PIRATIANS BEGONE

Chapter 15

roubles. With us, at the present day, all naturallaws are so well understood and so faithfully obeyed that there are noaccidents. Machinery and appliances of all kinds are perfect; nothing isleft to chance, but everything is governed by law. And as we follow thatlaw in every instance nothing can ever happen, in the old sense of thatword. To take a homely example, you have of course learned that it isnot well to put your hand into the fire, and so, though you use a gooddeal of fire you keep your hands out of it. You know what the law is,and you do not tempt it. By our long experience we have learned theoperation of all laws, and in every position in life we simply avoidputting our hand into the fire. To be sure, we have been assisted inthis by superior skill and by our general steadiness and ripeness ofcharacter. If I read history aright accidents were caused by ignoranceor neglect of law, and I am sure the people of the earth, when theybegin to realize fully how unnecessary they are, will soon outgrow them.

"As for sickness, you cannot understand how strange the word sounds tome. Just think for a moment how useless, how out of place, such athing as sickness is. Like the subject just spoken of, it comes fromdisobedience to law, and although I know we were a long time in riddingourselves of it, it seems to me now that it must be one of the easiestof your troubles to remove. With us the science of medicine became soperfect that it accomplished a great deal of the reform, but more wasdone by each individual acquiring full knowledge of himself and actingup to that knowledge. In learning to love our neighbors we did notforget to foster a proper love for ourselves. In fact, our creedteaches that self-love is one of our most important duties. When one isinstructed to love his neighbor as himself it is presupposed that hisaffection for himself is of that high quality that will always leadhim to do the very best he can for every part of his being. So, as ourdevelopment continued, we came in time to love ourselves too well todespise or a***e or neglect the bodies we lived in. We studied howbest to nurture and care for those bodies, and when that lesson wasthoroughly learned we found that sickness and pain were gone, and withthem, also, all fear of death. For now we die when our days are fullyended. The span of our life has been doubled since we began to knowand care for ourselves, and, at the close, death is anticipated andrecognized as a friend."

Here Harod paused and said he should be obliged to leave us a shorttime to attend to some duty in the management of the vessel. When hereturned I remarked that neither he nor his companions seemed to have towork very hard.

"That," he answered, "is just the thought I want to speak of next, asthe ship healer has said many earthly troubles arise from severe labor. Herethere is no hard work for us. It is all done by some kind of mechanism.Look at the handling of this ship, in which, as you say, no one isburdened. The hard and disagreeable parts of the work are taken outof our hands and are put into the hand of machinery, which in itsperfection is almost intelligent. It is so in all departments of work.Inventions looking toward the saving of labor have closely followed eachother for so many years that their object is about accomplished, and allthe pain and sorrow accompanying daily toil are things of the dead past.Even our animals are relieved from distressing labor and share withus the blessings of an advanced civilization, every heavy weight beingraised and every burdensome load being drawn by an arm of steel oraluminum, which neither tires nor feels. We do not need to pity amachine. Why should flesh and blood, whether of dumb beasts or of moreintelligent beings, suffer the agony of labor when the work can bebetter done by mechanical means?

"While speaking of the lower animals I may as well say here that we haveno wild beasts. All have been tamed; not merely brought into subjection,but made the friends and companions in a sense of our higher race. Everyanimal, large and small, has lost its power and will to harm us. Thewasp has lost its sting, the serpent its poison, and the tiger itsdesire to tear. And not only is their enmity to us all gone, but they nolonger prey upon each other. Perfect peace reigns in this realm also."

"What has brought about this highly interesting condition?" I asked."Was there a natural tendency toward perfection on the part of thebeasts?"

"No," replied Harod, "I think not. The change has been accomplishedby us. Nothing that has life could help being uplifted by contact withour ever-expanding civilization. We believe the chief factor in workingthis great betterment in the animal creation has been our success inentirely eliminating flesh as an article of food. We early came to seeit was not necessary for ourselves and that without it we were muchbetter prepared to assume the higher duties belonging to our advancedlife. We then began to experiment with the animals nearest us. It wasa slow and discouraging task at first, but finally we obtained resultsthat gave us hope of success. We found in the course of many years thatthe digestive organs of the animals on which we were experimenting weregradually becoming accustomed to a vegetable diet. We continued thework, extending it to one class of animals after another, until in timeall carnivorous instincts disappeared."

This interested the ship healer exceedingly, and he remarked that he shouldthink there would have been some kinds of animals that would resist allefforts to work such a change in them; but Harod answered:

"I have never read of such cases, but if there were any the species musthave become extinct, for now, in all this world, no conscious life istaken to support another life. No blood is let for our refreshment andno minutest creature is pursued and slain to appease the appetite of itsstronger neighbor."

"Does this condition extend even to the fish of the sea?" inquired theship healer.

"Even to the fish of the sea," answered the Martian.

"Now that you discover," he continued, "what improvement has beenwrought in the lower animals, you can understand that their comfort isan object of our solicitude, and that we take great pleasure in knowingthat they are relieved from all hard labor."

"But you haven't told us," said I, "what is the source of the power thatdoes all your work."

"Let me ask," replied Harod, "if you have begun to use electricityyet?"

"Yes," I answered, "we are trying to harness it, but it is still farfrom obedient to us."

"I perceive," said our friend, "from this and other things you havetold me, that your development is going on in about the order which hasprevailed on Mars. Do not be discouraged in your efforts to bring thatmysterious and wonderful agent, electricity, into complete subjection.You will find it your most useful servant, and in connection withaluminum it will enable you to solve numerous problems and remove manydifficulties from your path of progress.

"Here we have made full use of both of these valuable helps. Electricityenters into every