And now we have the explanation of the great intensity of the astonishment which my sudden appearance in Lucetta excited in that town. Though not differing very much either in person or dress from many of themselves, yet the mere fact of my being a stranger to them was sufficient evidence that I was either a new creation on the planet, or had come from another world. In either case my arrival gave them hope that some light was about to be thrown on the great question which had vexed them all so long—Who was the Maker of the Universe? CHAPTER XII. Of the great social changes which resulted from the discovery of the Indestructibility of Life. When this period of the acquaintance of everyone with everyone else had been reached, very little time intervened before a completely socialistic system was established all over the world. In fact it soon became obvious to all that private property had now become a clumsy incumbrance. The substitution of socialism was greatly facilitated by the extreme ease with which all the necessaries, and most of the luxuries, of life were procurable. This was partly due to the favourable climatic and other conditions of the planet, and partly to the extraordinary progress which had been made in the physical sciences in general, and in chemistry in particular. The universal abundance of vegetable life has been already noticed, and also the absence of all noxious and destructive types of the animal kingdom. Food, in the shape of esculent fruits, grew everywhere and in superfluous abundance; and, for all who tired of these, a perfect equivalent for the flesh of animals was readily available. Hesperian chemists had, long before this, completely solved the problem, which still baffles their terrestrial brethren, of the artificial formation of organic compounds from their ultimate elements. For instance, the seeming roast-beef with which I was regaled on my first morning in Lucetta, had just before been manufactured from some carbon, azote, and water, with a very small admixture of fluorine and potassium, without interfering with and inconveniencing any animal whatever. All the purveyors of provisions were good chemists. It is true that, some thousands of years earlier, the Hesperians were in the habit of using animal food, but the practice has been for ages abandoned, and is now regarded with abhorrence. Milk and butter and eggs are also manufactured with equal ease, and of singular excellence, out of similar materials.