Of the causes of the high civilization of Hesperos—Of the relations of
the sexes—Of private personal property—Of property in Land; and of
the methods of Eviction—Of the Jacks and Masters of all Trades.
When we bear in mind these essential differences of Hesperian life, the
rapid development of civilization which took place in the northern
hemisphere after the sudden introduction of the rational creation will
not appear surprising. So far as I have been able to form an estimate,
from the information that has been very freely afforded me, the newly
created Hesperians were, both intellectually and morally, much on a par
with the average of human beings. But the conditions under which they
were placed rendered their advance in civilization incomparably more
rapid than anything which a similar species, circumstanced as we are on
the earth, could hope to attain.
Their total exemption from the chronic paralysis of the human race which
is involved in the incessant passage of the latter through the stages of
infancy and childhood, would, by itself, be enough to give the
Hesperians such a start in the race as to render competition useless.
With us the intelligent man of matured wisdom departs, carrying with him
to the grave the greater part of his accumulated stores of knowledge,
and all his skill; leaving his successor, the child, to recover them as
well as he can. The Hesperian is crossed by no such check; his course is
one uninterrupted advance. Thus it came to pass that, after the lapse of
a few thousand years, the condition of the northern hemisphere was, as
regards every form of advanced civilization, a very long way ahead of
anything even dreamed of, much less realized on earth.
It is quite necessary that I should here say a few words on the
relations between the sexes in this strange planet. On this difficult
subject I have taken abundance of notes from the information I received;
information which, I am bound to say, was given me without the slightest
reserve. [I suppress all details in these notes, as public opinion, very
rightly, does not permit the discussion of such matters.] It is obvious
of itself that the permanence of individual life renders the
establishment of such a life-contract as marriage an impossibility.
Accordingly, the Hesperian relation which most nearly corresponds with
the matrimonial institution on earth usually lasts for one of the
cyclical periods already described as one of the distinctive
peculiarities of Hesperian life. This is, I say, the customary
procedure; but the relation is terminable at any time, and at the will
of either party concerned. It should, of course, be remembered that, as
there are no children, the disastrous consequences which would be the
inevitable result of such a state of things on earth do not take place.
As for the institution of private property, the same permanence of
individual life gives it quite a different form from that which it
assumes under the conditions of death and succession. Personal property,
indeed, in our strict sense of the term, can hardly be said to exist at
all. There being no real family life—for the mere dwelling together of a
childless man and woman can scarcely be called by such a name—a
different social unit has been adopted. Three or four persons of each
sex usually reside together, thus forming a household numbering six or
eight, and ‘property’ has commonly reference to the household so
constituted. The reader will see further on that this account of
property is only correct for the _ancient_ history of the planet.
With respect to property in land, very great troubles took place in the
primitive times; and many ages elapsed before a satisfactory settlement
was arrived at. Hesperos is, in comparison with the earth, very sparsely
populated. One hundred millions of inhabitants to forty millions of
square miles of land, give but an average of two and a-half to each
square mile. Now, if we assume that the area of England is about 50,900
square miles—an estimate which does not much differ from the fact—and
that the population (A.D. 1730) is somewhere about seven millions, we
have above one hundred and thirty-seven to each square mile. In an
island of like dimensions in Hesperos—and one such really exists not far
from the mainland—there are only 127,250 inhabitants.
Hence it would seem that the land supply is greatly in excess of the
needs of the population. But there are such extraordinary differences in
the eligibility of particular sites as places for residence, that great
competition invariably arose for those spots which are specially
favoured by nature. These disputes were much aggravated by the
conviction that the successful candidate had acquired a real, _bona
fide_, and by no means fictitious perpetuity in the coveted abode. Thus
these bitter feuds only too frequently resulted in the eviction of the
occupier by one or other of the well-known processes by which
evanescence was brought about; either that of mortal lesion, which was
commonly effected by somebody lying in wait for the envied tenant in
some lonely place; or by the slow method of the metronomic balance,
carried out by imposing on the victim a sort of social ostracism,
refusing to hold any intercourse with him, or indeed supply him with the
necessaries of life.
Matters at length proceeded to such extremities, that the governing
bodies, in alarm at the depopulating process, passed a very stringent
land law, limiting the tenure of any holding to the period of the Life
Cycle, which, as we have already seen, averages one hundred years. At
the end of that period the estate was disposed of by lot, but there was
no rule to prevent the incoming tenant from coming to terms with the
outgoer. It must be distinctly understood, however, that, as the extent
in area of each holding was strictly limited by law, there was abundance
of land for everyone, and the dispossessed occupiers were merely
transferred to another part of the country.
Permanence of individual life again is the cause of a marked difference
in Hesperos from anything we experience on Earth, with respect to the
tenures of the various occupations, trades, or professions, by the
persons who exercise them. With us life is so short, and art so long,
that when a man has once acquired the skill which is needful for his
calling, he has but small opportunity, after having exercised it for a
time, of ever learning another. But eternal tailoring or shoe-making, or
even eternal writing of poetry, or painting, or playing on the fiddle,
could not be thought of. Any attempt to carry out such a permanence of
occupation would quickly terminate in the evanescence of the patient by
the operation of the metronomic law.
So here again the life cycle is usually adhered to; and on its
completion the subject almost invariably adopts a new calling. Hence a
strange state of affairs now in Hesperos—every man, and woman also, is
not only Jack, but master, or mistress, of all trades. A friend told me
that, during the last seven centuries of the ancient period, he had
successively occupied the positions of miner, lamp-maker,
cathedral-organist, confectioner, marine engineer, barrister-at-law, and
maker of sun-pictures.