A perpetual harmony reigns among all the members of this vast family. Simple and modest, each of these beings has no higher ambition than gradually to raise himself in the knowledge of things and in moral perfection.
The atmosphere is not entirely nutritious, and there, as here, one is obliged to eat in order to live. But they live exclusively on fruit and vegetables, and kill no living being.
The functions of material life only take up a very short time, and life is mainly intellectual. Instead of personal rivalries, great and small, and the various ambitions which agitate the entire lives of the men and women of our poor little world, those beings are mainly occupied in study and pleasure.
There is no money. There are no rich nor poor. The fruits necessary for nourishment can be picked anywhere beyond all needs. Summer is perpetual and no sort of clothing has been thought of because the bodily forms always keep their beauty, and coquetry would have nothing to conceal.
There is no old age. On reaching a ripe age one goes to sleep and the body dissolves like a cloud, which becomes invisible by the change of state of its molecules.
No law has instituted the marriage bond. As it would be impossible to contract for interest, because there are neither castes nor fortunes, love alone guides the choice. On rare occasions the years reveal some divergence of character sufficient to lead to a desire for another choice, but when this divergence shows itself there is no chain to break. Besides, they always remain lovers and never become married. The desire of change, of variety, of curiosity, hardly arises because the persons who have freely chosen each other love each other beyond all others and have only chosen each other because they knew each other.
Friendships are sure and faithful, and there is no example of treason dictated by the vile sentiment of jealousy.
Contrary to what happens on earth, every person whose life is ruled by the sentiment of personal interest or ambition would be considered as a monster beyond all explanation and thoroughly despised. In that world they do not, as we do here, meet people who are constantly unhappy on account of a desire to occupy all the best places, are never satisfied with their own lot, and who, being indefatigable opportunists, grab everything in their insatiable egoism, and die full of honours and vanities.
There is no frontier. Humanity forms a single family. Communications are established over the whole globe by a sort of language which passes with the speed of lightning. An administrative council controlled by universal suffrage directs public education, science, art, and justice; and this universal suffrage is enlightened, and exercises its choice among the best and wisest spirits. The dregs of the population are not represented; the deputies do not shine by numbers and incompetence, but by worth. In a country corresponding to France, their number would be reduced from 600 to 100, every deputy possessing a special competence in legislative questions. It is superfluous to add that a Ministry of War has never been thought of there. The people, led by reason, do not follow a fetish. Besides, no patriotic sentiment can there be exploited or brutally debased, since no frontier divides humanity, and patriotic sentiment consists solely in the recognition of intellectual worth.
No institute of so-called official science has been established there. No Sorbonne has condemned the theory of the Earth’s movement, no Academy has disapproved of the doctrine of perpetual peace. There are no titles, no decorations. Nothing is appreciated but personal, intellectual, and moral worth.