has in reality for the first time given it full scope. You may therefore be perfectly certain of this: the superiority over other nations in inventiveness and intellectual energy which you have already noted among us is no accidental result of any transitory influences, but the necessary consequence of our institutions. Every nation that adopts these institutions will have a similar experience. Just as little as we need the stimulus of the pangs of want to call forth those inventions and improvements which increase the amount and the variety of our material and intellectual enjoyments, so little will progress he checked in any other nation which, like us, finds itself in the happy position of enjoying the fruits of progress.' I was deeply moved as my friend thus spoke like an inspired seer. 'When I look at the matter closely,' I said, 'it seems as if, according to the contrary conception, there can be progress only where it is to all intents and purposes useless. For the fundamental difference between you Freelanders and ourselves lies here--that you enjoy the fruits of progress, while we merely busy ourselves with the Danaidean vessel of over-production. No one doubts that Stuart Mill was right when he complained that all our discoveries and inventions had not been able to alleviate the sorrow and want of a single working-man; nevertheless, what terrible folly it would be to believe that that very want was necessary in order that further discoveries and inventions might be made! 'But,' I continued, 'to return to the point at which we started: you have not yet fully explained to me all the astonishing, heart-quickening cheerfulness which prevails everywhere in this land of the happy. Want and material care are here unknown: admitted. But there are outside of Freeland hundreds of thousands, nay millions, who are free from oppressive care: why do they not feel real cheerfulness? Compare, for instance, our respective fathers. Mine is unquestionably the richer of the two, and yet what deep furrows care has engraved upon his forehead, what traces of painful reflection there are about his mouth; but what a gladsome light of eternal youth shines from every feature of your father! I might almost imagine that the air which one breathes in this country has a great deal to do with this; for the folds and wrinkles in my father's features of which I have just spoken have in the fortnight of our stay here grown noticeably less, and I myself feel brighter and happier than ever I felt before.'