“You said, Mr. Midith, that you were born on Mars about fifty years
ago. Do you mean fifty Marsian years, or fifty of _our_ years?” asked
Viola.
“I mean fifty of your years,” replied Mr. Midith.
“How long have you lived on earth then, Mr. Midith?” asked Rev. Dudley.
“I have been an inhabitant of the earth a little over ten years. I was
twenty Marsian years old when I arrived on earth, and the ten years
I have lived here makes my age the same as thirty mundane years. You
see a Marsian year to a Marsite is no longer than your year is to you.
Everything on Mars corresponds with its length of year.”
“Did the increased intensity of heat and light affect you much when you
first landed on earth?” asked Mr. Uwins.
“Yes at first I experienced quite a discomfort; but my system and
senses soon adjusted themselves to the new conditions somewhat, the
same as an eye adjusts itself when going from a dark to a brilliantly
lighted apartment. The temperature gave me more and longer discomfort
than the light did.”
“How old does a person on Mars get to be, Mr. Midith?” asked Roland, as
he was edging still nearer to Mr. Midith.
“A person, with the same care of himself, lives as many Marsian years
on Mars as you live earthly years. But as society, on account of the
greater age of Mars, has advanced much further than it has on earth,
people, as they continually learn by experience, live more in harmony
with the laws of life and health, and consequently they get much older.
Many Marsites live now to be over 150 years and are still in vigorous
health,” replied Mr. Midith.
“Did the difference in the atmospheric pressure and the difference in
the intensity of gravitation cause you much inconvenience, Mr. Midith?”
I asked.
“Not very much,” replied Mr. Midith.
“We are going to crowd you with questions,” said Viola with a smile. “I
was going to ask you where you landed when you reached the earth.”
“Miss Viola, to tell you the truth I did not land on a very pleasant
spot. I landed in the Pacific ocean, about a mile from the western
shore of the United States. When I entered the dense atmosphere, very
near the earth, my interplanetary projectile became unmanageable and
out of repair. This landed me in the Pacific. But the Marsites are all
good swimmers, as I shall explain to you hereafter, and so I swam to
the nearest shore.”
“Could you speak the English language when you landed on earth?” asked
Rev. Dudley.
“No; I could not. I could understand no language that I heard spoken
here. There are a few words in the English language that sound
similarly to our words, but they signify entirely different ideas and
things. I had to learn every word of your language that I now know.”
“Do I understand you, then, Mr. Midith, that you have but one language
on Mars?” asked Mrs. Uwins.
“Yes; we have but one language now. Ages ago we had many, just like you
have; but as the families, the tribes and the nations coalesced more
and more, and as intercommunication improved, languages became fewer
and fewer until there was but one left. The survival of the fittest
antiquated all but one. A person can now go all over Mars and speak the
same language.”
“How, Mr. Midith, did you acquire and develop the knowledge which
enabled you to visit the earth?” I asked.
“You recollect that the moons of Mars are very near her surface; the
nearest one is less than 4,000 miles distant. You also recollect that
the specific gravity and the force of gravity are less on Mars than
they are on earth. Under these conditions, a body can be projected with
less force from the surface of Mars than it can be projected from the
surface of the earth. So we first practiced to project bodies to Mars’
moons, then we increased the power of our projectile and directed it to
the earth, which is our nearest older planet.”
“How many of our days did you say, Mr. Midith, the Marsian year
contains?” asked Viola.
“About 687 days,” replied Mr. Midith.
“That is a long year,” said Mr. Uwins. “A person requires a great
deal of food and clothing during such a long year; but he can also
do a correspondingly great amount of work. Can the land, under those
conditions, support as dense a population on Mars as we can here?”
“As far as I can ascertain,” replied Mr. Midith, “a square mile of
land on Mars, under the same degree of civilization, can support just
as many persons as a square mile on earth can support. The amount of
nutriment, the productiveness of the soil, the durability of things,
the longevity, and the labor expended in producing them, are related
in exactly the same proportion as we find them here on earth. The year
is longer, the food more nutritious, the clothing and other things
more lasting, the soil more fertile, and more time for growth and
cultivation during the long Marsian year; so that an acre of land can
support as much and no more life during the same geologic age than the
earth can. These facts we always want to bear in mind when we speak
hereafter of the social and industrial problems of Mars.”
“Is it not a grand, imposing sight for a Marsite to behold the swiftly
moving little moons revolve around Mars so rapidly that the inner one,
called by our astronomers, _Phobus_, completes its orbital revolution
in seven hours and thirty-eight minutes, and appears to rise in the
_West_ instead of the _East_!” exclaimed Mr. Uwins.
“Yes, it is indeed a grand sight to see the one sometimes rise in the
East and the other in the West, and yet both revolve around Mars in the
same direction as your moon revolves around the earth.”
“Where is your ‘planetary projectile’ on which you came here to our
earth, Mr. Midith?” asked Roland with an air of apparent inquiry.
“It lies buried somewhere in the great Pacific, Roland,” replied Mr.
Midith, with a suppressed sigh. “It was swallowed up by the vast
expanse of the deep, when I landed on earth about ten years ago, and
I had to swim for life. It frightens me still when I think of that
dreadful event.”
“Mrs. Uwins, you told me, time and again, that you do not believe in
miracles,” said Rev. Dudley to his sister. “What, then, do you call Mr.
Midith’s visit on earth? Do you call that miraculous? Have I not often
told you, dear sister, that God in His infinite power is as capable of
working a miracle now as He was in ancient times?”
“I do not call that a miracle at all, James. I am sure that if we
understood the dynamics by virtue of which Mr. Midith was enabled to
make his visit, we would no more call it a miracle than we call the
flying of a kite, or the running of a locomotive, a miracle. Is not
that so, Mr. Midith?”
“Yes, Mrs. Uwins, you are right; there is no miracle whatever about my
mundane visit. It was all accomplished by the aid of immutable laws
which undoubtedly hold good alike on the nearest and the remotest stars
of the universe. We want to keep in mind that the miraculous always
disappears just in proportion as we discover the natural laws that
operate the phenomena of nature.”
“But, Mr. Midith, is not the interplanetary space beyond the planets’
atmospheres a vacuum?” asked Viola. “How could you live and breathe
in a vacuum? We are taught by our philosophers that all interstellar
space is filled with an imponderable (without sensible weight), highly
attenuated (made thin) medium called _ether_. But we are not aware that
it will support life. How is that, Mr. Midith?”
“As I have said before, Viola, I should prefer to give you this
difficult explanation after you get better acquainted with our
enterprises. After you have learned more about our mechanical genius,
our social and industrial problems. It will be much more easily
understood by you then, than it would be now.”
“All right, Mr. Midith, just as you think best,” said Viola with a
pleasant countenance. “If we ask you questions out of the natural order
just let us know.”
“Did our earth seem homelike to you, Mr. Midith, when you first looked
around and as you gradually became better acquainted?” I asked.
“Let me tell you right here, ladies and gentlemen, in answering this
question truthfully, I may say things that may not be very agreeable
to some of you. But I believe that nearly all of you are searching for
truth regardless of consequences; and whenever one has arrived at such
a stage of intellectual development, he is at least willing to give
truth a fair hearing, whether it is for the time being pleasant or
unpleasant.”
“You see I have not been educated under any of your habits, customs,
practices and prejudices. It is therefore very likely that I see things
and acts which appear cruel, wrong, superstitious, and even barbarous
to me, which seem all right, kind and humane to you, because you have
been educated and raised to them, and have, therefore, perhaps never
given them a fair impartial thought, a thorough analysis.”
“When I first looked around, and as I gradually acquired more and more
information about terrestrial affairs, some things seemed perfectly
familiar. The land and the water, the hills and the valleys, light and
darkness, heat and cold, growth and decay, hunger and thirst, pleasure
and pain, all seemed to be familiar to me. Water sought its level. The
green grass covered the earth and was kissed by the dewdrop and the
rain; the lofty trees were dressed in verdant foliage and spread their
boughs toward heaven; the gentle breeze raised the little ripples on
the bosom of the lake, and sported with the green foliage and the sere
leaf the same here as on Mars.
“The flight of the bird, the walking of the beast, eating, drinking,
breathing, moving, and the reproduction of organisms were nothing new
to me. They were, under similar conditions, exactly identical with ours
on Mars.
“The rain and the snow, the thunder and lightning, the changes of the
seasons, the germination and growth of plants, the laws that govern
animal and vegetable life are the same here as they are in my native
world, and we have no reason to believe that they are different on a
single one of the countless heavenly bodies of the universe.
“Mars produces coal, iron, natural gas, and the other minerals and
metals in the same abundance and proportion as the earth does. The
chemical compounds are composed of the same elements and in the same
proportion. The water, under the same condition, turns the wheel of
toil and drowns the innocent babe there, as here.
“In fact, I find no difference in things, and in the relations of
things here, and in those of Mars, except in the scientific, social and
industrial worlds. In these fields, however, I find vast differences;
differences so great and so grand that I fear I shall be able to give
you but a faint idea of them. I notice in your current literature and
political economy that not a few of your foremost and well-meaning
economists and sociologists have endeavored to dream out, instead of
working out, a suitable and higher order of things for the people
on earth. But I believe that I can safely say that the reality of
the social and industrial systems of Mars far surpass all imaginary
Utopias dreamed of by mundane beings. The truth of our world in these
directions exceeds the wildest romance that was ever penned by your
most extravagant novelists.
“I have not merely dreamed of this grand, this noble, this happy state
of human affairs, but I have actually enjoyed them for twenty long
Marsian years. I have seen and experienced them in their practical
workings. With countless others, I have even been a tiny link in the
endless chain of development and progress, which has brought us to that
high state of civilization which the Marsites now enjoy.
“As I have said before, everything I met on earth appeared perfectly
natural and familiar to me except the scientific, social and industrial
spheres. It seemed so strange to me when I first arrived on earth that
about half of your population desire to live in comparatively filthy,
crowded, smoky, unhealthy cities and towns, while the other half want
to live a lonely, toilsome, country life, deprived of nearly all the
blessings and enjoyments of a healthy society; and it seemed still more
strange to me that you believed that you could not get along without
the cities and without the country. The evils and needlessness of both
cities and country appeared so plain to me, and yet you are, at the
present age, unable to see the bad effects of them.
“It appeared so strange to me that each small family desired to live in
a small home, located so disorderly that they were almost completely
cut off from any convenient intercommunication. How the agriculturist,
or farmer, fenced his little patch of land, which he worked
single-handed so cruelly and toilsomely with a draught animal--ox,
horse, etc., which require almost as much food and care as they can
earn. How poorly the majority of the little homes were furnished. What
domestic slaves wives and children are when the human hand must do the
work of machinery.
“It seemed strange to me why only so few can distinguish between
_productive_, _unproductive_ and _destructive_ labor. Why millions upon
millions of men, women and children are toiling early and late and are
producing nothing. Why the poor laborer could not see that the rich
parasite appropriates a large portion of the products of his labor. Why
thousands upon thousands of frugal, industrious carpenters have been
building houses all their lives and have no house of their own to live
in. Why a large number of shoemakers have been making shoes and have
no decent shoe to put on. Why a multitude of farmers have toiled year
after year and are now even farther from owning the land they work than
they were when they began their toil years ago.
“I could not see how people could believe that _land_ is _wealth_, and
that _capital_ should be entitled to _part_ of the _products_. Why
people were satisfied with such poor walks, muddy, dusty streets and
roads, slow, irregular trains, clumsy vehicles drawn by weary animals,
such barren gardens, so few flowers, and yet so many forced idlers.
Why you had so many places of business, where goods are spoiling, and
so few customers who have the means to buy what they should have. Why
there are, in certain localities, so many commodities decaying, and so
much food wasted by _some_, while so _many others_ are almost starving.
Why people should be willing to pay _profit_.
“The longer I live on earth and the more I get around, the more strange
and perverted your social and industrial system appears to me. It seems
so queer to me to see every one go to the postoffice, instead of having
the postoffice brought to everyone; to have every one run to the depot,
instead of having a depot in every house.
“It seemed so strange why people could not see that the money you
use--gold, silver, etc.--cost so much comparatively unproductive
labor to get the material out of which you make the money; that in
your monetary system there exists no proportionate relations between
the amount of negotiable wealth on hand and the amount of money in
circulation; there may be an abundance of money and a scarcity of
commodities, or there may be an abundance of commodities and a scarcity
of money; that the persons who really make and earn the commodities
receive very little of the money, while the schemer who actually makes
and earns very little of the commodities receives, as a rule, an
abundance of the money.
“It seemed so very, very strange, so passing strange to me, why people
could not see the evil effects of owning vacant land by _deed_, or
_paper title_; why people are willing to pay _rent_ or buy land; why
individuals that are unable to govern themselves should attempt to
govern others; why, after such a complete failure, you still believe in
a government by _physical force_; why the vast majority believe that a
home or family cannot exist successfully without a boss; why people
believe in compulsory taxation; why a queen or president, as such,
should be more honored than a miner or a washerwoman.
“It seems remarkably strange to me why the imaginary being called the
State should in any way interfere with love affairs; why a man or a
woman is willing to give himself or herself away for life to some one
else; why each does not desire to own herself or himself only; why a
woman should be dependent on a man financially; why women should not
enjoy equal privileges with man in all respects; why you have so many
unwelcome children and unwilling mothers; why the work of rearing
offspring is almost exclusively thrust off onto mothers; why mothers
are not compensated for nursing offspring the same as they should be
for other productive labor.
“It seems so strange to me why parents are forcing their children
to school when they do not desire to go; why a child, which is full
of life and energy, should be compelled to sit silently and quietly
for six hours a day in a school-room when activity is the only thing
that develops body and mind; why a child should be burdened by _all_
school work, and an adult by _all_ physical work; why a child should
not receive compensation _immediately_ for all the productive labor
it performs; why you cannot educate in a pleasant school of activity
and play; why you do not have suitable play-grounds and parks near
every home; why you value fashion so highly and life and health so
little; why you wear such uncomfortable and injurious costumes; why
it does not seem so repugnant to feast on a carcass than on a corpse;
why you always hold up to view what you believe to be good and say
nothing about pointing out and discouraging the bad; why you honor and
respect the laborer who produces the wealth of the world so little,
and the idle, wasteful aristocrat so much; why you can not voluntarily
co-operate under individualism; how you can believe that your ‘God’
wants you to build and erect magnificent churches, and steeples
towering toward heaven, when, not unfrequently in the very shadow of
them, poverty and want wreck the constitution of his highest creatures.
Such are a few of the many things here that seemed and still seem very
strange and very cruel to me.”
“Mr. Midith,” I asked, “why did you not make your history known on
earth before this time?”
“I will tell you, Mr. Fulton; at first I was afraid to say anything
about it. Every one I met on earth appeared to be so cruel and so
harsh, that, very likely, I was as much frightened among you as you
would be if you were accidentally dropped among your American Indians
or among the cannibals. I saw the idle boy sportively fling stones,
with apparent delight, at the joyful birds that were singing their
sweet songs. I saw the teamster strike his beasts of burden so cruelly,
even when they were almost completely exhausted. I saw the hunter, with
apparent delight, project the burning shot into the sensitive nerve
of his game. I saw him beat his dog unmercifully for what the dog did
not know. I saw the butcher not only slaughter, but torture and flay
with satisfaction, creatures which are entitled to life as much as he.
I saw the fisher jerk the hook out of the fishes’ throat, as if fish
have no feeling, and then starve them in an atmosphere of air. I saw
the parent scold, kick and cuff his child with an air of delight and
duty. I saw the politician deceive and defraud his constituents. I
heard the minister threaten his devotees with everlasting hell-fire. I
saw the judge take a bribe. I heard the witness perjure himself, and
the lawyer misrepresent his case. I saw the stockman keep his stock in
small, filthy, cold stables and pens. I saw the rich trample the poor
into the mire of poverty. I saw the editor praise, for the money that
was in it for him, things that he knew were worse than worthless. I
saw the landlord evict his tenant for the only crime of being unable
to pay his rent. I saw train-robbers wreck trains regardless of the
human lives they contained. I saw incendiarism practiced with the sole
object of material pelf. I saw countless women live a life of sin and
shame in order to make a livelihood. I saw the toilers, men, women and
children, on every hand bent and deformed under their burden of toil
and care. I heard the minister preach that the only good and truthful
man your world ever had--your Redeemer--was crucified by a ruling mob
for expressing His honest opinion. I saw the policeman club his victim;
the hangman strangle the fallen. I saw the ‘State’ imprison men and
women for telling the truth and for investigating the so-called laws
of nature. I saw the teacher flog his pupil often only for telling the
truth and for following his inquiring nature. I saw the soldier shoot
his fellowman in countless numbers. I saw the husband subjugate and
otherwise misuse his wife. I saw the ‘State’ compel married husbands
and wives to live together after they did not love one another any
more. I saw people starve, freeze, go ragged and filthy, and have no
home to go to. I heard quarrels, oaths, curses, moans and sighs. I
saw tears of sorrow, frowns; sullen, pouty faces, furrowed brows,
anxious, care-worn countenances, decrepit, emaciated, diseased human
frames; slow, clumsy gaits and countless premature deaths. And I saw
time and again good men and women ostracized, imprisoned and hanged for
expressing their honest thoughts and for giving to the world the fruits
of their honest toil of observation and investigation.
“I think these and countless other cruelties and outrages are enough to
frighten any one into silence who came from such a just, kind and rich
world as I had left only a short time before.
“You may say that it was foolish for me to be frightened under the
protecting hand of your civilization; but you must bear in mind that
the trouble was, and is still more so now, that I can not see your
civilization. The savage would doubtless call you a coward and a fool
for being frightened in his state of society; but you would undoubtedly
not feel at ease with him, while he would enjoy it. So one coming from
a more advanced state of civilization would no more feel at ease in
your world than you would among the savages.
“For these and other reasons, I have never before mentioned my coming
to this earth to any one until I became a member of your kind,
intelligent family, which seems so homelike that I can say what I
desire and what I _believe_ to be true of _your_ world, and what I
_know_ to be true of _our_ world. Of course, my history and my visit
from Mars to your earth is not intended to be a secret by any means. As
I have told you, at first, I was frightened into silence, and further
on, I concluded that I would not say anything about it until I was
quite familiar with all your institutions, and until I had learned
your language so that I could give you a clear, intelligent account of
our world and compare it, in an unbiased manner, with your world, so
that the earthly inhabitants may derive all the benefit possible from
our older and fuller scientific, social and industrial experience.”
“Have you always been engaged here selling Mr. Spencer’s works?” asked
Viola.
“Oh, no! You see at my arrival I was at a great disadvantage. I could
not speak your language, and I knew nothing of your customs, habits,
science and literature. Much pertaining to your science, society and
industry was new to me. I was therefore forced into the field of
the hardest manual labor. But as I learned to read and write your
languages, I found that Mr. Spencer’s philosophical works were well
adapted to give the necessary information essential for a _higher_
social and industrial life. Partly for this reason, partly for making
a livelihood, and partly for being thrown in contact with eminent
mechanics whose assistance I am seeking, I have accepted my present
vocation of disseminating useful knowledge by selling good works; for
I am convinced that _thought_ is the only power that can move the
psychical world in the right direction.”