{"collection":"philosophy-ethics","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_56979/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_56979","id":"gutenberg_56979","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/56979","summary":null,"tags":["Category: Novels","Category: Philosophy & Ethics","Social problems","Utopias"],"text":"Produced by MFR, David E. Brown, and the Online Distributed\nProofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was\nproduced from images generously made available by The\nInternet Archive)\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n  ...THE...\n  MAN FROM MARS\n\n  HIS MORALS, POLITICS\n  AND RELIGION\n\n  BY\n  WILLIAM SIMPSON\n\n  THIRD EDITION\n\n  Revised and Enlarged by an Extended Preface and a\n  Chapter on Woman Suffrage\n\n  Press of\n  E. D. Beattie, 207 Sacramento St.\n  San Francisco\n\n\n\n\nCopyright, 1900, by the Author.\n\n\n\n\n  TO THE MEMORY\n  OF\n  JAMES LICK\n\n  who, by his munificent bequests to\n\n  SCIENCE, INDUSTRY, CHARITY AND EDUCATION\n\n  has indicated in the manner of their disposal, that humanity, wisdom,\n  and enlightenment, arising out of the convictions of modern thought,\n  which holds these, his beneficiaries to be the noblest and divinest\n  pursuits of mankind, and the only possible agencies in the betterment\n  of society.\n\n  This Book is reverently inscribed\n\n                                                          BY THE AUTHOR.\n\n\n\n\nPREFACE TO THIRD EDITION.\n\n\nAny one advanced in life who has enjoyed opportunities of knowledge\nderived from association with men and books, and who has an inclination\nto reach the bottom of things by his own independent thought, is apt to\narrive at conclusions regarding the world and society very different\nfrom those which had been early impressed upon him by his superiors\nand teachers. From a suspicion, at first reluctantly accepted, but\nfinally confirmed beyond a doubt, he finds that he has been deceived\nin many things. The discovery arouses no indignation because he\nknows that his early instructors were in most cases the victims of\nmisdirection themselves, and are therefore not to be held accountable\nfor the promulgation of errors which they had mistaken for truths. His\nself-emancipation has so filled his mind with a better hope for the\nfuture of the world, and a higher opinion of his fellow men, that the\ndelight and satisfaction of the discovery overcomes every sentiment\nexcept pity for those who had been leading him astray, and if the\nfeeling of condemnation or censure comes to his mind at all, it is only\nfor those few who live and thrive upon those delusions having their\norigin in the past, and whose chief purpose in life is to keep them\nalive and to bolster them up among the multitude.\n\nIn the new light that has come to him, the world and society have\nbeen transformed to his view and understanding. He discovers goodness\nin many places where his teachers had denied its existence, and its\ndefinition has become so changed, under his broader vision, that\nhumanity seems teeming with it everywhere, and is ruled by it, and\nthose departments of it most affecting society he observes to be\nincreasing, and that instead of like an exotic in uncongenial soil,\nhard to be retained by mankind, it is perpetuated and cherished by\nnatural human impulses. He finds, also, that the sum of badness in\nthe world has been greatly exaggerated by his teachers, and that\nthose branches of it most interfering with the welfare of society are\ngradually being lessened, and are likely to work out their extinction\nby the penalties of public disapproval. These convictions make the\nworld seem a brighter and better dwelling place. They reveal to him\nthe possibilities of its future, and tend to divert his higher aims\nfrom the obscure paths where tradition had been leading them, into more\nfruitful channels. The truth will have at last dawned upon him, bearing\nevidences in this age that none but the unenlightened can doubt, that\nsuperstition, during many of the centuries past, has belittled the\nworld, and has discouraged humanity in improving it, under the mistaken\nassumption of the world\u2019s small comparative importance in the great\noutcome; the circumstantial particulars, of which, it pretends to hold\nby divine revelation. Having rid himself of these beliefs by a process\nof reasoning, and the assistance of the available knowledge of his\ntime, he arrives at the conclusion that the best work of humanity is\nnot, altogether that taught by the creeds, and that its most divinely\ninspired motives are those which tend to increase the knowledge of\nworldly things, those which add to the sum of goodness in society by\nexhibiting its practical effect toward happiness, and those also which\nassist in the great end of equalizing the burdens and enjoyments of\nlife among all.\n\nHaving these conclusions firmly established in his mind, and the\nundeserved reverence from early training removed, he becomes\nespecially fitted to examine these old beliefs, and to pass judgment\nupon them, without that taint of blind devotional fervor which the\nunremitted teaching of many centuries has rendered current in the\nworld. He observes of these old beliefs, that during their supremacy,\nwhen their control of society was complete and unquestioned, the\nmaterial progress of mankind was least, without any compensating\ncondition to make up for the darkness, and dead mental activity that\nhad fallen upon it; except that apparent hypnotic influence from the\ndoctrines taught, which made men careless of their miseries, and\nindifferent to the things of the earth. He observes, further, of\nthese old beliefs, that as modern knowledge reduces their hold of\nauthority among men, the world improves as it never did before. Even\ncharity, kindness, and good will to men, adopted, and long taught as an\ninseparable part of them, multiply more rapidly as their weight in the\nmanagement of human affairs grow less. From these well attested facts\nhe arrives at the conviction that those religious societies, founded\nupon, and which have for centuries labored to perpetuate these beliefs,\neither are not possessed with all the elements of human progress,\nor, that having many of such elements, they have others of such\nneutralizing and retarding effect as to render the first futile for\nsuch a purpose. That the latter is the case, every year added to his\nexperience of life removes the doubt, and explains to his understanding\nwhy the religious societies of the world have failed in any great\ndegree to advance the material and intellectual condition of mankind.\n\nWith a moral code, every provision of which plainly indicates the\nmethod of a better social state, these religious societies have\nindissolubly associated in their teachings certain doctrinal beliefs,\noriginating in a semi-barbarous age, and laden with its superstitions,\nwith that fatal assumption of divine authority which demands their\nacceptance every where and for all time. Beliefs of such unbending\nrigidity, impossible adaption or amendment, and intolerance of dissent,\non account of their pretended sacred character, that the world has\nbeen kept in a turmoil discussing them since their introduction, and\nthe more salutary lessons of morality and spiritual hope have been\noutranked and submerged by these vain and profitless discussions.\nThese beautiful and attractive lessons of love, kindness, and charity,\nexemplified and taught through a personality, whose gift of genius was\nto see, above all other men, the needs of humanity, have attracted\nmen and women into these religious societies as the hungry are\nattracted by stores of food. Once within their lines, and imbued with\nthe doctrines there found, they see but little abroad in the outside\nworld but the evil spirit of Sheol. To them, its shadow rests upon\nmuch of the business of life, and with increased obscurity, upon many\nof its pleasures. It even shows to them among those humanities which\nare without their direction and cue. It is only however among the many\nwho openly deny their doctrines and authority that the evil spirit is\nseen by them in all its hideous and malevolent personality, and their\nespecial mission is to give battle in that direction. Between he who\ndoubts, no matter how respectfully, and these religious societies, are\ndrawn their lines of kindness and charity, and with their sermons of\nlove, and their protestations of good will to mankind fresh upon them,\nthey are at any time, transformed, so far as their relations with a\ndoubter are concerned, into a band of hostile and relentless savages,\nwith inflictions of punishment, measured in degree by surrounding\nenlightenment, from the actual barbaric torture of the savage, to mere\nsocial ostracism and avoidance.\n\nIf it were the sole purpose of all Christian organizations to bring\ninto general practice the civilizing precepts of their founder, they\nwould become the most powerful agents in the world to human advancement\nand the betterment of social conditions, but these precepts are made\nsubordinate by them, and are neither valued or estimated beyond their\njurisdiction. They count nothing as saving qualities without the\nacknowledgment of certain doctrines and methods accompanying them.\nThose beautiful sentiments of charity and kindness, always so precious\nto the hearts of men, and growing more so as the ages advance, were\nnot adopted nor promulgated entirely for civilizing purposes, but\nmostly with the selfish view of capturing humanity to church interests.\nWith a like purpose, knowing the mystic tendency of the masses, the\nsupernaturalisms, made a part of these attractive precepts, were\nadopted and upheld; bringing into the world an endless multitude of\nbarren illusions, provoking acrimonious contentions among men, to\nno good purpose whatever, and filling the pages of history with a\ndescription of scenes that are a torture even to the memory.\n\nIt is given only to those now living, and who have experienced the\nlongest terms of life, to personally compare the past with the\npresent, so far as their limited sojourn in the world extends. They are\nliving witnesses to the wonderful changes in society and its beliefs\nduring the short period of two generations only. They have seen many\nof these ancient supernatural dreams in all their power of authority,\nand have watched them wilt, and finally disappear, under some silent\ninfluence, after argument and reason had exhausted themselves against\nthem in vain. They have listened to those weekly expositions of\ninfernal horrors, common at one time, in all the fear and trembling of\nchildhood, and have later, witnessed the theories and beliefs which\ninspired them, with many others equally obnoxious to reason, relegated\nto silence and disuse, as antiquated and worn furniture, no longer\nserviceable, is consigned to the rubbish heap. Only two generations\nago they have seen the literature of the churches in leather bound\nbooks occupying the best filled, and most easily reached shelves of\nthe libraries, and now laying neglected among the dust of the cellars;\nnot one retained for reference, and even their titles forgotten. They\nhave seen, in their time, the clutches of superstition compelled to\nrelax its hold upon the throats of many a worthy human enterprise. They\nhave witnessed the triumph of science in its many skirmishes with\ntradition, and have been interested lookers-on, while the famous battle\nof evolution raged. They have seen it from start to finish, and the\namusing spectacle of its end, when theology, metaphorically speaking,\ndragged its bruised and trembling body out of the dust; and wiping the\nblood from its pale and troubled face, unblushingly declared, as it had\nin every like outcome before, that there had been no conflict.\n\nWith all this, and within their own era of two generations only,\nthey have seen the world arise to such prodigies of advancement,\nsuch marvels of practical charity and such activities in the pursuit\nof knowledge, in so close and quick succession as to fill them with\nbewilderment and wonder, and they will recognize, at least such of\nthem as reflect upon the matter, that after conflicts innumerable,\nand setbacks and suppressions, the scientific have prevailed over\nthe theological methods, and are at work in all the glories of their\ntriumph, and that the ancient modes of thought are at last masters of\nthe civilized world after nearly two thousand years of battle. The\nthread of civilization has been taken up and spliced at its point\nof rupture sixteen centuries ago. All this activity in the building\nof roads, bridges and aqueducts, this tunnelling of mountains and\nrivers, this straining to make available for the services of man\nall the elements of nature, this untiring search to increase the\ncomforts and conveniences of life, this higher regard for pure secular\nlearning, regardless of where it may lead, this diversion of art from\nthe purposes of religious expression only, to an exhibition of nature\nin all her beautiful forms, this greater toleration of opinion, this\ncoming back to the earth in short, after a long period of phantom\nchasing in the clouds, is neither more nor less than the revival of\npaganism. But paganism with its brutalities filtered out, and the best,\nand only civilizing parts of christianity, its hope of immortality,\nits lessons of virtue, its brotherhood and socialism retained, the\nsuperstitions of paganism buried forever, and those of christianity\ngradually dropping one by one into their graves.\n\nHe, who now at three score and ten, remembers when the sound of the\nflint and steel was a necessary prelude to the morning fire, when the\nopen fire place with its crane and pot hooks was the only resource for\nwarmth and cooking, when the largest city on the American continent\nwas without sewers or water conduits, when a river steamer was a\nwonder upon which the curious gazed, and ocean ones unheard of, when\nrailroads were in an experimental stage, when the belief that ghosts\nflitted about the graveyards was unquestioned and undenied, when\nSatan was said to have stalked upon the earth in person, his presence\nseriously considered and accounted for by many of the churches, when\nwitchcraft, only in the throes of death but not yet buried, had many\nadherents in animated defence, when the electrical experiments of\nFranklin were reckoned in some places as the trifling of an infidel\nwith the spirit of evil, can best appreciate, by the comparison which\nreminiscence affords, of these wonderful changes in thought, and\nthe significant accompaniment of increased mental activity in all\nthings benefitting the race. The close relations exhibited in this\ncomparatively brief period between the growth of rationalism, and that\naccelerated movement all along the line of science, learning, and\neverything tending to place humanity on a higher plain, is more than\na mere coincidence. It is the operation of cause and effect, better\nunderstood and acknowledged upon a closer examination.\n\nThe bursting forth, as it were, during this century of the united\nenergies of mankind in the direction of knowledge, is an expansion\nafter the removal of a pressure that has borne down upon them for\nages. Those great things that men have accomplished lately, they\nwere as capable of centuries ago, and it is not surprising that they\nhad not until recently made greater advances, when we estimate the\nweight of opposing forces. There had been for centuries nothing more\ndiscouraging to the formation of scientific hopes and ambitions than\nthe theological methods of thought, and the atmosphere which surrounded\nthem. The more that atmosphere was saturated with the doctrines of\nthe churches, the more repellent it was to any intellectual effort\ntoward outside things, and especially one requiring such a monopoly of\nmental energy and attention as to interfere with the Christian ideas\nof constant and unremitting devotion. There was no cultivated field,\nduring the thousand years of supreme church jurisdiction, where an\nindependent scientific ambition could germinate. Within the church\nsuch an ambition was impossible. It was not only against the spirit,\nbut the very letter of its teachings. Its foundation was laid by its\nvictory over science, in its overcome of which, it proclaimed divine\nassistance and authority. It already possessed a knowledge of all\nthings appertaining to the earth and the \u201cfirmament\u201d above it which\nthe Almighty desired men to know. The earth was not round, it was the\ncenter of the universe. It stood still while the sun moved daily over\nits surface, getting back each morning into its place with the help of\nangels. The rainbow was a sign placed in the heavens for a purpose.\nEvery known phenomenon of nature was accounted for by scriptural\nreference. The method of the creation of the world and the origin of\nman and of woman also, the church possessed in circumstantial detail.\nThe moment true science began its work, and ran counter to any of this\nfund of knowledge, assumed to have been furnished by the Almighty,\nthe trouble began. But the trouble was not altogether with the honest\ninvestigator. If his discovery tended to disprove what was known as\nscriptural truth, and inadvertently had been allowed to gain the\npublic ear, every prelate in the church began contriving to refute it.\nA new opportunity for fame was opened to every ambitious theologian,\nand there immediately began in rebuttal a spinning of texts, and a\nstyle of metaphysical argument, from one end of the church to the\nother, which remain to this day as the most remarkable curiosities of\nsinuous reasoning and constrained thought on record. All questions of\na scientific character had but one method of settlement, were they\nauthorized or denied by scripture? If denied as they usually were, the\ndisturber was either burned at the stake or made to recant. Fame, that\nchief incentive to all high effort, offered none of its rewards beyond\ntheological circles, and during the ten centuries of complete church\nsupremacy, any advance in knowledge which did not stir the animosity\nof theologians gained less public attention and applause than the\nwearing of a hair shirt or a crown of thorns. During a thousand years\nthe church had kept the world slumbering in the darkness of barbarism\nand superstition punishing with death those it could not convince. Any\ndoubter of generally accepted beliefs, either in religion or science,\nwho can support his position with plausable argument, is entitled at\nleast to the consideration of being a thinker. The constant taking off\nof every such one, during a term counted by centuries, could have no\nother effect than to reduce the average of intellectual vigor in the\nwhole. The husbandman, who removes from his acres of growing grain\nthe tallest and heaviest stalks, and instead of saving them for seed,\ndestroys them, insures, in time, the misfortune of dwarfed fields\nand diminished harvests. The church, since its complete victory over\npaganism in the fourth century, had not produced with its supreme\ncontrol over all learning a single noted man of science, or one\npromising to be such, whom it had not either suppressed or tortured to\ndeath, not a painter or poet who had not devoted his genius principally\nto superstition or sensuality, not a historian whose veracity is not\ndoubted, and not a single towering man of letters. This, too, in a\npeople, among whom mingled the descendants of the Greek masters of\nliterature and philosophy. When, about four centuries ago, secular\nlearning and free thought began their first open advances since pagan\ndays, the church, finding in every such movement some disturbance of\nits traditions, and making no account of their benefit to mankind,\nbrought all its powers to bear for their suppression. In laying to do\nso it pursued the same cruel policy it had adopted in former contests.\nThese cruelties and intimidations were practiced at a time when within\nthe church were openly perpetrated corruptions of the most glaring\ncharacter; which together, loosened its hold upon the consciences\nof men, and made possible that revolt and division known as the\nReformation, early in the sixteenth century. Coming nearer our own\ntime, and having to deal with theological conditions not yet entirely\nremoved, a little more detail is necessary.\n\nThe quarter century before and the century following the Reformation\nwas a remarkable era in the world\u2019s history. It was noted throughout\nas a desperate and continuous struggle by men of science to dispel\nthe darkness that had so long enveloped the Christian world. The\nart of printing, then recently discovered, and just coming into\npractical working effect, and the thoughts of men thereby communicated\nfrom one to the rest with a facility never before known, had the\neffect of arousing mental activities everywhere. From a load only\npartially removed men began exploring regions of science that had been\ninterdicted, and a great movement in positive knowledge began. The\nmost enlightened men of the time went over to the Reformation, and if\nwithin that body, they had found the shelter and encouragement they\ndeserved, the sixteenth century and the one following it would have\nbeen the most brilliant period on record except our own, for scientific\ndiscoveries and the world\u2019s advancement. Such a conclusion is justified\nby taking note of the wonderful men of genius who came into the world\nduring that time, who, with all the restrictions and limitations cast\nabout them by the two churches, laid such new foundations in truth and\nlearning, that nothing was to be done by subsequent workers in the same\nlines but build upon them. Buffon, who may justly be called the father\nof natural science, with powers of research and gifts of presenting\nresults showing genius of a high order, by his simple statement of\ntruths which are to-day truisms in science, was dragged forth by the\nleaders of the Reformation, and forced to recant publicly and to print\nhis recantation. \u201cI abandon everything in my book respecting the\nformation of the earth, and generally all which may be contrary to the\nnarrative of Moses.\u201d Linnaeus, the founder of a scientific system in\nbotany, and the discoverer of sex in plants, was constantly hampered\nand constrained in his thoughts by the threats of the Reformation. A\npretended miracle of turning water into blood appeared in his vicinity,\nand after looking into it carefully he reported that the reddening of\nthe water was caused by dense masses of minute insects. When news of\nthis explanation reached the ears of the Protestant bishop he denounced\nthis scientific discovery as a \u201cSatanic Abyss.\u201d \u201cWhen God allows such\na miracle to take place,\u201d said he, \u201cSatan endeavors, and so does his\nungodly and worldly tools, to make it signify nothing.\u201d Descartes,\nthe founder of modern philosophy, and ranked among the foremost\nmathematicians of his day, yet, his constant dread of persecution from\nProtestantism led him steadily to veil his thoughts, and to suppress\nthem when they threatened to interfere with theological beliefs.\nLeibnitz, the great thinker, who came so near to the discovery of\nevolution, Spinoza, and later Hume, Kepler, Kant, Newton and many\nothers, which want of space prevents mention were likely to have\ndone much more for science had not the theological atmosphere of the\nChristian churches been so unpropitious.\n\nThe true story of Galileo, the monumental shame of Christianity, cannot\nbe told without implicating the younger with the older church. The\nReformation looked on complaisantly and approvingly while this crime\nwas being committed. It was in complete accordance with its beliefs and\nmethods. The Copernican system, on account of the adoption of which,\nGalileo was persecuted was as strenuously and bitterly denounced by\nProtestants as Catholics. Luther says \u201cPeople gave ear to an upstart\nastrologer, who strove to show that the earth revolved, and not the sun\nand moon. This fool wishes to revise the whole system of astronomy,\nbut sacred scripture tells us that Joshua commanded the sun to stand\nstill, and not the earth.\u201d The recantation of this venerable scientist,\nworn out with imprisonment and sorrow, and in fear of torture and\ndeath, is as follows: \u201cI Galileo, being in my seventieth year, being a\nprisoner on my knees before your eminences, having before my eyes the\nHoly Gospel, which I touch with my hands, abjure, curse and detest the\nerror and the heresy of the movement of the earth.\u201d As the sphericity\nof the earth was suggested by Aristotle, and its movement had been a\nmatter of earnest discussion by theologians for ages, we see fit to\ntranscribe here the argument of one of them, made a long time ago it\nis true, but nevertheless a fair sample of the theological methods of\nthought. It is copied from a book written by one Scipio Chiaramonti,\nand dedicated to Cardinal Barberini. \u201cAnimals which move have limbs\nand muscles, the earth has no limbs and muscles, therefore it does not\nmove. It is angels who make Saturn, Jupiter, the Sun, etc., turn round.\nIf the earth revolves it must also have an angel in the center to set\nit in motion; but only devils live there; it would therefore be a devil\nwho would impart motion to the earth.\u201d All branches of the Protestant\nchurch condemned the theory of the earth\u2019s movement. Calvin asked,\n\u201cWho will venture to place the authority of Copernicus above that of\nthe Holy Spirit?\u201d Wesley also denounced the new theory, declaring it\nto \u201ctend toward infidelity.\u201d The grand men who were coming forward in\ntheir efforts to advance knowledge unavoidably encroached upon many of\nthe \u201ctruths of scripture\u201d and both churches were equally engaged in\ntheir efforts to suppress them, by argument if possible, but if not, by\nfire and stake. The Protestant church, which has always made a claim of\nespecial enlightenment, vied with the other in its cruel and relentless\nwarfare upon what is known among the churches as heresy, the proper\ndefinition of which is reason and common sense. We have said that the\ncase of Galileo was the monumental shame of Christendom; the case of\nServetus was a monumental crime, which Protestantism alone must answer\nfor.\n\nThe persecution of Michael Servetus by John Calvin, one of the leaders\nof the Reformation, was one of the most unjust and inhuman exercises of\nreligious authority that the world has seen. There were many features\nin this tragedy of burning at the stake, that were out of the common.\nThe victim was a man of unblemished character, of great learning,\nand a scientist, with a genius for investigation. He was a skilled\npractitioner of medicine, out of which profession he derived his\nincome. He had made some advances in medical science, coming so near to\na discovery of the circulation of the blood, that it is quite likely,\nbut for his untimely death, he would have reached it instead of Harvey,\nmany years afterward. His active mind had led him to devote much of his\nleisure to the study of theology, and, laboring among its problems, he\nstrove to reconcile a number of orthodox beliefs and doctrines with\nthe scientific knowledge of his time, not combating them or contriving\nat their destruction, but by changing the sense of words, to make\nthem apparently accord with known elements of truth. He was an ardent\nsupporter of the Reformation, and a friend and admirer of Calvin, and\nhe began and maintained for some time, a correspondence with him, with\nthe view of obtaining his advice and support. The proposed modification\nin the sense of scriptural texts, was not favorably received by Calvin,\nand the two were drawn into a controversy, which finally became\nacrimonious. The world, at present, partially recovered from its long\nperiod of hypnotized reason, is able to appreciate the small value of\nthe questions which engaged these two men, and which led one to strike\nthe other down to death, and it is also able to judge how much Servetus\nwas in advance of his adversary in their discussions.\n\nCalvin maintained, that under instructions from God, through the\nBible, an infant, dying without baptism, could not escape the tortures\nof Hell, a locality described by the same authority, as a place of\nhorrors, of endless burning amid sulphurous fires, of never ending\nthirst, and of a \u201cweeping, wailing and gnashing of teeth\u201d through all\ntime to come. Servetus expressed his doubts of the justice of this\ninfliction upon sinless infants, and attempted to show that it was\nnot authorized by the Sacred Book. He also denied the doctrine of the\nHoly Trinity, as it was commonly received. He did not deny a kind of\nTrinity in the unity of God, but believing that it was merely formal,\nand not personal, mere distinctions in the divine essence, and that, as\ngenerally understood, it was a dream, and an invention of the Fathers\nof the Church. He also asserted, upon good authority, that there was a\nChristian doctrine before there was any adoption of the Hebrew legends;\nthat these legends did not become a part of the church, until nearly\na century after the great moral teacher had met his cruel death. He\nalso came as near as he dared, to expressing his belief, that the Son\nwas merely a man, with the divine inspiration in a large degree. Such\nadvanced ideas as these, asserted with the positiveness of conviction,\nand backed with unanswerable argument, were the cause of his undoing.\n\nCalvin, at this time, was at the head of a church already powerful. He\nruled it with an autocratic will, and upon all questions of doctrinal\nbeliefs, he was the last court of appeal. He had long accepted the\nhomage of his followers, as one selected by the Almighty for their\nspiritual guidance, and, with the common weakness of humanity, he\nbecame arbitrary and despotic in his management of church affairs. He\nwas always ready to advise and direct, and in his first letters to\nServetus, assumed some show of argument while denying his doctrines.\nServetus answered him, not with that deference that his adversary\nusually received, but in all the spirit of earnest debate. Nothing\nmore exasperating to Calvin could have occurred, and to cap the\nclimax of affront, his adversary, a mere layman, published a book\n\u201cChristianity Restored\u201d setting forth his advanced views, and with a\nreckless temerity, sent the reformer a copy. The controversy between\nthem immediately degenerated into mutual recrimination and abuse.\nCalvin\u2019s anger was raised to a white heat, when he saw the errors and\nblasphemies, as he regarded them, and which he had vainly sought to\ncombat, confided to the printed page, and thrown broadcast upon the\nworld. Besides the alleged heretical matter of the book, he found\nhimself taken to task, declared to be in error, and his most cherished\ndoctrines controverted. But he discovered withal some matter in the\nbook which pleased him. His enemy had committed himself in abusing the\nPapacy: evidence sufficient to convict him at once of blasphemy in the\nRoman Catholic city of Vienne in France where Servetus then resided,\nand he proceeded at once to put the cruel scheme of his death into\nexecution. By information to the authorities at Vienne through dictated\nletters, he succeeded in having Servetus thrown into prison there, from\nwhence he escaped, and became an outcast for months. The malignant and\ninhuman manner in which this Christian leader followed his innocent\nvictim, could scarcely have occurred upon any other question but a\nreligious one, and his murderous intent, from the first, is shown by a\nletter from Calvin to a friend in which he says, \u201cServetus wrote to me\nlately, and besides his letter sent me a great volume of his ravings,\ntelling me, with audacious arrogance, that I should find there things\nstupendous and unheard of until now.\u201d He offers to come thither if I\napprove; but I will not pledge my faith to him; for, did he come, if I\nhave any authority here, \u201cI SHOULD NEVER SUFFER HIM TO GO AWAY ALIVE.\u201d\nAnd he proved himself, in this instance, true to his word.\n\nThe Roman Catholic authorities of Vienne, discovering after a while\nthe connivance of Calvin, in putting the execution of his enemy on\nthem, contrived, it is said, to make his escape easy. They had no\nmind to have this work thrust upon them. They probably felt that the\nreformers should take care of their own heretics. Servetus, after his\nescape, wandered about from place to place, all the time his life in\nimminent danger, and finally brought up in Geneva, the home of Calvin,\ndisguising himself, and hiding in the outskirts. What induced him to\ntake such desperate chances is not positively known. His intention\nis supposed to have been to go to Naples, and to be gone from Geneva\non the first favorable opportunity. Weary of confinement, and always\npiously inclined, he ventured imprudently to show himself, at the\nevening service of a neighboring church, and being there recognized,\nintimation of his presence was conveyed to Calvin, who, without loss\nof a moment, demanded his immediate arrest, making his arraignment\nhimself, and industriously working until the end, as chief prosecutor\nand witness. The barbaric cruelty during imprisonment to this famous\nman, in an eminently Christian community, and by a Christian leader is\nshown by the following letter from his prison cell. \u201cMost noble Lords,\nit is now three weeks since I petitioned for an audience, and I have to\ninform you that nothing has been done, and I am in a more filthy plight\nthan ever. In addition, I suffer terribly from the cold, and from colic\nand my rupture, which causes me miseries. It is very cruel that I am\nneither allowed to speak, nor not have my most pressing wants supplied;\nfor the love of God sirs, in pity give orders in my behalf.\u201d And here\nis another one: \u201cMy most honored Lords, I humbly entreat of you to\nput an end to these great delays, or to exonerate me of the criminal\ncharge. You must see that Calvin is at his wits ends, and knows not\nwhat more to say, but for his pleasure, would have me rot here in\nprison. The lice eat me up alive, my breeches are in rags, and I have\nno change, no doublet, and but a single shirt in tatters.\u201d Thirty-eight\narticles of impeachment were drawn up by Calvin, and after a protracted\ntrial, wherein he acted as chief interrogator, this unhappy victim\nwas sentenced to be burnt at the stake. Servetus, during his whole\nexamination, showed himself to be a brave, conscientious, religious\nman. His answers to each one of the articles was able, consistent, and\nwould have been considered in this day unanswerable, and what is more\nhis views have since been adopted by the most advanced of the Christian\nsects. The following is a description of his execution recorded at that\ntime.\n\n\u201cWhen he came in sight of the fatal pile, the wretched Servetus\nprostrated himself on the ground and for a while was absorbed in\nprayer. Rising and advancing a few steps he found himself in the hands\nof the executioner, by whom he was made to sit on a block, his feet\njust reaching the ground. His body was then bound to the stake behind\nhim by several turns of an iron chain, whilst his neck was secured in\nlike manner by the coil of a hempen rope. His two books--the one in\nmanuscript sent to Calvin in confidence six or eight years before for\nhis stricture, and a copy of the one lately printed at Vienne--were\nfastened to his waist, and his head was encircled in mockery with a\nchaplet of straw and green twigs bestrewed with brimstone. The deadly\ntorch was then applied to the fagots and flashed in his face; and the\nbrimstone catching, and the flames rising, wrung from the victim such a\ncry of anguish as struck terror into the surrounding crowd. After this\nhe was bravely silent; but the wood being purposely green, although the\npeople aided the executioner in heaping the fagots upon him, a long\nhalf hour elapsed before he ceased to show signs of life and suffering.\nImmediately before giving up the ghost, with a last expiring effort he\ncried aloud, \u2018Jesus, thou Son of the eternal God, have compassion upon\nme!\u2019 All was then hushed, save hissing and crackling of the green wood,\nand by and by there remained no more of what had been Michael Servetus,\nbut a charred and blackened trunk, and a handful of ashes.\u201d So died in\nadvance of his age, this victim of religious fanaticism and personal\nhate, a fitting triumph of the theological over the scientific methods\nof thought, the result among many thousands like it of the adoption of\nthe Jewish legends by Christianity, and in this case, brought about\nby a Christian leader, the founder of a creed, in which to this day,\nenough of his spirit remains to make it the greatest enemy of free\nthought and liberal opinion, among all the creeds of Protestantism. Of\nthis disgraceful tragedy was it the spirit of the Master which led the\ninhuman crowd to vie with each other in piling on the fagots, or was it\nthe malign influence of a vindictive and cruel Hebrew God?\n\nEvery conflict between science and theology since the days of\nCopernicus has resulted in an unequivocal victory for the former.\nBoth churches resisted the truth of the rotundity and movement of\nthe earth as though their existence depended upon it. They fought\neach question as it arose in the same spirit. The Mosaic account of\nthe creation, the age of the world, the deluge, the length of man\u2019s\nsojourn upon the earth, are questions as effectively settled adversely\nto the \u201ctruths of scripture\u201d as the one for which Galileo suffered.\nAnd yet Christianity lives, and will continue to live and flourish,\nsolely on account of the inherent and increasing affinity of the human\nheart as civilization advances for the precepts and example of its\nfounder. If Christianity were destined to fall by the undermining of\nits legends it would fall now with the recent destruction of one upon\nwhich its existence appeared to depend, which has, more than any\nother, shaped its course and laid the foundation of its rituals. The\ndoctrine of evolution now established as a truth is the most serious\nand apparently destructive one that theology ever met. The fact that\nman has ARISEN from a condition of brutality, instead of FALLEN from a\nstate of perfection is, to ecclesiasticism, a raking blow from stem to\nstern, compared with all previous battles with science as the shot of\na modern thirty-two pounder with old fashioned ordinance. The legend\nof the fall of man, compared with all others, is the vilest. It was\nbrought from Assyria, by the Hebrews, who obtained it during their\ncaptivity, from a barbarous people, among whom it was current for ages,\nand was thus inserted in our Sacred Book, proofs of which have recently\nbeen found in deciphering the Ninevite records. A suspicion is not\nentirely without warrant that it may have been adopted with a purpose\nof creating miseries and sorrows in the multitude for the profitable\noccupation of a divinely authorized few in the business of consoling\nthem, and right well has it fulfilled its mission. It has changed the\nfacial expression of Christendom. It has deepened the furrows of sorrow\nupon old age, and fixed lines of care upon the features of youth. It\nhas brought the undeserved dejection of criminality, and the downcast\nof shame, where of right belongs the reflection of hopefulness and\nthe light of expectancy. It has incalculably multiplied the sorrows\nof life, and created for each death a nightmare of imaginary horrors.\nThis legend is the foundation and inspiration of most of the evil\nand cruelty that Christianity has inflicted on human kind. Fabulous\nitself, it has been the parent of unrealities, witchcraft and magic for\ninstance, from which millions of innocent victims have been sacrificed\nto torture and death. It has transformed reasonable enjoyments of life\ninto crimes by the invention of a word, which with the latitude given\nits definition, has kept in trembling uncertainty the innocent and\nharmless. To the parent it has bestowed the agony of dread for the fate\nof departed offspring, guileless infants, as well as the matured. This\nlegend of the fall of man has established in the paths of life its drag\nnet Sin, a word of such unlimited theological definition, that any\none of average rectitude, by some trifling inadvertance of thought or\naction, is likely to bring upon himself the condemnation of a frowning\nGod; so that, the worthy as well as the unworthy, may not escape the\nservices of theological assistance and intercession. But for the doubt\nthat exists, and has probably always existed, except among the ignorant\nand sluggish minded, of the truth of this puerile invention, it would\nhave reduced humanity long ago to a state of universal hopelessness and\ndespair.\n\nThe theologians have but little left now but the miracles to defend,\nand although it must be conceded by them that the miracle of Joshua\nhas fallen, others whose fallacy cannot be so well demonstrated by\nscience, are held to with the tenacity of desperation, and in utter\ndisregard of reason and common sense. Fortunately, in the interest of\ntruth, we are given an opportunity to study the evolution of miracles,\nin a case so modern that every statement in proof of their fallacy can\nbe substantiated by the current literature of the time. Saint Francis\nXavier was an earnest, sincere and truthful Jesuit, whose religious\nservices were performed in the middle of the sixteenth century. He\ngave up a promising career as professor in a Paris academy, and in\nhis enthusiasm and devotion to Christianity, went as missionary to\nthe Far East. Among the various tribes of lower India, and afterward\nin Japan he wrought untiringly, toiling through village after village\ncollecting the natives by means of a hand bell. After twelve years of\nsuch efforts seeking new converts for religion, he sacrificed his life\non the desert island of San Chan. During his career as missionary he\nwrote great numbers of letters, which were preserved, and have since\nbeen published, and these, with the letters of his contemporaries,\nexhibit clearly all the features of his life. No account of a miracle\nwrought by him appears either in his own letters or any contemporary\ndocument. More than that, his brother missionaries, who were in\nconstant and loyal fellowship with him, make no illusions to them\nin their communications with each other, or with their brethren in\nEurope. This silence regarding his miracles was clearly not due to any\nunbelief in them, because these good missionary fathers were free to\nrecord the slightest occurrence which they thought evidence of Divine\nfavor. One of them sends a report that an illuminated cross had been\nrecently seen in the heavens; another that devils had been cast out\nof the natives by the use of holy water; others send reports that\nlepers had been healed by baptism, and that the blind and dumb had\nbeen restored by the rites of the church; but to Xavier no miracles\nare imputed by his associates during his life, or during several years\nafter his death. On the contrary we find his own statements as to\nhis personal limitations and the difficulties arising from them fully\nconfirmed by his brother workers. It is interesting for example, in\nview of the claim afterwards made, that the Saint was divinely endowed\nfor his mission with the \u201cgift of tongues\u201d to note in these letters\nconfirmation of Xavier\u2019s own statement utterly disproving the existence\nof any such Divine gift, and detailing the difficulties which he\nencountered from his want of knowing various languages, and the hard\nlabor he underwent in learning the elements of the Japanese tongue.\nWith all this evidence, and much more available if necessary, to prove\nthat Xavier never performed a miracle the church began building them up\nfor him, unmindful of the fact that he lived in an age of literature,\nbooks and printed correspondence, and not in those remote times when\nit held supreme control of all learning and communication by letters;\naccordingly, the first of the Xavier miracles began to appear about ten\nyears after his death. They multiplied from time to time beginning,\nit is reasonable to suppose, about the gossiping hearth and eagerly\nconfirmed by the cloister, until they began to be mentioned in church\nliterature. The first of which, a letter twenty years after his death\nby a Jesuit father entitled \u201cOn religious affairs in the Indies\u201d says\nnothing of Xavier\u2019s miracles. The next, a publication called \u201cHistory\nof India\u201d thirty-six years after his death by another Jesuit father\ndwells lightly on the alleged miracles. The next, sixty years later, a\n\u201cLife of Xavier\u201d shows an increase of his miracles, and representing\nhim as casting out devils, curing the sick, stilling the tempest,\nraising the dead, and performing miracles of all sorts. Since Xavier\nwas made a Saint many other lives of him appeared, one of them one\nhundred and sixty years after his death, the best so far written and\nnow esteemed a classic, in which the old miracles were enormously\nmultiplied. According to his first biographer he saves one person from\ndrowning by a miracle, in this one he saves, during his life time,\nthree. In the first he raises three persons from the dead, in this one\nfourteen. In the first there is one miraculous supply of water, in\nthis one three, and so on, until this date when the Xavier miracles\nare counted by hundreds. This case of the evolution of miracles is\nlargely copied from a recent publication of President White of Cornell\nUniversity. It is not only highly instructive as indicating the process\nby which these deceptions are evolved, but also tends to the pleasant\nand welcome conviction that many of the earnest and self-sacrificing\nworkers in the field of Christianity, to whom miracles are imputed were\nguiltless of them. But more than all it shows the way to a reasoning\nmind by which, through the present and coming rationalism, a pure and\nworshipful personality shall retain his hold upon the affections of men.\n\nThose men of science and independent thought who went over to the\nReformation, expecting encouragement and protection under it, were\ndoomed to be disappointed. It was not a movement caused by the pressure\nof enlightenment. At that period, both Germany and England were far\nbelow Italy in their conditions of knowledge and learning. It was a\nrebellion caused by the oppression of evils, and a desire for change in\nthe management of church matters only. Every one of the superstitions\nof the old church were transferred to the new one. The same, in fact a\nstricter literal adherence to the words of scripture in managing the\naffairs of life, and in deciding questions of science, were maintained,\nthe same incessant watchfulness toward those men of learning who were\nthreatening the \u201ctruths of scripture\u201d in their scientific labors, and\nthe same cruelties invoked for their suppression, and the extinction\nof heresy. No more intellectual freedom was permitted, except upon\nminor doctrinal points of beliefs, and upon these there began those\ncontroversies which soon broke up the movement into factions or creeds.\nThe intention of the new church was to do away with those rituals and\nceremonies, which had been adopted from paganism as a compromise in the\nsecond and third centuries, and to bring their church back as far as\npossible, to that simplicity which characterized the first teachings of\nChristianity. But the leaders of the Reformation never attempted nor\nhad they any desire to bring back that entire freedom of thought and\nexpression which existed in the early days. No one with immunity would\nbe allowed to deny the doctrine of the Holy Trinity or the truth of\nImmaculate Conception, as the old Greek philosophers were wont to do.\nSuch vital questions it was torture and death to adversely consider,\nServetus being an early victim to such temerity. There were questions\nenough however within the limits of safe discussion, to set agoing\nthose unending controversies which distinguished Protestantism to this\nday. The newly acquired privilege of discussing sacred affairs among\nlaymen as well as others, were indulged in to such an extent that\ndebate between the sects, in defense of their several interpretations\nof scriptural texts, monopolized in society its hours of intercourse\nand conversation. When their leaders were indulging in such discussion\nas the dialogue between Eve and the Serpent; whether the Serpent stood\nerect on his tail, or in its natural coil when it was addressing Eve;\nfixing the hour of this remarkable event; accounting for the manner\nin which Noah fed the animals in the ark; how fishes appeared before\nAdam to be named by him, and such troublesome problems, laymen were\nmostly engaged in the examination of those doctrinal points which were\ndividing the movement into sects. Questions that had been settled\ncenturies before by authority in the old church were dragged forth\nto renewed discussion. Luther was describing his frequent interviews\nwith the devil in his bed room. Demons and witches were poisoning the\nair, and bringing calamity and misfortune, against which there was but\none safeguard and remedy, reading texts of scripture and prayer. But\nhowever the sects might differ in their understanding of the sacred\nlanguage, upon a number of things they were all agreed; every text of\nscripture was to be taken literally; heresy could not be too severely\npunished; a curtailment of the pleasures of life increased the chances\nof heaven; the world was a \u201csink of iniquity\u201d destined for early\ndestruction, and presided over by a God who never smiles, and troubled\nby a devil who never sleeps, the latter with millions of offspring, man\npursuing demons, inflicting insanity, sickness and many other of the\nmisfortunes of life.\n\nIn these beliefs the two churches were in entire accord and must\nequally answer for the miseries and cruelties they have inflicted upon\nhumanity in enforcing them. Theories and doctrines so persistently\nadvanced and upheld by both churches, and which have proved so\ndisastrous to humanity do not properly belong, and should have no\nplace in Christianity. They are not only without the authority of the\nMaster, but are mostly in opposition to his teaching and example.\nThe most harmful of them owe their origin to the fables and myths\nintroduced into the sacred book second-hand from Egyptian and Oriental\nsources, centuries before the Christian era, and it is not surprising\nthat legends due to the faculty of romance in the minds of some\nbarbarous Assyrians or Pharos, far back in the cradles of humanity,\nwhen introduced as foundations for rules of life, and as explanations\nof the mysterious processes of nature along the whole line of human\nadvancement should have been constantly rejected and denied by the\nreasoning portion of mankind, and it is scarcely conceivable that now,\nwithin a few months of the twentieth century, they should be upheld by\nboth churches as inspirations of the Deity. Not so surprising either\nwhen we consider that for seventeen centuries, the undeveloped minds\nof youth in all Christendom, have been moulded into the acceptance of\nbeliefs, which, had they been presented without that gradual absorption\nin which reason takes no part would have been long ago rejected on\naccount of their improbability. In no place is this better understood\nthan among the churches, and as a consequence, they have been in\nperpetual contention with each other for the early education of youth.\n\nThe most inspiring and hopeful spectacle in all humanity is an\nassemblage, wrapt in the devotional exercises of Christianity,\nlistening attentively to the eloquent ministrations of an earnest\nleader, who pleads the cause of virtue and charity as it is exhibited\nin the written life and character of the Model Man. The great central\nstory never wearies in interest, and never grows old; a willing\nsacrifice and suffering for the benefit of mankind. Such never\nfailing kindness, such lessons of brotherhood, such love for men,\nsuch tenderness for children, such consideration beyond his time for\nwomen, and with such a pathetic and suffering end as to capture their\nemotional natures for all time. And above all bringing the tidings of\na hope, that comes to men, as a boat of rescue comes to a storm-tossed\nship slowly sinking into the depths; so cherished in Christian\nhouseholds as to become a worshiped member of them, to be defended as\none of them, upheld if need be by force of arms and sacrifice of life.\nAnd the lesson of it all, and the hopefulness and inspiration of it\nall is, that wherever mankind dwells, be it in castles or cottages,\namid the crowds of cities, or among quiet country fields, there are\nlaurels everywhere among them all for him who will sacrifice himself\nthat others may gain; esteem and veneration among them all for him,\nwhose life is pure, and whose ways are ways of kindness and charity.\nVice can never reign supreme but for a time amid such inherent affinity\nfor goodness implanted in every human heart, and as the days of general\nconsent and unobstructed knowledge enlighten and control the affairs of\nmen, more and more certain, as time rolls on, will come protests and\nrebellions against the temporary triumph of evil.\n\nOf that entrancing story which has captured civilization, and has come\nto be a part of it, what is there in the Master that deserves such\nbarbaric surroundings; such inconsequential details of obscure and\nbarbarous lives; such vindictive retaliations and brutal conflicts,\nsacrilegiously involving the Deity as a promoter of them; wild fictions\nof early ages, inventions of the infancy of man, conflicting accounts\nof historical events, fragmentary parts by different persons at\ndifferent periods; explanations in many branches of science, now known\nto be mistaken and absurd, and containing texts, that either openly\nsanction or have been twisted into service of the most stupendous\noutrages that humanity has suffered.\n\n\u201cConsidering the asserted origin of these records--indirectly from\nGod himself--we might justly expect that they would bear to be tried\nby any standard that man can apply, and vindicate their truth and\nexcellence in the ordeal of human criticism. We ought therefore to\nlook for universality, completeness, perfection. We might expect that\nthey would present us with just views of the nature and position\nof this world in which we live, and that, whether dealing with the\nspiritual or material, they would put to shame the most celebrated\nproductions of human genius, as the magnificent mechanism of the\nheavens, and the beautiful forms of the earth are superior to the vain\ncontrivances of man. We might expect that they would propound with\nauthority, and definitely settle those all important problems, which\nhave exercised the mental powers of the ablest men of Asia and Europe\nfor so many centuries, and which are at the foundation of all faith and\nall philosophy; that they should distinctly tell us, in unmistakable\nlanguage, what is God, what is the world, what is the soul, and\nwhether man has any criterion of truth; that they should explain to\nus how evil can exist in a world, the Maker of which is omnipotent,\nand altogether good; that they should reveal to us in what the affairs\nof men are fixed by destiny, in what by free will; that they should\nteach us whence we came, what is the object of our continuing here,\nwhat is to become of us hereafter. And since a written word claiming\na divine origin must necessarily accredit itself, even to those most\nreluctant to receive it, its internal evidences becoming stronger and\nnot weaker, with the strictness of the examination to which they are\nsubmitted, it ought to deal with those things that may be demonstrated\nby the increasing knowledge and genius of many anticipating therein his\nconclusions. Such a work noble as may be its origin, must not refuse,\nbut court the test of natural philosophy, regarding it not as an\nantagonist but as its best support. As years pass on and human science\nbecomes more exact and more comprehensive, its conclusions must be\nfound in unison therewith. When occasion arises they should furnish us\nat least the foreshadowings of the great truths discovered by astronomy\nand geology, not offering for them the wild fictions of earlier ages.\nThey should tell us how suns and worlds are distributed in infinite\nspace, and how, in their succession they come forth in limitless time.\nThey should say how far the dominion of God is carried out by law,\nand what is the point at which it is his pleasure to resort to his\nown arbitrary will. How grand would have been the description of the\nmagnificent universe written by the omnipotent hand! Of man they should\nset forth his relations to other living beings, his place among them,\nhis privileges and responsibilities. They should not leave him to grope\nhis way through the vestiges of Greek philosophy, and to miss the truth\nat last, but they should teach him wherein true knowledge consists,\nanticipating the physical science, physical power, and physical well\nbeing of our own times, nay, even unfolding for our benefit things that\nwe are still ignorant of. The discussion of subjects, so many and\nso high, is not outside the scope of a work of such pretensions. Its\nmanner of dealing with them is the only criterion it can offer of its\nauthority to succeeding times.\u201d[A]\n\nHow unlike this is our asserted Sacred Book, with its fables, its\nmyths and legends, its deadly texts that have scourged mankind. By its\npretension of divine authority, carrying forward into our civilization\nsuperstitions, that otherwise would have melted away under the light of\nknowledge; putting a limit to learning, obstructing it, and denouncing\nit, in many of its branches; paralyzing thought, and substituting in\nits stead a blind faith, instituted and cultivated by ecclesiasticism,\nto bring men under its control; holding up as an example of divine\nfavor, the low moral standard of barbaric times; recounting murders,\nincests, adulteries and obscenities, that would have banished the book\nlong since from the regions of refinement and civilization, but for\nits assumed origin, and which serve, by their easy and undenied access\nto young minds, as a stimulation to destructive pruriency; sanctioning\nhuman slavery, and encouraging bloodshed by battle; setting an example\nof extortionate tithes for the support of ecclesiasticism; uttering\nthe most heart-rending curses, as coming directly from the Almighty,\nfor failure to comply with his assumed commands, and which have\nbeen made the example, authorizing the horrible cruelties inflicted\nupon mankind by the churches, literary models as they are of those\nanathemas, interdicts, and excommunications, by which the older church\nterrorized humanity for fifteen hundred years. \u201cI will also do this\nunto you, I will even appoint over you terror, consumption, and the\nburning ague, that shall consume the eyes, and cause sorrow of heart,\nand ye shall sow your seed in vain; for your enemies shall eat it.\u201d\n\u201cI will also send wild beasts among you, which shall rob you of your\nchildren, and destroy your cattle, and make you few in number, and your\nhighways shall be desolate.\u201d \u201cFor they went and served other gods, and\nworshiped them, gods whom they knew not, and whom he had not given unto\nthem; and the anger of the Lord was kindled against this land to bring\nupon it all the curses that are written in this book.\u201d \u201cDo not I hate\nthem O Lord that hate thee, yea I hate them with a perfect hate.\u201d \u201cThou\nshalt not suffer a witch to live.\u201d \u201cA man, also or a woman that hath\na familiar spirit, or that is a wizard, shall surely be put to death.\u201d\n\u201cAnd ye shall chase your enemies, and they shall fall before you by the\nsword.\u201d Solely on the authority of such deadly texts as these, and the\nbook is full of them, the world has been overspread in blood. It was\nthese that gave Spain a pretended sanction of the Lord to exterminate\nfifteen millions of people in Mexico and Peru, with a better and\nhigher civilization than itself, and to rob them of their wealth and\npossessions. It was these, and such as these, that authorized and\ninstigated the Inquisition, which from 1481 to 1808, put to torture\nand horrible death by burning, 340,000 human beings. It was these that\ninduced the massacre of St. Bartholomew with its 30,000 victims of\nfire and sword; the English persecutions under Bloody Mary, in which\nthree hundred fellow-creatures perished; the almost total annihilation\nof the Albigenesis in the south of France. This war was carried on\nwith more ferocious cruelty than any ever recorded in history; the\nfanatical fury of the soldiers was stimulated by the exhortations of\nthe clergy. At the storming of Baziers, when it was proposed to spare\nthe Catholics, a monk exclaimed, \u201cKill all, God will recognize his\nown,\u201d and the atrocious precept was but too well observed. The war\nterminated by the complete devastation of the country, and the almost\ncomplete extermination of its inhabitants. Following along in the\nbloody path of these barbaric scriptural commands, we have to record\nthe witch burnings of Europe and America, during the term of Christian\nsupremacy, calculated in the hundreds of thousands; the Crusades, and\npurely religious wars since the time of Constantine, whose victims are\nbeyond computation; and all this to no other purpose or end, but that\nthe world should be forced into the belief of, what is known to be,\nthe theological system of a low social development; this the terrible\ncost to humanity, for the adoption and systematic retention by the\nchurches, of the ancient Jewish beliefs and modes of thought; this the\ninfliction, that ecclesiasticism might prevail, using the sermon on the\nmount to capture the consciences of men, and scourging them with the\nmandates, curses and punishments of a Hebrew divinity, to bring them\ninto line for its purposes. In taking these Jewish annals to its heart,\nmaking them a part of itself, as objects of example and worship, has\nnot Christianity retarded the advance of mankind? Has it not, by them,\nobstructed knowledge, prevented a greater expansion of human sympathy,\nand prolonged the betterment of social conditions?\n\nIn these days of enlightenment and higher thought, the vestiges are\neverywhere seen of our fifteen centuries of misdirection. Almost every\nChristian life bears the impress of these cruel Hebrew traditions. The\ncommander of a battleship in the war with Spain, after his slaughter\nof numbers of the enemy, assembles his men to give \u201cthanks to the\nLord,\u201d and the next moment cautions them not to cheer because \u201cthe poor\nfellows are dying,\u201d illustrates, that mingling of Jewish superstition\nwith the teaching and example of the Master, to be observed everywhere\nin our present civilization. The inherent religious impulses of\nmankind--natural religion--some of which, finding no more congenial\nquarters, is attracted to the churches, regard war with feelings of\ngreater repulsion than does orthodox theology, indoctrinated in the\nbelief of its divine sanction, and consequently, the success of the\nAmerican arms, so plainly due to natural causes, was celebrated by the\nchurches in the usual ancient Hebraic method by \u201cthanks to the Lord.\u201d\nThe supreme intolerance of Christianity which has wrought such havoc\nwith mankind, is plainly due to the suggestions of Hebrew scripture,\nand it is only the natural religion within the churches, and that large\nportion outside of them, which is forcing Christianity into a purer\nworship, and destroying its superstitions. It demands for all things,\nholy as well as unholy, the right of critical examination, and it\nsees but little else in our Sacred Book worth preserving, outside the\nsermon on the mount, and its extensions. It is this natural religion\nof conscience, encouraging and encouraged by science and reason, which\nhas wrested the control of civilization from ecclesiasticism. Its\nintellectual strength prevails at last over the intellectual strength\nof theology; but the unthinking of the multitude are many, and the\nbattle commencing four centuries ago still lingers, theology backed by\nits weak numbers, its old weapons destroyed, and science by its strong\nmen with searchlights.\n\nBut the searchlights of science can not disturb the heart of\nChristianity. Its doctrine of atonement, destroyed by the established\ntruth of evolution; its account of the creation and the deluge, proved\nto be fables; its miracles discredited, and many of them demonstrated\nby science to be untrue, it still holds within itself, an element which\nis in harmony with the aspirations of mankind for the coming betterment\non earth and hereafter. All these things that it has lost are but\nperverted offrisings from its body, not a part of the body itself.\n\u201cLove one another. Do unto others as you would that others shall do\nunto you,\u201d are the golden words that have established it in the world\nas a living moving power. Of these its soul and life are composed, and\nthese no arrow of science can reach. Its dogmas aside, every human\nbeing within the precincts of civilization is born a Christian, and\nbut for its early perversion at the hands of a crafty priesthood, its\nintolerant and cruel career from forced and unworthy association, all\nmen, learned as well as unlearned, would be working in its ranks.\n\nIt came into the world and entered society, making its way from below\nupward. Like all movements coming out of the lower levels, it was\nsocialistic. Its originator, for he cannot be called its leader,\nwas the first person who had ever appeared in the world as the\ninstigator of a great reform movement benefitting the whole of mankind\nwithout some apparent or suspected motive, in denial of his absolute\nunselfishness, and the movement in its early stages, partaking and\nwholly composed of his inspiration, was a pure unselfish socialism.\nIts members were bound together by the closest brotherhood, loving and\ncaring for each other by divine command; declared equal by a mandate\nof Heaven, in an age when three-fourths of mankind were outcasts,\nuncared, neglected, and abused by a cruel oligarchy, slaves and\ndependents, among whom it was a misfortune and misery to have been\nborn, and having a religion so purposeless and unpromising as to afford\nnothing but a momentary spectacular display. To these people the new\nreligion was as congenial and welcome as the warm sunshine and verdure\nof summer after a long sojourn in the Arctic. Its doctrines touched\nsociety where it had most need of their humane precepts and uprising.\nFor nearly a century no system of dogmas, no doctrine of atonement, no\nextensive church authority had been determined, and the whole stress of\nreligious teaching was directed toward the worship of a moral ideal,\nand the cultivation of moral qualities. Its numbers, which had been\nlooked upon until then, by the higher and governing class with either\ncontemptuous silence, or occasional argumentative opposition, were\nbecome so increased that their political weight gave promise of a new\nfield for the exercise of authority and power, and from thence on began\nthat addition of intellectual forces which have so completely changed\nits character.\n\nEvery change instituted by its new leaders was with the sole purpose\nof increasing its numbers and of augmenting its political weight. They\nbegan by making a compromise with paganism in adopting some of its\nrituals, pandering to the imaginations of the uncultivated multitude\nby spectacular display, inventing a system of church government with\nan executive head, adopting the Jewish annals for its organic laws\nand modes of thought, cultivating a belief in miracles and increasing\nthem on every opportune occasion, until with the one end in view of\novercoming the world as C\u00e6sar did with his legions, more bloody than\nC\u00e6sar, taking into their hands a movement full of humanity, instituted\nby men in the lower walks of life to soften their hard lines and\ngive them new hopes, and to increase their sympathies and feelings\nof brotherhood, it became, and in many parts of the world remains to\nthis day, under its attached dispensation of ecclesiastical dogma and\ncontrol, a handmaid of kings and emperors in oppression, an upholder\nof deadly superstition, an intimidator of free thought and free\nlearning, an unconcerned looker-on upon the miseries of life beyond\nits proselyting interest, careless of the whole world and its affairs,\nexcept so far as it can profit by its theory of exclusive salvation,\nand the mouth piece in cant phrases, which have long since lost their\nforce and meaning, of a lingering barbarism.\n\nAnd yet the world was never so much in need of a pure Christianity.\nAn expanded benevolence cherished and assisted as much by skepticism\nas the churches is one of the characteristics of modern society.\nAlthough the physically strong do not prey upon the physically weak\nas pitylessly as in the olden time, the financially strong are\npreying upon the financially weak with as little conscience, and the\nintellectually strong are preying upon the intellectually weak with\nas much cunning, as they were in barbaric times. Civilization has\nincreased the two last mentioned evils. The straggling masses under\na load of grinding wealth, in their better knowledge are no longer\nappeased by the promises of an adulterated and composite Christianity,\nwhose chief business for centuries has been to set before them an\nawaiting paradise, in recompense for their earthly wrongs; but now, the\nmultitude impressed with a knowledge belonging to these times, is proof\nagainst these allurements. The toiling millions who make easy places\nfor the few, and increase their wealth, and who have carried out to a\nsuccessful end the brilliant material advancement which surrounds us,\nis the world proper, all the rest are merely dependants. Into this\nworld and down among these quarters from whence it came Christianity\nmust prepare itself to re-enter, and of this the shadow is already\nto be seen. It must discard its dogmas and superstitions, which it\nhas even now consigned to partial obscurity and silence, and in place\nof them, take on the things of the world. It must go among the money\nchangers of the temples, and into the halls and by-ways of legislation,\ngiving battle everywhere with evil; for it is through these that the\nworld is given or denied its betterment, and it must set science on its\nright hand, recognizing it as an attribute of the Deity. Christianity\nwith this companion, its pure ideal recovered from its ecclesiastical\nmists, setting out on its new journey through the world, blazing the\nway for truth instead of suppressing it, conforming itself in all ways\nto the natural religion of mankind, would become to humanity what\nthe sun is to the earth, comforting the souls of men by its hopes,\nenlarging their charities by its precepts, and warming into life many a\ngerm of virtue and goodness, which else, would never have blossomed, to\nshed its moral fragrance on the earth.\n\nThe foregoing was written to indicate that line of thought, whose\nconvictions are briefly expressed, here and there, through the pages\nof this little book, now offered to the public in its third edition.\nIt is always safer and pleasanter to deal with received theology in\nthe spirit of reverence, usually found in literature; thus offending\nno one, and meeting the approval of a worthy and influential class;\nbut, there are other reasons why an adverse criticism of theological\nmethods and beliefs, are not so often publicly exploited as their\nimportance to society deserves. In the first place experience has\nshown that errors of religious belief, fixed upon the mind in infancy\nand youth, are seldom removed by discussion. We are not yet arrived\nat that stage, when the love of truth so predominates in the minds of\nmen, that they will sacrifice every prejudice, and reject all opposing\ninfluence to obtain it. Christianity has imposed an elaborate system of\nprejudices on every young mind within its jurisdiction and they have\nbecome entwined with all the most hallowed associations of childhood,\nappealing so strongly to the affections, that any expressed denial of\ntheir exact truth excites, in most cases, a feeling of resentment, and\noften stirs to petty persecution. A large majority of the human race\naccept their opinions from authority, and all authority heretofore has\nencouraged beliefs, which appear so inseparably connected with the\nmoral well being of society, and which hold in continued supremacy,\ninstitutions and modes of thought whose subversion it is alleged\nwould be in many ways dangerous. Yet, the fact remains that it is\nmostly through its inroads upon these old beliefs that the world has\narrived at its present stage of progress, and the opinion of orthodox\ntheologians that they should be retained in their entirety, or of\nothers that they should be abolished, cuts no figure; because, whether\nfor good or evil in the opinions of men, Providence has ordained, that\nthose only which represent the truth shall live, and knowing this of a\ncertainty, it becomes of the greatest interest to discover what society\nis likely to lose or gain by that modification of religious beliefs,\nwherein only the truth shall remain. If we cannot foretell this future\ncondition with certainty, it is largely foreshadowed by past and\npresent experience. What the world has lost in the modification of\nreligious beliefs, would be hard to find, what it has gained would\ntake volumes to recount. In the most important of all human interests,\nliberty of person, liberty of conscience, and liberty of speech,\nthere has been, as yet, no adequate acknowledgement by mankind of\nthe great services of the silent and avowed skepticism which brought\nabout the consummation of these blessings. The writings of Moses, the\nrecorded wisdom of Solomon, the encyclicals of popes, and the sermons\nof bishops and priests, both Protestant and Catholic, in their rising\nup of the lowly, in their encouragement of brotherhood, and in that\nexact and even justice to all men, so far as their practical services\nto humanity in these directions can be measured, sink into an empty\ninsignificance, when compared with those organic declarations and\nlaws, upon which this great republic was founded, and which were the\noutcome and product of a then recent enlightenment, due to the combined\nefforts of European skeptical writers, who by their genius of sarcasm\nand incisive argument, were disturbing the old theological modes of\nthought, and awaking the world to wide strides in rationalism. That\nthese new American rules of political equality, beacons of liberty for\nmen to follow and admire, obtained their inspiration and incentive from\nthose new lights in literature, which, at that time, were stirring the\nworld of thought, there can be no question. In these famous American\ndocuments, were embodied the practical carrying out of principles,\nenunciated, and suggested by the European writers, and the most active\nof the men engaged in the noble work of forming the new government,\nare known to have been disciples of these leaders of anti-theologic\nthought. Our Declaration of Independence and Federal Constitution,\nstand, to-day, grand achievements of modern scientific thought, and\nconspicuous triumphs of rationalism, over old methods, foreshadowing in\nthese, its great works, a better wisdom to govern the affairs of men,\nthan all the ages guided by Hebrew tradition. Yet, in these documents\nwill be seen an overflowing of natural religion, and the spirit of the\nMaster. \u201cDo unto others as ye would that others shall do unto you.\u201d\n\nIf we have for more than fifteen centuries, yielded ourselves to\ndoctrines, conveyed to us through all the highways of life, so\nassiduously, that neither infancy, youth, manhood or old age, have\nescaped their tireless importunities for acceptance; doctrines, which\nconsign seven-eighths of humanity to eternal torture for no faults to\nmost of them but a lack of opportunity, which under Providence has been\ndenied, it is not unreasonable to conclude, with this experience of\nthe mutability of human understanding, that there are other beliefs\nfastened on our minds by ages of custom and mistaken thought, equally\nuntenable, which may be as justly placed in our catalogue of errors.\nWhere then shall we look for truth? Authority, as we have seen, is\nnot an infallible guide. We shall never know how much the industrious\npromulgation of error is due to the selfish love of corporate power,\nhow much to a pure benevolence. Neither are the brightest minds safe\nmonitors in all things of thought. Aristotle defended slavery, Hobbes\npersecution, Johnson witchcraft, and Gladstone religious superstition;\nbut, for all that, we shall never arrive at the extremity of despair;\nfor a cultivation of the mind, the deductive use of positive knowledge,\nand the untrammeled exercise of reason, lead to truth, as directly,\nas the line of gravity points to the center of the earth, and only by\nthese will its reign be established in the world.\n\n                                                                   W. S.\n\n\n\n\nINTRODUCTORY.\n\n\nMy habitation is upon the plateau of a mountain in California. I\nentered this region and became a settler by a fortuitous event. About\nthirty-five years ago, I took a summer outing from a close application\nto business in the metropolis, and came here for a deer hunt. One of\nthose beautiful animals that I had wounded with my rifle led me further\ninto this wild and picturesque locality than I had intended to go, and\nI thus arrived upon this spot, as I believe, the first white man that\never set foot upon it. Reaching here late in the afternoon, I found\nmyself too far out of my path to return by daylight, and so, building\na fire, I spent my first night alone in this weird place. It was the\nfirst time in my life that I had slept where some human creature was\nnot within the sound of my voice, and from that night I date a change\nof sentiment, thought, and feeling, which has altered my career, and\nmade me, what I have chosen to be, a recluse.\n\nI had been living in the world about thirty years amid the artificial\nsurroundings of a city. I had scarcely looked upon the sky and heavens,\nexcept between the margins of opposite house-tops. I had viewed from\ninfancy, without emotion, the rising and setting of the sun from a\nhorizon of chimneys and steeples; and when these exhibitions first\npresented themselves to me here in this crystal atmosphere, with\nan expanse from this altitude so new to me, they appeared like a\nrevelation. I seemed to have been suddenly ushered into the world,\nand to be looking for the first time in my life upon the stupendous\nphenomena about me.\n\nUntil this moment I had not approached a realization of the\nmagnificence and prodigious wonders which the heavens afford to our\nobservation. It was here also that I began for the first time to\nenjoy those beautiful and curious processes of nature, where the\nbursting germs, ascending gradually out of the soil, change their\nshapes, multiply their organs, and after a time crown themselves with\nbrilliant and deliciously flavored flowers. In my new observation and\nintimacy with plant growth, with some previous knowledge of the science\nappertaining to it, and with a newly discovered delight in marking the\nchanges of position and the characters of the heavenly bodies by the\ngreedy acquirement of all the information within my reach, I have come\nto forego, without regrets, the social pleasures of life.\n\nBy the liberal laws of my country, I have become possessed of this\nattractive spot, and thus far, I have chosen to retain it in its\nnatural state. I came here a young man. I am now old. Thirty-five years\nof my life have been spent on this elevation, with a self-banishment\nfrom society, without in the least abating my interest in human\naffairs. My communication with the world is mostly through books. A\nweekly newspaper or two, and such other publications as I may order,\nare left for me in a hollow tree several miles away by the district\nmessenger; and thus no important event or new discovery in the world\nescapes me.\n\nI have constructed with my own hands a cabin, having much convenience\nand comfort, and also some outhouses, which shelter my poultry and a\npair of gentle cows, which latter, finding abundant food in the natural\ngrasses about, come to me regularly at milking time, seemingly as much\nfor the pleasure of being caressed, as to furnish me the principal\nnourishment of my life.\n\nThere is a trout steam in the center of my possession, with expansions\nhere and there, which serve as bathing places for myself, and out of\nwhich pure and cool drink is supplied to the few domestic animals\nabout me. This stream makes its way through the bottom of a hollow,\nand is so overhung by the lofty branches of trees which grow upon its\nborders that the sunlight only enters in patches, and is so reflected\nby the restless surface of the water as to mark its devious way with\nthe appearance of a line of flashing mirrors. The surrounding dense\nbody of foliage, from at least a hundred varieties of trees and\nshrubs, is tinted with a variegation of color seldom seen outside the\ntropics. This charming spot has its voices, as restless as the lights\nand shadows which play about within. Each miniature waterfall has its\nliquid note; while during certain hours there comes from every quarter\nof the foliage above a confused melody of birds, who, I have reason to\nbelieve, assemble there for entertainment and gossip.\n\nOutside of this watered region, my homestead is interspersed with\nopenings, where the rich loam only awaits the labor of cultivation\nto produce a wealth of grain or fruit. Every tree and shrub within\nmy possession of half a mile square, by long familiarity, seems to\nhave become a part of myself. We are living and ageing together. I\nhave watched in them the development of infancy, the slow and gradual\napproach to youth, and the turning point from maturity to old age.\nAmong these old monarchs of the woods is here and there one tipped with\nthe signs of superannuated decay. About their feet lay many of their\nwithered, sapless limbs. They have lost their symmetry, and stand in\nscraggy outline. I see from year to year their gradual giving up of\nlife, while beside them a new generation arises. There is a fellow\nfeeling between us. My hair grows thin and white and my step is no\nlonger firm and elastic. Like them my share of life is growing to a\nclose, and yet I am an infant in years compared to many of them. I bow\nto them with a sentiment of reverence. They are my old men. The younger\nones are my children--mine! What a grand thing it is to have these in\nmy possession,--to hold in my own right such a choice piece of this\nblossoming earth, where all the mysterious forces are at work day and\nnight for me alone!\n\nI have come also to have an abiding interest in the creatures who by\nnature are inhabitants of this place. Long ago have I laid aside my\ngun as an instrument of destruction, and it rests now on its pegs\nabove my pillow only as a defense. By slow degrees I have gained a\nconfidence with the native birds and animals which surround me, so that\nit is wonderful how many of them welcome me and enjoy my presence.\nThere swarm to my poultry fold at feeding time myriads of quail and\nother birds, who with an amusing assurance, run about my feet and\ndispute for the crumbs that I scatter. The gray squirrels may be often\nseen scampering down from their hiding places in the trees to meet\nme, in expectation of their accustomed relish of wheat grains, which\nare stowed away for them in my pockets. I have three pet deer, quite\ntame and domesticated, whose intimate acquaintance was brought about\nin a singular way. Sitting on my doorstep one bright afternoon, I had\nlistened for some time to the baying of hounds in the neighboring\nmountains, when presently there came bounding toward me, in terror,\na trembling doe, and with her beaming eyes fixed upon me, seeming to\ninvoke my pity, she literally threw herself into my arms. Taking in\nthe situation at a glance, I tried to force her into my door before\nthe dogs arrived. Too late for that, I could only arm myself with\na stick from my woodpile, when the whole yelping pack were upon us.\nIt was a hard fight, and only after many bites and scratches from\nthe disappointed hounds did I beat them off. I kept her in a secure\nouthouse for a few days, where two beautiful fawns were born to\nher; and ever since the mother and offspring have been my favorite\npets, following me about like children. My acquaintance with other\nof the creatures about, though not so intimate, is still of such a\nconfidential kind that they manifest no terror at my approach, and I am\nthus enabled to realize, by this free exhibition of them, how teeming\nwith animal life is the earth in its most favored parts.\n\nIn my earlier years I have felt the cold blasts and torrid heats of\nother climes. I now rest myself in the happy satisfaction that I\nhave found in this equable temperature and agreeable surroundings a\nplace where one may look upon life as a blessing. I have acquired\nenough knowledge of some of the sciences to make an instrument or\ntwo of service to me, and I take especial interest in my telescope\nof three inches aperture, in the use of which I spend many an hour\nwhich otherwise might hang heavily on my hands. I have also a good\nmicroscope and field glass. Through the latter I bring to view the\ndistant hillsides and mountain tops, observing, frequently, groups of\ndeer grazing tranquilly, and at times a family of panthers gamboling\non the green carpet of an opening, or an eagle feeding her young upon\nthe inaccessible brink of a precipice; and on rarer occasions, a bear\ncomplacently munching acorns under some prolific old oak a mile away.\nMy microscope has revealed to me a world of wonders. I have discovered\nby it the limitable range of our senses, and how far below as well\nas above us the infinite extends. I grope about in the darkness of\nmy understanding between an atom and the outside limit of the stars,\nevery step toward either showing an increase of distance. These things\nI pursue, not with the spirit and application of a student, but\nrather for the entertainment which they furnish and the meditation\nthey invoke. I have learned all that is known of the motions and\neccentricities of heavenly bodies within my telescopic vision, and\nI never look upon them without rapture. What are all other shows to\nthis? How many of these countless worlds are inhabited? What beings are\nupon them? How do they compare with us? Has it been given to them to\ncomprehend eternity? Is knowledge with them intuitive or acquired? Thus\ndo I lose myself in these bewildering fancies.\n\nIt may appear that I have avoided my share in the cares and duties of\nhuman association. If I have, it is from no lack of sympathy with my\nkind. I look upon my fellow-men from my distant and somewhat isolated\npoint of view, without the usual diversion of active affairs, and both\nmy pity and admiration are aroused. The sufferings and sorrows of my\nkind seem appalling to me from this position, while their heroism in\nthe struggle for knowledge seems to me grand beyond expression. I\nfeel myself in the midst of civilization, and yet apart from it. If\nI have been a loser from that lack of social attrition which arouses\nthe activities of thought, it is, nevertheless, certain that I have\nnot been submitted to a combination of those influences which render\nan error plausible. The opinions and thoughts of the world come to\nme, and I pass them in review with a full sense of the fallibility of\nindividual opinion, as well as an abiding faith in the steady approach\nof that collective truth, which, sooner or later, will overspread the\nworld.\n\n\n\n\nTHE MAN FROM MARS.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER I.\n\n\nMy telescope is mounted in an apartment adjoining my cabin, with an\nelevated exposure, and has some extra contrivances for the convenience\nof adjustment, designed and constructed by myself. The instrument can\nbe raised and lowered at pleasure, and is protected by a movable dome,\nwhich is easily laid aside by means of a couple of pullies. It is a\ngood one, and for its size has remarkable power. I have been enabled\nto reach with it double stars of the sixth magnitude, frequently\nobserving even Orion, with its beautiful double and multiple systems.\nI can easily discover with it the most distant planet Neptune, and by\ntheir progressive displacement, I have seen and recognized with it\nmost of the asteroids. I can get with it a fine view of Jupiter, that\nmagnificent planet fourteen hundred times larger than our Earth, and\nhave observed the black spots upon its surface, and the transit of its\nmoons. The grand spectacle of Saturn and its rings is brought to my\nobservation with remarkable clearness. I have so frequently looked into\nthe dismal caverns and upon the towering mountains of our satellite,\nthe Moon, that its marks and bounds are as familiar to me as the\nneighboring hills. But life is short, and amid all this illimitable sea\nof worlds, I have fixed my attention upon but one, for that special\nstudy which my few remaining years will permit. The heavenly body which\nmost engages my attention is, excepting our satellite, the nearest one\nto us, our neighboring planet Mars.\n\nI believe that body to be inhabited by beings in many respects like\nthose of the earth. My conclusion is adduced from many known facts\nconcerning it. Mars has an atmosphere like ours. Its density does not\ndiffer materially from the Earth. The heat it derives from the sun,\npossibly modified by atmospheric conditions, is quite likely the same\nas ours. It has zones of varying temperature, and seasons of summer and\nwinter like the Earth. Its days are about the same length as ours. The\nice and snow of its polar regions are plainly perceptible, and vary in\narrears exactly in accordance with its changing positions and distances\nfrom the sun. From which we may infer, without a doubt, that its\natmosphere contains moisture of the same chemical composition as ours,\nand is condensed into rain and snow as with us.\n\nThere are striking points of difference, however, between Mars and the\nEarth. Its diameter is a little less than half that of our planet, and\nits surface is only about a quarter of ours, while its volume is but a\nseventh part of our globe. Furthermore, instead of a single satellite\nlike ours it has two moons, which revolve in opposite directions around\nit, neither of which in point of size can be compared to ours.\n\nMy knowledge of astronomy not being profound, it has been the greatest\npleasure and gratification to me to verify, by my own observations,\nthe calculations and theories of the abler scientists. Appertaining\nto Mars, it is perhaps needless to say that there is a diversity of\nopinion among astronomers touching its physical conditions. The unusual\nred color of its reflected light, its bright and dark spots, and the\nvariation which is observed in the forms overspreading its disc, are\ndifferently accounted for. It is among such questions as these, then,\nthat my imagination and ingenuity are free to exercise themselves,\nand the desire to settle some of these disputed points to my own\nsatisfaction increases the eagerness of my observation.\n\nI have watched for many years, with anticipations of pleasure, when\nMars would be in opposition,--or in other words, when, during its\nrevolution upon its orbit, it comes nearest to the Earth. These\noccurrences of about every two years are holidays of pleasure and\nenjoyment to me. There are, however, rarer oppositions of Mars, which\noccur only twice in a century, when the distance between us is reduced\nto the smallest limit; and it has been my good fortune to get a finer\nview of this heavenly body at this shorter distance than will few human\nbeings at present alive.\n\nIt can well be imagined what a supremely interesting event this was to\nme. Days before its culmination did I watch its progress approaching\nnearer and nearer to the Earth. Each succeeding night exhibited to me\nits slowly magnifying proportions, and the greater distinctness of\nobjects on its surface. Here was a world of beings, no doubt, with aims\nand enterprises like ours, rolling headlong through the heavens with\na known velocity of fifty-four thousand miles an hour. This planet\nwas now approaching, hourly, its greatest possible proximity to the\nEarth. That I should lose no time in devouring, as I may say, this\nunusual spectacle, I had provided my telescope with a kind of clockwork\ncontrivance, by which it exactly kept pace with Mars on its westward\ncourse. During these few days, I had forgotten everything else in my\neagerness to feast my eyes on this rare show. The nights had been\nfavorable to observation; and each evening after turning my instrument\non the rapidly approaching planet, my interest became so transfixed and\nabsorbed that all my ordinary physical wants were suppressed. I had\nlost in these few days of mental excitement all inclination for food\nand sleep. No one could be freer from superstition than I, yet my mind\nwas uneasy under an unaccountable premonition. It gave some anxiety to\nthink that on the very night of culmination, when my interest would be\nat its height, a change of weather might cut off the scene. But aside\nfrom this, in my somewhat feverish condition, I could not restrain a\nsense of some impending and momentous event in my personal affairs.\nSome strange influence seemed to be disturbing the usual tranquil and\nplacid condition of my mind. I aroused myself from this, however, and\nbecame thoroughly myself when the sun went down on the evening of\nmy hope, and left an atmosphere that was as perfect as I could wish\nfor. The sky was calm and clear, with just enough moisture in the air\nto increase its transparency. The ordinary evening sounds appeared\nstilled. Neither nighthawk nor owl seemed abroad, and the usual\nrustling of leaves and swaying of tree-tops was suppressed by a calm\nthat struck me as strange. The day had been moderately warm, and the\nsun-distilled odors of the firs and pines, condensed by the coolness\nof twilight, were filling the air with an agreeable perfume, as though\nNature was burning incense in the celebration of some ancient rite,\nduring which every living and breathing thing about seemed bowed in\nsilent reverence. I had never known until now what assurance there was\nin the natural sounds which nightly fell upon my ears. In my mountain\nhome no feeling of loneliness ever came over me before. I felt an\nespecial longing now for the sound of a human voice, for a companion\nupon whom I might discharge myself of the suggestions and beliefs\nappertaining to the subject of my investigation and study. My mind was\nfilled with conclusions touching the physical condition of Mars, which\neach new observation tended to corroborate. I had my theory to give of\nits rose-colored light. I had seen the clouds moving upon its surface,\nits polar snows, and its very atmosphere. I had no doubt whatever,\nnow, that it was inhabited, and the anticipation of soon seeing it in\nits most favorable opposition with the Earth, was accompanied with\na yearning that some human creature might share with me the rare\nspectacle.\n\nAs the twilight faded, I looked with my naked eyes toward the east,\nand my other world was showing its red light near the horizon like a\nrising sun in miniature. At midnight it would reach its culmination,\nwhen viewing it through the least possible thickness of our atmosphere\nin its vertical position, I would see it as no human being could\nsee it again for over half a century. The oppressive silence and\ntranquility remained unbroken, and as I seated myself in my observatory\nand adjusted the telescope, I felt myself not quite in my accustomed\nvigor of health. The temperature had perceptibly raised, when it had\nusually fallen as the night advanced. The air was sultry. A sensation\nof qualmishness came over me. It came to my mind now that I had abused\nmyself by a long neglect of sleep and regular meals. But no sooner\nhad I brought my instrument to a focus than I was myself again. Our\nbeautiful neighbor was mounting the heavens, reflecting the sun\u2019s\nlight in a delicate crimson tint, and in size of outline beyond my\nexpectation. I could plainly mark its rotation upon its axis by\nnoting the slow movements of spots upon its disc, and their sudden\ndisappearance over its limb. The hours seemed minutes to me. My fatigue\nand illness were forgotten. In my rapture of enjoyment the lingering\nwish increased that some fellow creature might share it with me. My\ntelescope, in tracing the planet\u2019s course had very nearly obtained\na vertical position, when I was astonished to see the distant world\nsuddenly disappear, and begin to vibrate back and forth over the\naperture of my instrument. A moment\u2019s reflection explained the matter.\nThe Earth had shaken. So trifling, however, was the disturbance about\nme that it had not been felt. But I had lost my focus, and Mars was\nalready on its backward journey. My grand holiday was over.\n\nI immediately lowered the telescope and replaced its protecting dome.\nGathering the few hasty notes I had prepared during my observation,\nfor future reference and elaboration, I made my way to an apartment\nof my cabin which serves me for a library and bed chamber. A number\nof shelves filled with books occupy one of its sides. My bed rests\nin a corner. An easy chair stands besides a table in the center, and\nunder a window, proportionately large, fronting the south, is placed\na cushioned lounge of some pretentions to comfort and luxury. I threw\nmyself upon this, after laying away my papers, and the lower panes of\nmy window being on a level with my head, I looked out into the night.\n\nThe moon in its last quarter was just peeping over a near mountain.\nIts light, partly obstructed by a network of tree-tops, was throwing\nfigures of light and shade over the adjacent opening, so that the\nground appeared to have spread upon it a colossal carpet, with\nfantastic decorations of ebony and silver. The air had grown a trifle\ncooler. A gentle breeze was stirring out of the West, and the silence,\nthat had recently fallen so mysteriously upon me, was being followed\nnow by a normal condition of unrest. As the moon rose higher, its\nfanciful shadows upon the ground dissolved, and the level plateau\nadjacent to my window was uniformly covered with a clear, bright light.\nLooking again, and quite sensibly impressed with the changed condition\nof things about me, I descried the figure of a man, not far from\nmy window; and, strange to say, I was neither alarmed nor startled\nat his presence. His face, of which I saw but little more than its\nprofile, was turned upward looking at the moon, and its expression was\nunmistakably one of admiration and wonder. His long, and apparently\nwell-cared-for hair and beard, reflected a golden sheen under the light\nabove. His arms were folded, and his shape and attitude impressed me as\nbeing majestic.\n\nWhile fixing my gaze intently on this strange form, an expression\nof something wanting about it took possession of me, when presently\nI observed with surprise, that although standing under the bright\nand unobstructed light of the moon, no shadow was visible about it.\nHe remained for some time as immovable as a statue, gazing upon our\nsatellite as one who had never before looked upon so wondrous a\nsight, and then, with the air of one on unfamiliar ground, he made an\ninquiring survey of my cabin, and then directed his careful footsteps\ntoward my doorway.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER II.\n\n\nThis strange figure entered my cabin, and without introduction or sign\nof salutation seated himself in my easy chair as though he were a\nmember of my household, an apparent rudeness which will be explained\nas I proceed. I had now the first opportunity to get a good survey of\nmy visitor. He was a person of surpassing loveliness. His face was of\nthat spiritual kind which is seldom seen off the canvas of some of\nour art masters, and it reflected a kindness of heart that is never\nrealized except by the purest religious fancy. His form was so high\nand elaborate in its development, that I have only seen an approach to\nit in the best models. His singular attractiveness I can only compare\nto that affinity which comes of pure sexual love, captivating the\nbeholder with a presence which drives away all thought but it. His\ncomplexion had that ruddy clearness and transparency indicative of\nperfect health. The hair of his head and beard,--both long and waving\nover shoulders and breast,--was of a hue that can be best described as\nthe color of the ripe filbert, with the fineness and lustre of unwoven\nsilk. His hands, although scrupulously clean and finely shaped, bore\nthe unmistakable signs of manual toil; and yet he had the superior air\nand manner of one whose mission it was to instruct. As he sat before\nme I felt like a child in the presence of a loved and loving parent.\nMy impression of him was entirely correct, since his first word of\nutterance to me was a term of endearment.\n\n\u201cMy brother,\u201d said he, \u201cyou have a beautiful world. That moon of yours\nis magnificent.\u201d\n\nTo me this was a happy beginning. Here was, thought I, a man after my\nown heart, whose soul was above the common things of life. I could\ncompare notes with him touching my study of Mars. Providence had then\nsent me, at last, what I had so wanted,--some one to share and enjoy\nwith me the triumphs of my labor; so I immediately said to him: \u201cAs\nto the moon, it is certainly very serviceable as a night reflector of\nthe sun\u2019s light; but, since its size is comparatively insignificant,\nand its surface desolate and uninhabited, it is thus an object of\nvery little importance among heavenly bodies. Speaking of magnificent\nplanets, what do you think of Mars?\u201d\n\n\u201cMars suits me,\u201d said my visitor.\n\nThinking my question too general, I inquired: \u201cDo you think Mars\ninhabited?\u201d\n\n\u201cI am a good proof that it is,\u201d said he. \u201cI left that planet--let me\nsee--by your time, about one hour ago.\u201d\n\n\u201cI either misunderstood you, or you are not serious. It is impossible.\u201d\n\n\u201cAh, my brother,\u201d said he, \u201cyou are very little advanced in a knowledge\nof the properties of intelligence. I am here by a process as yet\nunknown to you, and which may be best described in your language as\nreflection. I am here by reflection. That is to say, my natural body\nis at my home, on the planet, which you call Mars. Its spiritual\ncounterpart is here. You have already an inkling of this strange\nfaculty of transferring intelligence, in some of the phenomena on which\nis founded your spiritualistic creed. We, of the planet Mars, have been\nin the enjoyment of this discovery for centuries; and while you of the\nEarth are only able by your appliances of science to measure the size\nof our planet, compute its distance, estimate the shape and extent\nof its orbit, and indulge in some vague conjectures appertaining to\nits condition, we have been making a close and interesting study of\nyour social affairs, including, of course, your morals, politics and\nreligion. You have only measured us as a planet. We have measured you\nas a people, and at least one of us, as you perceive, has mastered your\nlanguage. Besides, our development is over ten thousand years ahead of\nyours. We can tell you more of your history than you know yourselves.\nAt a period of yours described by your writers as the stone age, we had\nconverted electricity into a motor and illuminating agent. I know your\nthoughts. You are surprised at what I have said, and wish me to tell\nyou something of the planet upon which I reside.\n\n\u201cIt will interest you to know that about the equatorial regions of\nMars is found its highest civilization and densest settlement. Your\ntorrid zone, and the corresponding section of our planet, are widely\ndifferent. In ours, the climate is delightfully and evenly temperate.\nThe extent of our surface, as you know, is very much less than yours,\nbut the uniform quality of our land for cultivation, and the smaller\nwater surface, compared with yours, supports a population whose numbers\nwould astonish you. You may as well discharge your mind of the many\nconjectures which ascribe to each planet a quality of matter and\nintelligence peculiar to itself. The whole universe is a unit, as\nyour spectroscope, and the bodies from space that fall from time to\ntime upon your surface, must have suggested to you. Variable states\nof density and temperature modify the forms and organs of animal and\nvegetable life, but matter is everywhere the same.\n\n\u201cYour chemists have just arrived at that point of knowledge where ours\nwere forty centuries ago. Yours recognize over sixty forms of matter as\nsimple and elementary, while ours have reduced them all to one,--the\nunit out of which all creation is formed. From this you may infer that\nour discovery of the compound nature of the metals enables us to make\nthem at pleasure. This was a most fortunate and timely knowledge for\nus, since they are distributed very sparsely on our planet. It will no\ndoubt be a strange thing to tell you, that we make gold at a less cost\nthan iron, and that consequently it is the cheapest metal in use. You\nare about to ask me whether we make diamonds. We have made them for\ncenturies. Our factories turn them out in masses for the ornamental\nparts of buildings, for which they are remarkably adapted on account of\ntheir brilliancy and indestructibility.\u201d\n\nMy strange visitor rested a little here, with the evident intention\nof reading my thoughts, and of enjoying my surprise. While I was\nmarvelling what great things chemical science must have done in other\nways, he appeared to anticipate my question.\n\n\u201cMy brother,\u201d said he, \u201cwe are indebted to the science of chemistry for\nmore than I can readily enumerate. With us, as with you, a large number\nof common and abundant substances differ only a trifle in chemical\ncomposition from others which are in great demand for the purposes\nof life. The science of chemistry enables us to convert one into the\nother at will. Thus, from wood we manufacture sugar, starch, and any\nnumber of other useful commodities. By the double decomposition of air\nand water we generate a heat which, for economy and easy regulation,\nis better than anything the universe affords. The clumsy, unclean and\ninconvenient use of wood and coal for fuel is with us a practice of the\npast.\n\n\u201cBut chemistry has done for us an immeasurably greater service. It has\nenabled us to provide for ourselves a food supply by the process of\nsynthesis, which, in the extremity of crop shortage or failure, we can\nresort to as a means of averting famine. You are aware, in your present\nstage of chemical knowledge, that all food products are composed of\nfour simple ingredients, Carbon, Oxygen, Hydrogen and Nitrogen, found\nin abundant supply in the atmosphere and its natural mixture. These,\nwith two or three earthy matters from the soil, are the constituents\nof all food. We forestall the slow assimilation of these by the organs\nof animals and plants, and by our chemical skill are enabled to\ncombine them in proper proportion to form the proximate elements of\nall varieties of food, wanting in nothing but the taste and flavor of\nthe natural supply, and on that account, only used when compelled by\nnecessity.\n\n\u201cOur advance in synthetic chemistry has enabled us to imitate nature\u2019s\nproducts in many of their organic forms. Besides those nitrogen\ncompounds which we manufacture as life sustainers, we produce many\nsubstances which are equivalent to those you obtain exclusively from\nanimal and vegetable life. We obtain in this way substitutes for\nleather, horn, ivory, and also fats and oils, albumen, gluten, starch,\netc., etc.; most of these better and in more convenient forms for\nindustrial and culinary uses than nature furnishes them. Our textile\nfabrics are entirely derived from vegetable growth, and we give them\na quality of slow or quick conduction of heat to accord with their\npurposes of summer or winter wear.\n\n\u201cYou may safely infer from what I have said that we slaughter no\nanimals for food or raiment. Such demoralizing cruelty we have never\npracticed. The ferocious examples of beasts and birds of prey we have\nnever known, and we have no extensive wastes over which they could live\nand flourish. Our animals which are limited in variety compared with\nyours are all domesticated, and our treatment of them is so uniformly\nkind, that instead of avoiding us they court our society. We have a\nclean and beautiful creature, much smaller than your cow, which gives\nus milk. It is remarkably intelligent, and is often admitted into our\nhouseholds to nurse our infants, who become very fond of them. Our city\nparks are provided with these animals and it is a common sight to see\nthem gamboling with children and quietly submitting themselves to their\nnourishment.\n\n\u201cIt is a part of our religion to believe that every living creature\nis related, though distantly, to ourselves, and to those of them\nespecially which are brought into our service, we owe not only an\nobligation of kindness, but the care of attention in sickness and old\nage. We have accordingly established places of retirement for them. The\nkind relations existing for ages between us and all animal kind has\nmodified their conduct to us in a way that would be striking to you,\nand would lead you to believe that they possess more intelligence than\nyou have given them credit for. They come to us in their troubles, and\nsubmit in the most human way to medical treatment in their hospitals.\nYou would be interested to note the friendly familiarity existing\nbetween us and our birds, who in brilliancy of plumage and song are far\nahead of yours. They abound in our city parks, and one has only to open\nthe window and whistle and they will come flying into the apartment,\nengaging themselves in a concert of song, perched about on the\nfurniture, as a happy privilege. On any other occasion when one comes\nsilent and alone we know what it portends, and it is tenderly carried\nto the bird hospital.\u201d\n\n\u201cYou have,\u201d I ventured to enquire, \u201crailroads and boats for\ntransportation?\u201d\n\n\u201cWe have neither,\u201d answered my visitor, \u201cnor do we require them, for\nreasons easily explained. There are two conditions of our planet\nwhich render the navigation of the air entirely safe and successful.\nThey are the greater density of our atmosphere, and the diminished\nforce of gravity compared with yours. Our air ships, as you would call\nthem, are easily made to sustain and move large cargoes, by vacuum\nchambers and electric motors. Our inventors have long since surmounted\nthe difficulties of adverse wind currents, and these vessels, of both\npublic and private use, may be seen constantly moving about in all\ndirections, and at all altitudes, with but few serious accidents.\n\n\u201cThere are no large oceans like yours on Mars, and our rivers are so\nsmall as not to serve the purposes of commerce. You will perceive,\nthen, that our facilities for navigating the air were bestowed upon us\nas a means of transportation, in lieu of the convenient waterways which\nyou enjoy. As you may anticipate, from the small size of our rivers,\nthere are no extensive mountainous water sheds upon our surface.\nInstead of your immense, desolate, and storm-beaten seas, we have a\nseries of lakes, everywhere varying in size, but none of them larger\nthan seventy-five of your miles long, and forty broad.\n\n\u201cThe relative density between water and an animal body being such\non our planet as to render the possibility of drowning by accident\nimpossible, the fear and horror existing with you of involuntary\nimmersion in the depths is entirely unknown. Our numerous lakes\nare therefore scenes of the most enjoyable, and what would be with\nyou, reckless diversion. The upsetting of a boat with its load of\nexcursionists, no matter where, results in merely a harmless frolic.\nThe human body there sinks in the water only a little above its\nmiddle, and we have contrived, by web-like fastenings to the hands and\nfeet, a means of propulsion so rapid as to nearly equal our speediest\nlocomotion on the land. During our long summers, when the temperature\nof the water is agreeable, lake journeys, especially by the young, are\namong the most popular amusements. This, to you, strange condition of\ndensity is productive of a state of affairs partaking of the humorous,\nalthough leading to much domestic perplexity and annoyance. Our\nchildren take to the water in the summer season as naturally as your\nwater fowl, and the loss of offspring upon the lakes, at that tender\nage which precludes their knowledge of the return direction, is the\nsource of an immense amount of parental disturbance and worry. The\nstraying of children upon the waters is attended, however, with but\nlittle danger; since, if by any possibility they remain undiscovered\nduring the night, they can, owing to the buoyancy of their bodies,\nsleep tranquilly and delightfully upon their backs, resting upon the\ncushions of the waters until rescued, as they are sure to be on the\nsucceeding day, by one of the numerous airships constantly skimming the\nsurface.\n\n\u201cOur land is generally rolling, and there is a constant water movement\nin the channels connecting these small bodies of water, not in a\nuniform direction toward the sea, as with you, but in all directions,\nthus saving to us a power for mechanical purposes than which nothing\nbetter can be conceived.\n\n\u201cOur cities, as you may imagine, are not located as yours are; but,\nsince one place is as good as another for a distributing point, the\nrule has been to build them up where conditions are favorable, chiefly\nconsidered of which have been the health, comfort, and pleasure\nof their inhabitants. It would be doing us injustice to believe\nthat, with our long period of development and progress, we have not\nachieved something far ahead of you in the sanitary and labor-saving\nappliances about us, especially in our metropolitan districts. In\nthe first place, we use no wood whatever in the construction of our\nbuildings, having discovered long ago a tendency during its slow decay\nto absorb and retain the germs of disease and uncleanliness. Neither\nis its durability satisfactory; and its ready inflammability and lack\nof strength render it unfitted for our purposes. We use, instead, a\nmetallic alloy unknown to you, which is susceptible of a high polish,\nas inoxidizable as gold, and with that character of penetrability which\npermits fastening with nails and shaping by tools, with even greater\nexactness than you work with wood.\n\n\u201cOur cities are built with uniformity. Their growth is invariably from\nthe center outward. Their location is not a matter of chance, as yours\ngenerally is. No site is chosen without the thorough examination and\napproval of a sanitary commission, whose knowledge and sincerity we\nrespect. Their foundation is made by the laying out of a large circular\nenclosure for the location of all public buildings, among which, in\nthe center and more magnificent than all in its imposing loftiness and\nartistic finish, is our temple of worship. From this center radiate a\nset of wide and uniform thoroughfares, and these are crossed at regular\nintervals by circular ones, which begin at the center and are repeated\nto the circumference as a series of concentric rings.\u201d\n\nThe man from Mars became silent for a moment, and I observed that for\nthe first time his face was clouded a little. He had spoken of a temple\nof worship, and it had started in my mind a wish to hear something of\nthe society and morals of his people, and how they compared with us; so\nI said to him: \u201cI am grateful to you for your kindness in describing\nsome of the material surroundings of your people, but I would like\nvery much to know something of your inner lives, of your thoughts and\nbeliefs, and how they affect your social condition.\u201d\n\n\u201cMy brother,\u201d said he, \u201cyou wish me to make a comparison between our\nsociety and yours. I can scarcely do so without the risk of giving you\npain. With our greater advancement, we look back upon you as travelers\nover the same rough paths. Your journey is even a more difficult one\nthan ours. In your present state, you appear to us as a world of\ndiscord, confusion, and strife. While we were long ago resolved into\na single, homogeneous people, you are still divided into nations and\ncountries, unridden yet of the barbarous pride of combat. We have but\none religion. Yours are many and antagonistic. I shall briefly make for\nyou the comparison you wish, hoping that it may bring no sense of pain\nto you, for, to speak the truth, the cruelty, the intense individual\nselfishness, and the strange superstitions of the inhabitants of the\nEarth will pass away out of the ages to come.\u201d\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER III.\n\n\n\u201cComparing your society with ours,\u201d began my celestial visitor, \u201cis\nlike describing the difference between your present intellectual\ncondition, and the state you were in during your cave-dwelling period.\nIn review of your progress, we recognize two chief agencies at work\nwhich have regenerated us, viz.: the steady growth of human sympathy,\nand the fading out of old superstitions. In our advanced development,\nwith the first of these, we have achieved a state of things in our\nsociety quite likely beyond your hopes. For instance, that feeling of\nregard and affinity for each other which is seldom found among you,\nexcept in the midst of family ties, we hold one for another among\nall. If I were to select from among you a domestic circle, the most\nrefined and correct, its disturbance and anxiety from the sorrows and\nmisfortunes of one of its members would scarcely represent the feeling\nin a body of our people for the misfortunes of any. We are shocked at\nyour cruel indifference to the feelings of one another. When we see one\nof you sinking by the wayside, by means of one of the evils which you\nnaturally inherit; or overwhelmed, perhaps, with the penalties of a\nmisadventure, and looked upon by his fellows regardless of his smitten\ncondition, we can find no parallel to it among ourselves, except in the\ntraditions that have come to us out of our remote ages.\n\n\u201cYour national antagonisms, your cruel wars, and the immense sums\nwasted by you in maintaining millions of your people, trained for the\nsole purpose of slaughtering their fellows, we regard as the one most\ndisgraceful relic of your former supremely barbarous state. While,\nby the process of social development, all your most cruel brutalisms\nhave disappeared within the range of your higher civilization, the\nremaining one, of sending masses of your people into deadly combat for\nthe settlement of political and religious questions, is retained for\nreasons which are not wholly in concurrence with our sense of right. In\nthe first place, no element of justice enters into the arbitration of\na question, whose settlement rests entirely upon the physical strength\nof the contestants; and all international settlements by this means\nare but temporary, when the winning party has not coincidentally a\nprevailing sense of justice in its favor. All your wars and battles,\nwithout a result on the side of equity and truth, have been fought\nin vain. Your bloody misjudgments of one century often are, and are\never like to be, reviewed and resubmitted to the same sanguinary and\ndelusive arbitration in a succeeding one. In these brutal encounters\nyou stain your hands and garments in the blood of your fellow men\nwithout remorse, because the wild instincts of your nature have\nnever been suppressed in that particular direction. Those of you in\nauthority, both civil and religious, have this to answer for. For the\nsake of a concurrence in the selfish schemes of your rulers, they have\ninstituted a series of glittering rewards for the most skillful of\ntheir wholesale murderers and you have in that way been educated to\nhonor most, those who could deal the heaviest blows.\n\n\u201cWe cannot take a survey of the motives which have instituted nearly\nall these sanguinary and dreadful encounters among you, without a sense\nof horror. Your civilization has witnessed only a single one of these\nterrible conflicts, wherein a purely humane question was involved. Your\nreligions have not only been used to sanction this dire carnage, but\nhave even themselves been participants in the slaughter of millions of\nyour people. You are not yet freed from the savagery of your remote\nfathers, who, ages ago, entered those fierce contests between tribe and\ntribe, with strong personal interests in the outcome. The loss or gain\nof a battle meant to them either a share of spoils or probable torture\nand death. Yet you have kept alive this inclination to collective\ncombat, when individual loss or gain seldom cuts any figure in the\nincentive which impels you to battle. And even beyond these physical\nencounters, your struggles of life appear, from our point of view, to\nbe divided between defense and attack, like the beasts of prey which\nstill linger on your borders.\n\n\u201cYour society presents to us the spectacle of a continuous skirmish\namong yourselves, your whole mass struggling to mount the summit of\ntheir individual hopes and ambitions, wounding and bruising each other\nwith cruel unconcern. Our experience has taught us that this unhappy\nsocial condition is entirely due to the crude and imperfect stage of\nyour development. Each of your new epochs brings some approach towards\na better terrestrial life; but you have not fairly considered nor\nendeavored to surmount the chief obstacle to your progress in that\ndirection. You have not yet learned to deal justly with one another.\nBy your system of unequal advantages, one class is permitted, and\neven encouraged, to prey upon another one. One or more of you will\nenter upon a scheme of personal gain without the slightest concern for\nits effect upon others. You have permitted, from time to time, the\npassage of laws having a direct and unmistakable tendency to throw your\nwealth into the hands of a few, and as a consequence, to increase the\nhardships of the many. Your generation exults over all preceding ones\nin its progress in science and knowledge; but even that has not served\nto soften or remove the asperities of your lives, for the reason that\nmost of the available material of this new advance has been prostituted\nto serve the interests of the few.\n\n\u201cThe growth of your social betterment rests almost entirely upon\nthe total of your disciplined thought, yet by your methods, correct\nthinking is the rarest thing among you. Your social field, instead of\nbeing evenly stirred and seeded, is cultivated in spots and patches.\nEven your knowledge has been converted into a weapon of tyranny\nand oppression, and it is oftener pursued in the love of self than\nfor the benefit of kind. Out of the helplessness of your neglected\nand unfavored masses, come the greater number of your individual\naccumulations of wealth.\n\n\u201cIn our stage of progress such a state of things is impossible. The\nperformance of an act inflicting injury or even discomfort upon one\nor more fellow beings in our society, brings its punishment in the\ngeneral condemnation and disgrace which follows. Active benevolence,\nwhich is with you an impulse, sporadic and exceptional, is with us an\never-present emotion, and upon it we have founded the chief pleasures\nof life. We have no eleemosynary establishments, because they are not\nneeded. There can be no suffering from destitution among us, since\neach person finds in his own surroundings the ready, helping hand.\nNo neglected orphan wanders about uncared for, because each family\nfinds its pleasures increased by the opportunity to bestow shelter.\nEach dwelling is open to all, and no assuring salutation is needed\nto welcome the visitor. He enters the house of the stranger, as the\nstranger would enter his, by the right of the universal brotherhood\nwhich prevails.\n\n\u201cThe love of our kind forms the corner stone of our single religion,\njust as the like is made the foundation upon which your many creeds\nare built. But while your religious teachings have brought no great\nfruits, ours have yielded a harvest of glorious consequences. If it\nwill interest you, I shall tell you why.\u201d\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER IV.\n\n\nAt the dawn of, and during the first stages of their civilization,\nthe people of the Earth found themselves surrounded with natural\nforces which, in their scant knowledge of the laws of the universe,\nwere ascribed to the arbitrary and willful caprices of a great hidden\nbeing. They found a mysterious power above them, and everywhere an\noverwhelming evidence of design. The unthinkable and unknown character\nof the infinite and eternal was not then acknowledged; and the failure\nof any to explain this unseen intelligence and power incited their\nimaginations to do for them what the closest investigation had failed\nto accomplish. As may have been expected, they clothed their imaginary\ndeity with the qualities, propensities, and passions of themselves. Any\nviolent convulsion of nature was taken by them as a certain sign of his\nanger; while the normal state of rest, and the undisturbed processes\nof animal and vegetable development and growth were looked upon as\nconcessions in their special favor. From a belief in the supervision\nof the deity over every single one of the innumerable processes of\nnature, they naturally imbibed the idea that they each were objects of\nhis personal watchfulness and attention, and as a consequence, that all\nthe fortunes and vicissitudes of their lives were dependent upon his\nmoods. It may very well be supposed that with this conception of the\ndeity, the chief purpose of life would be to find favor with Him, to\ndiscover his wishes, and to learn his commands; since, in accordance\nwith this simple and crude idea, every one\u2019s success and comfort in\nlife depended upon his conciliation. With these views of nature and\nthe universe, they came in due time to observe that within themselves\nwere feelings and sentiments entirely apart from the ordinary epicurean\nimpulses which governed them. We may imagine in those cruel times\nthe warrior standing over his prostrate victim with upraised club,\nstayed in the act of killing him by a sentiment of pity, and enjoying\nafterward as a result of his compassion a pleasure which was as strange\nand unaccountable to him as his first sight of a comet. There was no\napparent motive whatever for his humane act. On the contrary, it had\ndeprived him of spoil, and reduced the honor of his victory. And so,\nall the inclinations to virtue which brought no material and immediate\nrewards were regarded as mysterious and inexplicable as the great\nhidden power, and by a very natural sequence of reasoning, a part of it.\n\nAs your civilization advanced, it was to be seen that the virtues, and\nespecially those which had a direct influence upon material welfare,\ngrew and enlarged. The path to honor was no longer exclusively through\ncarnage and victory, and the possession and cultivation of certain\nvirtues brought consideration and respect. It was at this critical\nstage of your progress that there was inflicted upon you an evil\ngreater than any your people have known. You were not content with\nviewing the deity as we do from afar, and with accepting the impulses\nof virtue as a part of yourselves, instituted for the wise purpose of a\ncontinuous self-development toward a better earthly life; but instead,\nin your unreasonable yearning to communicate with the supreme Author,\nyou surrendered yourself to the wiles of the seers, and became the\nwilling dupes of their delusions.\n\nThere is nothing more unhappy to tell of you than the consequences\nof this grave error. Your assumed possession of the commands and\nwishes of the Deity in the shape of a revelation, has proved more a\nmisfortune than a blessing to you. In the first place, it has lowered\nyour conception of the Deity below ours. It has turned your religion\ninto a contest. It has rendered possible the establishment of certain\necclesiastical bodies among you, who, while assuming entire control\nof the morals of your people, are beset in their internal parts with\nall the vices which come from cruelty, cupidity, and love of power.\nBesides, your formulated conditions of punishments and rewards have\ndegraded religion from a cultivation of virtue for itself, and the\nimmediate good it brings, to a selfish scramble, each one struggling to\nshoulder his way into the midst of celestial delights.\n\nIt can be easily understood why your religion, with all its crudities\nand superstitions, has taken so firm a hold upon your society. You are\nconstituted as we are, with the same inherent elements of progress.\nThe steady increase of your affinity for the virtues, and those who\npractice them, is a marked quality of your career, and as they all\nlead, in one way or another, towards that union of interests which\nconstitutes the perfect social state, you are thereby impelled by a\nnatural and providential desire to build them up. So that, as a matter\nof fact, there being an inherent love of goodness ingrafted in your\nvery natures, your religious creeds have attracted you to them, and\nheld you in fetters, under the false theory that the good within you is\nbut a contribution from their exclusive and abundant sources of supply.\n\nIt has been your misfortune to be held captive throughout your progress\nby the shrewd designs of your seers and prophets, who have not failed\nuntil recently to supply you with an occasional change of supernatural\npabulum, to meet the new wants of a steadily advancing development.\n\nWhen at a certain stage of your civilization, about two thousand years\nago, you had attained a point of intellectual culture among the few,\nthe fruits of which have been reflected upon you to this day, in some\nof the grandest recorded achievements of human thought, and while\nthe masses were left to take their undirected way among the empty\nsuperstitions which conceded nothing to the growing human sympathy, a\nseer appeared among you, who served rather as a suggestion than as an\nimmediate success. After the lapse of sufficient time from his death to\nallow full scope for romance, there was built up out of his memory by\nyour seers a picture of all the virtues which had been growing within\nyour hearts, so entirely adapted to the new age that all the pent-up\nforces of human sympathy within its scope and influence surrendered to\nit. But what might have been a triumph and a boon to you in the new\nimpetus to a better and broader humanity, unfortunately held concealed\nwithin itself the subtle machinery of your seers and prophets, and\nwas guarded by their evil eyes, so that with this tremendous lever\nto move you in the direction of their purposes, instead of advancing\nyou, they have turned your civilization back upon itself more than a\nthousand years. No historical fact is more capable of demonstration\nthan this. None has been more persistently and ingeniously denied, and\nno natural sequence ever followed more directly a moving cause. From\na free and independent exercise of the intellectual activities in the\ndirection of science, art, philosophy, and all knowledge pertaining to\nyourselves, the Earth upon which you dwell, and the universe, so far\nas your vision extends, the whole current of your thoughts was turned\nby the new doctrines toward a paradise, compared with which all things\nof the Earth were trifles. When you were brought by the fascination\nof these promises, and the unflagging efforts an interested body of\necclesiastics, to a general belief in these doctrines, you sank into an\nintellectual torpor, from which you only emerged by a protest of your\nreason not yet wholly suppressed.\n\nYou cannot fail to see the utterly dehumanizing tendency of the\ninfluences which surrounded you for so many centuries. The common aims\nand purposes of your lives were submerged by the one engrossing wish\nto reach heaven; and while your imagination was carried away by its\npicture, you were led, without hesitation, to place your feet upon the\nneck of any earthly enterprise that seemed to stand in its way.\n\nFrom the beginning of your history you have accepted one object of\nworship after another, each an ideal impersonation of the goodness\nwhich was inseparately a part of yourselves, and which was given to you\nfor the wise purpose of making your society possible, and to perfect\nit; just as the parental instinct was bestowed upon you to protect your\ninfants. All these subjects of adoration have perfectly reflected your\nintellectual condition, and have been discarded, one after another, as\nthey outlived their uses; until you are just now beginning to realize,\nthat for all these many centuries you have been virtually worshipping\nyourselves. Your present ideal will, in time, share the fate of those\nwhich preceded it, and in the absence of a prevailing superstition,\nyour seers luckily cannot build up for you another one. Your long\nperiod devoted to the pursuit of phantoms is rapidly passing away, and\nyour new age of rationalism is approaching. You have no just conception\nof the evils it will remove, and the glories it has in store for you.\n\nThe difference between your present and future religion can be easily\noutlined. Your present religion, from a long course of erroneous\nteaching, is intense, aggressive and hysterical. It feeds and fattens\nitself upon the miseries of life, which it does not undertake to\nremove, except in a meretricious way for effect. Your religion of the\nfuture will be tranquil and voluntary, and its chief mission will be\nto permanently reduce the evils and misfortunes of life to a minimum.\nThe impulses of your present religion are entirely apart from the\nmoral sense, a significant fact easily substantiated by a glance over\nthe every-day life of your people. Except in their observance of\nreligious forms, your devout are not distinguished from your profane.\nThe practical virtues are no greater among believers than among\nunbelievers. Your coming religion will be founded upon the moral\nsense, and will be inseparable from it. It will support no doctrine\nof a ready and convenient atonement for bad acts, as the present one\ndoes. It will teach you that there can be no complete reparation of an\nevil deed except in its undoing, and that such an act, once performed,\nspreads its dire consequences in accordance with its enormity over a\npart or the whole career of the doer. It will not undertake to unburden\nthe conscience of a crime, nor to give assurance of celestial bliss\nto the most heinous of offenders, upon the trifling and fallacious\ncompliance with religious forms.\n\nYour peculiar religious beliefs have so shaped and moulded your\ncharacter that we have observed, what you are not likely to see of\nyourselves, certain traits or inclinations which are not promising as\nfactors in your ultimate regeneration. Your churches, with the shrewd\npurpose of rendering their services invaluable, have given you to\nbelieve that your natural tendencies are evil, and that the unavoidable\nmisfortunes and sorrows of your lives are but penalties for your many\nmisdeeds. The general acceptance of this belief has lowered your\npride, and given you, to some extent, that character of dejection and\nsubmissiveness which is entirely subversive to the attainment of any\ndestiny to be reached by yourselves.\n\nThere is a quality of mind which we acknowledge as, above all others,\nthe one which has assisted us to our present very desirable social\ncondition, and that is the feeling to resist the perpetration of a mean\nor bad act, on account of the sense of degradation it inflicts upon\nthe feelings of the doer. This motive of conscience, so plainly the\noffspring of self-esteem, and growing out of a cultivation of the mind\nalone, without any regard whatever to creed influences or teachings, is\ntotally ignored, either as a promoter of virtue or preventive of vice,\nby all the religions that have existed upon your planet. The reason\nfor this is easily explained. Under the knowledge that a cultivation\nof the mind and conscience, without creed influence, was capable of\ndoing for you a better service in the advancement of your morals than\nyour churches have performed, it has been made a part of their doctrine\nto belittle and abuse your purely intellectual faculties, under the\nunwarranted and unreasonable imputation that the free exercise of your\nreason was an assumption beyond your right. And all this, too, in face\nof the overwhelming evidence about you, that the most corroding and\ndangerous of your vices germinate and seed themselves only in places\nwhere the mind lies in fallow.\n\nThere comes to us from our remote ages, through tradition and history,\nan account of some superstitious beliefs, but it has been our good\nfortune never to have had them built up into a system so overbearing\nand harmful as yours has been. It cannot be said of us that we ever\ndenounced honest intellectual efforts in any direction, or that we ever\nregarded the expression of opinions founded on the dictates of reason\nas crimes, and your punishment of such, with all its atrocious and\nheart-rending details, serves as a lesson for the whole universe of\nworlds never to put trust in the smooth tongues and insinuating ways\nof the seers, for the spirit of fairness and truth is not in them.\nYour restrictions and punishments of the free expression of thought,\ninaugurated by the corporate organization of your present religion,\nand maintained with more or less rigor to the present, has left its\nblighting effects upon your society by encouraging some of the meanest\nof your vices. The assumption that one of you shall not have the right\nto convey to another his opposing convictions upon any religious\nquestion is so outrageously unjust, that it never could have been\ncarried out in any other way than by the general belief that it was in\naccordance with the wishes and purposes of the Almighty. Such a denial\nof the natural right of mankind could only be enforced when a majority\nof the multitude became converts to the doctrines which favored it.\nThe leaders of religious persecution, during the centuries of church\ncontrol, were merely carrying out the wishes of this majority. The\nspirit of intolerance, once abroad, became the parent of those habits\nof concealed thought, moral cowardice and hypocricy, which even to the\npresent, so rule among you, that sincerity in expressing religious\nbelief is not universal. In deference to the lingering opinion among a\nlarge body of your people that a dissension from old modes of religious\nthought is displeasing to the Almighty, and dangerous to society, many\nof you are constantly led to veil their thoughts on these questions,\nin dread of the social consequences which would follow their frank\navowal. Many of skeptical tendencies are thus induced to hide their\nconvictions in fear of disturbing their safe and comfortable positions\nin society. By silently working the penalty of withholding their\npolitical and social support, your great illogical multitude backed by\ntheir vigilant church organizations still maintain a terrorism over\nyou. Consequently, your writers are guarded in their lines, your public\nspeakers in their language, your teachers in their instruction, and\nyour statesmen in their legislation, that each shall not get beyond\nthe soundings of orthodox religious belief, while with the knowledge\nof your time, most of them are conscious in their inner thoughts that\nthey are trimming to avoid truth, in the full knowledge, that to this\nday upon the earth, the surest human preferment is only for those who\nsupport error in this direction.\n\nThe most lamentable instances to be found among you of this evasion are\nyour chief institutions of learning. Of all places these should be the\nfirst to lead in truth, as they are best provided in all the equipments\nto find it; yet under the prevailing terrorism their predicament\nis embarrassing and pitiful. While holding class instructions in\nevolution, geology, astronomy and kindred sciences, they hesitate to\nopenly deny those scriptural fallacies to which their knowledge is\nopposed, and the farcical spectacle is daily enacted among many of them\nof a ceremonious reverence for these fallacies, and at all times an\nartful evasion of any denial of their truth, every one of which it is\ntheir especial business to disprove in the course of instruction.\n\nI hope you will not infer from what I have said that the people of Mars\nhave not great reverence and veneration for the Deity. Indeed, it is\nthe universal belief amongst us, that the animus which is within us to\ndo good to ourselves, and to make pleasant the ways of life among each\nother, is but the prompting of that divine presence which is leading\nus aright in the direction of the still better things to come. As we\nsee in all living things a constant development upward toward a state\nof perfection, and having, of all creatures else, that within us most\nsusceptible and easy of advancement in the universal march, we simply\ntake our place in the line. What we have accomplished in that direction\nin our government, society, and morals, gives us new heart to further\nefforts, and if our methods may be of any service to you, I will give\nyou some further account of them.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER V.\n\n\nThe people of Mars are impressed with the belief that the governments\nof the Earth have made no great advance in the benefits and usefulness\nof their legislation during the last two thousand years. We recognize\namongst you, only as movements of progress, some provision,\nparticularly in your own country, for the free education of the people,\na few sanitary attentions, and a slight awakening to the interests of\nyour laboring class, as about all worth mentioning. It is true that\nyour governments, after originating themselves with only the simplest\nduties, have come in time, as your civilization advanced, to take on\nincreased and complicated services. But in the multiplication of their\nduties, there is unfortunately little to be seen but an extension,\nin various directions, of their first purposes; which may be briefly\nstated as a defence of assault from without, and a protection of\nperson and property within. We have come to regard the obligations\nof government as something beyond these, and this difference of view\naffords a marked instance of our development and advance.\n\nOur idea of life is, that since it is all we are given to know from\nthe first to the last stages of our consciousness, it is our duty and\nprivilege to improve it, and enjoy it to the fullest innocent and\nrational extent; and that to this end there can be no separation of the\nmoral and material interests; for it is but an honest acknowledgment\nto say, that constituted as we all are, the crown of contentment and\nhappiness is only for him who successfully cultivates both. Under this\nbelief, the general supervision of both moral and material affairs is\nplaced in the hands of our government. Church and State are therefore\none with us, and it is entirely due to the rationalistic character of\nour religion that the alliance has proved so conducive to our progress\nand happiness. There can be no such peaceable and continuous union with\nyou at present, because from the nature of your religious doctrines\nthere must be a conflict of authority; but you will come to it in time,\nas out of it, more than all else,--as I will endeavor to show,--will\ncome the fullness of your destiny.\n\nYour efforts for the suppression of vice and crime, since the first\nstages of your history, are futile to a degree that must be appalling\nto you, and the cause of your failure is due to conditions plainly\napparent to us. These conditions are that your governments, for all\nthese centuries, have taken no official cognizance of virtue, and\nhave failed to see that there existed in their patronage of good\ndeeds that tangible reward which would place all ambition for honor\nand prominence among them on uncompromising terms with evil. You have\nonly attempted to suppress crime by punishment, while the powerful\nstimulus to virtue which your governments afford of precept and example\nhave been neglected. Although, in your undeveloped state of greed and\nselfishness, you find it unsafe to trust your material interests in\nthe hands of irresponsible bodies which you call monopolies, yet you\nbestow the whole keeping and guidance of your morals upon societies\nand organizations of you fellow men, who are even less responsible to\nauthority than they. Under this state of things, how can you expect\nanything better than your present chaotic state of religion, and the\nloose, unguided, unrewarded, and wholly spontaneous morality of your\npeople.\n\nOur government, in the furtherance of its religious duties, has for\ncenturies made a special recognition of the virtues, and particularly\nthose which bestow good upon others, and it is only by the practice of\nsuch that public honors are achieved. One of the happiest consequences\nof this has been, to elevate only the most exemplary of our people\nto the head of public affairs, and from this comes a confidence and\nregard between our representatives and people, which you can scarcely\nappreciate after your experience. Goodness therefore, as we understand\nit, is the only path to honor, and the necessary high character of all\nholders of public trust reflects a distinction greater that those of\nany other positions in life. This in turn, as you may readily perceive,\ninduces a spirit of emulation to reach such elevated places, beyond all\nconsiderations of emolument.\n\nAs a part of our moral system, we hold the education of our people to\nbe an indispensable and necessary adjunct. In that we go a great deal\nfurther than what appear to us your narrow and mercenary views. In a\nrepresentative government like your own, you have been constrained\nto adopt a system of free education, for the purpose of securing the\nsafety and permanence of your institutions; and with no other motive\neven, it is surprising that you will be divided in opinion touching\nthe extent to which learning may be profitably imparted for this\nend alone; because, to us it seems that when you have conveyed to\nyour youth no more than the elementary branches of learning, you have\nprovided but little else than a convenience to them in the business\naffairs of life. It is only when the higher branches are acquired\nthat the government receives an equivalent for its outlay, in the\nwell-disciplined and safe citizen returned to it.\n\nWe have, however, motives beyond all this in the education of our\nmasses, and chief among them is the purpose to furnish knowledge to\nthe minds of all, out of which good may be naturally evolved; and\nthus you will see at once how learning has become the chief part of\nour religion. You are slow to acknowledge the great value of your\npurely secular education as a moral agent, because of its disturbance\nrecently with your cherished traditions; but this reason, great as it\nis, is supplemented with another one, which fully accounts for the\nearnest opposition of your ecclesiastics. So long as the learning\nof your schools was mixed up with creed influence and teachings, it\nwas virtually a part of the church, and in harmony with it, but on a\nseparation of the two, they became enemies by a well known social law;\nyour churches with their avowed purpose of improving your morals,\nand your secular schools, while in the performance of their duties,\noccupying the same competing field.\n\nYou may easily imagine that, with the religious impulse added, we have\ncarried our education a good deal further than you. We consider the\nproposition unjust, that learning should only be bestowed in accordance\nwith the occupation or station in life. Your planet has always been\nbeset with the evil of social classes, which only increases with the\nadvance of your civilization. You can never rid yourselves of this\nfruitful source of disturbance except by our method, which, as a matter\nof public policy, pushes the education of every individual to the\npoint of his capacity. In this way we have completely obliterated the\nclass interests and feelings. We have been enabled to do this under\nconditions which you do not at present possess. Instead of the military\nor martial spirit which prevails with you, and which is cultivated for\npurposes which appear to us unworthy of your age, we have generated\namong ourselves an ambition in the ways of knowledge which takes its\nplace.\n\nWe have leaders and heroes as you have, but not one who has not gained\nhis honors by some act in furtherance of the material, intellectual,\nor moral progress of his race. The memories of your greatest men are\nmore honored by us than by yourselves. Men go down to their graves\nyearly among you whose achievements are the admiration and talk of our\nwhole people. He of you who discovered the theory of planetary motion,\nhe who found the law of gravitation, and he also who ascertained the\nprinciple of evolution in organic life, are scarcely known upon the\nEarth, except among the cultivated few; while the whole world of Mars\nis impressed with the services they have bestowed, and discuss the\ngreat and everlasting effects of their work.\n\nWe have found much in the path of science that would astonish you, and\nat each discovery the achievement was applauded and echoed from one\nside of our planet to the other. At each one of these advances we feel\nourselves getting nearer to the Deity. A triumph of science with us is\na triumph of religion, and while we go on strengthening ourselves, and\ntaking new heart at each step in the direction of knowledge, a like\nprogress with you only brings the superstitious framework upon which\nyour religion is built into decay.\n\nOur religious devotion is essentially buoyant, even joyous. The\nsorrows of life which are not the direct and indirect results of\nindiscretions, and violations of natural laws, we regard as an\ninheritance and not a punishment, and we endeavor in all conceivable\nways to lighten them and make them easier to bear. For those in\nsickness among us, the hand of love and sympathy is never absent; and\namong the firm and undisturbed convictions of philosophic thought,\ndeath is only a regret and never a terror. Your creeds administer to\nthe final end in all ways to a point of agony; they have ingeniously\ndevised a theory of horrors for it, out of which has been made to come\ntheir chief sustenance and support. The path of life which they declare\nas the only one leading into the promised eternity of bliss, is the\ntortuous and difficult footway winding like a maze among the shadows of\ntheir churches.\n\nAlthough attentively guided throughout in this prescribed journey\nof life by your ecclesiastical teachers, and your entrance and exit\nmade difficult without their help, yet, by the very nature of their\ndoctrines, they could only bestow upon you at the last scene of\nall a torturing doubt. We have promoted the serenity of death by\nremoving as far as possible its sorrow. With us, the individual in\nhis last moments is not overcome with any sympathetic dread of that\napproaching suffering for the wants of life among dependents, which\nso often couples the agony of separation with an overwhelming sense\nof despair, as your society is constituted. The end comes placidly to\nus, in the belief that as we came from the Deity, so in the last we\ngo back to Him; that the life beyond must be a higher life, because\nthe moral sense grows constantly within us; and that the region ahead\nof us must be a free, open, and hospitable one, with no agonizing\nbarriers separating families and friends, because, in the growth of\nour tenderness and attachment to each other, we can safely predict the\nevolution of a better and happier state.\n\nPrayer, in the sense that it is understood and performed by you, we\nregard as mere superstition. It is an outcome of your lowest stages\nof mental evolution. It is the spirit of that willing self-abasement\nand fear, which prostrates the savage before his idol, soliciting\naid in his works of carnage, or immunity from some violated law of\nnature, or safety from some convulsion of the air, land or sea. Carried\nforward into your civilization, it has become no less unreasonable.\nFor thousands of years you have been daily calling on the Deity for\nfavors, not one of which has been granted, except seemingly by a\ncoincidence. The most conclusive tests have failed to convince the\ndevout among you of the fallacy of prayer, because, as an institution\nof your churches, under their theory of atonement, it furnishes a ready\nescape to the conscience; and for the reason also that it affords to\nthe imagination, in its striking and novel situations of converse with\nthe author of worlds, a semblance of that pleasure which the lowly feel\nfor concessions from the great.\n\nIt is quite in keeping with your conceptions of the Deity that you\nshould grovel and debase yourselves before Him. The whole tenor\nof your religious thought has been made to take on this color of\nself-degradation, which, while serving to throw you more completely\ninto the hands of your theological superiors, is not warranted by any\npossible relations with the being you address. You represent upon the\nEarth, as we do on our planet, the very highest form of life. We both\nare the triumphant outcome of a process established by the great Author\ninfinite ages ago. On us only, among all beings, has He bestowed the\nwonderful attributes of thought and reason, which make us a part of\nHimself. We are the only inheritors, by his own beneficial act, of the\npower to discover and enjoy his beautiful methods of work, and those\nmagical transformations of mind and matter which convert, out of the\ndead ashes of the past, the blooming present, with its assuring hope of\na fruition to come.\n\nWhat hint have we, therefore, in all his works, that He has created us\notherwise than as a labor of love, and as the fullest expression of an\nevolutionary skill, which marks all things about us? By what authority,\nthen, are you called to bow yourselves in constant self-abasement\nbefore your great Father, who, with parental solicitude, has thrown\nopen the whole Earth for your household, has given you the power of\ndomination over all creatures upon it, and has taught you to make\nplaythings of the very elements which surround you? By what authority,\nexcept the unworthy example of your own barbarian instincts, which\ndemand for place and power a homage, whose degree of prostration marks,\nwith a singular exactness, your career all along, from the savage ruler\nto the cultivated monarch?\n\nOutside of the fact that your continuous mendicancy has accomplished\nnothing for you, you have an abundance of negative evidence to hint\nthat your incessant supplication, instead of bringing to you favors\nfrom the Deity, has shadowed upon you in an unmistakable manner the\nsigns of his displeasure. For as he has raised you gradually out of\nthe lower forms, and enlarged your capacities, until in the last he\nhas taken you into his confidence so far as to teach you the methods\nof his work, and to deliver up to you the hitherto pent-up forces for\nyour convenience and use, yet in the progress of these concessions it\nis to be noted as a significant fact, that your prayers have served\nrather to obstruct than to promote them. Indeed, as there is nothing\nso conclusively the evidence of divine presence and help as material\nand intellectual progress, it will be difficult to show, in the record\nof terrestrial things, that the supremacy of prayer has not invariably\nbeen followed by a temporary withdrawal of this divine assistance and\nsupport.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER VI.\n\n\nOur veneration for the Deity, which is truer and more sincere than\nyours, arises from a widely different conception. Looking back upon\nthe ages, and what they have brought to us, we perceive that each new\ndevelopment in matter brings an increase of those qualities which give\nus pleasure to behold. Beginning with the most unattractive shapes,\nthis process of change in organization and symmetry, by an unalterable\nlaw of the Creator, bring to us out of the ugliness of the past the\nbeautiful of the present. Since, therefore, we see Him constantly\nat work, transforming the ugly into the beautiful, we believe He is\npleased with the colors, shapes, and qualities of things which delight\nour own cultivated senses. Acting then on this conviction, we surround\nourselves with the beautiful in nature and art.\n\nThe change, in the form of matter, is not more instructive than\nthe steady modification of intelligence, which, from its primitive\nignorance, superstition, and brutality, has gradually been raised\nstep by step to its present higher grade of thought and action. We\nrecognize here a fact most important and significant to us. While the\ndivine energy is steadily at work, converting lower forms of matter\ninto higher ones, we are given no part in the proceeding. It goes on\nwithout our assistance, and we have no power to diminish or accelerate\nits steady onward course. It is widely different with intelligence.\nThat is given into our hands, with all its grand possibilities.\nIn that, we have evidence of the divine confidence to promote its\nadvancement in view of the blessings it holds in store. Taking this\nview, we have for centuries cultivated the mind in all directions of\nknowledge and feeling, as the chief part of our religion. The motion of\nthe spheres is not more certainly the work of this great being, than\nare these progressive changes in mind and matter.\n\nWe believe vice and ugliness to be convertible terms, the latter a\nquality due to imperfectly developed matter, and the first a property\nof intelligence in the same imperfect state; just as beauty and virtue\ndescribe together, or separately, the same advanced evolution.\n\nBut while working in harmony with the Deity, and assisting in his\npurposes, we have constantly in view, as an incentive to action, the\nconsummation or goal to which all these changes tend. We believe the\noutcome to be a spiritual life with all things knowable, and a state\nof perfection and happiness beyond our present conception. Happiness,\nthen, being a religious aspiration, we promote it in all ways to the\ninnocent and reasonable inclinations of our present state.\n\nOur religion is consequently more jubilant than solemn. We have no\ntorments in store in it, nor long drawn agonies and mortifications of\nthe flesh. Its only business with death is to smooth its pillow, and to\nreduce its attendant sorrows to the minimum. To the misfortunes of the\npresent our religion extends its hand of sympathy and material help.\nTo what purpose should it introduce and dwell upon the miseries and\nsorrows of the past? We let the dead ages rest. We can find nothing\nin their ashes to compare with the living. The present is better than\nthe past, as the future will be better in exact measure with the new\ntruths discovered, and the old fallacies cast aside. You rake among\nthe emanations of an early and imperfect development for monitors and\nguides, and do honor to them for the mysteries they invoke. You place\nthe withered hand of the mummy into the warm palm of the living, and\nyour ceremony of introduction is a prayer that the living body may\nnever depart from the dead form.\n\nThe untenable and unsupportable premises upon which your religions are\nbased will lead to their decay. Nothing of them will remain to you but\ntheir spirituality. Shorn of their superstitions, and guided by the\nintellect, the spiritual part of them will be retained by you as a\njewel repolished and in a new setting.\n\nThe orthodox among you are suspicious of the inroads of science,\nunaware of the fact that in due time it will fix upon your belief the\nconviction of a future spiritual existence without the shadow of a\ndoubt. When you will have arrived at that point, your ways of morality\nand progress will be so much increased, that you will regard your\nprevious advancement as trifling. To some, your science appears to\nlend encouragement to materialistic beliefs. This is only your half\nknowledge. For some time to come your discoveries will tend in that\ndirection of thought, but all this will be superseded with a firm\nconviction of the existence of the Deity, and your steady approach to\nHim. The period of danger to you will arrive when you will have made\nthe discovery, as we have centuries ago, of what may be described in\nyour language as the universal diffusion of intelligence amongst all\nmatter, inorganic as well as organic.\n\nIt may be a startling proposition to announce to you that the quality\nwhich gives you the power of abstract thought is possessed in a lower\ndegree by, for instance, the stones which lie beneath your feet; yet\nsuch is the case, for we have demonstrated beyond a doubt that the\nchemical forces and affinities are nothing else but low, restricted,\nand insensible forms of intelligent action. The fact is best shown by\nthe building up of organic bodies in their multiplication of cells.\nEach cell arranges itself in place, and makes way to its successor,\nunder an inherited impulse of action from which it is unable to\ndepart. What are known among you as natural forces, are merely forms\nof unconscious and restricted intelligences, which have only the power\nto act in limited directions. They both build up matter and tear it\ndown for us. They shape the crystal with mathematical uniformity, and\nmark out the form of the plant with unerring precision. The character\nof the agency bears no proportion to the magnitude of its work. These\nlow, unconscious forms of intelligence, which inspire the plant cell to\nbuild up its fanciful elevations, and the infinitesimal atom to seek\nafter and embrace its affinity, are precisely the same as that which\ndirects the sea of worlds upon their swift and unvarying paths. And yet\nwith all their exactitude and infinity of scope, they are as much below\nthat independent, self-conscious intelligence which guides our thoughts\nand actions, as the protoplasm is beneath the most highly organized and\nperfect form.\n\nYour theology has degraded you with the belief that you are mendicants,\nenjoying the favors of life as mere concessions from an all-powerful\nand exacting master; and that your position in the cosmos bears a\nclose relation to the insignificance of your material bodies, and\nyour feeble power in the stupendous energies which surround you. Your\nscience will elevate you with the knowledge that you are peers in the\ngreat universe, and that your stature has no comparative measure for\nits proportions in the height and breadth of your material world. It\nwill teach you that by slow degrees, and through millions of ages, you\nhave become that elimination of the spiritual out of the vast number\nof divided intelligences which have built up and governed your natural\nworld; that you are the harvest and the fruition of the innumerable\nlower intelligences, which were sown broadcast in the beginning to do\ntheir potent work.\n\nIn pursuing these matters, your scientists will arrive at a number\nof important truths, entirely in opposition to some of your present\napparently established theories. In your speculations touching the\nfuture state, there is a tendency which I cannot designate by any other\nname in your language than narrowness. You have come so recently to\nrealize the immense sizes and distances of the heavenly bodies, that\ntheir comparison with your former constricted views in that direction\nhas produced a sense of helplessness in the attempt to fathom these\ninfinite spaces. But ages of contemplation will serve to broaden your\nviews, as well as to expand your hopes. Encompassing or beside this\nbroad universe we have evidence of a spiritual region, like the firm\nland bordering upon your own great ocean, which great body of water to\nthe lower animal life within it is just as limitless and profound as\nthe great cosmos is to yourselves.\n\nYou have but recently discovered a process of nature, by whose slow\nchanges, animal life has been altered, and its species modified and\nimproved. You know that the atmosphere, which encircled your Earth\nat the beginning, was not of a composition to support its present\nhighly organized respiring life, and that consequently, behind the\nages the only living and moving things upon your planet were the scant\nair-consuming creatures, who inhabited the water. Among the dark and\ncavernous depths of your oceans, and the slimy ooze of your rivers\nand lakes, were located the cradles, where nature began moulding the\npresent graceful living and moving forms which now roam over your\nsolid surface. The Creator\u2019s delicate laboratory, for the beginning\nof animal life, was placed among the equable temperatures, and soft\nwalls of water below the variable and desiccating atmosphere, which\neverywhere surmounted it. Yourselves, as well as all other living and\nbreathing creatures, had your foundations of life laid in the waters\nof the earth, a fact, of whose significant reminder is, that nature\nhas continuously provided for the protective presence of water in your\nembryo womb growth.\n\nIn your germal life, the universe seemed to you nothing but a vast and\nunlimited expanse of water. The submerged earth upon which you lay and\nrested, with its murky surroundings, and the expanse of sunless liquid\nclouds above you, was the only world and universe you knew. By what\nauthority of reason or science then do you conclude, that the stage of\nevolution, which brought you out into the glorious sunshine and free\nair, and adapted you with the form and comprehension you possess, is\nthe end? From the cold, sluggish, and unconscious, to the warm, alert,\nand intellectual, is no greater a step of progress, than the coming\none, which will make clear to your understanding the mysteries of life\nand nature, so unknowable and unthinkable in your present immaturity.\nOut of your next stage of spiritual supremacy, you will look back upon\nthe present, with all its conditions, so condemned by the contrast\nof better things attained, that it will be but little more to you\nthan is now the repulsive uncanny, and incommunicable habitat of your\nbeginning.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER VII.\n\n\nThe confidential relations between our government and people have given\nit a parental character. It has consequently been the study of our\nlegislation for ages past to assuage, as far as possible, those natural\nevils which creep in as the result of unrestricted social forces.\nRegarding the whole mass of our inhabitants as a family, the government\ncould never feel that its duty was faithfully performed, while a number\nof its people were, relating to the ordinary enjoyments of life,\nin a state of suppression from any removable cause. You began your\ncivilization, just as we began ours, by the crystallization of society\ninto two classes. Those who at first, by thrift, acquisitiveness, or\nstrong arms, became possessed of sufficient property to escape the\nnecessity of daily toil for the sustenance of life; and those who, by\nthe absence of these qualities or from other causes, were obliged from\nday to day to exercise their muscular and nervous energies for the\nbenefit of those who found it profitable to use and pay for them. This\ncondition of society is a natural and just one, and there is nothing\nwhatever in it to prevent the largest possible amount of happiness\nto all. But before many ages we discovered that the interests of\nthe property class and the labor class were not equally equipped to\nmaintain a fair and equitable relation with each other. We found that\nthe interests of labor in the many bore no comparison in its political\nweight with the great power of wealth in the few; and foreseeing that\nsubjugation in time, of one by the other, which your experience has\nshown, we made wide provision against it.\n\nWe acknowledge as the foundation of all material progress that the\nhonest accumulation of wealth should be the privilege of all; and that\nthe rights of property should be protected, and the enjoyment of it\nsecured to everyone. Yet with these principles firmly and successfully\ncarried out in our government, we have for many centuries, considered\nit necessary to support and sustain the interests of the labor\nclass by special legislative attention. You have pursued a directly\nopposite course. From the beginning of your history the privilege of\nwealth to hold labor in subjection, and to use it as an instrument of\naccumulation, with about the same regard for its well being as the\nhorse in the collar or the ox under its yoke, has prevailed, without\nthe enactment of any sincere and effective law to assist and sustain\nit in its unequal contest. On the contrary, your statute books are\nfilled with oppressive laws against the labor class; and while in your\nmost civilized districts these unjust enactments are nearly obsolete,\nthere yet remains an average over your planet of such legal and social\nsuppressions of the class whose strong arm supports you, as to be\nreckoned by us as the most unhappy and discreditable feature of your\nsocial state.\n\nIt matters not how your economists may examine and discuss the\nrelations of labor with its co-operative interests, so long as they\noffer no proposals of relief to it in the unjust burthen it bears of\nthe hardships of life. Your common view that labor must be unavoidably\nsubmitted to the law of supply and demand, and that, consequently,\neighty per cent of your people are to be helplessly left to take\ntheir chances of distress and suffering at each unfavorable turn of\nthe labor market, is peculiar to the planet upon which you live, and\nis one of the most mistaken and unwise conclusions among you. This\nheartless notion of yours is plainly the inheritance of your early\ncruel ages. With such a state of things you can never have a very\nhigh state of civilization. With so many of you constantly under the\nvicissitude of such adverse changes of condition, there can be no\nsteady progress of the whole, and but little encouragement to thrift; a\nlack of ambition must prevail in all the higher purposes of life, and\na general surrender to improvidence and the vices which follow. For\nthat class which has created your wealth, and is constantly renewing\nit, and which constitutes so large a portion of your whole population,\nyou can show nothing of legislative effort in its favor except\nindirectly, through some of the purposes to smooth the way and increase\nthe profits of capital. The opportunities of your comparatively small\ncapitalistic class to use for its purposes, in an entirely heartless\nway, the larger body of wealth producers, have been made easy by\nnatural conditions which would have been removed or corrected long\nago, under a more humane and unselfish administration of your affairs,\nand if your governments had not been exclusively in the hands of the\nsmaller class mentioned. We know of nothing more heartless and cruel\nof the governing classes of the Earth, than their careless submission\nof its wage-earners to the unrestricted influence of competition for\nemployment, under the compromising condition of a necessity for bread.\n\nIn our philosophy we recognize only two honest ways of accumulating\nwealth. One is the saving of wages, and the other the profits of\ncapital; and our legislation has been chiefly directed to make the\nchances of wealth by these two methods as even as possible. To perform\nthis service effectually, our greatest efforts have been directed\ntoward the labor interest. We feel ourselves justified in this, because\nthe welfare of about seven-eighths of our people is connected with this\ninterest; because to the labor class is entirely due the creation and\nconstant renewal of all the wealth on our planet. Because, also, that\ncapital has natural advantages over labor, which are first, its choice\nof time and place for investment; second, its capacity to wait for\nopportunities without the risk of physical suffering by its owners, and\nthe leisure for thought and knowledge it affords to those who control\nit. Also, that capital, holding the position of a voluntary employer,\nnaturally assumes the rights and privileges of master, which labor, in\nits constrained and dependent situation, is obliged to acknowledge.\n\nWe have long since considered these unequal relations and tendencies,\nand have proceeded to remedy them. Our legislation in behalf of the\nlabor classes is the happiest and most satisfactory of any that we\nhave. Without it our present civilization would be impossible. Before\ndescribing our methods, let me direct your attention to the immediate\nand indirect causes which bear down upon the labor classes of your\nplanet.\n\nProminent among these is the promiscuous ownership of land. The\nsurrendering of the Earth\u2019s surface to the control of individual\nownership is one of the most serious mistakes of your civilization.\nIt is not to be mentioned alone as the greatest objection to this,\nthat the planet upon which you were born is the natural inheritance of\nall of you, from whose surface each and every one of you is destined\nto derive a sustenance, and that a monopoly of it by the few is as\nplain a violation of justice as it would be to hold the atmosphere in\nprivate use by sections, were such a thing possible. But it is chiefly\nto be taken into consideration, that your land policy enables the few\nto dominate the many, suppresses one class and elevates another, and\ninsensibly transfers an undue portion of the earnings of labor into the\npockets of your land-holding classes.\n\nAlmost every influence now at work in the progress of your society\ntends to throw money into the hands of your land holders, not fairly\nearned by themselves. While the products of labor are cheapening\nfrom day to day, partly due to increased skill, and the appliance of\nmachinery in their manufacture, and partly, also, by the competition\nof labor, owing to increase of population, yet even by these very\noperations the value of landed property goes up.\n\nYou already estimate rent as a considerable element of cost in the\nproduction of your food materials, and you are gradually approaching\na period, when by the growth of population the cost of food will be\nvery much increased by rent charges. You have all along submitted to\nthis monopoly of land from causes plainly apparent. In the early days\nof your history all private ownership of land was acquired and held by\nforce, and it may be safely asserted that no title at present exists in\nany of your older countries that is not founded on violent conquest,\nand that has not been maintained by an organized and armed authority,\nwhose existence depends upon retaining the system of ownership in\nvogue. It is plain to see that when the demand of justice to all shall\nbe the basis of political action, and especially when the cost of your\nfood supply shall become greatly increased by the charges of rent, your\npresent system will not be quietly endured.\n\nIn your own more favored region of the Earth may be found temporary\nconditions which tend not only to tolerate your present land ownership\nsystem, but to render it popular. Your large area of unoccupied\nagricultural surface, from which any of your citizens are permitted at\nsmall cost to select a portion with a title in perpetuity, destroys\nfor the time being the monopolizing character of private ownership;\nand while these governmental acts of land distribution are the most\nremarkable concessions to labor in human history, we fail to discover\nanything in the practice but a temporary compromise between the\ninterests of capital and labor. As your society progresses you must\narrive at the time when your landless class will be as effectually\nexcluded from the privilege of ownership as they are at present in the\nolder countries of the world.\n\nYour own country in the newness of its human possession, by the lavish\ndistribution of its territory into private hands, has alleviated the\nburdens of labor elsewhere, as well as within itself. It has effected\nthis in two ways: first by withdrawing from the surplus population of\ndensely inhabited districts abroad, and second by supplying from its\nrich agricultural lands a cheaper food supply to the older countries of\nthe Earth than they were able to furnish from their own soils. But the\nmost unreasonable among you cannot fail to perceive the speedy limit\nto these operations in the interests of labor, which after all must be\nconsidered as merely effecting a truce between that conflict of the\nlaboring and landless many and the land-holding few which your people\nwill surely witness in time. We manage these things very differently on\nMars.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER VIII.\n\n\nThe planet Mars is held to be the inheritance of those who are born\nupon it. Admitting the self evident and uncontrovertible justice of\nthis view, our government ages ago assumed the ownership and property\ncontrol of it in trust for the equal benefit of all. It has proceeded\nin accordance with this view to grant its uses for all the purposes of\nindustry and pleasure, in such a manner as to bestow the income of its\nrent equally upon every living inhabitant. I can only give you some\noutlines of our admirable manner of accomplishing this purpose.\n\nOur agricultural districts are divided into small farms, even in size,\nwith graded rents in accordance with the richness of their soils, and\nother conditions. Sub-letting is not allowed, and a chief purpose in\nmaking these allotments is, that the family residing upon each farm\nwill be able to perform all the labor required. This is in accordance\nwith a principle which our government carries out in all possible ways,\nto bring labor and capital into partnership. The cultivator of the\nsoil goes on with his improvements, in the assurance that they are as\nsecure to him as though his title were perpetual; for in the event of a\nchange of tenancy, which is exceedingly rare, a fair value is returned\nto him for all the fixed property which is the product of his labor.\nIt is provided that there shall be no competition in the occupancy,\nand as the rent is but a nominal sum, he feels no insecurity in his\npossession. Agricultural rents are graded annually, and are payable\nshortly after harvest. They may be either higher or lower than those of\nthe preceding year, depending entirely on profits.\n\nLandlordism, as it exists with you, is unknown amongst us. The rapacity\nwhich under your unjust system is admitted to an ownership in which\nno competition can possibly exist, and at the same time is permitted\nto avail itself of that unlimited competition which the pressure of\npublic necessity induces, has neither foothold nor abiding place upon\nour planet. Under our system, you will perceive that any increase of\nthe profits of land is met by the tenant with an increase of rent, and\nall those natural causes which advance the value of landed property\nadd to the government income, and in that way are shared by all. Our\ngovernment derives its sole support from rent, and no other tax or\nexaction is known. With a percentage of the profits from the use of the\nland, which is never burdensome to the tenant, it has been enabled, and\nhas found it to its interest, to carry out agricultural and municipal\nimprovements and enterprises which individual ownership would never\nundertake. It has drained our marshes, and reclaimed our desert lands\nin the most efficient manner, without the necessity of creating, as\nwith you, an exacting monopoly, which would claim of industry its\nlion\u2019s share of profits from the work.\n\nThe government interest in our municipal progress, by virtue of its\nholdings, has led it to carry out in the most complete manner those\nsanitary enterprises which render city life safe and enjoyable. With\nits advantages of sole ownership of city land, it is enabled to enforce\ncertain uniform rules of taste in house and street construction, which\nhave made our cities as complete and harmonious as single works of art;\ntheir symmetrical combinations of lines and curves as consistently\nmeeting each other as in a separate architectural elevation.\n\nAs I have already hinted to you, a cultivation of the beautiful in\nart and nature is a part of our religion, and we indulge in the\ngratification of esthetic inclinations as one of the greatest charms\nof life. Our government erects no buildings except public ones, and in\ntheir construction and fittings is manifested that universal love of\nthe grand and beautiful which everywhere prevails. Your imagination is\nscarcely able to conceive the magnificence of our temples of worship,\nand the charming perspectives of our streets and highways. Yet even\nour industrious attention to all this pleasing effect for the eye is\nheld to be a matter of secondary importance, when compared with the\nhealth-giving measures and regulations which prevail.\n\nFrom the ground rents alone of every municipality, free and abundant\nwater, light and heat are supplied to every inhabitant; and from\nthe same source of income a complete insurance is furnished against\nindividual loss from accidents, and all our dead are disposed of\nwithout cost to relatives and friends. We place no dead bodies in the\nearth as you do, considering such a practice not only barbarous, but\ndangerous to the health of the living. On the contrary, we extinguish\nthem in a manner which you cannot follow from a lack of the required\nadvance in chemical science. Ever since our discovery of the elementary\nunit we have had the power to reduce all matter into its original\nstate, and it serves us well, that with our chemical appliances and due\nsolemnity not a vestige of the dead is left to be preserved, except\ntheir memories.\n\nFor the purpose of exhibiting to you the marked difference of effect\non labor and industry between private and government ownership of\nland, let us trace the institution and progress of one of your cities\nin comparison with one of ours. These combinations of individual\nenterprise are to be found upon your planet in all stages of growth,\nand may be most conveniently observed by you in this vicinity in their\nearlier periods of development. They are instituted mostly with you\nin a fortuitous way, a few individual interests forming the nucleus\naround which capital and labor are attracted, under the outlook of\nincreased population and trade, to supply and create the various\nproducts of industry demanded. The whole land surface of your new city,\nincluding its prospective limits, is immediately appropriated at a\ntrifling cost, by a single one or a smaller number of owners, under\nlaws conveniently designed for their purposes. From this time forward\nthe most extraordinary exactions from industry begin. Every stroke of\nthe hammer and revolution of the fly wheel adds to the value of these\npossessions, until in a short time there is no limit to the price or\nrent of them, but the ability of industry to stand the tax.\n\nDuring the earlier stage of your city\u2019s growth, conditions exist which\ndisappear later. Labor is specially favored. The demand for it is as\ngreat as the supply, if not greater, and its savings enable it to get\na share, by small investments, in the steady advance of land values.\nYour new city, supposing it to be a metropolis, is invested with all\nthe elements of prosperity. Capital comes to it abundantly from abroad,\ninduced by the opportunities of profitable investment, and labor is\nequally attracted by high pay. Population increases, together with all\nthe enterprises of industry, and your land, conveniently divided into\nsmall lots, changes hands from one purchaser to another, each realizing\na satisfactory and handsome profit. The monopolizing influences of\nland ownership are not generally felt, because of the large and\nunoccupied area of surface, and the facility to all in the acquirement\nof titles. Labor enjoys an era of remarkable prosperity outside as well\nas within the limits of your city. Your government has donated to it\nmillions of acres of fertile agricultural lands, whose surface, for\nthe most part, requires no great outlay of capital to fit it for the\nuses of husbandry; and altogether, the general contentment and thrift\nindicate that all material interests are equally equipped and uniformly\nsuccessful in the struggle of life. Labor goes cheerfully to its daily\ntoil, and returns to its abundant board with a hope and ambition it has\nseldom known before. All human purposes appear in a flourishing state,\nexcept, it may incidentally be observed, that your religion at this\nperiod droops, without its usual attention and support.\n\nYou are now, we shall suppose, at the end of the second decade in the\nhistory of your city, and many changes are observable, due to the\nprogress of your society and civilization. Your metropolis may contain\nnow about one hundred and fifty thousand inhabitants. The market value\nof its land surface, about three miles square, has increased, from\nthe government price at which it was purchased by the single or half\ndozen purchasers, from about seven thousand to three hundred and fifty\nmillions of dollars, and the whole value of the products of industry\nupon it may be reasonably estimated at a like sum. With the privileges\nand partnership which labor has enjoyed in this great increase of\nvalues, it is so far quiet and satisfied; but unfortunately the\ninevitable outcome is not so promising to it. The evil effects of your\nprivate ownership become more and more apparent as your city advances,\nand when, under the promptings of human greed and selfishness, your\nlandlords have fairly commenced their raid upon the industries of\nthe city. They now exact from you a tax in the form of land rent\nalone which consumes yearly the twentieth part of all the products of\nindustry upon their possessions. This enormous tax is exacted without\nthe return of any service whatever except the privilege of a dwelling\nplace.\n\nYour inhabitants are called upon also to provide for the necessities\nof government, and an additional tax is levied therefore, which takes\nfrom the profits of labor and capital an amount equal to the tenth part\nof all their savings. Because the privilege of becoming a land owner\nis equal to all, and is the hope of most of you, you have permitted\nthe transformation of this gift of nature into a monopoly, the most\narbitrary and consuming that can be conceived.\n\nThis gift of nature, however, is not the only one diverted from its\nequitable distribution, and permitted to become the material of\nunrighteous exaction. The process of the water, heat, and light supply,\nso manifestly among the duties of your government to institute and\nsuperintend, is given, like your land, to the management and control\nof private individuals; thus converting these indispensable elements\nof life and comfort into money getters for wealth, and subtracting to\nan unnecessary degree from the profits of industry and the savings of\nlabor.\n\nWe shall now suppose that your city has arrived at the termination\nof its fourth decade. Its population has increased two-fold, and its\nland value has quadrupled; but it is noticeable that your products\nof industry have not kept pace in their value with this enormous\nappreciation, and your ground rents alone now consume every ten years\nthe whole cost of all buildings and their contents. In other words,\nevery vestige of the accumulated labor of your city goes into the\npockets of its landlords every ten years. Change now becomes apparent\nin social life. Competition has now reduced the wages of labor, and\nit has very nearly lost its ability to share in some of the minor\noperations of capital. The struggles of increasing numbers, precisely\nthe same influence which has depressed wages, have advanced land.\nLabor has lost much of its old buoyancy and hopefulness. While raiment\nand food, the products of its own industry, have fallen in price, with\na tendency to make up for its reduced income, every other one of its\nliving expenses is greatly increased. Allowing it its proper place\nwith matrimonial ambitions and hopes, the remarkable proportion of\none fourth of its hard-earned wages is demanded of it in land rent\nalone, for a dwelling spot in the midst of a region which nothing\nelse but its own energies have produced from a wilderness. Every\nsingle one of the bounties of nature, except the air and sunshine, are\ninaccessible without the charges of an intercepting medium. The heat,\nand light-giving materials of the earth, together with water, the most\nuseful and abundant of all, are served out to it burdened with all the\ncosts and profits levied by an organized and irresponsible few.\n\nThe capital engaged in your industries adjusts itself to all these\nburdens, and is quiet under them, because it can readily reimburse\nitself by transferring all expenses and costs to prices. There is no\nsuch escape for labor, which not only pays these monopoly exactions\ndirectly, but as a consumer is obliged by an indirect method to foot\na large share of these bills for capital. Capital remains contented\nunder these extraordinary demands for another reason. All monopoly\nenterprises, and especially that one of land, furnish the safest and\nmost profitable reservoirs of investment for its surplus earnings, and\nwhen it does not already participate it looks forward to a partnership\nin their profits.\n\nYou can readily understand, then, why the toilers of your city, at\nthis period of its history, should show signs of sinking back into\nthat dependent condition which characterizes them elsewhere upon your\nplanet. A few among them, with great fortitude of restraint and large\nacquisitiveness, manage to lay by some of their earnings, but the\nmargin between income and expense is so narrow that such a practice\nis not general. So that from the disabling vicissitudes of life,\nand a carelessness of habit induced by lack of ambition, comes that\ndistressful state of existence, unknown on our planet, but common\nenough on yours, where a human being, with abundant stores of food\nand raiment surrounding him, suffers for enough of them to supply his\nmoderate wants. Poverty, which before had been only exceptional and\nsporadic, assumes now the proportions of a numerous class among you,\nand out of which, by a lack of the opportunities of knowledge, crime\nas naturally appears as weeds in a neglected husbandry.\n\nAnother and significant change now becomes apparent in your social\nstate. During the first stages of your city\u2019s existence, there had\nbeen no money invested except as capital. Every dollar laid out in\nthat way had been shared by labor. Any increase in the volume of\ncapital brings a corresponding prosperity to those who toil; but the\naccumulations from the profits of capital have not generally been\nadded to it, and in many cases the capital itself has been led away\ninto the many profitable monopoly enterprises which abound. These now\nflourish as they never did before. Increase of population and trade\nhas stimulated the various industries to increased supplies, but the\nprices of all commodities instead of being raised are lowered. The\nfree and open competition within the precincts of capital and labor\nhas effected this; not greatly to the detriment of either, because the\nproducer in one department of industry is a consumer in many of the\nothers, and capital has increased its volume of business to make up for\nsmaller profits. But you have within the borders of your city those\nmoney-making contrivances peculiar to your planet, wherein the natural\neffect of competition is entirely reversed, and where the universal\nlaw of supply and demand is completely abrogated. The worst and most\ndisastrous of these is your system of land ownership.\n\nInto this, and the other of your monopolies, capital pours its\nsurplus, and finally retires to them with its accumulations, deserting\nits partnership with labor, and appearing on the scene in the new\nform of wealth. From a few instances, so rare as to be conspicuous,\nyour holders of large money accumulations become now a numerous and\ninfluential class. While your society at one end has been sinking into\npoverty, it blooms at the other with signs of unusual thrift. With an\nincrease of luxury on one hand, and of want on the other, your city\nis now approaching the normal state. A few decades more it will have\nestablished within itself those relations between wealth, capital,\nand labor which are as inevitably the outcome of your land ownership\nsystem, as drouth and famine are the outcome of a lack of moisture in\nthe soil.\n\nWe shall say now that your city contains a half million of inhabitants.\nIts surface is not extended in proportion with its increase in\npopulation, the cost of space inducing a greater crowding of houses\nand people. Your labor products, and the land upon which they rest,\nhave been so constantly receding from each other in values, that now,\nwith all the forced economy of space, your piles of goods, merchandise,\nand houses, if sold at their market value, would not furnish more than\na quarter enough of money to purchase the ground beneath them. This\nenormous increase in the value of your city land is mostly the result\nof the opportunities its owners enjoy to prey upon the industries, and\nat this stage the following very remarkable conditions may be observed:\nWhile the city\u2019s capital, properly so called, is about three hundred\nmillions of dollars, and the number of its workers in industrial\npursuits about one hundred thousand, the aggregate earnings of both\nlabor and capital combined have one quarter of the whole swept away\nby the demands of your landlords, estimating ground rent alone. And\nthis enormous exaction, remember, is imposed without rendering any\nservice in return. None of your economists will deny that this large\ndrain does not come directly from the industries of your people, and\nits exhausting effects are daily seen in the gradually hardening lines\nin the lives of those who toil. In an early period, twenty persons in\nevery hundred of your workers owned a portion of your city\u2019s surface.\nNow only four per cent are land owners, and within a few decades not\nmore than five in a thousand will dwell or pursue their avocations\nwithout the virtual consent of some superintending ground owner, upon\nwhose mercy in abstaining from ejectment or extortion they will remain\nin constant uncertainty.\n\nThe ownership of your city lots will now have gone almost exclusively\ninto the hands of your leisure class; and the vast sums of money drawn\nmonthly for rent, instead of being, as formerly, partly returned as\ncapital, to assist labor in the various industrial enterprises is now\neither dissipated in luxury, expended in new possessions, or invested\nin some of the many monopoly undertakings of the day. The effects of\nthis unjust burden are daily apparent. It reduces the possible savings\nof labor and the accumulations of industry to such a minimum that\nsuccess in these is the exception rather than the rule. It is mostly\nbecause of this monopoly of land that life among your masses is a\ncontinuous and uninterrupted struggle; and to this more than all else\nis due that unequal distribution of wealth which affords only the few\nthat cultivation and knowledge which elevates them, and that dooms the\nmany to an unceasing wear of nerve and muscle to sustain themselves.\n\nYou cannot fail to have observed, as one of the most promising signs of\nyour destiny, that wherever humanity in the midst of civilization is\nfreest from the cares of sustenance supply, it inclines to devote its\nleisure to a cultivation of the mind. The crudeness and vulgarity of\nsome, and the refinement of others, are entirely due to difference in\nopportunities of development, and between these two there must always\nexist a great repulsion. What good can you therefore expect of mankind\nas a whole, so long as by your methods a few only are vouchsafed the\nopportunities for knowledge?\n\nThe forces at work within your society have now, we we will say,\nbrought up your population and general conditions to the standard\nof those which may be found in the older portions of the Earth.\nYour poverty is more intense and widespread, with its corresponding\nincrease in crime, while your wealth has become more munificent\nand ostentatious. Impelled by the necessities of life and a brave\nemulation, all your industries will be found in the highest strain of\naction. The accumulated products of labor and its multiplied activity\nhave given to you a semblance of prosperity and success. But while in\nthe course of your progress you have created new necessities and wants,\nyou have made no just provision by which they could be, as near as\npossible, equally shared; and as a consequence the apparent as well as\nthe silent and concealed miseries of human life were never greater.\n\nThere is to be observed now a marked increase in the spread and\ninfluence of your religion. As the hope of success in life becomes\nlessened, and as the heartaches and distresses increase by your uneven\nstruggles, the suffering and disappointed masses turn naturally to\nanother existence for what has been denied them in this; and it can\nbe said of all your religious theories, that their contrivances to\nmake you suffer uncomplainingly the outrages of authority are the best\nthat could have been devised. The few among you enjoying the bounties\nof life, surrounded by that want and privation whose voices they\ncannot escape, and whose strong arms they cannot fail to observe, turn\ninstinctively to your religious doctrines with a sense of safety and\nprotection. The few favored ones, looking over the vast multitude of\ntheir less fortunate brothers, are conscious that the superabundance\nthey enjoy has been doubtfully acquired, and they are quick to embrace\nthat convenient justification, which ascribes the greater ills and\nburdens of the many to a preconceived and unalterable arrangement of\nthe divine will.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER IX.\n\n\nBefore bringing into comparison one of our cities it will be necessary\nto explain to you some of the processes which have rendered our present\ncivilization possible. You already have a hint, from what I have said,\nof the very striking difference between the society of Mars and that\nof the Earth, in their handling of labor interests. While with your\ncareless and indifferent treatment, labor remains degraded, we have\nraised it to a point of honor. We have arrived at our methods of its\ntreatment by that philosophical induction which has interpreted to us\nthe many reliable and unerring decrees of the divine will. Nature, upon\nwhom we depend for all we know of the supreme wishes, has furnished\nindubitable signs that physical diligence is a saving and wholesome\nquality, inseparable from intelligence, in its extended sense as we\nknow it, upon which the very existence of all material things rests.\nBut even the activities of nature are not more indispensable to the\nfirmness of the Earth, than individual mental and physical energy is\nto the well-being and progress of your society. Since one of these\nenergies is as useful as the other in the economy of the world, we can\nconceive no reason why you should allow one of them to dominate the\nother; nor how you can justify yourselves in bestowing upon one all the\nhonors and emoluments, while to the other you pursue a course denying\nopportunities, and in all ways bringing upon it an inferior social\nscale.\n\nWe met these natural tendencies ages ago, by a determination to\nequalize, as far as possible, the burdens of life among all classes,\nand to this end we have chiefly directed our efforts to sustain the\ninterests of those who, by a struggle for the necessities of life,\nare obliged to toil. Some very remarkable results have followed. We\nhave achieved that degree of justice where the skillful artisan, by\nvirtue of his manual cunning alone, can acquire a certain elevation\nin our society, and whose occupation is not subordinated by any other\non our planet. We have a very numerous class amongst us, known by the\nbest interpretation of your language as officers of industry, who\nsecure truer and more lasting honor than your military heroes. Our\nadmiration of them arises from the fact that they assist to build up\nand restore the waste of those industrial products which sustain our\nlives. The official grades among these compare somewhat with your\nmilitary system. Their insignia of office is permanently worn on their\ndress, and to achieve distinction in this line is the hope of all,\nsince without having worn the badge of office in some of these grades,\nsocial or political distinction is difficult. By methods, long ago in\nvogue, we have united our intellectual and manual training so that\nthere should be no social separation between them. But while equal\ndistinction awaits the skillful pursuit of either path, the highest\nhonors are achieved by those who excel in both. Consequently our\nyouth, encouraged by their parents and teachers, become emulous of the\nqualities of physical endurance attached to labor, and serve their\nterms among the toilers with a will that nothing but a high ambition\ncould create. This greater respect and consideration for physical\nindustry than yours would have been impossible, were it not that we\nhave avoided the various causes which either suppress or degrade it.\nIn the first place, we have decreed that it shall receive a fair share\nof its earnings. Chiefly in furtherance of this, we have ordained that\nno individual holder of land shall rob it by taking to himself that\nappreciation in values which its diligence produces. To this end also\nwe have provided that wealth and capital shall not bear down upon it\nin the various monopoly exactions common with you. But a measure of\njustice, scarcely less effectual than these to elevate and sustain\nlabor, is our governmental system of fixing its rates of wages.\n\nFrom what has been said it will not be hard for you to believe that a\nworking man holds a very different position in society with us than\nwith you. Upon the Earth, driven by the necessities of life, and a\ncruel and unrestrained competition, he is obliged to forego nearly\nall those opportunities which refine and elevate the mind. He has\nlittle of leisure, without the depression of muscular fatigue. His\nhabiliments are the badges of inferiority in your social scale, and he\ntrudges along on his tiresome, hopeless journey, bearing his condition\nas one under the prohibition of better things by an inexorable fate.\nNo competency rewards his unremitting toil, though with the skill of\nhis hands he is building the wealth of the world. To the sordid and\ncunning comes fortune in possessions and estates; while to him comes\nonly the privilege to dwell in another\u2019s house, and to partake of that\nfare whose chief quality shall be its capacity to restore the wasting\nenergies of his body.\n\nWith us the pursuit of manual labor is attended with better conditions.\nBy securing to industry its rightful rewards, it has been adopted by\nchoice instead of compulsion, as the best way to gain independence.\nHaving no road to wealth, except through the sterling qualities of\nindustry and prudence, industry and probity are the indispensable\nqualities which lead to the upper stratum of our society. Thus, you\nwill perceive, the natural laws of progression and development are\nencouraged to work out their beneficial results in the life of every\nindividual.\n\nSince, from the cradle to the grave, all are surrounded with the living\nrewards of goodness, we have no need of sermons. We know no gilded\nvice. It bears no fruits with us but destruction. You preach against\nit and reward it in the same breath. You denounce it in empty words,\nand at the next moment honor it with a bow. You sanction the wholesale\ninjury which your system inflicts upon each one, hoping in the scramble\nto pocket the losses of others. The most desirable condition of life\nwith you is that in which the attainment of wealth shall furnish\npersonal gratification, the accomplishment of which, in most cases, is\nthrough a line of public and private wrongs. The better conditions of\nlife with us are acquired in the fertilization of innumerable schemes\nfor the common welfare.\n\nYou are not to make the mistake by supposing that our society has\narrived at the dead level of equality. We have no castes, as you have,\nholding apart from each other with marked distinctions of wealth. But\nwe have social grades, as you have, with the great difference that each\none enjoys unenvied the pleasures within reach; not the least of which\nis to share the cares as well as the delights of life with each other.\nThe feeling of contempt for one another is entirely unknown among the\npeople of Mars. We have provided that there shall be no unlettered and\nvulgar substratum in our society to pity or condemn, as you have. The\neven justice of our system has bestowed upon all equal opportunities of\nknowledge and cultivation. As a result, there is no individual living\nupon our planet who is superior to another, except by a more assiduous\nexercise of mental or physical gifts, or a higher cultivation of his\nspiritual nature.\n\nA marked indication of our advanced social development is, that we\nutterly refuse the performance of any act which is an injury, even in a\nremote degree, to our fellows; while in the intense selfishness of your\npresent state, you are constantly sacrificing each other\u2019s interests.\nWith sentiments like these prevailing, it is easy for you to understand\nwhy we have no class among us perpetually under less favored conditions\nthan another class, and why, acting under the great lesson of nature\nwhich has sent us all into life upon an equality, we have ordained in\nall possible ways that the journey thereafter shall be fair and equal\nto all.\n\nIt is not possible for you to thoroughly understand or appreciate what\nI am to lay before you, in a description of our society in municipal\nlife, without a further knowledge of some of our methods. One of the\nmost important of these, is the perfection which we have brought to\nour science of statistics, and the indispensable service it is made to\nperform in our political economy. This branch of science is pursued\nby us as the most serviceable and practical of all. We learn from it\nin a positive way many truths which your economists fail to reach,\nand we have discovered by it many errors which have existed as the\nresult of sophistical reasoning. We use it as a rule and square to\nmeasure the speculations of philosophy, as well as an every-day guide\nin the practical affairs of life. Its better value for us lies in the\nfact that our conclusions from it are adduced out of the records of\ncenturies. It is to social science what analysis is to chemistry.\nIt is only by a systematic and orderly record of the occurrences of\nnature, and the changes and events of society, that we have arrived\nat the many profound truths so deeply concerning our lives. By it\nwe have discovered how astonishingly nature holds, concealed from\ncommon eyes, so many of her processes, coquetting with us, as it were,\nin withholding her greatest favors without prolonged and incessant\ninterrogation. But although our store of scientific knowledge has\nbeen increased by these statistical labors, we hold them of no less\nimportance in managing the practical affairs of life.\n\nOur bureau of statistics is without question the most valuable\ndepartment of our government. It has been brought to its perfected\ncondition by centuries of practice and improvement, and upon it rests,\nin a great measure, the prosperity and happiness of our people. By\nit, mainly, we are enabled to save our population from the distresses\nof over-production, and the chance occurrences of uneven labor\ndemand. Your experience has shown you that in times of depression the\ncauses were plainly apparent. We have merely arranged to anticipate\nthese causes, to sound the general alarm, and to forestall them.\nOutside of the defects of your currency, and your speculation, which\nare most prolific sources of industrial disaster, comes that blind\nover-production, entirely undirected by any reliable or authoritative\nknowledge of the existing capacity to consume. You are having at\ntimes a large amount of misdirected labor in the form of products\nslow of sale; and for the time being a supply, so much in excess of\ndemand, does not return a full equivalent for the labor invested.\nThese frequent errors of production depress wages, and are altogether\nmore calamitous to labor than to capital; because labor is variously\nskilled, and cannot readily transplant itself from one department of\nproduction to another, and is obliged, under the conditions, either\nto accept reduced wages or to remain idle. Capital does not suffer as\nlabor does in these constantly occurring over-supplies. On the other\nhand, it finds its opportunity, either by waiting from a low to a high\nmarket for its returns, or by changing its field of investment. In\nthese frequent partial or complete suspensions in the production of\nover-supplied commodities, labor is therefore the chief sufferer.\n\nWe have nearly a complete remedy for this in our system of statistics.\nOur planet in all its habitable parts is divided into districts,\nin each of which is kept an accurate and systematic record of all\navailable labor, as well as an account of its different classes, with\nthe separate capacity of each for production. In connection therewith\nis also kept an account of all products turned out. The information\nfurnished in this way determines the surplus or deficiency of all\ncommodities produced.\n\nWe are enabled thereby to know, almost at a glance, the drift of all\nlabor energies, and to direct them safely from any great redundancy of\nsupply. When engaged in the production of food supplies, where nature\nbecomes of necessity a party to this great co-operative arrangement, we\nhave devised a method that saves those who toil from the embarrassment\nand the frequent distress of an intermittent cost of living. We had\nobserved that the tendency of cheap food to lower the wages of labor,\nand of dear food to raise them, was not equal, wages being much more\neasily lowered than raised under this natural influence. Our government\nhas undertaken therefore to establish a fair and equitable adjustment\nbetween the cost of living and wage rates, to be modified when occasion\nrequires.\n\nYou are not to expect me to go into detail in these matters; but as it\nmay seem impracticable to you, how any arbitrary rate of wages may be\nmade to rule fairly among so many different people, I will give you\nsome account of our system of grading labor, by which this difficulty\nis overcome. We have formed out of the three qualities of SKILL,\nSTRENGTH and ACTIVITY a basis upon which to reckon the value of all\nindividual labor. Each of these is divided into three grades, and the\nhighest valued workman is he who stands first in all. The first grade\nin skill is considered equal to both the first and second grades of\nstrength and activity in estimating wages; and there is no first grade\nof skill allowed, except in those industrial operations requiring much\nmanual training.\n\nThe workman begins his career usually in the lowest grades of each,\nalthough at times strength and activity are raised one grade at the\nbeginning. The wages of all labor are uniformly established by the\ngovernment, in accordance with the standing of the individual and the\ncertificate he holds, according him his status under this method of\nestimating his ability. From middle life to old age changes usually\noccur in his grade, and his apportionment of wages is consequently\nmodified; but so long as he retains his skill it goes far to keep up\nthe allotment of fair wages against the loss of strength and activity.\n\nThis is merely an outline of our system. Its importance will be\nunderstood, when you consider that by it we have established a uniform\nrate of wages for all, and have saved our workmen from helplessly\nsubmitting themselves to the natural competition of dependent numbers,\nand to the exacting patronage of a selfish and independent few.\nAlthough we have achieved this desideratum of uniform wages we are\nnot unaware of the economic impossibility of rendering them constant,\nand we have accordingly arranged that the rate shall be changed to\ncorrespond with the varying cost of living. Each year therefore, after\nthe gathering of our harvests, our statistical bureau makes a report\nof food supply; when any change, if necessary, is made in the rate of\nwages for the ensuing year, thereby determining that labor shall enjoy\na fair share of the wealth which it produces.\n\nOutside of the handicraft of the workmen, we have established a scale\nfor estimating a just rate of pay for all employees in professional and\nbusiness pursuits. This arrangement is based upon the qualities of\nTALENT, INTELLIGENCE and CAPABILITY. Each one of these is divided into\nthree grades, and whoever stands first in all of them is entitled, of\ncourse, to the highest pay for his services. Usually, however, these\nhigh qualifications secure a reward beyond the scale. This system of\nrewarding labor has a far-reaching effect in our political economy,\nand is a complete uniformity with the general tendency of our efforts\nto promote steady values. The most important element of cost in all\ncommodities offered for sale is labor, and that can never be cheapened.\nWe have not a single product of industry in our list which represents\nin its labor cost, as many of yours do, the underpain, gaunt and\nhopeless toil of some fellow creature struggling for the scanty means\nto live.\n\nOwing to our many concessions physical industry has been curtailed\nof that excessively wearisome and exhausting character known to you.\nWithout the oppressions which bear down upon it on your planet, its\npursuit never reaches that forced extremity which brings the bent form\nand care-worn face.\n\nA considerate custom has fixed our period of daily labor at six hours;\none-half of which, under the equitable adjustment of our wage rates,\naffords sufficient pay, under ordinary circumstances, to furnish a\nliberal enjoyment of life. Under our system three hours of work each\nday affords a share of wealth somewhat in excess of the share usually\nobtained by the workmen of the Earth for their average of ten hours\u2019\nlabor. Our industrial force has, therefore, a facility of expansion and\ncontraction, without distressful results, which yours does not possess.\nNo serious changes are wrought with us by a reduction of working force\nto half time, and consequent half pay; while more or less pinching and\nmisery are sure to follow such an occurrence with you.\n\nFrom these careful attentions to the interests of labor, we have\nbrought it into repute as one of the most honorable as well as the\nmost profitable pursuits of life. I have endeavored to show you some\nof the ways by which this grand purpose has been attained. I must not,\nhowever, omit to remind you, that as our government takes upon itself\nto perform innumerable enterprises, which on the Earth are left to\nindividuals and organizations of men, its direct dealings with those\nwho toil are more intimate and extensive than yours. It is better\nenabled thereby to carry into operation those methods which distinguish\nour system. The greater part of the energies of our government and\nthe wisdom of our statesmanship have been directed to this end of\nsupporting labor, and out of it, without question, comes the general\nserenity and contentment which prevail.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER X.\n\n\nWhen it is decided by our authorities that a new city shall be built\nto meet the requirements of increasing numbers, and to establish that\nconvenient co-operation in branches of industry and trade which close\nassociation affords, its location is left entirely to the judgment of a\nboard of government officers, of sanitary and civil engineering skill.\nIf, as is frequently the case, the proposed site is already occupied\nby one or more tenants in rural pursuits, they are scrupulously\nindemnified in all losses which result from their dispossession.\n\nI wish to impress upon you here, that a tenant, under our government,\nhas even greater security of possession than your land owners.\nThe prevailing sense of justice, and a widespread interest, have\nestablished the right of a renter to hold and enjoy, against all\ncompetition, his allotment during his life. He has also the right,\nunder our custom, to convey its possession by will; and it is more\ngenerally the case on our planet than on yours, that a piece of land\nis held for generations in the same family. Our government exercises\nsome rights of interference, to the end that the size of a farm shall\nconform, as near as possible, to such dimensions as to employ no great\nexcess of labor over that capable of being supplied by the family of\nthe occupant. In a general way, the tenant enjoys the same rights of\nownership which are held by your individual holders in fee, except that\nhe cannot convey title, and does not take to himself any emolument\narising from increased value. His rent is simply an equivalent to\nyour tax, with the very important difference, that its amount depends\nentirely on the season\u2019s productiveness, and is never a burden.\n\nOnce decided upon, the proposed city becomes the subject of universal\ninterest. Its plans are submitted and approved, just as your proposals\nfor a single edifice. All its parts must conform with each other; the\nchoice of its location chiefly depends upon drainage and water supply,\nand it possesses these advantages in the highest perfection. Every\nhouse must be erected in conformity with rules. Work is commenced by\nthe erection of public buildings in the center, and the laying of\ndrain, water, heat and electric conduits through its newly surveyed\nstreets. People come to it, as they come to your new cities, for the\npurpose of gain in trade and industry, and locate themselves as they\nchoose under a fixed and uniform land rental. They erect edifices as\nyou do, varying them as they like in their internal structure, but\nstrictly conforming in their outer elevations to the style adopted\nby our architectural commission, which supervises also the material\nemployed, and the safety and durability of the work. Any disreputable\nor depraved quarter is of course impossible under this plan; nor could\nsuch an encouragement and propagation of crime exist in one of our\ncities, as they do in yours, even had we the class of tenants to people\nthem. It must be charged among the evils of your landlordism, that it\nnot only promotes vice through its tendency to impoverish your masses,\nbut is ready at all times to multiply it, by affording quarters for\nconvenient association.\n\nThe spectacle of our city in course of construction is very different\nfrom yours. The government has set aside, what may be computed in\nyour way as millions of money for the institution of various works\ndesigned for the health and comfort of the new population, and people\nare arriving in thousands from all quarters to do the work. Every one\nof them is impressed with that feeling and interest which can only\narise from ownership, and there is not a single one of them who is not\nperforming some of the work. No one of them has a hope for honor and\nwealth by getting a monopoly of the land. No rich man comes with his\naccumulations to get a perpetual lien upon the industries that are\njust now springing up, and to hold for himself and his descendants the\nprivilege of exacting daily for all time a larger share of the earnings\nof labor than your slaveholders derive from their human chattels. All\nchoose to work, because it is both honorable and profitable to do so,\nand also because it is a duty, the conscious fulfillment of which is\nattended with a feeling of happiness.\n\nThe systematic and regular use of the voluntary muscles, without\nexcessive fatigue, has not only an important influence on health, but\nassists as well to develop perfect and well rounded brains, out of\nwhich can only come those evenly balanced minds which create, out of\nthe power of intelligence, the blessings of human progress; whence only\ncome those level headed men, who are distinguished among yourselves\nas being never wholly the product of learning. It is an axiom with\nus, that he who does not produce has no right to consume, and this\ndoctrine has been so carried out in our society that physical inertia,\nno matter how much attended with wealth, is exceedingly rare. As a\nconsequence, affluence with us is not beset with the terrible penalties\nof ill health. The muscular body in all conditions of life is made to\nact with the brain and nerves.\n\nWe shall suppose, now, our city has reached a period of its growth\nequal in time to your decade. Its grand temple is not quite completed.\nIts streets stretch away in the distance, none of them narrower than\na hundred of your feet, and some of them more than twice as wide,\nto accommodate the airships and the larger warehouses. The lines of\nuniform house fronts, relieved on the street corners by elevated\ntowers, reach out sufficiently far into the gradually changing suburbs\nto give a hint of the long and beautiful perspectives that are to come.\nFrom the center outwards there are reserved, at intervals of about a\nhalf mile, spaces corresponding with the area of two blocks, which make\na circular belt around the whole. These are cultivated and embellished\nin the highest style of gardening and landscape art. Here are located\nour public baths, statues, monuments, conservatories, and arenas for\nathletic sports. These pleasure grounds, so convenient and accessible,\ndiversify our city life with a taste and flavor of the country. Our\ncity grows in a solid expansion. There are no straggling suburbs, like\nyours. Blocks are erected together, and always in continuation of the\nappropriated space adjoining them. The intercourse and demeanor of our\npopulation are, as you may expect, unlike yours. The general air of\nserenity and contentment, the uniform politeness, and the absence of\ndegradation, with its frequent unpleasant and disgraceful episodes,\nmark the difference between your city population and ours.\n\nIt concerns us most, however, to make a comparison of our wealth\nproducing agencies, and the channels of their distribution, and for\nthis purpose we shall take our metropolis as it stands in its maturity.\nIt contains, now, like your city of advanced growth, about three\nhundred thousand inhabitants. Its land rentals have been subjected\nto constant modification, and are in some places very much higher\nthan they were at first. In certain localities, where trade has\nconcentrated, the public fund has been increased by a considerable\nadvance of rent to store keepers, but there is no exorbitant demand\nof rent for such favored places as there is with you. The purpose\nof rent with us being only to meet the expenses of government, its\ntotal is limited; and consequently, while in the mercantile and trade\ndistricts, where wealth and capital are most heavily engaged, it has\nbeen materially advanced, a corresponding reduction has taken place in\nthe residence portions. The direct and immediate effect, therefore,\nof an appreciation of land value, is to reduce living expenses among\nthe masses by curtailing their rents. In the absence of any monopoly\nof private ownership, there is no case, even in the most concentrated\nplaces, where rent forms anywhere near so large a proportion of\nbusiness expense as with you. By your land ownership methods, landlords\nhave an access to both pockets of the tenant. Out of one they take to\nthe limit of their greed whatever sum they choose for the privilege of\nbusiness quarters, or a dwelling place, and from the other a tithe on\neverything consumed by the enhanced cost of its distribution.\n\nAs our material wants and needs are very much like yours, it is not\nhard to make a comparative estimate of the savings of industry. We\nproduce more wealth than you in a given time, even with our shorter\ndaily periods of work, because, with few exceptions, all are engaged\nin the business of production. By this increased productiveness every\nconsumer is richer. He is able by a smaller amount of labor to procure\na greater amount of the objects of desire. Our production is more\nperfect than yours, by the use of more perfect machinery. Our division\nof labor is more complete than yours. Our workmen having abundant\nleisure for intellectual development, all the practical advantages of\nknowledge and science are immediately brought into effect. By avoiding\nyour great waste of capital by excessive government expenditures, it is\nconstantly so abundant with us that its proportion to labor makes labor\nremunerative.\n\nWe have now assumed for the purpose of comparison that the two\ncities, one of Mars and one of the Earth, have each three hundred\nthousand inhabitants; and that, allowing for women and children not\nengaged in productive industry, one hundred thousand of each city is\nactively engaged in industrial pursuits. As the general prosperity\nof each city depends upon the earnings of this one hundred thousand,\nand the accumulations in capital and wealth upon the amount saved\nby these productive classes, let us make a relative estimate of the\nopportunities each possess in individual savings. Having no common\nmedium of exchange upon which to base our estimate, let us take the\nvalue of a day\u2019s labor for that purpose. The income of a city is\nderived from two sources, the aggregate wages of its inhabitants,\nand the combined profits of its capital. The latter, however, being\nentirely derived from consumers, is largely contributed to by the\ninhabitants themselves. And for the reason that all imported products,\nas well as those exported, bear the profits of capital in their rates\nof sale, we may safely say that an amount very nearly equal to the\nwhole profits of capital of a city is paid by the consumers within\nits limits as capital profits. The chief source of your city\u2019s yearly\nincome then is about thirty-one million days\u2019 labor. Out of this you\nmust pay for expenses, under your system, two million days\u2019 labor for\ngovernment taxes, fifteen million days\u2019 labor for ground rent, two\nmillion days\u2019 labor for water, two million days\u2019 labor for insurance,\nand with the balance of ten million days\u2019 labor you must pay the cost\nof food, raiment, fuel, the portion of rent estimated in buildings,\ntogether with the various incidentals of furniture and house lights.\nYou will observe that all these expenses except the first are largely\nloaded with the profits of capital, so that with the income and expense\nas set forth you may be in a progressive condition, as that term\nis defined by you. That is to say, your capital may increase, and\nyour wealth may be very greatly augmented. The enormous proportion\nof your earnings carried away by rent, although drawn very largely\nfrom your business districts, is contributed equally by the whole\nin the increased cost of all products consumed. Of your one hundred\nthousand producers, it is safe to say that twenty thousand of them have\ncapital investments. Among these is divided the whole of the surplus\nof the city\u2019s earnings. The eighty thousand engaged in the business\nof directly creating wealth are doomed, under your cruel system, to\nsweat and toil from sun to sun without accumulations. You accept this\ncondition of things as inevitable, and your economists contend that the\nreal or natural remuneration of labor is the bare means of subsistence.\nWe have seen the unrighteous origin of this prodigious fund, which\nabsorbs one third of the earnings of labor at least: let us examine its\nperpetual effects upon the interests of those who toil.\n\nLooking upon your civilization, we find in its modern aspects a\nwonderful increase in all the appliances and conditions which\naccumulate wealth. Among these may be specified a better and more\neconomical division of labor, the discoveries of science, labor\nsaving inventions, and altogether as a result, greatly increased\nproductiveness.\n\nAdded to these contributions of knowledge and science in the interest\nof the working class, you have, during the last century, experienced\nthe most remarkable acquisition in favor of labor that was ever known\nupon your planet. I allude to the accession of new and fertile lands,\nover which the boundaries of civilization have been extended, and out\nof which, by the new methods and contrivances both of husbandry and\ntransportation, the food supplies of the Earth have been made to flow\nin a steady stream toward the districts of their consumption. These\nimmense advantages could not fail to have, in some degree, a beneficent\neffect upon your labor class. Inasmuch as your workmen of to-day are\nenabled to obtain more of the comforts of life than formerly, real\nwages may be said to have considerably advanced. Their share, however,\nof the wealth produced is as small a portion as formerly. By the modern\nnecessities which custom has rendered difficult to avoid, they have\nbecome larger consumers, which in itself has enabled your capital, with\nits undue advantages, to increase its store out of all proportion to\na fair division of the wealth produced. But the greater and cheaper\nfood supply, and the abundant capital of your recent times, while\nserving to neutralize the depressing effect of increase of population\nin the labor ranks, and to institute a condition of general prosperity\nin trade and mercantile pursuits, has at the same time offered to all\nyour monopolists of land the opportunity to extort, under the pressure\nof competition, the whole surplus of the earnings of your workmen.\nPrecisely the same happy conditions which have brought a modicum of\nprosperity to them have created a richer field for your monopolists,\nand especially for those of them who by their ownership of city\nland can exact from the extended demands of business, and a rapidly\nmultiplying population, an unfair portion of the wealth produced. The\nunlimited privilege of appropriating to themselves the utmost share\nof the profits of industry, gives a speculative value to the holdings\nof your landlords, and serves in turn to furnish them the excuse of a\nparallel in their charges for rent to the current rate of interest on\nmoney. If industry can be forced to make over to them a third of its\nearnings now, the possibilities of the future shadow golden dreams,\nwhich promise no less to them than the power of your imaginary\nMidas--dreams which encourage an easier wealth-making than was\npossessed by your olden barons, who by force of arms were enabled to\nhold,--what your modern law and custom equally allows,--the privilege\nof sapping the industry of millions of busy hands of all else but a\nbare sustenance and a shelter from the elements.\n\nThat rent does not to any great extent enter into the cost of your\nagricultural products, is due to the abundance of new land coming\nconstantly under cultivation, and to that equalizing of situations\nwhich your railroads promote. An increase in the demand for food,\nand the promise of an advance in its price, brings under cultivation\nlands of lesser fertility or those more remote from your markets. The\nmonopoly power of agricultural land ownership is thereby effectually\ndestroyed. So long as these favorable conditions exist, the cost of\nyour food staples will be governed by the value alone of the labor\nemployed. The profits of capital, therefore, take no part in them\nuntil they leave the hands of the producer. There is no value in your\ncultivated lands of the lesser fertility, except in the opportunity\nthey afford for labor to exchange its services for money. This class of\nland fixes the price of and cheapens the food of the Earth. The value\nof all lands from these upwards in degrees of fertility is estimated\nby the amount of produce derived from a given amount of labor, and\nexcept in a few favorite situations there is as yet no monopoly value\nin your cultivated lands. To this, more than anything else, is due the\ncomparative cheapness of your food, and the steady and unrestricted\nincrease of your population. In time, however, for reasons to obvious\nto require mention, rent must enter into the original element of cost\namong your food staples, just as it now so largely takes a part in the\ncost of their distribution. The fullest manifestation of the evils of\nyour private ownership system will then take place. The signs of what\nmay occur at that rapidly approaching critical period are to be seen\nin the completely merciless character of your wealth holders, who, in\nthe face of a divine intelligence, which has so charitably provided an\neven abundance to all, attempt to subvert the natural laws of trade\nby unfair combinations, known among you as trusts and syndicates,\nwherein the common welfare is made a sacrifice to their determined and\nunscrupulous love of gain.\n\nYou have perhaps not fully considered how it has come to pass that\nyour wealth is so generally without the best feelings and impulses\nof humanity. The desire to accumulate which pervades all classes can\naccomplish nothing in the ranks of labor, except for those who possess\nit in an inordinate degree. The anxiety for gain must be so intense as\nto overwhelm the wish for gratifications within reach, and to produce\na fortitude of restraint which denies every dispensable want and\npleasure. Is is only the few who have this power of abstinence that\ncan escape a life of drudgery. The ranks of capital and wealth are\nlargely recruited from this body of abstainers. Under the depressing\neffects of your monopolistic condition, ordinary prudence and moderate\nabstemiousness are not, as a rule, capable of laying the foundation of\nwealth. You have, consequently, by a natural process of selection, the\nranks of your moneyed classes filled up, for the most part, by the most\naggressively mercenary and acquisitive of your race; while the better\npart of humanity, where the self-sacrificing and generous impulses most\nprevail, must pay the penalty of its virtues in unrelieved dependence.\nYour successful moneyed class, coming in time to that place of power\nwhich its wealth procures for it, shapes and directs your legislation;\nwhich, as you might expect, instead of being devoted, as it should\nbe, chiefly to the support of measures to equalize and ameliorate the\nconditions of all classes, works the machinery for government for its\nown selfish ends, making easy and comfortable paths for those schemes\nwhich multiply its wealth.\n\nWhile the wish to accumulate is acknowledged to be the fountain head of\nall material progress, its accomplishment, under our system, is mostly\nthe reward of those qualities of the mind which are not safe lessons\nfor common acceptance. Your examples of material success are not good\nstudies, if charity and the true public spirit are to be considered as\nworthy of being enlarged by precept.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XI.\n\n\nOur more advanced civilization and truer democracy exhibit themselves\nnowhere more strikingly, than in the way in which we have determined\nthe equal division of land interests. With our city of three hundred\nthousand inhabitants, and its income during the same period of time\nas yours of thirty-one million days\u2019 labor, there is assessed by our\nauthorities about the sum as ground rent equivalent to eight million\naverage days\u2019 pay of our workmen. For this amount in hand, our\ngovernment furnishes to its tenants, without further cost, perfected\nstreets in constant repair, abundance of water for household and other\npurposes, lights both in houses and streets, heat by our system (to you\nundiscovered), perfect drainage without cost or repair of conduits,\ninsurance against individual loss by fire or flood, free burial of the\ndead, and a system of education bestowing upon every individual the\nhigher branches of study.\n\nBesides this immense service, the government provides religious\nedifices, buildings for public entertainment, and pleasure grounds.\nAnd all this, you will bear in mind, at a less cost to our population\nthan your landlords exact of you for ground rent alone. Adding to this\nfour million days\u2019 labor for rent, paid to private owners of buildings,\nand we have left nineteen million days\u2019 labor for living expenses not\nprovided by our government, and out of which come all the profit and\naccumulations of capital, except those derived from rents of buildings.\nYou will see thereby, that with all the monopoly privileges that have\nfastened themselves upon your system done away with, capital has yet\na full scope to exercise its legitimate functions in the fields of\nproduction and distribution, apart from which it has no rights and is\nentitled to no legislative consideration.\n\nIt is only by expunging the demands and profits of capital that the\ngovernment is enabled to furnish all these services mentioned at\nso small a cost. We hold it to be a principle of justice, that the\nnatural elements should not be permitted to form the basis of corporate\nmanagement or monopoly control, and therefore instead of allowing\ncapital the fullest privilege to appropriate those bounties of nature\nwhich are found ready for use, we have restricted its operations to a\nmere partnership with labor, where it justly belongs. In our endeavors\nto sustain labor, and equalize its opportunities with capital, we\nhave gone much further than this. We hold that all public necessities\nof general demand, in the supplying of which large expenditures are\nrequired in fixed capital, and which are not strictly in the line of\nproduction, should be provided for by the government. We remove the\nburdens of labor, by relieving it of those large capital enterprises\nwhich subsist on it, and which fail to share with it a reasonable\nportion of earnings. The large sums of money and the special privileges\nrequired in these operations of supply, of which your railroad,\ntelephone and telegraph lines are prominent examples, obstruct the\nnatural tendency of competition, and capital and wealth are thereby\npermitted advantages over labor which they should not of right have.\n\nThe unlimited privilege of capital in these directions has been\ndefended on the ground that it greatly accelerates your material\nprogress; that in private hands these enterprises can be more\neconomically managed; and that the centralization of power in a\ngovernment would be dangerously increased by the proprietorship of such\nlarge undertakings. All of these allegations except the first are\nwithout foundation in fact. The growing political weight, especially\nin your representative governments, of all monopoly combinations, by\nreason of their wealth and large individual patronage, presents to you\nthe choice of either a government ruled by outside influences, which\ncannot be held responsible for the evils it inadvertently inflicts by\nthe irresistible pressure from without, or a government entirely and\nabsolutely liable, and to be held to a strict accountability for all\nencroachments upon the common welfare while handling these services\nof supply. In the latter case your remedy is an easy one; and may be\nreadily applied; while in the former, nothing short of a political\nconvulsion will serve you. No advanced government upon your Earth has\never undertaken a public service of any magnitude for a long term,\nwhich has not been systematized and improved by all the available\nknowledge and science of its time. The difference between a public and\na private supply of a common demand is, that to one is added the costs\nand profits of capital; while the other, shorn of these oftentimes\nexcessive exactions, is furnished at the cheapest rate possible.\n\nAny policy of your governments, no matter how unwisely adopted,\nbecomes in time a fixture which is difficult to remove. The abuses\nwhich it may be known to produce are tolerated long after its evil is\nunderstood. Yet, there is scarcely one of these which has not had its\nactive defenders. The able defense of measures which have long since\nbeen expunged for their flagrant injustice, exhibit some of the most\nstriking examples of mental obliquity in your annals. No government of\nthe Earth, however, in its long legislative career, was ever known to\nfavor the laboring and landless over the interests of those holding\nendowments of the Earth\u2019s surface. What seems at a superficial glance\nto be in your own country such a measure, in what may be generally\ntermed your land policy, with its homestead provisions, becomes upon a\ncloser examination delusive. Every one of your laws for the pretended\npurpose of bestowing your territory upon labor bears the covert design\nor connivance to further the opportunities of capital. From the\ninauguration of your system, capital and wealth have been gradually\nabsorbing your lands, and the partnership of labor in them is as\ntransitory and accidental as the opportunities afforded in the early\nstages of your city\u2019s growth.\n\nThe fact appears that, in your present development, the general sense\nof individual acquisitiveness among your governing classes is too\ngreat to deal fairly with the whole body of your people under such\nseductive opportunities for self-gain. You cannot prevent, under\nyour present system of private ownership, the lands now held by your\npeople from drifting into a comparatively few hands. This process,\nalthough going on for years, gradually accelerates, and will rapidly\nbecome apparent when the last of your public territory shall have\npassed out of the hands of your government. The owners of your lands\nalways have, and will continue to govern the countries of the Earth.\nNo representative government can exist long without a system which\nprevents the monopoly of its territory by wealth.\n\nNo other idea appears to have been held by the founders of your nation,\nbut that your land was a chattel, to be disposed of for money, and\nas much a subject of barter and speculation as merchandise, and like\nit, liable to that depression in value which a superabundant supply\nproduces. Its unequalled advantages as a subject for speculation\nbecame more and more apparent as your population increased. It is a\nstriking illustration of the irresistible influence of the mercenary\nimpulse on your planet, that those who were prominent in establishing\nso many advances toward equalizing the conditions and privileges of\ntheir fellow-men held, in the aggregate among themselves, the title\nand possession of which they stood ready to defend, an area of the\nEarth\u2019s surface equal to about eight million of your acres, one\nhundred thousand acres being in possession of him who became the first\npresiding officer of your republic. I do not refer to these facts in\na spirit of censure to those men, so enlightened and liberty loving\nbeyond their times; but only to show that singular limit of vision\nwhich sincerely proclaimed the equality of all men, which fostering a\npolitical method which must in time enslave or pauperize the majority.\n\nThere can be no doubt but that the unlimited privileges of capital\nin these directions have greatly accelerated your material progress.\nThe speedy utilization of the immense resources of your own republic\nhas hidden and disguised the evil it was gradually producing. The new\nfields of labor opened by the many monopoly enterprises have satisfied\nand quieted it; and the open invitation, for the time being, of a\npartnership with capital in the occupancy of the soil for purposes of\ncultivation, leaves no apparent ground of complaint among the masses\nwho toil. Thus have your demands for labor been so much greater than\nthe supply, that large accessions have been drawn from the older\ncountries of the Earth. These furnishing the bone and sinew for still\nmore rapid development, your progress has become the wonder of the\nage. You will perceive, however, that the general prosperity among all\nclasses of your society, and the absence of any great public grievance,\nis just that condition which render the incursions of capital and\nwealth easy, so that during all your enormous accumulations by the\nhands of your workers, out of which they have little to show of gain\nbesides their living expenses, the most stupendous moneyed fortunes\nof history have fallen into the hands of the few. Unlike the older\ncountries of the Earth, where the increasing poverty of the masses\nis a natural and unavoidable sequence of the large accumulations of\nwealth in few hands, your poor do not grow sensibly poorer during\nthis unequal distribution. Your enormous resources hold up labor to\na condition of comparative prosperity during all these inroads upon\nit. As a consequence, of the abundance which the bounties of nature\nhave supplied to you, and the stimulated energies which your rewarded\nindustries have induced, your labor unconsciously submits to the\nextraction of an unfair portion of the wealth it produces without\nindividual suffering. The better condition of your workmen compared\nwith those of other lands should not disguise the fact, however, that\ncapital and wealth get new assurance, and encouraged to fresh demands\nupon the industries on this account. Although your poor do not yet\ngrow sensibly poorer, your rich are getting immeasurably richer. The\nbetter opportunities for labor have brought millions of workers from\nabroad, who in their rapid development of the country have so immensely\nappreciated land values that the bosom of the Earth has been converted\ninto a chattel for speculation, and the chief business of wealth has\nbeen to pocket the increase which it has not earned.\n\nYou cannot fail to have observed, that to this period your money class\nhas had but little to do with land in your agricultural districts,\nexcept to buy and sell it. Capital, other than that limited quantity\nwhich has been created on the land, has not thus far been led into\nthe business of its cultivation, because from the abundance and\neasy acquirement of land it must come, in so doing, in such direct\ncompetition with labor as not to leave a satisfactory margin of\nprofit. When, however, your public lands shall have been all conveyed\nto private hands, at which time the price of land products will not\nbe governed as now by the willingness of labor to make out of their\nproduction a mere exchange for fair wages, then, and not till then,\nwill you find capital embarking to any great extent into the business\nof agriculture.\n\nWhen this time arrives, a change in your economy will gradually take\nplace. The relations held by labor with capital, which have heretofore\nbeen so modified by the easier conditions of the former, with its\nabundance of free soil to absorb its surplus, will be driven back to\nits old state of greater dependence. It will no longer experience the\ngreat advantage it has held so long in its partnership with the fertile\nearth. Its depression will reduce the earnings of innumerable monopoly\nschemes, and the speculative opportunities of capital in the former\nrapid rise of land values will be reduced to a minimum. The acquirement\nof land for use and cultivation will then become one of the most\npromising investments for capital extant. There will be a rise in the\nprice of food staples, and rent for the first time in your history will\nenter into them as a large element of cost.\n\nMore than one easily recognized agency of your civilization will tend\nto reduce the number of your small farms, and to throw the business of\nfood supply completely under the control of your wealthy and capital\nclass. Your small holders now occupying lands of the lower grades\nof fertility, and who with their limited means but little more than\nsustain themselves, will readily submit their titles to capitalists,\nwho with the advantage of costly labor saving machines, will find the\ncultivation of a number of such tracts thrown into one of sufficient\nprofit to engage their means.\n\nThe labor saving contrivances which your ingenuity has devised for\nagricultural pursuits will hasten the demand for larger holdings, and\nalthough they greatly cheapen the expense of production, they will not\nlower the market price of food. While machinery more than makes up for\nits curtailment of the services of labor, by its cheaper supplies to it\nin articles of manufacture, no such open and unrestricted competition\ncan exist in the supply of commodities which require, as a necessity of\ntheir production, a natural agent whose possession is in every sense of\nthe word a monopoly.\n\nMachinery has never cheapened the supply of raw materials which come\ndirectly from the soil, because its use for cultivation has only been\nexceptional, and it can never become general as long as land is held\nin small tracts. This very condition is the one which will engage the\nattention of investors in land for the profits of use, and at the first\npermanent advance in the price of your food staples the operation of\nturning small farms into large ones will begin.\n\nThe privilege and the hope of all to get possession of a large or small\nportion of the earth\u2019s surface, gives to your personal ownership system\nan appearance of fairness not at variance with your popular aspirations\nof equality, and the evil will not be generally admitted, until it gets\nto be more seriously felt.\n\nI am sorry to say of you that the principle of equality, as we\nunderstand it, has never been sincerely considered or acted upon by any\nof the governments of the earth. You have taken it for granted that a\nserving and dependent class, composing four-fifths of your numbers,\nmust always assist to make up the sum of your population, and no\nlegislative measure can be found in your records which sustains this\nlarge body of your people against the encroachments with which wealth\nand capital are continually permitted to invade their interests.\nLiberty itself is of but little value, when life becomes a forfeiture\nof all the ways and means to improve it. There is, in fact, no liberty\nin the correct sense, where all the moments of life must be bartered\nfor the means to live.\n\nSo far as your development has progressed, the sentiment of\nbrotherhood, as we know it, has never intruded itself into the spirit\nof your legislation. The spectacle of four-fifths of your number\ntoiling from sun to sun to no purpose but that the balance may be\nenriched has inspired no compassion, and evoked no measure of relief.\nIn the regions of your authority, where there should be some touch of\nthe fraternal instinct, nothing presides but the selfish and mercenary\ngenius of Mammon. The divine impulse for better things is among you,\nbut instead of laying out its work in the practical affair of life, it\nhas been diverted into the channels of your busy but unfruitful creeds.\nYou wear your religion like a holiday garment. We have learned to wear\nours as a common garb.\n\nThe past is burnt out, with a residue of but little value except as a\nwarning. The future is not ours, but of the universe with its hidden\nand irrevocable destiny. The present belongs to us, and it is our\ncreed to be happy in its possession. We could have sown fears as you\nhave, and could have been as overwhelmed with their multiplied terrors.\nWe could have invented a circumstantial paradise like yours, with its\npathway of extinguished temporal hopes, and its discouragements of\nthe noblest ambitions to build out of the materials in sight; but to\nwhat purpose except an unworthy one? The present is ours. Our field is\namong the living things which surround us. The most of life to us is\nits possibilities of happiness, and the opportunities it affords for\nthe enjoyment of our religious impulses to serve the Deity in advancing\nourselves and our society toward that state of perfection to which\nunder the supreme intelligence all things are seen to tend.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XII.\n\n\nA notable condition of your society compared with ours is the tardy\nadvance of your women from that complete subjection to men which\nexisted in your primary state. It is not surprising that in your\npresent stage of progress the males of your race should continue to\nusurp many of the privileges which came to them as an inheritance from\na savage and brutal ancestry of comparatively recent existence, and\nyour gradual awakening to a sense of justice in that direction is one\nof the many evidences that you are moving along on the lines marked out\nfor you by the divine law of evolution in thought.\n\nWe have found certain active qualities of mind, predominating\neverywhere in women, indispensable to a better progress in social\nadvancement, and great things have been wrought to us by our present\nabsolute equality of the sexes. The full value of women as factors\nin social progress is not known, nor even suspected by you, because\nyou have never witnessed the experiment of a complete withdrawal of\nthose restrictions which hold them in subjection; yet, it is a fact\nthat in what are truly the noblest advances in humanity, they are your\nsuperiors. They have left further behind them the brutalisms of the\npast, are deeper touched with your inhumanities, and will go further to\nbanish them than your men.\n\nYour estimate of the mental capacity of women is singularly erroneous.\nThe cropping out occasionally of their intellectual achievements, and\nthe marked increase of such with the multiplication of opportunities,\nmust have hinted to you that their silence, and apparent inferiority\nin the higher mental efforts, were alone due to their long period of\nsubordination, during which the usages of your society have discouraged\nany attempts to enter the field as competitors with men. In the full\nswing of opportunity and encouragement allowed them by us, they have\nraised themselves to a very high plane, especially in literature,\npoetry and art. We owe to them many of our masterpieces in these\nattainments, and their aptitude for study and investigation is shown\nin the even place they hold with us in science and the professions.\nThose feminine qualities of mind which are described by you as heart,\nsympathy, sentiment and emotion, and which are generally considered by\nyou as out of place in affairs of state, are the very ones of which\nyou have the greatest need in legislation. It is principally through\nthe feelings mentioned that divine impulses are expressed, and yet\nthat part of yourselves where they most prevail are excluded from your\ncouncils.\n\nA model of all that is best in your governments is to be found no where\nexcept within the family. The ready helpfulness and equal attention\nto the welfare of one another within its precincts, extended into the\nmotives and aims of your public policies, embrace everything necessary\nto a perfect government; yet, you have selected out of the family for\nthe sole direction of your public affairs its hardest and most selfish\npart, its selfishness intensified in its dealings with society beyond\nthe confines of home, by those absorbing paternal responsibilities--in\ngreat measure due to the subordination of women--which in many ways\ninterfere with efforts for the good of the whole.\n\nFrom the nature of things your men are more easily overcome by evil\npolitical forces than your women would be. The latter, being more\nclosely allied to the interests of the family, in its moral training,\nand less willing to sacrifice the benefit of example, are consequently\nless corruptible than men. Women have a greater natural affinity for\nvirtue than men, more unselfishness and a larger concern for the moral\nwelfare of mankind, exhibited in their more earnest support of religion.\n\nWith the enfranchisement of women the humanities of life would enter\nmore largely into your politics. You have proofs of this in the few\nlocal instances where they have been granted suffrage rights. The\ndesirable family methods and sentiments, of which they are better\nexponents than men, have never failed to come to the surface as\nindications of their presence. They have invariably shown a greater\ninclination than men to consider the welfare of persons in legislation\nas against the welfare alone of property, which has to the present\nso monopolized and corrupted your politics. Your legislation in the\nhands of men alone has accomplished but little in alleviating the\ndistresses of humanity. The cold and calculating hand of speculation,\nwhich invests only to call back its capital with high usury, has always\nheld your law making as a ready instrument for its purposes, and\nwithout loftier views, your governments will continue to miss their\nopportunities for benefitting mankind. By the admission of women the\nhigher sentiments would sooner find a place. It would be the first\nstep in bringing natural religion and politics together. The present\nirrational state of your spiritual beliefs retards the adoption of a\nmoral code in your systems of government. With you, the State is led to\ncare for nothing in the interest of morality, except a punishment of\nits infractions. It ignores, as no part of its duties, all incentives\nto goodness, and in dealing with crime the service of its prevention,\nin any other way than punishment, is not considered, principally\nbecause other departments of society have assumed for ages the public\ncontrol and promotion of the virtues.\n\nA wider range in the duties of government is opposed by many of you as\nobjectionable paternalism. Such of you overlook the fact that there can\nbe no paternalism in a republic. Such a system is co-operation pure\nand simple, and neither good nor evil can permanently exist without\nthe consent of the whole. The nearer you get to complete co-operation,\nthe more perfect your government becomes. The greatest vices of\nmisgovernment among you are to be found in granting precedence of one\ninterest over others, that interest in most cases being a capitalistic\none, often antagonizing the welfare of many individuals. Among your\nindustrial class, less than one-tenth are employers, whose political\nweight has so overcome the majority as to have excluded any direct\nlegislation in its behalf, and so far as these conditions exist, the\nprinciple of co-operation which should be the corner stone of your\ngovernment has not been faithfully carried out. A greater, and in our\nview, a more glaring violation of this principle is your exclusion of\nwomen from the rights of representation in your government. You cannot\ndeny that they have separate interests to care for. You will find upon\nexamination of your assessment rolls that nearly one-fifth of all your\nreal and personal estate is owned by them, and of the greater part of\nthe balance they are interested by matrimonial partnerships with men.\nTheir property ownerships alone entitle them to the rights of suffrage,\nin the denial of which you have no excuse whatever but the usage and\ncustom of barbaric ages extended to the present, and the prejudice of\na society grown familiar and blinded to its injustice. The struggles\nof labor for better recognition, and the agitation for woman suffrage\nare evolutionary movements in thought, and in your advanced government\nindicate the coming of a more perfect co-operation.\n\nThe political subjection of women, and the subjection of labor\nhelplessly to the law of supply and demand, without legislative\nassistance or attention, are at present your most prominent relics of\nbarbarism. They are both endured because the parties to be benefitted\nhave never yet enjoyed the privileges due them. Neither one or the\nother are consequently aroused to action in their own behalf, and\nwhen these rights are acquired by them it will be more owing to an\nenlightened public opinion than to any concerted action by themselves.\nIt is well known that your slaves had little to do with the abolition\nof slavery, and it is therefore not a proper argument against the\ngranting of these privileges that the persons to be benefitted are not\nall clamoring for them; or that, in the case of woman suffrage, a large\nmajority of women are indifferent and a few opposed.\n\nThe subjection of women to men in all the political and business\naffairs of life have greatly modified the characters of both. You have\nconfined the lives of your women to innumerable small details. Her\naspirations and powers have been confined within this narrow scope. The\nabsorption of their whole minds has been in a set of small ideas and\noccupations, from one to the other in continuous exercise. In such a\nlife profound thought and loftier emotions are not encouraged. They\nhave but little incentive to the acquirement of general knowledge,\nfor it can be of no practical use to them, and being early impressed\nwith a sense of their dependence upon men, their lives are given up to\nall the small devices for obtaining power over them in the sensuous\nfields of personal adornment and display. Theirs, as well as other\nhuman minds, must be shallowed under such conditions; yet of the two\nsexes their duties are the most serious and responsible in shaping the\ndestinies of mankind. Theirs is the chief part in the forming of minds,\nboth by heredity and training, and with their limited opportunities\nfor broadened thought you can look for nothing more in them than those\nnarrow prejudices, which are in turn transmitted, and which are so\nmanifest in all your society. This narrowness is one of your most\nunhappy traits; it is almost universal among you. Until quite recently\nyou have only had a man here and there capable and willing to fairly\nexamine a question which interferes with traditional beliefs and old\nmodes of thought. You have formed no conception of how much this state\nof things is due to the limited mental horizon in which your women\nhave been confined. The intellects of your best men have not been\nmultiplied and reproduced as they should have been, owing to the loss\nof their strength and fibre in the process of reproduction, through\nyour average non-high thought producing female minds.\n\nThe extended barbaric relations which your women hold to men, though\ngreatly modified by civilization, has carried with it enough of its\nprimary feelings and motives to influence a large majority of your\nmatrimonial engagements, where in truth, it may be said that the\nattraction is sensual to a degree not willingly acknowledged, and this\nbeing more and more the case as you descend in the social scale, you\nwill find here your women going through life helplessly subject to the\nlingering brutalism which your customs and laws enforce. It is from\nthe animalism of these low life marriages that a large sum of your\nmiseries and crimes are produced. Your inferior men have but little\nrespect for those subject to their power, and in many cases use a\ntyrannical authority over their defenseless wives in gratification of\na mean instinct of humanity. It is the only opportunity perhaps that\nbrutal husbands enjoy in their whole lives to command a grown person\nwho is under an obligation by law, custom and religion to obey. Such\na dangerous subjection of one human being to another could only be\nexcused by a certainty that the welfare of your society depended upon\nit, when in fact the condition is one of the obstacles to a better\nsocial state.\n\nDuring your barbaric period, and for a long time thereafter, women made\nno protest against her subordinate position in society. It has been her\nplace for ages to suffer more than her share of the pains and trials\nof human replenishment. She has been taught to believe that this was\nher only part in the world\u2019s economy, and men have held her to it by\nall the force of ecclesiastical and secular bonds. In all your glorious\nmodern achievements of science and general knowledge until lately\nshe has not even been an invited spectator. While the world in front\nhas been all astir in the movements of progress, she has only been\npermitted to listen and wonder at the applause through the rear windows\nof the nursery and kitchen; not knowing what it all meant and not\neducated to approve, or even to understand, its glorious import. Having\nnever been accustomed to think on any great subject, she has held to\nher traditions after they have been discredited and denied by the\nknowledge of her times, and imparting them to childhood in all their\nancient mixture of error has assisted to keep alive those prejudices\namong you which have so seriously blocked your advancement. This is\none of the penalties you have paid for your subjection of women. Those\ntraditions to which she so defiantly clings she will never be persuaded\nto discard in her present dependent condition. It may be said to her\nhonor that they are mistakenly pursued as the only great method within\nher reach to indulge her concern for human welfare. You must give her\nnew duties, and arouse in her new ambitions, before you can expect\nher to take her proper place beside man in the march of progress. It\nis only within the last two or three generations that a glint of the\noutside enlightenment has penetrated her retired circle, and under its\nrevelation she is already in some quarters demanding her rights. She is\nbeginning to understand that procreation is not the chief purpose in\nlife, but only one of its incidentals; that its processes from first to\nlast are guided exclusively by animal instincts, among which men have\ncompelled her to sacrifice the best parts of her life; that although\nnature has imposed upon her the larger share in these processes, and\nall their pains, it has also bestowed upon her capabilities which are\nclearly designed for more exalted stations than mere breeders of men\nand gratifiers of their animal pleasures, so unduly stimulated on the\nearth as the unintellectual and chief attraction of the sexes. You\nhave perhaps but little conception of how much that reckless sexual\nimpulse to matrimony, unrestrained by your laws, and encouraged by your\nreligion, has swollen your ranks of poverty, crime and imbecility. Your\nwomen in their dependence and subjection have but one source of power\nat their service, and they have used it for all it was worth. As a\nconsequence, even to the present period of your civilization, qualities\nof mind cuts no figure against the voluptuous animalism of person in\nsecuring husbands than it did in barbaric times.\n\nIt is the rarest thing among you to find an intellectually mated\nhusband and wife qualified by equal education and opportunities to\nbe in perfect accord and sympathy in the pursuit of high purposes.\nAmong your higher circles are to be found occasionally one of these\ncongenial matings, the happiest conditions of matrimonial existence,\nwhere by good breeding and cultivation a man tacitly ignores his\nsuperiority under your unjust usages; but although the wife may\nbe in sympathy with the ambition and purposes of her husband in\nhis intellectual labors she is seldom able to assist him owing to\neducational differences. With us the wife has more than encouragement\nto offer. Her mind becomes a part of her husband\u2019s and increases his\ncapabilities. Many of our highest achievements in brain work are the\nresult of such collaboration of two minds working as one. The rare\ncases instanced among you are only to be found in your cultivated\ncircles, below these, in all degrees to the bottom mental equality in\nwomen is oftener the source of contention than happiness, and you must\nexpect to have this unhappy condition increased until you have granted\nthem their rightful position in society. So long as their subjection to\nmen was hopeless and they were taught by their theological superiors to\nobey their husbands, and by the same advisors, their separation denied\nor discouraged, they meekly submitted to abuse and suffering because\nwithout a hope of relief; but as it is becoming more and more apparent\nto you that the subjection of your women is one of the many ancient\nfallacies, the gradual reasoning of them out of existence is paving the\nway for woman\u2019s liberty.\n\nNature has designed that women shall only devote a portion of her life\nto maternity and its attendant duties. It has set her free of them at a\ntime when her mind and body are fully capable of most of the avocations\nof life. Having fulfilled these great services to mankind, you have\nordained by custom and usage that she shall remain thereafter a mere\nunconsidered supernumerary on the world\u2019s stage. In your lower circles\nshe becomes a helpless drudge in the interests of her children, and\nin the higher ones, either an unwelcome retainer in the household of\na daughter, or a more or less constrained member in the family of a\nson; but in all of these her lot is a happy one when compared with her\nutter desolation in the world when her children have departed from her\nby immigration or death. You have given her no part in great affairs,\nand she has but little knowledge of or interest in them. They afford\nher no entertainment amid her loneliness, and by the narrow training\nof her faculties, diverted only by the minor things of life,--its\npersonal episodes and gossiping incidents--she lives out her remaining\npurposeless career. This mere lack of mind expansion has been cited\nagainst her as a sex weakness, but it is safe to predict that if men\nhad been subject to such conditions, without her deep human sympathies\nand her religion, they would have fallen into complete mental\nimbecility, and if men for all the ages past had been confined as she\nhad been to duties requiring no high attainments, the present balance\nof mind work could not be shown in their favor.\n\nWith us maternity is not allowed to absorb the whole of a woman\u2019s life.\nWhile we accord to her, in consideration of its responsibilities and\npains, an exemption from all the physically exhausting occupations,\nshe is encouraged in all others to which her capabilities are adapted;\naccordingly with us she is an open competitor with men in many lines\nof business, some of which are entirely given over to her by general\nconsent. By multiplying her opportunities in this way, she is not,\nas with you in most cases, helpless and dependent. She moves around\namong men as their equal, discussing matters of business and questions\nof public policy like one of them. She joins them in out door sports\nand athletics, in which she often excels, and these relations which\nthe sexes hold to each other, so differing from yours, entirely\nchanges their lines of attraction. In their closer association with\nus it becomes possible for men and women to thoroughly understand\neach other. They do not move in two separate worlds as with you,\nartfully disguising their characters and feelings from each other,\nwearing a different manner as occasions require for deception. Men\nselect matrimonial companions with us as they choose friends among\nthemselves, sympathy of feeling and sincerity being primary motives\nof attraction. It is only the general untruthfulness of your society\ncarried into matrimony which makes it in so many cases unhappy. You\nhave so inculcated the arts of deception and falsehood into your lives\nthat they have come at last to be openly pursued as legitimate methods\nof thrift. One could not find a better indication of the insincerity\nof your society than this metropolitan journal on your table. Here is\na strong editorial commending truth, another a well written homily on\nhonesty, and on the connecting pages, authorized by the same hands,\nhundreds of advertisements in all shades of deception to catch the\nunwary. With the gradual decadence of force as a means of preying\nupon one another, you have so cultivated falsehood to take its place\nthat the life of each individual among you is kept constantly on the\nwatch to protect his interests. Hypocrisy in religion, and deception\nin matrimony, belong to those vices which at present disgrace your\ncivilization, and of which your women must always suffer most so long\nas you keep them excluded from a free intercourse in the world\u2019s\naffairs.\n\nThe difference in our treatment of women has very materially changed\ntheir points of attraction. While we can see no beauty in a woman\nwithout enlightenment, and can find no full companionship in her\nwithout her knowledge of our world and its affairs, these qualities\nare not so much considered by you. The idea of a fitness to live\ntogether, as equals in everything, is not entertained, by either the\none or the other of you, in these serious life contracts. Your women\nsubmit their dependence as a virtue, and it is accepted, as well as\ntheir gentleness,--so often assumed,--as a flattering offer to men\u2019s\nvanity of power. There is seldom a marriage among you without the\nhidden satisfaction of a man with his new entrance into authority. Any\nsubsequent development of individuality or independence of character\nin the women, must result in discord. We meet each other, in such\ncontracts, on the common ground of equality. There are no political or\ndomestic rights which both do not equally enjoy; consequently, women\nare not tempted into blandishments, and deceptions, for the conquests\nof men. Owing to their independence and helpfulness, the marriage\nproposal is never accepted as an extreme opportunity, leading them to\ntake desperate chances, among conditions that are not promising to\nhappiness. This, you have forced them to do, by closing all other doors\nagainst them.\n\nYou may suspect that the admission of women amongst us, in the affairs\nof business and government, has coarsened them, and given them a\ncharacter of what is known among you as masculinity. That is not so.\nTheir amiability of manner, instead of being lost, is conveyed and\nmultiplied among our business methods. All men, among the civilized\nnations of the earth, are softened by female association. Outside your\nregions of degradation, this has been invariably the case, and you have\nproofs of it already in the instances among you where women have taken\na hand in affairs outside the household. When, by superior intelligence\nand force of character, they have made their way to success and fame\namong the pursuits of men, they have carried with them, in every\ncase, that soft femininity of which they are naturally endowed. Your\noften expressed fears of hardening, or in some injuring them, by an\nadmission to equal rights, is not entirely sincere. To keep on good\nterms with them, and to retain their approbation, you have been led to\nconceal from them many of your doubtful business and political methods,\nand you hesitate to admit them into these fields with you, not more\nfrom the dread of their contamination, than the exposure it would\nbring about of ways, which you have heretofore so carefully concealed.\nThere is many a successful politician, or business man among you,\nwho poses before his wife and lady friends as a hero of finance, or\nstatesmanship, who could not do so, did they share with him a knowledge\nof the incidents and manipulations which brought about his success.\nDeference to women, and a regard for their esteem beyond that of men,\nis a human attribute apparent in your whole history. It has been the\ninspiration of your best poetry, and your most stirring romance. In\nyour middle ages, under what is known among you as chivalry, it has\nled you to deeds of virtue in upholding the right, far beyond the\nprevailing oppression. How much the conduct of men is modified, and\ntheir evil tendencies checked, by a regard for the good opinion of\nwomen, every man can judge by examination of himself. In how many\ndangerous moments has temptation been cast aside, by the fear of evil\nreport to some fond wife, mother, sister, daughter, or lady friends,\nwhen, to sacrifice the good opinion of men alone, would have been no\nbar?\n\nBy our greater attention to the laws of health, and our governmental\nrestriction of unhealthful marriages, which I will describe to you\nfurther on, we have developed a far greater average of physical\nperfection in women that exists with you. In connection with this\nthere are other advantages which our women enjoy beyond yours, which\ngreatly enhance their personal attractiveness and beauty. Their equal\neducational opportunities under our system, of which they are not slow\nto avail themselves, the hopefulness and lack of austerity in our\nreligion, and the interest they are led to exhibit in great affairs,\nare so marked in their demeanor and physiognomy as to render them very\ndifferent beings. As we estimate beauty, you have only a women here\nand there who compares with them. Among your mass of women, the facial\nexpression of their long subjection, and its attendant conditions are\nstrikingly observable to us. Features, no matter how perfectly lined,\nwithout the light of cultivation and knowledge, and which are destined\nto become, in conjugal association, clouded with the cares of an\noverwrought maternity, and dejected by a threatening and superstitious\nreligion, would have no charms to any member of our society. With us,\ntheir faces reflect the consciousness of absolute equality, and are\nilluminated with daily religious duties, which consist, in accordance\nwith our belief, in making the ways of life pleasant, and its paths\npeaceful, and in assisting in all things toward the improvement of\nourselves and society, in the process of which it is our religion to\nassist, and in the performance of which, they work with us as equals to\nattain.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XIII.\n\n\nYou must have suspected before this that, so far as the rapid\naccumulation of wealth is concerned, our society was in that\nstationary condition so much dreaded by your economists as the end\nof all material progress. An assumption among your thinkers that any\npermanent diminishment of the production of wealth is the forerunner\nof disaster to society, is one of those mistakes easily accounted\nfor by the surroundings of your present stage of development. Your\nexperience teaches you that where the wealth producing energies are\nin the highest stage of action, your civilization shows all its\nother forces equally advancing; and where on the other hand, capital\nand wealth are restricted, there is a state of general stagnation.\nThese opposite conditions, however, you will find to be, more than\nanything else, the result of difference in degrees of intelligence,\nknowledge, and consequently ambition. Your aims, even the higher ones,\nare so indissolubly connected with wealth as the means by which most\nof them are promoted, that your incentives to acquire riches have\nbecome a part of your intellectual constitution. Where the penalty of\na straightened financial condition is the forfeiture of everything\nwhich makes life desirable, even a denial of the opportunities of\nassociation with the better class, and a surrender of offspring to\nthe degradation and contempt which comes of limited knowledge, it may\nreasonably be expected that the struggle for wealth would be keen.\nEqually as an incentive also are the innumerable avenues of gain, which\nare everywhere open for the investment of capital, and the remarkable\nprofits which accrue to keep up the spirit of money-making adventure.\nYou will certainly agree with me that this crushing, elbowing, and\ntreading on each other\u2019s heels in the attempt to get money is not the\nbest possible form or type of society: more especially since you are\nnot all fairly and evenly equipped in this struggle, the mass of your\npeople reap no benefit from it, and its result is only to double up the\nincomes of the few.\n\nStagnation is not necessarily a condition of the stationary state, as\nmany of your writers lead you to believe. It is merely a revolution in\nthe aims of society, brought about by changes which are inevitable,\nand which your civilization is sooner or later bound to reach. Every\nnewly applied science and invention, and above all every acre of land\nbrought under cultivation, render this period so much dreaded by you\nmore remote; but you will come to it all the same. It will merely\nbe a using up of all the resources of capital to RAPIDLY multiply\nitself. During your present progressive period, so far as that term is\napplicable to the speedy gathering in of wealth, your society presents\nto us an aspect of mercenary abandonment beyond anything we have ever\nexperienced ourselves, and with a full knowledge of the end that will\ncome we look forward with a high degree of interest to that time when\nyou will arrive at the stationary condition.\n\nAs you approach that period where the diminished profits of capital\nwill discourage the great activity and aggressiveness which now\ncharacterize it, some very great changes will gradually be brought\nabout. Assuming that labor will continue to enlighten itself it will\nslowly change its relations with capital, so that in the end instead of\nbeing below, as it is now, it will be on top, as with us. Many of the\nways by which wealth now multiplies itself will be shut off, and with\nits acquirement no longer indispensable to the honors of life, and the\ndifficulties of its attainment in any large volume increased, society\nwill not be given so intensely to its individual accumulation. Your\nintellectual activities will be turned more in the direction of other\nmotives. To repair waste and provide for the necessities of the living\nwill be about all that is left to employ your industries, and there\nwill be enough for capital to do within these limits to moderately\nenlarge itself; while yet within this narrowed field, limited wealth\nwill be able to provide itself with income enough to sustain and reward\nhabits of prudential saving. Although great wealth will be exceedingly\ndifficult to obtain, a fair competency will be within the reach of\nall; since labor coming to the front, owing to the weakened powers of\nwealth, will assume its deserving place in the forces of economy and\nlegislation, and will demand and receive a fairer share of the profits\nof industry.\n\nAfter the advance of civilization and knowledge beyond a certain\nperiod, the ambitions and necessities of a people will furnish abundant\nincentives to keep society in a state of activity. The energies of\nlife are stimulated, not so much by the large occasional rewards which\ncome to a few, like prizes in a lottery, as the steady and certain\nremuneration of each day\u2019s output of action to all. The ability to\nobtain from industry a considerable margin beyond the daily expenses of\nlife is sufficient to keep alive the mental and physical energies, and\nis certain to bring about that general state of hopefulness, which more\nthan anything else promotes thrift and stimulates ambition.\n\nIt may be somewhat at variance with your views of political economy,\nto believe that any reduction of the power and value of capital will\nnot in a corresponding degree depress labor. You must bear in mind,\nhowever, that the stationary state, as exemplified by our society,\ndiffers from your progressive condition, not in the lesser abundance\nof capital, but in its better diffusion, more dependent relations,\nand smaller comparative profits. It follows from this as a matter of\ncourse, that it requires the possession of a larger amount of the\nproducts of labor to bring about that condition of life known as a\ncompetency than it does with you. But by a well determined arrangement\nin all ways in favor of those who toil, by which a fair margin is\nsecured between income and expense, the coveted independence is always\nwithin reach.\n\nUnder our system, capital becoming diffused among the masses in\ncomparatively small portions, and having no such extraordinary uses,\nnor such high rates of interest as with you, it assumes its natural\nplace as an adjunct to all the enterprises of labor. All our factories\nare consequently carried on by co-operation. No such a thing is known\non our planet as the owner of a manufacturing establishment depressing\nat his will and pleasure the pay of perhaps a whole community of\nworking people. When an establishment is required for the manufacture\nof some product in demand, our workmen undertake it as a business\nbelonging wholly to themselves, and there is never any lack of means\namong them to do it.\n\nThe utter helpless condition of your workmen, as a class, is not\nentirely owing to their enforced scant share in the profits of\nindustry. Whoever among them, by greater abstinence or otherwise,\nsucceeds in saving any considerable portion of his earnings,\nhastens either to change his situation for that of employer, where\nself-interest inclines him to favor low wages, or to seek among the\ngreater encouragements outside a change of occupation. By this process\ncapital and labor are constantly being divorced, and the ranks of your\nworkmen are left to contain only those whose necessities hold them\nthere.\n\nIn the condition of things with us, bestowing upon labor all the\nemoluments of industry, it becomes the most advantageous pursuit of\nlife. With wages at a uniform and fixed sum, from which there can be no\ndeviation except to increase, the working man proceeds to lay by his\nsurplus, until, in a reasonable time, it can be made to do service in\nadding to the fruits of his toil.\n\nIn our society there is no possibility, and no one has hopes of gaining\nmoney by chance. We hold it to be a demoralizing evil that wealth\nshould be obtained without industry. The quality of mind which you\nhonor under the name of shrewdness, and which seldom hesitates to\nprofit by the losses and even the miseries of others, would find life\na burden on account of the odium attached, in any community on our\nplanet. The privilege to build up an individual fortune, by taking\nfrom the substance of the whole people in any unlimited degree which\nan unscrupulous ingenuity can devise, is one of the peculiarities\nof your civilization. To this general license, with its very small\nlimitation, is to be ascribed most of your social miseries. The\nlessons presented to your youth at the very first glance at the\naffairs of life are calculated to impress them with the belief that\nsuccess is not so much for the strong and considerate, as it is for\nthe wary and cunning; and that the business of creating wealth is\nof the slightest importance, when compared with the many successful\narts and schemes for capturing it after its production. The example\nis witnessed everywhere among you of money-making without loss of\nhonor or respect, by the method of drawing from others, by taking\nadvantage of their necessities, excessive and unfair portions of\ntheir substance for some sort of service rendered. The consequence is\nthat life with you is constantly renewed, on the one hand, by persons\nwith more or less inherited capital, who are educated to believe that\nexistence is a game, whose winning instances are the best guides to\nfollow; and on the other by the great mass of hereditary toilers who\nsubmit themselves as victims under sheer force of necessity and usage.\nThis state of your civilization brings into play many of your lower\nfeelings, as indispensable instruments of success. When selfishness\nis the chief promoter of thrift, practical charity is only aroused by\nunusual provocation. The miseries of existence are unseen and unfelt\nby others than the sufferers themselves among you, just as your senses\nbecome oblivious to the presence of disturbing influences which you\nfind it unprofitable to suppress. The necessity for each one looking\nout for himself in your fierce battles of life makes him unmindful\nof others. Yet benevolence dwells within all your hearts as a divine\nattribute, which cannot be wholly destroyed, no matter how neglected\nits cultivation. Like the retarded germination of seed in a too deeply\nsurmounting soil, it comes to the light among you here and there, under\nfavorable conditions, with an increasing frequency which reveals your\ndestiny as unerringly as the golden horizon presages the coming of the\nsun.\n\nThe difference in the degree by which each individual holds the common\nwelfare in comparison with his own, marks the stage of progress\ntowards perfection in society. You hold within yourselves, by a\ndivine provision, the elements to this end. Your history is full\nof instances to prove that self-sacrifice is an act which inspires\na greater commendation than any other. All your normal mental\norganizations are endowed with the propensity to benefit others, which\nonly the conditions of your society circumscribe by a conflict of\ninterest. What is now in your higher faculties, during your present\ndevelopment, a pleasure, will become a passion by further progress\nand cultivation, and, by a still more extended pursuit, a necessity\nto the tranquility and enjoyment of your lives. Filial and parental\nlove from mere instincts have grown among you to be the most gratifying\nof inclinations. Sexual affinity, from its origin of brutal desire,\nhas been transformed, in your higher circles, to a pure and tender\nsentiment of disinterested regard. Not long ago your lunatics were\nchained to stakes like beasts. Your infected were left to die upon the\nroadsides. Your infirm were shut from sight, consumed with vermin among\ntheir rags. You house, clothe, and care for all these now with almost\nthe solicitude that parents bestow upon children. If you should submit\nyourselves now for a time to the presence of these old inhumanities,\nand observe their disturbing effects upon the happiness of your lives,\nit would be a fair measurement of your progress toward the stationary\nstate.\n\nSupposing yourself to be one of an audience assembled for the purpose\nof obtaining pleasure from a performance on the stage, your delight\nwould, in a large degree, depend upon the manifestations of approval\nsurrounding you. Any expression of dissatisfaction would spoil your\nenjoyment, no matter upon what it might be founded. It might arise,\nfor instance, from unfair opportunities of view, or from the usurped\nprivilege of some to obstruct the vision of others. Your inclinations,\narising from no higher motive than self interest, would lead you to\nassist in bringing about that state of general satisfaction which is\nindispensable to your own comfort and happiness. This illustrates one\nof the motives which, in our stage of development, impels us to arrange\nthat, so far possible, every individual shall enjoy equal privileges in\nsociety. Happiness is simply not possible without it.\n\nYour moralists might argue that to close and intimate a sympathy with\nthe misfortunes of others would keep us so constantly unhappy as to\nmake life unendurable. In answer to this, you have only to consider\nthat if you separate from all your ills those which either directly or\nremotely are brought upon you by your imperfect social state, there are\nbut few left besides death and its attendant sorrows. And of these few\nentirely comprised under the heads of sickness and accidents, there is\na possibility of their greater diminishment by better modes of life.\n\nThat you are slowly and gradually moving towards the stationary\ncondition, unmistakable evidence proves. Material as well as spiritual\nindications confirm this belief. You can easily observe that wealth in\nthe hands of the few is losing its opportunities for rapid increase.\nIn your oldest advanced regions it has already worked out its resources\nto the extent of endeavoring to find abroad occasions for profitable\nuse. But for the monopoly of land, which enables it to extract from\nindustry an amount for its services out of all proportion with its\nvalue elsewhere, it would have been much further advanced towards the\nstationary state.\n\nOne of the greatest obstacles opposing your approach towards the\nperfect society is your propensity to theorize and speculate upon\nmatters which it is not given you to know. We have a saying that he who\ngets his feet in the air is lost. We mean by that to convey the idea,\nthat all speculation not founded on positive knowledge is so utterly\nworthless, that any indulgence therein is useless to society. The\nopinion is unchallenged among us, that the inhabitants of the Earth are\ntoo prone to get their feet in the air. And yet the very ease by which\nthis misfortune is accomplished among you is a proof of your goodness.\nYour inclination to virtue is your weak side of approach, and all your\ninherent and intuitive charity, which might during all these centuries\nhave been exercised upon yourselves, has been to a great extent wasted\nupon your schemes of salvation, in which you have no assurance\nwhatever but the wild promises of imagination. When you come fully to\nunderstand that happiness, true prosperity, virtue, and even beauty are\nbut synonyms of truth, and that misery, crime, misfortune, and ugliness\nare but other names for falsehood, you will no longer have any dread or\nhesitation to search for that verity which destroys old beliefs, even\nthough that search melts into air your most cherished traditions. You\ncome to understand after a while that a truth can disseminate nothing\nbut good; and that a falsehood, no matter how venerable with age, nor\nhow respectable by adoption, can generate little else than evil. Your\ncreeds have attracted you and plowed deep into your affections, because\nin them is gathered from yourselves the divine sentiments of goodness,\nout of which they are all robed in a pretended monopoly. Your virtues\nare brought into service within their narrow limits, and your energies\nand substance consumed in the work of enlarging their influence, while\nthe more fruitful material for your charities lies neglected in the\nevils and miseries of your society.\n\nThe Earth is your dominion. Tread firmly upon it. Remember it has been\nput into your keeping, and that your people are entirely responsible\nfor its social condition. He who assists to improve that, serves the\nDeity better than he who spends his life in genuflections and prayers.\nWhen you look around among the wretched criminals among you, punished\nand unpunished, and the poverty-stricken, and the sad-eyed, neglected\nchildren; see the unsuppressed temptations to evil, the unrecognized\nvirtue, and the uneven opportunities for individual advancement, you\nshould bear in mind that all these are but evidences of the violation\nof the trust imposed in you by the divine intelligence. There is,\nperhaps, no spectacle upon the Earth that inspires more pity among\nthe inhabitants of Mars, than the constant waste of your best parts\nin submitting yourselves to the impositions of your seers, who lead\nyou away from your duties, under the theory that the Earth is merely\na battle ground and field of conquest for the perpetuation of their\ndoctrines, all else upon it being blank vanities. They have kept you\naway from the true business of your lives, and have mesmerized you,\nalternately terrifying and delighting you by unreal fancies; now\nexhibiting to you a paradise and at another time a nightmare. They have\ninvolved you in a perpetual shadow, discouraging you of all hopes of\nbrightness until your celestial birth. By exhibiting only your grosser\nparts, and threatening the vengeance of an austere and capricious god\nof their own imaginary creation, they both degrade you and belittle\nyour conceptions of the Deity. You could bend your faces upward with\na better sincerity, if, instead of following phantoms all these ages,\nwith your feet in the air, you could show a truer interpretation of\nthe divine purpose in establishing a happier and more perfect dwelling\ntogether.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XIV.\n\n\nI reside within a city of Mars which, in point of population and\ngrandeur, is one of the first on our planet. In accordance with our\ncustom of designating such places with names of quality, it would be\nknown in your language as the city of Good Will. As it is the type of\nall others, you are already informed of a few of its general features.\nI will, however, give you some fuller description of our society\nand surroundings, in only the hasty and imperfect manner which this\nopportunity affords.\n\nWith much the same feelings and inclinations as yours, and with that\nlove and cultivation of the beautiful which we have pursued as an\nelement of our religion, uninterrupted as with you by those delusions\nwhich destroy art, we have advanced much beyond you in that direction.\n\nIt is to be noted, as a coincidence proving the unity of all\nintelligence within the universe, that we have designed an architecture\nnot unlike that of your ancient Greece. Our isolated exteriors, such\nas villas and country residences, bear a close resemblance to some of\nyour ancient styles. In our cities we have been obliged to conform to\nthe condition of aerial navigation, which has greatly restricted our\nelevated ornamentation, and forced upon us a system of curves instead\nof angles in our projections.\n\nOne of the most notable differences between your construction and ours\nis the material and form of our roofs, which are uniformly of solid\nglass, and dome shaped. The substance is laid on in a plastic state,\nhardens in a short time, is purely transparent, and as difficult to\nfracture as stone. The upper story of every house becomes by this\nmethod the chief source of light for its interior, and by ingeniously\nformed horizontal curtains can be darkened at will. We believe this to\nbe one of the most important sanitary arrangements we possess, and to\nwhich may be chiefly ascribed the health and vigor of our bodies. In\nthese bright upper apartments we bathe ourselves in the sun, and enjoy\nthe constant bloom and fragrance of flowers.\n\nBy a natural adaption, these glass roofs have become inseparably\nconnected with our religious lives. Our interest in the wonderful\nnightly exhibitions which they permit is increased by the general\nknowledge we have cultivated of the character and motions of the\nheavenly bodies. As a consequence, there are but few among us who\ncannot describe the paths and directions of the planets; and it is\nquite safe to say that a majority of our people can compute the periods\nof opposition and conjunction between them. No other exhibition so\nfeeds and stimulates our religious impulses, as the grand display of\ndivine power in the unceasing motions of the spheres. We bring the\nspectacle within our households, and dwell with it. It is the altar\nupon which we worship the great unseen.\n\nEach block of buildings is surmounted by a single roof of the\ntransparent character I have described. In this way we have utilized\nall the space for dwelling or business purposes, and prevented those\nunsightly back yards which disfigure the cities of the Earth and lower\ntheir sanitary condition. Usually there are no partition walls except\nin the lower stories, and these lofty upper apartments, especially if\nover dwellings, have their flattened dome-shaped roofs supported by a\nseries of columns and arches artistically wrought and decorated, and\ntheir interiors adorned with growing flower and statuary, so as to\nfurnish a delightful resort, convenient to the neighborhood and open to\nall.\n\nThese extensive halls are a necessity to the social character of our\npeople. You may imagine how an intercourse based on perfect equality,\nand with the paramount idea of obtaining pleasure by bestowing it,\nwould have its enjoyments enlarged by the unrestricted and unselected\nnumbers participating. Music and dancing are delights with us beyond\nyour experience. We enjoy the advantages of atmospheric conditions\nand a degree of gravitating force which are peculiarly adapted to\nheighten these enjoyments. Our voice tones, seldom without cultivation,\nacquire an energy and brilliancy in our atmosphere unknown to you.\nA combination of trained voices with us is so vastly superior to\ninstrumental music, that the latter is not known except as a novelty.\nSince the force of gravity is less with us our bodies are much lighter\nthan yours, and our motions are consequently more airy and graceful. In\nmovements like dancing there is less muscular energy expended, and a\ngreater pleasure attained.\n\nUnder these vast transparent domes, looking out upon the universe of\nplanets and stars, we dance, and sing our hymns of praise to the Deity,\nasking for nothing, but uniting our voices in the rhythms of poetry\nand music in a thanksgiving for the pleasures of life, and for that\nguidance which has directed us clear of the deadly superstitions of our\nneighboring planet, and for that intelligence which has led us to find\nour true religious duties in exercising our better impulses within our\nown fields of action.\n\nOver our business quarters these upper stories, less ornate and well\nventilated, serve the purposes of factories and work shops, where the\nsun\u2019s rays, not so intense as with you, owing to our greater distance\nfrom it, are let in to brighten the hours of those who toil. Among\nthese locations of industry are conditions that would surprise you.\nThere is the indispensable anteroom beside the entrance of each,\nwhere, enjoying the comfortable furniture, may be found a number of\noperatives waiting for the beginning of the three-hour shift. They\nare all on terms of easy familiarity, yet among them may be found the\npresident of the grand council, who manages the affairs of the city,\nthe lecturer who presides at the temple, and other prominent worthies\nmingled with the others who have achieved no honors beyond the work\nbench. The person who is most complimented among the number is the one\nwho has just been granted an advance of one grade in the skill of his\ncalling. He has attained what would be an equivalent in your society to\nthe honors of a collegiate degree, with the very material difference\nin his favor, that for years to come, and perhaps as long as he lives,\nhis income is permanently increased by an enhanced value to his labor.\nNo competition will ever, under our system, render valueless this\nachievement of his.\n\nYour degrees of learning are but empty honors compared with this\nprofitable distinction. You insure no certain rewards for that\nacquirement of knowledge which has won its parchment of approval,\nand the holder enjoys only the slim advantage which his certificate\nsecures. His degree wins him no bread, and the honors of his career\nrest uncertain, with all his struggles ahead. Our workman, at each\nstep of his advancement, increases his income, under the assurance and\nprotection of our industrial methods, with the certainty and stability\nof a government pension.\n\nBut while we have found it wise to honor and protect manual skill, the\nphysical strength of our people has for many ages been a subject of\ngeneral attention. Among the productions of the Supreme Author which he\nis engaged in perfecting and beautifying, the first in importance on\nyour planet is surely man himself, as a being animal as well as mental.\nAs an indolent, weak and passive body is usually associated with a mind\nof the same character, it is only by the cultivation of both together\nthat society improves. You have evidences enough of the inseparable\nconnection between mental and physical energy, and yet your cultivation\nof the body has engaged but little attention. It seems to us one of the\nmost serious objections to your religious abstractions, that the spirit\nof all of them tends to deny or belittle the great service of healthy\nsinews and nerves in the progress of social improvement.\n\nYou will find intellectual stagnation everywhere upon the face of the\nEarth, where incentives to muscular action are suppressed from whatever\ncause, and you know by experience that the decay of mental vigor, by a\nrelease from the necessity of bodily exercise, has obliged the brawn\nand muscle of your age, in more than one instance, to come to the front\nin the management of affairs.\n\nCivilization, at a certain degree of its progress, is expected to\nassume duties which until then, have been faithfully performed by\nnature alone. Like a good mother she has provided, in your primitive\nstate, against the degeneration of your bodies by the operation of her\nuniversal law, the survival of the fittest. In your social betterment\nyou can reasonably be expected to provide for yourselves some\nsubstitute to maintain that standard of hardihood and strength which\nhad formerly been kept up by your primitive struggles for existence.\n\nYour knowledge of the laws of heredity has enabled you to improve\nupon the forms and qualities of all those creatures which have been\ntaken from their native wilds to serve your uses; and yet, with a\nfatal inconsistency, you consign your own bodies to a carelessness\nof procreation which totally ignores all well known methods of\nimprovement. The spectacle is common among you, of the skilled breeder\nstraining his knowledge to remedy defects of form in the lower\nanimals in his possession, while he and his progeny exhibit, in their\nown bodies, without concern or attention, the very same physical\ninfirmities which he had so successfully banished in his brutes by\nparental selection.\n\nThe neglect of your opportunities in this direction is more surprising,\nwhen it is considered how greatly you are suffering from it; for\nalthough the achievement of a more general perfection of form and\nstrength is invaluable to you, as laying the foundation of a larger\naverage of mental power and activity, yet this is not more important to\nyour society than the easy and certain eradication by judicious matings\nof the most persistent and fatal of your diseases. It is appalling to\nestimate the sum of human misery perpetually transmitted congenitally\nin diseased tissues and functional defects.\n\nThis evil, which has prevailed among you until your bodily ills are\nalmost innumerable, you have been taught to consider as an arrangement\nof the divine will, and you rest yourselves helplessly in the belief\nthat its endurance without remedy is the penalty of life; when, in\nfact, it is perpetuated chiefly by that over-powering individual\nselfishness which makes no account of the general good while gratifying\nsentiments of pleasure, or greed.\n\nI have already drawn your observation to that infallible test which\nmarks the progress of social development--the average willingness of\nattention and sacrifice of individual interests to the common welfare.\nFrom our achievements in that direction already described, you may\neasily imagine that we have not neglected the opportunity to improve\nand benefit society by the observance of some of nature\u2019s simplest and\nmost easily applied laws.\n\nWe are not embarrassed as you would be by protests of an infringement\nof personal liberty, because we have arrived beyond that stage where\nlaw and its enforcement are required. Official recommendation supported\nby a united public opinion, without any penalty for non-compliance\nexcept the general condemnation, is our only resort in directing the\nconduct of our people. Under such a system, any violation of individual\nrights is impossible. It is enough in our society to determine that a\nmeasure is for the common good, to secure its adoption without dissent.\n\nAccordingly, it comes within the province of our Government Health\nDepartment to direct, and in some degree supervise, those marital\nengagements out of which our numbers are so constantly replenished.\nThis important business is closely associated with measures designed in\nother ways to promote our health, and may be said to begin at the birth\nof every child. Each infant is carefully examined by medical experts,\nand registered. Every peculiarity or bodily defect is recorded, and\nrules of management furnished, as remedies, if found necessary.\nEvery person, young or old, is required periodically to pass a like\nexamination. The personal health register is open to all, and the\nbodily condition of every inhabitant may be in that way ascertained.\nNone fail to avail themselves of information so greatly concerning\nthemselves. Incipient diseases are in a vast number of cases remedied\nby this discovery of their unsuspected presence, and the habits of life\nare often changed in time to head off some latent malady, which in its\nearly stages, nothing but medical science could reveal.\n\nThe system establishes a public record of the physical standing,\neither in lurking disease or deformity, of every individual; and as it\nis made the duty of our health department to declare its judgment of\napproval in every marriage contract, we have no transmitted disease\nor deformities of body running through generations, and multiplying\nthe miseries of life, as you have. We have long ago stamped out by\nthis method three-fourths of the diseases which are nourished by the\nhabits of civilization. By this means we have secured a race of men\nand women so physically perfect as to cause existence to be accepted\nas a grateful patrimony. You have interrogated nature in her laws\nof development, and in her processes of modification both in forms\nand qualities of things, and with a knowledge so acquired, you have\ncultivated a world of animal and vegetable organisms to your better\nservice. We have done that, too; but we have accomplished in that line\nsomething of incomparably more importance to us, in advancing together\nby due cultivation and care our animal as well as our intellectual\nselves.\n\nYou cannot fail to discover in this, one of the effects of that\nstriking divergence between our civilization and yours, due to widely\ndifferent interpretations of the divine will. We look upon our planet\nwith all its appurtenances as a bequest which has been delivered into\nour keeping for that assistance in progression so plainly the best and\nmost exalted business of our lives, and so unmistakably pleasing to the\nSupreme Author that every degree of its accomplishment is rewarded by\nsigns of his favor. From our better demonstrated spiritual belief, we\nderive the inspiration to increase and bestow upon each other the best\nthings of life; while you, under religious promptings from the same\nhigh source, condemn yourselves to abstinence and austerity. You so\nmisconceive the true relations between spiritual and material forces,\nthat instead of regarding each as the nursery and builder-up of the\nother, you have devised a theory which brings them into antagonism as\ndiverse influences; the exercise of material concerns, as you assume,\ntending to lead you away from the divinity.\n\nThe effect of this mistaken view of life is plainly to be seen in\nyour society and surroundings. Your material progression, deprived\nof the religious impulse and enthusiasm, and depending wholly upon\nthe lower faculty of self-gain, advances by slow degrees, frequently\nretrogresses, and is not secure of a total relapse under so mercenary\na moving power. Your forward movement, instead of being compact and\nco-operative like ours, drags along fitfully and laboriously, marshaled\nalone by a struggling influence here and there, under the dead weight\nof an indifferent and self absorbed multitude, and in open conflict\nwith a host of disturbed traditions.\n\nYour doctrine of the absolute divorce of spiritual and material\ninterests, by wasting your best parts in the service of the\nworld-condemning deity of your imagination, and surrendering your\ntemporal affairs to the sole exercise of your lower sentiments and\nfeelings, has spread its dire effects, and may be traced in every phase\nof your society. Out of it comes that singular disregard for each other\nin all things except the spiritual, and that perverted estimate of\ngoodness, which has consigned your science and learning with their\ninfluences, together with your whole world of industry, to places where\nunassisted and unencouraged they must work out their own doubtfully\nadmitted and tardy rewards; while your best enthusiasm and most active\nmorality is led to waste among your many unreasoning schemes of\nsalvation.\n\nWhat but this unwarranted dissociation of spirit and matter, of the\nbody and soul, of your physical and intellectual parts, regarding one\nas the degrading yokemate of the other instead of the counterpart and\nco-worker, has taken all the heart out of your lives, hidden from you\nthe moral possibilities within your worldly reach, and reduced the only\nexistence you are so far called upon to improve into a dead and useless\nhibernation of your divinest faculties? What more readily excuses and\ndefends your indifference to the hard lines of human labor, and your\ntoleration of a system which dooms most of you to perpetual dependence,\nthan those mossgrown traditions which, from their selected quarters\namong the supernatural and unseen, are not disturbed or interested by\nyour social wrongs, and which in truth find their best patronage and\nmost profitable employment where most prevail the miseries of life?\nJust in the degree in which you are already emancipated from these\nbarren illusions, does your most humane work in social progress appear.\n\nYour inspirations of goodness come to you as they come to us, without\nthe necessity of a revelation. Their encouragement is more faithfully\nsecured by the benign influence which rewards their adoption, than\nthose written codes among you which assume, under doubtful motives,\ntheir direction and control. As surely as all the forces of nature may\nbe traced to the heat of the sun, so your impulses of virtue, your\nheroism of good deeds, and your spiritual hopes, are conveyed to you\nin a germinal state without any intercepting medium, with the first\nbreath of of your bodies; to be improved, enlarged and harvested for\nthe purposes and uses of society.\n\nYou turn over the surface of the Earth and gather its fruits, never\ndoubting the superhuman forces in conjunction which reward your labor;\nand yet your intellectual tillage is left to take its chances among\ncircumscribed opportunities which no combined effort has attempted to\nenlarge. Your progress cannot be otherwise than uncertain and your\ngovernments will always be unstable in their foundations under your\nsystem, which at its best furnishes scarcely one disciplined mind in a\nhundred, and the acquirements of that one, too, resulting only from a\nspontaneous individual impulse, with, in most cases, no higher motives\nthan self-gain and advancement.\n\nYour fields are not wanting in your attentions. You bring profit\nto yourselves by the thorough tillage of your acres. You multiply\nby your manipulation under nature\u2019s hints the life-supporting and\npleasure-giving properties of the fruits and flowers of the Earth to\nthe extremest blossoming and abundance. And yet in such a state of\ngeneral crudity is your own divine essence of reason and thought,\nthat to this day no superstition is too absurd, no sophistry too\ntransparent, and no pretended reform too ill digested to take root\nand flourish, even to the disintegration of large patches of your\nsocial life. So that while no fault can be found with your progress in\nthe handling of the material agents under your control, the opinion\nis irresistible, from our point of view, that you are assiduously\ncultivating everything but yourselves.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XV.\n\n\nWe have, like you, wealth with its self-rewarding luxuries, but its\ncharacter is very different. Its chosen pleasures and inclinations are\nunlike yours. Acquisitiveness has no such controlling motives as with\nyou. The hope of social elevation, the anxiety to place the sufferings\nof poverty beyond reach, and the love of power, are not elements in\nour desire for gain. As an inducement to the accumulation of wealth,\nall these motives are supplanted by the one overweening passion for\ndistinguishment which its possession affords, by contributing to the\nwell-being and happiness of others. The even opportunities of life, and\nthe entire absence of poverty as you have it, with its miseries, do\naway with the most fertile stimulus to individual greed among you; and\nthe strong passion to hoard, which you call avarice, becomes with us,\nfrom the singleness of its motives, one of the noblest of our religious\naspirations. Whatever luxuries wealth provides for itself are shared\nby all; and since the nature and form of our society precludes the\nnecessity of alms-giving, charity, as you understand it, is unknown.\nThe general dissemination of self-pride and independence, as much the\nresult of our religious beliefs as of our political and educational\nmethods, secures us against those evils of indiscriminate charity\nwhich are found to paralyze industry everywhere upon the Earth, in its\npresent stage of development.\n\nIn our political system we have provided so well for the even and\nsufficient reward of toil, that our animal requirements, so easily\nsupplied, are never wanting in individual cases to the extent of\nsuffering. In the extremity of invalidism or other misfortune,\nassistance comes, not in the form of charity as you know it, but as the\nanxious and sympathetic support of a family to one of its members in\ndistress. The field of benevolence in wealth is, therefore, entirely\nwithin the province of education and art; which in accordance with\nour religious aspirations and beliefs, takes the same form in their\nfurtherance of the purposes of the Deity as your devotional enterprises\nof promulgating your religious faiths.\n\nOur rich contribute largely from their substance to the purposes of\neducation, with a philanthropy that is greatly intensified by the\nreligious enthusiasm gratified by the act; but they do not build nor\ncontribute to our temples of worship as yours do, since the attendance\nupon these is unsolicited and voluntary, and a mere pleasurable\ngratification of our spiritual hopes and aspirations. Unattended by\nsaving forms and conditions, as with you, the worship within our\ntemples is not considered of consequence to our spiritual welfare.\nThese religious centers, unlike yours, assume no power to condone or\ncompromise with evil. No burdened, unclean conscience comes to them\nwith the hope of absolution, to return again laden with its misdeeds\nfor another purging. No wholesale peculator brings a portion of his\nevil gains as an atonement for the inflicted miseries of his avaricious\ncareer. There is nothing whatever within our temples or surrounding\nthem, but the peace and self conscious satisfaction of the divine\nco-operation in our efforts to cultivate ourselves, and the praise and\nglory of our own success forms the spirit of our worship.\n\nOur society being without exclusiveness, and the ostentation of riches\na thing unknown, there is no ambition to get beyond the general fare\nin dwellings. The whole city block, surmounted by its one continuous\nroof, may be either a single or a number of dwellings, to accord with\nthe incomes of its occupants. Under our land system the cost of rent\nis such a small item in the living expenses, that all are enabled to\nshare alike in their housings, and to equally enjoy the benefit of our\nwholesome sanitary provisions. No one amongst us dwells in a hovel.\nWe labor that the surroundings of all shall be uniformly pleasant\nand comfortable. With us the suspicion of unseen misery is enough to\ndisturb the pleasures of life. Besides the unpleasant suggestions of\ndiscomfit which a rough and incommodious dwelling would arouse, it\nwould be considered by us a painful violation of taste, and a sacrifice\nof the opportunities of art.\n\nConsequently within the limits of our cities you will not find any\nexternal distinction among our dwelling places, to denote the financial\nstanding of their occupants. But as a whole block becomes occasionally\noccupied by a single family, whose large fortune enables them to enjoy\nits magnificent proportions, there is not wanting within those luxuries\nof wealth urged by the prevailing tastes. The establishment becomes\nthe pride and pleasure of its locality. In conformity with all other\nof the city\u2019s blocks, it has three lofty stories. The lower one on\neach of its facades consists of a series of Corinthian columns with\nhighly wrought capitals, resting upon which, and forming the second\nstory elevation, are a line of arches, supporting the flush outer walls\nof the story above. This story, which is abundantly lighted by its\ntransparent roof, has its exterior surface decorated in bas relief with\narchitraves and cornices designed in our elaborate styles. Every block\nhas an arched and vestibuled main entrance at each of its four corners,\nover which there rises a tower containing a powerful electric light,\nilluminating at night the interior as well as the surrounding streets.\nAs our thoroughfares which radiate from the city\u2019s center are straight,\nand better adapted for business and the industries, they are devoted to\nthese purposes. Consequently, on the circular or concentric streets are\nlocated most of our dwellings; the choicest of which, as to location,\nare those fronting the parks, which, as I have already given you to\nunderstand, circumscribe at intervals every neighborhood of the city.\nIt is, then, in these convex or concave fronts, standing on opposite\nlines of the park belt, that the abodes of wealth are mostly to be\nfound.\n\nYou would discover the whole of one of these buildings, except its\nmiddle story, devoted to the use of the public, and containing on its\nfirst floor a number of class rooms assigned to a system of teaching\nto which your kindergartens bear some similarity, and a few others in\nwhich the scholars have advanced to a higher grade. The character of\nthe instruction would be indicated by the appliances and implements\nof industry everywhere to be seen, the busy use of them at intervals\nby the classes, and the pride and emulation of the scholars, in their\nstruggling efforts toward skill in their handling. In another room you\nwould find a smaller class, the special proteges of the owner, composed\nof a few, who, by the early manifestations of an unusual promise, were\nbeing assisted in their pursuance of some branch of science or art.\n\nOutside of this department of instruction you would find an extensive\nlibrary, with its reading room attachments ingeniously arranged for\nconvenience, and a large apartment, usually in the center of the\nbuilding, well lighted from the roof, in which was collected the art\ntreasures, and upon which was lavished by its owner that fondness for\nthe beautiful which becomes him as a member of our society.\n\nThe upper story is a public assembly chamber for occasions of rejoicing\nand pleasure, and is adorned with statuary, fountains, and blooming\nplants. This grand apartment is so tempered in warmth by the cheap\nappliances of our municipality, that it becomes a winter garden during\nour long, inclement seasons, when the parks are sere and icy.\n\nOne of these establishments would suggest to your view an exaggerated\nestimate of its founder\u2019s wealth. In most cases his income extends but\nlittle beyond the support of this enterprise. In his dream of wealth he\nhas achieved the hope of his ambition, and he stops there.\n\nYour passion of hoarding beyond a competency, without purpose except\nthe lust for hoarding, is the offshoot of that instinct in the\ncarnivorous brute, which impels him to refuse to his hungry fellows any\nportion of his captured carcass, one-tenth of which he cannot consume.\nThis low and brute-born heritage of greed only fails of a better\nsuppression in your society, because you have neglected to entirely\nremedy, by your political methods, the generally precarious way in\nwhich your animal and intellectual wants are supplied. Suffering now\nfollows just as close to a miss in your struggles for sustenance, as it\ndid when your skin-clad hunters failed of their game.\n\nYour passion to get and hold is intensified and brutalized in\nits lack of regard for the consequences to others, by the large\nnumber of artificial necessities only attainable in your society\nby a considerable accumulation of money, the want of which implies\ndegradation, and a sacrifice of many things that have grown to be dear\nto life. Every addition to the savings removes to a greater distance\nthat dreaded condition of your civilization, known as poverty. The\ninsatiable character of the hoarding is not unlike the motive of\novercaution in a wanderer, who, terrorized by the appearance of a\ndreaded animal in his path, increases his distance by flight far beyond\nall possible approach of the dangerous presence.\n\nYour breathless pursuit of wealth, beyond all reasonable limit of\nobtaining the objects of desire, is induced also by the remarkable\nopportunities its possession affords to appropriate the earnings of\nindustry. The capacity of your wealth to absorb and control the fruits\nof toil exists in a geometrical ratio of increase with the greater\nwealth employed, and the taste of power once felt is seldom appeased,\nbut increases with every money addition. Under your favorable laws, it\nmay extend to the privilege of a single individual exacting the whole\nsurplus earnings of an army of busy workers.\n\nThrough centuries of legislation and usuage you have established\nvarious processes, by which wealth is enabled to extract an undue\nportion of the earnings of industry. Among these processes may be named\nrates of interest on money graded to the necessities of borrowers,\nrents gauged by the ability of tenants to pay, monopoly supplies with\nprices fixed just below the point of compelled abstinence, variations\nin the value of mediums of exchange, with other unsuppressed agencies\npromoting frequent change of values for the opportunities of capital\nand the distress of labor; stupendous aggregations of wealth reversing\nthe laws of economy by advancing the price of necessities on the\none hand and depressing the wages of labor on the other; and more\nsuccessful than all, a system of land proprietorship which permits\nholders of the Earth\u2019s surface, in addition to their privilege of\nexacting a large portion of the profits of industry in rent, a further\nright to pocket, in the form of appreciated values of their land,\nan unearned share of the collective fruits of the industries which\nsurround them.\n\nOur divergent views of existence are exemplified in the care we have\ntaken to provide for an evener division of the products of industry.\nWith us, property is the means, and not the end, beyond which there\nare any number of attainments in life incomparably more desirable\nand beneficial to society, and our legislation has been directed\nchiefly to the care and cultivation of these. The great aim of our\ngovernment has been to provide for the well-being of persons, while it\nmay be said of yours that the most attention has been devoted to the\nwelfare of property; by which is meant its protection and increase,\nregardless of the manner of its distribution, or the doubtful methods\nof its extraction from the energies of labor. In the pursuit of this\npolicy you are only perpetuating, without much change, your primitive\nconditions, when the strong arm gathered the most of the wealth.\nYour early born instincts do not seem sufficiently evolutionized to\nco-operate in any undertaking which denies opportunities of the strong\nover the weak; and the unhappy consequence is a society so mercenary\nthat the general estimate among you is not from any quality which\nindicates a nearness to the Deity, but principally from the cool\nnumerical calculations of property attachments.\n\nThe unity of our spiritual and temporal interests makes it necessary\nthat every government act shall be a religious one. The spirit of\nkindness, and charity to all which is the only deserving part of your\nreligions, we have taken as the foundation of all our public acts, and\nhave made it the cornerstone of government itself. Our legislation,\nif the mere assent to measures recommended can be called by that\nname, considers first the welfare of persons comprising the whole,\nsubservient to which every possible interest must take its place. And\nthe welfare of persons, in our politico-religious point of view, is\ndependent upon the proper and equitable rewards of industry; their\nequal opportunities of acquiring knowledge; an encouragement of their\nmorality by a recognition of their virtues, making it the necessary\nstepping-stone to their advancement; and the sweeping away of every\nsocial form which establishes a sense of inferiority, destroys the\npride of self, and institutes that feeling of degradation which is the\nmost prolific source of evil in society.\n\nIt is easy to note your tendency in these directions. The barbaric\ninstitution of force and its concomitant of fear, as agencies in the\nmanagement and control of men, is gradually being eliminated from\nall your progressive governments, and the better methods of assent\nand co-operation are getting in their salutary work of emancipation.\nKnowledge is spreading itself among you--no longer a dessert\nonly upon a few favored tables, but a chief dish under the newly\nacquired appetites of the many. The glamour of your wealth and the\nimpressiveness of your religion are losing their reverential respect,\nwith the focused light directed upon their doubtful origins. You\nhave inaugurated the beginning of a new faith, with better spiritual\nfoundations, not condemning the world and its society, but loving it,\nfollowing in the footsteps of the divine presence within its limits,\ntaking a hand in its affairs, and directing them towards the better\npossibilities in view.\n\nAh, my brother, the coming of your Messiah was both more and less\nthan you have imagined. The era of new and better things in social\ndevelopment is preceded by the gradual decay of old convictions, which\nhave served their time and are no longer useful, except in their place\nwithin the catalogue of traditions to mark the progress of thought.\n\nSociety assumes its beliefs under an impulse of progression, as much\ncontrolled by evolutionary laws as the organic substances of the Earth.\nNo one can teach the world. With a free exercise of its intellectual\nfaculty, it teaches itself. The power of an idea, among the moral\nforces, is in its corresponding with a proper stage of development to\nreceive it. A solitary thought is useless, as a moral agent, without\nits already existing half-formed figments scattered about in society.\nIts power to move lies in the coalescence of its parts. Ideas and\nbeliefs have been adopted at different stages of your civilization,\nand have served as great motors to progress, which, ages before, were\nenunciated without impression. Society rids itself of its rudimentary\nimpressions and beliefs, in much the same manner that an animal, under\nchanging environments, sheds its old organs and develops new ones.\nEvery new belief affecting society is subservient to it, and is only\nadopted slowly and by degrees. If it be a truth making its way, its\nfinal installation is marked by an unquestioned acquiescence and an\nundisturbed tranquility. If an error, agitation and unrest mark the\nwhole period of its accession.\n\nThe coming of your Messiah was more than you have supposed, because\ngrander and more imposing than its assumed supernaturalisms was\nits enthronement of two central ideas. One was the adoption of the\nsentiment of brotherhood as a means of adjusting the relations of men\nwith each other, and the other was the inauguration of spiritual hope\nas a guide in the actions of life. Out of this beginning has come all\nthat is good in your social progress. The general acceptance of these\nideas, as agencies in your civilization, began its work by weakening\nthe old society, and it finally destroyed it by extinguishing the bands\nof physical force which held it together. The cultivation of these\ninspirational beliefs in their purity, as they were bestowed upon you\nby the divine intelligence, would have soon brought to you the same\npeace and good will that they have shed upon the inhabitants of Mars;\nbut you were not to be indulged so soon in this happy offering. The\nfew who had been dominating the many for ages, appropriating their\nearnings, and even sacrificing their lives, in a lust for power and\nwealth, were not to let escape them so fine an opportunity to hold the\nsimple-minded by a new agency, ten-fold more subjugating than the old\nmethod of coercion by force. The religious superstition of the age, a\nmere diversion for the untaught multitude, inert and unpromising, was\nvitalized by the infusion of these new, humane and spiritual impulses;\nand, with many added ingeniously contrived supernaturalisms, and an\nattractive moral code, it was built up into a system and organized\ninto a society which has borne its heavy weight upon your progress,\nand spread its dominion more successfully than the war-like legions\nit supplanted. It has accomplished no good which is not entirely due\nto the irresistible expansion of the truths it appropriated at its\ninception out of nature\u2019s evolutionary process of social development,\nviz., the regard for one another, as a guide in all the actions of\nlife, and that hope eternal which spiritualizes and elevates our\nexistence.\n\nThe coming of your Messiah was less than you have believed, because\nyou have mistaken a personality, in which the genius of advanced and\nsalutary doctrines manifested itself, for a part and presence of the\nDeity himself. As the promulgation of thoughts that were conceived\nunder the inspiration and pressure of a natural force in the process\nof social development is less than the awful presence and verbal\ncommunication of the Deity, so, in the same degree, was the coming of\nyour Messiah less.\n\nBut you will have a second coming, my brother, unperverted by the\ncraft of your seers, and uncontaminated with the superstitions of a\ncrude society like the first. It will be of you and a part of you,\nraising you up to a higher esteem of yourselves, glorifying you as\nthe progenitors of all good, under a divine and irresistible law\nof betterment. It will relieve you of the evil thoughts that have\ncondemned and degraded you. The new hope, like a newly discovered\nstrength, will push out in all directions, in the exercise of its\nsalutary work. Instead of discourse and exhortation to the lowly and\ndown trodden, with promises as impossible of denial as of verification,\nit will lift them upon their feet by the strong hand of a better social\nmethod. Like the first coming, its symbolic picture will be carved into\nmonuments, reproduced in all the departments of art, and cherished as\nthe chief reminder of your duties and obligations to the Deity. It will\nbe no symbol of anguish and sorrow, like the first, but in place of it\nTHE DIVINE FIGURE OF A STRONG MAN SUPPORTING AND ENCOURAGING A WEAK\nONE. Yes, my brother, you will have a s-e-c-o-n-d c-o-m--\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nWhat is all this? I raise myself upon my couch The sun is an hour\nup. Through my window I see an enquiring group, marvelling at my\ntardiness. My cows linger for their milking, and utter their complaints\nin a gentle lowing. My pet deer stand with their large wondering eyes\nfixed upon me, and the appearance of my face at the pane has drawn\ntoward me my whole restless and scrabbling flock of poultry, impatient\nfor their morning feed. I look toward the easy chair and it is empty.\nMy celestial visitor has departed.\n\n\n\n\nFOOTNOTE:\n\n[A] Draper\u2019s Intellectual Development of Europe.\n\n\n\n\nTRANSCRIBER\u2019S NOTES:\n\n\n  Obvious typographical errors have been corrected.\n\n  Inconsistencies in hyphenation have been standardized.\n\n  Archaic spelling which may have been in use at the time of\n    publication has been retained.","title":"The Man from Mars: His Morals, Politics and Religion","tradition":"philosophy-ethics","translated_text":null,"word_count":56396}