political chiefs saw that the
Frog dispute, so taken up by the populace, could become a most valuable
instrument of their ambition; and for not less than one thousand years
war and massacre prevailed, during which period the philosophers on both
sides were butchered, and the government of Koom-Posh itself was happily
brought to an end by the ascendancy of a family that clearly established
its descent from the aboriginal tadpole, and furnished despotic rulers
to the various nations of the Ana. These despots finally disappeared, at
least from our communities, as the discovery of vril led to the tranquil
institutions under which flourish all the races of the Vril-ya."

"And do no wranglers or philosophers now exist to revive the dispute; or
do they all recognise the origin of your race in the tadpole?"

"Nay, such disputes," said Zee, with a lofty smile, "belong to the
Pah-bodh of the dark ages, and now only serve for the amusement of
infants. When we know the elements out of which our bodies are composed,
elements in common to the humblest vegetable plants, can it signify
whether the All-Wise combined those elements out of one form more than
another, in order to create that in which He has placed the capacity to
receive the idea of Himself, and all the varied grandeurs of intellect
to which that idea gives birth? The An in reality commenced to exist
as An with the donation of that capacity, and, with that capacity, the
sense to acknowledge that, however through the countless ages his race
may improve in wisdom, it can never combine the elements at its command
into the form of a tadpole."

"You speak well, Zee," said Aph-Lin; "and it is enough for us shortlived
mortals to feel a reasonable assurance that whether the origin of the
An was a tadpole or not, he is no more likely to become a tadpole again
than the institutions of the Vril-ya are likely to relapse into the
heaving quagmire and certain strife-rot of a Koom-Posh."

Chapter XVII.

The Vril-ya, being excluded from all sight of the heavenly bodies, and
having no other difference between night and day than that which they
deem it convenient to make for themselves,--do not, of course, arrive at
their divisions of time by the same process that we do; but I found it
easy by the aid of my watch, which I luckily had about me, to compute
their time with great nicety. I reserve for a future work on the science
and literature of the Vril-ya, should I live to complete