Across the Zodiac

  CHAPTER V - LANGUAGE, LAWS, AND LIFE.

  Though treated with the greatest kindness and courtesy, I soon foundreason to understand that I was, at least for the present, a prisoner.My host or his son never failed to invite me each day to spend sometime in the outer enclosure, but never intentionally left me alonethere. On one occasion, when Kevima had been called away and Iventured to walk down towards the gate, my host's youngest child, whohad been playing on the roof, ran after me, and reaching me just as myfoot was set on the spring that opened the gate or outer door, caughtme by the hand, and looking up into my face, expressed by glance andgesture a negative so unmistakable that I thought it expedient at onceto comply and return to the house. There my time was occupied, for asgreat a part of each day as I could give to such a task withoutextreme fatigue, in mastering the language of the country. This was amuch simpler task than might have been supposed. I soon found that,unlike any Terrestrial tongue, the language of this people had notgrown but been made--constructed deliberately on set principles, witha view to the greatest possible simplicity and the least possibletaxation of the memory. There were no exceptions or irregularities,and few unnecessary distinctions; while words were so connected andrelated that the mastery of a few simple grammatical forms and of acertain number of roots enabled me to guess at, and by and by to feeltolerably sure of, the meaning of a new word. The verb has six tenses,formed by the addition of a consonant to the root, and six persons,plural and singular, masculine and feminine.

  Singular. | Masc. | Fem. || Plural. | Masc. | Fem. --------------|-------|------||----------|-------|-------- I am | ava | ava || We are | avau | avaa Thou art | avo | avoo || You are | avou | avu He or she is | avy | ave || They are | avoi | avee --------------|-------|------||----------|-------|--------

  The terminations are the three pronouns, feminine and masculine,singular and plural, each represented by one of twelve vowelcharacters, and declined like nouns. When a nominative immediatelyfollows the verb, the pronominal suffix is generally dropped, unlessrequired by euphony. Thus, "a man strikes" is _dak klaftas_, but inthe past tense, _dakny klaftas_, the verb without the suffix beingunpronounceable. The past tense is formed by the insertion of _n_(_avna_: "I have been"), the future by _m_: _avma_. The imperative,_avsa_; which in the first person is used to convey determination orresolve; _avsa_, spoken in a peremptory tone, meaning "I _will_ be,"while _avso_, according to the intonation, means "be" or "thou shaltbe;" i.e., shalt whether or no. _R_ forms the conditional, _avra_, and_ren_ the conditional past, _avrena_, "I should have been." The needfor a passive voice is avoided by the simple method of putting thepronoun in the accusative; thus, _daca_ signifies "I strike," _dacal_(me strike) "I am struck." The infinitive is _avi; avyta_, "being;"_avnyta_, "having been;" _avmyta_, "about to be." These are declinedlike nouns, of which latter there are six forms, the masculine in _a,o, and y,_ the feminine in _a, oo, and e;_ the plurals being formedexactly as in the pronominal suffixes of the verb. The root-word,without inflexion, alone is used where the name is employed in noconnection with a verb, where in every terrestrial language thenominative would be employed. Thus, my guide had named thesquirrel-monkeys _ambau_ (sing. _amba_); but the word is declined asfollows:--

  _Singular._ _Plural._

  _Nominative_ ambas ambaus

  _Accusative_ ambal ambaul

  _Dative, to_ or _in_ amban ambaun

  _Ablative, by_ or _from_ ambam ambaum

  The five other forms are declined in the same manner, the vowel of thelast syllable only differing. Adjectives are declined like nouns, buthave no comparative or superlative degree; the former being expressedby prefixing the intensitive syllable _ca_, the latter, when used(which is but seldom) by the prefix _ela_, signifying _the_ in anemphatic sense, as his Grace of Wellington is in England called _The_Duke _par excellence_. Prepositions and adverbs end in _t_ or _d_.

  Each form of the noun has, as a rule, its special relation to the verbof the same root: thus from dac, "strike," are derived _daca_,"weapon" or "hammer;", _daco_, a "stroke" or "striking" [as given]both masculine; _daca_, "anvil;" _dacoo_, "blow" or "beating" [asreceived]; and _dake_, "a thing beaten," feminine. The sixth form,_daky_, masculine, has in this case no proper signification, and notbeing wanted, is not used. Individual letters or syllables are largelyemployed in combination to give new and even contradictory meanings toa root. Thus _n_, like the Latin _in_, signifies "penetration,""motion towards," or simply "remaining in a place," or, again,"permanence." _M_, like the Latin _ab_ or _ex_, indicates "motionfrom." _R_ expresses "uncertainty" or "incompleteness," and isemployed to convert a statement into a question, or a relative pronouninto one of inquiry. _G_, like the Greek _a_ or _anti_, generallysignifies "opposition" or "negation;" _ca_ is, as aforesaid,intensitive, and is employed, for example, to convert _afi_, "tobreathe," into _cafi_, "to speak." _Cr_ is by itself an interjectionof abhorrence or disgust; in composition it indicates detestation ordestruction: thus, _craky_ signifies "hatred;" _cravi_, "thedestruction of life" or "to kill." _L_ for the most part indicatespassivity, but with different effect according to its place in theword. Thus _mepi_ signifies "to rule;" _mepil_, "to be ruled;"_melpi_, "to control one's self;" _lempi_, "to obey." Thesignification of roots themselves is modified by a modification of theprincipal vowel or consonant, _i.e._, by exchanging the original forone closely related. Thus _avi_, "exist;" _avi_, "be," in the positivesense of being this or that; _afi_, "live;" _afi_, "breathe." _Z_ is adiminutive; _zin_, "with," often abbreviated to _zn_, "combination,""union." Thus _znaftau_ means "those who were brought into lifetogether," or "brethren."

  I may add, before I quit this subject, that the Martial system ofarithmetic differs from ours principally in the use of a duodecimalinstead of a decimal basis. Figures are written on a surface dividedinto minute squares, and the value of a figure, whether it signify somany units, dozens, twelve dozens, and so forth, depends upon thesquare in which it is placed. The central square of a line representsthe unit's place, and is marked by a line drawn above it. Thus afigure answering to our I, if placed in the fourth square to the left,represents 1728. In the third place to the right, counting the unitsquare in both cases, it signifies 1/144, and so forth.

  In less than a fortnight I had obtained a general idea of thelanguage, and was able to read easily the graven representations ofspoken sound which I have described; and by the end of a month (to usea word which had no meaning here) I could speak intelligibly if notfreely. Only in a language so simple could my own anxiety to overcomeas soon as possible a fatal obstacle to all investigation of this newworld, and the diligent and patient assistance given by my host or hisson for a great part of every day, have enabled me to make such rapidprogress. I had noted even, during the short evening gatherings whenthe whole family was assembled, the extreme taciturnity of both sexes;and by the time I could make myself understood, I was not surprised tolearn that the Martials have scarcely the idea of what we mean byconversation, not talking for the sake of talking, or speaking unlessthey have something to discuss, explain, or communicate. I found,again, that a new and much more difficult task, though fortunately onenot so indispensable, was still in store for me. The Martials have twoforms of writing: the one I have described, which is simply amechanical rendering of spoken words into artificially simplifiedvisible signs; the other, written by hand, with a fine pencil of somechemical material on a prepared surface, textile or metallic. Thecharacters of the latter are, like ours wholly arbitrary; but thecontractions and abbreviations are so numerous that the mastery of themere alphabet, the forty or fifty single letters employed, is but asingle step in the first stage of the hard task of learning to read.In no country on Earth, except China, is this task half so severe asin Mars. On the other hand, when it is once mastered, a far superiorinstrument has been gained; the Martial writing being a most terse butperfectly legible shorthand. E
very Martial can write at least asquickly as he can speak, and can read the written character morerapidly than the quickest eye can peruse the best Terrestrial print.Copies, whether of the phonographic or stylographic writing, aremultiplied with extreme facility and perfection. The original, onceinscribed in either manner upon the above-mentioned _tafroo_ orgold-leaf, is placed upon a sheet of a species of linen, smoother thanpaper, called _difra_. A current of electricity sent through theformer reproduces the writing exactly upon the latter, which has beenpreviously steeped in some chemical composition; the effect apparentlydepending on the passage of the electricity through the untouchedmetal, and its absolute interception by the ink, if I may so call it,of the writing, which bites deeply into the leaf. This process can berepeated almost _ad libitum_; and it is equally easy to take at anytime a fresh copy upon _tafroo_, which serves again for thereproduction of any number of _difra_ copies. The book, for theconvenience of this mode of reproduction, consists of a single sheet,generally from four to eight inches in breadth and of any lengthrequired. The writing intended to be thus copied is always minute, andis read for the most part through magnifying spectacles. A roller isattached to each end of the sheet, and when not in use the latter iswound round that attached to the conclusion. When required forreading, both rollers are fixed in a stand, and slowly moved byclockwork, which spreads before the eyes of the reader a length ofabout four inches at once. The motion is slackened or quickened at thereader's pleasure, and can be stopped altogether, by touching aspring. Another means of reproducing, not merely writings or drawings,but natural objects, consists in a simple adaptation of the _cameraobscura_. [The only essential difference from our photographs beingthat the Martial art reproduces colour as well as outline, I omit thisdescription.]

  While I was practising myself in the Martial language my host turnedour experimental conversations chiefly, if not exclusively, uponTerrestrial subjects; endeavouring to learn all that I could convey tohim of the physical peculiarities of the Earth, of geology, geography,vegetation, animal life in all its forms, human existence, laws,manners, social and domestic order. Afterwards, when, at the end ofsome fifty days, he found that we could converse, if not with ease yetwithout fear of serious misapprehension, he took an early opportunityof explaining to me the causes and circumstances of my unfriendlyreception among his people.

  "Your size and form," he said, "startled and surprised them. I gatherfrom what you have told me that on Earth there are many nations veryimperfectly known to one another, with different dress, language, andmanners. This planet is now inhabited by a single race, all speakingthe same tongue, using much the same customs, and differing from oneanother in form and size much less widely than (I understand) do menupon your Earth. There you might have been taken for a visitor fromsome strange and unexplored country. Here it was clear that you werenot one of our race, and yet it was inconceivable what else you couldbe. We have no giants; the tallest skeleton preserved in our museumsis scarcely a hand's breadth taller than myself, and does not, ofcourse, approach to your stature. Then, as you have pointed out, yourlimbs are longer and your chest smaller in proportion to the rest ofthe body; probably because, as you seem to say, your atmosphere isdenser than ours, and we require ampler lungs to inhale the quantityof air necessary at each breath for the oxidation of the blood. Thenyou were not dumb, and yet affected not to understand our language andto speak a different one. No such creature could have existed in thisplanet without having been seen, described, and canvassed. You didnot, therefore, belong to us. The story you told by signs was quicklyapprehended, and as quickly rejected as an audacious impossibility. Itwas an insult to the intelligence of your hearers, and a sufficientground for suspecting a being of such size and physical strength ofsome evil or dangerous design. The mob who first attacked you wereprobably only perplexed and irritated; those who subsequentlyinterfered may have been animated also by scientific curiosity. Youwould have been well worth anatomisation and chemical analysis. Yourmail-shirt protected you from the shock of the dragon, which was meantto paralyse and place you at the mercy of your assailants; the metaldistributing the current, and the silken lining resisting its passage.Still, at the moment when I interposed, you would certainly have beendestroyed but for your manoeuvre of laying hold of two of yourimmediate escort. Our destructive weapons are far superior to any youpossess or have described. That levelled at you by my neighbour wouldhave sent to ten times your distance a small ball, which, bursting,would have asphyxiated every living thing for several yards around.But our laws regarding the use of such weapons are very stringent, andyour enemy dared not imperil the lives of those you held. Those lawswould not, he evidently thought, apply to yourself, who, as he wouldhave affirmed, could not be regarded as a man and an object of legalprotection."

  He explained the motives and conduct of his countrymen with suchperfect coolness, such absence of surprise or indignation, that I feltslightly nettled, and answered sarcastically, "If the slaughter ofstrangers whose account of themselves appears improbable be socompletely a matter of course among you, I am at a loss to understandyour own interference, and the treatment I have received from yourselfand your family, so utterly opposite in spirit as well as in form tothat I met from everybody else."

  "I do not," he answered, "always act from the motives in vogue amongmy fellow-creatures of this planet; but why and how I differ from themit might not be well to explain. It is for the moment of moreconsequence to tell you why you have been kept in some sense aprisoner here. My neighbours, independently of general laws, are forcertain reasons afraid to do me serious wrong. While in my company orin my dwelling they could hardly attempt your life without endangeringmine or those of my family. If you were seen alone outside mypremises, another attempt, whether by the asphyxiator or by adestructive animal, would probably be made, and might this time provesuccessful. Till, therefore, the question of your humanity and rightto the protection of our law is decided by those to whom it has beensubmitted, I will beg you not to venture alone beyond the bounds thatafford you security; and to believe that in this request, as indetaining you perforce heretofore, I am acting simply for your ownwelfare, and not," he added, smiling, "with a view to secure the firstopportunity of putting your relation to our race to the tests of thedissecting table and the laboratory."

  "But my story explained everything that seemed inexplicable; why wasit not believed? It was assumed that I could not belong to Mars; yet Iwas a living creature in the flesh, and must therefore have come fromsome other planet, as I could hardly be supposed to be an inhabitantof space."

  "We don't reason on impossibilities," replied my friend. "We have amaxim that it is more probable that any number of witnesses shouldlie, that the senses of any number of persons should be deluded, thanthat a miracle should be true; and by a miracle we mean aninterruption or violation of the known laws of nature."

  "One eminent terrestrial sceptic," I rejoined, "has said the samething, and masters of the science of probabilities have supported hisassertion. But a miracle should be a violation not merely of the knownbut of all the laws of nature, and until you know all those laws, howcan you tell what is a miracle? The lifting of iron by a magnet--Isuppose you have iron and loadstones here as we have on Earth--was, tothe first man who witnessed it, just as complete a violation of thelaw of gravity as now appears my voyage through space, accomplished bya force bearing some relation to that which acts through the magnet."

  "Our philosophers," he answered, "are probably satisfied that theyknow nearly all that is to be known of natural laws and forces; and todelusion or illusion human sense is undeniably liable."

  "If," I said, "you cannot trust your senses, you may as welldisbelieve in your own existence and in everything around you, for youknow nothing save through those senses which are liable to illusion.But we know practically that there are limits to illusion. At anyrate, your maxim leads directly and practically to the inference that,since I do not belong to Mars and cannot have come from any otherworld, I am not
here, and in fact do not exist. Surely it was somewhatillogical to shoot an illusion and intend to dissect a spectre! Is nota fact the complete and unanswerable refutation of its impossibility?"

  "A good many facts to which I could testify," he replied, "are in thisworld confessed impossibilities, and if my neighbours witnessed themthey would pronounce them to be either impostures or illusions."

  "Then," said I, somewhat indignantly, "they must prefer inferencesfrom facts to facts themselves, and the deductions of logic to theevidence of their senses. Yet, if that evidence be wanting incertainty, then, since no chain can be stronger than its weakestpoint, inferences are doubly uncertain; first, because they are drawnfrom facts reported by sense, and, secondly, because a flaw in thelogic is always possible."

  "Do not repeat that out of doors," he answered, smiling. "It is notpermitted here to doubt the infallibility of science; and any one whoventures to affirm persistently a story which science pronouncesimpossible (like your voyage through space), if he do not fall at oncea victim to popular piety, would be consigned to the worse than livingdeath of life-long confinement in a lunatic hospital."

  "In that case I fear very much that I have little chance of being putunder the protection of your laws, since, whatever may be theimpression of those who have seen me, every one else must inevitablypronounce me non-existent; and a nonentity can hardly be the subjectof legal wrong or have a right to legal redress."

  "Nor," he replied, "can there be any need or any right to annihilatethat which does not exist. This alternative may occupy our Courts ofJustice, for aught I know, longer than you or I can hope to live. WhatI have asked is that, till these have decided between twocontradictory absurdities, you shall be provisionally and withoutprejudice considered as a human reality and an object of legalprotection."

  "And who," I asked, "has authority _ad interim_ to decide this point?"

  "It was submitted," he answered, "in the first place, to the Astynta(captain, president) who governs this district; but, as I expected, hedeclined to pronounce upon it, and referred it to the Mepta (governor)of the province. Half-an-hour's argument so bewildered the latter thathe sent the question immediately to the Zampta (Regent) of thisdominion, and he, after hearing by telegraph the opening of the case,at once pronounced that, as affecting the entire planet, it must bedecided by the Campta or Suzerain. Now this gentleman is impatient ofthe dogmatism of the philosophers, who have tried recently to imposeupon him one or two new theoretical rules which would limit the amountof what he calls free will that he practically enjoys; and as thephilosophers are all against you, and as, moreover, he has a strongthough secret hankering after curious phenomena--it would not do tosay, after impossibilities--I do not think he will allow you to bedestroyed, at least till he has seen you."

  "Is it possible," I said, "that even your monarch cherishes a beliefin the incredible or logically impossible, and yet escapes the lunaticasylum with which you threaten me?"

  "I should not escape grave consequences were I to attribute to him aheresy so detestable," said my host. "Even the Campta would not berash enough to let it be said that he doubts the infallibility ofscience, or of public opinion as its exponent. But as it is the worstof offences to suggest the existence of that which is pronouncedimpossible or unscientific, the supreme authority can always, invirtue of the enormity of the guilt, insist on undertaking himself theexecutive investigation of all such cases; and generally contrives tohave the impossibility, if a tangible one, brought into the presenceeither as evidence or as accomplice."

  "Well," I rejoined, after a few minutes' reflection, "I don't knowthat I have much right to complain of ideas which, after all, are butthe logical development of those which, are finding constantly moreand more favour among our most enlightened nations. I can quitebelieve, from what I have seen of our leading scientists, that inanother century it may be dangerous in my own country for mydescendants to profess that belief in a Creator and a future lifewhich I am superstitious enough to prefer to all the revelations ofall the material sciences."

  "As you value your life and freedom," he replied, "don't speak of sucha belief here, save to the members of my own family, and to those withwhom I may tell you you are safe. Such ideas were held here, almost asgenerally as you say they now are on Earth, some twelve thousand yearsago, and twenty thousand years ago their profession was compulsory.But for the last hundred centuries it has been settled that they areutterly fatal to the progress of the race, to enlightenment, tomorality, and to the practical devotion of our energies to thebusiness of life; and they are not merely disavowed and denounced, buthated with an earnestness proportioned to the scientific enthusiasm ofclasses and individuals."

  "But," said I, "if so long, so severely, and so universallydiscountenanced, how can their expression by one man here or there beconsidered perilous?"

  "Our philosophers say," he replied, "that the attractiveness of theseideas to certain minds is such that no reasoning, no demonstration oftheir absurdity, will prevent their exercising a mischievous influenceupon weak, and especially upon feminine natures; and perhaps thesuspicion that they are still held in secret may contribute to keepalive the bitterness with which they are repudiated and repressed. Butif they are so held, if there be any who believe that the order of theuniverse was at first established, and that its active forces arestill sustained and governed, by a conscious Intelligence--if there bethose who think that they have proof positive of the continuedexistence of human beings after death--their secret has been wellkept. For very many centuries have elapsed since the last victim ofsuch delusions, as they were solemnly pronounced by public vote in thereign of the four-hundredth predecessor of the present Campta, wassent as incurable to the dangerous ward of our strictest hospital forthe insane."

  A tone of irony, and at the same time an air of guarded reserve,seemed to pervade all my host's remarks on this subject, and Iperceived that for some reason it was so unpleasant to him thatcourtesy obliged me to drop it. I put, therefore, to turn theconversation, some questions as to the political organisation of whichhis words had afforded me a glimpse; and in reply he undertook to giveme a summary of the political history of his planet during the lastfew hundred generations.

  "If," he said, "in giving you this sketch of the process by which ourpresent social order has been established, I should mention a class orparty who have stood at certain times distinctly apart from or inopposition to the majority, I must, in the first place, beg you to askno questions about them, and in the next not to repeat incautiouslythe little I may tell you, or to show, by asking questions of others,what you have heard from me."

  I gave my promise frankly, of course, and he then gave me thefollowing sketch of Martial history:--

  We date events from the union of all races and nations in a singleState, a union which was formally established 13,218 years ago. Atthat time the large majority of the inhabitants of this planetpossessed no other property than their houses, clothes, and tools,their furniture, and a few other trifles. The land was owned by fewerthan 400,000 proprietors. Those who possessed movable wealth may havenumbered thrice as many. Political and social power was in the handsof the owners of property, and of those, generally connected with themby birth or marriage, who were at any rate not dependent on manuallabour for their bread. But among these there were divisions andfactions on various questions more or less trivial, none of themapproaching in importance or interest to the fundamental andirreconcilable conflict sure one day to arise between those who hadaccumulated wealth and those who had not. To gain their ends in one oranother of these frivolous quarrels, each party in turn admitted topolitical influence section after section of what you call theproletariat; till in the year 3278 universal suffrage was granted,every man and woman over the age of twelve years [6] being entitled toa single and equal vote.

  About the same time the change in opinion of which I have spoken hadtaken general effect, and the vast majority of the men, at any rate,had ceased to believe in a future life wh
erein the inequalities andiniquities of this might be redressed. It followed that they werefiercely impatient of hardships and suffering, especially such as theythought might be redressed by political and social changes. Theleaders of the multitude, for the most part men belonging to thepropertied classes who had either wasted their wealth or neverpossessed any, demanded the abolition of private ownership, first ofland, then of movable wealth; a demand which fiercely excited thepassions of those who possessed neither, and as bitterly provoked theanger and alarm of those who did. The struggle raged for somegenerations and ended by an appeal to the sword; in which, since theforce of the State was by law in the hands of the majority, theintelligent, thrifty, careful owners of property with their adherentswere signally defeated. Universal communism was established in 3412,none being permitted to own, or even to claim, the exclusive use ofany portion of the planet's surface, or of any other property exceptthe share of food and clothing allotted to him. One only privilege wasallowed to certain sectaries who still clung to the habits of thepast, to the permanence and privacy of family life. They werepermitted to have houses or portions of houses to themselves, and tolive there on the share of the public produce allotted to the severalmembers of each household. It had been assumed as matter of course bythe majority that when every one was forced to work there would bemore than enough for all; that public spirit, and if necessarycoercion, would prove as effectual stimulants to exertion and industryas interest and necessity had done under the system of privateownership.

  Those who relied on the refutation of this theory forgot that withpoor and suffering men who look to no future, and acknowledge no lawbut such as is created by their own capricious will and pleasure, envyis even a more powerful passion than greed. The Many preferred thatwealth and luxury should be destroyed, rather than that they should bethe exclusive possession of the Few. The first and most visible effectof Communism was the utter disappearance of all perishable luxuries,of all food, clothing, furniture, better than that enjoyed by thepoorest. Whatever could not be produced in quantities sufficient togive each an appreciable share was not produced at all. Next, thequarrels arising out of the apportionment of labour were bitter,constant, and savage. Only a grinding despotism could compose them,and those who wielded such despotism for a short time excited duringthe period of their rule such fierce and universal hatred, that theywere invariably overturned and almost invariably murdered before theirvery brief legal term of office had closed. It was not only that thoseengaged in the same kind of labour quarrelled over the task assignedto each, whether allotted in proportion to his strength, or to thedifficulty of his labour, or by lot equally to all. Those to whom theless agreeable employments were assigned rebelled or murmured, and atlast it was necessary to substitute rotation for division of labour,since no one would admit that he was best fitted for the lower or lessagreeable. Of course we thus wasted silver tools in doing the work ofiron, and reduced enormously the general production of wealth. Next,it was found that since one man's industry or idleness could produceno appreciable effect upon the general wealth, still less upon theparticular share assigned to him, every man was as idle as the envyand jealousy of his neighbours would allow. Finally, as the produceannually diminished and the number of mouths to be fed became aserious consideration, the parents of many children were regarded aspublic enemies. The entire independence of women, as equal citizens,with no recognised relation to individual men, was the inevitableoutcome, logically and practically, of the Communistic principle; butthis only made matters worse. Attempts were of course made to restrainmultiplication by law, but this brought about inquisitions so utterlyintolerable that human nature revolted against them. The sectaries Ihave mentioned--around whom, without adopting or even understandingtheir principles, gradually gathered all the better elements ofsociety, every man of intellect and spirit who had not been murdered,with a still larger proportion of women--seceded separately or inconsiderable numbers at once; established themselves in those parts ofthe planet whose less fertile soil or less genial climate had causedthem to be abandoned, and there organised societies on the oldprinciples of private ownership and the permanence of household ties.By and by, as they visibly prospered, they attracted the envy andgreed of the Communists. They worked under whatever disadvantage couldbe inflicted by climate and soil, but they had a much more thancountervailing advantage in mutual attachment, in freedom from thebitter passions necessarily excited by the jealousy and incessantmutual interference inseparable from the Communistic system, and intheir escape from the caprice and instability of populargovernment--these societies, whether from wisdom or mere reaction,submitting to the rule of one or a few chief magistrates selected bythe natural leaders of each community. Moreover, they had not merelythe adhesion of all the more able, ambitious, and intellectual whoseceded from a republic in which neither talent nor industry couldgive comfort or advantage, but also the full benefit of inventivegenius, stimulated by the hope of wealth in addition to whateverpublic spirit the habits of Communism had not extinguished. Theysystematically encouraged the cultivation of science, which theCommunists had very early put down as a withdrawal of energy from thelabour due to the community at large. They had a monopoly ofmachinery, of improvement, of invention both in agriculture, inmanufactures, and in self-defence. They devised weapons far moredestructive than those possessed by the old _regime_, and still moresuperior to such as, after centuries of anarchy and decline, theCommunists were able to procure. Finally, when assailed by the latter,vast superiority of numbers was annulled by immeasurable superiorityin weapons and in discipline. The secessionists were animated, too, bya bitter resentment against their assailants, as the authors of thegeneral ruin and of much individual suffering; and when the victorywas gained, they not infrequently improved it to the utter destructionof all who had taken part in the attack. Whichever side were most toblame in the feud, no quarter was given by either. It was aninternecine war of numbers, ignorance, and anarchy against science andorder. On both sides there still remained much of the spirit generatedin times when life was less precious than the valour by which alone itcould be held, and preserved through milder ages by the belief thatdeath was not annihilation--enough to give to both parties courage tosacrifice their lives for the victory of their cause and thedestruction of their enemies. But after a few crushing defeats, theCommunists were compelled to sue for peace, and to cede a large partof their richest territory. Driven back into their own chaotic misery,deterred by merciless punishment from further invasion of theirneighbours' dominions, they had leisure to contrast their wretchedcondition with that of those who prospered under the restored systemof private ownership, family interest, strong, orderly, permanentgovernment, material and intellectual civilisation. Machinery did forthe new State, into which the seceding societies were consolidated bythe necessity of self-defence, much more than it had done beforeCommunism declared war on it. The same envy which, if war had been anylonger possible, would have urged the Communists again and again toplunder the wealth that contrasted so forcibly their own increasingpoverty, now humbled them to admire and covet the means which hadproduced it. At last, after bitter intestine struggles, theyvoluntarily submitted to the rule of their rivals, and entreated thelatter to accept them as subjects and pupils. Thus in the 39th centuryorder and property were once more established throughout the planet.

  "But, as I have said, what you call religion had altogetherdisappeared--had ceased, at least as an avowed principle, to affectthe ideas and conduct of society or of individuals. There-establishment of peace and order concentrated men's energies on theproduction of material wealth and the achievement of physical comfortand ease. Looking forward to nothing after death, they could only makethe best of the short life permitted to them and do their utmost tolengthen it. In the assurance of speedy separation, affection became asource of much more anxiety and sorrow than happiness. All ties beingprecarious and their endurance short, their force became less andless; till the utmost enjoyment of the longest possible life
forhimself became the sole, or almost the sole, animating motive, the oneparamount interest, of each individual. The equality which logic hadestablished between the sexes dissolved the family tie. It wasimpossible for law to dictate the conditions on which two free andequal individuals should live together, merely because they differedin sex. All the State could do it did; it insisted on a provision forthe children. But when parental affection was extinguished, suchprovision could only be secured by handing over the infant and itsportion to the guardianship of the State. As children were troublesomeand noisy, the practice of giving them up to public officers to bebrought up in vast nurseries regulated on the strictest scientificprinciples became the general rule, and was soon regarded as a duty;what was at first almost openly avowed selfishness soon justifying andglorifying itself on the ground that the children were better offunder the care of those whose undivided attention was given to them,and in establishments where everything was regulated with sole regardto their welfare, than they could be at home. No law compels us tosend our children to these establishments. In rare cases a favouritewill persuade her lord to retain her pet son and make him heir, butboth the Courts and public opinion discountenance this practice. Somefamilies, like my own, systematically retain their children andeducate them at home; but it is generally thought that in doing so wedo them a wrong, and our neighbours look askance upon so signal adeviation from custom; the more so, perhaps, that they half suspect usof dissenting from their views on other subjects, on which ouropinions do not so directly or so obviously affect our conduct, and onwhich therefore we are not so easily convicted of free choice"[heresy]. Here I inquired whether the birth and parentage of thechildren sent to the public establishments were registered, so as topermit their being reclaimed or inheriting property.

  "No," he replied. "Inheritance by mere descent is a notion no longerfavoured. I believe that young mothers sometimes, before parting withtheir children, impress upon them some indelible mark by which it maybe possible hereafter to recognise them; but such recognitions seldomoccur. Maternal affection is discountenanced as a purely animalinstinct, a survival from a lower grade of organisation, and does notgenerally outlast a ten years' separation; while paternal love isutterly scouted as an absurdity to which even the higher animals arenot subject. Boys are kept in the public establishments until the ageof twelve, those from ten to twelve being separated from the youngerones and passing through the higher education in separate colleges.The girls are educated apart till they complete their tenth year, andare almost invariably married in the course of the next. At first,under the influence of the theory of sexual equality, both receivedtheir intellectual instruction in the same classes and passed throughthe same examinations. Separation was soon found necessary; but stillgirls passed through the same intellectual training as their brothers.Experience, however, showed that this would not answer. Those girlswho distinguished themselves in the examinations were, with scarcelyan exception, found unattractive as wives and unfit to be mothers. Avery much larger number, a number increasing in every generation,suffered unmistakably from the severity of the mental discipline towhich they were subjected. The advocates of female equality made avery hard fight for equal culture; but the physical consequences wereperfectly clear and perfectly intolerable. When a point was reached atwhich one half the girls of each generation were rendered invalids forlife, and the other half protected only by a dense stupidity orvolatile idleness which no school punishments could overcome, theEqualists were driven from one untenable point to another, and forcedat last to demand a reduction of the masculine standard of educationto the level of feminine capacities. Upon this ground they took theirlast stand, and were hopelessly beaten. The reaction was so completethat for the last two hundred and forty generations, the standard offemale education has been lowered to that which by general confessionordinary female brains can stand without injury to the physique. Thepractical consequences of sexual equality have re-established in amore absolute form than ever the principle that the first purpose offemale life is marriage and maternity; and that, for their own sakesas for the sake of each successive generation, women should be sotrained as to be attractive wives and mothers of healthy children, allother considerations being subordinated to these. A certain smallnumber of ladies avail themselves of the legal equality they stillenjoy, and live in the world much as men. But we regard them asthird-rate men in petticoats, hardly as women at all. Marriage withone of them is the last resource to which a man too idle or toofoolish to earn his own living will betake himself. Whatever theireducation, our women have always found that such independence as theycould earn by hard work was less satisfactory than the dependence,coupled with assured comfort and ease, which they enjoy as theconsorts, playthings, or slaves of the other sex; and they are onlytoo glad to barter their legal equality for the certainty ofprotection, indolence, and permanent support."

  "Then your marriages," I said, "are permanent?"

  "Not by law," he replied. "Nothing like what our remote ancestorscalled marriage is recognised at all. The maidens who come of age eachyear sell themselves by a sort of auction, those who purchase themarranging with the girls themselves the terms on which the latter willenter their family. Custom has fixed the general conditions whichevery girl expects, and which only the least attractive are forced toforego. They are promised a permanent maintenance from their master'sestate, and promise in return a fixed term of marriage. After two orthree years they are free to rescind the contract; after ten or twelvethey may leave their husbands with a stipulated pension. They receivean allowance for dress and so forth proportionate to their personalattractions or to the fancy of the suitor; and of course the richestmen can offer the best terms, and generally secure the most agreeablewives, in whatever number they please or think they can withoutinconvenience support."

  "Then," I said, "the women can divorce themselves at pleasure, but themen cannot dismiss them! This hardly looks like equality."

  "The practical result," he answered, "is that men don't care for arelease which would part them from complaisant slaves, and that womendare not seek a divorce which can only hand them over to anothermaster on rather worse terms. When the longer term has expired, thelatter almost always prefer the servitude to which they are accustomedto an independent life of solitude and friendlessness."

  "And what becomes," I asked, "of the younger men who must enter theworld without property, without parents or protectors?"

  "We are, after youth has passed, an indolent race. We hardly care, asa rule, to cultivate our fields or direct our factories; but preferdevoting the latter half at least of our lives to a somewhateasy-going cultivation of that division of science which takes hold ofour fancy. These divisions are such as your conversation leads me tothink you would probably consider absurdly minute. A single class ofinsects, a single family of plants, the habits of one race of fishes,suffice for the exclusive study of half a lifetime. Minds of a moreactive or more practical bent will spend an equal time over theconstruction of a new machine more absolutely automatic than any thathas preceded it. Physical labour is thrown as much as possible on theyoung; and even they are now so helped by machinery and by trainedanimals, that the eight hours' work which forms their day's labourhardly tires their muscles. Our tastes render us very anxious todevolve upon others as soon as possible the preservation anddevelopment of the property we have acquired. A man of moderate means,long before he has reached his thirtieth [7] year, generally seeks oneassistant; men of larger fortune may want two, five, or ten. These arechosen, as a rule, by preference from those who have passed the moststringent and successful collegiate examination. Martial parents arenot prolific, and the mortality in our public nurseries is very large.I impute it to moral influences, since the chief cause of death is lowvitality, marked nervous depression and want of animal spirits, suchas the total absence of personal tenderness and sympathy must producein children. It is popularly ascribed to the over-cultivation of therace, as plants and animals highly civilised--that is
, greatlymodified and bred to an artificial excellence by human agency--arecertainly delicate, unprolific, and especially difficult to rear.There is little disease in the nurseries, but there is little healthand a deficiency of nervous energy. One fact is significant, howeverinterpreted, and bears directly on your last question. Since the wideextension of polygamy, female births are to male about as seven tosix; but the deaths in public nurseries between the first and tenthyears are twenty-nine in twelve dozen admissions in the stronger sex,and only about ten in the weaker. Read these facts as we may, theyensure employment to the young men when their education iscompleted--the two last years of severe study adding somewhat to themortality among them.

  "A large number find employment in superintending the property ofothers. To give them a practical interest in its preservation andimprovement, they are generally, after a shorter or longer probation,adopted by their employers as heirs to their estate; our experience ofCommunism having taught us that immediate and obvious self-interest isthe only motive that certainly and seriously affects human action. Thedistance at which they are kept, and the absolute seclusion of ourfamily life, enables us easily to secure ourselves against anyover-anxiety on their part to anticipate their inheritance. Theminority who do not thus find a regular place in society are employedin factories, as artisans, or on the lands belonging to the State. Toensure their zeal, the last receive a fixed proportion of the produce,or are permitted to rent land at fixed rates, and at the end of tenyears receive a part thereof in full property. By these means we arefree from all the dangers and difficulties of that state of societywhich preceded the Communistic cataclysm. We have poor men, and menwho can live only by daily labour; but these have dissipated theirwealth, or are looking forward at no very distant period to asufficient competence. The entire population of our planet does notexceed two hundred millions, and is not much increased from generationto generation. The area of cultivable land is about ten millions ofsquare miles, and half a square mile in these equatorial continents,which alone are at all generally inhabited, will, if well cultivatedand cared for, furnish the largest household with every luxury thatman's heart can desire. Eight hours' labour in the day for ten yearsof life will secure to the least fortunate a reasonable competence;and an ambitious man, with quick intelligence and reasonable industry,may always hope to become rich, if he thinks wealth worth the labourof invention or of exceptionally troublesome work."

  "Mars ought, then," I said, "to be a material paradise. You haveattained nearly all that our most advanced political economists regardas the perfection of economical order--a population nearly stationary,and a soil much more than adequate to their support; a generaldistribution of property, total absence of permanent poverty, andfreedom from that gnawing anxiety regarding the future of ourselves orour children which is the great evil of life upon Earth and theopprobrium of our social arrangements. You have carried out, moreover,the doctrines of our most advanced philosophers; you have absoluteequality before the law, competitive examination among the young forthe best start in life, with equal chances wherever equality ispossible; and again, perfect freedom and full legal equality asregards the relations of the sexes. Are your countrymen satisfied withthe results?"

  "Yes," answered my host, "in so far, at least, that they have no wishto change them, no idea that any great social or political reformscould improve our condition. Our lesson in Communism has rendered allagitation on such matters, all tendency to democratic institutions,all appeals to popular passions, utterly odious and alarming to us.But that we are happy I will venture neither to affirm nor to deny.Physically, no doubt, we have great advantages over you, if I rightlyunderstand your description of life on Earth. We have got rid of oldage, and, to a great extent, of disease. Many of our scientistspersist in the hope to get rid of death; but, since all that has beenaccomplished in this direction was accomplished some two thousandyears back, and yet we continue to die, general opinion hardly concursin this hope."

  "How do you mean," I inquired, "that you have got rid of old age andof disease?"

  "We have," he replied, "learned pretty fully the chemistry of life. Wehave found remedies for that hardening of the bones and weakening ofthe muscles which used to be the physical characteristics of decliningyears. Our hair no longer whitens; our teeth, if they decay, are nowremoved and naturally replaced by new ones; our eyes retain to thelast the clearness of their sight. A famous physician of five thousandyears back said in controversy on this subject, that 'the clock wasnot made to go for ever;' by which he meant that human bodies, likethe materials of machines, wore out by lapse of time. In his day thiswas true, since it was impossible fully to repair the waste andphysical wear and tear of the human frame. This is no longer so. Theclock does not wear out, but it goes more and more slowly andirregularly, and stops at last for some reason that the most skilfulinspection cannot discover. The body of him who dies, as we say, 'byefflux of time' at the age of fifty is as perfect as it was atfive-and twenty. [8] Yet few men live to be fifty-five, [9] and mosthave ceased to take much interest in practical life, or even inscience, by forty-five." [10]

  "That seems strange," I said. "If no foreign body gets into themachinery, and the machinery itself does not wear out, it is difficultto understand why the clock should cease to go."

  "Would not some of your race," he asked, "explain the mystery bysuggesting that the human frame is not a clock, but contains, and owesits life to, an essence beyond the reach of the scalpel, themicroscope, and the laboratory?"

  "They hold that it is so. But then it is not the soul but the bodythat is worn out in seventy or eighty of the Earth's revolutions."

  "Ay," he said; "but if man were such a duplex being, it might be thatthe wearing out of the body was necessary, and had been adapted torelease the soul when it had completed its appropriate term of servicein the flesh."

  I could not answer this question, and he did not pursue the theme.Presently I inquired, "If you allow no appeal to popular feeling orpassion, to what was I so nearly the victim? And what is the terrorismthat makes it dangerous to avow a credulity or incredulity opposed toreceived opinion?"

  "Scientific controversies," he replied, "enlist our strongest andangriest feelings. It is held that only wickedness or lunacy canresist the evidence that has convinced a vast majority. Byarithmetical calculation the chances that twelve men are wrong andtwelve thousand [11] right, on a matter of inductive or deductiveproof, are found to amount to what must be taken for practicalcertainty; and when the twelve still hold out, they are regarded asmadmen or knaves, and treated accordingly by their fellows. If it bethought desirable to invoke a legal settlement of the issue, a councilof all the overseers of our scientific colleges is called, and itsdecision is by law irrevocable and infallible, especially if ratifiedby the popular voice. And if a majority vote be worth anything at all,I think this modern theory at least as sound as the democratic theoryof politics which prevailed here before the Communistic revolution,and which seems by your account to be gaining ground on Earth."

  "And what," I inquired, "is your political constitution? What are thepowers of your rulers; and how, in the absence of public discussionand popular suffrage, are they practically limited?"

  "In theory they are unlimited," he answered; "in practice they arelimited by custom, by caution, and, above all, by the lack of motivesfor misrule. The authority of each prince over those under him, fromthe Sovereign to the local president or captain, is absolute. But theExecutive leaves ordinary matters of civil or criminal law to theCourts of Justice. Cases are tried by trained judges; the olddemocratic usage of employing untrained juries having been long agodiscarded, as a worse superstition than simple decision by lot. Thelot is right twelve times in two dozen; the jury not oftener thanhalf-a-dozen times. The judges don't heat or bias their minds bydiscussion. They hear all that can be elicited from parties, accuser,accused, and witnesses, and all that skilled advocates can say. Thenthe secretary of the Court draws up a summary of the case, each judgetakes it
home to consider, each writes out his judgment, which is readby the secretary, none but the author knowing whose it is. If themajority be five to two, judgment is given; if less, the case is triedagain before a higher tribunal of twice as many judges. If no decisioncan be reached, the accused is acquitted for the time, or, in a civildispute, a compromise is imposed. The rulers cannot, without incurringsuch general anger as would be fatal to their power, disregard ourfundamental laws. Gross tyranny to individuals is too dangerous to becarried far. It is a capital crime for any but the officers of theSovereign and of the twelve Regents to possess the fearfullydestructive weapons that brought our last wars to an end. But any man,driven to desperation, can construct and use similar weapons so easilythat no ruler will drive a man to such revengeful despair. Again, thetyranny of subordinate officials would be checked by their chief, whowould be angry at being troubled and endangered by misconduct in whichhe had no direct interest. And finally, _personal_ malice is not astrong passion among us; and our manners render it unlikely that aruler should come into such collision with any of his subjects aswould engender such a feeling. Of those immediately about him, he canand does at once get rid as soon as he begins to dislike, and beforehe has cause to hate them. It is our maxim that greed of wealth orlust of power are the chief motives of tyranny. Our rulers cannot wellhope to extend a power already autocratic, and we take care to leavethem nothing to covet in the way of wealth. We can afford to give themall that they can desire of luxury and splendour. To enrich to theuttermost a few dozen governors costs us nothing comparable to thecost of democracy, with its inseparable party conflicts,maladministration, neglect, and confusion."

  "A clever writer on Earth lately remarked that it would be easy tosatiate princes with all personal enjoyments, but impossible tosatiate all their hangers-on, or even all the members of theirfamily."

  "You must remember," he replied, "that we have here, save in suchexceptional cases as my own, nothing like what you call a family. Theladies of a prince's house have everything they can wish for withintheir bounds and cannot go outside of these. As for dependents, no manhere, at least of such as are likely to be rulers, cares for hisnearest and dearest friends enough to incur personal peril, publicdispleasure, or private resentment on their account. The officialsaround a ruler's person are few in number, so that we can afford tomake their places too comfortable and too valuable to be lightlyrisked. Neglect, again, is pretty sure to be punished by superiorauthority. Activity in the promotion of public objects is the onlyinterest left to princes, while tyranny is, for the reasons I havegiven, too dangerous to be carried far."