From the above-stated facts the reader will have perceived that the conditions of rational life among the Hesperians differ from those experienced on the earth in several essential points. The most important of these are the three following:—The absence of any reproduction of the species; the exemption of the individual from death, so far as this is the result of natural and necessary causes; and the cyclical waxing and waning of the powers of the bodily organism. Evanescence, though its real nature was unknown, had plainly, for the ancient Hesperians, the same significance as death has for us; the only difference being that, with them, the dissolution of the body was an instantaneous act, instead of being effected, except when accelerated by fire, through the medium of a slow and loathsome process of decay. CHAPTER V. Of the causes of the high civilization of Hesperos—Of the relations of the sexes—Of private personal property—Of property in Land; and of the methods of Eviction—Of the Jacks and Masters of all Trades. When we bear in mind these essential differences of Hesperian life, the rapid development of civilization which took place in the northern hemisphere after the sudden introduction of the rational creation will not appear surprising. So far as I have been able to form an estimate, from the information that has been very freely afforded me, the newly created Hesperians were, both intellectually and morally, much on a par with the average of human beings. But the conditions under which they were placed rendered their advance in civilization incomparably more rapid than anything which a similar species, circumstanced as we are on the earth, could hope to attain. Their total exemption from the chronic paralysis of the human race which is involved in the incessant passage of the latter through the stages of infancy and childhood, would, by itself, be enough to give the Hesperians such a start in the race as to render competition useless. With us the intelligent man of matured wisdom departs, carrying with him to the grave the greater part of his accumulated stores of knowledge, and all his skill; leaving his successor, the child, to recover them as well as he can. The Hesperian is crossed by no such check; his course is one uninterrupted advance. Thus it came to pass that, after the lapse of a few thousand years, the condition of the northern hemisphere was, as regards every form of advanced civilization, a very long way ahead of anything even dreamed of, much less realized on earth.