After thus having described the attitude of his own country, the Martian philosopher declared that this was in reality not the main purpose of his reflections. What he wished to emphasize was, hesaid, that the whole deplorable conflict could have been avoided if only the Martian nations had taken measures to cure, at least in part, the nationality-mania that at any time is likely blindly to arouse their destructive passions. To you, he said, at the distance at which you see our planet, all of our globe must make the impression of an insane asylum, where nationality-mania and nationalized megalomania are the two mental aberrations most prominently prevalent. But in reality, he assured us, these people are not insane. They are simply deluded, carried away by a wrong and intensely harmful conception of honor and of Martian greatness.
My most intense hope is, continued the Martian philosopher, that by proper mental training we may be enabled to re-direct their quasi-noble impulses into better and more constructive channels. As I contemplate the struggling armies, I see their banners raised high above the surging regiments. But I see the national colors dimmed with powder-smoke and the dust of the battle, so that now the banners look all alike to me; and over the smutty surface of every one of them, I see the wordFOLLYglaring in the vivid red of warm young blood. How much better will it be to see in the near future the same banners, the national marks of distinction dimmed by factory smoke and the dust of the quarries,and to see written on all of them in letters of gold:FOR THE FEDERATION AND WELL-BEING OF HUMANITY; PEACE AND GOOD-WILL TO ALL MEN OF ALL NATIONS.
At this moment ProfessorFANSEEbethought himself of a question that he had all along intended to put to the Martian philosopher, but that had so far been crowded out by the Martian’s interesting narrative. “For what purpose,” he finally asked, “did you Martians construct those straight-lined canals that cross your planet?” Came from the Martian the counter-question: “What canals?” “Well,” replied ProfessorFANSEE, somewhat taken aback, “we on earth notice straight lines across your globe every spring, and we reached the conclusion that they are canals used to guide the water when it rushes down from the thawing ice-fields at the poles.” “Ah,” said the Martian, “this is extremely interesting. Straight lines you say? Let me think a moment. Oh, yes, they are....”
Here a strange thing occurred. We heard a few clicks of a nature to suggest that the apparatus had suddenly gone out of order. The Professor looked over some of the details of the machinery, but found nothing wrong. Then, of a sudden, the Martian communications were resumed. With aspeed as if our distant philosopher had suddenly turned into a maniac, his message was now rushing in.
One of the nations involved in this miserable cataclasm, known as the Chopper-Knees, it said, has at the last moment invented an engine of destruction excelling all others in deadliness. It consists of an enormous thin metal globe, to which a device is attached that causes it to fly up in the air to a considerable height. The device is timed; so that, when it has reached a certain height and has drifted in a certain direction, it suddenly comes to a standstill, and by its own dead weight falls with increasing speed toward the soil. The horror of it is that upon reaching the surface it explodes, and spreads a thick cloud of smoke, of such a nature that by powerful electrical action it gathers unto itself various materials from the atmosphere and from the soil, with the result that the cloud, instead of diminishing, grows ever thicker and vaster. The cloud kills all life it comes in contact with, and it is feared that it may encircle the whole planet. It is guaranteed to kill every forest and every animal that lives in the forest, to kill every living creature in the water whose surface it touches. It is guaranteed to kill every flower, every grassblade, every thistle; to kill the ass who is eating the thistle as a much desired delicacy, as well as the flies that pester his bushyhide; and as a minor effect, it will also kill the followers ofNAZARROwho, according to the legend, once rode through the streets of Jairoosolom on his patient back. As I have erected my apparatus on the highest promontory of the planet Mars, just as you probably have done at your end, I shall be the last to be attacked by the deadly fumes. Already do I see the cloud fill the valley below me. I see it rising, rising!...
And then, as if in the despair of his agony he were addressing a world already laid waste, and a race already wiped out, a few additional sentences reached us from the depth of space: Abandon your petty jealousies, your tricky international schemes and your malice. Form a friendly federation by which everyone of you will benefit. Establish international courts of justice and of honor. Do away with your national armies and navies, and use their remnants as international guardians of the peace. Give up your futile efforts to be guided by blind Nature in the treatment of your fellowmen. Morality, whether considered from an international or a national point of view, is a set of rules of wholesome living, founded on the requirements of an ever further developing social organization. It does not refer merely to a respectable limitation of sex-life. It embraces good-will, loyalty, justice, fairness, theabsence of all underhand thoughts and methods, and the total lack of malicious intent. Many of these laws have been lucidly compiled in the Nazarrano manuscripts. Enthrone ye then, therefore, once more, if notNAZARRO’Sdivinity, then at least such of His precepts as are practicable and beneficent for men of all faiths and for men of no faith, for the human race at large!... Thus alone shall ye thrive without unnecessary disturbances, social upheavals, industrial calamities, wanton slaughter, and without the despicable arousal of savage passions!
The Martian admonition ceased. And then I saw ProfessorFANSEEgrow deadly pale; and as he reeled as if about to swoon, he whispered: “I feel as if my mind were giving way. That voice, that solemn message, did it come from space, or did it come to me from the heaps of the dead and dying that I seem to see dispersed on the battlefields of Belgium, France, and Poland? Was this the voice of departing spirits dying on our fair earth itself?” “Since we left for these vast fields of ice,” he said to me with a sickly smile, “many things may have happened!”
And then he swooned indeed, and it took fully six hours to bring him back to consciousness. From then on it was evident that he was suffering from some mysterious disease, of which he died two weekslater. Had the electrical cloud that enveloped Mars, entering the communicating-apparatus, anything to do with this mysterious functional disturbance? My own knowledge of medicine is limited, and we had no physician with us. His remains were buried in the ice of the South Pole. The problem may never fully be answered.
And now, while I am preparing this narrative for publication, as yet far away from civilization and ignorant of recent events, I wonder whether the malicious nationality-mania, that dreadful mental aberration to which the Martian philosopher referred, could ever have developed to the same extent among civilized humanity on earth, arraying Christian nation against Christian nation! I wonder, in case this malady hereafter ever threatened to become acute, whether it could not easily be cured by a wise and systematic application of calm commonsense.
May all good men stand together to eradicate this evil!
FINIS
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TRANSCRIBER’S NOTE:Obvious typographical errors have been corrected.
TRANSCRIBER’S NOTE:
Obvious typographical errors have been corrected.