Another World | Page 6

marriage are diametrically opposite to those
which have rendered the theories of Communists so generally hateful.
Many of the Tootmanyoso's reforms resulted from an application of extraordinary
scientific discoveries to the purposes of life. Under the law which determined that the
"right man" should, in the most extensive sense of the phrase, always be in the "right
place," discoveries were made of which the most acute investigators of earlier times had
had no conception, and the newly-acquired ability of wielding electrical, mechanical, and
other forces had momentous political consequences. Armed with powers previously
unknown, the Tootmanyoso found comparatively easy the successive steps towards the
happiness and well-being of his world, where a series of insuperable obstacles would
have been presented to the wisest of his predecessors.
Of the physical agencies mentioned in the following pages, that of electricity will be
found especially prominent. Both the knowledge and the manipulation of electricity have
assumed in Montalluyah proportions far beyond those known to us. The electric fluid is
there employed for the most various purposes: for locomotion, for lightening heavy
bodies, for increasing the power of optical instruments, for the detection and eradication
of the germs of disease, for increasing the efficiency of musical instruments--in a word,
for the advancement of the world in all that belongs to morality, science, and art.
To some readers the plural form, "Electricities," which frequently appears in the
following pages, might seem a strange innovation. The Editor therefore states, by way of
anticipation, that in certain important points the electrical science of Montalluyah differs
from, if it is not opposed to, some of the principles accepted here. In Montalluyah it is an
ascertained fact that everything organic or inorganic possesses an electricity of its own,
each kind differing from the others in one or more important properties. Glimmerings of
the progress effected in electricity and other sciences, including the knowledge and
application of Sun-power, may be deduced from the facts contained in the fragments.
Still, those glimmerings are but as scattered rays of light in the horizon, which, in the
belief of the Editor, are mere precursors of other revelations at least equally interesting. It
may be said generally that by the fragments here given, showing how the Narrator,
uniting in his own person all the highest qualities of a Legislator and a Ruler, occupied
himself with the discovery and application of means for the reduction of evils to their
smallest possible proportions, not only giving new laws of wondrous grandeur and beauty,
but eventually rendering compliance with them easy and even delightful--that by these

fragments a truly stupendous polity is but partially revealed.
The Editor has reason to believe, though it cannot be stated with confidence, that
Montalluyah is the world known to us as the planet Mars. Even in the following pages
indications will be found of physical features harmonizing with observations made here
on that planet. On the other hand, there is the seeming objection, that whereas Mars is
more distant than the Earth from the Sun, the Sun appears much smaller, and its heat and
light are less intense, on the Earth than in Montalluyah. These facts would, in the first
instance, seem to indicate, not a longer, but a shorter distance of Montalluyah from the
central luminary, and to point rather to Venus or Mercury than to Mars. But, according to
the scientific theories of Montalluyah, the amount of light and heat received from the Sun,
and the aspect of that luminary, are governed, not so much by proximity, as by the nature
and electricity of the recipient planet and its surrounding atmosphere. In illustration of
this point the fact is stated in one of the fragments, that in Montalluyah the power of the
telescope is regulated, not by the distance, but by the attractive or repulsive electricity of
the planet under observation, and that more power is often required to view a nearer
planet than one which is far more distant.
The question as to which of the laws and customs of Montalluyah can be beneficially
imitated, wholly or partially, on our Earth, and which of them merely pertain to physical
accidents or to a peculiar state of society, will afford matter for reflection. It must not be
supposed that, by relating the facts revealed to him, the Editor would recommend all the
laws which they suggest as capable of imitation here. Although they are based on the
principle of securing happiness to the community, more especially to its worthiest
members, he would no more think of recommending them for adoption in their entirety
than of upholding the "Swan-Ship" of Montalluyah as a model for the steamers that cross
the Atlantic. Nevertheless, he trusts that his record of the "regulations" of "Another
World," even where they do not admit of imitation,