support error in this direction. The most lamentable instances to be found among you of this evasion are your chief institutions of learning. Of all places these should be the first to lead in truth, as they are best provided in all the equipments to find it; yet under the prevailing terrorism their predicament is embarrassing and pitiful. While holding class instructions in evolution, geology, astronomy and kindred sciences, they hesitate to openly deny those scriptural fallacies to which their knowledge is opposed, and the farcical spectacle is daily enacted among many of them of a ceremonious reverence for these fallacies, and at all times an artful evasion of any denial of their truth, every one of which it is their especial business to disprove in the course of instruction. I hope you will not infer from what I have said that the people of Mars have not great reverence and veneration for the Deity. Indeed, it is the universal belief amongst us, that the animus which is within us to do good to ourselves, and to make pleasant the ways of life among each other, is but the prompting of that divine presence which is leading us aright in the direction of the still better things to come. As we see in all living things a constant development upward toward a state of perfection, and having, of all creatures else, that within us most susceptible and easy of advancement in the universal march, we simply take our place in the line. What we have accomplished in that direction in our government, society, and morals, gives us new heart to further efforts, and if our methods may be of any service to you, I will give you some further account of them. CHAPTER V. The people of Mars are impressed with the belief that the governments of the Earth have made no great advance in the benefits and usefulness of their legislation during the last two thousand years. We recognize amongst you, only as movements of progress, some provision, particularly in your own country, for the free education of the people, a few sanitary attentions, and a slight awakening to the interests of your laboring class, as about all worth mentioning. It is true that your governments, after originating themselves with only the simplest duties, have come in time, as your civilization advanced, to take on increased and complicated services. But in the multiplication of their duties, there is unfortunately little to be seen but an extension, in various directions, of their first purposes; which may be briefly stated as a defence of assault from without, and a protection of person and property within. We have come to regard the obligations of government as something beyond these, and this difference of view affords a marked instance of our development and advance.