“There, Doctor,” said I, “you are well answered. And now, Thorwald, tell us how you have escaped other evils, famine and fire for instance.”
“Fire,” continued our friend, “was one of the first foes subdued. We quite early learned to make our habitations and everything about us of fireproof materials, and, if I mistake not, you on the earth will not long endure an enemy which can be so easily put down. You will find all materials can be so treated with chemicals as to be absolutely safe from the flames. We have fire only when and where we desire it.
“When you speak of famines you touch a more difficult subject, but here, too, time and skill have wrought wonderful changes. In our histories we read of the time when the weather was chiefly noted for its fickleness, and when some parts of our globe were mere desert wastes, where rain was unknown and no life could exist. And in the inhabited portions one section would often be deluged with too much rain while another would have none, both conditions leading to a failure in agriculture and much consequent suffering. A long time was spent in gathering statistics, which finally proved that if the rainfall were distributed there would be just about enough to water sufficiently the whole surface of the globe. Nature provided rain enough, but it did not always fall where and when it was most needed. It seemed to be left with us to find a remedy for this apparent evil. When I say ‘us’ in this way I mean our race as a whole, for most of these changes took place many ages ago.
“Our philosophers had seen so many difficulties removed and improvements made in things supposed to be fixed that they began, once upon a time, to assert that rain and snow and the weather in general ought to be subject to our will. They said that in the advanced state of civilization toward which we were progressing it would seem to be an anomalous thing that we should continue to be subjected to the annoyances of so changeable a tyrant as the weather. We seemed destined to gain control of so many of the forces of nature that our future mastery in this department looked to them reasonable. For a long time these views appeared fanciful to the many, but this did not deter a few enthusiasts from study and experiment. As knowledge and skill increased we began, little by little, to gain control of the elements; but do not imagine it was anything less than a slow and laborious work.
“First, as we learned something of the laws which control the precipitation of the moisture suspended in the atmosphere, we discovered a way to produce rain by mechanical means. As this discovery was gradually developed we found we had really solved the problem. For, as there was only a certain amount of moisture taken up into the air, the quantity of rain could not be increased nor diminished, and so when we made it rain in one place it was always at the expense of the rainfall somewhere else.
“Since those early days vast improvement has been made, until now these laws, once so mysterious and so perplexing, are obedient to our service. The whole face of our planet has been reclaimed, and drouth and famine on the one hand and floods on the other are entirely unknown. Each section of country is given rain or snow or sunshine just as it needs it, and there is no uncertainty in the matter.”
When Thorwald had reached this point my curiosity prompted me to ask him to tell us in a few words how they could make it rain when they pleased, and he answered that he would be glad to give us details of all these matters if we insisted on it, but he thought it would be better for him to present a general view of the state of their society, leaving it for us to see with our own eyes how things were done, after we had reached our destination.
I readily acquiesced, with an apology for my interruption, and Thorwald resumed:
“The doctor spoke of accidents, sickness, and severe toil as among the sources of your troubles. With us, at the present day, all natural laws are so well understood and so faithfully obeyed that there are no accidents. Machinery and appliances of all kinds are perfect; nothing is left to chance, but everything is governed by law. And as we follow that law in every instance nothing can ever happen, in the old sense of that word. To take a homely example, you have of course learned that it is not well to put your hand into the fire, and so, though you use a good deal 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 the operation of all laws, and in every position in life we simply avoid putting our hand into the fire. To be sure, we have been assisted in this by superior skill and by our general steadiness and ripeness of character. If I read history aright accidents were caused by ignorance or neglect of law, and I am sure the people of the earth, when they begin to realize fully how unnecessary they are, will soon outgrow them.
“As for sickness, you cannot understand how strange the word sounds to me. Just think for a moment how useless, how out of place, such a thing as sickness is. Like the subject just spoken of, it comes from disobedience to law, and although I know we were a long time in ridding ourselves of it, it seems to me now that it must be one of the easiest of your troubles to remove. With us the science of medicine became so perfect that it accomplished a great deal of the reform, but more was done by each individual acquiring full knowledge of himself and acting up to that knowledge. In learning to love our neighbors we did not forget to foster a proper love for ourselves. In fact, our creed teaches that self-love is one of our most important duties. When one is instructed to love his neighbor as himself it is presupposed that his affection for himself is of that high quality that will always lead him to do the very best he can for every part of his being. So, as our development continued, we came in time to love ourselves too well to despise or abuse or neglect the bodies we lived in. We studied how best to nurture and care for those bodies, and when that lesson was thoroughly learned we found that sickness and pain were gone, and with them, also, all fear of death. For now we die when our days are fully ended. The span of our life has been doubled since we began to know and care for ourselves, and, at the close, death is anticipated and recognized as a friend.”