"Yes, it has," he replied. "In our histories we have full accounts of the long course of events when we were divided into hundreds of nations, each with its own pride and ambition, and each striving to build up itself upon the misfortunes or the ruins of its neighbors. You can perhaps imagine what a ma.s.s of material we have for reading and study."

"We can," spoke up the student doctor, "and it fairly makes my mouth water. But tell us briefly, Thorwald, how you ever pa.s.sed from those troublous times to the blissful state in which we now find you."

"The transition was exceedingly slow; it seemed, in fact, impossible that such a change could ever be effected. But it began with the establishment of universal peace, which was demanded by the growing spirit of brotherly love, and a.s.sisted by commercial reciprocity and a world language. Gradually national boundaries were found to be only an annoyance, and in time--a long time, of course--we became one nation and finally no nation. For now no one exercises any authority over his neighbors, since the need for all artificial distinctions has long since pa.s.sed away."

"Then," said I, "you have no doubt lost all fear and anxiety over the conflicting interests of capital and labor."

"Yes," replied Thorwald, "for we have no such distinctions in society as rich and poor, workingmen and capitalists. We all work as we please, but there is so little to do that no one is burdened, and one cannot be richer than another because all the material bounties of nature and art are common to all, being as free as the air. I suppose, as this seems to be strange talk to you, that you cannot realize what it is to belong to a society where everyone considers the interests of his neighbor as much as his own. You will find when you reach that point that most of your troubles will be gone, as ours are."

"Our troubles!" said the doctor. "Many of our troubles, to be sure, arise from our pa.s.sions and appet.i.tes--in other words, from our selfishness--and these will no doubt disappear when we reach that blessed state of which you have spoken, a condition prayed for and dimly expected by many of our race. But other troubles of ours come from sickness and severe toil, from accidents, famines, and the convulsions of nature. How, for example, can you have escaped the latter, unless, indeed, G.o.d has helped those who have so wisely helped themselves?"

"Your last thought is right," answered our friend. "Nature has certainly a.s.sisted us. While the crust of the planet was thin we know the central fires heaved and shook the ground and burst forth from the mountains, causing great destruction and keeping the world in fear. We do not know how thick the crust of the planet now is, but nothing has been felt of those inner convulsions for many ages. One of our feats of engineering has been to see how far we could penetrate into the surface of the globe. A well of vast size has been dug, the temperature being carefully noted and observations made of the many different substances pa.s.sed through--water, coal, gas, oil, and all kinds of mineral deposits. The work has progressed from one generation to another, and no one can tell when it will be called finished, as it is determined to dig toward the center of the planet as fast as our ever-increasing skill will permit."

"Did you find out how thick the crust is?" I asked.

"No," he answered, "we are not much nearer the solution of that question than before, but we have made valuable discoveries as to what the crust is composed of. The temperature has gradually, though slowly, increased, and we believe the time will come when the work will have to be abandoned on account of the heat. We have gone far enough to know that when the fuel on the surface of our globe is all used up we shall only have to tap the center to get all the heat we want."

"What a capital idea that will be," I interrupted, "to throw at some of our pessimistic friends on the earth, Doctor."

"We see now, Thorwald," my companion said, "that your planet is too old to give you any more trouble from earthquake and volcano, but how about other natural phenomena, the tempest and cyclone for example?"

"Well," replied Thorwald, "we have a theory that time, the great healer, has cured these evils also. Let me ask, Doctor, if the earth ever receives any accretions of matter from outside its own atmosphere?"

"Yes, we have the fall of meteorites, foreign substances which we believe the earth encounters in its path around the sun."

"I supposed such must be the case," Thorwald continued. "And now, when you consider the great age of Mars, perhaps you will not be surprised to learn that this new matter, coming to us from the outside, was sufficient to increase the weight of our globe and gradually decrease the rate of speed at which we were traveling through s.p.a.ce."

"I am surprised, though," said the doctor, "because the acc.u.mulation of meteorolites on the surface of the earth is so exceedingly slow that it would take millions of years, at the present rate, to increase its diameter one inch."

"But perhaps they came much faster in past ages. Let me ask you, Doctor, if it is not a fact that the rate of revolution of Mars around the sun is slower than the earth's? I suppose you are far enough advanced in astronomical science to answer that."

"Yes," replied the doctor, "you are correct. I believe the earth speeds along at nineteen miles a second, while Mars travels only sixteen miles in the same time."

"We know by our computations that our speed is much less than it once was, and our theory is that this has in some way hushed those terrible storms and winds which we know were formerly so frequent."

Here the doctor thought he saw a chance to make a point, and spoke as follows:

"If the meteorites come in quant.i.ties sufficient to have caused such changes, it seems to me their fall must be as great a menace to your peace as the evils they have cured. They do not strike the earth in large numbers, but still we have a record of a shower of meteoric stones which devastated a whole village. I suppose all parts of your globe are by this time well populated, and how can you be entirely free from trouble when you are living in constant danger of the downfall of these great ma.s.ses of rock?"

"But we don't have meteorites now," replied Thorwald.

"Oh, you don't?"

"No, they ceased falling long ago. Mars is going slow enough for the present."

"Very kind of them, I am sure, to stop when you didn't need them any longer," said the doctor; "and I suppose you have some plausible reason to give for their disappearance."

"Yes, we believe that the interplanetary s.p.a.ce was well filled with these small bodies, circling around the sun, and when their mult.i.tudinous and eccentric orbits intercepted the orbits of the planets, they came within the attraction of these larger ma.s.ses. Mars has merely, in the course of time, cleared for itself a broad path in its yearly journey and is now encountering no more straggling fragments."

"There, Doctor," said I, "you are well answered. And now, Thorwald, tell us how you have escaped other evils, famine and fire for instance."

"Fire," continued our friend, "was one of the first foes subdued. We quite early learned to make our habitations and everything about us of fireproof materials, and, if I mistake not, you on the earth will not long endure an enemy which can be so easily put down. You will find all materials can be so treated with chemicals as to be absolutely safe from the flames. We have fire only when and where we desire it.

"When you speak of famines you touch a more difficult subject, but here, too, time and skill have wrought wonderful changes. In our histories we read of the time when the weather was chiefly noted for its fickleness, and when some parts of our globe were mere desert wastes, where rain was unknown and no life could exist. And in the inhabited portions one section would often be deluged with too much rain while another would have none, both conditions leading to a failure in agriculture and much consequent suffering. A long time was spent in gathering statistics, which finally proved that if the rainfall were distributed there would be just about enough to water sufficiently the whole surface of the globe. Nature provided rain enough, but it did not always fall where and when it was most needed. It seemed to be left with us to find a remedy for this apparent evil. When I say 'us' in this way I mean our race as a whole, for most of these changes took place many ages ago.

"Our philosophers had seen so many difficulties removed and improvements made in things supposed to be fixed that they began, once upon a time, to a.s.sert that rain and snow and the weather in general ought to be subject to our will. They said that in the advanced state of civilization toward which we were progressing it would seem to be an anomalous thing that we should continue to be subjected to the annoyances of so changeable a tyrant as the weather. We seemed destined to gain control of so many of the forces of nature that our future mastery in this department looked to them reasonable. For a long time these views appeared fanciful to the many, but this did not deter a few enthusiasts from study and experiment. As knowledge and skill increased we began, little by little, to gain control of the elements; but do not imagine it was anything less than a slow and laborious work.

"First, as we learned something of the laws which control the precipitation of the moisture suspended in the atmosphere, we discovered a way to produce rain by mechanical means. As this discovery was gradually developed we found we had really solved the problem. For, as there was only a certain amount of moisture taken up into the air, the quant.i.ty of rain could not be increased nor diminished, and so when we made it rain in one place it was always at the expense of the rainfall somewhere else.

"Since those early days vast improvement has been made, until now these laws, once so mysterious and so perplexing, are obedient to our service.

The whole face of our planet has been reclaimed, and drouth and famine on the one hand and floods on the other are entirely unknown. Each section of country is given rain or snow or sunshine just as it needs it, and there is no uncertainty in the matter."

When Thorwald had reached this point my curiosity prompted me to ask him to tell us in a few words how they could make it rain when they pleased, and he answered that he would be glad to give us details of all these matters if we insisted on it, but he thought it would be better for him to present a general view of the state of their society, leaving it for us to see with our own eyes how things were done, after we had reached our destination.

I readily acquiesced, with an apology for my interruption, and Thorwald resumed:

"The doctor spoke of accidents, sickness, and severe toil as among the sources of your troubles. With us, at the present day, all natural laws are so well understood and so faithfully obeyed that there are no accidents. Machinery and appliances of all kinds are perfect; nothing is left to chance, but everything is governed by law. And as we follow that law in every instance nothing can ever happen, in the old sense of that word. To take a homely example, you have of course learned that it is not well to put your hand into the fire, and so, though you use a good deal of fire you keep your hands out of it. You know what the law is, and you do not tempt it. By our long experience we have learned the operation of all laws, and in every position in life we simply avoid putting our hand into the fire. To be sure, we have been a.s.sisted in this by superior skill and by our general steadiness and ripeness of character. If I read history aright accidents were caused by ignorance or neglect of law, and I am sure the people of the earth, when they begin to realize fully how unnecessary they are, will soon outgrow them.

"As for sickness, you cannot understand how strange the word sounds to me. Just think for a moment how useless, how out of place, such a thing as sickness is. Like the subject just spoken of, it comes from disobedience to law, and although I know we were a long time in ridding ourselves of it, it seems to me now that it must be one of the easiest of your troubles to remove. With us the science of medicine became so perfect that it accomplished a great deal of the reform, but more was done by each individual acquiring full knowledge of himself and acting up to that knowledge. In learning to love our neighbors we did not forget to foster a proper love for ourselves. In fact, our creed teaches that self-love is one of our most important duties. When one is instructed to love his neighbor as himself it is presupposed that his affection for himself is of that high quality that will always lead him to do the very best he can for every part of his being. So, as our development continued, we came in time to love ourselves too well to despise or abuse or neglect the bodies we lived in. We studied how best to nurture and care for those bodies, and when that lesson was thoroughly learned we found that sickness and pain were gone, and with them, also, all fear of death. For now we die when our days are fully ended. The span of our life has been doubled since we began to know and care for ourselves, and, at the close, death is antic.i.p.ated and recognized as a friend."

CHAPTER VII.

RAPID TRANSIT ON MARS.

Here Thorwald paused and said he should be obliged to leave us a short time to attend to some duty in the management of the vessel. When he returned I remarked that neither he nor his companions seemed to have to work very hard.

"That," he answered, "is just the thought I want to speak of next, as the doctor has said many earthly troubles arise from severe labor. Here there is no hard work for us. It is all done by some kind of mechanism.

Look at the handling of this ship, in which, as you say, no one is burdened. The hard and disagreeable parts of the work are taken out of our hands and are put into the hand of machinery, which in its perfection is almost intelligent. It is so in all departments of work.

Inventions looking toward the saving of labor have closely followed each other for so many years that their object is about accomplished, and all the pain and sorrow accompanying daily toil are things of the dead past.

Even our animals are relieved from distressing labor and share with us the blessings of an advanced civilization, every heavy weight being raised and every burdensome load being drawn by an arm of steel or aluminum, which neither tires nor feels. We do not need to pity a machine. Why should flesh and blood, whether of dumb beasts or of more intelligent beings, suffer the agony of labor when the work can be better done by mechanical means?

"While speaking of the lower animals I may as well say here that we have no wild beasts. All have been tamed; not merely brought into subjection, but made the friends and companions in a sense of our higher race. Every animal, large and small, has lost its power and will to harm us. The wasp has lost its sting, the serpent its poison, and the tiger its desire to tear. And not only is their enmity to us all gone, but they no longer prey upon each other. Perfect peace reigns in this realm also."

"What has brought about this highly interesting condition?" I asked.

"Was there a natural tendency toward perfection on the part of the beasts?"

"No," replied Thorwald, "I think not. The change has been accomplished by us. Nothing that has life could help being uplifted by contact with our ever-expanding civilization. We believe the chief factor in working this great betterment in the animal creation has been our success in entirely eliminating flesh as an article of food. We early came to see it was not necessary for ourselves and that without it we were much better prepared to a.s.sume the higher duties belonging to our advanced life. We then began to experiment with the animals nearest us. It was a slow and discouraging task at first, but finally we obtained results that gave us hope of success. We found in the course of many years that the digestive organs of the animals on which we were experimenting were gradually becoming accustomed to a vegetable diet. We continued the work, extending it to one cla.s.s of animals after another, until in time all carnivorous instincts disappeared."

This interested the doctor exceedingly, and he remarked that he should think there would have been some kinds of animals that would resist all efforts to work such a change in them; but Thorwald answered:

"I have never read of such cases, but if there were any the species must have become extinct, for now, in all this world, no conscious life is taken to support another life. No blood is let for our refreshment and no minutest creature is pursued and slain to appease the appet.i.te of its stronger neighbor."

"Does this condition extend even to the fish of the sea?" inquired the doctor.

"Even to the fish of the sea," answered the Martian.