“It would appear then that competition and selection go on under the present conditions of life almost as much as ever, for the law must apply to the weaker whites as well as to the negroes.”
“So it does, and always must, as long as men are competent to discriminate between the costly and the cheap, and continue to prefer the former, to the latter.”
“The reason for such preference,” I infer, “must be that more enjoyment of life is found in the possession of the more costly things. Is that your view?”
“It does not follow at all,” he replied. “Costly things give a fictitious enjoyment in anticipation while they are being pursued, but after they are obtained they give no more enjoyment than if they had been cheap. The possession of many things that have cost great worry and exertion frequently leads to nothing more than a perception of their vanity, and the uncovering of a new perspective of something bright and equally illusory beyond. From time immemorial your philosophers havesounded the praises of contentment. Contentment is nothing more nor less than happiness, and it is little to the purpose to ask a man to be happy unless the suggestion is backed up by the conditions of his environment. When people have absolutely nothing better to look forward to, they can almost always settle down to a comparative degree of contentment with what they have. But with an environment constantly showing chances of preferment, wealth, distinction, etc., and examples of the attainment of these things by others, contentment is constantly being unsettled and happiness always deferred to the future. A guest taking his dinner ‘out’ will reserve part of his appetite for the unseen, but commonly expected, desert of pudding and pie, but if he is informed that he “sees his dinner” before him, he will make himself quite satisfied without the desert.
“The fact is, the absolute contentment or happiness that your poets dream for you, and your priests sell to you in their heavens and nirvanas, is absolute satisfaction with whatever is. It can only come to an instinct in perfect harmony with its environment. People can never be perfectly happy except in a finished unchangeable state of existence. They may approach it under conditions in which change is very slow and slight.”
“Is our race likely to attain it or anything like it on earth?”
“Things on earth to-day look far more unsettled than ever before, and yet they are getting into a shape that promises peace and permanence in the not very distant future. When the earth gets asfull of people as it will hold and they learn how to live by moderate exertion and above the fear of failure and want, the millennium will have come to the extent that it can come.”
“Well from what you said a while ago, I suppose the world must already be as full of people as it ought to be, and if everything is in equilibrium, the millennium ought to have already dawned. But you have not told me whether this equilibrium has been made secure and stable. For evidently if means have not been found to keep the population uniform and steady at its maximum limit of comfort, even a perfect equilibrium would soon be disturbed by its increase and the millennium set back again.
“You told me the stirpiculturists in the 20th century proposed to accomplish the two objects of restricting the race and at the same time improving it, by select limitation. How did the plan succeed?”
“It did not succeed at all,” he replied. “The population increased more rapidly than before. A state of society something like a corrupt and clandestine polygamy supervened. The tone of society instead of being elevated was distinctively lowered. Thus both of the objects they so hopefully set out to accomplish, disastrously failed. When it was definitely given up by the progressive party that they were defeated and obliged to confess they were on the wrong track there was a fearful revulsion and upheaval of society, as there always is when opinion is forced to fly from one extreme to another. Many persons feltthey had been wronged—treated as criminals when they were only unfortunates.
“The danger from this class was now imminent, and they had the sympathy of many in the better walks of life. But the time soon rolled round that drove people to think of nothing but themselves. But this was one of those deliberate movements that nature seems to delight in dealing out to us. She dangles it over us like the sword of Damocles. There was time to think; before the thread snapped, if there was only the wit. It was a time of common danger, and there was no inclination nor profit in recriminations between the parties. In the presence of an appalling calamity they were both awed. They no longer contended with each other, they were both at their wits ends, and in fright they rushed into each others presence to consult not to fight; and trembled alike at the disaster that overwhelmed them both; like tigers slinking into the presence of their human enemies when threatened by a common danger; as an earthquake.
“All admitted, the disappointment and failure were complete.”
“It seems to me that might have been foreseen,” said I,—“what did they do next?”
“They were in a great quandary, and did not know what to do, many wild propositions were offered and discussed. The pessimists although as largely interested as anybody in the success of any plan aiming at the public welfare, were really pleased at the failure of this, because it fulfilled their evil predictions. They now said there was nothing tobe done but to return to the ancient plan of nature in which every one looked after himself and his children.
“If one failed, it was nature’s sign that he was not wanted, and he had no business to have children. But the optimists declared it to be impossible to return to the barbarous conditions that prevailed in ancient times among savages. Nature, said they, has evolved civilization and altruism, and these are therefore as natural as barbarism. But nature preserves a certain congruity of relationship between things, that we cannot easily set aside, and so if we are going backward in regard to the care of our young we shall lose the advantages that we have gained in the improved quality of the citizens, we have made out of them. For if we throw all the responsibility on the parents, while we cannot depend on a reduction in the number of the children, we may be sure of a deterioration in their bringing up and education. If we go back to barbarism we must take all that barbarism imposes. The human race they said was born to luck. Whenever it got into a tight place, some lucky turn of fortune’s wheel always supplied its need and brought it out of its troubles, and they avowed their faith that something would yet turn up to tide the race over the present crisis. In the midst of these discussions, a great discovery was made or accidentally stumbled upon that gave confirmation to this hopeful philosophy, and relieved the fears of those philosophers who were in the habit of taking the destiny of the race very much to heart and who felt more or less responsibilityfor its future. That was a discovery of nature’s secret of the determination of sex. It enabled people to control the sex of their children, a power that had been ardently wished for ever since the days of Adam and scientifically sought after, at least as far back as the time of Aristotle. They thought that in this “option of sex,” as they styled it, they at last possessed the infinitely important power of the control of population. They had seen before this, that no restriction could succeed, not founded on the support of all. All discussion in this direction was brought to a sudden termination, by this timely discovery. All felt as if the great problem was solved in the most acceptable manner, not only in accordance with refined sentiment, but with the pressing requirements of society, because this vital condition that so intimately concerns us all is taken up by the state and administered for the benefit of the whole race.
“In your day you doubtless remember that generally boys were in greater request and more welcome by parents than girls. And there continued to be such a feeling until quite lately—for no very good reason, except the habit of heredity—since men could hardly be said to have had any advantage over women for the last 100 years. At any rate this prejudice assisted the state in the policy it adopted of reducing the proportion of females, and within two generations the census showed a reduction of fifty per cent in the number of females while thetotal population remained the same without increase. This result was peculiarly gratifyingto the political economists and philosophers, for as they declared the state had now complete control of the population and could on a tolerably short notice increase or diminish it as the comfort of the race might demand.”
I interrupted the Professor here to express with some pardonable enthusiasm my congratulations that this vital question had been so successfully and thoroughly met. I said I always had confidence in my race and now more than ever. I felt proud of the honor of being an humble member of it; and more to the same effect; to which he listened with some impatience and then proceeded.
“There were some results that were not anticipated, that followed from the practical operation of the “option of sex.” One was the very rapid elevation, almost deification of women. As there was now but one woman to three men her value and importance rose in the inverse ratio; and it became the habit to say that women were worth three times as much as men. They were in fact worth a good deal more than that, for they soon perceived that they held the key of power and the destiny of the race and were able to construct the conditions of life to suit their own whims and caprices. They became in fact the ruling sex. They demanded for themselves and easily obtained all the easy and profitable positions in business and official life, and remanded men to those least desirable. The wholesome civil service principles that had become pretty well settled in the law, thought, and practice of the country were now habituallyevaded or openly set aside in favor of the sex. Nothing they asked for was denied them and hardly anything was good enough for them. In your day the women in America were extravagantly petted and coddled, but the attention and reverence they received then was nothing compared with the adulation and servility that has of late been rendered to them. Such a condition of things could not fail to encourage tyranny and arrogance, and to create them where they had not been before. Sentiment and favoritism became the controlling forces and business principles were ignored.
“There were three candidates for every woman’s hand, two of whom were bound to be disappointed, and so one-half the population—two-thirds of the masculine part—were doomed to a life of single misery. They did not accept the situation with fortitude or resignation. There was no end to quarreling and personal antagonisms and violence between rivals, and there arose what there had not been for several generations, and that was a “dangerous class.” It became unsafe for married people of either sex to appear on the streets unguarded. The “social evil” that in your day was so sore a question had long since under the conditions of universal matrimony, died out, and had practically ceased for a century and a half, now came again into existence in a more virulent form than ever. All classes felt the relaxation of the former restraints, and immorality became frightfully prevalent. Divorce which had become almost obsolete, now came to be an every day occurrence, not often, however, upon the complaintof the comparatively helpless husband, but upon that of the fickle wife who had succumbed to the superior attractions of a newer affinity. Divorce was now practically in the hands of the wife, and she dismissed her husband when he failed to please her, or when a more eligible mate presented himself. All women of course were not like that, but they all had the power to be, and a frightfully large proportion of them were.”
“The wise men of our race,” said I, “especially those of ancient times have generally regarded women as being not merely inferior to men physically and mentally, but as being essentially depraved and incapable of being good except under the stimulation and wise and pious discipline and example of men. Does the state of society you have described to me bear out this opinion? It seems that the women have broken loose from the wholesome restraints that were imposed on them in the former constitution of society in which men were supreme; and like a runaway team they are about to smash the wagon and dash out their own brains.”
“No,” he replied, “the state of affairs I have described does not at all confirm the opinion of the old blockheads you call your wise men. If they had been really wise they would have known that both women and men are created, formed, moulded and finished by their environment. Now woman constitutes a part of the environment of man and man constitutes a part, but in old times he constituted a relatively much larger part of the environment of woman. So it might be said, that if manwas better than woman, it was because her influence on him was better or at least less harmful than his influence on her.
“But the fact is that under equal conditions the influence that each exerts on the other is equal, and they are mutually benefitted. The nearest to a golden age your race has ever come was during the one hundred years from the middle of the 20th to the middle of the 21st century, and that is the period of the most complete equality of the sexes in all respects—numbers, liberty, similarity of occupations and equal duties and responsibilities, and the total ignoring and rejection of the notion of any difference of ‘spheres’ for the activities of the two. The reciprocal and essentially exclusive functions involved are peculiar to each, but these do not essentially, and at the present, do not really interfere in any of the active employments people choose to engage in.”
“Nursing the children is essentially the woman’s business is it not?” I inquired.
“Not at all,” he answered. “Mammary glands belong to the male as well as the female.”
“Functionless ones,” said I.
“Only functionless,” he replied, “because they are not used. In your day there were occasional cases of well developed male mammae and professional male wet nurses, now they are common and it is doubtful if there are as many female as male nurses. There are and always were women who could not nurse their children, and these are more numerous now than ever. It is simply because there are other things they prefer to do, and so theaccommodating function suppresses itself just as it did in the male because he for ages suppressed its use. So you see that even in nursing and rearing the children there is no exclusive female “sphere” any more than a male “sphere.” In the golden age I have just spoken of there was greater harmony and happiness than ever before, one of the essential conditions of which was the almost perfect equality of the sexes. But the termination of this golden age and the beginning of the social anarchy that commenced about the middle of the 21st century was traceable chiefly to the disparity in numbers between the sexes brought about by the operation of the “Option of Sex.” If we are to charge it to the corrupt influence of one sex on the other it was the corrupt assault of the unavoidably unmarried of the male sex on the institution of wedlock. If the women were willful arrogant and naughty, it was only because there were men about them in the proportion of three to one—for which they were not to blame—nor the men either, but the limited capacity of this globe, and nobody was to blame for that. Thus whatever they are or do in either sex is traceable to their environment.”
“Well,” said I, “since there has been such a failure, I am glad after all that my day was ended long before these evil times came. But what is to become of the race now! Will they discover a way to hold their own?”
“There never was,” said he, “a lack of wise doctors amongst men who were always ready with a sure cure for the ills that beset the race. Someof them now proposed as a remedy for the social maladies a plan of life that was not new nor original, but which differed as far as possible from the hereditary notions of the western nations. This was nothing less than polyandry or the plurality of husbands. They said, let every woman have three husbands and harmony and peace will be restored, and vice be deprived of excuse. They said this was no experiment, but had been practiced successfully amongst some of the eastern nations from time immemorial. They referred to the case of the Ladaks, a highly civilized, steady and religious people of the Buddhist faith, who inhabit the lofty and circumscribed valley at the head waters of the Indus. The place will support only so many people. If too many were born they could not emigrate to a lower country on account of the oppression of the heavier air. For a converse reason no immigrants ever attempt to settle there. But the population is kept uniform and steady by the simple plan of giving each wife three husbands. This has been successful for a thousand years on a small scale and there seemed no reason why it would not work on a large scale. But this scheme was promptly and emphatically rejected by the women of influence and authority, the moment it was proposed. They asserted there was no civilized relationship except Monogamy. That alone brought equality of the sexes and equality alone stood between the race and barbarism.
“It was true that polyandry was already practiced surreptitiously to a certain extent in America, but it was the disreputable exception and they did notpropose to make it the honorable rule. They denounced the plan as being scarcely one remove from the “social evil” itself. Polygamy, they said, is natural, made so by immemorial usage. The race was brought up on that and is built with reference to it. But polyandry, No! nothing in nature so repulsive and revolting. That settled it.”
“It is a painful tale you have told me, Professor,” said I, “I sincerely hope you have got a pleasanter sequel to take off its sting. Well, our race has always had its ups and downs. The one seems always to breed the other. So as it has received a check now, that must be a prophecy of better times ahead. After all I shall be disappointed if human wit has been so completely baffled by that problem of population that it has failed to find a way for its regulation without violation of the generous instincts of humanity.”
“Your confidence in human wit is commendable from a patriotic point of view,” returned the Professor, “but for this particular occasion it is not entirely justified. The fact is that not many years ago your race in North America and Europe had so crowded upon its conditions of comfortable existence that it was in imminent danger of a disastrous,if not total collapse. The efforts then made to prevent this, resulted almost in the disorganization of society to such an extent that a collapse from this cause was seriously threatened. Your race and nation have been saved from such collapse and a repetition of one of its numerous relapses into barbarism, not, however, by human wit this time, but by the wisdom and generosity of the race I have the honor to represent.”
“What! the Lunarians?”
“The same. Our people saw the straits to which the human family was reduced, and willing that it should be spared the distress that they had been compelled to undergo before the discovery of the means of protection against themselves, they sent messengers to earth with the necessary facts and instructions.”
“I am amazed, and gratified,” said I, “for this signal proof that benevolence is not confined to any one world or race; but I am impatient to know what this wonderful and essential secret is, that defied the penetration of the wise of my own race.”
“Our belief,” said he, “is that it would not always have eluded them, but they would have failed to apprehend it in time to save the race from present disaster. The Lunarians have always taken a deep interest in Mundane affairs, and have given many hints to man, some of which have been acted upon with good results. But many others could not be properly acted on or even fairly understood, because the education of your race had not prepared them for it. We are often tempted to exclaim “what a stupid race.” But then we rememberhow very young and immature you are, and we remember too that once we were in a like state of infancy ourselves, and so we exercise charity.”
“But what was the secret you told us?—I am anxious to learn at once, lest some accident shall forever bar my opportunity.”
“Well the secret is the simplest thing in the world, and your scientists have been reproaching themselves all over the earth for not having discovered it themselves. In fact, as they say, they did discover all around it when they lit upon the “Option of Sex.” It is simply the conditions for the production at will of theThird Sex.”
“The Third Sex!” I echoed in amazement.
“Yes the Third Sex. I prefer that name, though some have called it the neuter sex, others name it the Double Sex, or the Epicene or Common Sex, others the Hermes-Aphrodite. In some respects it is all of these, or either, or neither. But it is at any rate Third. I am not going to give you the recipe,” said he, “for if I do, when you leave here, and now and go back to the Nineteenth Century, you will be sure to let out the secret prematurely by two hundred years. But I can say that the development of the third sex is in reality no development at all, but an arrest of development, at a particular prenatal period. If you are informed in the science of embryology, you know that in the earliest stage of the embryos of all sexual animals, the sex is not determined, and at that stage there is nothing to distinguish whether the coming individual is to be male or female. It possesses possibilitiesof either and therefore the germs of both. At a second stage the elements of the essential organs of both sexes are developed in each individual and then the individual is both male and female, but not fully matured or developed. At the third stage the organs distinguishing one of the sexes are carried forward to functional perfection, while those pertaining to the other, are not developed any further, and in some cases are partly undone again. Now if the developement of the embryonic sexual organs be arrested during the second stage of growth or before it, the individual will be neither male nor female, but will belong to the third sex. The manner in which this arrest can be accomplished is the secret we imparted to you 20 years ago, and by means of which the important problem of the control of population can be solved by you as it was long ago done by us.”
“Then you have the three sexes in the moon?”
“We have had them for many ages, in fact, we would not know how to exist if we had but two.”
“It is a wonder to me how you ever could have fallen upon so wonderful an arcanum—that nature seems to be carefully hiding from us.”
“Nature dropped the hint in this as in so many others of our discoveries. There were occasional examples of the third sex produced by nature and born into life, as there have been in the case of the human race as you must know. These examples excited curiosity, which led to the discovery, that they were due to arrested development. Further investigation and experiment showed this arrest tobe due to deprivation of a certain class of food, or rather of food in a certain dynamic condition, that is, under certain electric tensions. This condition again depends on the molecular structure of the food elements. When the food is deprived of the constituent plastidules[2]required for the nourishment and development of the tissues composing the embryo organs of sex; these tissues do not mature. And since the emasculation or invalidation of the food does not extend to, or affect the process of assimilation of the same nourishment by the other tissues, such as muscle, brain, nerve, bone, etc., the individual is built up to a symmetrically sexless maturity. And the development of sex is said to be arrested.
“If your people had been as wise as the bees they would have known how to produce the third sex simply as the bees do by supplying the appropriate sort of nutriment; for they, from the same sort of an egg, produce either a queen, a drone or a worker, the latter being of the neuter or third sex; simply by variations in the food and treatment.
“It is said, that it was by observing and following such hints as these that our ancestors learned how to produce the same results the bees have accomplished.”
While the Professor was making this explanation, the question arose in my mind whether this discovery, surprising as it was, was sufficient to rectify the ills that our race had encountered. Would there not be some unforeseen drawback asthere had proved to be to the other schemes, that would neutralize the anticipated benefits, or work another disaster as great as the one it was intended to cure. Was the third sex in itself a desirable or happy kind of condition to have. The contemplation of this subject, at first repulsive; when viewed philosophically becomes exceedingly interesting as one of the curious flights of nature. It is true that the specimens of these people she has furnished us on earth, we have commonly regarded as unhappy monstrosities.—But that is no doubt due to ignorance and prejudice, and to the anomalous conditions into which they are born. I expressed myself somewhat in accordance with these reflections, after which the Professor with some hesitation proceeded.
“In your day the family was spoken of as the basis and the bond of society; and by the family was meant a father and mother and a brood of children, all living together and working and caring for each other. The family was the laboratory for the creation and preparation of the citizens of the state. As an instrument for the education and development of the young citizens it was discovered to be, in civil life, inefficient and costly very unequal in its results and entailing an unequal and unjust distribution of its burdens. The state gradually assumed one after another of these former family duties and burdens in the rearing and development of the young, and in doing so, gradually disintegrated the family until there was nothing left of it except a pair of people, a man and a woman. But in this the state only consummated aprocess that had been begun generations before by the invention of labor saving machinery. The family of your day was already a very much dwindled affair, compared with that of ancient times. Then the members of the family made for themselves their clothing and everything they required and they constituted a military body of which the father was the chief. But when machinery and gunpowder were invented, labor and employment, in both peace and war, became specialized, and in the division of labor that followed, families were gradually separated so as to use the labor of their individual components to greater advantage and new combinations were formed that crossed and obliterated family lines.
“When the families gave up their children to the state to be brought up, it was a continuation of the same process in accordance with the eternal law of economy, and because the machinery of the state for the care of the young was so much better and cheaper than that of the family, that the latter could no longer compete. When this was accomplished the family had lost every function that had ever made it a necessary or important subdivision of society.
“In former times the state of celibacy was regarded as censurable and blameworthy, because the unmarried by failing to raise and provide for a family of children were considered as shirking out of a duty they owed to society. But when it was no longer the business of individuals to provide for the growing citizens, it became a matter of total indifference to the general public whether one wasmarried or not. It became unimportant to the public to know even of what sex any individual might be, and the ancient laws that required the sex to be advertised by their clothes, were repealed and everybody was allowed to dress according to the demands of their business or their fancy. All artificial distinctions of sex such as employment, civil rights and dress were abolished, and the personal pronouns and titles of address that recognized sex were of necessity dropped out of the languages. These things have already transpired in your country and in all the more advanced countries of the world and this has prepared the people to view the introduction of the third sex with philosophical interest and appreciation, instead of vulgar and unreasoning prejudice. You must make allowance for the advance people have made since your day in education and the comprehensiveness of their views. The third sex was looked upon in your day as a monstrosity, because it was rare. Did they regard a seedless orange or lemon or grape as a monstrosity? If you had ever seen a horse with three toes on each foot you would have called him a monstrosity, but the time was as you know, when the horse commonly had three toes and the monstrosity was the animal with only one, such as you regarded in your day as a perfect model of beauty and utility.
“Your race will not regard the third sex with aversion or depreciation when they understand its relations and experience its value.”
“Please tell me,” said I, “what the relations of this sex to the others will be. I suppose ofcourse it will be subordinate to the others, especially the male.”
“Well,” he replied, “your experience in this matter will closely follow ours. As it is in Luna, so it is beginning to be on earth. You are greatly mistaken in supposing our sex to be subordinate to another.”
At the expression “our sex,” I involuntarily gave the Professor a surprised glance.
“Then your affiliations are with that sex?”
“I have indeed that honor.”
I was greatly astonished at this avowal and was greatly mortified to reflect that I had unwittingly said things that must have hurt his feelings, although he gave no sign of being in the least offended. I began an embarrassed apology, but he silenced me by a deprecatory wave of his right joker. He appeared amused rather than offended and evidently excused my unlucky observations as due to the ignorance and inexperience of the human race; which indeed, they were. I am now in doubt about the propriety of these masculine personal pronouns that I have applied when speaking of him but I shall continue to use them for I do not know what sort to substitute for them; certainly none of less dignity would seem appropriate to so dignified and noble a personage.
“In the moon,” the Professor went on, “there is perfect equality between all individuals, regardless of the sex. But the third sex is numerically far the largest and in case of disagreement would easily dominate the other two. But there is and has been from time immemorial perfect harmonyas between the sexes, their functions being of necessity complemental and in no way antagonistic. The most responsible places in the state, and the leadership in education, in religion, in public works, engineering and architecture as well as almost all the common occupations, such as manufacturing and storing goods, agriculture etc., are in the hands of the third sex. They are preeminently people of affairs, and for most occupations are decidedly superior to the other sexes, because they are less liable to be distracted from their chosen occupations.
“The males and females generally marry and then their first duties are to each other, otherwise they are employed like the third sex people.
“Married people are desired to conform to the policy of the State Bureau of Population in regard to the distinctions required by it. Otherwise they are under no restriction or obligation. The population is thus kept uniform or increased or diminished in an almost exact and scientific manner. As I have already informed you, all Lunarians are by nature industrious and they take the keenest sort of pleasure in their work. Nevertheless they also play and amuse themselves, and devote much time to intellectual occupations. They have numerous societies and clubs, and the third sex people in particular are organized into associations for said purposes. So are the others also, but their club life is more or less interrupted and broken up by their connubial relations and duties. The third sex people are distinguished for their personal friendships which are very close intimate and tender and of life long constancy. These friendshipsfounded on compatibility of character, similarity of tastes and pursuits the subtile attractions of reciprocal intellectual and spiritual qualities, we regard as finer, more elevated, more noble, more exquisite and more absorbing than the unions formed on the basis of sexual attractions, and they are notably more permanent.”
“Then,” said I, “you have no jealousies of the other sexes—no envy?”
“Why should we have when it is plain we are as happy—we think happier—than they? We would not change places with them, any sooner than you would with a fish, because it can dive into depths you cannot penetrate, or a bird, because it can soar where you cannot. You know you would lose by the exchange. In a society where there are no artificial distinctions on account of sex it is not possible to find any one who would willingly exchange with another. Why should not a non-marrying sex be happy? Do you not remember that one of the great teachers of earth declared that in the kingdom of heaven they neither marry nor are given in marriage? Certainly the third sex is in a better condition to comply with this celestial regulation than either of the others. The same great teacher was apparently so impressed with the superior conditions for happiness possessed by the third sex that he recommended to those of his followers who were able to receive it, to attach themselves to that sex by artificial means[3], and not afew of them have from time to time attempted to do so. But there is a vast difference between the artificial and the natural, the spurious and the genuine. Those who are of the third sex by natural development, are formed symmetrically; the brain and the mind depending on it, with its desires and aversions are formed in unison and harmony with the other bodily parts and organs.
“The same causes that suppress the formation of the latter also prevent the development of the corresponding pieces of brain and mind. There is therefore no clash between mind and body, no mental instincts that the body is physically disqualified from executing. The artificial imitation on the other hand is a mutilate. His symmetry and balance are destroyed because he retains a sexual brain and mind. He is out of harmony with himself, necessarily unhappy, and often a wretch.
“Intellectually the third sex is superior to the others. It is less emotional, more cool, dispassionate, patient and rational. It is more gentle and sympathetic, yet more firm in its conclusions and persistent in its purposes. In size it is between the other sexes the male being the largest—as with you—and from the same cause, polygamy, which as in your case, was practiced by our ancestors. But our sex is physically finer, stronger, more wiry and tough, more skillful in all the arts of life and twenty-five per cent longer lived than the others. In short we possess all the good qualities of the others in an increased degree, as if the material that nature saved by the suppression of sexualqualities, she used for the purpose of re-inforcing and augmenting the remaining ones.
“You are I think now enabled to judge what your third sex is like, that is just now being introduced as an active factor in human affairs. Your race is now for the first time in its history, able in a perfectly scientific manner, to defend itself against its own encroachments. Your long looked for millennium dates from this very moment—the practical introduction of this new factor. The disorders of the past half century that seemed to many to mark the beginning of a chaotic anarchy in reality mark its termination. From this time forward, law and liberty will gradually grow together until, at a period long before the end of this millennium, they will precisely coincide. Things will not be perfect at first. Men will learn better every day how to live and every day will subjugate more and more of the energies and materials of nature to their own ends. The millennium that begins now will be succeeded by ninety-nine more before your race will have passed its high tide and begun its final ebb.”
The Professor here begun to roll up his profile. He was evidently preparing to leave, but as long ashe had been with me, and it seemed as if it were days, I was more loath than ever to part with him. My dread of the separation rapidly grew into a veritable panic, and I became so desperate as to beseech him, if he must go, to take me with him. He was evidently much amused, and I thought gratified as well, but explained that it would be impossible at that time, as his storage capacity for compressed air was only sufficient for one, and his car was in fact hardly suited to carry double.
“Then,” said I, “give me a few moments longer if you possibly can. I do so wish to know something of our posterity ten millenniums ahead—twenty—a hundred. But no I am selfish—you are doubtless suffering now from your long stay and I ought not to ask anything more.”
“Say no more,” he said, “I will stay a few moments longer. I am not seriously inconvenienced as yet. But I cannot give you continuous history as that will take too long, but I will post you on a few prominent points that will interest you.
“One thing you will consider remarkable in the beginning of the first millennium, is a growing disregard for the accumulation of great wealth. The day of millionaires passed away before the close of the 20th century. Legislation looking to the reduction of great estates and the prevention of such overgrown accumulations in the future, was enacted at the beginning of the century. But the spirit of greed was not outgrown until the creation of wealth became so easy and under such control by the state that more than enough for comfort and ease was placed at the command ofevery one. No one was obliged to pay for anything, more than it cost, because the state would furnish all that was necessary on those terms, if no one else would. Speculative profits were abolished and the cost of an article was made up of wages only—the wage of the man in getting the raw material, the wage of the factors and the machinery in its fabrication, the cost of transportation, the wage of the salesman etc., all added together. The accumulation of excessive wealth was possible only when the speculator got hold of something it was necessary for other people to have, and who then made them pay for it much more than it cost him. This was all stopped as I said, before the close of the 20th century. But it was reserved to the beginning of the millennium to produce wealth in such abundance that it was not possible for anybody to have a single thing that it was essential for anybody else to have.
“The material means of comfort and happiness exist on the earth as abundantly as the air for breathing. The education of the human race consists in their learning how to take and use them. Having learned this, the abundance of wealth is its security against the monopoly of the greedy, and so your millennium begins with available wealth so plentiful, that its surplus accumulation has no longer a sane object, and there is no more reason in a man hoarding it than in his eating the surplus food on the dinner table after he has had enough.
“In your day if all the wealth of the world had been equally divided among its inhabitants therewould hardly have been enough for each person, to maintain him one year. The people lived from hand to mouth, and if the earth had failed to bring forth her bounty in crops for one year, half the population would have perished. Now if sun and rain should fail to mature the crops, the giant laboratories of artificial food can soon supply the deficiency. The tendency of the times is to depend less and less on the cultivation of the natural foods that are liable to the chances of unfavorable wind and weather, and to rely on the artificial products the creation of which is a matter of scientific certainty and accuracy.
“Let us now put ourselves forward again; this time one hundred millenniums, and look into the past as we have done before. We shall see that before the middle of the first millennium the principal articles of food are artificial productions identically like the natural foods formerly used such as milk, flour, meat, butter, fruits, vegetables etc. In addition to these many other foods were invented similar and equivalent to these natural productions. Later on the artificial products came more and more to consist of the proximate principles and condensed forms of food, fats, oils, sugar, and starch, gum, gluten, albumen, fibrin, casein, gelatine etc., directly from minerals, especially coal, or from cheap vegetation such as weeds that in your day were destroyed as worthless, sea weed etc., also from sea animals. Nothing came amiss, chemistry could produce rich and nourishing food from what in your day were the most unpromising materials, and at a merely nominal cost too, becausepower was furnished by the sun as I have explained to you. The constant tendency of chemical discovery was toward the production of foods in their purity, unmixed with the bulky residuum that goes with natural foods and that in the process of assimilation has to be rejected. As the foods thus became more condensed and pure a few spoons full became the daily food of a man, the pleasures of the table became less keen and protracted and gradually fell out of fashion. Other methods of recreation were more cultivated, such as music, oratory, the lyceum, theater, scientific lectures and experiments, games, etc. In many other respects the habits and fashions of life changed during the first millennium. The practice of walking was almost discontinued; flying machines having come into universal use. They reached perfection and were so inexpensive to operate, that they became a part of the equipment of everybody. Gentlemen went to their business, ladies went shopping, children went to school, with their flyers, as they formerly used to do to a less universal extent, with their bicycles.
“The changes that took place in the habits of the people in respect to eating, walking and other things, reacted upon their physical development, slowly and imperceptibly, however, unless comparisons were made between people of several generations apart. The tendency as you know, is, toward the suppression of organs not habitually used. Use and habit keep all organs in good running order and develop them in size and health, whereas disuse allows them to become shriveled and reduced,and if it is persisted in for too many generations the organ will be reduced to an unrecognizable functionless remnant or disappear altogether. All animals including man have lost organs by ceasing to use them. Very many, as the ox, sheep, dog, deer etc., have lost toes, many have lost part of their intestines, some have lost a part or the whole of one lung. Most vertebrates including man were derived from ancestors who once possessed—but lost—an eye on the back of the head. The whales and snakes have lost their legs and feet in whole or in part.
“You will not be surprised therefore to be told that the man of the second millennium began to be perceptibly changed from the one you knew in the 19th century. But when we come to the tenth millennium the change is astonishing. Let me describe him.
“His average height is eight inches less. His legs are short and spindling, his feet are small, and his toes reduced to small nubbins or mere warts. He has no teeth and the males and third sex people have not hair enough to make a scalp lock, even among the young, and it all disappears before middle age. The females however still maintain enough for a few bangs and spit curls. The external ears are reduced to a low rim of cartilage around the opening, about one inch in diameter. The lower part of the trunk is small and weak. The upper part containing the heart and lungs is, however, very well developed. The arms and hands are well formed strong and symmetrical. The head is very large indicating large mental power.All these deviations from the average man of your day became more pronounced with time, and if you could see a man of the one hundredth millennium you would have to inquire what it was. His stature now is but four feet, twelve inches of which is head, eighteen inches trunk, and the other eighteen inches legs. His chest is very broad, and very thick from front to back. His arms are stout and long enough to allow him to reach to his knees while standing. They are much larger and stronger than his legs. He is bald as an orange from birth. He has an immense mouth which he uses much in singing, laughing and speaking. He has not the vestige of an external ear nor any hair on any part of the body. No teeth of course and no sign of a toe. The foot is also much shortened and his walk is neither graceful nor vigorous. Foot ball is no longer his best hold, although his ancestor in your day may have belonged to the Sophomore foot ball eleven, of the Minnesota University. It would probably astonish you to see him eat. If not, it would be because you did not know what he was doing. His food is a liquid, an artificial preparation digested and assimilated ready for absorption by the tissues. He does not take it in at the mouth, but by an orifice leading into the abdomen. This orifice is in the position of the navel, and is the opening of the umbilical cord through the outer wall of the abdomen to its connection with the vascular system inside.
“In ancient times the umbilical cord through which the embryo received its nourishment becamepinched off on the outside after birth, while the part of it that remained inside of the body cavity became reduced to a mere string, a useless rudiment. But now that inside piece is kept in use from birth, the child being fed in the same way after as before birth. This opening by hereditary habit has developed wonderful changes for which, however, the long ages of use have furnished ample time for adjustment into a perfect adaptation of the parts and functions concerned. But really the changes are by no means so radical as they seem at first view. The change made in the mode of life of a new infant is in reality the same in effect now that it was in your day. The essential operation in both cases is the introduction of nourishment into the blood and it is accomplished in both cases by osmosis. The history of this evolution is interesting, but I can give you only a bare outline of it.
“As the business of the world came to be done almost exclusively by machinery directed by men’s brains, there was but little use for muscular exertion, especially of the legs and body. The use for legs in locomotion was also superseded by artificial modes of conveyance. Every road and street in the world was as smooth and clean as a parlor floor. On these were unlimited facilities for inexpensive transportation, public and private, the power being electric. Besides these were the flyers, also public and private. The life became almost exclusively a sitting life, even when in motion, sedentary in the most literal sense. This was, however, accompanied by the most intense activityof the brain. These conditions were decidedly antagonistical to the old system of the nourishment of the body by the stomach and intestines, because that system had been developed in connection with an active muscular body, and could be kept in good health only by vigorous muscular activity. Formerly four-fifths of the blood went to support digestion and muscular activity, and one-fifth went to the brain to support the mind. Increasing mental activity diverted more and more of the circulation towards the brain, until now it consumes three-fifths, muscular work takes not quite two-fifths and digestion and assimilation almost none. The result of the changes that constantly pressed in this direction, was that the first millennium was an age of dyspepsia. The increasing disability of the stomach for digestion, encouraged the use of digested foods, and these by excusing the stomach from doing its proper work, increased its disability. Children at first were usually born with good stomachs, but these by middle life or before, commonly degenerated into instruments of misery. Finally they would not even tolerate digested food and it became necessary to convey food within by some other means. Any method by which the nutritious matter properly digested can be introduced into the blood will support life. It became necessary to adopt hypodermic injections and other similar expedients. As this sort of treatment had to be applied earlier and earlier in life as time went on, even in some cases in childhood and infancy, they finally hit on the plan of using the ancient natural entrance of theumbilicus and not allowing it to close at all during life. In this way the ancient system of support and nutrition for the body through the stomach has been entirely subverted. The chemical processes of digestion, selection and assimilation of food are all done outside of the body, by artificial processes, and the cavity of the body is no longer filled with a series of brewing vats, soap factories, gas works and receptacles for refuse filth and foul water. For we may truly say that digestion consists of processes of fermentation of several different kinds and saponification or soap making. Little or nothing that is now taken into the body requires to be excreted and the only excretory organs are the skin and lungs, for moisture and carbonic dioxide. This radical change was not all effected at once, but was extended over many generations, and was not fully consummated till the second millennium was well spent. But before that one was finished, the atrophy of the digestive functions was so far complete that cases of possible reversion to them were extremely rare. The people of the present time look back with amusement, commiseration and disgust upon the walking laboratories that constituted their ancestors.”
“I think,” said I, “that if the people of my day could see them the amusement would be mutual.”
“Probably it would,” he replied, “but if you should come to compare real advantages, I am of the opinion they would be entitled to laugh the loudest. They have decidedly the advantage of you in the simplicity of their construction and intheir reduced liability to get out of order. An autopsy of this latter day man would reveal a little shriveled up bit of parchment in the place where the stomach used to be, and another in the place where the bladder was, a handful of shoe strings in the place of the intestines, the total reduced in length at least one-half; some little fleshy nodules like so many beans and peas and hickory nuts to stand for the kidneys, the pancreas, the spleen and that ancient terror, the liver. It is strange that after these organs are thus discarded and atrophied, nature continues to perpetuate the remembrance of them by reproducing in every individual that is born, these odd and grim caricatures, like a miserly old woman that carefully hoards her cellar full of old tin cans and broken jugs, bottles and dishes—of no use to anybody.—But this is nature’s way. Even in your day your scientists pointed out numerous remnants of played-out organs that your race then had about them, such as the coracoid bone, the tail bones, the vermiform appendix, the ear muscles, the pineal gland and many more. But now there are to be added, this fresh batch. They will be constantly reduced in size, one generation after another, but your race will hardly exist long enough to get rid of them entirely; but they may congratulate themselves that they have ended their mischief and are no longer functional.
“There are also notable changes in the skeleton of the present man. He no longer has 33 segments or vertebrae in his back bone as folks had in your day, but only 23. The seven neck and twelve dorsalsegments remain the same, but the five lumbar vertebrae are reduced to two, the five sacral and four tail bones are reduced to one each, much diminished in size, the tail a mere button. So he is much shortened from the diaphragm down.”
“Professor,” said I, “I confess I am disappointed in this man of the latter days. It is doubtless true as you say that he has been greatly improved by getting rid of his troublesome insides. I was somewhat shocked when you first told me of it, but on reflection I have no doubt, that although it seemed at first so strange and unnatural, it was all for the best. But his stature—I cannot get over that. He is nothing but a big headed spindle shanked dwarf. Our dreamers and prophets of the nineteenth century always pictured the coming man to us as a Hercules with brawny limbs and muscles of steel; he was never to be less than six feet high, and he was to be as graceful as he was powerful and all that. He was to be intellectual, too, of course; a Daniel Webster in brain. And they seemed to have the experience of the race in their favor in this prognostication, because it does not appear that the average stature of the race diminished any, but probably increased, during the 4,000 or 5,000 years before the 20th century. Now if it did not decrease for that period, why should it in the periods following?”
“During the 4,000 years or more you refer to, the conditions of life on which stature depend, did not materially change, for which reason stature did not. War and field exercises, tend to large stature. Sedentary employments, tend to reducethe stature. The latter mode of life has prevailed for 100,000 years, and besides the general causes there has been the additional special one in this case, of the loss of function in a considerable portion of the trunk which would of consequence lose size in an increased proportion.
“But after all it is not physical stature that commands respect, but mental stature. Many of your greatest men have been of small stature. You speedily forget one’s size when attending to the actions of his mind. The most dignified presence is that which impresses itself as the strongest mentally. We consider that to which we are accustomed, as the most correct and proper, in stature as in everything else. If you had been most accustomed to people four feet high, you would regard six feet people as coarse unwieldy overgrown monsters, and when you become accustomed to the people of these times with their gentleness patience, industry, unselfishness, sympathy and kindness and unfailing good humor, their ability ingenuity, almost divine wisdom and learning, their stature and form will be transformed before you to become your standard of perfection. In the abstract, that is the most perfect form that admits of the accomplishment of the greatest ends. By this standard the man of this latter day is far in advance of all that preceded him, because in no other human form would it ever have been possible to properly sustain so great a brain.
“It may interest you to know that the latter day man has almost entirely lost the sense of taste, the sense of smell was already much decayed in yourday. It is somewhat poorer now, but still fairly good. The sense of touch is far more delicate than formerly, hearing equally good, and sight better for near objects, but not so good for far ones. The telepathic sense has been remarkably developed and is one of the subjects of study and drill in the schools. The adult people of the third sex wear hats ten inches in diameter. The heads of the other sexes are somewhat smaller. The longevity of the race has increased to an average of 200 years, some occasionally reaching 300. The cause of this is due in part to the greater purity of their food and the smaller quantity of mineral impurities, such as lime, that is allowed to clog up the tissues and vitiate the circulation.”
“Soon after the beginning of the first millennium, the three great governments of the world were consolidated into one. This was found desirable in order to have equal and uniform laws regarding the regulation of population, education the administration of justice and the establishment of a uniform language. This latter object was accomplished by means of the universal state schools. A language was invented on scientific principles, as to its grammar, with words borrowed from different languages. This was taught, in every schooltogether with the native language of the country in which the school was located. This was kept up for 50 years, by which time practically everybody understood the new language, and then the others were dropped from the curriculum and only the new was thenceforth taught. There continued to be some differences of race however for several thousand years, but it is now difficult to trace any race distinction.
“The population of the earth is not now quite so great as it was in the year 2070. It has gradually been contracted to about 10,000,000,000. It was much larger during the first millennium, but the people were much given to flitting about, following the seasons like the birds, in consequence of which in some places the crowds became too great for comfort. Rather than make arbitrary rules to repress travel, they contracted the population by increasing the proportion of third sex children and diminishing that of the others. You understand no attempt was ever made to regulate the size of the family—that was left to nature—only its sex. The average number of children to a family has long been about 18, sixteen of whom are of the third sex. The people live mostly in cities, but the land is cultivated to such crops as clover, alfalfa, the grasses etc, the entire crops being chemically treated and the food principles extracted from them. Large tracts are, however, reserved for the public. They are beautified and adorned in every direction—and parks and flower gardens are everywhere, and here the people are fond of congregating in pleasant weather wheelingtheir motor cars over the solid smooth roadways or flitting about in their flyers. As eating and drinking are no longer fashionable or practicable pastimes, there is a conspicuous absence of restaurants and saloons. Yet many of the people are supplied with little vials containing their standard food of which they partake if need be. But they have no stated hours for eating, no cooking, no cooks, no meals. Each one eats when his feelings tell him he needs it, and is not governed by the appetite of others. Yet, as a practical fact, most persons do fall into habits of some regularity. Nature is a stickler for habit.”
“I suppose,” said I, “the state furnishes many things that were left to individuals to do in my time, but how is the state supported? Who does the work?”
“Everybody works, but not much is required of anyone. The society is largely but not exclusively socialistic. The state makes everything necessary for existence, but no superfluities. In these necessaries it has the monopoly, and no one else is allowed to make or sell them. The state thus makes all food and clothing and clothing material builds all houses, makes all furniture, carriages, flying machines, furnishes heat, light and power, takes care of the young and educates them. Everybody works; is obliged to work in fact for his living. Eight tenths of the people work for the state, and not over two-tenths directly for other employers. In this two-tenths are included authors, ministers and priests, lecturers on newand unaccepted theories, artists, some milliners, dressmakers etc.
“The state fixes the wages it will pay according to the desirability or undesirability of the work, the undesirable of course being the best paid—the kind that would have been the worst paid in your day. An average of one hour a day of labor for the state will furnish lodging food and necessary clothing. So in five or six weeks one can lay up enough to maintain him a year, and have the rest of his time to do as he pleases. Notwithstanding the cheapness of everything, nothing is sold by the state except at a trifling advance upon its cost, which constitutes the only kind of taxation that is imposed. The surplus thus raised pays the expenses of state officials, courts, education etc. If anyone wants more than the modest living he can get by working at the rate of six weeks in a year; he can get it by working longer. By working steadily for a year he can accumulate enough to travel around the world. Or he can indulge in a fine painting or two, or a musical instrument or contribute money to some institution not supported by the state, as a church or philosophical society. Or he can lay up money in the state savings institution, until he accumulates a fortune for some pet enterprise or for use in old age. For several thousand years little or nothing has been spent on new public works. Everything really needed was long since built on principles of eternal durability, and repairs are light. Railways, canals etc., of course pay their own way. On the surface of theearth almost everything may be said to be practically finished. The largest fields for discovery are under ground. Stores of mineral wealth never dreamed of in your day have been unearthed and utilized. Thousands of miles of tunnels have been constructed and some mountain ranges have been perforated in so many directions that their interiors are more familiar than their bleak and inhospitable surfaces. Enormous unsuspected caves and openings have been found, from many of which the contained material was ejected by volcanic action in ancient times.
“In a great number of places tunnels have penetrated to regions of insupportable heat, and this heat transformed into electricity has been conveyed to the surface and its power distributed to great distances. This plan has been largely practiced in the mountainous regions of Asia and South America, Scandinavia, Alaska and other countries. In such regions heat can be reached without descending, and so the tunnels are self draining. This source of power helps out the sun in the rainy seasons etc.”
“You mentioned something about state savings institutions just now; I suppose they receive the money of the people and pay interest on it—or how?”
“The state savings institutions receive money and take care of it, but they pay no interest. They do not loan it, so get no income from it and cannot pay any. In fact their fundamental ideas of business have undergone a radical change for these many ages back. They deny that it is fair businessto take a profit on any transaction. If a man lends his money to another he is entitled to pay for the time it takes him to make the loan and collect it, but he is not entitled to interest for use of the money. If a man borrows a plow worth ten dollars and wears it to the amount of one dollar, he should pay the owner the one dollar, but it is for repairs, not interest. If he borrows ten dollars in money and returns the full amount there is no wear to make good. If a man borrows ten dollars for which he must pay one dollar interest, then buys a plow and wears it one dollar’s worth he is out two dollars. So he must charge one dollar above its cost, for his crop, when he sells it, and this is called profit. He does not keep it, however, but must pass it over to the capitalist. He might charge two dollars profit, in which case, he would keep one for his profit and give the other to the capitalist for his. In both cases they say, it is wrong and unsound as a business transaction, because it is getting or giving something for nothing. The idea of the legitimacy of profits and interest arose in ancient times in connection with the uncertainty or the gambling element that entered into all business. This was due to individualism or the practice of each one doing business for himself, taking his own risks and chances in a thousand ways. If one spent his time and money in making something to sell, he was not absolutely sure he would be able to find a buyer. And if one loaned his money to be used in business he shared the risks of it and could not be absolutely sure of getting it back again. Up to the amountof the risks, profit and interest were under the conditions legitimate. But while under the individual system everybody charged for the risk of loss, the losses in reality fell on only a part, and so the rest got something for nothing. When insurance companies were organized to distribute part of the risks, making those who did not lose, contribute to make up the loss of those who did, the risks of all were diminished, and the profit and interest charges on that account reduced. If insurance with its distribution of risks had extended to every form of risk, and if the members of the companies or insured persons had embraced everyone in the community instead of only a part, then the special risks to each one would have been altogether eliminated, the insurance would have become a part of the cost of the goods to be added to their sale value, and profits above this no longer legitimate. For if one is entitled to profits so are all those with whom he exchanges and nobody gains; unless the profits of one are higher than those of another in which case someone is cheated or in other words robbed. Now when the state undertook practically all business and all transportation, and owned all houses, shops and factories, all risks of all forms were at once distributed to all the people, without the ceremony of insurance. If a building burned, or tools, or machinery became superseded by better ones, or goods became unsalable, or employes dishonest, or incompetent, the loss was fully insured, for it fell upon all, and there was nobody outside of this “all” to make it good. There could therefore be no possiblehonest end to be gained by profits; and interest on money falls with profits. As all the people work some time or other and receive wages, all have a bank account, for they are taught to be careful and economical, and they understand that one cannot spend a dollar and still have it.”
“How do they encourage and pay for inventions and discoveries—or has everything been invented and discovered?”
“No, they are discovering something new all the time. A good many people who have got something ahead and have leisure find congenial employment in invention. If they produce anything valuable the state takes and uses it paying them for their time, and also distinguishing them by honorable mention and in some cases by decorations or medals. If the development of the idea requires the use of expensive machinery or materials, it is submitted to the judgment, of experts whether the would be inventor shall be furnished these things at public expense. If they think his idea not of sufficient value, he must either drop it or pursue it at his own expense, and take his chances of getting the glory and the pay when it is demonstrated, and these considerations seem to be enough to bring out their best endeavor in that line.”
“Then it seems they don’t value brain work any higher than hand work?”
“They value brains, but do not pay extra for them for the reason that they regard them as owing their best thoughts to the state. They say, that whatever one is, the state has made him, andif he is above the average he owes more than the average.”
“Did you say, Professor, that the houses belong to the state?”
“Yes the state has built houses enough to accommodate the whole population. In each town or city the houses are of uniform height for that place. Thus there are two story towns or four or ten story towns. A very large place may be twenty or thirty stories in the middle and lower further out. But no differences are allowed on any block. The roofs are flat and continuous over each block and connected with neighboring blocks by bridges over the streets. The flyers are all kept on the roofs and the flyers’ entrance to the buildings is by a roof entrance connecting with the elevator. Wheeled vehicles are kept upon the streets. There are generally vacant apartments to be had if any one wishes to move from one city to another. But the population has its fads and whims and sometimes the popularity of some place will attract more people than the houses can accommodate. In that case the government will build some new houses. Houses are rented by the year for one per cent of their cost plus the one-fifth of one per cent for repairs. The latter sum is paid back to the tenant if the repairs are not required. Thus if a house costs ten thousand dollars, the rent would be one hundred, the theory being that its cost would be repaid in 100 years. But as houses last 1,000 years—in fact are indestructible except by an earthquake—the state has accumulated a large fund from rents of housesthat have long since paid for themselves, and this fund builds new ones when they are wanted.”
“I suppose there is no woodwork used in building a house.”
“They use what they call wood, but it is an artificial product made of mineral. It is almost as light as wood, can be cut and formed as wood can, but is much stronger and cannot be burned and never rots. By slight differences in its manufacture several varieties are produced imitating various sorts of wood. It has totally displaced wood and is used for all purposes from fine furniture to railway ties. It is the accumulation of indestructible things that makes existence so cheap in these latter days. The people enjoy the fruits of labor performed ages ago. And the things they make now are all made to endure. Even their clothes are made to last a life time—textile fabrics from mineral wool and mineral cotton. Even their food is provided for years ahead. It is put up in vials, and sealed up to keep a hundred years if required.”
“What is it composed of?”
“It is in several modifications suited to different ages. In infancy and youth its composition is almost exactly that of a hen’s egg. For mature and old people the proportions are slightly different, the lime is entirely left out for the old, and a larger proportion of phosphorus is used in the food of the middle aged and mentally active.”