productive land left unoccupied for additional communities or individuals, should they ever desire it. We never entertain any fear of over-population. It is highly probable that a highly-intelligent, well-adjusted human society will never be pressed with over-population, as we shall consider more fully under the head of sex relations.”

“But did the Marsians always own land only by occupancy and use like you now do?” asked Mrs. Uwins.

“Oh, no; our ancestors owned it by deed like you own it now. But in time, the most thoughtful men and women began to feel that it is wrong to own and control the whole or a portion of the earth’s surface by virtue of a deed, or paper title. They reasoned something like this: If a person has a just right to own, by deed, forty acres of the earth’s surface and all what is beneath that surface to the center of the earth, for that is the depth a farm is claimed to extend downward, then he has an equal, just right to own, in a similar manner, any amount of it.”

“Upon what principle, Mr. Midith, do you claim that it is more wrong to own land by deed than to own it by occupancy and use?” asked Rev. Dudley.

“The principle of the one is entirely different from the principle of the other. When an individual or collection of individuals own land by occupancy and use only, he makes his own physical powers the measure of the amount he can occupy and use, which can cover only a small area; for man’s physical powers to occupy and use land are very limited. He can use but a very limited area to stand on, to lie on, to build his residence on, and to use for agricultural and sportive purposes. He can occupy and use only so little of the earth’s surface that there will be more left than all the rest of the human race can similarly utilize. Under these conditions there could be no land monopoly, and with the disappearance of land monopoly nearly all other monopoly would disappear; for all wealth comes from the land by the application of labor, and if vacant land were free all could apply their labor to land and produce their necessary wealth. No one would be out of employment. No one would work for less than he actually earned. With vacant land free no one would be the industrial slave of another.

“By deed, under certain conditions, an individual, or a small collection of individuals, may own the whole land area of the earth or of any other planet or world. There is no further limit to the amount of land an individual may own by deed. This causes land monopoly and industrial slavery, because if a few own large tracts of land by deed, there is not enough left to supply all the remainder of mankind. This causes land monopoly, and land monopoly causes either directly or indirectly nearly all other forms of monopoly. Let us illustrate this a little more fully:

“A person who claims to own a forty-acre farm by virtue of a deed he holds of it, claims to have a legal right to remove forcibly any and all human beings from the same if he chooses, and, if he cannot remove them as an individual, the government from which he bought the deed must assist him in making the removal or eviction.

“But if one has a legal right to own 40 acres by deed, he has an equal legal right to own 40,000 acres, or the whole United States, or the whole earth. Under this condition, the individual or individuals who own the earth would be masters, and all the rest of the human race would be slaves.

“The owner or owners of this land, composing the United States or the earth, would have a perfect legal right to demand all his or their fellowmen to vacate the land. But he (if one owns it) owns all the dry land, and nothing but water surface is left for the non-landowners. And, if the non-landowners are loyal and true to their government and to the landlord, they must immediately vacate all dry land, which implies that they must all drown in the water area not covered by the landlord’s deed, whenever the landlord demands it; if they refuse to do so they are rebels and a deed becomes a legal farce.

“There is one other important point to be considered under this head; the point is, that if we trace the abstract of a deed back to the first pretended owner, whether individual or nation, we find him to be a fraud, a thief, or a robber; that is, he obtained the land by fraud, or by force, or by robbery, or by conquest, or by discovery. He did not create it by labor, nor was the deed given to him by the Creator. Such is the condition of ownership of land by deed.

“All wealth, as we have already seen, organized-self, material and mental, comes ultimately from the earth, and requires labor for its production. The man and the land must be permitted to come together or the man must starve.

“Under the deed system, the landlord has first the right to fence the poor off from the land, and then make a bargain with him for his labor; the laborer is bound to accept what the landlord is pleased to pay him, or the laborer must starve, since the laborer is prevented to apply his labor to land from which all wealth is produced. Land is monopolized by deed. To illustrate: The present population of the earth is about one-and-a-half billions, and the total land area of the same is about fifty-three millions of square miles. Hence, each individual born on earth is by nature entitled to a proportionate share of this land; and his fair share of this land is far more than a person could utilize, if land were owned only by occupancy and use. Hence, if any person is in need of land, somebody has robbed him of his birthright.

“Thus is the laborer at a great disadvantage, when the land is owned or monopolized by deed. But now notice the difference when vacant land is free. If the landlord had to make the contract with the laborer for his work, before the landlord had the legal right to fence the laborer off from the vacant land, the laborer would work for no less than he actually earned; if the landlord would not pay him that amount, the laborer would work land for himself wherever he would find some vacant, and receive the full benefit of his labor.

“Thus if one person owns the whole surface of the earth, or other planet, by a deed or paper title, and all the remainder of the inhabitants were living on it by his permission, the conditions of the world would be the worst conceivable as regards owning land. If ten individuals owned it similarly, the conditions would be bad, but somewhat better than they would be if one owned it, and so on up.

“So the Marsites gradually came to the conclusion that no one ought to be prevented from using and occupying, without paying for it, as much land as he wants wherever he finds it vacant; because there is, as I have already stated, more highly productive land than can be utilized for all practical purposes now and perhaps for all future ages. And further because when a person is born and can utilize land for the maintenance of his existence, he is entitled to his proportionate share of the earth’s surface without paying for the permission of living on earth.

“By experience, personal and ancestral, which always constitutes the entire stock of intelligence, we slowly learned that the monopolization of vacant land is doubtless the principal cause of a vicious social and industrial system. 1. Because it produces an army of forced idlers who are prevented by the landlord from applying their labor to land from which all wealth proceeds, and toward which all industry must be directed. 2. It practically forces the laborer to accept the landlord’s offer whatever it may be. And 3. It affords an army of rent-takers who are enabled to live an idle life by appropriating the earnings of the laborers. Hence nearly all other social and industrial evils may be traced directly or indirectly to the monopolization of vacant land.

“In our system vacant land is perfectly free to any one who wants to utilize it; no one pays for living on Mars, and there is, notwithstanding the dense population, more land than all the inhabitants can utilize, the same as here if vacant land was free. With us no one can, or desires to monopolize land, and therefore no one pays rent. We have, by the economic arrangement of freeing vacant land, completely eliminated rent. We have then, as far as I have explained our social and industrial system to you, neither profit, interest, nor rent.”

“Would you, then, take the land away from the landlord and give it to others, perhaps to some who have always lived an idle life?” asked Rev. Dudley.

“I would by no means do any forcible or legal taking or giving as you call it. Vacant land will never become free by physical force or by statute law. It will be monopolized by law as long as the people, both landlords and landless, do not clearly see the evil of owning it by deed. But just as soon as the landless man and woman begins to see that the landlord lives from the products of his or her labor, which necessitates the masses to remain poor, cruel, ignorant, and as soon as the landlord clearly sees that this poverty, cruelty and ignorance caused by the monopolization of land endangers his life and property, and prevents him from living in a world of refinement in which all can be rich, kind and intelligent, vacant land will become free, and not before. Just in proportion as man will clearly see and feel this, vacant land will become free, like the chattel slave who was gradually set free from the bondage of chattel slavery. At one time they sold for more than a thousand dollars apiece; now they are not worth 15 cents a dozen financially. So with vacant land. In my opinion there is no escape from the conclusion, that the masses of your people will soon see, that there is something very wrong in owning vacant land, for thousands of your foremost thinkers see it already more or less clearly.

“Under the head of ‘How the transition from the old to the new order of things was accomplished,’ I shall explain how vacant land on Mars was set free.”

“I think I clearly see the effects of it now,” said Mr. Uwins. “If vacant land were free for all, the servants and hired help would work land for themselves, unless the rich paid them just what the laborer actually earns, under which condition the employer can not grow rich from the labor of others. Men and women can grow rich, as you call it, only by the monopolization of land or some other natural opportunities—by appropriating the earnings of some one else. I must confess your land system appears very just and simple when once explained.”

“Now let us see,” said Mr. Midith as Mr. Uwins had finished speaking, “if we can summarize the most important points of the Marsian social and economic system, as far as I have told you about them.

“To begin with, the Marsites, as I have explained, have no cities and towns. It is a well-known fact that, in the lowest stages of savagery, even among your present savages, man has no cities and towns and no particular fixed habitation. A single individual, or at best a few, roam together with no permanent residence; but as civilization advances, the individuals form a closer union and choose a more permanent place of residence. From this closer association and co-operation, man, like the gregarious animals, reap advantages and these advantages continue to unfold man’s social nature; and in order to satisfy this social nature to the fullest extent, during a certain stage of civilization, he builds large cities. At this city stage of intellectual development, he feels the need of association and co-operation, but he does not yet see and feel the disadvantages, the uselessness, and other evils of cities and also of a lonely country. But as man’s intellectual powers continue to unfold, as his sensibilities become more acute, and as he employs more and more machinery to perform his manual toil, he slowly but gradually discovers the evil effects of dividing the population into cities and country; for both are faulty, both are unhealthy, both are inconvenient, and both are useless.

“After man has discovered this, he begins to locate his large buildings in beautiful parks, at short intervals, in straight lines, on the perimeter of a rectangular community. (See p. 58.) The large size families and the nearness of the buildings satisfy his social nature; the arrangement of buildings, in straight lines, gives commercial and mechanical advantages; the large families give him social and domestic advantages which greatly conduce to his health, prosperity and happiness. The form and size of our communities give us the greatest commercial and agricultural advantages. We all live right on the edge of the agricultural land from which all wealth must be produced, either directly or indirectly. With us a farmer need not come to town to sell his produce, nor need a townman go into the country to farm.

“Thus you see that some labor and some commerce is managed exclusively by the individual, such as keeping his private apartment, buying his own meals, clothes, etc. Some by the family, such as buying the goods for the family store, etc. Some by the community, such as agriculture, mining, etc. Some by the neighborhood, such as railroading, etc. Some in the Fano and some in the Modano. All is justice, equity, order, kindness and harmony. Everybody and everything has, by the force of free competition, drifted into that for which each is best fitted.”

CHAPTER XVI.
GOVERNMENT.

After Midith and Viola had returned from the postoffice on their bicycles the following evening, Mr. Uwins requested Mr. Midith to give us the promised explanation of the Marsian government.

“How does your government fit with your perfect social and industrial world?” asked Mr. Uwins. “Are all its functions in harmony with all your industrial and social functions? Do or can the politicians hoodwink the ignorant? Are not the governmental functions sometimes exercised barbarously at times by cruel, incompetent men?”

“I fear by your remarks that you have an entirely erroneous opinion of our government,” said Mr. Midith. “Let us see now if I can give you a correct idea of our government.

“You have already learned that we live in families of a thousand or more in ‘big-houses.’ Our large family is just like an orderly, well-adjusted family with you, only ours is larger. For instance, let us take Mr. Uwins’ family here, as far as I can see has no superior and no inferior, no commander and no obeyer, no ‘boss.’ We want to bear in mind that it is as painful, if not more so, for a highly cultivated person to command his companions as it is for him to obey a tyrant. A command always involves a hindrance to order and progress. It makes the obeyer less self-governing and less self-reliant, and it makes the commander more tyrannical and more ostentatious.

“In a well-adjusted family every adult has learned his part as a social and industrial being, and he does that part without being commanded; he does it because it gives him more happiness than to act otherwise. Our children know of no physical compulsion. They are exhorted and pleasantly taught, by precept and example, that the right course of conduct is the easiest and brings the most happiness, which they soon learn by experience as they grow in years and in wisdom, in a world where the adults set no bad examples. The old idea that a family cannot exist without a ‘boss’ is nothing but a relic of barbarism. Mr. Uwins cannot command Mrs. Uwins in her work, for Mrs. Uwins understands her work better herself than her husband can tell her, and vice versa. His command would therefore be a disadvantage, would cause discord, ill-feeling, and unproductive labor; it would take up his time which ought to be devoted to his own work; would make a master and a tyrant of the man and a slave of the woman and child.

“From the foregoing remarks you will see at once that every sane individual man, woman, and child of our large family enjoys perfect freedom. They do what they believe to be their equitable part without being commanded by any one. Our internal motives and promptings are the only recognized standard of Marsian conduct. But, in order to avoid being misunderstood, let me tell you right here, that we can certainly not expect the same kind of conduct from a child, which is full of life and activity, that we do from an older person. The child requires constant activity to develop body and mind; and we must make due allowance for that. One who does not make that allowance cannot be successful in orderly government.

“We always construct and arrange our things and institutions to suit the purpose they are intended to serve. We do not, like you, endeavor to make, with a rod, a sage out of an infant in a few days. For example, if we have a door or a gate that we desire to have always closed, when not in use, we make it self-closing. If we have a department in which little children may hurt themselves, or unknowingly destroy delicate things, we have a self-closing door that cannot be opened by a little child.

“We keep our infants and little children, who are unable to swim, out of the deep lakes in our parks by fencing the lakes with an impassable fence, and by guarding the entrance with a self-closing and self-locking door, which can be opened only by swimmers who hold a key for it. The little children go in the shallow lake. If we do not wish our children to play certain games all over the green park, we fit up grounds more suited for the game, and they will always play on that ground, because it is most suitable for that purpose.

“If we, as older people, do not find it delightful, on account of our older and more inactive age, to be always and immediately surrounded by the more active children, we build and fit out nurseries’ play-grounds and other apartments in which the child-nature can be best gratified; and the children, during their active intervals, never fail to go there.

“If we wish to create self-reliance and a desire for laboring, we make the labor agreeable, by making it easy, by esteeming it honorable, and by creating a system of money under which every man, woman and child draws his own pay at the end of each month; and the amount of his pay is in proportion to the time each worked or to the wealth produced. If we desire to educate our children in a certain direction, we first learn that lesson ourselves, and from our practicing it the children will learn it without any formal teaching.

“To govern our children in the practice of eating, we always keep before them, as well as before ourselves, more than we want of everything; consequently the appetite is the safest guide, so that neither the child nor adult ever eats too much, and just so pleasant, harmonious and successful is our governing power in all directions.

“The foreman of any branch of industry whether of the family, such as storekeeper, barber, cook, etc., or whether of the community, such as head agriculturist, head painter, head builder, etc., always elects himself to his position by his own deeds, by his superior ability of doing work in his occupation, by being kind and pleasant, by directing the labor of his or her co-laborers in the most productive and agreeable channels. Our foreman is leader only just so far as his co-laborers are willing to acknowledge him as such; and when a person of greater ability appears in his branch of industry, the former leader naturally resigns his position to his superior, because such a resignation is agreeable to the former leader as well as to his co-laborers. Hence the leader always does the most and best work and receives no more pay than the commonest laborer. All our officers are elected, then, by the tacit or avowed ballot of superior ability and agreeableness, but never by a paper ballot. Hence you can plainly see that we acknowledge universal suffrage in its true and full sense, because every man, woman and child is a voter as well as a candidate.

“Some of our family leaders, or officers as you would call them, are foremen in the following departments: Store, restaurant, kitchen, bakery, dining hall, parlors, engine room, tailor shop, barber shop, halls, bath-rooms, commercial apartment, vehicle apartment, the departments of ushers, painters, house cleaners, laundry department, representatives in the ‘Com,’ Fano and Modano, etc., etc.

“Now let us briefly glance at the government of the community. The business of the community is transacted at the ‘Com,’ as I have already told you. Every family has one or more representatives in the ‘Com,’ who are daily laboring there, in some department, as paying bills, making money, examining labor-records, printing, receiving money from the families, canceling the community’s own money when it arrives, inventing, etc.

“The family representatives who work at the ‘Com’ nearly always return to their own family after the close of their day’s work. By this arrangement every family, and every person in the family, is in constant personal communication with the ‘Com.’ Any one who desires information concerning the business of the community can get it orally from the family representative, or, he can get it from the daily community’s newspaper, which contains all the business and which is taken and read by every one who is old enough to read it.

“Some of the community’s and family’s foremen are in the following departments: Printing, money making, paying, money receiving, selling, building and repairing motor lines, agriculture, stock raising, mining, manufacturing, warehouse, roads and boulevards, electric light, parks, conservatory and greenhouse, garden, orchard, inventor, etc., etc.

“The foregoing is a brief description of some of the most important features of our government, by which you will see at once that we have no government by physical force against man, woman or child; that we have no parties, no politicians, no election frauds, no political boodle, no vast armies and costly navies; no generals who lead the people to death and destruction; no guns and cannons; no swords and sabres; no pensions and crippled soldiers; no impoverished widows and uncared for orphans; no burning of cities and tearing up of railroads; no kings, queens, and presidents; no political congresses, parliaments, and legislatures; no crowns and thrones; no high-salaried officers, no national debt which often gets larger by paying on it; no compulsory taxation; no tariff involuntarily wrung from the people; no prisons and reform schools; no so-called courts of justice and an army of lawyers and judges who have to live from the ignorance and quarreling of the people; no political patriotism; no statute laws which monopolize natural opportunity in favor of the rich and against the poor; no hangmen, and no policemen. Our political congress slowly changed into an industrial one.”

“I must say that your government seems to be an admirable one, if it could be enforced,” said Rev. Dudley, “but I cannot see how a people can do without all those things you have just named.”

“Why, uncle,” said Viola, “it seems to me that we would be much better off without those relics of barbarism than with them, and I shall do all I can to elevate the mind of man high enough so that he feels no need for them.”

“It is doubtless true,” said Mr. Midith, “that those who have always lived in a world where a certain class of people have always ruled, or at least have tried to rule, the remainder of mankind by physical force, it may seem that no family, community or nation can do without a ruler backed by physical force. In primitive times the force process begins soon after birth and continues until death. First the child is scolded, cuffed and flogged by the parent and nurse, then by the teacher and preacher, then by his playmates and street-ruffians; when he wants to marry, the church and state begin to interfere; the policeman clubs his victim into submission, the hangman hangs him, the tax-collector forces him to pay taxes, and finally the landlord compels him or his friends to pay for the little patch of earth in which he is buried. Consequently all but a few of your foremost thinkers believe that the ruler and the force system is absolutely necessary to the welfare of an orderly society. But when we examine the pages of your history, as well as our own ancient history when our ancestors practiced the same despotism as you now practice, we find that the ruler, either directly or indirectly, has played all the cruel mischief that ever was played in the human family.

“The ruler calls the soldier to war to shoot his neighbor. The ruler instituted the practice of suttee, and exhorts the slavish widow to practice it. The ruler induces the Hindoo mother to throw her newly-born babe in the Ganges, by which the mother becomes a ruler over the child, to satisfy the ruler’s created Deity, who is supposed to be the supreme ruler. The ruler tortured and killed every so-called heretic—the cream of the mental world, during the dark ages. The ruler kindled every witch fire that consumed thousands and millions of innocent persons supposed to be witches. The ruler did all the wife and child flogging. The ruler gave all the unjust decisions that were ever given in any court of so-called justice. The ruler made all the millions of laws that have already been repealed, and are now considered wrong and cruel. The ruler had every national building and monument built and erected with the life and labor of his ruled. The ruler is the author of every battle. The ruler has been the suppressor of all liberty and freedom. The ruler has drafted every soldier, and forced him to burn and kill. The ruler has preached all superstitious doctrines, whether religious, industrial, social, political or sexual. The ruler has grown rich without productive labor, on profit, interest, rent, taxes, and the varying purchasing power of the dollar. The ruler has compelled children to attend school in which they were forced to act in direct opposition to the known laws of life and health. The ruler, whether individual, state or nation, has committed every murder. The ruler is the author of every ravishment. The ruler has received all the boodle. The ruler has so far, in your world, made slaves of women and children, and has thereby indirectly made a slave of himself. The ruler has committed every theft, robbery and burglary. The ruler has, in many cases, demanded prayer and shrine cure, instead of resorting to sanitary measures. The ruler has caused every quarrel and fight. The ruler has, in countless cases, commended the infamous and prohibited the virtuous. The ruler is the invader of all personal right and personal liberty. The ruler has done all this and much more. He has caused all the social and industrial discord. Why, then, should the ruled pay the ruler for ruling them, after having made so many errors and committed so many crimes? What guarantee have the ruled now that the ruler will not err in the present and future as he has done in the past?”

“No doubt,” said Rev. Dudley, “the ruler, under the various monarchical forms, has done a great many wrongs; but the monarchies of the world are fast passing away, we are living in a republic in which the majority rule.”

“I find that the vast majority of your citizens, like you, believe that the majority rule in your republic, as you call it, but this is an error. The majority do not rule, but only a small minority do. To illustrate:

“The population of the United States is about 65 millions. Of these about 13 millions vote. If these 13 million voters all belonged to two parties—say Democrats and Republicans—one party would require but one majority to let it in power—say the Republicans. 6,500,001 is a majority of 13 millions. The 6,499,999 Democrats would have nothing to say as far as their principles differed from the principles of the Republican party. Under these conditions, which are about as we actually find them, all the Democrats, all the women and all the children have nothing to say civilly. Now you want to remember that many of the children, the same as the adults, support themselves. We see, then, that 6,500,001 is ten per cent. plus of 65 millions. Hence one-tenth rules nine-tenths. Your boon of universal suffrage is nothing but an illusion when it is analyzed.

“We have now seen that the majority do not rule, as is generally supposed by you. But if the majority instead of the minority did rule, the question would arise: What right has a majority to rule a non-invasive minority? Who gave them the right? How long have they had it? Did your ancestors a thousand years ago give this right to each other? If so, are bargains that were made a thousand years ago binding on the present generation? Must you be cruel and unjust to one another because your ancestors were? Does not culture make justice the basis of human conduct? But this is not all. If the ballot in the hands of a man is such a great boon, why is it not equally great in the hands of the women and children? Are they not entitled to the same welfare and happiness that the man is?

“And furthermore, I suppose that all of you are ready to acknowledge that money, intimidation and fraud greatly influence the result of your ballot elections. The individual or party that spends the most money and does the most scheming generally triumphs with you. Our acknowledged leader (we have no political officers) of any branch of industry in our families and communities is elected by actual universal suffrage, solely upon his or her superior fitness for the position.

“Let us notice a few other points of difference between our government and yours. Your officials receive, as a rule, high salaries, and as it is generally difficult here for a person to acquire wealth by productive labor, on account of monopoly, all are rushing for the well-paying offices. With us the highest officer in the community receives no more pay for his day’s labor than a washerwoman does. Here, in a world where money is necessary and scarce, a person can stoop to most anything, if he thereby gains his election so that he receives the high salary and not unfrequently some boodle; for in a world where money is necessary and scarce, a victorious person can buy his honor, fame, and distinction with money. But in a world like ours, where money is not monopolized, where it can be easily obtained by every one, money has lost the power of purchasing honor, fame and distinction. In such a world nothing but personal worth, fitness and noble attainments elevate a person to a higher position where he enjoys approbation and admiration of his fellowmen. Notice here that the Marsites have removed the causes of corruption, while you are still endeavoring to make a person good under bad conditions.

“Your government, as now constituted, also tends to concentrate wealth. Rev. Joseph Cook, in Tremont Temple, Boston, Feb. 3, 1890, said: ‘Two thousand capitalists own more than all the rest of the sixty-five millions of our population. Two hundred and fifty thousand rich men control seventy-five per cent. of the national wealth. The American republic is, therefore, practically owned by less than one-quarter of a million of persons. If present causes which produce concentration of capital continue, the republic will soon be owned by less than fifty thousand men.’

“We all know, then, that some have amassed immense fortunes of material wealth, while the vast majority under your present conditions are doomed to life-long toil, to poverty. But, by what means or power did these rich men accumulate their immense wealth? Not by personal industry, for the industrial powers of an individual are too limited. Not by economy, for if he had saved everything he ever earned, he would have but a small fractional part of what he has accumulated. Not by any particular personal superiority, for the personal powers to produce material wealth are nearly equal in all sound men and women; but he accumulated and appropriated it by monopoly. You have enacted many laws by your much prized ballot, and these rich men used those laws to monopolize natural opportunity so that they are continually growing richer on interest, profit, rent and taxes, without productive labor. You see if all monopolistic statute laws, which include nearly all statute laws as such, were repealed and disregarded, all would stand equal before natural opportunity. Profit, interest, rent and taxes are produced by monopolistic laws. If there were no monopolistic laws, no person could accumulate or appropriate wealth without productive labor.

“Let us take an illustration: You have a few men that have over a $100,000,000 of wealth as you call it. You can figure up in a few minutes that they can not have earned or produced that amount of wealth in one or even in two generations. But some of these men have accumulated this immense fortune in twenty or thirty years. Let us figure a little on this. Suppose that a man has accumulated $100,000,000 in fifty years of three hundred working days each. This would require an average accumulation of nearly $7,000 for every working day. Now you all know that a man cannot, by any human power, earn or produce $7,000 worth of wealth—wheat, corn, coal, books, houses, clothing, or whatever else it may be. But we know that he has the wealth, or your representative of wealth—the dollar; and if he has not earned it himself by productive labor, by which all wealth must be produced, he must have appropriated it from the labor of others in the form of profit, interest, rent or taxes, for which the receiver does nothing and for which the giver receives nothing.

“Our government has no statute laws and has, therefore, no profit, interest, rent and taxes. Your government monopolizes land by the deed system, hence your rent. Our government has nothing to do with the ownership of land; every one may occupy and use all the vacant land he wants. Your government monopolizes the making of money, which makes money scarce, hence your interest; in our government, each individual gets his money made at the end of each month, and as much as he has produced wealth; money is plenty, and hence no interest. Your government enforces compulsory taxation, whether the individual wants it or not; we have no compulsory taxation. From the foregoing and other monopolizations your profit results. Your government has enacted laws for the collection of debts, hence your many failures and unpaid accounts. Our government has no need of such laws, because we have always plenty of money and, therefore, always pay cash. Your government endeavors to enforce its mandates by an external agency of soldier and policeman, while our governmental force resides in the internal promptings of the individual. The desire of the non-invasive individual is the highest authority on Mars.

“Of course we all understand that your government, as a whole, is better now than it ever was before. The government of the United States, in many respects, is perhaps better than any of its predecessors or any of its contemporaries. But you must remember that all ages had a best government. The question is not whether it is the best that ever was, but whether it is faultless. Best is not good enough unless it is faultless. Can we find any faults? If so, we should labor to remove them.

“I do not desire to have you understand me that I blame your government or your rich men for what they have done, or for what they are now doing. Under the same conditions the Marsites did the same things. With the present amount of intelligence, human conduct, in your world, is just about what it should be; and the only force in the universe that can ever change that course is additional intelligence. All your labor for advancement, then, should be most economically directed in the diffusion and assimilation of this additional intelligence. As long as a person is ignorant enough, he does not feel the burden unjustly imposed upon him by others; but as he grows in intelligence, the bearer of the burden becomes continually more sensitive to its weight, and the imposition becomes continually more repugnant to the imposer. Let us remember, then, that all wrong and injustice arise from ignorance. Intelligence is the only motive power that can move the physical world to higher and nobler planes.”

“Do you have insane asylums, Mr. Midith?” asked Mrs. Uwins.

Mr. Midith smiled and said: “We have no use for them. Insanity, like everything else, is produced by causes, and when the causes are removed the effects disappear proportionately. We have almost completely removed the causes of insanity. In the first place our medical science is far in advance of yours, and in the second place, in a world where everybody is rich, sound, intelligent and free, insanity, like crime, is almost unknown. Not one in a thousand million ever feels any traces of it; and if he should he would almost certainly be cured in a short time. Should there be an isolated case of insanity, the insane person would be gently cared for the same as a child.

“Now let me show you one other great advantage of our government over yours. You have one Congress and one President in a country, who make laws by which you endeavor to govern the white man and the black man; the agriculturist in the North and the agriculturist in the South; the miner and the manufacturer. But their interests are in many cases very unlike, still all must be governed by the same national laws. Your government is so extensive that the President or Congress cannot be so well informed on the needs of the people of every locality, as we can be on the needs of our own community. The needs and interests of a community in the North, on account of climate, are very unlike those of the South. So each community with us attends to its own business, and lets every other community attend to theirs. We have no interference, no antagonism. We believe in non-aggressive competition. In this manner, a sharp, healthy, commercial competition springs up between the communities, which naturally throws every community in that line of industry for which it is best adapted on account of climate, soil, and other natural resources.

“Now let us contemplate for a moment how vastly we economize and produce by our kind, peaceable government of the individual, and what an immense amount of unproductive and destructive labor you expend in the maintenance of your cruel, criminal government of force as it would appear to the Marsites.

“You build and maintain costly statehouses and spacious legislative halls. You have a vast army of national, state and municipal politicians who are supported by the productive laborer. You have an army and a navy to equip and maintain. You have guns and cannons to mine and manufacture, arsenals to build, and fortifications to construct. You have ammunition and soldiers’ clothes to manufacture. You have vast libraries to build, filled with countless volumes of law books, over the contents of which a large army of judges and lawyers wrangle and sometimes even fight. You have an endless number of courthouses to build and maintain, and a swarm of policemen to uniform and support. You have the country dotted with prisons, jails, penitentiaries, scaffolds, poorhouses, asylums and reform schools.

“Your armies and navies in time of war destroy an immense amount of wealth by burning cities and family houses, by destroying the growing crops in the fields through which they march, and in which they fight, by blowing up ships and bridges, by tearing up railroads, by cutting down fences, orchards and forests, by killing the brute animals which come in the line of their march, and by maiming human bodies and taking human life itself. Your government in time of war makes sound men diseased and crippled; it makes mothers helpless widows, and children poor orphans, and then it forcibly taxes the sound ones who live a generation later to pension the cripples it made itself.

“Besides the crime of class legislation, which produces an aristocracy of social parasites who appropriate the products of the laborer in the forms of profit, interest, rent and taxes, your government is guilty of graver and more direct crimes, a few of which I shall name. Under the cloak of capital punishment, it legally murders its so-called criminals on the pretext of protecting society. In the field of intemperance, it licenses the manufacturing and selling of intoxicating liquor, thereby indirectly sanctioning, for a consideration, the evil of intemperance. In the licentious world, it actually sells to certain fallen women the privilege of selling their own persons for lewd purposes, thereby becoming a participant in the crime of impurity, which is caused directly or indirectly by the government’s own monopoly. By its marriage interference, it often compels married men and women to live together when they do not love each other, when they quarrel and fight. As a self-righteous censor of its so-called morality, it has in all ages, countries and climes tried to suppress freedom of speech and freedom of the press. The foregoing are only a few of the countless number of evils, wrongs and cruelties which a government, by physical force, imposes on its own people. I mean which the rulers impose on the ruled.

“What a vast contrast! Our family representatives, who go daily to the ‘Com’ to work, are all engaged in productive labor, and the person, man or woman, who can add the greatest number of columns quickest and surest is the person who goes there for that purpose. The national and world representatives do the same. No strife, no monopoly, but complete individual freedom, which has eliminated every vestige of government by physical force against all non-invasive persons, and has established the highest social harmony.”

“But if you do not elect your officers by paper ballot, how do you determine who shall be your Fanoers and your Modanoers?” asked Rev. Dudley.

“I have already stated, Mr. Dudley,” replied Mr. Midith, “that we have no officers in your sense of the word. We elect a Fanoer and a Modanoer on exactly the same principle and by exactly the same process as a cultivated, orderly family here on earth elects its members to do each a certain portion of its work. That is, if you call such a mutual choice or assignment of work an election. Our election, then, is altogether by mutual consent. The process is the same as the process by which Mrs. Uwins is elected by Uwins’ family to do a certain part of their domestic work. By the same process by which Mr. Uwins is elected to do most of the scientific writing of the family. Once more, by the same process by which Viola is elected to do the parlor work, etc. Always by mutual consent based on fitness.

“Thus you see, if you call Mr. and Mrs. Uwins and the other members of Mr. Uwins’ family officers because each performs a certain portion of the aggregate family labor, then our Fanoers and Modanoers are officers; but if you do not call your members of a family officers because a certain kind of work is voluntarily performed by them, or mutually and often tacitly assigned to them on account of their peculiar fitness, then our Fanoers and Modanoers are similarly elected to their respective work by a large family, the same as you elect by a small family. In a state of culture we can generally judge ourselves and others quite accurately. You see the secret of our election, under freedom, consists in this: A laborer is nearly always proficient in that vocation which he likes best.

“Of course the harmony of this election in our communities, the same as that of your families, depends on the state of culture of its members. In some of your families one will not do his fair share of the aggregate work without he is ordered or driven to do it. But I am not here speaking of such of your families. I am speaking only of the cultured families in which each member finds delight in doing his part so as to make it easy and pleasant for all. Thus you see that some of your families are able to do what some of them are yet unable to do.

“It is certainly true that our families and communities were not always as peaceable, just and harmonious as they are at present. We, like you, passed through all the stages of progress from a savage to that state of culture which we now enjoy. Hence you see that our elections have not always been as harmonious as they are at present. Neither have your family elections ever before been as high as they now are.”

“I can see plainly how a few persons, having a common interest in each other’s labor and conduct, like our small families, can have each individual glide into his most proficient sphere of labor without much friction,” said Rev. Dudley, “but I cannot see how so many individuals as compose your large families and communities can do so.”

“I will tell you, Rev. Dudley; it certainly requires a certain state of culture before we can mentally assimilate the essential material for a thought of a given degree of complexity and range. An individual of a little horde of savages would no doubt be unable to see how so many individuals as compose the United States could all live under one flag as you call it; and that almost without war, too. But we all know that it is done, and it does not seem impossible to us either; and if progress continues in the future as it did in the past, your posterity will be able to see things that are entirely hidden from your present view.

“You see those acts which will conduce to the welfare and happiness of man will continually more and more commend themselves to the thoughtful consideration of humanity; they will be gradually accepted for their intrinsic worth.”

“If I understand you correctly, then,” said Rev. Dudley, “you have no compulsory taxation, but only voluntary taxation.”

“No,” replied Mr. Midith, “we have no compulsory taxation. No Marsite is forced to support any institution he does not wish to support. As to voluntary taxation, I may say, if you wish to call those gifts which visitors to the Fanos and Modano usually give voluntary taxation, then we have a kind of voluntary taxation; but if you do not call that taxation, we have no taxation at all.

“Just as your former baronage was gradually superseded by your national militancy—the compulsory state—so was our militancy superseded by industrialism—our voluntary state, if you wish to call it so. Our Comers, Fanoers and Modanoers are no generals, no lawmakers, no statesmen and no politicians. They are solely business men. They aid in the advantageous distribution of wealth and live from the fruits of their own productive labor. Hence, we need no taxes for their support.”

“But do you think, Mr. Midith, that we could do away with compulsory taxation without any bad effects of it at our present age?” asked Rev. Dudley.

“I fear that you do not fully comprehend this subject,” replied Mr. Midith. “You see you can not possibly do away with compulsory taxation. It is always a concomitant of a certain mental condition, and the element of compulsory taxation can be weakened only in proportion as the mental condition is strengthened by the discovery of new truths; and the discovery of new truths implies time. Therefore it is as impossible for you to do away with compulsory taxation instantaneously as it is for you to produce instantaneously a ripe apple from an unfolding blossom. There is only one known agency which can do away with compulsory taxation, and that agency is the acquisition of a higher and broader intelligence.”

CHAPTER XVII.
SEX RELATIONS.

“Mr. Midith, will you please give us an account of your relations between parent and child, and between husband and wife?” asked Mrs. Uwins as the whole family, including Rev. Dudley, were seated in the cool, refreshing shade on the following Sunday afternoon. “We are not quite able to settle those questions to our satisfaction.”

“Certainly,” said Mr. Midith, “with the greatest of pleasure.

“But allow me to tell you before I begin this subject, that I am well aware that I am here treading on treacherous ground. My ten years’ mundane experience and observation convince me that of all the superstitions there is none so wide-spread, none so deeply rooted in the minds of the masses of your people, as the sex superstition. It is more barbarously cruel, more blindly superstitious, more grossly prejudicial, and more intensely jealous than any other superstition on earth, whether it be religious, political, social or industrial. The masses of your people seem to hug with the same fondness the sex superstition, as the contemporaries of the inquisition hugged that ‘Holy Institution;’ and, no doubt, the vast majority of your men and women believe as sincerely that your present sexual slavery is as essential to social harmony as the contemporaries of the inquisition and of the institution of chattel slavery believed those institutions absolutely necessary for the highest social welfare.

“You have asked me to give you the Marsian view of these relations, and I shall be very much pleased to do so; for, in our opinion, there is no subject of human inquiry of which a thorough knowledge and a right adjustment conduces more to our health, to our well-being, and therefore to our general happiness than the subject of sex relations. It often seems to me that your parents here endeavor to make ignorance the safeguard of their children’s virtue and chastity. As a rule, neither the relation of parent and child nor the sex relations are ever openly and honestly discussed in the presence of the whole family; and when children arrive at the age of puberty, they know nothing about the evils resulting from sexual abuse, and in a state of ignorance, the child is apt to follow the promptings of its passions whether they are normal or still abnormal.

“All parents seem to teach their offspring, as early as possible, the danger of a hot stove, a sharp knife, the evil of intemperance, the bite of a poisonous serpent; but the evils of sexual licentiousness, resulting from an inadequate knowledge of the sex relations, is, as a rule, not only not taught by your parents, but it is actually suppressed by a false, fashionable standard of modesty. A knowledge of the evil consequences of an act is the deterrent that must keep us from doing that evil act. As long as we know no evil consequences resulting from the act of placing our hand against a hot stove, we are as likely to place it against the hot stove as into a glove. Our faculty of inquisitiveness may prompt us to reach out our hand in a state of ignorance, to examine a cherry red stove, but our knowledge of the painful consequences resulting from such an act deters us from it. We should learn the truth about all things, including the sex relation, and the sooner the better. We are never too young to learn.

“The sexual function is perhaps as deeply grafted into our nature as any other function. An improper adjustment of this function entails an immense amount of physical and mental injury.”

“That is what we believe,” said Mrs. Uwins. “The question of sex relations is as openly discussed in our family as any other question of information. Our children are nearly as well informed on those questions and functions, their use and abuse, as we are.”

“No, Mr. Midith, you need not feel backward about giving us the true and full explanation of your sex relation in the presence of our family,” said Mr. Uwins. “We keep the most complete and best illustrated physiologies in the most conspicuous place of our library. We all study them.”

“I am pleased to hear that you are as eager to learn on these subjects as you are on others,” continued Mr. Midith. “We should undoubtedly understand ourselves as well as possible in all particulars. Our whole aim on this subject, as well as on all others, should be to make individual intelligence the safeguard of life, health and happiness.

“From what I have told you already of our social and industrial system, you can clearly see that no able-bodied Marsite, whether man or woman, is dependent for material subsistence on any other individual. Every individual of the family, man and woman, keeps a time-record of the labor performed, as we have seen before, and receives equal compensation for a day of it, whether the work is mining iron, running an engine or bearing and nursing children. You see we have become humane enough to recognize the bearing and nursing of offspring as productive labor. This arrangement makes every individual free and independent of one another in the social and industrial world, and we believe that every one, male and female, should likewise enjoy the same freedom and independence to regulate his or her own sexual affairs at all times without any interference of any other individual, family, community, church, state or nation.

“The Marsian idea and practice of sex relations is, that whenever, in due time the maternal instinct of procreation prompts a woman to become a mother, she has the full privilege of soliciting the love of any man whose propagative association she desires for that purpose. This privilege, you see, throws the full control of motherhood in the hands of the women. The man sexually co-operates only when his assistance is agreeably solicited or accepted. The Marsites can, therefore, have no unwelcome motherhood imposed on the woman by the man.

“I have already told you that each individual, man, woman and child, has a private apartment in which each can live all alone, or invite as many companions as he, she or it may want or can get; but no one ever enters a private apartment of another for any social purposes without being invited by the inmate. Of course the arrangement of this invitation is left altogether with the individual. The woman invites her companions, both man and woman, if she so desires; the man does likewise. If the guest does not desire to accept the invitation, he or she remains away. All are as much at liberty to remain away as to respond to the invitation. But, as said before, no one calls on another in his or her private apartment without being invited. Hence, no one is bored with visitors, suitors or sweethearts whose company is not agreeable, or at such times when he or she prefers to be alone.

“From the foregoing explanation you can readily see that we have fathers, but no husbands; mothers, but no wives. No woman gives herself away to a man for any definite length of time; and no man gives himself to any woman for a definite length of time. Consequently, we have no marriages for life, as you have. We believe that both sexes should be completely free of each other at all times. We believe that no one should have any claim on another, whether male or female, further than the mutual solicitation of the parties from time to time desire to elicit. We believe that a woman, in order to live the purest life, must be free; must enjoy the full privilege of soliciting the love of any man, or of none, if she so desires. She must be free and independent, socially, industrially and sexually.

“We believe that bearing and rearing offspring constitutes a large portion of the productive labor of a well-adjusted society, and that mothers who do that should receive the same compensation for it as is paid for any other labor. Savages put nearly all the productive labor off unto their women, and yet the men, as a rule, think that they are doing nearly all the work which is worth doing. So what you call civilized man for long ages, shifts the burden of bearing and nursing offspring off unto their women as though it were little or no labor. And, in order to accomplish his purpose more effectually, the man first throws the woman in a sphere of industrial and social dependence by his superior physical strength, and then makes a contract with her, which is binding for life, by marrying her, perhaps, when she is young and inexperienced. No amount of after-knowledge, according to your opinion, enables her to retract her former steps on this point.

“With us, a woman who is about to become a mother receives the same pay for bearing the offspring as an engineer receives for running an engine; and a mother who nurses her infant receives like pay for that work alone. If she desires to do more, she is at liberty; if not, it is well also; she is the judge. Besides this, we believe that it is the duty of every man, young and old, as well as of every woman who is not a mother, to give all the general assistance possible to mothers, in the labor of nursing children. This labor of nursing and tending children is looked upon as belonging to all of us. It has become pleasant, sportive exercise. And even if it were not so, a man who would be unwilling to do his fair share of it, would very likely not leave many descendants, for a woman, when once free, is not likely to co-operate with a shirk.

“A woman who is about to become a mother, as well as one who is a nursing mother, occupies a double or triple room. One of these two or three rooms may be occupied by a companion or nurse, man or woman, who administers to the wants of the occupant, both before and after she has become a mother; and when the child is old enough—which is at a very young age—it occupies one of the apartments itself.

“Now let me tell you about the child’s financial conditions. I told you that no one can buy without money; and from what has been said of our social and industrial system you can, no doubt, easily anticipate that we are not cruel and barbarous enough to let the mother alone defray the expense of her child from her individual earnings. We know that in order to propagate the human species and perpetuate our community, rearing offspring is one of our inevitable obligations as you call it, a service which our parents rendered to us, and which we in turn must render to our children. For these reasons and for the pleasure we receive from it, we are all willing and ready to render our share of such services, which we do partly by issuing money to the child.

“At any time before the child’s birth, at the discretion of the mother, she selects for her pre-natal child a new time-book, with its proper number and shelf division, in which she makes the proper entries for ‘100 days,’ which have the purchasing power of over a $1,000; a fac-simile of this entry is sent to the mint, the same as of labor-reports. The minter stamps the money and sends it to the going-to-be mother. This money we call child-money and is always green in color, differing in color from all labor-money. With this child-money the mother pays all the child’s expenses; doctors, nurses, clothing, etc. Whenever this ‘100 days’ draw is gone and more is needed, the mother makes another draw, and whatever is left is saved by the child for future emergencies. We make a practice of not letting the child handle green money for itself, but inducing it, as early as possible, to earn its own money, which it handles and spends just as it pleases. Under the head of education I will tell you more about the child and its money.

“Our mothers, unlike yours, do not make baby garments, if they do not find pleasure in it. Infants’ complete costumes, of all patterns, are ready-made by factories, put up in delicate little trunks. The mother, during her plentiful leisure time, long before the child is born, examines the contents of the little trunks in the store, selects the most suitable one, and also gets such additional articles put in as she may desire. All of us, men and women, are pleased to see a clean, neatly dressed child. We all delight in nursing and entertaining it. No mother buys too much for this purpose to suit the family.

“The foregoing is a brief explanation of the sex relation of man and woman on Mars. It clearly shows you that our women are perfectly free and independent, not only in word, as you try to make your women believe, but in actual practice. Our highest aim of both men and women, in all our undertakings, is to live a happy life, and we have learned long ago that we cannot live a happy life without living a pure life; for impurity is always attended with suffering.

“Our women enjoy every privilege that our men enjoy. They receive like compensation for labor; this makes them financially free. They choose their own occupation, and are eligible to all positions to which the merit of their fitness can bring them; this makes them free industrially. They at all times have the privilege of being a mother, or not. They enjoy the same rights in going to see their suitor as the man enjoys in going to see his sweetheart. They have the privilege of inviting into their private apartment any man or woman whomsoever and whensoever they please. They are not bound by marriage to any particular man for life. As mothers, they receive the very best of care and assistance. They are not compelled to defray more of the expense in the support of their children than their proportionate share as a member of a family. They receive the same compensation for being a mother as they would for working in the garden or kitchen or ‘Com.’ They can visit and travel wherever they please, and always select their own companions, whether at home or abroad. They are completely free in every sense of the word. Of course, our men are just as free and independent as our women; they are under no obligation further than what they choose to do. Hence we have no sex monopolization.”

“Mr. Midith, it may be that such social, industrial and sexual relations produce that high state of order and happiness on Mars; but I fear that it would produce nothing but chaos and misery on earth,” said Rev. Dudley, after having apparently listened with profound interest.

“Very likely the masses of mankind here would, no doubt, regard such a sexual arrangement a dangerous state of affairs,” continued Mr. Midith. “But when we take the testimony of history we find that such a fear manifested by the multitude is of little or no intrinsic worth. The masses of mankind, burdened with toil and buried in superstition, have always at first feared the better things that were proposed in the line of progress and freedom. This fear of danger from the masses, manifested toward a measure of advance, is not so much a sign that the proposed system is vicious, especially if the measure tends toward individual freedom, as it is a sign that those who fear, distrust, and oppose it are yet immature for it. Their chord of sympathy and respect for others does not yet vibrate in unison with that high ethical standard. They feel a real discord, but they locate that discord in the proposed system, while it really is located in their own immature hearts and minds. Just in proportion as their hearts and minds are raised to a higher, broader, and nobler standard, the fear of danger and impracticability disappears. A few illustrations will make this plain:

“When Mr. Garrison first raised his voice against the long fostered institution of chattel slavery in the United States, he was calumniated by nearly every man, woman and child within the boundaries of the nation; he was stigmatized a crank, a fool, a traitor to his country, an enemy to the Christian religion, a subverter of the highest and noblest civilization that ever flourished on the face of the earth. He was a traitor then. Now he is a hero. But his proposed system was as good and true when he first proposed it as it is now; but the people’s hearts and minds did not correspond to it then. They thought that the defect lay in Garrison’s system, but it was really secreted in themselves. A little additional intelligence and sympathy put their hearts and minds just in tune with the proposed system. Just so with our sex relations. We have had a little longer time to evolve, and therefore attained a little higher and purer aspirations than you have; and because you can but dimly or not at all see the altitude to which the Marsites have ascended, you, like the contemporaries of Garrison, at once declared our position dangerous and impracticable. But do not forget to search for the discord in your own heart instead of searching for it in our system.

“You all know that not long ago you imprisoned people who were unable to pay their debts, and the contemporaries of that age argued that people would not pay their debts without such a law; but this law has long since been repealed or is entirely ignored, and people pay their debts perhaps better now than they did when the law was in force. But now you say that you could not do business without laws for the collection of debts, but you see we, under a better system, have no use for such laws, because we have no debts to collect. We have changed the conditions. It is your old barbarous profit system that makes you think you require such laws. As soon as you adopt a just system of trade there can be no debts to collect.

“The Czar very likely thinks that a government like that of the United States is no government at all, because the people enjoy too much individual freedom, and he, no doubt, has often predicted that it must soon crumble to pieces on that account, and you and I believe that the Russian government is destined to crumble, because the people have too little individual freedom. You look at our sex relations as the Russians look at your government of the United States.

“Now just notice your illogical position. If physical force is a factor of goodness in a government, the government of the Czar is one of the best on earth, because it perhaps employs a maximum of physical force; and if physical force is a factor of badness in a government, then our Marsian government is the best, because it employs a minimum of physical force. No doubt, in your opinion both the Czar and the Marsites are wrong, the former for too much compulsion and the latter for too little. You are standing somewhere between these two points. You are standing at a point which exactly corresponds with your intellectual culture. Each person measures his position by his own ethical standard. But notwithstanding your constant protest against individual freedom, you are slowly drifting away from the Czar toward individualism, and whenever, in time, you stand in our footsteps, you will see that your present sex relations are as slavish, despotic and impure as you, at present, look upon the despotism and injustice of the Czar.”

CHAPTER XVIII.
COMPARISON OF OUR SEX RELATIONS WITH YOURS.

“I have so far told you,” continued Mr. Midith, “of our sex relations as they now actually exist on Mars. I have so far offered no comments on either our practice of individual freedom sexually, or on your marriage system. But to leave it without further investigation and comparison would be a very incomplete account. Let us closely and impartially investigate whether it is your or our system of sex relation which is most nearly in accord with the known laws of life, health and happiness. Let us see what defects and demerits we can find in either of them.

“It is a well-known fact that the exercise of the sexual function is an expenditure of vital energy; and, therefore, the person who has the sexual function so adjusted that he exercises it only for the special purpose of reproduction, is the most complete person sexually; while he who exercises it most excessively, or who is most passionately prompted to exercise it most excessively, either in a married state, as you have it here, or under individual freedom, is the most incomplete or licentious person sexually.

“You, no doubt, all agree that the higher inferior animals live a comparatively chaste life; while man, here on earth, lives a comparatively unchaste life. Why is this? There must be a cause for it, if you believe in universal causation, and as long as the cause exists the effect will naturally follow. To find and remove the cause, then, must be your whole aim in this field of purification and advancement. The Marsites have long ago removed the causes of unchastity and are therefore living a comparatively pure life. Let us see now whether we can find the causes producing the purity in the inferior animals and the impurity in your human beings, as they now live on earth.”

“Show us first, then, why it is that the inferior animal lives a pure life sexually,” said Viola. “I mean, give us your reason for it, Mr. Midith.”

“Very well,” continued Mr. Midith. “I have already said that the exercise of the sexual function is an expenditure of vital energy; that proposition you, no doubt, all admit. We have seen elsewhere, too, that as we descend in the scale of animal life, from man downward, they become more and more prolific.

“In the lower orders of life, millions must die in order to give room and opportunity for a few to live. The struggle for existence in the orders below man is so fierce that, with their present prolificness, only a few of the fittest can survive. Those individuals, who are most perfect at birth, and who direct their vital energy most economically in harmony with the so-called laws of life, survive; while the weakly born and the licentious ones must perish in the fierce struggle for existence. Hence, the phenomena of evolution forces the inferior animal to live a chaste life, or perish from the effect of expending unnecessary energy.”

“But why do not the phenomena of evolution, as you call them, also force man to live a virtuous life?” asked Rev. Dudley.

“That seems very plain to me,” replied Mr. Midith. “But, in the first place, let us keep in mind that in a state of perfect sexual freedom the human being, like the inferior animal, does live a comparatively chaste life, as I know the Marsites do. As evolution gradually develops the higher intellectual faculties of man, a keener sense of appreciating a faultless body and a highly cultivated mind is continually produced, so that he feels more and more reluctant to waste his animal forces in licentious acts which impair the physical and mental capacities after which he is seeking, and without which no one can be really happy.

“Now let us see why the human being, as he now exists on earth, does not live a pure, chaste life. Why he is so intemperate in many directions. Let us see if we can discover some of the causes that produce this evil and misery. I am well aware that your people, as a rule, do not like to be reminded of their faults. But, nevertheless, I believe we should always tell the whole truth, regardless of immediate likes and dislikes.

“The inferior animal lives by virtue of comparatively few and simple functions, while man lives by many and complex ones. The animal, then, is harder pressed for room and opportunity, and lives by virtue of fewer functions than man. If the brute animal violates one of its few functions, it must perish in the hard struggle for existence; while man, on the other hand, is enabled to live by his many complex functions in a milder struggle, even if he does violate to a certain degree the sexual function.

“Your present earthly human being, then, is on the one hand so complex that the partial violation of one of his many complex functions does not cause him to perish directly like the inferior animal, while on the other hand, his higher faculties of keenly appreciating the highest physical perfection and mental eminence are, as yet, not sufficiently developed to turn his steps only on the path of virtue and purity. You do not esteem life and health as highly as we do. But as intellectual development continues, you will gradually feel that every act that conduces to the fullness of life, individually and socially, produces happiness as a whole, and is therefore right; while every act that detracts from the fullness of life, individually and socially, produces unhappiness as a whole, and is therefore wrong.”

“You have shown to my satisfaction, Mr. Midith, why an inferior animal, according to the nature of things, is compelled to live a pure, chaste life; and that man can, if he so desires, live a comparatively unchaste one,” said Mr. Uwins. “I can plainly see the causes that produce the chastity in the inferior animals, but I cannot see the causes that produce the excessive sexual function in our human being. Why does our human being not derive more pleasure from leading a pure, chaste life, which is in accord with life and health, than he does from leading a licentious life?”

“Let us see, then, if we can point out the causes which make the earthly human being unchaste. We have seen that the inferior animal leads a chaste life, and I have also told you that the Marsites do the same. According to these facts, then, unchastity, the same as chattel slavery, is possible only during a particular stage of intellectual progress. Below this particular stage, the fierce struggle for room and opportunity permits only the most virtuous to survive; while above that particular stage, the pleasure derived from enjoying the most complete life possible becomes so agreeable that a violation of a physiological law is too painful.

“Now, in order to find the causes of unchastity, let us enumerate some of the differences existing between our and your system of sex relation.

“1. You marry for life; we do not. 2. Your church and state interfere with your sexual affairs; we leave it in the hands of the individual the same as in the case of the inferior animal. 3. Our women are not financially dependent on the man; yours, as a rule, are. 4. Our women have the privilege of soliciting the love of any man whose sexual co-operation they desire; yours have not. 5. In a state of sexual freedom, the woman regulates her own sexual affairs to suit herself; in a state of marriage, or, in other words, interference of church and state, the man or husband largely runs the sexual affairs to suit himself the same as he runs the financial and political affairs. 6. We invariably room alone, both men and women; under your marriage system your husband and wife invariably room and lodge together. 7. You make your women dependent creatures by not financially compensating maternal labor the same as mining, farming, etc.; we make her independent because we pay her the same compensation for maternal work as we do for any other labor. 8. You shift the burden of parental cares almost exclusively off unto the mother; while we act on the supposition that we have all received parental care during our infancy, and that we in turn should do the same for some one else, whether we are parents or not; to neglect this would make us shirks, for we would not be paying for what we received during our infancy. 9. We teach the laws of sexuality to our children of all ages; you try to hide all knowledge of it. Hence, we make intelligence the safeguard of sexual purity, while you make ignorance the safeguard of it.”

“As I have said before, Mr. Midith,” said Rev. Dudley, “your system of sex relations may do very well on Mars, but I think we ought to keep what we have as long as we have a good one, and that we undoubtedly have. I firmly believe that our sexual relations are better now than they have ever been before, or than they are in any other country in the world—here, or on any other planet or moon.”

“It may be true, Rev. Dudley, that your sexual, and even your social and industrial relations, are better now than they ever were before, but that may not be a sign that they need no further improvement. Best, as I have told you once before, has nearly always been a deceptive, unreliable criterion. Nothing is good enough unless it is faultless. You must remember that every age always had the best of everything, perhaps better than any preceding age. There was a certain people two thousand years ago that had the best system of sex relation, and the contemporaries of that age doubtless used the same argument against those who desired to improve it then as you are now using against me. You are undoubtedly proud of the progressive achievements of your ancestors, but you seem to fear the improvements of your contemporaries and of your posterity. But you need not fear progress of any kind. As I have told you some time ago, all wrong arises from ignorance. Hence, there can be but one line of advancement, and that line is by the way of acquiring more and more intelligence, which, on the one hand, tends to adjust and perfect voluntary co-operation on the highest possible scale, while, on the other hand, it tends to give more and more freedom to the individual. Any proposed improvement which does not bear these marks is not in the line of progress. If our sex relation is more nearly in harmony with these principles, it is better than yours; if yours is more so, yours is the better. We must continually strive to improve what we have. The microscope, the spectroscope, the engine, and human intelligence are more nearly perfect now than they ever were before, as far as you know; but we should all strive to improve them as much now as any of our ancestors did, to whom we owe the previous improvements. Only a faultless thing is good enough. Improvement should cease only when perfection makes further improvement impossible.

“It is like this, then, Rev. Dudley: As long as we can point out wrongs in any system, no matter whether the system is the best or the worst, it is not what it ought to be; and no honest, progressive person who has the welfare and happiness of his fellow-man at heart can remain silent or indifferent as long as this wrong or evil remains in sight.

“The way to test a system is to analyze it; to look at all its parts and relations; to endeavor to find all the faults we can; to compare it impartially with any system that may be offered in place of it. We should never try to cover up the defects by a few merits which it may contain. A truthful system contains not a single demerit. If it does it is faulty, and the faults should be eliminated.”

“Those words which you have spoken are all very true,” observed Rev. Dudley. “I fully agree with you that all wrongs should be righted, but I can see no wrongs in our marriage system; but, on the contrary, I believe that it is divinely instituted, that it is the most sacred boon that has ever brought joy and gladness to the human heart. I believe that conjugal affection has conduced more toward human happiness and contentment than any other one thing. I believe that the greatest earthly bliss is found in the union of man and wife, and that for life, too.”

“I think, Rev. Dudley, that you are perfectly honest and sincere in what you say. But you must not forget that honesty and sincerity are not necessarily signs of truth and justice, for which alone we should be seeking. I believe that Thomas de Torquemada, Inquisitor-General of Spain, was perfectly honest and sincere in killing the cream of European thought. The masters of chattel slaves, the soldier who fights for the preservation of a monarchy, the mother that drowns her babe in the Ganges, the widow that practices suttee, the social parasite that lives on profit, interest, rent and taxes, the savage that steals his wife, and the minister that frightens his congregation with an imaginary hell fire, are very likely all honest and sincere in doing those things that we, with a little more knowledge, would condemn. The question is not whether we are honest and sincere, but whether we are right and just. Is our view correct or is it erroneous? Have we thoroughly and impartially examined every side of our position, or have we, too, been educated and raised in an atmosphere of superstition, prejudice and jealousy, like the soldier, mother, widow, etc.?

“You say, Rev. Dudley, that you can find no faults and defects in your marriage system. That is nothing strange. You, no doubt, have been educated that way, and very likely you have blindly accepted the dogmas of your ancestors and masses of your contemporaries. Let us, then, fairly and impartially examine and compare your marriage system with our sex relation. I am fully aware that it is a tender topic for you to handle in your present age and thought; but in doing so we should endeavor to lay aside as much as we can of our superstition, prejudice and jealousy. We should boldly and untimidly seek to find the truth wherever it may lead. Truth is always worth following, and without we find the truth on the sex relations we can not hope to live clean lives.”

“I should be very much pleased, Mr. Midith,” said Rev. Dudley, “to have you examine and compare our system of marriage with your individual sex relation. You are, no doubt, better capable of fairly judging our institutions than we are, because, as you said, you have not been biased by education and training.”

“Very well,” said Mr. Midith.

“In the first place, have you ever thought from what source you received that great ‘boon’—your institution of marriage—which you say is ‘divinely instituted?’ Let us examine from whence you received it. According to the doctrine of evolution, the only theory of the genesis of man, which is supported by science, man slowly, through the lapse of countless ages, evolved from lower organisms by the agency of the survival of the fittest, etc. This implies, then, that all our ancestors were at one time savages.

“We all know that the savage in the lowest stages of barbarism, even as he now exists, steals and forcibly takes his wife or wives from other tribes, etc. He also often forces captives to become his wives. Somewhat later in the stage of social development, the man generally buys his wives without their consultation. At a still later period the old folks, instead of the young folks who are to be married, make the bargain. And still later on, the period in which you are now living, young boys and girls give each other away for life; at an age, too, you must remember, when they are young, inexperienced and blinded by first love, as you term it. No amount of after-knowledge on the sexual relations is of any value to the contracting parties as far as the contract is concerned, for, according to your doctrine, the parties are indissolubly bound together for life as man and wife. According to your marriage system, they are supposed to live together for life, whether they love each other or not. Whether they afterward quarrel or love some one else better cannot be taken into account. Nothing less than the cruelest abuse enables them to secure a divorce, and even then the divorced parties are looked upon with scorn and contempt.

“You would, no doubt, think it cruel, Rev. Dudley, if some one should steal you, like a savage steals his wife, and compel you to live with a woman with whom you did not want to live or whom you did not love. But there is very little difference, when we examine the matter closely, whether a woman is stolen and compelled, from the start, to live with a man, or whether she voluntarily marries him, thinking that she loves him, but afterward finds that she does not love him, that she was mistaken like all mankind are at times likely to be.

“You compel a husband and wife by law, superstition and public opinion, to live together, whether they really love each other, or whether they simply stay together to gratify their passions. Your church and state interfere with the marriage as well as with the dissolution of it. You can clearly see, then, that your system of marriage is based upon force, which, it is true, has gradually diminished from the lowest stages of barbarism, when the husband stole his wife, to the present time, when the contracting parties give each other away for life under a contract which they are not at liberty to make or dissolve without the interference of church and state.

“With us no men and women are together who do not really love each other. Those who do not love each other sexually are no sexual companions; and those who once did love each other, but have ceased loving, forsake each other’s company to the extent that it becomes agreeable to them. They are much freer, at any time, to seek other company than you are to make your first choice, which must continue for life. Why should two persons be compelled to live together when they do not desire to? When they fight, quarrel, and dislike each other? Why should not parting be as free and honorable as coming together? Why should a man and wife eke out a miserable existence, simply because they for once selected the wrong person to live with?”

“But every one, in making this choice for life, should be very cautious. They should know each other well before they entered into this life-contract. Too many marriages are entered into carelessly. The parties do not understand each other well enough,” said Rev. Dudley.

“We fully agree to what you have said,” observed Mr. Midith. “You say that great caution should be exercised by the contracting parties. But can we always be so cautious as never to make a mistake? I think that in all our undertakings we are liable to make mistakes; and would you recommend that one mistake should condemn us to a life of misery forever after? You say that the contracting parties should know each other well before they entered into a marriage contract. We agree perfectly with you there. We believe that it requires more than a whole lifetime for a man and a woman to know each other well enough to enter into a contract which is to be binding for life; therefore, you see, we exercise the greatest caution, because we study each other during our whole lifetime, and then claim that our knowledge of one another is too limited to give ourselves away even for a single day. The evil of the earthites lies in the fact that your ill-adjusted social and economic institutions require binding promises; and a promise, according to your common acceptation of the term, is a binding declaration made by one person to another to do, or not to do, a certain act at some future time. According to this definition, there can be no place for a binding promise in a harmonious, progressive world. Promises and harmonious progress are incompatible, unless all the parties are, at all times, as free to break them as they were to make them; and this admission eliminates the binding element, and, therefore, destroys the popular meaning of a promise.

“The evil consequences of binding promises can be easily seen when we bear in mind that, in a progressive world, we know more to-morrow than we know to-day. Also, that harmony implies absence of external coercion; for, all external coercion being social discord, a promise that appears just and feels agreeable when measured with to-day’s knowledge, may appear unjust and become disagreeable when measured with the standard of to-morrow’s knowledge; and in so far as the fulfillment of a promise becomes disagreeable or impossible, no matter what the promise may be, it is an element of discord, and discord is the opposite of harmony. Hence, before you can hope to enjoy uninterrupted harmony, your institutions must be so molded that there is no place in them for a binding promise. In regard to the sexual relations, nothing but mutual inclination should be made the bonds of union. If you have closely followed my narrative, you will have discovered long before this time, that, on Mars, we have no binding promises. In our just systems, we can not apply them any place, and we know of them only as relics of past crudity.”

“But do you not think, Mr. Midith, that licentiousness would run riot here on earth, with your system of sex relation, even if it proves to be ever so good and pure on Mars?” asked Rev. Dudley.

“I do not claim that our system of sex relation would operate perfectly here on earth, or perhaps on any other world,” observed Mr. Midith. “What I claim is not that it would produce perfect results, but that it would produce, with highly intelligent people, much better results than your system of matrimony. That the human family can and would live a cleaner and happier life under our system of sex relation, guarded by intelligence and on individual freedom, than under your system of marriage, largely guarded by ignorance, force, superstition and jealousy.

“The masses of the contemporaries of an institution rarely ever see the wrongs, cruelties and evils which that institution contains; they are blinded by their so-called loyalty and patriotism. We might give a few illustrations:

“The master once believed that no wrong could be done to a slave; that the slave had no rights which the master was bound to respect. The inquisitor believed that no wrong could be done to a heretic. The warrior thought the same of his captive. The witch-finder thought that no amount of torture he inflicted on the supposed witch was wrong or cruel. Just so do the vast majority—yes, nearly all of your men and women—believe that there can be no sexual abuse within your bonds of matrimony. But you are as wrong in that as your ancestors were to the chattel slave, heretic, captive, and supposed witch. Is it not a fact that nearly every family home under your marriage system is a more or less legalized house of sexual impurity (house of prostitution as you term it) upheld by church and state? Is it not true that the sexual function, under your system of matrimony, is, as a whole, exercised vastly in excess—perhaps from ten to a hundred times? Very likely this truth seems painful to you at this age of your earth, but it is a truth, nevertheless, which you are bound to face some time, if you do not desire to keep forever the pallor of disease on the sunken cheeks, pale lips, and feeble frame of nearly all your mothers, especially you American mothers. We must bear in mind that a chaste life, whether in marriage or out of it, is one in which the sexual functions of the male and of the female are mutually exercised only in accordance with the most vigorous health and highest well-being of the parties as they are then constituted. Sexual activity, then, whether married or not, is licentious and dissolute, just in proportion as it is excessive.

“Those acts which detract from the fullness of life are wrong, because they cannot, as a whole, be productive of the greatest happiness, and therefore an excessive exercise of any function implies a waste, which, as a whole, is productive of pain and is therefore wrong. The church or state can no more change or suspend the laws of life, waste, and reproduction, by a marriage ceremony, than the acquired abnormal passions of an individual can change or suspend them.

“An organism, whether man or beast, is sexually perfect only whenever its sexual instinct is so organized and developed that the agreeable exercise of this function does not detract from the fullness of life and happiness, on the one hand, and is sufficiently active for the normal propagation of the species on the other. The sexual organization of the Marsites is, of course, not entirely perfect, but yours is about as vicious and faulty as it can well be.

“When the sexual function, like that of your human family, has once become greatly in excess from the evil effects of a vicious, social and sexual relation, no system, however perfect, can at once remove this excess. It was gradually acquired by a vicious arrangement, and must also be gradually eliminated by the institution of a more perfect arrangement.

“As we placed motherhood more and more under the exclusive control of the woman, our sexual association became continually purer and more normal. All who are familiar with the anatomy, physiology, and hygiene of the organs of procreation know that the female organs of procreation have periods of alternate activity and rest (menses, gestation, lactation, age, desirability of motherhood, etc.), and the woman is the only party who is conscious of these periods; and for these and other reasons which I have already stated, sexual abuse, if it once exists, can be diminished and finally disappear, only by making the female completely free and independent from the male as we find them among the inferior animals and among the Marsites.

“To be sexually perfect, then, does not only mean that the sexual function should be normally exercised, but that even the sexual desire should not prompt an excessive use; for a person who must labor to curb a desire is not so complete as one who has the desire so adjusted that it operates only in conformity with the fullest life, and therefore, as a whole, to the greatest happiness.”

CHAPTER XIX.
COMPARISON OF OUR SEX RELATION WITH YOURS.
[Continued.]

“In your force or marriage system your ancestors, as we have seen, took their wives by stealing or forcibly taking them perhaps from other tribes. From that primitive time to this, the force part in matrimony has of course gradually diminished. The woman was allowed more and more privileges and freedom from that time to this. But during all this time, when physical force and man-made laws were used, the man got the woman so completely under his control by his superior physical power and by placing her in an atmosphere of masculine dependence, that she has largely and often unconsciously become his industrial, social and sexual slave. He hems her in by almost insuperable difficulties on all sides, and then uses her as his slave and sexual tool under the sanctity of his particularly established system of matrimony.

“Your man, in the sexual world, closely resembles your landlord in the industrial world. The landlord fences the laborer off from the vacant land so that the laborer can not apply his labor to land, from which all wealth must come, and then makes a contract with the laborer to the laborer’s great disadvantage. So your man, in order to get sexual dominion, first creates an industrial and social world, in which a free, independent woman can scarcely make a living, no matter how hard and long she toils. He makes the money pass through his hands and makes all the other laws to suit his purpose. Your men deprive your women of nearly everything that the man considers sacred.

“In the social world, your man appoints himself suitor, and compels his sweetheart to remain at home, waiting for his appearance, for his courtship. If she goes forth to solicit the love of her choice, he buries her with contempt, so that none of his masculine companions will choose her thereafter for a life partner. By this he dooms her to his contemptible financial and industrial world, where she has to earn her own living under great disadvantages. In the sexual world, your man is still more cruel and aggressive. Instead of letting the woman regulate the sexual affairs to suit herself, like all other chaste creatures do, the man seems to be the lord and manager there too. We want to keep in mind that with the higher inferior animal, which enjoys comparatively perfect sexual freedom, and which lives a comparatively chaste life, the female regulates all sexual relations.

“But this is not all by any means. Do you not think that under your marriage system there are many mothers now that would not be mothers if women were not dependent on man industrially? Do you not think that women, as well as men, would be much freer and happier, if women enjoyed social equality and freedom? Do you not think that your wives give birth to many children that would not be born in a state of sexual freedom, if women were not the dupes of men and of the marriage superstition, in which the man appoints himself manager and his wedded wife obeyer? Do you not think that thousands upon thousands of married men and women live or stay together that do not really love each other, that would not stay together an hour in a world like ours, where one is as capable of supporting himself or herself as another? Do you not think that the artificial constraint of marriage tends to produce an abnormal sexual passion? Do you not think that a large number of women are driven to houses of sin and shame by your marriage system? Some that are ‘unfortunately’ married, and others that wanted to marry, but could not marry to suit themselves? Do you not think that your bonds of matrimony creates an unsatisfied novelty for sex relations that can be properly adjusted only by a wider range of individual freedom? Do you not think that a married woman, under your social and industrial system, is a slave to husband and family, no matter how good and kind they may treat her as a wife or a mother?

“Do you not think that bearing and nursing offspring is productive labor? Should not mothers receive equal pay for administering maternal cares to dependent children as a laborer receives for his physical labor? But are your men doing that? Are they not putting off more than half of all the physical productive labor onto the women, and then incidentally, and often superstitiously, burdening them with bearing and nursing unwelcome offspring? Do you not think that the thoughts, the temperament and the state of happiness and contentment of the mother are transmitted to the child long before it is born? How can the babe be otherwise than the parental natures out of which it is built? Do you think that a frowny, irritated, poverty-stricken, overburdened, careworn, slavish mother can give birth to a child having directly opposite traits and temperament? Do you not think that your marriage system produces untidy, slovenly and careless men and women, while, on the contrary, our system is just the opposite? Notice how much more slovenly and untidy your married men and women are, as a rule, than those who are not married. We are beaux and sweethearts as long as we live. A rude, careless, untidy, cruel person is not appreciated in our society. He is not likely to leave many offspring. The survival of the fittest with us is in full bloom; with you, in the human family, it is comparatively dead; because, if they are once married, they are bound to stay together, whether they are tidy or filthy and slovenly. Do you not think that your marriage system has caused the abnormal sexual function in your human being as we now find him on earth? Do you not take the management of the sex relations out of the hands of the women, where it properly belongs, and place it practically under the control of the man?”

“It is true, no doubt, that a husband and wife often ignore the rule of sexual purity, according to your standard of it,” said Rev. Dudley; “but I do not see why men and women should be more excessive sexually in a wedded state than in a state of sexual freedom. Why cannot purity be practiced in matrimony?”

“There are many reasons why there can be no sexual purity, as a whole, in your wedlock.

“The vast majority of the wedded people, as near as I can ascertain, believe that there can be no sexual excesses between a married husband and wife. They seem to believe that as soon as an officer or priest has mumbled a few words over the contracting parties, the law of sexual purity can thereafter not be broken.

“In your marriage system, too, you have everything perverted and twisted out of the natural order. Let us look at a few of these perversions. We find, as I have told you, that the females of the inferior animals, as well as the highly developed Marsites, regulate their own sexual affairs; that the female solicits the sexual co-operation of the male whenever she desires procreative assistance. The male, as a rule, does not meddle with sexual affairs, only when the female solicits his love, and he keeps on loving until the female rejects further love, when he will cease, or is forced to cease by an independent, self-reliant female. We see here, then, that the male has not the faculty of properly adjusting and regulating the sexual function to such a high degree as the female, but that he receives the guidance from the female. This holds good in the orders of the inferior animals and with the Marsites.

“In your marriage system things are just the reverse. You instituted, as I believe, your system of marriage by compulsion. You first captured, then bought, etc., your wife or wives. Under these conditions, you took the sexual control away from your women and vested it in the man. But, as we have seen, the man does not possess an excellent faculty for properly regulating and adjusting the sexual relation. He was deficient here in what he undertook to do. He forcibly made himself a guide in a field of labor where, by his very organization, he naturally required guidance himself.

“So the man, by forcibly assuming control of the sexual relations, has not only caused an abnormal sexual function in himself, but by his excesses has caused an excess in the woman also; so that if the woman could be free at once and assume control of the sexual affairs, she could, with her present excess, not begin immediately to live a perfectly chaste life, but would require some time of freedom and independence to make a harmonious and normal sexual adjustment, which can never be brought about in a state of wedlock, in which a woman is socially and industrially dependent on the man. Thus, we see, that the excessive passions have been transmitted and accumulated from generation to generation, and therefore require some time for their elimination.

“Your promiscuous retirement is another cause of your sexual excess. Each individual should have his or her separate apartment and nightly retire alone.

“You will notice a vast difference between our mothers and yours. Our mothers have no particular cares. They need not gather eggs to buy a baby’s frock with. They need not ask a husband for a nickel or a dollar. They have no jealous husband to watch them and to dictate to them. They have nothing to frown about. They have all the money they want without asking for it, and earn more every day. They receive as much pay per day as the strongest man or the greatest genius. They can write to, or converse with, any man, woman, or child. No one can be jealous, for they belong to no one but themselves. They have not given themselves away and ‘promised to obey.’ They can go out walking or riding with whom they please or with whom they can get. They are at liberty to invite any one, be invited by any one, or go and see any one they please, if they can make a mutual agreement. The mothers, or those who are about to be mothers, can visit in any family, community, or nation where the family usher finds room for them, and still receive the same daily pay as a man or woman who works at home. Besides all this, she receives, in her maternal work, all the assistance possible. In a word, she is perfectly free and independent, economically, socially and sexually.

“Just think if one of our girls or mothers were compelled to live a while in your cruel, poor, superstitious and jealous world! Would they not think that they were in a worse than an orthodox hell? Burdened down with the labor and care and robbed of personal freedom! Do you not think that they would make every effort to return to their native world of wealth, of true love, and of unbounded freedom?

“Of course, our ancient history shows, that our world passed through similar cruel, poor, and slavish stages as your world is in now, and it is almost positive that the evolution of a higher state of intelligence will wipe out of existence all your present poverty, superstition, jealousy, and slavery, and put in place of it a social and industrial system that will produce, by voluntary co-operation, an unlimited amount of wealth; and, at the same time, provides a boundless degree of individual freedom to every man, woman and child, for, with a certain amount of intelligence, always goes a certain stage of social and industrial development.”

“I must admit, Mr. Midith, that your system of sexual freedom would be a grand one if our men and women were ripe for it,” said Rev. Dudley; “but I fear that we do not possess sufficient culture to make a success of it yet. I fear that we are, as you said, too cruel, jealous, and too superstitious. But there is one question I would like to ask, and that is, how do you, in a state of sexual freedom, prevent premature maternity? Must a woman be of a certain age before she is allowed to become a mother?”

“In the first place, we have no such a word as must in our social and sexual system,” replied Mr. Midith. “If premature motherhood is objectionable, it should be discouraged and discontinued for the evil and wrong it produces. If it does not bring evil consequences on any one, it can not be said to be premature. We believe, however, that it may be premature in a certain geologic age, and that it does entail evil consequences. Under these conditions it arrests physical and mental development. But, in time, under sexual freedom, the procreative function will be so accurately adjusted that it will act only in accord with the most vigorous life, and then there can be no more a desire for premature maternity. We instruct our children on these points of premature motherhood as clearly as we can, beginning at the age of childhood. We esteem physical and mental perfection above all other things. Anything that impairs them is strenuously avoided. Public opinion, the strongest social force, is also against it.”

CHAPTER XX.
SEX RELATION.
[Concluded.]

“Now,” said Mr. Midith, “may I ask you how you prevent, or try to prevent premature maternity? Do you prevent it by statute law? Public opinion and the evil consequences attending premature maternity are all the forces that you employ to prevent it. You have no penal laws that punishes premature maternity, and if you had they would be powerless. Our system of sex relation has all the advantage over yours on this point then.

“We teach our children all the sex relation we can, so that they may learn the evil of its abuse. You seem to hide all sexual knowledge from them. We endeavor to make the evil consequences a deterrent; you endeavor to make ignorance the safeguard of their virtue. The knowledge of a burn, and not the ignorance of it, deters a person from putting his hand against a hot stove. We act on the assumption that a clear knowledge of sexual abuse will likewise prevent that also. This is one great point in our favor then. We trust in knowledge; you, in ignorance.

“But allow me to tell you that there are many more bad features in your marriage system, besides those which I have already mentioned, not only between the male and female, but between the parent and child also. From historical knowledge and from the conduct of your present savage, you know that petty tribes are very antagonistic and usually at war with each other; that an individual of such a tribe, who is confined to his limited tribal territory, has little, if any, lofty humanitarian feelings for his fellowmen outside of his own tribe. Your small families have much the same effect on an adult, and even more so on children. The child is thrown in social contact only with a few brothers and sisters, if it has any, and with a few of its very nearest neighbors. This state of things gives a feeble opportunity for the development of broad and deep social feelings, and a lack of these feelings produces these petty antagonisms, strifes, negligence and jealousies, of which there still exists so much on earth. A large family, wide and close association and co-operation, aided by splendid intercommunication, as we have them on Mars, unfold these higher and nobler faculties of man, but especially of the child. Thus the pettiness, engendered by man on earth, is, no doubt, largely due to your jealous marriage system and your small families; these have, in my opinion, also been the cause of your parental narrowness and jealousy; for, as a rule, a parent here, from what I can see, finds as yet little pleasure in helping to nurse and care for your helpless children, unless they happen to be their parents.

“With natural and highly developed parental functions, a father loves a child more as a child; a mother loves it more as my child. Thus a father, under freedom, finds more pleasure in and is best fitted for providing for the general wants of children; while the mother, furnishing the nourishment for the infant, is best fitted to provide the particular wants of her child. Under these conditions all children, in all places, find fathers and mothers; and the pleasurable feelings, resulting from the administration of parental cares, is, in the case of man, the same as in the case of other organisms, ultimately the only incentive which prompts a parent to act toward the offspring.

“Other evils are, many of your girls have to work out for little or nothing, we may say. Their labor is often very toilsome and disagreeable. The days are long. The landlady, and often the landlord too, are abusive, cruel, and sometimes lustful. The social relations with the family is often like a slave. The girl is often not permitted to spend her few leisure minutes in the family parlor. She is, so to speak, a social outcast. She belongs to a different caste. There is a boss who looks upon her as an inferior creature wherever she goes. Under such a cruel, disagreeable, social and industrial system, it is no wonder that many of your ladies marry very young and become mothers prematurely. It is very natural that an inexperienced girl, placed in such deplorable conditions, will accept, in marriage, most any man that comes along and at most any age, too. To be sure, the conditions, in an average, are not better but even worse, when married than when single; but the youth, in his love and under his social and industrial burden, does not see that. One who is burdened and in slavery will try most any scheme but the right one, to throw it off and be free.

“Again, look what a slave your traveling woman is. Perhaps she has a baby or two and other necessaries to carry and care for, but a gentleman is hardly safe to offer his services, because one can not tell but what a jealous husband may come around the corner, who will begin a suit against a person for alienating the affections of his wife, or he may draw a revolver on you for being intimate, as he calls it, with his wife and child. And the jealousy of your women is just the same.

“Any man or woman, with us, may freely assist any woman, whether traveling or not. Any one may carry her babe or parcel, if the lady is satisfied. No particular man owns her, and therefore she is as free to accept services from one man as from another.

“Notice how distant and unsociable your men and women are when traveling, especially in railroad cars. Rarely do they speak to each other. Instead of having a good, sociable time, they generally all sit like mummies. The lady seems to fear the wrath of a jealous husband or beau, and the gentleman of a jealous wife or sweetheart. Your travelers act much like as if the Creator had decreed that sexual sociability were an unpardonable offense and that it is dangerous and impure for a strange lady and gentleman to converse together. They seem to assume that all men are ravishers and all women are grown-up babies; and the actual facts of your marriage system has, no doubt, to a great extent established and confirmed this fear, which becomes very plain, I think, when we remember that your primitive ancestors, perhaps, first instituted your system of marriage by capturing their wife or wives.

“When the Marsites travel or walk or are at strange houses they are just as sociable and talkative to strangers as to acquaintances. A gentleman converses with a strange lady the same as he does with an acquaintance, or as he would with another gentleman. We have no formality outside of the individual. But we always make it a point to act as pleasantly and sociably as if we had been living together for years. Any two or more men or women, who may wish, may sit together in the cars, may converse together, may assist each other, may go to entertainments together, may walk or ride together, or may invite each other. This is all left to suit the taste of the individual. He is the supreme authority.

“Let us look at your married ladies when at a social gathering; we will say at a common dance. The wife is very likely a mother, and has perhaps an infant babe to care for. According to your present social habits, the married man who is in the habit of taking his wife to a dance is not unlikely to indulge in intoxicating liquor. He takes his wife and child in one apartment, while he not infrequently goes to another, where he perhaps indulges in smoking and drinking. It often happens that he becomes more or less intoxicated, and sometimes even gets very drunk. His wife during all this time is perhaps sitting in the same place, on an old bench or chair, taking care of the baby. No man hardly dares to converse with her, or ask her to take the baby a while, so that she may dance if she wishes or otherwise amuse herself by going about; for her husband, whom she has promised to obey, might at any time come with a glass of wine for his wife, to which he sometimes treats her, as he calls it. In this manner he ‘taffies’ her a little. He often seemingly tries to make it appear that he is generous and charitable; for, as a rule, you esteem generosity and charity far greater virtues than you esteem justice. It seems to me that you are trying to raise your women on crumbs of charity, instead of having them grow vigorous on justice. Charity, as a whole, is an evil, for it tends to make a person more dependent; justice makes one more self-reliant. Probably the husband, who brings his wife a glass of wine under the pretense of generosity, spends more than half of her money to buy his tobacco, cigars and whisky with. All the woman wants is freedom and equal opportunity with the man. She should be free and should receive all the ‘money’ she actually earns and handle it herself. That is justice and nothing more. That is what justly belongs to her, and if she does not get it she is unjustly robbed of it.

“Just think, the husband with his glass of wine often feels himself insulted if he finds some man talking to his wife, and if he would find some other man nursing the baby and still another man dancing with his wife he often goes into a rage. He does not keep his wife’s company nor does he want other men to do it. If things do not just suit him, he puts on his jealous pout, which sometimes lasts for a whole week and sometimes even much longer.

“The wife is nearly always just as much of a jealous pout as the husband and often much more so; but the woman is nearly always more of a slave, because she is more confined with little children. Your matrimony very often produces cold husbands, and no other man, even if he would like to assist in caring for her child, is, as a rule, allowed to do so. These are largely the conditions of your man and wife in your marriage system. It is generally slavery all around. Of course, I am well aware that some married men and women enjoy quite a degree of individual freedom, but they are rather the exceptions than the rule.

“Again, let us suppose that two married couple would go on a pleasure trip. They are riding on the cars. The husband and wife have perhaps been together for years; they have told each other all the news they know of. They have nothing new to talk about. But if any friend would sit in the seat with my wife, and I would sit with his wife, we would all have something new to talk about and pass the time pleasantly. But, as a rule, men and women on earth are too jealous for that. Hence it is that we often find a man and a woman sitting together in the same seat in a car or elsewhere, the husband looking one direction and the wife the opposite direction, not speaking to each other for hours at a time. If you are an observer, you can see this in nearly every car in which you may happen to be riding.”

“Does not the population of the human race, under sexual freedom increase more rapidly than it does under our system of marriage?” asked Viola, who seemed to have mentally stored away every word of Mr. Midith’s narrative concerning their sexual relations.

“No; it is just the opposite, as Mr. Herbert Spencer in his biology has so forcibly foreshadowed when he says: ‘The excess of fertility has itself rendered the process of civilization inevitable; and the process of civilization must inevitably diminish fertility and at last destroy its excess.’ As a whole, the higher and the more complex the being, the fewer the offspring. You see this is one point, but there are others besides this one.

“Under your marriage system, in which the man largely runs the sexual affairs, a wife often is the mother of from six to twelve children, and not infrequently a number of them are unwelcome and would not have been born if the mother had been free and independent in all directions.

“Our women, who are all perfectly free and independent in every sense of the word, have now, in an average, between two and three children. A Marsite lady is seldom a mother of more than three children. In this manner a high state of civilization, mental culture and sexual freedom have at last established an almost complete equilibrium between births and deaths. Our population is now nearly stationary. A family or community, in an average, increases or decreases very little, if any, in population. Every child that is born has an abode ready to receive it when born. It receives parental care, and it in turn gives parental care when older, whether it be a parent or not. It, thereby, simply pays during the age of youth and manhood for what it received during its infancy. And every day that it labors it is paying for its abode.

“I have here endeavored to give you a brief and truthful explanation and comparison of our sexual freedom and of your matrimony. I have pointed out, as I see them, a few demerits and disadvantages of your marriage for life, but I can see countless other faults too numerous, in this brief narrative, even to mention. It is already growing late, and I shall make only a few further suggestions without any explanations, which I hope you will give some thought and consideration when you are at leisure on some future occasion.

“Have you ever considered what causes your intense blind jealousy, and how shallow and silly it is? Have you ever considered how many of your husbands and wives poison or otherwise kill each other? Have you ever considered what is the principal cause of your coarse, vulgar language that can be heard most any place? Have you ever attempted to find the cause for having so many ‘bad-tempered’ children that are continually growing up and become your so-called mean men and women? You are all well aware what an immense amount of trashy fiction, lustful love stories are annually read, especially by your ladies; think for a moment, if you can not find the cause for this. Do you not think that sexual constraint, which causes an unsatisfied sexual novelty, gives vent to sensual novel-reading? Have you ever considered how many men and women live together as husband and wife, who scarcely ever speak a kind, friendly word to each other? Have you ever considered what a bad effect this has on the children who are reared under such domestic influences? Have you ever endeavored to discover what causes the diseased condition and feeble constitution of nearly all your children at birth, or even during their pre-natal life? Have you ever considered what causes the unsatisfied sexual novelty in both your men and women? Have you ever considered how little care and attention a married mother, who is crowded with other domestic burdens, can bestow on her infant babe? Have you ever contemplated what a bad social effect the idea of each parent caring for his own offspring only has on society? Have you ever considered how little conditions can be suited for the rearing of children in a society in which each married couple live together in a little house either in a crowded city or in a lonely country? Have you ever thought how much lying, deceit and underhand work is practiced between many a husband and wife because of their marital constraint? Have you ever thought how many men and women are married for life who are entirely unsuited in temperament and in disposition? Did you ever think how much pouting and ill-feeling, how many quarrels and fights there are in married life all over your world. I suppose you have noticed the continual increase of your divorces. Have you noticed that divorces are most numerous in those vocations in which women are most independent financially, such as actresses, etc.? Do you know what that means? Have you ever thought how much ill-feeling your sectarianism and partyism causes between husband and wife? Have you ever thought how repugnant, burdensome, and fatal to life and health it is for a woman to live a sexually intemperate life? Your statistics show that your fallen women live their life of sin, in an average, less than three years, so disagreeable is a life of sexual intemperance to a woman; yet in wedlock, the man largely runs the sexual affairs to suit his own perverted taste. Have you ever thought how often a man or a woman when married have to do something that is disagreeable to the one or to the other? One wants to go to church, the other does not; one wants to go to a neighbor, the other does not; one wants the child baptized, the other does not, etc. Have you ever thought how much room and opportunity there is for aggressiveness when two are indissolubly bound together for life? Have you ever thought that your women have no public places to go to? Your men, who handle the money, build saloons, club-rooms, etc., for themselves, but they rarely ever invest a nickel in a public building for the women and children. The church seems to be the only public place your women can go to, and when they are there they have to be silent, so that they can not exchange ideas with one another there. Have you ever thought why you have so many more ladies in your churches than you have men? Do you think this would be the case if women were free and independent like our ladies are? I presume you have all noticed that your ladies have a great desire for personal ornaments, for unique decorations, for expensive, gaudy costumes, for elaborate hair dressing, face powder, etc., and for a continuous change of fashion. These characteristics are apparently much more strongly developed in your women than in your men. In the lower animals, the male is almost invariable the gaudiest, the most decorative. Why do you think there is an apparent exception in your human race? Remember, not in ours. In our world, the human family is no more an exception to this rule like it once was and like your human being is at present. Your exception to this rule, I think, is easily accounted for. Let us see if we can find the cause.

“According to your courting and marriage custom, your suitor goes to see his sweetheart whenever he wishes and wherever he wishes; but your sweetheart is not permitted to seek her choice by going to see him. She can only attract her suitors principally by her personal appearance, by her attire when she goes to church, to the theater, on the street or when she looks out of the window and is gazed upon by the passer-by, etc. She is not free to go and display her winsome characteristics before the man she may love most, like the man does before the woman he loves most. Hence she is at a great disadvantage in showing her intrinsic worth, so she has to rely mainly on outward appearance, and this outward appearance is often very deceptive, very shallow, so that your men, who dictate to your women, are often caught in their own traps. Your men, either consciously or unconsciously, enslave your women by robbing them of their freedom; and by this act of robbery the man indirectly enslaves himself. If your women, like ours, were free in every sense of the word—free financially, socially, industrially and sexually they would rely on the natural attractiveness of a healthy, handsome face and body, on a graceful form and intrinsic worth; instead of relying, as they now do, on gaudy outward attire, twisted hair, small, uncomfortable shoes, tightly laced corsets, and a long, trailing dress. All this display of unnatural costumes and continuous change of fashion requires an immense amount of labor, which has to be performed by the man as well as by the woman. In this manner, by uncomfortable costumes, by sexual intemperance and by the burdens of labor resulting from them, your men, as well as your women, enslave themselves.

“You must not infer from what I have said that the Marsites do not appreciate fine clothes; on the contrary, we are always richly dressed, but comfort and cleanliness have great precedence over anything else. Under the head of education, I will tell you more about our clothing and our manner of dress.

“I am well aware that many of your people will believe that what I have told you is a dangerous doctrine, that it is not in accord with an orderly society and is detrimental to progress; but this false belief of the masses is nothing new or nothing strange, as I have hinted at before. In the first place, I have given you just what we already have on Mars, an older planet than the earth is; and, in the second place, the masses of mankind have always at first mistrusted and condemned every measure of progress. A few illustrations will make this plain.

“During the last few centuries thousands of political enthusiasts have been murdered, legally and otherwise, for proposing and advocating the principles of a republican government, something like the present one of the United States. The masses of the people a few centuries ago believed that such a government would produce nothing but social and civil chaos; but the masses of your contemporaries believe that it is just the government, and will do all they can to suppress all who are now proposing a better one—one that will furnish more individual freedom and equality, one that will mete out justice instead of charity.

“Your so-called freedom of speech and freedom of the press was severely condemned by every government on earth only a few years ago. But to-day you would fight for its preservation.

“Only a few years ago the masses of the Christian world believed that the so-called separation of church and state would produce irreparable social and spiritual degeneration, but on trial you find it much better and more humane than the old practice of intolerance.

“Less than fifty years ago the vast majority of the people of the United States believed that the United States could not prosper without the institution of chattel slavery; but upon trial you found that it is more prosperous now than it ever was before; that both the master and the slave were benefited by abolishing it. So in all other cases wherever we or you have granted a wider scope of individual freedom and equality, we have at last found what we have been seeking for. So you will, in the near future, find it to be with the sex relation. It is one of the slaveries which must be abolished before social harmony can reign. No non-invasive person can be truly happy without being absolutely free. The individual must be the ultimate judge of his own acts, likes and dislikes, and the testimony of history confirms the fact that the more freedom the individual has been allowed or has asked for, the better has been his conduct. The more he has been constrained, the fiercer he has been. All aggressiveness must be banished from the human mind before there can be complete social, industrial and sexual harmony. Vice perishes under freedom and true virtue can not flourish under slavery.”

“Those are all grand principles,” said Mr. Uwins as Mr. Midith had finished. “They are perfectly clear to me now. I see through them from beginning to end, and I have seen them more or less clearly for years, but I have never been able to propose and outline a remedy for them; but your social and industrial system does completely away with all our present evils that I can see. You enjoy complete financial, social, industrial, and sexual freedom. Of course the masses of our people are not yet ripe for living such high and noble and pure lives. But I think that we have to-day more than ten thousand of our foremost cultivated and thoughtful men and women in the United States, that are able to live nearly such high lives as your Marsites do, and we are all slowly tending that way. Jealousy and aggressiveness gradually grow weaker and weaker, and we gradually learn more and more that we can be truly happy only by living in accord with the phenomena of the universe.”

CHAPTER XXI.
EDUCATION.

When Viola and Midith returned from the post office on their bicycles the following evening, Mr. Midith’s countenance seemed to be unusually bright and happy. After putting up their bicycles, they walked into the parlor where the other members of the family and a number of visitors, curious to see Mr. Midith, were assembled.

After the formal introduction Mr. Midith said:

“I have received some very favorable correspondence from a number of scientists at San Francisco, who seem to favor an extensive search for my lost projectile which lodged in the Pacific ocean at my arrival here on earth. I have already had some dredging done without success, but my income is not sufficient to get much of that kind of work done. To dredge in a deep ocean requires skill and tools. The men at San Francisco who put the project of dredging on foot will notify me of their financial success.

“If we shall succeed in finding my lost projectile, I shall be able to show you many curious relics of Mars, which I took along to show to the mundane inhabitants and compare them with what you have here. I took along quite a large collection of things that would be curiosities to you. I recollect putting in a little printed book, a knife, a watch, a little pocket microscope, a tiny phonograph, a pen and pencil, a very powerful little telescope, a photograph of a big-house, a bird’s-eye view of our neighborhood, a lady’s and a gentleman’s suit of clothes, some Marsian fruit, grain, nuts, flowers and many other things that will be of interest to you.

“If our search for my projectile proves successful, I can perhaps get sufficient mechanical assistance to return to my native home or establish communication between the earth and Mars. I think the projectile is not much out of repair. It worked splendidly until it entered the dense atmosphere near the earth’s surface. I wish that I would be able, in the future, to show you some of the social and industrial grandeur and harmony of my native world. I shall make every healthful effort that lies within my reach to return to my native home, and establish intercommunication between the earth and Mars. But if I do not succeed in that, I must be content with my lot on earth; perhaps I may be of some use to the earthly inhabitants, so that my journey may be of some value in that direction.

“All we can do is to wait for further development. The Marsites have learned ages ago that we can not transcend the phenomena of nature. The burdens which our highest intelligence and our best healthful efforts can not throw off must be borne. I am sure that I appreciate your kind hospitality as much as this world can furnish at this age. Your kindness and the smiling faces with which I have been surrounded while I have been with you shall always be prominent in my mind, whether I shall have to end my days on earth, or, whether I shall be able, in the future, to return to my native world.”

“I wish you nothing bad, Mr. Midith, but unless you are able to take all of us with you to Mars, I hope that you will not be able to return,” said Viola with a mischievous smile. “By your brilliant narrative of Mars, you have made our earth appear so cruel, rude and superstitious, and then you are going to leave us. No, we will never stand it!”

“I am sure the prospect of my returning is not any too bright yet,” responded Mr. Midith.

“Now, Mr. Midith, you have told us nothing about your schools. It seems to me that in order to produce such perfect men, women and children, you must have a faultless system of education,” observed Mrs. Uwins. “All your other institutions seem so much superior to ours, and your school system must certainly be more so than any other, for education, in its widest sense, constitutes the only difference between the savage and the cultivated person.”

“We have no school system, neither public nor parochial, as you have, nor do we have a school-house, as you know a school-house. We believe that a school system like yours is unjust and despotic to those who are compelled to support it by compulsory taxation; and we further believe that it is very cruel and harmful to the pupils to compel them to attend any institution that they do not wish to. We believe that a system of education like yours does little or no good, but causes an immense amount of evil, which we will consider further on.

“Our children, like our adults, are perfectly free, are not compelled to do anything they do not wish to do. We do not try to compel them to be good, nor to work, nor to attend school against their wishes. We think that any act which is so repugnant to human nature, under right conditions, that exhortation and the reward of its agreeable consequences cannot induce a man or a woman or a child to perform that act without the application of physical force, is not worth doing; it must be unnatural.

“The only object of education is to discover truth, so that we may be able to live in accord with the facts of the universe, the only possible condition under which we can enjoy the greatest happiness; for every violation of a natural function is a violation of a natural law, and every violation of a natural law is attended with suffering; therefore we should be educated. To enjoy the greatest happiness and to avoid all misery should be the end and aim of all education. And that system of education which accomplishes this end most completely is the best system. Therefore, one who possesses information which enables him to live most completely in harmony with the laws of nature is in the true sense most highly educated.

“We believe that in the widest sense and in the only true sense, the whole world should be the school-house, mankind the pupils, our environment the teacher, the entire life of man the school age, and the phenomenal universe the curriculum.

“With these few preliminary remarks, I think I shall be able to give you a clear idea of our schools and our methods of teaching.

“The child’s education with us begins long anterior to its pre-natal existence. The parents’ smiles, virtues and temper reappear in the child after its birth. After birth the child’s direct education begins; but during the period of lactation it is both direct and indirect. The first nursery and school of the child, then, is the internal mother’s bosom, then the mother’s arms, then the house nurseries, then the outdoor nurseries, and then in the whole community and in the whole world. In this manner its sphere of action is constantly enlarged. It continually acquires more independence, and hence a stronger self-reliance. During all its life it is surrounded by adults and by children of various ages, who teach it by pleasant precepts and examples.

“Our children are taught as early as possible and nearly altogether by the examples of the youths and adults, how to treat their fellowmen; how to be kind; how to give equal rights to all; how to respect the opinions of others; how to lay aside all jealousy and prejudice; how to welcome peace and harmony, and how to avoid discord; how to extinguish all feeling of aggressiveness; how to control their temper; how to keep themselves clean and pure; how to develop their organs by healthful exercise; how to be honest and truthful; how to preserve their health; how to exercise in the open air and sunshine; how to eat and drink properly; how to be orderly and form regular habits; how to dress in accordance with comfort and health; how to honor productive labor and how to make it agreeable; how to despise idleness, and how to value life and health above all other things necessary for the acquisition of the greatest happiness.

“The rudiments of all these facts are taught by the older members of the family and are learned by the child when quite young. In these pleasant schools or play-houses, the teachers and children talk and play, laugh and sing, eat and drink, observe and investigate, promote happiness and avoid pain. One moment the child is in the house, the next moment it is perhaps in the yard, then in the nurseries, from there in the parks, then in the motor-car, then in the garden, field, and orchard; then in the parlors, then in its mother’s private apartment, then in its own private apartment, etc. Everywhere it finds a number of willing and competent teachers. Teachers, too, who do not govern with the rod, but by arousing an agreeable desire for inquiry. All of us, young and old, are always teachers and pupils at the same time. The older ones are studying the nature of infancy and childhood, and daily add to their store of knowledge by observation and experience. The younger ones are kindly advised and then left to follow the conduct of the more mature companions. Knowledge is held in such high esteem with us that we endeavor to acquire all we can at any age, and we also find great pleasure in agreeably imparting our knowledge to others and especially to the young. Our principal aim in education is always to educate ourselves; to practice a course of conduct that we wish our children to imitate. Our children will be all right without any trouble, if we are only all right. The adults make the young what they are. Let us not forget this important fact, this fundamental principle.

“As the Marsites need work only a few hours a day for the acquisition of our material subsistence, we can devote a great deal of our leisure time for mental culture. The child, after its infancy, moves voluntarily about from place to place. It finds advice and practical instruction in the house, on the walks, in the parks, garden, greenhouse, orchard and field. After it grows older it takes lessons in the workshop, in the factory, on the railroad, in the mine, or wherever else it may direct its course. All the adults are its parents, so to speak, its teachers, advisers and protectors when young; but all teach that freedom, independence and self-reliance should be attained as early as possible.”

“When do you begin to teach the alphabet?” asked Rev. Dudley.

“At the age of about three years. (Remember that a Marsian year counts for no more in the age of a child than an earthly year does with you.) We begin to teach the elementary sounds, the forms and the names of the letters of the alphabet by attractive games of object lessons. We have a perfect alphabet, because it contains as many, and no more, letters as we have elementary sounds. We can spell every word correctly when it is pronounced to us, for we have neither silent letters nor substitutes. During all these exercises the child is simply playing, and quits whenever it likes.

“The walls of the nursery near the floor are composed of slate. On these the children first begin to make marks and figures, sometimes before they can stand alone. Children are nearly always very fond of drawing when left to themselves, and practice it a great deal. Large slates for printing, writing, ciphering and drawing are also put up in different parts of the parks and along the walks. By these means our children, by playful practice, learn to print and write at an early age. We always keep plenty of such things as children can use before them, letting them use those things whenever they feel like it, but never compelling a child to use a thing or do an act it finds no pleasure in doing. We endeavor to create the pleasurable desire, and then let the child follow its inclination. All sound-minded children possess a faculty of inquiry which they love to exercise if conditions are right and natural, and if things are presented in a pleasant manner. As long as we cannot do things naturally and present them in an attractive way, the fault lies with the teachers, and not in the child.

“The next thing we teach the child is, how to labor. We believe that labor can become pleasurable only if the habit of laboring is acquired while we are young. One who spends the first half of his life without manual labor must forever, more or less, remain a slave to it in after years. Therefore, as soon as the child is old enough, generally beginning at the age of two and three, it is taught to wash, bathe, dress and undress itself; to keep its hat, mittens and shoes in their respective places; to change clothes and put away its own soiled garments; to brush and put away its own clothes which are not in use, and to be careful and tidy with those that are in use. A parent should never do any work for the child that the child can easily do for itself. After the child grows a little older, we encourage it to do all such easy work in keeping its own apartment clean and tidy as it can easily do. Our aim is to create a pleasurable desire for manual labor in the child while it is young; to inculcate a desire for early self-support, self-reliance, and independence; to develop a keen appreciation for order and regularity. Thus, you see, our children are taught at an early age to do all their work in their own private apartment. This strongly develops the faculties of order, promptness, taste and regularity, which they take with them into life; both public and private. This, we believe, produces the strongest, healthiest and most complete persons physically and mentally. Therefore it is the most useful and practical lesson the child can learn. This lesson, if well learned, rewards every person, during his natural life, with an immense amount of happiness.

“Now we will turn to the financial incentive to labor. I have already remarked that a child, as soon as born, receives a book number and is thereby represented in the commercial department of the family and community. Before birth, as I have already stated elsewhere, the child receives from the community a quantity of green money, with which the mother, father or nurse pays all the child’s bills. At the age of about five or six our children are generally able to write quite well. At this age they also begin to do little, easy chores—such as picking strawberries, currants, weeding small patches of vegetables in the garden and greenhouse, etc.; also performing little jobs of work in the house and elsewhere. All this easy work which children can do is so divided off and paid for by the piece, quart, etc., that a child can do it and receive the same pay for it as a grown person would. This encourages the children to work, because they are paid for it as soon as the money is issued. Children, the same as adults, always like to receive and own money which they can handle to suit themselves. It also encourages them to write, because, under the supervision of the mother, parent, the commercial librarian, or some one else, they keep a record of labor performed in their time-book. It further encourages them to labor, because, at the end of each month, they receive additional money for labor performed. Of course, the money children receive for labor performed is not of a green color, like that which was given them at birth. Children always feel proud of the idea that they are big, that they can support themselves, and that they need not live on green money any longer. To handle a pocket-book and money seems a big thing for a child, and money can be obtained only by productive labor; if the child wants money for itself it has to earn it, for we, as individuals, all make a practice of not giving any money to children, because it tends to make beggars, idlers and dependent beings of them. All we do is to give them plenty of fine opportunity and then let them earn all they want.”

“Do you let young children spend the money they earn just as they wish?” asked Viola.

“Certainly we do,” replied Mr. Midith. “We give them our best advice, our best financial conduct, and then let them do as they see fit. You must not forget that the appetites, and hence the conduct of your children, as a whole, are vastly different from the appetites and conduct of our children. Very likely your children, if they all at once had plenty of money, would at first spend large sums for nicknacks, and many of them get sick from overeating, because their nicknack-appetite has not been properly adjusted. Our children have no particular appetite for nicknacks; they have all they want during their whole life. Further, the conditions for spending money are altogether different with us. They can not buy intoxicating liquor, because we, like thousands of your most thoughtful men, have learned that we are better off without intoxicating liquor as a beverage, and hence have no appetite for it, and do not manufacture it. They can not spend their money in sinful houses, because when money is so plentiful and so easily obtained, nobody will sell the use of her person for dissolute purposes. They can not lose it in option deals, because we have no board of trade, nor speculators of any kind. They do not wish to use it to buy houses and land with, because they have all of them they want, etc.”

“But do you not admonish your children to save their money—to lay up some for old age?” asked Rev. Dudley.

“No, we admonish no one to save money. Our aim is not to grow rich on frugality, but on abundance of production. You esteem frugality as a high virtue, which may perhaps be all right under your perverted financial, social and industrial system. Our aim is to open up natural opportunity and make production by voluntary co-operation and mechanical appliances so abundant that frugality is unnecessary. Under these conditions, we can produce all the material wealth we want in a few hours of labor a day. The American Indian, with his primitive habits, can not grow rich by frugality and his very limited production; but, by a change of habits and by abundant production, he may be able to produce, with an agreeable amount of productive labor, more material wealth than he can judiciously consume. So with the Marsites.

“The principal differences of which we have thus far spoken between our and your system of education are:

“We give the child, in the acquisition of information, complete freedom; you compel it to do certain things which you as adults believe to be right, but which, as a rule, are perhaps nine times out of ten wrong. We believe that the home, field and active society is the best school; you largely cut the child off from these natural means and confine it to the narrow school-house, or prison, we think, where it is not allowed to talk and exercise—the very things you desire it to learn. We endeavor to create a desire for inquiry by pleasant and attractive incentives only; you generally resort to compulsion. Hence, we believe that a child should study only when, where and what it likes; you believe that it must study such a time and such branches, and at such a place, whether it finds pleasure in doing so or not. We believe that a teacher or parent, who must compel a child or pupil to study, does not know how to teach; you believe that the child’s dislike for study is grounded in the perversity of its nature. We teach and inculcate that manual labor is honorable; that one who lives from the labor of others is a social and industrial parasite; that a child should be enticed to establish the habit of manual labor while young. You believe that manual labor is disrespectful, that a washerwoman, as such, is not as good as a senator’s wife, that one who lives from the labor of others by means of profit, interest, rent, and taxes is a good, clever person. You largely teach inequality; we teach complete equality of man, woman and child.

“On the money question our system of education has a great advantage over yours. Our child receives all it earns at the close of each month; your child works for the parent. It receives nothing for a number of years but board, clothing and sometimes a little pocket money. Some of your parents give their children some property when the children become ‘of age;’ some parents give their property to their children, perhaps, because they can not take the property with them when they die; some parents have nothing to give when the child becomes of age nor when the parents die. In a child, in which the ideas of time and space are yet very imperfectly developed, a remote reward is a very feeble incentive to labor. A child or a savage will do a great deal for a penny, if paid immediately, but they will do very little for ten dollars, if they are to be paid five years hence, or even a year hence.

“You say, how can you make your children work if you do not force them; but the secret, you see, all lies in the system. Our system encourages a child to work, while yours encourages it to be idle. We have a short day, easy work and big cash pay; you have a long day, toilsome work, and small pay on ten to forty years’ time.

“You can easily see that we are all teachers and all pupils at the same time. We study our whole lifetime and graduate only at death. We teach each other when we labor and when we play, in the house and in the field. The teachers, as well as the pupils, perform their manual labor daily; for we believe: 1. That a knowledge of manual labor is the most important education we can receive. 2. That a short, easy day’s manual labor like ours, especially if performed in the open air, is healthful, and promotes the development of body and mind; such labor is the most invigorating food that can be taken. 3. That we have more leisure time for teaching and imparting useful knowledge to our children and to each other than we want, besides the short time we daily devote to manual labor. 4. That labor must be made so easy, attractive and agreeable that we do it for the pleasure that is in it; and 5. That no one should be forced to study or learn what he finds no pleasure in. Your school-houses and your methods of teaching are altogether unnatural, ours are natural; that is the reason you are obliged to use force everywhere. Your children are all right, but your school is nearly all wrong. Your school-houses and your methods of teaching are an infraction of the laws of life and health; that is why your children so often rebel against them. That is the reason why so many of your pupils are tardy, absent, sullen and puny. The child’s instinctive knowledge of life and health, when it remonstrates against your school and your methods of teaching, is a better guide than the perverted reasons of your teachers and parents.”

CHAPTER XXII.
EDUCATION—THE DIFFERENT BRANCHES.

“How, then, do you teach the different branches, Mr. Midith, as the pupils grow older?” asked Mr. Uwins.

“I have already explained how we learn our letter, how we learn to print, draw and write.

“Language.—We learn good language, because we hear it continually spoken by our companions, who, in a system like ours, are all well educated and good linguists. We learn to speak by speaking. In a large family like ours, language is very good, and improves rapidly, because there are always sure to be some good linguists who are unconsciously and spontaneously teaching language and grammar to all the rest. Under such conditions you can easily see that we hear scarcely any bad language. We speak fluently and grammatically without particularly studying technical grammar and rhetoric, which, of course, are nothing but the language used by the best speakers and writers of the age in which they live. That is the way we study and learn language, grammar and rhetoric; with a higher development they grow continually more simple. The conditions under our system brings about these favorable and natural opportunities.

“Here, again, we have a vast advantage over you and your system. So many of you are compelled, by want and the fear of want, to work so hard and so long daily, that parents and children are obliged to expend nearly all their vitality to secure the material necessaries of life. Your families are small and many of them are living all alone in the country. The language of parents, under such conditions, must necessarily be very poor and their vocabulary very limited. Children can learn very little good language from such parents. They hear much more bad grammar at home than they get good grammar from the book and school-house, in which it is indeed generally poor enough, too. It is not an easy matter for one to lay aside, in later years, the ‘barnyard’ expressions which he has learned in his childhood and youth. A person that never hears anything but good language, can not use poor language, for language must be learned.”

“But we have many wealthy people who have all the time they want for the study of language, how about them?” asked Mrs. Uwins.

“Those few of your wealthier classes, who hear better language and grammar at home, and who have plenty of time to devote for its acquisition, come in contact with so much bad language that they pick up about as much bad as good language. In this manner there is an immense amount of time and labor wasted here in the study of technical grammar and rhetoric, which would be unnecessary under a properly organized social condition.”

“How do you teach writing, Mr. Midith?” asked Roland.

“I have mentioned elsewhere how we learn to make our letters, and how we keep our record in our time-book when we are yet very young. Our next incentive for writing is our large daily newspaper, issued by every community, as I have explained in my previous narrative. At a very early age children are encouraged to write articles for the paper. All of us, young and old (except infants), are contributors to this paper; and all subjects of human inquiry are discussed. We enjoy complete freedom of speech and freedom of the press. We allow no censor over them. The children have a certain department of the paper allotted to them; and the older people are much interested in the children’s contributions, discussions and explanations. There is a wide, friendly, open field for emulation in these newspaper columns. These newspaper contributions are a great incentive for children, as well as adults, to learn to write well, to express their thoughts concisely, elegantly, forcibly and clearly. The editor makes such slight corrections as he finds in the children’s manuscripts, which are returned to the children, so that they can compare the printed column with the original manuscript. In this easy, practical way, our children learn writing, orthography, language, grammar, rhetoric, style and invention.

“Our next incentive to induce children to write is brought about by our free and convenient system of motor travel. This travel creates a large and wide acquaintance among children as well as among older persons. This extensive acquaintance naturally brings about a great deal of correspondence.

“Many of us are stenographers, and nearly all have a typewriter and a phonograph, which are so improved and simplified now on Mars that you would scarcely know them.

“You see in this way we have many incentives which will induce children and adults of all ages to become proficient in handwriting, typewriting and in composition.

“Mathematics.—In the first place, let us not overlook the fact that our financial, social and industrial organizations have vastly simplified our mathematics. In weights and measures we have adopted something like your metric system. In commercial transactions we have no profit and loss; no stocks and bonds; no premiums and discounts; no commission and brokerage; no stock investments; no insurance, taxes and revenues; no interest, partial payments, true discount, bank discount, exchange, equation of payments; no annual or compound interest; no annuities; no partnership. This does away with nearly all the difficult parts of arithmetic on which your children have to spend years of unproductive and destructive labor.

“Our children learn to count as soon as they can talk. Every one with whom they come in contact is their teacher. Figures and numbers are taught as soon as the child begins to learn its letters. Children also teach one another how to read and write figures and numbers, and how to cipher. During favorable weather the slates in the nurseries and parks are nearly always in use.

“When they grow up to be a little older, they find delight in studying mathematics during part of their leisure time. All the higher mathematics—algebra, geometry, trigonometry, calculus, and various other measurements—are well understood by nearly all our men and women. You must not forget, that on account of the Marsites’ intellectual advancement they can learn mathematics with much less labor than they could formerly, or than you can now.

“We have a mathematical department in each family. This department is in charge of one person, the ablest mathematician, who holds his position by virtue of his superior ability or mathematical genius. He is acknowledged teacher by all, simply because he is able to solve difficult problems better than any other member of the family. This teacher is in his department or school-room certain hours of the day, and all who need assistance can go there and get it. We believe, however, that no one should ask for assistance unless it is absolutely necessary. Every one, we think, should solve his own problems, if possible. It makes one original and independent, the most valuable and important characteristic with which a person can be endowed. It often happens that not a pupil is seen in the mathematical department for days at a time. All work their own problems.”

“But, supposing, Mr. Midith, that there would be a young man or a young woman, who would gradually become more proficient than the teacher, what would happen then?” asked Rev. Dudley. “Would the new rival drive the old teacher out?”

At this remark, Mr. Midith smiled and said: “The old teacher would be too glad to resign his position to his rival as soon as the teacher found that he could not assist his rival any more. Even with you, where professors are elected by politicians and where positions are obtained with difficulty, a professor of mathematics would not attempt to hold his position, if he found that he could not teach his students any longer.

“Physiology.—The study of physiology, we make very simple, pleasant and practical. We teach the location, structure and function of the organs of the human body, both of the male and of the female. How a particle of soil in our garden becomes a human tissue by being first assimilated into a vegetable, grain or fruit; how we eat and digest the vegetable, etc.; how the nutritious part of the food is thrown into the circulation of the blood; and how it is then carried and built up into an organ where it is needed, as an eye, a nail, a heart, a bone, or a brain.

“We teach that life is the first thing we receive, the most precious fortune we own, and the last prize we can lose. Life, then, is the standard by which all our acts should be measured. Every act that conduces to the fullness of it is relatively right; and every act that detracts from the fullness of it is relatively wrong. All other things must be subservient to life and health, because without life and health we can not enjoy the greatest happiness, the end of all. To care for our body, then, is the first and most important undertaking. To have this well done by a highly complex being, we must have a thorough knowledge of anatomy and physiology, a knowledge of the laws of life and health and the laws of reproduction. Our aim in physiological education should be to put all our wishes, all our wants, all our desires, and all our passions in tune with the laws of our highest being.

“Eating.—We teach our children by example what to eat and drink and how to eat and drink. We ourselves put into practice what we wish our children to do and what we believe to be most healthful in the way of eating and drinking.

“For instance, the unperverted taste of the inferior animal when it has a sufficient supply and choice of food is an almost unerring guide in making the proper selection of the kind of food it requires. If we should eat poison instead of bread, the selection would be so fatal to life that we would soon die. If we should select such food that cannot be digested and assimilated, even if it is not poisonous, we would soon have to starve. That kind of food, then, which sustains life best, as compared with the efforts required for its production, should be selected.

“We are vegetarians, living exclusively on vegetables, grains and fruits, with the exception of dairy products and eggs. When I first arrived on earth it seemed perhaps as repugnant to me to see people eating steak as it would seem to you to see a cannibal eating human flesh. We shrink from a carcass the same as we shrink from a corpse.”

“But, Mr. Midith, do you believe that man could get along here without a meat diet?” asked Mrs. Uwins. “Do you believe that vegetables, etc., are sufficiently nourishing to sustain the burdens of hard labor imposed upon us here?”

“I am sure I know nothing to the contrary, Mrs. Uwins,” replied Mr. Midith. “Your horse works hard, your cow gives milk, your sheep grows wool, and they all live and grow strong on a vegetable diet. Why should not man do the same? The dentition (teeth) of man, too, according to the testimony of some of your most reliable scientific authorities, is vegetarian. It may be shown that a vegetable diet gives great endurance and strength in man. For example, your bark-gatherers of South America, who carry upon their backs, in a rough country, a burden of over two hundred pounds for a distance of thirty miles or more per day, live exclusively on bananas. The Roman soldiers endured the hardest work on a vegetable diet. The hardworking Spaniards live on black bread, onions and melons. The Chinese live almost exclusively on rice, and can endure much harder work than a negro fed on fat meat.

“There is one other important reason why we are vegetarians. In our opinion, a flesh diet is degenerating, as well as unwholesome. May it not be possible that a human body, built up on the flesh and blood of a carnivorous brute, cannot be expected to contain within itself genuine purity, love and kindness toward others?

“We have also discontinued the use of all intoxicating liquor as a beverage. Experience, not ‘prohibition,’ gradually convinced us that it not only tears down, but never builds up. That the apparent elevated feeling is always followed by a corresponding depression. That an immense amount of unproductive labor has to be expended annually in producing it. That its use caused an untold amount of misery; and that the apparent pleasure of its use is only a slavish desire—an abnormal, physiological derangement—a diseased condition of the system which is continually moving in the direction of delirium tremens in which it will end, if the use is sufficiently excessive and prolonged.

“In your present stage of intellectual development, the evils resulting from the use of intoxicating liquor as a beverage are very apparent. Liquor is an incentive to crime because it stupefies the better feelings. It fills your prisons with criminals, who have been urged on to their dark deeds when under its influence. It deprives countless homes of their joy and brightness. It makes a slave of millions of women and children, who are ruled by a lion of terror. It makes slaves of the drinkers themselves. It wrecks constitutions and furnishes victims for countless premature graves. It squanders wealth, kills useful industry, suppresses kindness, invades purity and stifles thought. It causes filth, jealousy, idleness, poverty and pauperism. The evil effects of its use react on the drinker and reflect on his companions. By the presence of a drunkard, the street and society are turned into a saloon and the home is converted into a dungeon. The drinker’s breath even pollutes the very atmosphere his companions are compelled to breathe.

“We have also long ago discontinued the use of tobacco. We found, as our medical science advanced, that it had a bad, physiological effect on the user’s system. Besides this, we found that it produced many social evils. To chew and snuff, say nothing about smoking, is very filthy. I here sometimes see a man spit tobacco juice on the floor, and sometimes, when the wind is high, he even misses the floor and hits his companion. Very frequently one meets a person here who uses the theater, parlor, postoffice, railroad car and sidewalk as a spittoon. Sometimes his lips, whiskers and mustache are all loaded and fringed with tobacco juice. These loathsome sights are never practiced, nor voluntarily endured by highly cultured individuals.

“Your smoking is also a habit that greatly prevents an orderly social adjustment; for if a smoker, on account of his companions, is prevented from smoking, the smoker himself becomes a slave to his desire. If he smokes in the presence of his companions, he very likely makes slaves of his companions by polluting, with tobacco smoke, the air which his companions are compelled to breathe. And if the smoker and non-smoker do not associate, that tends to divide society into classes, which produces pernicious social effects. All these abnormal habits are unhealthy, wasteful and dangerous on account of fire, etc., filthy, causes offensive breath, and are generally disgusting to others; for these and other reasons we have long discontinued them. I am quite certain that our ladies, who are free and independent, would not tolerate men who indulged in such filthy, offensive habits as the use of stimulants and narcotics produce. Our ancestors, generations ago, came to the conclusion that a healthy body and mind that cannot do its part without being animated by a stimulant or stupefied by a narcotic, is better off in the grave than out of it.

“Thus we gradually select, by long observation and experience, that kind of food and drink which we believe to be most wholesome and nourishing, and which infringe least upon the rights of others; for no one can enjoy the greatest happiness who is surrounded by companions who are miserable. Such are a few of the practical lessons that we teach by example concerning what to eat and drink.

“How to eat.—In eating, we notice that the instinctive desire of the lower animals prompts them always to eat the most desirable food first. This, then, must be the most healthful method of eating; if it were not, nature, by the survival of the fittest, would have forced the animals to reverse their habits of eating, the same as she forces them to live chaste lives.

“We endeavor to establish a healthy, trustworthy appetite in our children by always keeping an abundance of all kinds of our eatable food before them, by giving them complete freedom in the choice of their food and in the time of eating, always letting them eat the most desirable food first. Under these conditions variety, abundance and freedom admirably adjust the appetite in harmony with life and health. There is another point which we should consider well. Excessive labor, to which the vast majority of your people here on earth are doomed for life, implies an excessive digestion and assimilation; for the excessive waste of the body, caused by the excessive physical labor, must be repaired by an excessive quantity of food. By this the function of all the internal organs becomes excessive on account of the excessive physical labor. This is one reason why so many of your people are afflicted with burdensome ailments; why so many have brokendown constitutions, and why so many die premature deaths. Nearly all of your people seem to be old when they are yet young.”

“You say you allow your children complete freedom in the choice of their food, always permitting them to eat the most desirable food first,” said Rev. Dudley. “Do you think a child would ever eat potatoes, if it could get all the pie and cake it wants?”

“Yes, I am sure it would eat something besides pie and cake,” replied Mr. Midith. “You are here laboring under one fundamental mistake, Rev. Dudley. Judging from your words, you are no doubt under the impression that a person naturally prefers one kind of food to some other kind; but that is an error. It is true that some people like one kind of food and some another. You will find some people who think that a horse naturally likes oats better than hay; but this is not true. Let us illustrate:

“A horse, say in a pasture, that is at liberty to go to a load of oats and to a load of hay at any time, beginning as a colt, eats hay with as much relish as oats, and never eats too much of either. It will never eat all the oats and leave all the hay; but a horse that has had hay only for a long time, or that has been kept away from feed too long, will, as a rule, seem to prefer oats, and will also very likely eat to excess when left free. Perhaps the effects of overeating may at first not be apparent; but nevertheless they may be there, and if repeated frequently, will soon become apparent.

“Just so with a person. One who dines at a table that contains all he desires in variety, in quantity and in quality, has no particular preference for any one kind of food, and he will seldom, if ever, eat to excess. His appetite has not been perverted by want nor by arbitrary constraint. Hence our dietetical lessons are the simplest possible. Provide plenty of everything and allow the eater complete freedom and choice, beginning with infancy.

“Now, the conditions here on earth are much different. Let us contemplate them for a few moments. In the first place, a large majority of your families, under your vicious economic system, can afford few of your so-called dainties on their tables. The consequence is that the children, and adults, too, are hankering after eatables which are too costly for them to buy regularly; so that, when they do occasionally buy them, their appetite is so perverted by long abstinence that it is no reliable guide, and overeating is almost invariably the result. Your Christmas and other noted dinners have such an evil effect, too.

“When we notice a child eating that is compelled to eat and drink the lesser desirable food first—for instance, ‘potatoes,’ instead of ‘pie’—its manner of eating is entirely different from what it would be if it had always had an abundance of all kinds of food it wanted, and if it were left free to make its own choice in regard to what it would eat first and what last. You will generally notice that when a parent tells a child, which you frequently see here, that it must eat those potatoes or that bread before it will get the so-called delicious dessert, pie, cookies, etc., it will cram its mouth so full of potato, in order to get them out of the way, that it almost chokes. It hurries the bulkier food down at an unusually rapid rate, so that it may begin at its choice food. This manner of eating prevents a thorough mastication. The food is also swallowed before it is well mixed with saliva. Under this constraint, all the functions of the child are unnatural and imperfect. Your fashion forces your adults to the same unnatural course of eating as the parent forces the child. Hence so many dyspeptics.

“Now let us notice the difference in the course of the child’s action when it is left free to make its own choice what to eat first. This freedom of the child will produce an entirely different course of eating. You will notice, in the first place, that under abundance and freedom the child will show no particular preference for any one kind of food; and, secondly, it will, like the inferior animals, invariably eat the most desirable food first. Your child, when free, would perhaps begin with pie, because pie with you, as a rule, is not as plentiful as potatoes and bread are. In this state of freedom it takes plenty of time for chewing and mixing the food with saliva, because it sees nothing before it which it likes better and which it wants to get after finishing the pie. Perhaps it plays half the time with its knife and fork, enjoying freedom and the pleasure of eating. After it has finished pie, etc., it begins at potatoes, etc. All this time it eats leisurely, instead of gluttonously, as before. In this natural order of selecting food we gain one other important—perhaps the most important—point, which is, that the child is always coming to something that it likes somewhat less well, which will cause it to stop eating just when it has enough.

“There are quite a number of other practices and habits in the manner of eating and drinking here on earth which the Marsites would consider pernicious.

“So many of you eat too fast. Your vicious system of business often allows you scarcely time to eat a meal decently. Instead of masticating the food long enough to moisten it thoroughly with saliva, which is absolutely essential to good digestion, it is often rinsed down with tea and coffee, which is not infrequently taken with every other mouthful of food. This frequent rinsing, or drinking when eating, is very injurious to good digestion. Drinks, such as tea and coffee, appear to me to have a tendency to originate and establish this habit of frequent drinking during the meal. Experience seems to prove that fresh water is the healthiest drink that can be taken, and very few of us use anything else for drinking.

“Delightful feelings during meal times are conducive to good digestion. We, therefore, particularly cultivate delightful conversation during meal times, and make everything appear as happy and enticing as possible. A person is generally cranky when he is hungry and weary. Our tables are always tastily and abundantly laid. Clean linen, finished dishes, flavored food, exquisitely arranged table bouquets, easy chairs and clean, courteous waiters are found in our dining-rooms. We keep an abundance of food, which is prepared by expert cooks; but we do not believe, like you do, in wasting about as much, if not more, of good food than is eaten, which, I believe, is often the case in your ‘first-class hotels’ and in your ‘upper’ society.

“From the foregoing explanation you can clearly see that all the social and industrial features are so intimately connected with and dependent upon one another that a person can not even follow a healthful course of eating and drinking under a viciously arranged social and industrial organization. Without an abundant supply of all kinds of food, we continually hanker for the scarce varieties, and when we occasionally obtain a supply of them, our appetite has been perverted by long abstinence, and overeating is invariably the result. Our economic system produces abundance of varieties of food; you have a scarcity of many articles. A good social system puts no constraint on the child nor on the adult as to the manner of eating, so that the appetite will always be a safe guide. Our day’s labor is so short and our restaurant eating conveniences so perfect that we eat whenever our system calls for it. Your work between meals is so hard and so long that you generally become unduly fatigued, which impairs digestion. Again, we have always plenty of leisure time for eating, while many of you have almost to run and eat. Once more: At table, in our large, comfortable dining-hall, or in our elegantly furnished restaurant, we are always surrounded by mirthful company, both ladies and gentlemen, who appreciate one another’s company, because they are perfectly free and independent of each other, and can select as companions whom they please, while the vast majority of you have to eat in a small, hot kitchen, or in a small, ill-ventilated dining-room, very often surrounded by rude, filthy, ravenous children, and an overworked, pouty husband and wife. I have more than once noticed in your families that not a word was said nor a smile visible during the whole meal time. Such conditions are not very conducive to good digestion and perfect assimilation.

“From the foregoing remarks you will learn that we teach to be natural in our habits of eating and drinking; you are artificial. We develop a healthy appetite by free use; you pervert it by constraint. You make prevalent fashion your guide; we take health for it. Your artificial system tends to cause poverty and disease; our natural system tends to produce health and abundance. Before you can hope to give valuable dietetical instructions you must improve your school-house in that direction. Not until you can supply an abundance of everything for all and give your child free scope to follow its unperverted appetite, can you hope to produce good results in this line of instruction, and all your efforts should be directed in these channels. Your Greek and Latin will never do it; and your paternalism will bring you continually further and further away from the end which you are seeking.”

CHAPTER XXIII.
EDUCATION—HOW TO TEACH THE DIFFERENT BRANCHES.
[Continued.]

“From what you have told us about your eating and drinking, Mr. Midith, I have learned so many new ideas that I should like to have you give us an explanation of how you teach and inculcate cleanliness, and what sanitary regulations you have,” requested Viola.

“Very well,” said Mr. Midith. “In the first place, our conveniences for bathing are excellent, and we generally bathe at least once a day. In the parks we have, as I have already told you, large artificial lakes, which are supplied with water by a fountain, fed by the electric pump at the big-houses. These lakes are fenced so that children can not fall into them. During fine weather in summer, we generally bathe and swim in these shady lakes. Little children who have not yet learned to swim have a separate department with a shallow lake in which children cannot drown. In these shallow lakes children, under the instruction of older swimmers, learn to swim. This practice makes us all good swimmers. By example, we teach that bathing and swimming are healthy and useful, as well as delightful exercises after we have accustomed ourselves to them. When the weather is unfit for bathing in the lakes, we use the numerous bath-rooms in the big-houses. Each private apartment is also furnished with a wash-stand and hydrants containing both hot and cold water.

“All of us, men and women, young and old, wear our hair cut short. We think it is more healthful and freer for the head. The hair is also more easily kept clean and in order. We teach how to keep our finger and toe nails clean and trimmed by practicing it on our infants, little children, and on ourselves in the presence of our older children, who are beginning to be able to care for their own personal cleanliness. By cleaning and brushing our teeth in the morning and after each meal, we teach how to care, at least in part, for our teeth. We have learned that our teeth are organs of digestion, and, that if they are poor, digestion will be impaired. To preserve sound teeth, we must not bite any hard substances such as nuts, etc., that are liable to crack the enamel; we must also keep them clean, so as to prevent them from decaying. A dentist should frequently examine the teeth, and if he finds them unsound, we should have them cared for in time. How to care for the other organs of special sense, we teach in a similar manner, always practicing ourselves, and doing for our helpless children from infancy what we desire them to do in after-years. By these lessons, our children, as they grow in years, learn to do for themselves what they had done for them by others during infancy. The habits, by use, gradually become pleasurable. Thus, we always teach by example, keeping in mind that hygienic lessons which are good for children are also good for older persons, and what is not worth doing for adults is not worth doing for our children.”

“What about dress?” asked Mr. Uwins. “Some time ago you told us that your ladies wear no dresses. Will you now favor us with a description of your costume as worn by your ladies and gentlemen, and also how you teach your children the best manner of dressing?”

“From what I have already told you about dress,” continued Mr. Midith, “it is readily seen that we teach the wholesomeness of frequent changes. In dressing, like in everything else, we make health and comfort our guide. Those decorations and ornaments which put the body most completely in harmony with the phenomena of life and health are esteemed the highest by us.

“All the clothes we wear are easily washed and ‘done up.’ Our steam washers can do an immense amount of laundry work in a short time. After our day’s labor, we always change clothes. When at leisure, we are all dressed neat and clean, as well as tidy and comfortable. No one can, by the appearance of a person, tell the miner and engineer from the editor and clerk, nor the washerwoman from the music teacher. All are wealthy, educated and refined. One kind of labor is considered as honorable as another, provided it be productive labor, the only kind we now have. We have neither master nor servant, therefore, we have no distinction in dress. All have plenty to dress in the height of fashion.

“Our clothing is adapted to suit the seasons of the year. Our children are to the fullest extent so dressed that health and comfort take precedence over decoration, ornament and grotesque patterns. Hence any garment, which is clean, healthful, convenient and comfortable, grows more and more beautiful to our sight as our esthetic sense gradually and slowly unfolds by evolution.

“It is, of course, utterly impossible for me to tell you all about the various styles, patterns and suits which are worn by the ladies and gentlemen on Mars. A few general remarks at the beginning may, however, aid you in getting a better understanding of what is to follow in the more detailed description.

“The manufacture of cloth on Mars, as you will infer, is much in advance of that on earth. We manufacture, with abundance and with the greatest of ease, fabrics so beautiful and delicate that the people of earth would wonder how it were possible for the human hand to attain such skill. Your finest fabrics are but a coarse beginning as compared with those on Mars. Now you must remember, too, that we do not, like you, manufacture a grade of good goods and a grade of poor goods. In a world where every person has all he possibly wants, no one will ever wear poor goods. But, on earth, where some are poor and some are rich, the poor people have to wear coarse and cheap goods, while the rich wear a better grade. Of course, we have different kinds of fabrics, best suited for the different kinds of occupations, etc., but they are always of the best quality for that purpose.

“On Mars every person gets his garments made to suit his individual taste. No one imitates another unless it suits his fancy. All of us are equal authority on style. We have no Ward McAllister to imitate nor have we any dressed in rags. On earth, where one is rich and therefore honored, and the other is poor and therefore scorned, you have what you call a ‘fashion,’ because all are endeavoring to imitate the former as closely as possible, because every person, who is not utterly void of self-respect, delights in wearing the mark of honor and prosperity. Thus, all of you are striving to get as near ‘The Four Hundred’ and as far away from those dressed in rags as possible. This contest originates and maintains your ‘fashion.’ But, on Mars, everything is style, and nothing grows out of style.

“I may say here that a lady’s common summer costume generally consists of a plain, light felt hat; a loose sailor’s jacket, or shirt-waist; full, loose trousers or divided skirt, as your ladies sometimes call it, often narrowed to almost a close fit about midway between the knee and ankle; but the lower extremities of the pantaloons are often less narrow, fitting over a pair of shoes or boots with low heels, and large enough for a comfortable existence of the feet. These, together with the finest and most suitable undergarments, a few tasty decorations and her mirthful, healthy, handsome countenance, constitute a lady’s common costume when she is engaged in her ordinary occupation. In the winter she wears a fine, comfortable head-dress, a warm, short coat when out walking, bicycle riding, or when engaged in any other outdoor sport or exercise. When out riding in an open carriage she wears a long, heavy overcoat and other garments to correspond and suit the taste of the occasion.

“The gentlemen, for common use, also wear plain felt hats, somewhat larger than the ladies’; a ‘fancy’ shirt, with collar and cuffs of the same material attached; a neat, delicate necktie, and suits and underwear not unlike yours here.

“Of course, every lady, as well as every gentleman, has a large number of suits and other changes, made up in widely different styles to suit the occasion, as each individual sees fit. In a state of high culture and a well-developed esthetic sense, the mind appreciates variety, accompanied with health, convenience, comfort and beauty. Some suits and garments are for the fore part of the day, some for labor, some for leisure, some for the latter part of the day. Some are almost tights; such as, for some games, bicycle-riding, etc.; some are very loose and thin during hot weather; some for the public parlors, some for the halls, some for visiting, some for travel, some for each occupation; some for the private apartment, when alone; some for the private apartment, when one has company, etc.

“From what I have said about clothes, it, no doubt, becomes plain to you that, in a world and age in which people appreciate good health, love liberty, enjoy real comfort and esteem the greatest conveniences, there is no room for an unmanageable hat, tight shoes, tightly laced corsets, a plug hat, stiff shirtfronts and skirts of any kind, whether short or trailing. From historical knowledge you all know that in ‘olden times’ your men wore shirts and other flowing gowns, the same as your ladies still do. But your men, in your highest civilized countries at least, on account of having a little more freedom to act, have long outgrown the skirt and robe, except, perhaps, a few priests; and just so will your women outgrow them as they become a little more independent socially, industrially, financially and sexually. A good sign of the coming change is, that a few of your foremost ladies have already laid aside their skirts.

“Our dress, then, as you will infer from my description, is all made of the best and finest fabrics, of endless variety in style, scrupulously clean, handsomely made, perfectly comfortable, highly healthful, remarkably convenient yet extremely simple.

“I am well aware that some of your so-called fashionable ladies and your dudish gentlemen, who are not infrequently trying to hide their ill-health partly contracted from their unnatural dress, with paint, would sneer at our plain, tidy, comfortable costume, no matter how clean and healthful it be. But, I am certain, that our clean, plain, convenient dress would not seem so strange and ridiculous to you as your unnatural, pinching and, am sorry to say, too often soiled garments would appear to us. Just think how your ladies, who are forbidden by your one-sided society to solicit the love of their choice, must decorate and ornament themselves in gaudy costumes to attract attention in order to catch a husband, or be left without one in your cruel social and industrial world in which a single woman has but a slim chance of making a comfortable living. So much for dress.”

“How about exercise, Mr. Midith?” asked Mrs. Uwins. “Do you consider it very essential to full development and good health, and, if so, how do you teach it?”

“We teach that healthful outdoor exercise is absolutely essential for the highest physical and mental development and for the maintenance of good health. We think it is one of the most invigorating forms of food a person can take; and we teach how to take it on the same principle as we teach other things. The adults practice it in the presence of the young, and the child naturally takes to it by imitation and pleasure under our favorable conditions.

“First, before our babies can walk, they are taken out in baby-carriages, tricycles made for carrying babies, electric carriages, motors and trains. When the weather is pleasant, they play in the outdoor nurseries; when unpleasant, they are in the house-nurseries and other parts of the ‘big-house.’ As soon as they are a little older, but still require a nurse with them, they are taken into the parks, lakes and fields. Our children are left without a nurse at a very young age. They choose their own games, their own exercises and their own amount of labor. As I have said before, we do not govern our children by physical force. All our buildings and other things are as much constructed and arranged with a view to suit and accommodate the wants and desires of the child as the wants and desires of the adult. Our railroads and motor-lines are all fenced, so that no danger can befall them there. We have no open wells and cisterns. The doors and gates are nearly all self-closing and noiseless. Lamps and matches are rarely used. Our principal aim is to provide a suitable school-house, and then let the child’s environment impress it with useful information.

“As our children grow older, they begin to do light work, both in the house and outdoors, which serves as part of the physical exercise necessary for full development and vigorous health. This daily work we generally keep up as long as we live. Not that we are obliged to do so on account of poverty, but, because by long, delightful practice our daily labor has become pleasurable exercise. The work is easy, the day is very short, and the exercise of it, we believe, conduces to the fullness of life. Work, as we have seen under these conditions, gradually changes into play. Your people here despise and condemn labor so, because your working-day is so long, your labor so hard, your conveniences so few, your pay so small, and your bosses so cruel and dictatorial. That is, your manual and industrial school-houses are not well-furnished. You have careless, incompetent directors and teachers in these branches of instruction.

“During our leisure hours, which are, of course, very numerous, men, women and children go out walking, bicycle riding, swimming, playing outdoor games, and ride on carriages, motors and trains. When the weather is unpleasant, we take our exercise in our large halls and parlors. The upper story of our main building is covered with glass. This enables our children and ourselves to get all the sunshine we want during our clear, cold winter weather. A ride or walk around this great hall is more than a quarter of a mile. In taking exercise, as in everything else, we make our feelings the guide of how long we ought to continue. As soon as we feel fatigued we cease our exercise, whether it be work or play.

“You see there is a great difference here between our system and yours. You have a large class of people; in fact, nearly all who have to over-exercise by manual labor—have to work themselves stiff and deformed. Then you have another class who take scarcely any outdoor exercise—your city ladies, etc. It seems that you do not appreciate a robust lady. You teach her that she must remain quietly at home until her suitor comes to take her out; and he, perhaps, has his other girl out. Your society forbids your maidens to take a bicycle or a carriage to go after their suitors, except on occasional sham leap-year parties. The majority of your married city ladies, under the burdens of husband and children, are entirely unable to take sufficient outdoor exercise; and even if they had the time and opportunity, they would have no other place for it than a smoky city and a muddy sidewalk.”

“That is very true!” exclaimed Mrs. Uwins. “Overwork on the one hand, and want of healthful outdoor exercise on the other, are playing sad havoc with health here. We see very few graceful forms and healthy looking faces as we pass along the streets of our cities and towns.

“This reminds me of a question I wanted to ask you some time ago,” continued Mrs. Uwins, “and that is, How do you teach regularity of habits? For you undoubtedly are orderly, prompt, and regular in your habits. Health requires regular intervals of alternate activity and rest, which vary with age and other conditions.”

“Yes, we attach a great deal of importance to order, promptness and regular habits. We teach them to our children by practicing them ourselves. We are regular with our set meals, our work, our leisure, our exercises, our studies, our bathing, our dressing, our games, our rising, and our retiring. We have learned, by sad experience, the same lessons that you are now learning; the lessons that regular periods of rest and sleep are absolutely necessary to good vigorous health, and as we aim to make all our conduct conform to the phenomena of life and health, it is certain that we have acquired regular orderly habits of life.

“You see our social and industrial system allows us plenty of leisure time for sports, during the day; we need not steal it from our night’s rest, like you do at your night dances and parties, at which a large number dance, drink, and not infrequently debauch all night and work hard all next day. No one could induce us to do that. About eight or nine o’clock in the evening, we all retire to rest in our own private apartments, and soon after everything is as quiet and silent as death. We, no doubt, would be called cowards by you for not daring to infringe on our health by a night’s carousal, the same as you would be called cowards by your savages for not daring to do what a cannibal delights in doing. When I first learned of your irregular night’s habits, they seemed perfectly cruel and barbarous to me. How men, and some women, too, were all night long under the influence of liquor; how they exercised themselves into perspiration; how all human decency wilted in them; how women sold themselves in order to make a living; how they were betrayed and deceived when life and ambition were nearly extinct; how children, hungry and half-dressed, were lying all around sleeping. When I saw all these violations, besides countless others, my astonishment of meeting so many faces bearing the marks of disease and dissipation gradually vanished. I thought it so strange that men and women could not see the injurious effects of such a night’s career, or that they could be so careless and indifferent to health.

“It was in the foregoing field of contemplation that I first noticed most clearly the utter viciousness of your social and physiological school, your feebleness and impracticability of your methods of teaching, and of your boasted civilization and institutions of learning. To me they seemed a mere mockery. Your so-called superior rarely ever did himself what he preached. Your lessons nearly always consisted of words only.

“There are numerous other topics of physiology that we teach in a similar manner as the foregoing.

“All apartments of our dwellings are abundantly ventilated and lighted, either naturally or artificially, by the straight or refracted sunbeam.”

“Mr. Midith, how do you teach history?” asked Mr. Uwins. “I believe that we are wasting much valuable time in studying comparatively worthless history,” continued Mr. Uwins. “We largely teach dates, battles, names of rulers, explorers, discoverers, names of religious denominations to which they belonged, the size, weight, and temperament of kings and queens, the ones whom they married, how many divorces they obtained, how many cattle they owned, how many years the king survived the queen, the composition of their crown, etc.

“All this is of comparatively little value and soon forgotten, because it does not depend on principle. It does not ‘conduce to the fullness of life.’ It does not make our homes brighter and happier. It does not elevate the people. It does not improve our intellect. In my opinion, it is immeasurably more useful and important for us to know how to enlarge the power of prevision—‘power of looking into the future’—by which we are enabled to avoid or remove the stumbling blocks of the future, so as to leave the road of progress in the future less bloody than we have left it in the past. To know that it is a plausible presumption that the late Civil War in the United States augmented, in one form or another, the aggregate slavery, is worth much more than a thousand trivialities of chronological history. An acquaintance of these principles enables us to avoid conflicts in the future, but no amount of chronological matter will.”

“Our idea of history, Mr. Uwins, is almost similar to yours. We have long ceased to study and commit to memory such trivialities of history as you have just mentioned. We endeavor to develop historical principles, which enable us to unlock the future by the experience of the past. The philosophical part of history is the valuable portion. The science of history did not develop as rapidly with us as nearly all other sciences, and I find the same to be true with you also. But we have now some very excellent historical productions; productions by the side of which Mr. Buckle’s history appears to be in its infancy.”

“How do you teach the higher sciences?” asked Rev. Dudley.

“We have a laboratory which is in charge of an expert chemist. In this laboratory we keep a full supply of apparatus, drugs and chemicals; we can get all the practice and information we desire. We also have a scientific department well supplied with philosophical apparatus of all kinds. This department is in charge of able scientists who will give you all desired information. We have an inventor’s shop fitted up with all necessaries. In astronomy, our apparatus is grand and almost perfect. Biology, zoology, psychology, etc., we learn by practical experience, by individual inquiry, by reading, by lectures, and in countless other ways.

“We must here keep in mind that not all instruction furnishes the mind with useful information. For example: If we were taught that fire does not burn, such teaching would be worse than no teaching; because it stores the mind with falsehood which requires evidence to remove before we can get at the truth of the case. So in all other cases where falsehood and superstition are taught as truth. That knowledge only which adjusts us more and more in accord with the facts of the universe is worth learning. We should strive only for the acquisition of that intelligence which makes us better, and, therefore, happier men, women and children; all other knowledge is not worth learning.

“I now wish to compare a few of your educational lessons with ours; but, before I proceed, let me again tell you that I do not mean to cast any reflections on your mode of living, on your manner of eating, on your style of dress, nor on your methods of teaching. I am fully convinced that you, the same as all other beings, are doing the best you have learned. I am also further convinced that we deserve no particular praise for our somewhat advanced stages of intellectual culture. All sentient beings are creatures of circumstances, over which they have no control. None of us can act beyond the sphere of our highest endowments. We must either act within this limit or be quiescent. Our personal and ancestral environment impresses us with intelligence, and that organized intelligence is the motive force that impels all of us and all of you to act in accordance as we are connected with the chain of antecedents to our present being. A longer lapse of time and more favorable conditions have made us what we are, and, no doubt, the same conditions, as they come to pass on earth, will bring you where we are now on Mars. So please bear in mind that all the comments I shall make concerning your affairs and institutions are made from a sincere motive, and not with a view of casting reflections.

“It is, no doubt, natural and good for the advancement of humanity on all planets that we all find greater delight in having our good qualities pointed out than we do in being reminded of our faults; but we must know our faults before we can consciously correct them, and with this view, I shall endeavor to make what I consider some of your faults, as conspicuous as possible, and I invite you to do the same with me.

“Your system of education is too much confined to a cheerless building, which you call a school-house. That these public school-houses are unnatural, cheerless places, may be evidenced by the fact that scarcely any of your adults and parents ever visit them; for, if they were natural and agreeable, they certainly would. The management of your so-called school is too much in the hands of scheming politicians. You employ, as a rule, cruel, incompetent teachers. You resort to physical force—first, to support the public school by compulsory taxation; and, secondly, to procure the pupil’s attendance, both of which are, in our view, injurious, unjust and despotic. In a good system of education, the school-room is perfectly free, natural and co-extensive with the sphere of man’s activity. In a successful school every one is teacher and pupil at the same time. Now, in making these criticisms, let us begin at the foundation; let us look for the causes.

“In the first place, your social, industrial and sexual conditions of nearly all your parents, and especially of your mothers, are so pitiful that it is scarcely possible for them to bring forth descendants with a kind, pleasant disposition. The parental silence, crabbedness, toil, care and ill-temper concomitant with your present conditions, are generally stamped on the child’s countenance and grafted in its constitution long before it is born. The people of earth quarrel and fight too much among yourselves, with your neighbors, and with nations to produce and rear a gentle, non-aggressive, peace-loving child. You must remember that all social beings are teachers, either for good or for bad. The home and daily social intercourse are the most effective school. Just as the adult is, nearly so will the child be. If the adult is jealous, aggressive, ignorant, superstitious, dishonest, intemperate, and rude in his conduct, so will the child be. Hence our principal object in education should be to educate ourselves.

“After birth, especially during the first stages of infancy, your care and attention given to the mother and child is almost always inadequate and improper. The care, toil, anxiety, ill-health, your pernicious sex-relations, and very frequently the poverty of your mothers generally affect for ill the maternal nourishment given to the child. By this early lesson, the child, through the instrumentality of its food, becomes partly like its mother from the effects of its mother’s bad condition. Thus its pernicious education begins at an age when the child is yet unconscious of its surroundings. Your practice of rocking a child is also a bad lesson.

“When your child gets a little older, I notice that nearly all your parents teach their babies, in an unconscious way, to become cry-babies and bawlers; this assertion may seem strange to many of you, but it is nevertheless a fact.

“I have noticed in my travels thousands of children, some younger and some older, that would set up a cry as soon as the mother would appear in their presence or sit down, and no doubt all of you have seen the same. You see the cry-baby has discovered that its mother or some one else will take it up as soon as it sets up a cry. With this cry-weapon, it has been successful so often that it will constantly employ it as a means to gain its end, and every such successful effort makes the cry louder and longer and more frequent, if necessary.

“But the foregoing lesson is by no means the worst one I have seen your parents and nurses teach your children during infancy. I have met a number of cases where a child completely tyrannized over the mother, and over the whole family; that it would first cry and bawl in order to be taken, then to have the taker walk the floor with it, and then, in a few extreme cases, have the taker run instead of walk the floor. I have also seen where a mere infant was so well trained by mischievous instruction that it would set up a fierce cry whenever the walking mother or nurse would come anywhere near a chair or sofa, upon which she would apparently seat herself. I have, furthermore, seen hundreds of children here on earth whose training has been so unnatural that they would not retire without the mother or nurse lying down with them, soothing them to sleep, or without rocking them to sleep. All these cry-babies enforce their mandates by a cry or bawl; and the more the cry-baby is successful the more it will employ this weapon, which can be wielded with so much success among those who are not much familiar with human nature and with human welfare. Our children scarcely ever cry. We do not teach them to cry. We give them the very best of care and attention, but let them know from the beginning that they can not only not accomplish anything by crying, but that they, by crying, bring upon themselves the displeasure of all their companions. We never take a child or infant because it cries. And if it should begin to cry while in our lap, we would immediately put it down and not take it again until it puts on a smiling face. Thus, you see, we teach our infants and children from the earliest beginning to employ pleasant, agreeable means to accomplish their purposes, while your infants and children, with your vicious methods of teaching, accomplish their objects by setting up a cry or bawl, and sometimes this cry includes the greater part of the day and night.”

“But what would you do with a crying baby if you had strangers in the house?” asked Viola.

“Why, I would do the same as I would if there were no stranger. I would always employ those known means that would produce the best results, whether strangers or no strangers. As I have stated before, if a child receives the proper training from infancy, it rarely ever cries. The greatest cry-baby, I think, can be cured from the annoying habit of crying by proper training and kind treatment in a few months’ time, but not by your method of training. I have often noticed in your private families, who have strangers or guests with them, that the mother would try every means but the right one to keep her child from crying, so as not to annoy her guests or boarders; but the more she tried the greater was her failure; the more she amused and humored the child the more it cried for amusement. Thus her companions become the victims of a nuisance caused by the mother’s inadequate knowledge of human nature. Children, as well as adults, should be free to make their own amusements. The intent of those who produce this vast army of cry-babies and ill-tempered children is, no doubt, as good as that of the Inquisitor and witch-killer was; but for all that it is a lamentable defect.

“Again, let us not forget that the pernicious effect of this cry-lesson does not end here. There is a still deeper and more fatal evil connected with it. To illustrate: Crying involves an expenditure of vitality, not only on the crier, but also on those who make an effort to silence the crier, and on all who are annoyed by it.

“Once more: A child that has fallen, or has hurt itself otherwise, in a way for which nothing can be done to alleviate the pain, should not be picked up or be soothed by parents and adults. It should be made to understand that it came to grief by its own acts—by a violation of a natural law. If under these conditions, it receives sympathy from others, it will soon cry for it. The sufferer, if sympathy is lavished upon it, will begin to infer that the injury was brought about by a personal agency controlled and influenced by the sympathizers. The child should learn as early as possible that the so-called laws of nature are constant and uniform, and do not bend to suit its whims, but that its conduct must conform to the laws. The latter course will tend to make a child intelligent and look for causes, while the former makes it superstitious and ignorant.

“Some mothers tell me that my way of treating and teaching infants and children in these cases is cruel, cold and distant. But the real trouble is that these mothers and others do not see their own cruelty and indifference. The cruelties and negligence these mothers practice on their children are perfectly shocking to me. They are cruelties which their poor children must carry with them all their lives. Let me see if I can make my meaning clear to you. Crying, especially when accompanied with anger, is a violent strain on the nervous system; it also causes a physiological waste, which must be repaired by additional food. Now this additional food tends to impair digestion, and the impaired digestion affects circulation—the function of the heart. Thus, the violent exertion of crying, which is nearly all brought about by your vicious training and teaching, produces nervousness, weakness and general ill-health. Nearly all your children one meets are affected more or less in this manner; and children who are affected thus would continue to be fretful for a while, no matter how favorable the conditions would be made; yes, even if they were taken in the society of Mars. It seems so strange to me that parents can not see these plain facts; but, as a rule, they do not see them here, and seem to care less about discovering them. Thus many of your parents make imbeciles of their children and they do not know it; and if this is not cruelty and coldness, I am sure I do not know what is.

“Allow me to inform you of one other very vicious practice in your nursery. Long-continued superfluous paternalism and parental assistance, like many of your parents and other adults unwisely lavish upon offspring, even at the present age of your world, greatly and perniciously lengthen the period of infancy in an individual. Many of your young men and women are, on this account, little more than grown-up babies, having scarcely any self-reliance and originality. Thus is the period of infancy lengthened in an individual; and such superfluous paternalism and assistance lavished upon offspring as a race during countless ages, is, in the opinion of the Marsites, one of the causes of the lengthened period of infancy and helplessness which we find existing in the offspring of the different species of organisms, as we ascend in the scale of the animal kingdom. But, as mankind rise to a certain point of intelligence, they direct their course of action by conscious wisdom acquired by long-continued ancestral and personal experience, instead of following only the thoughtless, primitive instinct.

“Thus we see that the period of infancy is continually lengthened by a rise of intelligence up to a certain point, and that from this maximum period it slowly begins to shorten, as the higher parental wisdom and truer affections make the child constantly more self-reliant by throwing it, under favorable conditions and at an earlier age, more and more on its own resources and independence, by which all the child’s faculties are harmoniously unfolded by an earlier independent course of action. This higher and broader wisdom of the adult has, in the course of time, greatly shortened the period of infancy on Mars.

“A Marsian child, as we have already seen, has a healthy and vigorous pre-natal (before birth) growth, to begin with. After birth it is never over-burdened with manual labor; inactivity, dissipation, constraint, and paternalism never stunt the full development of body and mind, and poverty leaves no regretful marks on its after-life, while your children on earth, as a rule, are, on the one hand, largely over-burdened with toilsome labor and a vicious pre-natal existence, and, on the other hand, inactivity, dissipation, constraint, paternalism and poverty nearly always prevent the full and harmonious unfoldment of their faculties, and this tends to lengthen the period of infancy and helplessness.

“There is still one other lesson, which, of all the countless bad lessons you teach, is perhaps the worst one. I mean, of course, the flogging of children. To begin with, under right conditions, it is not only useless, but actually harmful in all its consequences. It irritates both parent and child. It makes a tyrant of the stronger and a slave of the weaker. It teaches a child to be cruel, because one who is reared in an atmosphere of cruelty can not help being cruel himself. This instruction dwarfs and often withers the higher feelings of affection and amiability.

“For my part, I do not see how a parent or friend can gather around the bedside of his sick or dying child whom he has misused. How he can, during its dying hour, gently press these poor, tiny fingers with that hand, which, more than once, cruelly struck it. How he can look into those longing, wide-open, staring eyes from which he has often caused the tears to flow. How, after such despotism, such kicks and cuffs, he can draw nearer to those arms which are so imploringly stretched out toward him in its agony, when the last tremor gently steals over the voiceless lips of that suffering, dying child. How he can impress a parting kiss on those open, pallid lips, which he has often cruelly hushed. How he can gaze on those pale sunken cheeks that were once so round and rosy. How he can smooth the forehead which is now covered with cold perspiration with that same hand which not long before outraged it with violence. How he can remove the pressure from the heaving bosom, gasping for breath. How he can, in the last moment of its life, embrace one whom he has treated more like a slave than like an equal. How he can summon sufficient courage to cast the last look at the now poor, pale, withered, lifeless handful of dust that was once aglow with life and health. How he can repress the tears of regret and repentance when bitter recollections of abuse, negligence, and violence committed on that harmless, innocent, lifeless little prattler, come crowding thick and fast into his memory.

“It may be that the earthly inhabitants can see how all these things can easily be done; but for a Marsite they would seem almost impossible. Here, then, a mundane being can do what would seem utterly impossible for a Marsite to do.

“But the evil training of your youths does not end here. For example: Nearly all your parents, teachers, preachers and other persons take the part of a child complaining against the conduct of another child. This is one of the most unholy lessons you can teach. Let me illustrate my meaning more clearly. A number of children are playing outdoors. One strikes or otherwise offends another. The offended one will begin to bawl in order to attract the attention of the mother in the house, or it will go to the mother to state its actual or imaginary grievances. The mother, who, as a rule, knows very little about human nature, immediately loses her temper and plays general havoc with the real or supposed offender; first, by asking him a series of questions which tend to make a liar out of the child, and secondly, by beating the offender, which act makes a worse despot out of the mother than the offending child was. But remember that this is not all the harmful results brought about by your method on this point. If, during the inquiry, the child believes it can escape further punishment by telling a falsehood, nine times out of ten it is tempted to do so, in order to get out of its predicament. Thus it becomes plain that the mother’s course of action offers a premium on lying.”

“But what would you do with such an offender?” asked Rev. Dudley. “Would you let one child pound and abuse another without interfering? Would you let your neighbor’s child kick and beat your own?”

“Let me explain, Rev. Dudley,” said Mr. Midith. “My reply to the first part of your interrogatory is that I would change the conditions which produce such offenders. Then you ask, ‘Would you let one child pound and otherwise abuse another child, perhaps a younger one, without interfering?’ My reply to that is, that your very interfering made the one child a ‘pounder,’ as you call him, and the other one a whining complainer. If your adults would not resort to ‘pounding,’ your children would not. Your children are only imitating your example. What a prominent part in the mind of the child the rod plays in domestic life is demonstrated by the fact that whenever your children play house, the child who represents the father or mother is generally applying the switch to the others. From what I have seen, I believe that your children are not half as cruel in many respects as your adults are.

“If you would never give any encouragement or attention to a complaining tattler, there would be no such tattlers and complainers. It is the encouragement and success with which the complainer meets at your hands which make him a complainer, and the greater his success the more frequently he will resort to it.

“A child, in order to become the completest person, must, from the beginning, be left free to adjust its own social affairs. All parental and governmental interference and paternalism is a hindrance in the process of attaining the highest social plane.

“Many of your parents also require their children to get the parent’s permission whenever the child desires to go any place. This method of training likewise tends to make schemers and fibbers. A child who is desiring to go some place will, if it deems it necessary to get the parent’s consent, fabricate most any story to gain its point. Perhaps most of your parents now living know that from personal experience.

“Our children go when and where they please. They are capable and experienced because they have been taught in the school of self-reliance from infancy. We, as adults, have fitted our social conditions so that our self-reliant child can easily grapple with any emergency that it might meet. We keep no places below the dignity of a child’s presence. Our children never tell fibs because we offer no premium on a lie. We never scold nor flog them. They know this, and do, therefore, never hesitate to say what they did and what they want. We treat them as children that must grow in wisdom by a wider experience. They never tattle or complain of their companion’s conduct because we never pay any attention to their complaints. We have no cry-babies and our children are always models of affection to all, because they receive the kindest possible treatment and the widest possible freedom consistent with their physical powers.

“Thus for want of a little more psychological knowledge, your people generally make a cry-baby and an infantile tyrant out of the baby and child, a drudge out of the mother and nurse, and slaves out of those who are annoyed by the cries, confusion and noise made by the mother and child. By this pernicious instruction, you are annually more than wasting millions of days of destructive labor, which greatly lengthens your day’s labor and detracts greatly from the happiness of all concerned.”

“But are you not digressing from your subject?” asked Rev. Dudley. “I understood you to say, Mr. Midith, that you were going to compare our school with yours. You have been all this while speaking of home training instead of school education. I should like to have you show us some defects in our public school system. It has stood the criticisms of generations and I believe that it is almost perfect.”

“You remember, Rev. Dudley, that I stated at the outset that any school or system of education that does not include the home training is too narrow and unnatural,” said Mr. Midith. “I am aware that I have so far not spoken in particular of your public schools, as you call them. I am well aware of the fact that most of your people, I may say nearly all of them, have implicit faith in the work of your public schools, and this pride is very likely relatively well-founded. Every stage of intellectual culture is accompanied by a certain system of education and training; and very likely your present public school, with your social, industrial and sexual relations so sadly out of tune, is as good as can acceptably be received by the masses. It, very probably, just about fits with the other conditions and institutions of your present age. All that any of us can do, in any world, is to think our best thoughts and use the best means which they bring about. Therefore, I shall, at least for the present, not attempt to deny but that your public school system, as established in the United States, is relatively good.

“What I want to show you, if I can, is that your public school system is by no means faultless, and that all those who are unprejudiced and believe in progress should not feel satisfied until all its faults and blemishes are removed, for progress consists of the process of removing faults and errors; but before we can consciously and deliberately remove a fault or an error, we must find it; and as you have requested me to point out the faults and errors of your public school system, I shall, at least in part, endeavor to comply with your request. I say in part, for I believe that it would require too much time for us to point out all the faults and demerits if it were measured by a Marsian standard of right and wrong, or even if it were judged by the standard of your own best thinkers.”

“Oh, it may be that our public schools contain a slight defect here and there, but I can not see them, and I believe they are quite difficult to find, too,” said Rev. Dudley.

“Let us see, then, whether we can point out a few defects.

“1. As a rule, you demand your children, little and big, formally to attend your public schools for six hours a day. During these six hours you demand or force them to be quiet and silent; and as a child for its full development requires constant activity in all directions, these demands are an infraction against the laws of youthful life and health.

“2. To create a desire for inquiry should be the chief aim in the acquisition of an education; and the development of this desire you greatly frustrate or positively prevent by demanding your children in your public schools to study just such branches at just such times. From personal experience you well know that we do not always desire to do the same thing at the same time. No one can, therefore, prescribe an agreeable and useful course of study for another. You as adults would, no doubt, fiercely remonstrate against the enforcement of such an order, yet you impose it on your children with impunity and with an air of apparent duty.

“3. Children who have been kept quiet and silent, like you keep them in your so-called school-rooms for a disagreeable length of time, become, when set at liberty, rude, boisterous and noisy. That is the reason why your school-grounds, when the pupils during recess are at play, are such loud, rude, disgusting places. The artificially pent-up vitality is overflowing its banks. Thus by the very method by which you intend to make your children kind, cultivated and refined, you actually make them cruel, uncultivated and boisterous. Now let us not forget that all these defects lie at the very foundation of your public school system and are entirely invisible to all superficial observers.

“4. When many pupils like you have in your school buildings are, after recess, demanded to come into the school-room immediately after the ringing of the bell, or other signal, they, for want of time and convenience of cleaning their shoes, rush in regardless of dust and mud. This conduct and habit make children very indifferent and careless of personal order and cleanliness.

“5. Your public school-rooms also cause your children to grow disorderly and indifferent for want of proper conveniences. Many of your schools require pupils to use paper for all their written work, but schools provide no waste baskets or other receptacles for the waste paper. As a natural consequence the waste paper is generally dropped on the floor. This tends to create a habit of disorder and carelessness, just the opposite of what you endeavor to impart.

“6. Perhaps as much as three-fourths of all your studying in your school-room and colleges is largely done for the direct object of recitation, examination and for obtaining diplomas. The evidence in support of this proposition is that one seldom meets a pupil in your public schools who cares enough for the intrinsic worth of knowledge that he will study when no lessons are assigned. A pupil who has a desire for knowledge and studies for the pleasure the intrinsic value of it gives, would study even better when no lessons are assigned, for then he is free to choose his own branches. Your graduations have also a very evil effect. They tend to impress on the graduates the idea that they have finished their education and need, therefore, no further inquiry. It appears very clear to me that a vast majority of your graduates would have a much better education in their maturer years if they had not been affected by the graduation process. Thus you see that the assignment of lessons, examinations, graduations and diplomas all tend to blight self-inquiry, the only highway by which one can reach the highest and noblest attainments.

“7. Your recitation and the showing process, which, as a rule, you recommend so highly, instill into the mind of the pupil the idea and habit that they can do nothing without the assistance of parent and teacher. Thus the child is gradually taught to make no personal effort without the telling and showing processes, and the consequence is, that it kills nearly all originality and self-reliance in the child.

“8. Your compulsory attendance, whether enforced by parents or state, tends to make fibbers and schemers out of many pupils who desire to be excused before school lets out, or who desire to be excused by parent or state. It is natural that after a pupil’s mental faculties are exhausted for the time being, it can not continue to pursue its studies without great bodily and mental injury. Under these conditions the child’s healthful instinct generally prompts it to cease studying, after which it begins its ‘mischievous pranks’ as you call them. It is a well known fact that all minds are not endowed with like power of endurance, yet your public schools, as a rule, make no provision for such difference of mental endurance. You compel all to attend school for six hours daily. Thus your compulsion tends to make fibbers and miscreants; it injures the child’s health, prevents the spontaneous development of its faculties and sets it against learning.

“9. Probably about one-fourth of the pupils attending school are what you call ‘bad boys’ and ‘bad girls.’ They have little or no desire to attend school and to study the assigned lessons and branches at such a time and for such a length of time. They greatly annoy those who do have a taste for study, and their compulsory attendance constantly causes an increased repugnance for the school-room and for all the work connected with it. They become thoroughly disgusted with all learning. Thus, instead of creating a pleasurable desire for learning, you do not even let it sprout by giving them a little freedom and opportunity.

“10. We have seen that not all pupils have a like mental endurance. Some are mentally exhausted before others. The mental endurance of the same pupil also differs from day to day. Again, some delight in study one day and dislike it the next. But your ‘school week’ consists of five days and your ‘school day’ consists of six hours, no matter what the other conditions are. The pupil who is through studying must remain just as long as the one who is not. Thus you are largely obliged to enforce attendance and order on those pupils who are not in a mood for mental work at that time. This condition of things necessarily causes a constant friction between teachers and pupils. It makes a cruel, crabbed, despotic teacher and a ruthless, stubborn pupil. I believe this to be one of the reasons why so many of your professional teachers are so overbearing, cruel and despotic, caring so little for the rights, freedom and welfare of others. My profession has called me to many of your teachers’ associations, and I am sorry to say that, as a rule, I have invariably found these assemblies composed of very narrow-minded men and women. As a rule, they have very little idea of freedom, equity, and the psychological principles upon which all successful instruction must be based. They generally hoot at any truth that does not lie within their narrow path of a little impractical book-learning. But this is all natural and inevitable when we understand the circumstances which produce your public school-teacher. To begin with, the teacher must generally get his position by more or less scheming, and when he has secured it he becomes a kind of lord and master over his pupils. If he is a principal or superintendent, his assistant teachers are generally more or less at his mercy. The assistants know this and often flatter him in order to stand well in his estimation. The less learned patrons also look upon him as a distinguished personage. This subordination of his companions, the absolute authority he exercises over his pupils, his real or supposed learning, and other advantages make a kind of baron out of him, and generally cover him more or less with ‘cheap’ vanity and ostentation. It also makes him very intolerant, so that an assembly of principals and superintendents who pretend to lead the intellectual world, nearly always lack breadth and depth of learning. They often know more Greek and Latin than they know of human nature and the phenomena of the universe. Their narrow views seldom reach the depth of man’s psychical nature. They are nearly always dealing with immediate superficial results and scarcely ever think about the real, the fundamental, and the remote. They try to get rid of an effect without touching the cause.

“11. As the ability and aptitude of every pupil differs somewhat from that of every other pupil, your classification must necessarily always be more or less imperfect. A pupil that fits best in one class and grade this week may fit best in another class next week.

“12. It is a well-known fact that a person, whether young or old, loses interest in a book by reading or studying it over and over. The interest is keenest when we do not know what is to follow. Yet in your public schools, you largely compel your pupils to go through the same books again and again until they are completely disgusted with them. This is more machinelike than humanlike, and tends to kill interest in original and individual inquiry.

“13. The management of your public schools is largely under the control of politicians; and often unscrupulous, incompetent politicians, who know very little about the psychical needs of man, and who, not infrequently, care less for the interest and progress of the school than they do for their re-election. We also all know that man, in his rude beginnings and for ages after, is always blinded by zeal, enthusiasm and patriotism. They have strewn the road of progress with human skeletons; they have dyed the streams red with blood; they have erected countless temples of fanaticisms; they have invented countless instruments of torture; they have filled the land with slaves and paupers; they have soiled the robe of Liberty with multitudinous spots of intolerance; they have filled the mind with cruelty, bigotry and superstition, and they have fostered monopoly and stifled equity.

“14. The financial support of your public school rests on compulsory taxation, and is, therefore, ultimately backed by an army. It positively prohibits direct competition by taxing all private schools out of existence. For example: A Catholic or a Protestant, who desires to send his child to a private or parochial school, must pay double taxes. He is first forced by the state to pay taxes in proportion to the ‘value of his property’ for the financial support of the public school, and then, if he sends his children to a private or parochial school, he must pay tuition in proportion to the number of children sent. Thus you see that your state, on many points, is as intolerant now as it was in the dark ages. It permits no private competition; it recognizes no individuality on these important points.

“15. We have seen that the state allows no private competition in school affairs. It employs its own teachers. All of us also know, if we have ever given it a thought, that the church and state are quite separated in theory, but not so much so in practice. The teachers of your public school, who desire to retain their position, must sharply and closely follow the course of study adopted directly by the state, and indirectly by the church; and any teacher who deviates from that course, or who attempts to improve on it, from knowledge gained by his longer personal experience, is very liable to lose his position and be branded a heretic and a rebel. Thus you see that thousands of your best and most thoughtful public school teachers are prevented from teaching their best thoughts and their noblest sentiments. Under the head ‘How the transition from the old to the new order of things was accomplished,’ I shall tell you more about this last great evil.

“I have here enumerated fifteen vital defects, all of which are fundamentally opposed to the harmonious production of a just, kind, self-reliant, complete individual. Every one of these fifteen defects tend to make mere grown-up babies of your young ladies and gentlemen. But let us not flatter ourselves that these fifteen defects are all, for there are countless others even too numerous to suggest, a few of which will suffice to illustrate my meaning. You have too much booklearning as compared with your practical teaching. Your school-work is nearly always too difficult for young children of their mental capacity; it stunts the youthful mind. Your crowded school-rooms, in which your so-called ‘bad boys’ and ‘bad girls’ are often playing tricks, and in which some are talking and reciting, are no fit places for study. Under these conditions, the mind can not concentrate its powers on the subject to be studied, etc., etc. But let us now return to the general criticisms to this broader and deeper field of instruction.”

“But let me ask you, Mr. Midith, how would you get rid of these defects?” asked Rev. Dudley.

“The only way you can get rid of them is to outgrow them. First, the masses of your people have to learn that there are defects, and then they have to learn to appreciate truth more and partyism less. A system of education is a growth and not a manufacture. I have given our system of education, which does not contain any of these defects and faults, and that is all the guidance I can offer on this point as well as on all others. But I am not yet through criticising. I have not yet entered the more general fields which I shall now endeavor to do.

“If the foregoing objections concerning your public schools are true, and I believe that all well-informed, unbiased persons will admit that, then your public schools are largely depriving your children of their individuality and self-reliance; the same as your military discipline largely deprived your men of their individuality and self-exertion during the military age. Your children, by being thus deprived of their individuality, independence and self-reliance, grow machine-like, and work only when they are set in motion by some parent, teacher, master, politician, clergyman, etc. Again, you largely instruct your children, either tacitly or avowedly, that manual labor is dishonorable. Many of your parents send their children to college until they are twenty or more years of age to get a little booklearning through a narrow, prescribed channel, under the influence of paternalism, which causes your young ladies and gentlemen to be little more than grown-up babies, without any practical experience and originality to grapple with the phenomena of life. As a rule, you stifle all independence and self-reliance in your child by paternalism and monopoly.

“By such a course of instruction the child learns little or no manual labor during the whole of its ‘so-called school age.’ Physically it lives an idle life, and mentally it learns often much more superstition than facts. Not infrequently one can see your mothers do all, or nearly all, the domestic drudgery, and let their grown-up daughters live an idle life right in the same house. But how can the daughter do her fair share of the work as long as she is taught to look upon manual labor with contempt. In this manner you make slaves of your children, because labor, if not learned while young, will forever be unpleasant and disagreeable. This compels your children, then, to be either social parasites or industrial slaves to labor. You provide no incentives for children to labor. A portion of your children are employed almost exclusively at physical labor, the other portion at mental.

“Your language is generally poor because your social conditions are such that good language is almost impossible. Your handwriting, as a rule, is very stiff, and often scarcely legible. Your ill-adjusted commercial system makes your mathematics so complicated that few even master the rudiments of your arithmetic.

“Your physiological lessons are, indeed, very deficient. Your selection of food is very crude; the quantity often scanty, and the manner of eating nearly always unnatural. Your bathing conveniences are very poor, the time all taken up with labor and the vitality expended in physical and mental efforts; so that few of the earth’s inhabitants can find pleasure in personal cleanliness. One meets everywhere thousands of persons with black and uncleaned teeth, untrimmed finger and toe nails, uncombed hair, offensive-smelling feet and a general odor of perspiration mingled with tobacco scent, etc. But all of these are unavoidable concomitants of your social, industrial and sexual conditions. Personal cleanliness pre-supposes wealth, convenience and leisure. As long as your poverty and toil last, personal cleanliness need not be looked for. You must remove the causes before you can expect favorable results. A servant, whether man or woman, who is compelled to toil for ten or fourteen hours a day for almost nothing, and then is often not allowed to enter the parlor or sit at table, cares little for personal cleanliness and personal charms.

“Your style of dress is probably one of your most pernicious habits. Just think of your women’s hair all twisted and rolled so tightly that it causes headache. Think what labor it requires, and what filth it collects. Compare your lady’s uncomfortable hat with our lady’s plain felt hat. Think of your lady’s high or low collar; the former almost prevents her from turning her head, the latter subjects her to colds and diseases. Think of her dress, petticoats and skirts, which flop around her limbs impeding her walk; how they prevent her from passing over a muddy road or crossing; how they sweep the sidewalks and roads during a dry, dusty period. Think what an immense amount of labor it requires to keep garments of such a ridiculous, inconvenient costume clean, and then they are nearly always more or less dusty and soiled. Compare them with our lady’s jacket and neatly made pantaloons. There is no impediment in walking; no skirts to sweep the dust and mud; no dress to hold up when passing over a crossing; no sails to impede her progress when she is walking against the wind. Our ladies, as well as gentlemen, can run, walk, cross, ride a bicycle, get through the mud, or climb a fence and tree.

“Again, think of your woman’s tight corsets with which she fences herself in so tightly that she can scarcely breathe. Her thorax compressed; her lungs so crowded that she soon becomes exhausted, when exercising, from deficient respiration. Consider the exposure of her lower limbs, protected by scarcely anything but a few fluttering skirts. Consider her tight high-heeled shoes with her feet covered with corns, warts and bunions; and then think what a helpless, dependent creature such a costume makes of your woman; how it contorts her natural form, and how it impairs her health and physiological function.

“Now think of your gentleman’s attire. Of his uncomfortable plug hat into which he forces his head; of his high stiff collar; his inflexible cuffs and shirt-front; his high-heeled boots with little room for his toes; his roasting himself in a coat and vest on a hot day, because he induces his female companions to think that it is not fashionable to look on shirt-sleeves.

“Do not forget to think of your little helpless children, wearing short dresses and having their lower limbs exposed to the vicissitudes of the weather. How they are often so dressed that they can scarcely move about in their work and play. How their parents frequently forbid them to play in their ‘best clothes,’ just as if the clothes are more valuable than the children’s health; and last of all, think of the amount of paint and powder you must use on the faces of both men and women to hide the sickly color caused by the numerous violations of the laws of life and health in your style of dressing and in your other modes of living. Thousands of comparatively poor victims are, on certain occasions, endeavoring to sprout a puny artificial rose on their fallen cheeks and faltering lips, but such roses always wilt before they are fairly unfolded. They lack internal vigor.

“But allow me to say again that you must not think that I ridicule your conduct, nor that we like beauty and grace less than you do. We believe, however, that beauty and grace can not be obtained to any considerable extent by face powder, paint and injurious fashionable dressing. By a longer lapse of time, our artistic taste has slowly adjusted itself more and more in harmony with natural, healthful appearances. We, by living as nearly as we can in tune with the phenomena of life and health, solicit nature to develop a strong, healthy body, a bold, vigorous mind, a graceful form, pleasant, cheerful features, round, roseate cheeks, purple lips, bright eyes and an elastic step.

“The robe of health, cheerfulness, and bodily and mental attainments is a more dressy garment than any other we can wear, and we, therefore, make every act of our life count to obtain this envied garment in the most natural and ornamental style. For ages we believed and acted like you are now doing, tried to obtain it by deceiving nature with paint and injurious fashion, but, by long and patient observation and experiment, and by millions of wrecked constitutions and premature deaths, we, at last, learned that our expectation of deceiving nature was completely futile. This beautiful, costly robe of nature which adorns the body from within outward can be purchased only at the store of Truth, for every violation of truth taints its beauty.”

“Mr. Midith, you have not yet told us anything about your particular sports and amusements,” said Viola. “You have so much time to spend in that way that you ought to be almost perfect in all sports and amusements.”

“Well,” said Mr. Midith, “if you desire me to tell you something about them, I shall give you a brief review of some of them; I say some because they are so numerous and complex and varied that I can only touch upon a few of the simplest ones.

“But before we proceed let us take into consideration that the nature and kind of man’s sports and amusements vary in different persons; also with age, sex, state of health and mental and physical culture and development.

“For example, you notice here on earth that one person delights in playing cards; another in playing ball; another in singing; another in traveling; another in fishing, etc.

“The little child finds amusement in the tin rattle; the boy in marbles and ball; the little girl in the doll; the robust person in vigorous exercise; the invalid in rest and quiet; the savage in scalping and other torture; the cultured in promoting his own happiness by promoting the happiness of others.

“The moans and cries of the dying victim are highly amusing to the ear of the savage who burns him at the stake; but to the ear of the more civilized person, they are so shocking that he would faint at the sound of them. Only a comparatively few years ago your most refined men and women of the Roman empire looked with delight and amusement on the gladiatorial combats which reddened the arena of the spacious amphitheatre with human blood. To-day, even to your most refined men and women, the same sights and sports would be perfectly horrifying. They could not be hired to witness them. I notice that your civilized American boys still delight in dog-fights and flinging stones at your innocent little song-birds as they are singing their sweet songs. The Marsian boy would think that horrible. By long, kind treatment our song birds have all become even much tamer than your domestic animals; they have nothing to fear from the human hand. I notice still further that many of your so-called civilized Americans still delight in prizefights, bull-fights, sportive hunting and fishing, horseracing, etc. All of these sights would be almost as shocking to a Marsite as a gladiatorial combat would be to a highly-refined and keenly-considerate lady of your present time.

“By the foregoing, then, we see that each stage of intellectual culture has its peculiar sports and amusements. What is delightful amusement to one is dreadful horror to another. Hence as Mars is much in advance of the earth, our sports and amusements must be much in advance of yours, must be in harmony with our feelings and institutions.

“There is one other point of which I must remind you before you can clearly understand me on the subject of sports and amusements; and that point is, that nearly all your labor is very disagreeable and toilsome, while our labor itself, as you have seen, is little less than sport and amusement. From this you see that our whole life, as measured by our standard of sportive taste, is little else than a series of continuous sports and games of amusements. Let us now look at a few of them, beginning with the private apartments of the big-house.

“In the private apartment, when alone, we read, write, study, paint, draw, study music, listen to phonographic books, and do countless other things for amusement, of which I can not tell you now, for you are not familiar with them, because they do not yet exist on earth. After all this, we often desire the company of a little child only. If so, we invite one. Children are nearly always fond of such invitations, because when an adult desires the company of a child in that way, he will always amuse and delightfully instruct it. When we desire the private company of adults, either man or woman, we invite some agreeable companion or companions who are willing to become our private guests. In company with these we study, sing, paint, converse, laugh and joke, tell our experience, play all kinds of appropriate games, and do all such other things as we find mutually agreeable and pleasant.

“For amusement, in the public parts of the big-house, we visit and amuse ourselves in the different parlors, eat in the restaurant, sport with the children and babies in the nurseries, attend grand operas, lectures, scientific demonstrations, promenade and cycle in the large exercise hall, listen to charming concerts, and play countless games, for which both ladies and gentlemen are attired in appropriate, convenient costumes.

“Our outdoor sports and amusements are so numerous, varied and complex that I can tell you only a few of them, for, in a world like that of the earth, where the vast masses are compelled to expend nearly all their vitality for the mere acquisition of their scanty material subsistence, refined and complex sports and amusements can not well be understood, nor can they have a conspicuous place in man’s daily activity under such conditions.

“Our simplest outdoor exercise for amusement is walking, either alone or in company with a companion or companions. On a fine day or evening our granite walks are usually dotted with men, women and children walking for amusement. We take these outdoor promenades most any place. In the garden we stroll to admire the endless variety of flowers, the luxuriant vegetation, which is everywhere cultivated with the greatest success and perfection. From the garden, perhaps, we rove to the orchard, among the laden fruit trees, bearing the delicious fruit on their boughs and having the green, closely-cut lawn beneath. Sometimes our sportive walks extend from community to community, admiring all the rich, varied and diversified things we meet, for the Marsites have long discovered that variety of color, form, etc., is pleasing to the sight. In every community we find a large variety of new forms and arrangements in the park, in the conservatory (or green-house), in the gardens, in the orchards, on the walks, and, in fact, everywhere. In the winter we take our leisure walks in the grand conservatory, which extends from one community to the other, and in which the flowers, plants, fruit and trees are growing as luxuriantly as they do in a tropical climate, even when the snow is a foot deep on the outside. Every step, as we go forward from community to community, presents new scenes in colors and forms. Thus a number of companions often go from community to community, stopping for rest or for night whenever they get tired. You see, we can stop as cheap at any ‘big-house’ as we can at our own. During these walking expeditions our baggage always follows us on the motor cars.

“From what I have just said you must not infer that we always or even generally find the greatest amusement in walking instead of riding. Our granite boulevards are nearly always lined with vehicles, bicycles, electric carriages, etc.; some of these carriages are so delicate that they carry only one person, while others carry from two to forty persons. On these various vehicles, excursion parties travel for long distances. If we want to go faster we go on the motor; if still faster, we take our fast trains, which have on board all the comforts and conveniences that the mechanical genius of man has been able to apply and utilize.

“I must not here forget to tell you about the sports and amusements we have in our splendid parks. Here men, women and children sport and amuse themselves in countless ways. Some are sitting in the shade on our commodious park settees; some are admiring flowers and plants; some promenade; some study; some play. Numerous grounds for the playing of different games are permanently laid out in these parks, and skillful players, men and women, dressed in fine costumes for the occasion, are engaged in playing these games. Besides these grounds for particular games, a countless variety of machinery and apparatus for sportive plays and amusements are always found on our green, odoriferous parks; and during our pleasure excursions as we go from community to community, we continually meet a still greater variety of playgrounds, apparatus and amusements.

“Nearly every person also annually visits a number of Fanos and the indescribable Modano, the capitol of Mars. In these magnificent structures, of which I have told you, is a never-ceasing exhibit of all the Marsian artistic, scientific and industrial labors, both ancient and modern. It is a perpetual ‘World’s Fair,’ always ready to accommodate every visitor in the grandest style. It is not like your ‘World’s Fair,’ the buildings of which are temporarily constructed, and which are in session only a few months, and during that time the crowd is so large, the resting conveniences so few and poor that a spectator soon becomes too fatigued to enjoy the sights; but we must not forget here that the Marsian conveniences at the Modano were once no better, and, probably, your posterity will even do better than we are doing at present on Mars.

“Then we have our natural scenery to visit. Our extensive natural parks in the mountainous region of Mars. These natural parks are alive with docile birds and beasts; they contain mountains and valleys, streams and fountains, rugged cliffs and beautiful clear lakes, volcanoes and snow-capped mountain peaks; to the tops of some of these mountain peaks we have built motor-lines, so that, in a few minutes, we can ascend to the world of perpetual snow and ice.”

“But do you not sometimes during your visits to the mountain peaks get snowbound?” asked Mrs. Uwins.

“Oh, no,” said Air. Midith with a smile. “We never get snowbound. All our granite walks, boulevards, motor-lines and railroads never have any snow and ice on them. They are all so made that the granite floor can be heated by electric currents, so that the snow and ice, which, during a snowstorm, falls and drifts onto it, is immediately melted. This is the way we keep our walks and roads open on Mars. It is a convenient and effective way of shoveling snow.

“From the foregoing hints and suggestions, you can readily see that the greater portion of our time is taken for sports and amusements, and that we find them everywhere, from the private apartment to the colossal Modano and the lofty snow-capped mountain.”

CHAPTER XXIV.
HOW THE TRANSITION FROM THE OLD TO THE NEW ORDER OF THINGS WAS ACCOMPLISHED.

“You said, Mr. Midith, that at one time your social and industrial organizations were similar to our present ones. How, then, did the change from the old to the new order of things take place? By what means was it accomplished, and what were the transitional steps?” inquired Mrs. Uwins.

“Allow me here to make one preliminary statement,” proceeded Mr. Midith.

“All of us agree that we are all in pursuit of the greatest happiness; we also agree that some acts are always attended with pleasure, or happiness, while others are always attended with pain, or misery. The reward of happiness, invariably following certain acts, and the punishment of misery, invariably following certain other acts, can be our only guide in ascertaining the most advantageous course of conduct, and the only incentive that leads us forward on the road of progress. Hence, as we advance in intellectual culture, our course of action will be more and more nearly in accord with the fullness of life; for acts which tend toward the fullness of life must, as a whole, produce greater happiness than those which detract from it, for under no other conceivable conditions could a race of sentient beings have been evolved.

“From what we have seen elsewhere, as well as from the foregoing remarks, it follows that society, on the one hand, tends to widen and perfect voluntary co-operation on the part of production, and thereby economize also in consumption, and, on the other hand, it tends to enlarge the field of individual freedom; for both an abundant supply with which to satisfy our wants, and the largest possible scope of individual freedom tend to produce the greatest happiness.

“That people, then, who by the widest and most thorough voluntary co-operation most completely satisfy all their varied and complex desires with the least amount of labor, and with the greatest freedom to the individual, is the highest civilized. A strong centralized government is not a mark of a high state of civilization, as some of you at first sight may think; if it were, Russia would rank in civilization far above the United States. Armies, navies and policemen are no signs of high intellectual culture; if you consider them such, Russia ranks first in culture and civilization. They are nothing more or less than remnants of barbarity; they are the marks of contemporaneous discord.

“By following the same course of reasoning, and by bearing in mind that our social and industrial organizations, in which every sound person is kind, non-aggressive, rich and free, have no use and no place for civil judges, man-made laws, kings and queens, presidents, congresses, legislatures, tariff, prisons, lawyers, priests, politicians, schemers and compulsory taxation, you will at once understand that they are not signs of civilization and culture, but are, on the contrary, marks of existing fraud, compulsion and quarrelsomeness. Orthodox preachers, sectarian churches, and legal and priestly marriages are remnants of former superstitions. Public schools, charitable institutions, and reformatory prisons are marks of a crude, defective and unnatural system of instruction. Millionaires, paupers, bankers, land value, profit, interest and rent are consequences of monopolization. They must all become unnecessary and repugnant to the mind, before a high state of civilization and culture can be attained.

“As we slowly learned these facts, both the city and country disappeared. The people that lived in large cities found that a city is a noisy, smoky, filthy and unwholesome place to live. There was, perhaps, but one little park in the whole city. The wealthier class gradually began to build their dwellings more and more remote from the center of city activity. But the vast majority of the working Marsites at this period of transition were living in small tenement houses, paying high rent and working a long, long toilsome day in the factory, store or mine for very low wages. They were too rude, thoughtless and poor to be sensible to the wholesome wants of a city life. They, like your city people on earth, rarely ever saw and heard a bird, smelled the fragrance of blooming plants, or saw the flowers and green grass grow. Every opening in their poor abode admitted noise, dust, vermin, stench and vitiated air. In winter they were often too poor to heat their apartments artificially; in summer the heat was almost unendurable, and the ventilation was often next to nothing. We also gradually learned that cities, as such, do not only tend to produce crime, but also shelter and secrete criminals. They tend to concentrate wealth and power, making a few millionaires and a vast army of extremely poor. More than that, they foster and often license many of the gravest crimes.

“On the other hand, the farmer, living almost a solitary life and working early and late to produce the necessaries and luxuries of life for himself and family and for the comparatively unproductive city and town ‘boomer,’ who must all live from the products of the earth, gradually learned by high-priced experience that such a lonely, toilsome country life is scarcely worth living. His single-handed work was so hard, slow, often wasteful, and comparatively unproductive that he had hardly any leisure left for cleanliness and mental culture. In many cases, his wife and children rarely ever came in contact with other members of the human family. The wife generally was at the same time mother, nurse, cook, washerwoman, tailor, housekeeper, dressmaker, milliner, milk and dairy maid, stock and poultry breeder, gardener, not unfrequently assistant farmer, and sometimes, as when a widow, even head farmer.

“Just in proportion, then, as the farmer and townsman learned the evils of a crowded, unhealthy and unnecessary city, and also of a lonely and unnecessary country, both the city and country disappeared. The burdens caused by the city and country, which were formerly unfelt by all, became, under a higher state of intellectual culture, unbearable even by the dullest. The most thoughtful men and women, who saw the advantages of co-operation and the agreeableness of a larger family, first began to live together and work together. Aggressiveness slowly changed into personal freedom, and invasions became fewer and fewer; in other words, we gradually learned to mind our own business. Thus we did away with the solitude of the country and with the evil effects of a city. We are now all living in splendid parks, adorned with life-giving vegetation. Thus our social instinct is gratified; the evil effects produced by cities are no more, and we are also conveniently located to the land from which, as we have seen, all wealth must be produced by the application of labor.

“Our family homes, of course, were at first not so orderly and advantageously arranged as they are at present; but they were not so close together as to be unhealthful, and not so distant as to be lonely. The members of the family continued to increase. From a single, cruel, covetous, jealous, married man and wife to sometimes more than a thousand kind, free, cultivated, non-aggressive persons—men, women and children, none of whom pretend to hold any compulsory claims against any other one.

“You must not imagine, either, that the arrangement and growth of all our present families and communities occurred instantaneously and simultaneously. Our present conditions are, of course, a social and industrial growth, and required time and intelligence for their completion or advancement. To illustrate: Your so-called republics did not all appear at the same time. The second republic profited by the experience of the first. The first republic did not postpone its formation until all mankind were ripe for a republic. As soon as a certain collection of your people thought that they could live more agreeably and more happily under a republican form of government than under a monarchy, the monarchy was gradually changed into what you now call republics. You have had some republics for years, yet not all your earthly inhabitants are subjects of republics at the present time. All persons do not mature for the same thing at the same time. So it was with our families and communities. Those men and women that matured for a higher plane first, began to live together, regardless of the immature, as nearly as possible a life approaching the one the Marsites are now living. As I have already stated, years ago each married couple constituted a family, and lived alone in the same manner as you are now living on earth. Then two suitable couples began to live together as one family. The two couples cooked on one stove, ate from one table, and co-operated in their domestic and other labor. Their social intercourse made the individual members continually more free and less aggressive. One stove or heating apparatus did the heating for both couples. One house, one table, one clock, one cellar, one musical instrument, one washing-machine, one library, one parlor carpet, one lamp, one churn, etc., supplied four individuals just as well, and in many respects better, than they had formerly supplied two.

“By this co-operation nearly one-half the commodities were economized. But this was by no means all the advantage gained. The women’s domestic labor by working together was only little more than half as much to each individual as it was when each couple lived in a house separately. Thus they largely economized in labor and in commodities. A laborer, whether man or woman, when so co-operating, can, on an average, work more advantageously than they can when working single-handed. Under a division of labor, a person can do much more and much better work than he can otherwise, but it requires a large community of extensive and thorough co-operation to make a complete division of labor possible. Under co-operation much more work can be done with improved machinery, and much less machinery is required to do it.

“With regard to the care of children, two mothers in the same family can greatly assist each other. One can nurse the children for a time, while the other is at liberty to go out, or do some other work. They are then not bound down so closely as if each were living in a separate home. Of this division and economy of labor and saving of commodities, both men and women gradually took advantage.

“As the family and homes increased in number and size, and as material subsistence was more and more easily obtained by co-operative production and economy, avarice, covetousness and jealousy gradually disappeared. All learned by experience that in order to be really rich and happy each individual must do his part from the promptings of an inward sentiment which constitutes character. No one can, without impairing his own permanent happiness, invade the rights of another. Each learned to build his own happiness on the happiness of his fellow-beings.

“The increase of individual freedom and equality kept pace with the enlargement of the home and family until the individual—man, woman and child—were completely free and equal, in all the privileges that could be enjoyed according to the individual’s age and sex. All former claims that were not voluntary and mutually agreeable were gradually disregarded. Promises were broken as soon as they were found to be untrue. The discovery of truth became the great aim. Each individual became the sole owner of his or her person.

“Just as the family and home grew in size, kindness, freedom and order, so did the community grow in size, arrangement, regularity and wealth. The new houses were built larger, more healthful, and more convenient as to location; the old ones were enlarged and rearranged. Railroads or motor-lines with large depots and warehouses at short intervals connected every home. Door-yards, parks, play-grounds, boulevards, greenhouses, gardens and farms were enlarged, rearranged and improved. Land engines, electric vehicles and steam engines of various kinds superseded the draught animals, and in turn they were supplanted by electric power.

“As man grew continually more vegetarian and less carnivorous, cattle breeding became less and less, until they were sparingly used only for dairy purposes. Poultry was raised only for their eggs and for pets; sheep for their wool. All these industries, as time passed, were conducted on a larger scale, and in localities best adapted for them. Timber culture was also carried to those localities best suited for that industry.

“Mining and manufacturing became great industries, and were carried on in some form in nearly every community. By the prospecting scheme, the richness of the mine constantly increased; and the improved mining machinery and tools made mining not an unpleasant occupation. As the industrial adjustment became more complete, much of the mining was done during those seasons of the year when agriculture and other labor was least. The principal manufacturing was done on a large scale in those localities where water and wind power for the generation of electricity were most abundant. Our machinery and the skill of our workmen constantly improved and developed. By our keen, free competition each community naturally drifted into those industries for which the community was best adapted.

“The interior of the house became more and more useful, convenient and comfortable. Stoves for heating and cooking purposes were superseded by engines and natural gas, then by electricity. Powerful mellow electric lights, which lighted the big-houses, walks, lakes, boulevards, motor lines and railroads more brilliantly than a noonday sun, took the place of the former lamps. Stairways were superseded by improved and wonderfully convenient elevators. The steam and electric laundry did away with handwashing. Everything was improved, and countless new things were constantly invented. With our present leisure and wealth we have a hundred inventors, where we formerly had one, or where you have one. The kitchen, the dining-room, the barber-shop, the halls, the furniture, the commercial department, the nurseries, the restaurant, the grand parlors, the store, the bath-rooms, the scientific departments, the carriage-room and the private apartments—all kept pace with the general advancement. Voluntary co-operation and individual freedom were so abundantly productive and economized so enormously in all directions that wealth, health and happiness reigned everywhere.

“Gradually, as the people acquired this additional practical knowledge, each individual became better able to transact his own business, for several reasons:

“First, the social and industrial organization grew more and more natural, and, therefore, more simple. Secondly, an intelligent person can keep himself out of trouble better than an ignorant and aggressive one. And thirdly, an enlightened person is capable of transacting more complex business than an unenlightened one.

“With the rise of a higher intelligence, unproductive and destructive labor gradually disappeared, until none was left. Just in proportion as our Marsian ancestors allowed one another more and more individual freedom, they became also more peaceable, for aggression only can provoke quarrels and fights. These peaceful sentiments gradually diminished the number of soldiers, policemen, peace officers, civil judges, lawyers, politicians, legislators, etc., and also their tools and machinery—guns, clubs, prisons, scaffolds, courts, law libraries, legislative halls, fortifications, navies, etc. All of this shortened the days of manual labor.

“In the commercial and mercantile business all needless and destructive labor was done away with. The army of profit takers contemporaneously disappeared with the cities and towns. The banker’s customers left him just to the extent as a medium of exchange, based on productive labor or the negotiable wealth of the community was introduced and recognized. Money was secured by the actual negotiable wealth on hand, and there was always as much and no more in circulation as there was actual negotiable wealth. Interest, which is the result of money monopoly, became a thing of the past. Money was made more and more of cheap and convenient material. The vast army of gold and silver miners, who were once at work to produce the expensive material for a medium of exchange, were slowly compelled to file in the ranks of productive labor; for we now make all our medium of exchange out of a cheap convenient paper.

“Our middlemen had to quit business for want of customers. One family and community bought directly of another community, everything came directly from the producer and went to the consumer. Traveling salesmen, as such, could find no employment, because every community, by the aid of the annual invoice and census, by samples, by the Fanos and Modano, and by a thorough classification of goods, bought and sold whatever and wherever they could to the best advantage. The vast sum of wages and expense formerly paid the traveling salesmen, is no more taxed to the goods they sold. The consumer is rid of that extra burden. You, as consumers, are at present, perhaps, paying over $200,000,000 per annum in this manner on goods purchased. Under our system, we require only a few stores and clerks to do our business much better than you are doing yours with your countless stores, clerks and traveling salesmen. By this advantageous adjustment, we economized a vast amount of labor by co-operation and concentration.

“As man’s belief in the uniformity of nature became clearer and stronger, the sectarian preacher’s congregation diminished in number. As man himself became so good that punishment and revenge seemed barbarous and repugnant to him, he could no longer believe that the formative forces of the universe consciously and deliberately delight in acts of torture too vile for human contemplation. Here again a vast number of unproductive and destructive laborers had to become producers.

“The business of insurance companies of all kinds dwindled down to nothing. Our social and industrial organization afforded all the protection the individual could utilize. Every community, so to speak, is an insurance company without any special agents. We have no husbands that need make provisions for a widow and orphans. Our women are as capable of caring for themselves as our men, and our helpless children are all provided for by the family, whether the parents are living or dead. Our ‘big-houses’ are fire-proof; and if not it would be next to impossible for a fire to originate, because we use neither stoves, lamps, tobacco nor matches in the house. The army of insurance agents and officers that were once supported by the insured were slowly forced by natural conditions into the field of productive labor also.

“The improvement of commerce kept pace with the other improvements. The person’s back, the ox-cart, the horse-team and the steam and electric engines successively superseded one another. The illy-graded and muddy street and road were supplanted by the boulevard, motor-line and finely-constructed railroads. The bicycle, tricycle and electric vehicles succeeded the poor, expensive coach horse. The floating palace of the ocean increased in speed, convenience and safety. Aerial navigation was also vastly improved in many ways.

“Co-operation in intercommunication is fully as complete as it is in other industries. The improvement continued from the rudest beginning of mail-carrying until each private apartment is furnished with a postoffice, telephone, phonograph, etc.”

“Now,” requested Mr. Uwins of Mr. Midith, “explain to us how the ownership of land from that of owning land by deed to that of occupancy and use was effected.”

“As I told you the other evening, monopolization of land, which is caused by the deed system, is either directly or indirectly the source of nearly all the social and industrial derangement; at least, this was formerly the case on Mars, and is plainly now the case on earth. But everything for the better must be solved by intelligence, which can be acquired only by experience, either ancestral or personal. So as we learned during the lapse of time that we could be happier by owning land by occupancy and use than by owning it by deed, we gradually took to the former.”

“But we would like to know,” said Viola, “in what manner this change was brought about, so that we can make our intelligence here on earth, too, count in that direction.”

“Of course, primitive man with his rude and unpolished intellect sees nothing of this evil. The antagonistic propensities which man has inherited during the fierce struggle for existence from his lower ancestors, caused him to monopolize natural opportunity wherever he could, because his intelligence was so low and narrow that to him the material subsistence seemed to count for all, and the higher social and industrial qualities counted for little or nothing. Such an intellect can not see that one can not be happy as long as he is surrounded by many who are ignorant and miserable. But with the unfolding of higher and nobler sentiments, man, at last, clearly realized that no person can really be wealthy in any world as long as a portion of his fellowmen are pinched with poverty, oppressed by slavery, burdened by ignorance and affected with filth and rudeness. He learned that in order to have universal prosperity, high mental attainments and cleanliness and purity, man must be free to apply his labor to land wherever he finds some vacant.”

“But do you think,” asked Mrs. Uwins, “that the evil effects of owning land by deed are as great when the population of a country or world is sparse than if it be dense?”

“It may not be fully as great in the former as in the latter case, but it is always one of the greatest evils and the most effectual hindrance to universal progress. We have seen that in order to make industry most productive, we must have a complete division of labor; and a complete division of labor is possible only under an extensive and thorough voluntary co-operation. But notice that the ownership of land by deed creates or tends to create extensive landlords. Hence all individuals must either be extensive landowners, or some are compelled to work either directly or indirectly for the landlord. But if every individual is an extensive landowner, population must necessarily be sparse; and with a sparse population, extensive and thorough co-operation is impossible, while, on the other hand, the laboring of some landless individuals for the landlords, as you now have it and as we formerly had it, causes land monopoly, which is the cause either directly or indirectly of nearly all your social and industrial evils.”

“Yes, I clearly see the advantages of owning land by occupancy and use.”

“But now,” continued Mr. Midith “let us consider a few of the transitional steps through which the Marsites passed in effecting the change from the old to the new method of owning land. Of course you know very well that not every one abandoned his vacant land simultaneously. All great ideas are born in the mind of one individual. He imparts it to a few of his social companions, and his companions to their companions and so on until it becomes universal. Just so did the vacant land agitation arise on Mars, and just so has it already arisen on earth. You can perhaps see more clearly the rise of an idea when you contemplate how your so-called civilized nations, states, and individuals gradually abolished chattel slavery, wife stealing, imprisonment for debt, etc., etc. But allow me to give you a warning right here. Do not be deceived like many of you are, by thinking that war can really set slaves free. All freedom and toleration, like all ideas, have their origin in the intellectual faculty of the individual. They are born by mental impressions received on consciousness and not by bullet-holes through the brain.

“As I have told you, the social feelings unfolded in proportion to the intellectual elevation. With the development of the just and peaceable sentiments, a closer and more extensive association and co-operation became mutually agreeable. The evils caused by the deed ownership of land became constantly clearer and more apparent to a larger number of our population, and the conscious burden of this wrong became more and more painful to bear; so much so that many began to abandon their vacant land, or invited others to co-operate with them on equitable terms.

“In this manner the rude community was born and developed. The tillers of the soil commenced to live and work together. They began to manufacture their own implements, mine their own minerals, made their own medium of exchange, and bought what they needed and sold what they had to spare directly to other similar rude communities. This, for want of business, forced the townsmen out of the cities and towns onto vacant land to provide for their own wants. The reward of co-operation and of individual freedom strengthened and built up the infant community. The communistic production was so abundant, the labor so easy and pleasant, and the social life so agreeable that even the dullest began to see the advantages and sought to become a constituent part of a community.

“Thus the landowner, as land gradually depreciated in commercial value from the effects of numerous abandonments of vacant land, was even pleased to have a co-operating community take up and work his land, because he would produce more and much easier as a co-operator than as an owner under a perverted system. Thus gradually every individual became a member of a community. This communistic co-operation concentrated population, so that even with the former increase of population, there is still at present an abundance of first-class land unoccupied for want of population, and any one who would get tired of co-operation can get all the land he wants for nothing and set up over himself and over his followers, if he could get any, any kind of religion or government he wished; but those who have once tasted the advantages of voluntary co-operation and individual freedom can never again be induced to become the dupes of poverty, tyranny and superstition.”

“How did your present money or medium of exchange, come into general use?” asked Mrs. Uwins.

“Let me explain briefly,” said Mr. Midith. “From the explanation I have given you, you understand how the community originated and developed to its present size and arrangement. You also know how your nations on earth now control and monopolize the issuing of money, and how your business transactions are more and more effected by means of commercial papers instead of coin and currency.

“In the beginning, one infant community in buying and selling gave a kind of due-bill to the other. Men, instead of hunting for the precious metals out of which to make money, as was formerly the case with us and as is still the case with you, directed their labor toward the production of food, clothes, shelter and luxuries.

“Our money system was thus gradually perfected into the one I have described to you elsewhere. This gradual development is easily traceable. Of course, with money as with everything else, the fittest will eventually survive. More and more business was transacted by means of commercial papers without the use of government-monopolized money. As the commercial business grew more simple and definite, the commercial apartment in our big-houses sprung up and became more perfect. This arrangement and rearrangement continued until every individual has his own money issued by the community on his monthly labor record. Practically, each individual produces wealth, and on this wealth he has his money issued monthly. Under these conditions, money can now be obtained only by productive labor and by voluntary gift, and all productive labor receives all it earns.”

“How about your government?” asked Viola. “How did that develop to its present form? Will you please show us the direction of its growth by enumerating some of the transitional steps by which it has reached its present perfection?”

“I think I shall be able to point out to you the direction of its growth,” said Mr. Midith. “I notice that you have been, and are now, growing governmentally in the same direction as we grew, and, no doubt, you will in time reach the same, or nearly the same, end that we have reached.

“From what I have told you on previous occasions, you, of course, understand that we once lived in small families composed of husband and wife and their children. These families, like yours, had a family government. The husband generally considered himself the ‘boss,’ or head of the family. In a low state of civilization he maintained his authority by resorting to physical force and superstition. He often thought it necessary and even his duty to flog his wife and children when they refused to obey his orders. Sometimes he even beat them to death. It was thought then that a family could not exist successfully without some such boss. But as experience gradually taught them that such cruel course of conduct produced discord, sullenness, lies and deception, the element of physical force constantly diminished, especially toward the wife. Her wishes were more and more conceded to until she finally became the equal to the husband in the general management of the family; and still further on she managed her domestic affairs as she thought best without asking the permission of the husband. The growth of this governmental freedom and independence between husband and wife continued until both learned that each is best capable of doing their own work without interfering with the other. Each learned that non-aggressiveness produces more happiness than aggressiveness. Thus did the government begin to change.

“But long after the husband and wife had learned not to interfere with each other’s course of manual labor, they deemed it still necessary to employ physical force in the training and management of their children. Both father and mother, in this later period, seemed to think that a child can not be successfully reared without an abundant application of the rod. Hence the maxim, ‘He who loves his child does not spare the rod.’ But later on the parents found that they were mistaken in this, the same as the husband had formerly been mistaken in the use of the rod on his wife. They found that they could raise a much better and a much wiser child by kindness and freedom than they could by cruelty and slavery, and that both parents and children under freedom and gentleness are much happier than they could otherwise be.

“Quite a number of your families have already reached such a stage of culture as the foregoing; but such is not the end of family freedom. Long after a husband and wife do no more interfere with each other’s labor affairs, they still often interfere with each other’s private affairs on jealousy and other grounds. One is often not free to act as he desires for fear that he may thereby offend the other. I find the same also to be true with regard to children. You have many parents that have put aside the rod long ago; yet they believe that a child ought to remain at home and work for the parents until it is eighteen or twenty-one years of age, and such parents do not hesitate to enact statute laws to that effect.

“Such parents seem to think that a child owes a parent a great sum for the parental care it received from them, and that it requires the labor of the child up to that age. Notice that the parent alone, without the consultation of the child, names this age, and he could make it fifty years as well as twenty-one. But these parents seem to forget that they received parental care during their infancy and that they, in turn, are bound to give parental care or else die a debtor to human equity. Free persons are those who are not forcibly prevented by others from going where, when, and with whom they please, and act as they see fit, provided they do not invade the equal rights of others. For example, I believe that Mr. Uwins’ family enjoys such freedom, and that many others are gradually maturing for it. At least during my stay with you, I have heard no command from any one. You all seem to know how to live an orderly life without invading the rights, or frustrating the wishes of each other. The children, as far as I can see, enjoy the same freedom and privileges as the parents. The only ties which are respected between husband and wife, parent and child are those which are mutually agreeable. The foregoing is the direction in which our family government up to this point developed, and a similar growth is already discernible here on earth.

“But do not understand me here that the family development was the only one. Religious and political toleration also kept pace with the family. The witch fires were slowly extinguished, the ‘Benefit of Clergy’ disregarded, trial by ordeal abandoned, direct tithes were regarded impositions, church and state were separated first in theory and later in practice also, colossal churches and cathedrals, which were once built by compulsory taxation, were later on built by voluntary donation, the army of clergy who were once a social caste maintained by compulsory taxation became later on dependent on the voluntary gifts of their congregation. So step by step, we, like you are now doing, moved toward justice and freedom.

“Politically the different hordes and tribes coalesced gradually into powerful absolute monarchies, then they slowly changed to limited monarchies, then to your so-called republics, and still later on we became free as we now are. Gradually the sphere of compulsory taxation contracted and weakened. Primitively a person passing from one small district or country had to pay duty on himself and goods, later on he paid duty only on his goods, still later all migration and commerce became free; a person could go where he pleased, and buy and sell where he found the best market without paying duty on anything.”

“Then you were at one time in just the same stages of development as we now are!” exclaimed Rev. Dudley.

“Just the same,” replied Mr. Midith.

“And now the Marsites are much further than we are,” said Mrs. Uwins. “What interests us most now is, by what course you reached your present destination, so that we may make our intelligence count to propel us in the same direction.”

“Well let us try then, briefly, to point out the channel through which we passed. By the advance of intellectual culture, the unjust burden of compulsion became continually more apparent and sensitive to a larger proportion of the people. As long as a progressive people believe that man can be elevated and reformed by human-made laws—that a person’s ‘heart’ can be made good by the ballot, that long they will employ the ballot, and that long the rights of using the ballot will be given to a continually increasing number of the people.

“In a certain political stage, the absolute monarch was the sole ruler and law-maker; then a few advisers were added; then a parliament with hereditary members; then representatives elected by a certain privileged class, as landlords, etc.; then the franchise was vested in all male citizens, who were of ‘age,’ and who owned a certain amount and kind of property, or paid a certain sum of taxes or rent; then to all male citizens who were of ‘age,’ then the female was gradually enfranchised, first in school and municipal affairs, then in county and state matters, and further on the female had the same privileges to use the ballot as the male; and then the age of political majority was continually lowered from twenty-one downward.

“But long before all these rights were accorded to the wife and child by the masses, the more thoughtful ones of the age had learned that the ballot is powerless in bringing about justice, prosperity and a harmonious social adjustment between man and man. Hence, instead of voting as before, they slowly ceased to use the political ballot, and began to direct all their progressive energy toward self-improvement and the general diffusion of knowledge. By these means their number continually increased until it included every man, woman and child in our community government which I have described to you before.

“But these were not the only means by which the compulsory element of government was frustrated and finally defeated. Compulsory taxation was another element which matured the people to abolish compulsory government. In proportion as the people grew in self-reliance, individual liberty and aversion for government by physical force, the burden of compulsory taxation became more and more sensitive. In the course of time the vast majority of the people believed more or less in lying and otherwise deceiving the assessors, so as to avoid paying taxes; and the assessors generally knew themselves that the tax-payers were lying to them when they enumerated their property for assessment. And these sentiments, more or less, are easily traceable with your tax-payer here on earth. As far as I can learn, nearly all of you try more or less to deceive your assessors. You, like we first, attempted in this matter to make people truthful by putting them under oath, but it was soon found that when people do not wish to pay taxes any longer, they have no greater scruples for perjury than they have for a simple, straight falsehood. Thus the oath, too, became powerless and eventually obsolete.

“In this manner the taxes and duties were one by one taken off from the different kinds of property, so that at last all was free. The cessation of compulsory taxation caused the government of physical force first to weaken and then to crumble to pieces. It, of course, was for a while more or less maintained by voluntary donations by those who still believed in it, in a somewhat similar manner as you now maintain churches which were also formerly built and maintained by the state. But as man’s sentiments grew more and more in harmony with freedom, the compulsory element slowly disappeared altogether, as we now find it in our communities. Thus we arrived by successive approximations to our present form of voluntary government. In proportion as the human-made laws were repealed and ignored, natural opportunity became equally open to all, so that justice, free competition, and a healthy supply and demand, guided by a constantly increasing intelligence, made a proper adjustment of all things.”

CHAPTER XXV.
HOW THE TRANSITION FROM THE OLD TO THE NEW ORDER OF THINGS WAS ACCOMPLISHED.
[Concluded.]

“Mr. Midith, you have not yet told us how your old marriage system was gradually superseded by your present system of sexual freedom,” said Rev. Dudley. “I am sure it would be highly interesting to us to have you point out the most important transitional steps.”

“It is, of course, impossible for me to point out all the countless gradations through which we passed in the sex relations from the lowest stages of barbarism to that highest state of equal sexual freedom which the Marsites now enjoy. It will suffice here to say that the progress with us, as far as I can learn up to the point which you have reached at the present time, were almost identical with yours.

“Under the head of sex relations I showed you how marriage was instituted, both here and on Mars. How the primitive savage often stole or captured his wife or wives; how he often compelled prisoners of war to become his wife or wives; how, later on, the father or parent sold his daughters to become the wives of the purchasers; how, still later, the parents, instead of the young couple, made the marriage contract; and now the contracting parties to the marriage, at least in the United States and in some European countries, are generally only interfered with by the state; that is, the state demands of them certain acts before they can live together, and it also demands of them, when once married, certain other acts before they can separate or live with some one else; that is, your marriage contract is always a life contract, and nothing but the most flagrant cruelties, as the state looks upon them, will induce the state to grant a divorce.

“The last is the highest point in the sex relation that the earthly inhabitants have thus far reached, and I need, therefore, not point out any of the gradations below this point, for you have passed through them in almost the same manner as we did, and how you did pass through your past gradations can, to a certain extent, be ascertained from your historical records. But what interests you most is how we made the transitional steps of advance from the highest point that you have at present attained to that complete sexual and other freedom which the Marsites now enjoy.

“We have seen that all advancement is wrought out by intelligence, and if sexual freedom is a higher and purer state of human activity than the practice of wife-stealing or life-wedlock, we must have attained that higher plane by some intellectual powers which taught us that life, accompanied with a certain quantity and quality of intellectual culture, is, as a whole, purer, more complete, and therefore happier under sexual freedom than under the various forms of force marriage systems; otherwise the statement that happiness is a feeling which we seek to bring into consciousness and retain there is not true.

“The trend of human advancement, then, must ever be toward individual freedom; not only in the sex-relations, but in all other directions also. Let me therefore point out to you a few of our transitional steps from your highest present sex-relations to that which now exists on Mars. Let us also, as we go along, try to discover if any of the same signs are already discernible here on earth.

“When we were in your present stage of progress, our marriage contract began to be much less esteemed than formerly; the power of the church and state was rapidly waning; the ceremonies grew less solemn, and divorces increased in number and respect. All these signs are already more or less strongly visible with you, too.

“In ancient times a wife, no matter how much abused, could obtain no divorce from her husband without his consent. Later on thousands of wives obtained divorces. The same is true with your men and women now. With us actresses and such other ladies who were best capable of supporting themselves financially were the first and most numerous who desired to be free and independent, and therefore applied most frequently for divorces when the marriage was no longer mutually agreeable. With you the same holds true.

“As several couples of married men and women began to co-operate and live together in the same house, they all grew more sociable and less jealous because each desired more and more to be free himself and would therefore be willing to accord a greater latitude of freedom to his married or other companions. We can already often see slight traces of that with you where two or more families live and work in close proximity, and where two married couples, when out walking or riding, exchange ladies and gentlemen.

“In the foregoing stage of co-operation, the death of a man or a wife would not desolate and break up the home and family like it formerly did when only two parents were living together. There were always plenty left to have the work go on as before. In this small co-operative family the surviving member would continue to live as a member of the family almost the same as before. He could either again take in a companion or not, just as he pleased. By these closer and wider social, industrial and sexual bonds, man became more and more sensitive to injustice and discord. He looked upon aggressiveness and compulsion of every kind with continually increasing repugnance. The reward of co-operation on the one hand and individual freedom on the other urged him on to a still higher eminence.

“Thus as our families and communities unfolded in size, order and prosperity, and as each member—man, woman and child—became more and more intelligent, independent, self-reliant and non-aggressive, as I have pointed out in the preceding part of my narrative, the marriage contract, like the oath and other superstitions, first became a mere form, and later on disappeared altogether. The social and sexual web grew wider, purer and stronger. All forms of monopoly died with the compulsory state. Jealousy and aggressiveness were crowded out of the mind by higher and nobler feelings. Filial affection overflowed from its former narrow bounds. The individual became the sole owner of his or her own person. We began to feel that all of us had received parental care during our infancy and that we in turn, whether parent or not, should do the same to our contemporaneous infants. The sexual affairs, with the enlargement of individual freedom, naturally glided under the exclusive control of the woman under whose efficient management, sexual freedom and instructive desires, the excessive sexual function was gradually reduced, to about its normal activity, the same as we find with the lower animals when they are in a state of freedom. Thus the highest human efforts were always crowned with health, purity, freedom and happiness.

“I am well aware of the fact that these higher feelings of which I have here spoken are not sufficiently developed in the masses of the earthly inhabitants at the present time to be keenly appreciated by them. All that any of us can do is to aid in bringing the masses up to that standard by a diffusion of a higher intelligence which improves their organization. As I told you before, a rude savage would not feel at home in an elegantly furnished parlor, but he is not to blame for the fact that he can not appreciate such a parlor. His organization is not yet in tune with it. He must be elevated before he can appreciate such surroundings. The same is true with the vast majority of your people. With their present state of mind they can not appreciate those higher and purer feelings of which I have spoken; if they could, they would surely have them. A rude, uncleanly person would find it a great burden, instead of a comfort, to live a life appropriate with a clean, elegant, orderly residence in which there would be no invasion, and equal right.

“To illustrate: Such a person would not want to clean his shoes or put on his slippers before he walked in. He would want to spit on the stove or floor. He would want to slam the doors or leave them open after him when they ought to be closed. He would want to be loud and noisy. He would want to smoke, chew and get drunk in it. He would not want to bathe and divest himself of his labor-garments which are scented with perspiration. He would find no delight in keeping his finger and toe-nails clean and trimmed. He would not want to clean his teeth nor comb his hair. He would want to dictate to, and domineer over his physically weaker and intellectually inferior companions. As a male he would want to manage sexual affairs which can be managed with purity only by the female. At table he would want to rise, reach and smack while eating. He would want to interrupt you in conversation. At night he would want to come into the house like a whirlwind, waking all in the house. From labor he would want to shirk all he could. In discussion he would get angry if he could not carry his point. In courtship he would become pouty and jealous if things would not just suit him. Instead of learning, discussing and contemplating something high and noble, he would want to indulge in obscene and vulgar frivolities. All these acts would be inappropriate with a fine residence and highly distasteful to a cultivated person whose social feelings are in tune with a clean handsome residence. With their present sentiments, the vast masses of your people would therefore not appreciate the wholesome conduct and elegant ‘big-houses’ of the Marsites; but, on the contrary, a multitude of your rudest men and women would, no doubt, turn our elegant dwellings more or less into brothels, filthy saloons, smoking rooms and nasty spittoons. They would quarrel, fight and shirk from their equitable labor. They would be jealous and unclean. But all this is no sign that our social, industrial and sexual relations are not better suited for a higher and purer life than your institutions are. It simply shows that those who are not in sympathy with our institutions, or who deem them impracticable on account of their high standard, still contain within them too many primitive propensities and passions which are revolting against a healthful, peaceable life.”

“How did you arrive at your present methods of education?” asked Viola. “I am sure an account of some of the most important transitional steps would be very interesting to us, and I hope that you will find it as agreeable to give us the explanation as it will be for us to receive it.”

“Of course I need not tell you that we reached the point of education that you have attained at present by the same process and in the same order that you did, and I need, therefore, not go back of that point, for you know that as well and perhaps better than I do. It is modern history with you and more or less ancient with me. You want to know by what path, from your present position, you can reach a higher plane.

“We have seen that the sovereignty of the state gradually weakened, and that the sovereignty of the individual correspondingly increased. Your public school system depends for its financial support on the power of the state. As soon as the state loses its power of compulsory taxation, the public school can not exist on its present principles.

“But mankind will always maintain existing institutions until they begin to see some disadvantages, or until they can supplant them by what they consider to be better ones. This is as true of education as of everything else. Mankind slowly learns that not all instruction furnishes useful information. The direct object of education, as we have seen, is to discover truth, so that we may live in accord with the facts of the universe; for every violation of a natural function is a violation of a natural law, and every violation of a natural law is attended with suffering. Hence, in order to enjoy the greatest happiness, the ultimate aim and end of all sentient beings must be to live in tune with facts; we must understand the true relations of things so that we may be able to look a great distance into the future, so as to avoid or remove all stumbling blocks from our path of future progress.

“We may easily illustrate the fact that not all instruction furnishes useful information. The instruction which was inculcated in the minds of the people during the dark ages that a supernatural power may be and often was purchased from the supposed evil fiend, was instruction which led to the torture and murder of millions of innocent human beings. The instruction, during former ages, that war and slavery are justifiable, has done an immense evil, and is doing so still, but in a somewhat more lenient form. Your modern instruction that profit, interest, rent and taxes are right, and conducive to human well-being, is causing nearly all your present evils and discord.

“Some are beginning to see and feel this clearly. But no teacher in your public schools is allowed at present to teach that profit, interest, rent, and taxes are wrong because they arise from the monopolization of natural opportunity and are therefore destructive to the highest human welfare. No teacher in your public school is allowed to teach that we ought never to take up a gun for the purpose of shooting our neighbor in defense of any flag; for a man as such is always better than a flag; for a collection of people can even be happier and more orderly without a flag than with one. As a rule, your teacher who teaches that your women are not enjoying the same privileges that your men enjoy is looked down upon, and your board of directors or state do not desire to employ such a person as teacher. They look upon him as the contemporaries of Socrates looked upon Socrates.

“By this you can plainly see that thousands of your most cultivated and thoughtful teachers of your public schools, the same as many of your preachers, are not at liberty to teach all their best thoughts and sentiments. The masses are not sufficiently matured intellectually to assimilate them. He must therefore suppress some of his best thoughts.

“In proportion as people became conscious of the facts, they lost their patriotic sentiments for the compulsory public schools, and they could find no other solution out of the difficulty than to take the control of school education out of the hands of the state and place it in the hands of the individual, the same as they had done with the church long before. You see as long as we are compelled by the state to think only in one narrow, prescribed channel, there is little opportunity for rapid mental development. Under this state constraint, some of the best thoughts are frequently never born, and if they are born, they are generally dwarfed for want of room and opportunity. All who desire aid from the public school room are compelled to walk within the narrow path laid out by the state.

“But things are entirely different when any individual, under free competition, can open a school and teach whatever he desires. His school must then prosper by virtue of its own merits, in a large field of keen, free competition. Under individual instruction there would be the widest possible difference in the course of study and in the mode of discipline. All could very likely be suited somewhere, no matter how widely they may differ in thought and belief. Those who desire to pray could find schools in which prayer is the most important exercise; those who desire to study the doctrine of special creation could find their school and teacher. The evolutionist could find his. There would be schools in which all the various phases of thought were taught and discussed—social, political, theological, industrial, sexual, and scientific. Under such keen, free competition, all but the fittest would soon disappear.”

“But did you not say, Mr. Midith, that ministers, too, often feel the burden of narrowness brought to bear upon them by their congregations? They are not under the control of the state. How, then, do you reconcile these facts?” asked Rev. Dudley.

“In the first place, they are partly under state monopoly, because church property is exempt from taxation, while other property is taxed. In the church there is a wide range of latitude in the thought and belief between the most primitive Catholic, who believes himself to be under the guidance and paternalism of an infallible pope, and the most liberal Unitarian or Universalist, who is free nearly to believe as he likes. As a minister, then, nearly every one can find a gradation of individual freedom corresponding with his intellectual advancement, and when he is ready to step out of the church beyond all sectarian dogmas, he is at liberty to do so at any time. He is not now forced by the state, like formerly, to be a member of a particular church, or of any church, nor is he forced to contribute toward the support of any church more than the increase of his taxation caused by the exemption of church property. But with your public school and your teacher it is altogether different. You are taxed to support them whether you are in sympathy with them or not; whether you send your children to the public school, or to a private one where you pay tuition. The state-prescribed course of study and mode of discipline are nearly alike everywhere. There is but one narrow channel in which your intellectual activity must be confined. In your state-schools, you as an individual can not, like a minister and a church member, pass, step by step, as you grow intellectually, through a wide range toward the more liberal, and even pass entirely beyond all sectarian doctrines, like the tendency of your present theological movement clearly indicates. A minister, under your present regime, can preach any doctrine he desires from an independent pulpit, but an independent school is taxed out of existence by the state, because the private teacher can not get the required number of pupils as long as the parents of the pupils must first pay taxes to support the public school and then pay tuition to the private teacher.

“Let me give an illustration. The church, I think, furnishes the best example, showing how your public school will slowly but gradually lose its despotic state power and influence. According to your history, only a comparatively few years ago your people thought that the church and state were inseparably bound together by some superhuman tie. You then thought that it was the state’s duty to look after the welfare of the ‘soul’ as well as the body. Churches were built and the clergy maintained by compulsory taxation, the same as you now build and maintain public schools and teachers. There was but one denomination then, and every person was a member of that denomination or church. But as the mind unfolded toward self-reliance, kindness and individual liberty, different denominations were born to suit the rising intelligence. Thus step by step the separation of church and state continued until the only remnant of compulsory authority the state claims to exercise over the church at present is to exempt her property from taxation, and that remnant is already getting very feeble.

“Thus we see that the church continually grew weaker in dictatorial authority and membership, and stronger in simplicity and individual freedom. With every forward step of advance it became more natural, and this forward movement continued with us and will, no doubt, continue with you until the church loses itself in nature by becoming identical with it. Only a few centuries ago nearly every man, woman and child in your Christian world was a church member. Now the population of the United States in round numbers is about 60,000,000; of these about 8,000,000 are Catholics and about 12,000,000 are Protestants. About 20,000,000 out of the 60,000,000 are church members. Formerly, then, the rate per cent. of church members was nearly 100 per cent., now it is only 33 per cent. More than 66 per cent. passed through the successive steps of theological liberty, or they passed entirely beyond all theological dogmas as far as church membership is concerned.

“In a similar manner did our public school lose its state authority. As I have told you, the state itself, in all its functions, was gradually weakened, and lost its paternalism with every step of intellectual advance and personal liberty. But the disappearance of the public school was more rapid than the disappearance of the state in some other direction. Men gradually withdrew from the old, narrow, despotic school, the same as they had withdrawn from the old, narrow, cruel church. As the intellectual sun of freedom, kindness and prosperity rose and shed his congenial rays on our progressive Mars, the chains of superstition, cruelty and slavery fell off one by one; and the same tendency is already discernible with you. I find that many of your foremost thinkers and most impartial judges feel the narrowness and stagnation of your public school and your system of education. They favor the abolition of state schools and the substitution of private institutions in which there is a wide range of liberty, so that every teacher can teach what he desires, and every child can go where it desires. In such a keen, free field of competition every teacher and school must stand or fall by their own merit, and the survival of the fittest will soon crowd out all others.

“The public school, before its disappearance, assumed different forms. The teachers grew in kindness and ability. The days were shortened. I mean the school day in the compulsory school-room. The weeks and years were also gradually shortened. The child became a freer agent in a more natural position. In the course of time the people of the cities and towns erected and supported spacious public buildings in the most suitable parts of their cities and towns. These buildings were intended for enjoyment and also for the acquisition of useful information, not for the man only, like most of your public buildings now are, except the churches, but for the wife and child also. Every man, woman and child who wished to enjoy a social intercourse for a few hours, either during the day or evening, could always find a fit place in these public buildings.

“These public buildings, or natural schools, were built on the center of about four acres of the most suitable land in the center of a town. Of course, in large cities there were many such buildings. The ground was fenced so that no small child could get out. The entrance was guarded by a trustworthy person so that little children could not leave the ground without a nurse to care for them. This arrangement insured mothers and others that their children were out of danger when brought within the inclosure. Part of the inclosure was fitted up for a play-ground, part of it for an outdoor nursery, and the remainder was planted in flowers and ornamental trees, etc. These buildings, or natural schools, were divided into apartments by movable partitions, so that it could be set off into rooms or be thrown all into one hall. This inclosure and building were in charge of several lady and gentlemen marshals, or teachers. (But both the marshals and teachers had already lost nearly all of their aggressiveness.) These teachers instructed the children wherever they found them. The child studied biology, botany, geology, physiology and psychology whenever it went in the inclosure. It received instruction in music, reading, language, elementary sounds, cleanliness, politeness, honesty, truthfulness and kindness by words and examples, and all this was done in such a natural and pleasant manner that the child was not aware that it was studying. At the close of the day it would exclaim, ‘To-day we had lots of fun! I shall be here again early to-morrow morning!’

“These natural schools, or places of amusement, were supplied with a fine library, all kinds of musical instruments, commodious and elegant furniture, a fine laboratory and a good supply of philosophical apparatus, and a supply of confectionery and articles of amusement.”

“But is not that quite expensive,” asked Rev. Dudley, “to purchase the land, erect and furnish the building, and pay the teachers; and do you think that our bad boys would appreciate all this after all?”

“The cost of it would not begin to be as much as that which you expend in saloons, liquor, opium, tobacco and cigars. Your men build their saloons, club-houses, etc., and spend in the United States alone about a thousand million dollars for liquor, and over two hundred and fifty million dollars for tobacco, cigars and cigarettes per annum, and they handle nearly all the money, but invest scarcely a nickle for the wife and child in public buildings and places of learning and amusement.

“And as to the bad boys, it is no wonder that they are bad with the treatment they receive; the wonder to me is that your women and children do not revolt against the tyrannical treatment of the men. As long as you coerce your boys, who are chased from store to store, from postoffice to street, and kicked out of the saloon by the father who happens to be there, that long you can not expect your boys to be what you want them to be. I never saw any of your boys do anything so bad and cruel but what I saw your men do something worse and more cruel. No doubt, if you treat your boys and girls kindly and justly they will be just as good as our boys.

“But we are digressing from our subject; let us return to it. From what I have told you, you can, no doubt, see the tendency of educational advancement by a comparison of religious progress. To be sure in my limited narration, I can array only a few of the most important facts to suggest others.

“The primitive savage has not the mental ability and desire for deep thought and profound study. As the tribes coalesce and the brain increases in size and function by a wider social intercourse and a more complex experience concomitant with a greater national union, he begins to believe that man’s ‘heart’ can be made perfect by the guidance of man-made laws. In this mental stage, he endeavors to put everything under the dominion of man-made laws, the same as in former periods, he put everything under the dominion of his own created Deity. In this law-period, he owns his land by law; he makes his money by law; he owns slaves; kills witches and heretics, builds churches and school-houses, organizes and disciplines an army, executes criminals and marries all by law. Everything which is done in accordance to law is considered right and just. He is now an aggressor and invader, but with a still higher intelligence and a higher sense of justice, he begins to question the justice and equity of a man-made law. He finds that aggressiveness implies discord, and that society can never be orderly and happy as long as there are aggressors and invaders.

“So it was with the school, and with the entire system of education. The state school or public school, was succeeded by private schools. Our idea of school and education now rapidly broadened. With the enlargement of the family and community all parents, by the assistance of co-operation and closer association, became better educated and more highly cultivated, and this general advancement continued until every person, young and old, was considered a teacher, and every field, yard, park and ‘big-house’ an institution of learning; the direct teaching changed almost wholly to the indirect. Here you see that the school, too, loses itself in nature by becoming identical with it. Just as every person in a former period became his own minister and preached whatever doctrines he pleased, so does every person now become or is his own teacher and teaches whatever and wherever he pleases, and our education continues as long as we live. We do not graduate at the age of fifteen or twenty like you do. Hence, our system of education is now perfectly free, natural and agreeable. It has turned into play. We study only those things which are agreeable to us. But you must not forget that the higher branches of study and inquiry are more agreeable as our mental ability increases.

“By improved intercommunication of travel and correspondence, the survival of the fittest rapidly diminished the number of languages, until but one was left, and this one is so simple and easily learned by always hearing it spoken correctly that very little technical grammar is now studied. With the lapse of time we began to see more and more clearly that he who is capable of living with the most complex structure and function, most nearly in accord with the facts of the universe, is most highly educated; and he who is least aggressive is most highly cultivated, because these conditions are necessary for the enjoyment of the greatest happiness. Thus all the social, industrial and sexual questions gradually became a part of our practical course of study in our daily life.

“I am aware that my explanation of education has been very brief, but I have already kept you too far into the night. I am afraid that I am teaching you a bad lesson when I keep you up too late. On some future occasion we may be able to have more of the details, but now it is time to retire.”

CHAPTER XXVI.
FAVORABLE NEWS.

On Saturday evening Mr. Midith returned from the postoffice with a letter in his hand, an unusual brightness in his eye, and an additional elasticity in his step. The family were seated on the porch when he returned, and as he approached he said:

“I have received very favorable news from the financial committee of San Francisco, of whom I told you the other evening. They say they have met with complete success in the organization of a company who will undertake to search for my projectile. They have plenty of funds to prosecute the work on an extensive and thorough scale. They want me to come by first train, so as to assist them all I can in ascertaining the locality as nearly as possible where the projectile emerged on my arrival on earth, and also to be present at a meeting which is to be held there a few evenings hence. If I start on the next limited train I can just reach San Francisco in time for that meeting. It is an important event in my life, and I must by no means miss it.

“Perhaps I may yet be able some day to see my native world once more, to enjoy the kind, peaceable society which it has developed and blessed with intelligence and prosperity. I may be able once more to drink a draught from its almost faultless social and economic fountains; to press the hand and kiss the lips of those who are dear to me.”

“We can never let you return to Mars unless you can take us with you,” said Viola. “The earth is desolate enough with you in it, and without you it would be much more so. But if you find your projectile you may be able to establish a line of intercommunication between Mars and the earth; if so, we can all go. That will be grand, indeed.”

“We will do the very best we can,” replied Mr. Midith. “We can tell better what we can do after we find the projectile and see what repairs it needs, and whether or not those repairs can be made by the aid of earthly skill and machinery. Of course, you understand that it is no little thing to make a projectile which will traverse the vast distance between the earth and Mars. It is an undertaking which probably borders on the boundaries of human possibilities.”

We all expressed our regrets of having Mr. Midith depart from our midst. Our curiosity concerning the new world and its inhabitants of which Mr. Midith had already told us so much, was not half satisfied, but, on the contrary, the novelty of it increased in proportion as we learned the realities of it.

“It will be quite lonesome at first when you are gone,” said Mr. Uwins, “and we have not heard half as much of your world as we would like to, and I hope for your sake that you will be successful in your enterprise; but I also hope that your business may be such that you can do the most of it when you are here with us.”

“My train by which I must leave you, at least for a few days, is due here at ten o’clock; but I am almost certain that I shall return very shortly. It seems that I can not leave your hospitable home for any considerable length of time as long as I am a resident of this earth,” said Mr. Midith, after Mr. Uwins had finished speaking. “No doubt all I can do on the coast is to attend that meeting and tell the dredgers as nearly as I can where my projectile went down in the Pacific. The parties who have undertaken the search for the projectile must be highly interested in the project, for I have corresponded with them only a few days and have given them only a very few facts concerning my history.”

“I very much regret that you must leave us,” said Mrs. Uwins. “I have become so interested in the narrative of your just and beautiful world that I do not like to have you leave off telling before we have heard the whole of it.”

“I have told you but a little so far,” replied Mr. Midith, “but when I return from the coast, I shall tell you much more; and if we succeed in finding the projectile, I will tell and show you all about its construction and operation; how it was gradually improved from time to time, the same as your locomotive or threshing machine. There are also countless other details, of which I have so far said nothing.”

“It is more than an hour and a half before your train is due,” said Mr. Uwins, “and we cannot afford to have you silent as long as you are with us. I shall, therefore, ask you a question that I have been wanting to ask you several times before, but never got to it; and that is, how you dispose of your dead, your obsequies, mourning, monuments, etc.”

“We do not bury the dead at present, like you do and like we formerly did, but we cremate them. Every community has a ‘crematorium,’ and a corps of undertakers, who take charge of the corpse immediately after death. They are notified by the attending physicians or friends of the deceased. The undertakers convey the corpse to the crematorium, where it is laid out in an open casket until it shows unmistakable signs of decay and dissolution, after which it is cremated. These undertakers also clean, disinfect and otherwise prepare the apartment of the deceased for the reception of a new occupant.

“The old form of interment was gradually superseded by cremation for a number of reasons; the principal one is that cremation offers greater security to the living. An interred body, having died from the effects of a contagious disease, may, under certain conditions, easily spread the disease or contagion; while a cremated one can not. The atom of the contagious corpse, after dissolution by combustion, is no more dangerous to life, as far as we know, than the atom from a decomposed corpse having died from old age. It is true that contagious diseases are almost unknown with us, but a careful guard against them on all sides, and other favorable conditions, has made it so. Display, unnecessary contact and carelessness in disposing of the dead has cost us and you an untold number of lives, and you are paying dearly for it still.

“Our obsequies are the simplest possible; in fact, I think you would call them no obsequies at all. As soon as a physician has notified the undertakers or cremators of the death of a person, they take the corpse with their motor-hearse to the crematorium. No one except the cremators follows the corpse to his final place of dissolution; for it can not be the desire of a highly cultivated being, who has the highest welfare and greatest happiness of his friends and companions at heart, to have them follow his senseless corpse, when such an act can not conduce to his personal happiness; when it involves nothing but unproductive and destructive labor. A funeral procession also tends to spread contagious diseases, and prolong the mournful and depressed feelings caused by the death of a dear friend. No one who clearly sees these and other evils can consistently desire his surviving friends to follow him in a funeral procession. Our aid and sympathy are always with the living, for death has satisfied, at least, all the material and mental wants of the deceased, and these are all the wants we have any positive knowledge of.

“Let us examine this from another point of view. From historical records, and from the present practices of savages, we find that funeral rites and processions are born in barbarous times, and first practiced by primitive savages, and that all you have left of them at present are only the modified remnants of former barbarity and superstition.

“The primitive savage worships his deceased ancestors; he embalms them; he assigns them the best place at the table during the time of a feast; he often inters his horse, his gun and a number of slaves with him. His wife has often such a profound ‘respect’ for the dead that she often voluntarily cremates herself alive on the funeral pyre of her deceased husband.

“Thus we see at a glance that the savage has a much profounder respect for the dead, and much less respect for the living than the more cultivated person has, and this change gradually continues until all our help and sympathies are with the living, for the dead can not utilize them.

“You do not at present directly bury the living in the same tomb with the dead like the savage did and still does; but, no doubt, you often indirectly do it. I have seen more than once, while I have been living on earth, that a bereaved widow who was completely broken down by the bereavement, care and attention she had given to her sick husband, follow him for miles in a slow funeral procession during a rain or snowstorm, and also at times when the temperature was almost unbearably high or low. It seems to me that no highly cultivated person, who has the well-being and happiness of his surviving companions at heart, can form a conception that the unconscious dead would appreciate such useless hardships from their dearest friends even if they could know. After we had learned that all our acts and sympathies should go with the living—that the dead are unconscious and that all organs and faculties, as far as we know and have reason to believe, suspend their function in death—we no longer could expend any useless efforts for the supposed whims of the dead. We do all we can for them while they live, but death ends all our physical ties.

“We never wear mourning for a number of reasons. As I have said before, no person of high culture can desire his surviving friends to undergo any useless hardship and privation on his account; and mourning has a tendency of increasing the burden of grief by making the surroundings more solemn and gloomy. Our aim should be to make the surroundings of the bereaved as attractive, cheerful, and gay as possible. A living person of learning and culture would desire his friends to be as happy as possible; and a dead one, if he could know anything, would be a tyrant if he were different.

“The foregoing propositions are based upon the facts that it is in the inherent nature of things that death must necessarily come to all. That no amount of fretting and resistance can surmount this natural phenomenon. That a dead person is unconscious and can not appreciate and utilize help and sympathy. That the living should forget the bereavement of the dead as soon as possible. That no cultivated person desires his friends to undergo any useless hardships on his account, for the fundamental object of all sentient beings is the enjoyment of the greatest happiness, and mourning tends to intensify and prolong the depressed feeling of grief, which detracts from the greater happiness.

“In order to prevent being misunderstood, let me illustrate my meaning by an example.

“We, no doubt, all acknowledge that our life would be a miserable one if our burden of grief were always as hard to bear as it is immediately after the death of a dear friend, and when we are deeply depressed by a burden of grief, we can not devote ourselves with the same energy and success to the development of body and mind, and grapple with the phenomena of life as we can when our vital functions act in accordance with the laws of the most complete life and health; therefore, he who can lay aside all grief and melancholy, caused by the deprivation of a dear relative and friend, is the most complete person, while he who must bear the burden longest is the most incomplete person on this point. In a fierce struggle for existence the latter would, no doubt, soon perish. Hence no one can consistently and successfully defend the position and practice of artificially prolonging our grief and misery by wearing mourning for the dead; and no considerate person would desire it of his friends, for this practice of wearing mourning is no less a remnant of barbarism than the practice of interring the living with the dead, and he who feels that it is honorable, and that his dead friend would appreciate it, if he could, must necessarily lack refinement and consideration himself, for mourning can serve no good purpose for either the living or the dead.

“We have no material monuments; no memorials erected over our material remains. We believe that the deeds we do while we live, if they deserve remembrance, will erect a mental memorial in the minds of the living, which will serve to perpetuate our memory until our deeds are eclipsed by some nobler ones of posterity.

“Again, when we examine your tombs we find that nearly all the great monuments have been erected to the honor of the most unworthy and infamous persons—generals, torturers, despots and tyrants and bigots who were instrumental in taking the lives of thousands of innocent persons, and who have appropriated countless billions from the earnings of the productive laborers. The principle of material monuments is the same, whether contemplated from the colossal pyramids of Egypt or from the humblest tombstone of a country cemetery; costliness is the only difference.

“From the foregoing explanation you see at once that all obsequies, mourning and memorials originated in primitive barbarism; and were first practiced by savages; that they are wasteful, useless and destructive of life, health and property; that they fall into disuse in proportion as man, by a higher state of culture, begins to see that they detract from the completest life and health, and are, therefore, destructive of the greatest happiness, and that no thoughtful, considerate person would desire any such acts from surviving friends whom he really and truly loves.”

“Can you tell me why the savage instituted these practices of burying the living with the dead, of following the dead in funeral processions to their ‘last resting place,’ of wearing mourning, and of erecting costly monuments on their tombs?” asked Rev. Dudley.

“Yes, sir; that is very plain to the Marsites,” answered Mr. Midith. “I can account for that as easily to my satisfaction as I can account for the physiological fact that we require food in order to sustain life. Let us see if I can make it plain: We all know that the primitive savage almost universally believes in a conscious personal existence of some kind after death; that he deifies certain or all of his ancestors; that the departed need nearly the same subsistence as they do in this life; that the living may incur the pleasure or displeasure of the dead, and that the departed have the power of working either for the good or ill of the survivors. Just as soon as we believe these propositions the hecatomb, the obsequies, the mourning and the monuments naturally follow. Thus they are originated in and are founded on superstition and uncertainty, and will continue to live until we learn by a higher and deeper interpretation of nature that the vast preponderance of our most trustworthy evidence point against the primitive hypothesis of a conscious personal existence after death; and that the warrant for believing so is weakening with every advancement of scientific investigation and discovery.”

“You have so far told us nothing concerning the religious beliefs of the Marsites,” said Rev. Dudley, “and as I am engaged in religious work I would feel highly interested in a brief account of their religious sentiments. You have more than an hour before the train leaves, and during that time you can give us the principal points of Marsian theology.”

“In giving you our religious views, if I may call them such, you must remember that the vast majority of your people are yet very superstitious on the religious subject; many of them are even more superstitious on this subject than they are on the social, industrial and sexual questions. Some of them consider it even too sacred for discussion. Under these circumstances it is quite difficult to tell the whole truth and nothing but the truth without wounding some one’s feelings; but, nevertheless, if you desire it, I shall give you a short account of it.

“The Marsites are nearly what you call agnostics in their religious beliefs, if you call agnosticism a religion.”

“I have heard a great deal about agnosticism, but I am not sure that I understand its fundamental principles. I would like very much to have your explanation of it, especially if your agnosticism differs from ours,” said Rev. Dudley.

“Agnosticism is a modern doctrine with you. It neither asserts nor denies the existence of a personal prayer-hearing God, a conscious personal existence after death, etc. Mr. Herbert Spencer is the father of it in this world. It teaches that the human mind is limited in the sphere of knowledge, and that we can not know what lies beyond this limit. It is alike opposed to dogmatic atheism and dogmatic theism. It is founded on the ‘relativity of all knowledge,’ that is, things can be known only under certain conditions, but that there may be forms of existence not possessing these requisite conditions, and are, therefore beyond the boundary of the sphere of human knowledge.

“We have seen that knowing implies two things—a conscious subject to receive the impression and an object to make it. For aught we know there may be forms of existences that have neither matter nor gravitation, but we can not assert this as a fact, because the data of proof and disproof are inaccessible. It is a form of existence, if it does exist, that does not excite a sensation as an object on a recipient subject. It is a well-known fact with us that all knowledge must enter the mind through the channels of the senses, and whenever and wherever we attempt to pass beyond the boundaries of the phenomenal, we are always checkmated by two alternate impossibilities of thought.

“Nearly all of your foremost thinkers are agnostics. This seems to show that your foremost minds are following us right up in religious beliefs and that there is but one line of progress here as well as elsewhere.

“Before we proceed any further, let us contemplate how the religious sentiments probably originated and developed, and how, under a better acquaintance with nature, they became identical with it.

“We know by actual experience, from the present savages, that the savage knows little of the so-called natural laws and that he is very superstitious. We also know that with any of us all tricks which we see performed, but which we do not understand at first, lose their miraculous character in proportion as we learn how they are performed. Just so it is with natural phenomena. At first when man does not understand them, he believes them to be the acts of an arbitrary deity; but as soon as they come under what is called the dominion of law, they lose their supernatural character; they are then nothing but the uniformity of nature.

“The primitive savage knows so little about nature that he largely runs cross-grained with her, and nature punishes him for every violation of her laws. He sees, hears and feels so many things that he can not account for. He sees the lofty tree torn to splinters by a flash of lightning. He hears the awful peal of thunder. He believes that nothing can happen without a personal agency, yet he sees no such agency. Again, at one time his abode is destroyed by an earthquake, or a sudden volcanic eruption; at another time it is inundated by a flood. At one season of the year he suffers from drought; at another season he is visited by destructive tornadoes and hailstorms. His improvidence often causes him to starve; his imprudence to go to war; his ignorance to be visited by painful and incurable epidemic, etc. He also has fearful dreams and sometimes meets raving maniacs. All these things are beyond his understanding. He can see no cause for them and, therefore, attributes them to supernatural agencies. He is pinched and punished by nature so often for violating her laws, the existence of which he knows nothing, that he is almost afraid to stir. He is a rude, cruel creature himself, and, therefore, has also a cruel god. His god, like himself, delights in torture. The savage delights in receiving the humiliation and services of his ‘inferiors,’ and imagines that his all-powerful god has similar feelings and requires the same of him.

“Thus you see how deities are born. The savage has many of them, because his mind is incapable of comprehending how one can rule all things; they are also rude and cruel like himself. He puts the same sentiments in his deities that he feels in his own breast. A person who can believe that an all-powerful God finds delight and pleasure in torturing a creature for all eternity, must have some mean blood in his own veins, for it is very probable that the cruelest person that ever lived would get his revenge satisfied by torturing his worst enemy for less than half an eternity. Thus, such a person makes his God meaner, more cruel, more revengeful than that person is himself. The savage knows of but few natural laws, and hence he puts nearly everything under the immediate and arbitrary supervision of his deities, whose anger is very easily excited. But as man becomes more and more civilized, his deities grow less in number; they also become kinder and more abstract. The process of discovering laws continues, until at last he concludes that all things are governed and maintained by law, and that wherever men have not yet discovered the law of a certain phenomena, their limited knowledge is at fault. Thus gradually as the mind unfolds and the heart improves, the supernatural is step by step brought within the domain of the natural, and the personal deities slowly become identical and at one with the Great Fact of the universe.

“The Marsites claim that they know nothing about supernaturalism, and that by the very nature of the knowing process nothing can be known about it. What we claim is, that there may be a personal God and there may not be one; but if there is such a personal God, the kind, cultured can conceive of Him only as being kind and just, having no revengeful feelings whatever. You see the Marsites never revengefully punish any one; how, then, can we think that God would; for, if we would think so, we would make our God worse than we are ourselves.

“Similarly we know nothing of a conscious personal existence after death. We believe that the facts of the universe, as far as we know them, point in the direction that there is no conscious personal existence after death; but for all that, there may be just such a God, soul, heaven and hell, as you folks teach there is. No one can either prove it nor disprove it. Hence we are not at all positive, like you are, about things that lie beyond the sphere of human knowledge. We are fully convinced that the possibilities of thought are not co-extensive and identical with the possibilities of things. But we also believe, if there is a conscious personal existence after death, that things, when we get there, will be suited to that life the same as we find them suited here to this life. We further believe that this life, in order to make it as good and complete as possible, requires all our efforts and talent to live up to the most wholesome relations that are stamped in the very nature of things. There is more about this life than we can probably ever learn; hence we have no time to spare for gaining the favors of beings in a supposed world, of which we know nothing definitely. The facts of the universe are the highest known authority, and he who lives most nearly in accord with them lives, in our opinion, the ‘holiest’ life.

“We believe that the universe is the grandest volume ever written by the Creator. It contains a complete history of all things. Every fossil, every plant, every bud, every flower and every organism is a letter. It does not even end with our and your little earths.

“All the other planets of our solar system, all the moons, all the meteors, comets and nebulæ, all the multitudes of stars with their attending host scattered in the remotest space are found recorded on the pages of this infinite volume. Its words, phrases and sentences consist of phenomena.

“This sacred volume is a continuous revelation; and with the rise of a higher intelligence and a keener sensibility, it commends itself to a rapidly increasing number of devotees. Every obedience of its commandments is rewarded by happiness, and every disobedience is punished by pain, right here in this life.

“It teaches that every heart-beat is an accent, every budding springtime an emphasis, every sunbeam a smile, every pleasant, blooming face a prayer, and every harmonious act an adoration.

“All who especially attribute the writing of any particular paper volume to the author of this universal volume infinitely belittle him.

“When we consider, then, that this infinite natural volume contains far more information than any finite mind can ever hope to grasp, and that all pain, or misery, results from an inadequate understanding of this sublime revelation, the inevitable conclusion is at once forced upon all impartial minds, that in order to live the holiest lives, all our time should be agreeably employed in learning as much as possible of its contents; and he who spends his time in any other devotion than that of discovering and investigating this phenomenal book, and he who erects any other temple of adoration, and worships at any other shrine than the temple of intelligence, is disobeying the highest authority, and is, therefore, always punished by the Creator here and now.

“That the Architect of the universe delights in having us obey the commands He has written in the constitution of things is evidenced by the fact that He always rewards obedience with happiness and disobedience with pain. For example:

“Healthful exercise, He rewards with a strong muscle and a vigorous mind. A well-adjusted appetite, He rewards with an unimpaired digestion and an abundant assimilation. To him who does not violate the circulatory laws, He gives a pure, firm, plentiful circulation. Regular, healthful habits, He rewards with a sensitive, highly-adjusted nervous system, a bright eye, rosy cheeks, and an elastic step. Industrious voluntary co-operation, He rewards with abundance and harmony; peaceful habits, with love and prosperity; genius, with improvement and progress; true justice, with equity and abundance to all; and freedom, with the highest form of happiness.

“But let us look at it from still another standpoint; let us examine whether the postulation of a prayer-hearing God can be reconciled with the scientific world, with the ‘harmony of the universe.’

“If God is affected by man’s prayer, and if man is a ‘free, moral agent,’ as your orthodox world claims him to be, then God’s action must, to a certain extent, be determined by and dependent on the arbitrary fancies of man’s devotional exercises. This state of affairs would, on the one hand, deprive science of all its certitude; would sever the continuity and destroy the uniformity of nature; would probably, by an intervention of prayer, make action which is equal to reaction one day, only half equal to it the next day. It would also rob God of all independent activity and make Him the sport of man’s whims and passions. But if, on the other hand, God is not affected by prayer, prayer is worse than useless; for it involves an expenditure of vitality which should be all utilized for useful activity, as we have seen. Thus we see that a prayer-hearing God and a ‘free, moral agent’ can not be reconciled with the scientific world.”

“But is not your belief a cold, uncertain and abstract one?” asked Rev. Dudley.

“That, no doubt, depends altogether on the evolution of the mental power of the mind that contemplates it. To a Marsite it is perfectly satisfactory; immeasurably more so than the belief that only a few of all the multitudes that die are saved, while all the rest are tortured for all eternity. To a Marsite a revengeful God, a heaven with a monarch, a crown and a throne are highly repugnant. We can not conceive that we can be happy anywhere as long as vast multitudes are suffering eternal hell-fire. Such a contemplation may be agreeable to your folks, but never to us.

“From the foregoing remarks concerning our religious sentiments, if you wish to call them such, you see at once that we have no creeds, no sectarian antagonism, no churches and cathedrals, no theological seminaries, no ordained ministers, no synods and ecclesiastical councils, no religious ceremonies and no adoration of a supernatural agency. All this vast amount of wealth and labor which you expend in absolute uncertainty we employ in finding how to live the most complete lives here and now.

“There is much more of religion, as well as of all other information, that you no doubt would be interested in and which I will tell you with the greatest of pleasure when I return from my western errand in a few days. It is now almost train time, and I shall have to take my departure from you for the present with the assurance of fulfilling my ‘promise’ to return as soon as possible. I can assure you that the time I have spent with you has by far been my happiest days on earth, and I highly appreciate your kind hospitality and congenial sociability.”

“If you must and will go, Mr. Midith, we will all accompany you to the depot and see you off,” said Viola, to which all consented and started.

Soon after we arrived at the depot the “flyer” arrived. After we had all given our parting friend a warm pressure of the hand, in which he warmly reciprocated and also imparted a kiss on Viola’s rosy lips, he mounted the slowly moving train, which was soon out of sight. We departed home and are now awaiting his return, when we will ask him many more questions concerning that wonderful world of his.

THE END.

Transcriber’s Notes:

Illustrations have been moved to paragraph breaks near where they are mentioned.

Punctuation has been made consistent.

Variations in spelling and hyphenation were retained as they appear in the original publication, except as noted below.

The following changes were made:

p. 97: sentiment changed to sentient (all sentient beings)

p. 131: unwanted changed to unwonted (with unwonted vigor)

p. 314: , changed to a (have a faultless)

p. 330: apartment changed to department (mathematical department in)