“That a certain advanced social state seems unattainable or even dangerous may not be a sign that it is so. It may be only a sign that those who think it injurious are not ripe for it at present--that their intellectual culture is not in tune with such a life. But it may just suit some who are more advanced than those are who claim that it is unattainable; or they, in time, may grow ripe for it themselves. “Perhaps our primitive ancestors both here and on Mars were cannibals, and they no doubt believed that the desire for eating human flesh would never be eliminated, and if it were eliminated the world would then not be worth living in. But we have no desire to eat human flesh. It would be very repugnant to us. The contemporaries of your ‘Holy Inquisition’ no doubt believed that society would crumble without the so-called protection of that ‘Holy Institution.’ But we know from a retrospective view that it was a very cruel enemy of society. Again, your civil courts that convicted, imprisoned, tortured and burned thousand upon thousand of innocent people as witches during the witch mania, undoubtedly thought that a person’s life and property were not safe without the protection or intervention of these civil tribunals; but we now know that the more witches you killed the more rapidly they increased, and that when you ceased killing them they all soon die of their own accord. _We_ know that there never was a witch; that this belief was only a mental illusion, like thousands of your present beliefs are; and we also know that the human family, with the advance of intelligence, will gradually adjust itself in the line of the completest life and greatest happiness.” CHAPTER V. WEALTH. “A few remarks concerning _wealth_ will be of great value in helping you to understand what you requested me to tell you some future time,” said Mr. Midith; “and if you wish, I will give you in brief the Marsian idea of wealth, before we proceed to our afternoon work.” Parents, visitors and children all eagerly desired Mr. Midith to proceed, which he did thus: “The Marsites believe that genuine wealth consists: 1. Of organized-self--a sound _body_ and a healthy, vigorous _mind_. 2. Of _material_ wealth--food, clothing, shelter, luxuries and the instruments of their production and distribution--tools, machinery, factories, railroads, etc. And 3. Of _mental_ wealth--thought, love, kindness, the so-called morality and freedom.