I was, at least for the present, a prisoner. My host or his son never failed to invite me eac

e my time was occupied, for as great a part of each day as I could give to such a task without extreme fatigue, in mastering the language of the country. This was a much simpler task than might have been supposed. I soon found that, unlike any Terrestrial tongue, the language of this people had not grown but been made-constructed deliberately on set principles, with a view to the greatest possible simplicity and the least possible taxation of

. | Fem. || Plur

-|---||----

ava || We are

| avoo || You a

vy | ave || They

-|---||----

which in the first person is used to convey determination or resolve; avsa, spoken in a peremptory tone, meaning "I will be," while avso, according to the intonation, means "be" or "thou shalt be;" i.e., shalt whether or no. R forms the conditional, avra, and ren the conditional past, avrena, "I should have been." The need for a passive voice is avoided by the simple method of putting the pronoun in the accusative; thus, daca signifies "I strike," dacal (me strike) "I am struck." The infinitive is avi; avyta, "being;" a

lar.

ive amb

ive amb

o or in a

y or from a

ative or superlative degree; the former being expressed by prefixing the intensitive syllable ca, the latter, when used (which is but seldom) by the prefix

ng in a place," or, again, "permanence." M, like the Latin ab or ex, indicates "motion from." R expresses "uncertainty" or "incompleteness," and is employed to convert a statement into a question, or a relative pronoun into one of inquiry. G, like the Greek a or anti, generally signifies "opposition" or "negation;" ca is, as aforesaid, intensitive, and is employed, for example, to convert afi, "to breathe," into cafi, "to speak." Cr is by itself an interjection of abhorrence or disgust; in composition it indicates detestation or destruction: thus, craky signifies "hatred;" cravi, "the destruction of life" or "to kill." L

, and the value of a figure, whether it signify so many units, dozens, twelve dozens, and so forth, depends upon the square in which it is placed. The central square of a line represents the unit's place, and is marked by

cil of some chemical material on a prepared surface, textile or metallic. The characters of the latter are, like ours wholly arbitrary; but the contractions and abbreviations are so numerous that the mastery of the mere alphabet, the forty or fifty single letters employed, is but a single 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 as in Mars. On the other hand, when it is once mastered, a far superior instrument has been gained; the Martial writing being a most terse but perfectly legible shorthand. Every Martial can write at least as quickly as he can speak, and can read the written character more rapidly than the quickest eye can peruse the best Terrestrial print. Copies, whether of the phonographic or stylographic writing, are multiplied with extreme facility and perfection. The original, once inscribed in either manner upon the above-mentioned tafroo or gold-leaf, is placed upon a sheet of a species of linen, smoother than paper, called difra. A current of electricity sent through the former reproduces the writing exactly upon the latter, which has been previously steeped in some chemical composition; the effect apparently depending on the passage of the electricity through the untou

e 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 of some fifty days, he

se, as you seem to say, your atmosphere is denser than ours, and we require ampler lungs to inhale the quantity of air necessary at each breath for the oxidation of the blood. Then you were not dumb, and yet affected not to understand our language and to speak a different one. No such creature could have existed in this planet without having been seen, described, and canvassed. You did not, therefore, belong to us. The story you told by signs was quickly apprehended, and as quickly rejected as an audacious impossibility. It was an insult to the intelligence of your hearers, and a sufficient ground for suspecting a being of such size and physical strength of some evil or dangerous design. The mob who first attacked you were probably only perplexed and irritated; those who subsequently interfered may have been animated also by scientific curiosity. You would have been well worth anatomisation and chemical anal

rcastically, "If the slaughter of strangers whose account of themselves appears improbable be so completely a matter of course among you, I am at a loss to understand yo

mpany or in my dwelling they could hardly attempt your life without endangering mine or those of my family. If you were seen alone outside my premises, another attempt, whether by the asphyxiator or by a destructive animal, would probably be made, and might this time prove successful. Till, therefore, the question of your humanity and right to the protection of our law is decided by those to

umed that I could not belong to Mars; yet I was a living creature in the flesh, and must therefo

y number of witnesses should lie, that the senses of any number of persons should be deluded, than that a

but of all the laws of nature, and until you know all those laws, how can you tell what is a miracle? The lifting of iron by a magnet-I suppose you have iron and loadstones here as we have on Earth-was, to t

ey know nearly all that is to be known of natural laws and force

we know practically that there are limits to illusion. At any rate, your maxim leads directly and practically to the inference that, since I do not belong to Mars and cannot have come from any other world,

is world confessed impossibilities, and if my neighbours witnessed t

e of their senses. Yet, if that evidence be wanting in certainty, then, since no chain can be stronger than its weakest point, inferences are

who ventures to affirm persistently a story which science pronounces impossible (like your voyage through space), if he do not fall

ince, whatever may be the impression of those who have seen me, every one else must inevitably pronounce m

f Justice, for aught I know, longer than you or I can hope to live. What I have asked is that, till these have decided between two contr

as authority ad interi

nt) of this dominion, and he, after hearing by telegraph the opening of the case, at once pronounced that, as affecting the entire planet, it must be decided by the Campta or Suzerain. Now this gentleman is impatient of the dogmatism of the philosophers, who have tried recently to impose upon him one or two new theoretical rules whi

s a belief in the incredible or logically impossible, and

public opinion as its exponent. But as it is the worst of offences to suggest the existence of that which is pronounced impossible or unscientific, the supreme authority can always, in virtue of the enormity of the

ing constantly more and more favour among our most enlightened nations. I can quite believe, from what I have seen of our leading scientists, that in another century it may be dangerous

now are on Earth, some twelve thousand years ago, and twenty thousand years ago their profession was compulsory. But for the last hundred centuries it has been settled that they are utterly fatal to the progress of the race, to enlighten

iversally discountenanced, how can their expressio

ive the bitterness with which they are repudiated and repressed. But if they are so held, if there be any who believe that the order of the universe was at first established, and that its active forces are still sustained and governed, by a conscious Intelligence-if there be those who think that they have proof positive of the continued existen

was so unpleasant to him that courtesy obliged me to drop it. I put, therefore, to turn the conversation, some questions as to the political organisation of which

ho have stood at certain times distinctly apart from or in opposition to the majority, I must, in the first place, beg you to ask no questions about

rse, and he then gave me the foll

d thrice as many. Political and social power was in the hands of the owners of property, and of those, generally connected with them by birth or marriage, who were at any rate not dependent on manual labour for their bread. But among these there were divisions and factions on various questions more or less trivial, none of them approaching in importance or interest to the fundamental and irreconcilable confl

h; a demand which fiercely excited the passions of those who possessed neither, and as bitterly provoked the anger and alarm of those who did. The struggle raged for some generations and ended by an appeal to the sword; in which, since the force of the State was by law in the hands of the majority, the intelligent, thrifty, careful owners of property with their adherents were signally defeated. Universal communism was established in 3412, none being permitted to own, or even to claim, the exclusive use of any portion of the planet's surface, or of any other property except the share of food and clothing allotted to him. One

nd practically, of the Communistic principle; but this only made matters worse. Attempts were of course made to restrain multiplication by law, but this brought about inquisitions so utterly intolerable that human nature revolted against them. The sectaries I have mentioned-around whom, without adopting or even understanding their principles, gradually gathered all the better elements of society, every man of intellect and spirit who had not been murdered, with a still larger proportion of women-seceded separately or in considerable numbers at once; established themselves in those parts of the planet whose less fertile soil or less genial climate had caused them to be abandoned, and there organised societies on the old principles of private ownership and the permanence of household ties. By and by, as they visibly prospered, they attracted the envy and greed of the Communists. They worked under whatever disadvantage could be inflicted by climate and soil, but they had a much more than countervailing advantage in mutual attachment, in freedom from the bitter passions necessarily excited by the jealousy and incessant mutual interference inseparable from the Communistic system, and in their escape from the caprice and instability of popular government-these societies, whether from wisdom or mere reaction, submitting to the rule of one or a few chief magistrates selected by the natural leaders of each community. Moreover, they had not merely the adhesion of all the more able, ambitious, and intellectual who seceded from a republic in which neither talent nor industry could give comfort or advantage, but also the full benefit of inventive genius, stimulated by the hope of wealth in addition to whatever public spirit the habits of Communism had not extinguished. They systematically encouraged the cultivation of science, which the Communists had very early put down as a withdrawal of energy from the labour due to the community at large. They had a monopoly of machinery, of improvement, of invention both in agriculture, in manufactures, and in self-defence. They devised weapons far more destructive than those possessed by the old régime, and still more superior to such as, after cent

family tie. It was impossible for law to dictate the conditions on which two free and equal individuals should live together, merely because they differed in sex. All the State could do it did; it insisted on a provision for the children. But when parental affection was extinguished, such provision could only be secured by handing over the infant and its portion to the guardianship of the State. As children were troublesome and noisy, the practice of giving them up to public officers to be brought up in vast nurseries regulated on the strictest scientific principles became the general rule, and was soon regarded as a duty; what was at first almost openly avowed selfishness soon justifying and glorifying itself on the ground that the children were better off under the care of those whose undivided attention was given to them, and in establishments where everything was regulated with sole regard to their w

perience, however, showed that this would not answer. Those girls who distinguished themselves in the examinations were, with scarcely an exception, found unattractive as wives and unfit to be mothers. A very much larger number, a number increasing in every generation, suffered unmistakably from the severity of the mental discipline to which they were subjected. The advocates of female equality made a very hard fight for equal culture; but the physical consequences were perfectly clear and perfectly intolerable. When a point was reached at which one half the girls of each generation were rendered invalids for life, and the other half protected only by a dense stupidity or volatile idleness which no school punishments could overcome, the Equalists were driven from one untenable point to another, and forced at last to demand a reduction of the masculine standard of education to the level of feminine capacities. Upon this ground they took their last stand, and were hopelessly beaten. The reaction was so complete that for the last two hundred and forty generations, the standard of female education has been lowered to that which by general confession ordinary

iages," I said,

itions which every girl expects, and which only the least attractive are forced to forego. They are promised a permanent maintenance from their master's estate, and promise in return a fixed term of marriage. After two or three years they are free to rescind the contract; after ten or twelve they may leave their husbands with

selves at pleasure, but the men cannot dism

omen dare not seek a divorce which can only hand them over to another master on rather worse terms. When the longer term has expired

ger men who must enter the world without

rs' work which forms their day's labour hardly tires their muscles. Our tastes render us very anxious to devolve upon others as soon as possible the preservation and development of the property we have acquired. A man of moderate means, long before he has reached his thirtieth [7] year, generally seeks one assistant; men of larger fortune may want two, five, or ten. These are chosen, as a rule, by preference from those who have passed the most stringent and successful collegiate examination. Martial parents are not prolific, and the mortality in our public nurseries is very large. I impute it to moral influences, since the chief cause of death is low vitality, marked nervous depression and want of animal spirits, such as the total absence of personal tenderness and sympathy must produce in children. It is popularly ascribed to the o

in society are employed in factories, as artisans, or on the lands belonging to the State. To ensure 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 ten years receive a part thereof in full property. By these means we are free from all the dangers and difficulties of that state of society which preceded the Communistic cataclysm. We have poor men, and men who can live only by daily labour; but these have dissipated their wealth, or are looking forward at no very distant period to a sufficient competence. The entire population of our planet does not exceed two hundred

otal absence of permanent poverty, and freedom from that gnawing anxiety regarding the future of ourselves or our children which is the great evil of life upon Earth and the opprobrium of our social arrangements. You have carried out, moreover, the doctrines of our most advanced philosophers; yo

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 rightly understand your description of life on Earth. We have got rid of old age, a

ed, "that you have got rid

sician of five thousand years back said in controversy on this subject, that 'the clock was not made to go for ever;' by which he meant that human bodies, like the materials of machines, wore out by lapse of time. In his day this was true, since it was impossible fully to repair the waste and physical wear and tear of the human frame. This is no longer so. The clock does not wear out, but it

he machinery, and the machinery itself does not wear out, it

that the human frame is not a clock, but contains, and owes its life to, an

the soul but the body that is worn out in s

wearing out of the body was necessary, and had been adapted to release the

llow no appeal to popular feeling or passion, to what was I so nearly the victim? And what is the

found to amount to what must be taken for practical certainty; and when the twelve still hold out, they are regarded as madmen or knaves, and treated accordingly by their fellows. If it be thought desirable to invoke a legal settlement of the issue, a council of all the overseers of our scientific colleges is called, and its decisio

re the powers of your rulers; and how, in the absence of public

his judgment, which is read by the secretary, none but the author knowing whose it is. If the majority be five to two, judgment is given; if less, the case is tried again before a higher tribunal of twice as many judges. If no decision can be reached, the accused is acquitted for the time, or, in a civil dispute, a compromise is imposed. The rulers cannot, without incurring such general anger as would be fatal to their power, disregard our fundamental laws. Gross tyranny to individuals is too dangerous to be carried far. It is a capital crime for any but the officers of the Sovereign and of the twelve Regents to possess the fearfully destructive weapons that brought our last wars to an end. But any man, driven to desperation, can construct and use similar weapons so easily that no ruler will drive a man to such revengeful despair. Again, the tyranny of subordinate officials would be checked by their chief, w

satiate princes with all personal enjoyments, but impossible to sat

t least of such as are likely to be rulers, cares for his nearest and dearest friends enough to incur personal peril, public displeasure, or private resentment on their account. The officials around a ruler's person are few in number, so that we can afford to make their places too