The complete establishment of the communistic system also contributed to the simplicity of the social arrangements in the planet; inasmuch as all the multifarious professions which are incidental to the tenure of private property collapsed at once. There was no further need for lawyers, attorneys, bankers, stockbrokers—still less for stock-jobbers—and the great multitude formerly required to serve as policemen, coast-guards, and excisemen, were now at liberty for more directly useful occupations.
CHAPTER XIII.
How the Doctor delivered a course of lectures on the History of the Earth and its Inhabitants—Of the effects of his ghastly description—Of the attempt of two Hesperians to reach the Earth; and of its unsatisfactory result.
[At this point the doctor’s notes become very scanty: still the following facts may be readily gleaned from his memoranda. Hesperos was the abode of one hundred millions of rational and highly-cultured beings, incapable alike of increase or diminution in number, constrained to exist on the surface of the planet, and firmly believing in the existence of an intelligent Creator who, although in all his works which were accessible to them, he manifested unmistakable marks of benevolence, refused to speak to or hold any communication with his intelligent creation. And yet, for such communication they craved with all their soul and with all their strength. The vast temples erected in their cities to the Unknown God, and the solemn services held therein, as well as their intense devotion to all branches of natural science, alike indicated their longing to penetrate the mystery of the material world, and reach the spirit which they believed to lie behind.
The hopes which had been excited so many years earlier by the discovery of the immensity of the Universe when the cloud-screen was passed, had ended in bitter disappointment. Vastness of power on the part of the Maker had indeed been strongly illustrated; but, most certainly, no light had been thrown on any of his other attributes. So it is easy to understand the intensity of interest with which the news of an arrival from another world was received. That their visitor came from the earth was at once ascertained, as we have already seen, by his familiarity with the earth charts in the museum at Lucetta.
When this wonderful arrival was telegraphed at the metropolis, the world-parliament instantly met. It was resolved that a committee should be appointed at Lucetta, whose business should be, first, to learn the stranger’s language, and then to communicate to him a general description of Venus, and the leading facts in the history of her inhabitants, so as to enable him to bring before them the main points of agreement and difference in the conditions of life on the two planets. That these instructions were well carried out by the committee is manifest from the notes which have now been brought to light and translated into the English tongue.
As soon as this preliminary process was completed, the doctor was requested in his turn to give the Hesperians an account of the affairs of the earth; of its physical condition; of its irrational animals, supposing such to exist; of its rational animals, one of which they had seen; and lastly, to answer the great question of questions—Whether the terrestrial rational beings had any direct knowledge of the Maker of the whole.
On all of these points he delivered lectures in the cathedral of Lucetta, to a crowded audience of more than five thousand people. From the short notes in his pocket-book it is easy to gather his manner of treating the above subjects. Of course the reader will bear in mind the great intensity of his misanthropy.
He began by describing the physical condition of the earth’s surface, and contrasting it, much to its disadvantage, with that of Hesperos. In illustration of his malignant remarks, he seems to have made much use of the great terrestrial charts which had been constructed at the observatories. The awful polar climate of the earth came out very unfavourably when compared with that of the corresponding regions of Hesperos; as did also the burning heat of the torrid zone, unprotected from the solar rays by a permanent screen of cloud. He dilated, with much relish, on the phenomena of earthquakes, volcanoes, thunder and lightning, deluges, droughts, great sandy deserts, and other terrestrial peculiarities of a disagreeable character, which were quite unknown to the Hesperians.
As he approached the animal kingdom his spirits seem to have risen. The abundance on earth of loathsome and noxious types of animal life; their portentous fecundity; the formation of entire species which can live only by destroying and devouring the weaker and more defenceless, were happily contrasted with the innocent fauna of Hesperos, confined to a small number of harmless, frugivorous animals, in which the power of reproduction no more than sufficed to keep up the breed.