and so universally
discountenanced, how can their expression by one man here or there be
considered perilous?"

"Our philosophers say," he replied, "that the attractiveness of these
ideas to certain minds is such that no reasoning, no demonstration of
their absurdity, will prevent their exercising a mischievous influence
upon weak, and especially upon feminine natures; and perhaps the
suspicion that they are still held in secret may contribute to keep
alive 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
existence of human beings after death--their secret has been well
kept. For very many centuries have elapsed since the last victim of
such delusions, as they were solemnly pronounced by public vote in the
reign of the four-hundredth predecessor of the present Campta, was
sent as incurable to the dangerous ward of our strictest hospital for
the insane."

A tone of irony, and at the same time an air of guarded reserve,
seemed to pervade all my host's remarks on this subject, and I
perceived that for some reason it 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
his words had afforded me a glimpse; and in reply he undertook to give
me a summary of the political history of his planet during the last
few hundred generations.

"If," he said, "in giving you this sketch of the process by which our
present social order has been established, I should mention a class or
party who 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 them, and in the next not to repeat incautiously
the little I may tell you, or to show, by asking questions of others,
what you have heard from me."

I gave my promise frankly, of course, and he then gave me the
following sketch of Martial history:--

We date events from the union of all races and nations in a single
State, a union which was formally established 13,218 years ago. At
that time the large majority of the inhabitants of this planet
possessed no other property than their houses, clothes, and tools