Part 2

The other nation most frequently mentioned by our unseen communicant on Mars seems to be known on that planet by the name of ANGLERS-AXSONS, and was at other times referred to under the name of BRITS. There is no doubt but that the two names refer to the same nation, for in one instance the word Axsons was left out, and our kind Martian spoke distinctly of the Anglers or Brits. They dwell apparently on a group of islands called Anglia or Brittia. It further seems that one of these islands is specifically known as the Ire-island, because the ire of its inhabitants is so very easily aroused. According to a legend, the nation of the Brits was founded by a fisherman who drove the snakes off the islands for the permanent protection of the angleworms. This fisherman having been a prehistoric patriarch, whose name has failed to come down the sky-reaching slope of the centuries, the nation is simply known as the Anglers. The ocean has been the field of their conquests and the means toward their development, which took about three centuries, so that their national efforts commenced some two centuries and a half before the Two-Tons started theirs.

They are so wholeheartedly devoted to fishing, it is said that during all this stretch of time they continually have had their baited hooks ready to grab and appropriate anything to be found in, on or near the ocean. They have not been unsuccessful in their fishing enterprise. Sometimes they catch fish. At other times they catch islands, coaling stations, countries occupied by so-called inferior tribes, a canal here and there built by the laborious efforts of other nations; in fact they have gathered all sorts of oceanic treasures whenever the other nations failed to see them first. The surname Ax-sons is probably derived from the fact that but a few hundred years ago they were mere Skandalnavying savages whose only weapon of offense and defense was the battle-ax.

As to the name Brits, by which they seem in fact to be most commonly known, it must be confessed that Professor FANSEE had never succeeded in discovering its intrinsic meaning. When I returned to civilization, however, I decided to investigate; and by carefully scanning all the dictionaries contained in all the famous libraries of the Fidji Islands, I discovered that the word Brit applies to a young herring, once thought to be a distinct species. I furthermore found that this word denotes the food of the whalebone whales, consisting of small crustaceans, pteropods (whatever that is), and other minute surface swimming animals whose mammas have cursed them with fancy names. It is possible that the Brits made at one time the fishing of brit their national industry, and that they thus became known by the name of the fish they sold, dished up, and in other ways used for their own sel-fish purposes. On the other hand it is equally plausible that the name refers to their propensity of grabbing little islands and coaling stations from the ocean, just small enough to escape the attention of others and to pass through the elastic dip-low-matic rake, yet in the aggregate of sufficient bulk considerably to increase their national weight and importance.

Speaking of dip-low-macy, the Brits are great adepts at this low-dipping effort. It should be known that in this peculiar Martian pursuit the facial muscles are not permitted to betray the schemes that are hatching in the brain. You think and mean one thing, you say and appear to mean something else. The heavy bulk of brain that burdens the Two-Tons prevents these scientific people from dissimulating their mental activity. They are forced by nature to be blunt and candid, except when they have caused some calamity and foxily try to throw the blame on somebody else, as curiously may be shown by subsequent events. But the brains of the Brits are not quite so heavy. By means of rowing, swimming, football, polo, golf, tennis, cricket and other strenuous outdoor sports, they have acquired perfect control over their muscles. Especially is this ability apparent in their clever manipulation of the muscles of the face.

At frequent occasions the Brits have covered their angling activities with a veneer of apparently noble purposes, so beautifully polished you could almost use the veneer as a curved looking-glass. For instance, when they were spreading their own nationality all over the hilly surface of good old Mars, their facial expression was extremely innocent and noble while pretending merely to be spreading the Nazarrano faith. While they did do their share toward Nazarrizing the globe on which they live, they did not, in accordance with the Nazarrano precepts, look for their reward in heaven, but they sold their virtues for cash and took their reward by force of arms and dip-low-macy right on Mars itself. Their plan was very simple. They would send a missionary to spread the faith; subsequently they would send him plenty of assistants. Then they would start trading, always looking out--as tradesmen should--for their own interests. This inevitably led to disagreement with the natives. And as the engines of destruction used by the unobtrusive natives had not reached as high a phase of physical civilization as had those of the Brits, all the latter had to do at this phase of the game was to send some of their own little destruction-machines to the nation involved, and, after a little fighting, to make the territory their own. They would then start to colonize to clinch the one-sided deal.

To the development of science and industry they also have contributed a very important share. But as they believed in Culture and failed to develop that national unity brought about by the Two-Ton Kooltoor, their scientific and industrial buildings have never as yet been combined into one great edifice, such as so skilfully erected in Two-Tonia. It is possible that the greater development of animal spirits among the Brits _versus_ the greater mental momentum of the Two-Tons had something to do with this difference in type of growth. It is possible that it was simply due to the fact that the minds of the great Brit thinkers and scientists had developed in one direction, while those among the Two-Tons had developed in a very different direction. Yet there can be but little doubt but that one of the most important causes of this divergency is to be found in the circumstance that the Two-Tons started to build their unified nation at a time when the sciences had reached a high state of advancement, and after a new philosophic sect had arisen among the Two-Tons, who were popularly known as the Social-Mists, and who laid particular stress on the advantages of cooperation; while, on the contrary, the foundation of the Brit institutions had been laid during a period, when the development of modern science had not given even its first signs of life.

In regard to the science of dip-low-macy, previously referred to, it may here be stated that this facial endeavor is by no means limited to the Brits alone. It seems that this quasi-scientific deception is practised with similar skill by other Martian nations. And even allowing for the deplorable fact that most of these nations are suffering from a pitiable mental malady, it still is astounding to the terrestrial onlooker that this ability to manipulate the facial muscles is among the Martians regarded as a highly meritorious attainment. Many dignitaries of the Nazarrano corporation occupy high places of honor on the strength of it. Nay, among most of the Martian nations even the making and the interpretation of the country’s laws is almost exclusively entrusted to those who excel in this deceitful pursuit. For the attainment to high political office it seems to be an absolutely essential accomplishment. Our Martian informer expressed the fervent belief that, were it not for this irrational and habitual deception, much of the petty malice between nation and nation could have been avoided or allayed.

We have heretofore found occasion to mention that the national activity of the Brits covered a period of some three hundred years, while that of the Two-Tons was limited to a span of forty years. This apparent difference in national duration is due to the fact that for many years up to the year 11 E.D. (1871 E.N.) the Two-Tons had been divided into a number of small principalities, each leading a semi-national existence of its own. In the year mentioned, after a destruction-chief by the name of MOULD-KEY had conquered the Frank-Aulians popularly known as the Fringe, a Two-Ton leader called BEES’MARK, because he left the mark of a very busy bee upon Two-Tonia, united the principalities into one great Two-Ton empire. Two chiefs reigned for a short time over the new-born nation, and then were succeeded by another ruler, a man of strenuous activity, bearing the high-sounding name of WILMOSTASH. This man seems to have had a prominent influence on the Two-Tonian growth; and the Two-Tons are convinced that their natural development is in essence due to the tireless efforts of this ruler, whose facial adornments indeed reach up toward the distant heavens.

The industrial preparations among the Two-Ton principalities previous to their federation, were now by the Two-Tons regarded as of but little consequence. Especially the younger generations saw naught but the growth of the united nation since the year 11 E.D. (1871 E.N.). And when they realized that they occupied an industrial position on the planet Mars at least as important as that of any other nation, they were impressed with the idea that in three, four decades they had accomplished what had taken other nations three, four centuries to reach. This impression could not but vastly increase their national pride, so that the nationality-mania, so common among the deluded Martians, was in Two-Tonia brought to an acute phase, overshadowing in depth and seriousness the similar mental malady prevalent among other nations.

As a consequence, as they gradually attained their important industrial position, they aspired at a political position of similar importance. But being--as a consequence of their brain-weight--less nimble and more blunt than many of the other races, they frequently assumed in the counsel of nations a high-toned attitude which the others looked upon as arrogant, and by force of which they frequently attempted to dictate the final decisions on international problems.

Had the nations not been deluded by their antagonistic and ever suspicious nationality-mania, they would have reasoned with the Two-Tons, they would have endeavored better to understand their ideals and their motives, and they might have learned much from them, just as the Two-Tons themselves in earlier years had learned a great deal from the others. But as a consequence of the deplorable Martian delusion, this attitude on the part of the Two-Tons had the effect of emphasizing all the more the malice that one nation bore another, and even resulted in a combination of the ill-will of various otherwise mutually unfriendly nations, in aggregate directed against the Two-Tons. As the neighboring nations watched with anxiety the profuse production of the militaristic explosive in the Two-Tonian empire, and as they scented an imminent danger of an explosion, they--by means of combinations and alliances--commenced to take measures to protect themselves against the Two-Tonian aggression which, they thought, was bound sooner or later to change from a merely mental attitude into a series of acts of physical violence. Among the nations so combined, special mention should be made of the FRANK-AULIANS or FRINGE, who, besides watching with suspicion the growing militaristic activity of their neighbor, were moreover animated by their desire to obtain redress for the damage done them in 1871 E.N., when they lost the territories of All-Sass and Low-Rain to the Two-Tons. Indeed, though this desire--at first vehemently proclaimed--had largely diminished in fervor as time wore on, still it was one of the undercurrents conscientiously to be taken into account in the judgment one might attempt to pass upon later developments. In the anti-Two-Tonian protective combinations, the Fringe no doubt figured prominently.

It is characteristic of the primitive condition of Martian civilization that a nation’s political influence is determined, not by the wisdom it displays in international counsel, but by the size of the territory it controls, and partly, therefore, by the extent of its colonies. Now, during three long centuries various nations had explored the oceans and snapped up all the territories fit for colonization; and owing to the successful angling of the Brits, many of these colonies had in the end fallen into their hands. Next in colonial possessions came the Fringe, and another nation known as the Whole-landers also controlled considerable outlying territory. But as all these nations had been engaged in this accumulation-process for so long a span of time, the Two-Tons, when they commenced to search for similar far-off fields of expansion, found but little left over. And not being as perfect in dip-low-matic attainments as other nations, the Two-Tons, as other nations had feared all along, came to the conclusion that the only way in which they could attain to the same type of political influence, was by force of arms, in other words, by a free and very inconsiderate use of their national explosive on other nations’ territories. I am here tempted to call attention to the marked influence which political conditions exert over the mental activity of a nation’s philosophic authors.

This temptation is so great that I shall overcome my reluctance, and reveal what our Martian communicant secretly confided to Professor FANSEE one memorable night, when both were looking for relaxation from the strain of their protracted labor. On this indeed very rare occasion our Martian philosopher confided to Professor FANSEE some of his own personal earlier experiences. From these it appeared that the Martian--I picture him in my imagination as a tall, lean man with a long white beard--had originally been a fervent follower of the faith of NAZARRO, and that afterwards he had been converted to Darvinianoism. And so profoundly had the Darviniano conclusions obtained a hold on his mentality, that he finally refused to look upon the Heebron and Nazarrano manuscripts as in any way authoritative in regard to what did and what did not constitute morality. With my deeper understanding of Nature, he then had said to himself, let me go back to her, and Nature herself shall teach me the laws of proper conduct. But when he had commenced conscientiously to observe the methods of Nature with this purpose in view, he soon discovered that the conduct of Nature as a whole greatly differs from the conduct deemed just and proper by the Martians. He found that Nature may at any time produce an upheaval of the soil, by which libraries, printing-presses, art museums, temples, churches, factories, institutes of industry and learning, would in a few hours be wantonly destroyed, without the slightest discrimination between the criminal and the virtuous, between things evil and things beneficial to the Martians. In this then, he mused, we cannot follow Nature.

Then, seeking for better guidance, he had bethought himself of the law of the survival of the fittest. This law, he reflected, we may be able consciously to apply to our conduct. But how? It is evident that this law refers essentially to physical impediments and obstructions, to physical conditions only. An icy blast may sweep the top of a high hill and wipe out the tribe that inhabits it, and those living in the valley may survive. Yet, had those in the valley been at the pinnacle, they would have perished, and had those at the pinnacle lived in the valley, they would in turn have survived. And if one were to ask what would have happened had the blast struck both tribes at the same time, we answer, those physically the fittest would have survived, absolutely independent of their virtues or vices or of the degree of their intelligence.

Has intelligence then been of no consequence whatever in the activity of this law? Does not the fact that an intelligent race has survived races of animals physically far more ferocious furnish proof positive of the influence of intelligence on the operation of the great law? No, had the Martian concluded, it furnishes no such proof whatever. An intelligent race has survived, not in consequence of the physical law of survival, but in opposition to it. It survived because it devised means of protection wherewith to oppose the indiscriminating physical forces by which survival had theretofore been determined. And when one compares the individual members of that intelligent race with one another, one soon discovers that those of superior intelligence are often physically far more frail than are the dull-minded specimens, and hence frequently far less fit to withstand the onslaught of antagonistic physical forces.

Do we seek to apply this much quoted law of survival to morality, we find to our dismay that not infrequently the unscrupulous thief and deceiver and the blunt bully grow and prosper, while the honest and virtuous thinker, less tricky or less self-assertive, is the unfortunate and suffering underdog. Of course, if this law of survival were indeed to be applied to our international views, we could only praise and admire those who have acquired power: we certainly would have no good cause to hate them.

We shall soon discover that the Martian spoke in detail on this subject to Professor FANSEE, because it had an important bearing upon the further political events on Mars. And it may therefore be proper for me, also to quote to what conclusion the Martian philosopher came at the end of his revelations.

Would anyone think, he exclaimed, of trying to advocate the law of gravitation as a guide to proper conduct? No one would, because it would be utterly absurd. For no Martian can add one iota to its power or take away one iota from its everlasting activity by conscious effort. We can add to or subtract from it no more than we could add to or subtract from the material of which our Universe is composed. And just as little good or bad as our conscious scheming can do to the law of gravitation, just as little can it aid or hamper the law of the survival of the fittest, except in so far as we may be able to protect ourselves against its indiscriminate lack of consideration. That law has ruled long before there was any self-consciousness, long before there was intelligence in the living entities, long before one group of specimens of a deluded species envied another group its industrial or political importance. If life were to be ruled by this law, it would be absurd to devise remedies against epidemics. In that case, we should allow the disease to ravage the nation all it wants to. Nature would thus render the Martians a special favor by destroying those unfit to survive that particular disease. And after epidemic Number One had passed, we might allow some new epidemic to destroy all the survivors, even though among those killed by the first disease there might have been many who could successfully have survived epidemic Number Two, had they only still been alive to face it.

The absurdity of the proposition of being guided by this automatic law had, therefore, become plainly apparent to our Martian philosopher. And then it was, he told Professor FANSEE, that he began to realize the truth of what had been said by others, that the moral precepts contained in the Heebron and Nazarrano manuscripts had sprung from the verdicts of human reason, after many centuries of experience and observation of social requirements; and that they had become obnoxious to certain Darvinianos, not because they were in themselves wrong or misleading, but because they had until now always been imparted as if inseparably founded on a devoted faith in personal semi-human Deities. Separate them from that ancient faith, and they are strong enough in themselves to remain standing, fastened deep into the rock of human experience, as efficient guide-posts on the road that leads through the labyrinth of life. As experience erected them, experience may perhaps later still further improve them. Not your experience alone, or my experience alone, but the experience of all the Martians combined, scientifically founded on the decrees of further advanced logic.

After this relaxation by way of a heart-to-heart confession, our noble Martian returned to his narrative of the struggling nations, and here he showed at once in what way his confession was connected with his interesting little chapter of political history.

The Two-Ton philosophers, he said, like himself profoundly impressed with the Darviniano faith, had commenced to look to the laws of Nature for moral guidance. And having started to dig in this direction, the momentum of their brain-weight prevented them from changing their course. Thus it came about that NEETCH-UR, a philosopher of note in Two-Tonia, utterly cast aside all Nazarrano precepts. Why cure, protect or aid the weak? Let the strong survive as Nature naturally would let them. Will they be less intelligent? Blame Nature. Will they be less considerate of their brothers’ well-being? It’s the fault of Nature who then apparently wanted it that way. What NEETCH-UR taught, therefore, was the moral excellence of physical and mental power, inconsiderately overriding all those whose powers are less mighty, even if this “moral” attitude should lead the Martians to a condition of total im-morality.

NEETCH-UR was an oratorical author productive of high-sounding maxims, who never endeavored to test their efficiency by the road of logic. Though his ideals were evidently floating in the wrong direction, he nevertheless had some of the marks of the genius. Nationality was to him a minor consideration. He addressed his advocacy of the rule of the powerful to all the inhabitants of Mars, and if a Brit or a Skandalnavying were more powerful than a Two-Ton, he would have witnessed with satisfaction the Two-Ton’s overthrow by the Brit or the sturdy Skandalnavying.

To the Two-Tons, influenced as they were by the Martian nationality-mania, this view of life was a bit too broad. The correctness of the nature-view was not questioned. Especially not since one of their most renowned empirical scientists, known as Professor HECKLER, had boldly toddled from his empirical laboratory into the field of philosophy, and had strenuously emphasized the nature-view, with utter neglect of the emotional side of the Martian character. But though the nature-view was held to be perfectly in order, NEETCH-UR’S international broadness did not coincide with the Two-Tonian national mental tendencies. No wonder, therefore, that another author soon arose, named TRITE-SHKUR, who adopted NEETCH-UR’S views, but applied them exclusively to the glory of the Two-Tons. If any one nation was to survive by its power to conquer, that one nation must be the nation of the Two-Tonians. The Brits with their propensity toward territorial expansion had ruled the misty planet long enough. We, the Two-Tons, have a greater quantity of explosives than have the Brits. Our Kooltoor is far greater than their culture. The God of NAZARRO, no matter what precepts NAZARRO himself may have proclaimed, will take joy in seeing us conquer. We must go for the Brits, use our explosives indiscriminately, and thus capture all the territory we can, in order to force the law of survival to make its decision in our favor.