William Alexander Taylor

“ You are in Intermere."
"And where is Intermere?"
[18]
"It lies at your feet and expands on every hand about you. Let that suffice.
"No, this is not the Heaven to which your mother taught you to aspire. It is a part of your own planet, inhabited by beings sprung from the same parent stock as yourself, but differing from all other nations and peoples; a people who are many steps nearer to the higher and better life, and is, by comparison, the Paradise or Eden that masks the gateway of the true Heaven, in a sphere beyond in the great Universe." ”

“ I said to Xamas. "This is a higher and spiritual sphere, and I am not Giles Henry Anderton, but his disembodied spirit."
"You are at fault. You are within the mundane sphere, but with a people infinitely in advance of yours—a people who, by evolutionary processes, have unlocked a large proportion of the secrets of Nature and the Universe, and turned them to ennobling ends, not to selfish purposes. ”

“ We know only loving reverence for the Supreme Principle of the Universe, filial love and piety, and justice to all creatures. This is the soul and essence of your religion, Christianity, and the basic principle of all others. We prefer the last analysis to the inchoate mass of contending creeds, that have drenched the earth with blood for time out of mind, and filled it with doubt and misery ”

“ These temples are the abode of Knowledge and Wisdom, handed down in the records of the ages, showing each successive step taken and to what it led. Here they are taught by the older men and women, who having retired from the activities of life, with a competence assured them, matured in thought, filled with knowledge and possessed of wisdom, perform their final labor, a labor of love for the younger generation. ”

“ We have an entirely different conception of the Supreme Principle, and do not regard it in the light of a ruler or king, in the mortal sense, but the embodiment of justice and love, that neither exacts nor receives adoration of those who pass to the world beyond, the returning children of the great and enduring Principle which exists everywhere, strengthened and broadened by a previous state or states of existence, wherein they were clothed about with mortal and perishable habiliments. ”

“ Almost literally speaking there is no night in Intermere. With the twilight myriads of lights flash out everywhere along the streets, highways, lanes, and from residences, temples and monuments, more luminous than our electric lamps, diffusing a mellow and pleasing light everywhere. But one sees no wires, as with us, to feed the lamps of many sizes and shades of light, each one of which, so far as we can see and realize, is independent of all others and everything.
Merry parties make moonlight and starlight trips by Aerocar. ”

“ A few learned men dependent upon the rulers in one nation, knowing it, could and would plot the destruction and exploitation of all others. The sacrifice of human life and the accumulation of human woe and misery would be appalling.
"If your leaders, with the suddenly awakened hunger for conquest and dominion, could literally command the thunderbolts and control the elements as against the rest of the world, they would sack Christendom in the name of Liberty, Humanity and the Babe of Bethlehem, but in the spirit of Mammon, Greed and selfish love of power and riches. ”

“ After I had partaken, a new life thrilled every nerve and [19] fibre of my physical being and pulsated through every mental faculty.
I arose from my recumbent position and was conducted forward upon the softly carpeted deck and presented to a score of others who received me with every token of marked respect, unkempt and bedraggled as I was. They were men of unusual physique, a composite of the highest types of the human race I had ever seen or read of. Each possessed a distinctive mien and personality, as individuals, yet presenting a harmonious whole, taken collectively. ”

“ It required centuries to expel first the animal instincts, and then the barbarian nature from our race, not by savage repression and ruthless aggression and slaughter, but by the study and application of the laws of Nature and the Universe, which at last ultimated in the principle and entity of Brotherhood and the equality of all men—not equality of stature, mental equipment or material endowment, but the equality of common rights and common opportunities. Labor and Justice maintain and preserve this equality and Brotherhood. ”

“ The wife is entitled to the prevailing wage from her husband for attending to his household affairs, in addition to the other provisions for household matters and economies which he must make.
[48]
"Under our system there is neither opulence nor poverty in the land. Great wealth has no existence with us, and therefore has no allurements. Charity is not a gaunt pack-horse, overloaded with offerings which come after the eleventh hour. The equality of opportunity closes every inlet to the wolves of Hunger and Poverty which ravage other lands amid the riotous revelry of the unjustly opulent. ”

“ Personal adornment and physical beauty in both sexes have no tinge of vanity, and awake no envy in others. Intermerean dress and its adjuncts are as closely looked after as their wonderful mechanism and its mysterious soul or motor-spirit, which enables them to travel with celerity and safety by land or air or sea, or that subtler principle by which men and women, separated by distance, talk to each other by thought instead of speech, and would render the clumsy deception of our own diplomats and other hypocrites an impossibility. ”

“ Remo detained me until the rest of the company [128] had left the Aerocar, and then said abruptly: "You would learn the secret of the motive principle that moves our mechanical devices and performs other offices which seem to you miraculous. It is this: It is the electric current which we take direct from the atmosphere at will—electricity, which is the life-giving, life-preserving and life-promoting principle, the superior and fountain of all law affecting the material Universe and intervening space. To command that is to command everything. ”

“ Your Edison and other electrical discoverers are more than a cycle behind us, and have as yet but touched the outer surface of the great secret. To them and to others the current of the Universe is a constant menace and a danger. ”

“ While Intermere is not sown with diamonds and pearls and precious stones and metals, they were to be seen in profusion everywhere, not as matters of garish display, but of artistic taste. I doubt not that the Intermereans, through their successful study of Nature, possess the Philosopher's Stone, capable of combining and transmuting every substance into the riches for which men die and women sacrifice more than life, and nations crush nations, and peoples destroy peoples, gathering the Dead Sea fruits that turn to bitter ashes on their lips. ”

“ You have been wondering why, with our great knowledge and achievements, we do not go forth and dominate the world. What would it profit us? Could we find anything that would contribute to our enjoyments, our hopes, our aspirations? ”

“ We look forward to the passage from this world to a better one beyond with joyous expectation, and with no sense of terror or apprehension, and there come us no pangs of dissolution. We have sought diligently to live up to the law of love in this life, and have the fullest assurance that our efforts will meet the approval of the Supreme Principle, whose [117] beneficences invite and permit us to enter the broader fields and more perfect worlds of a higher existence. ”

“ Whoever makes a great discovery, such as taking the electric current direct, or dividing its capabilities into useful and necessary directions, or perfects some great mechanism, securing the full beneficence of the current, brings it here and dedicates it to the Commonwealth and its sons and daughters. Its benefits are common to all. ”

“ In some unaccountable way the long and lithe Merocar was propelled at any desired rate of speed, and was turned, as on a pivot, at the will of the man who acted as captain, pilot and engineer. There was no steam, no furnace belching black volumes of smoke, no whirr of machinery, no strain or creaking as the craft shot, sometimes swiftly, sometimes slowly, through the rippling water. Even motion was not perceptible to the physical senses.
The captain-pilot-engineer did not tug at a wheel in his railed-in apartment, elevated a few feet above the center of the upper deck. ”

“ There is room for a million such farms in the Commonwealth, without impinging upon the residential demesnes or cities.
"There is no need to put these farms to the full test of their productiveness. The twentieth part suffices. We have a population of 50,000,000, increasing at the rate of scarcely one per cent each year, and two-thirds of the Commonwealth is public domain, for the benefit of the countless generations yet unborn. Each year and each day brings their immediate needs, and they are met with plenteous fullness." ”

“ It foments discord instead of promoting profitable discussion, which is the bridle-path leading into the highway of wisdom. It is built upon the cornerstone of selfishness, the other name of commercialism, and is thoroughly imbued with the spirit of greed. ”

“ We live simply and in accordance with Nature's laws, and disease, such as prevails in your land and others, is unknown in this, and has been for ages. Science and scientific discovery, as we utilize and employ them, have freed us from disease and made death but the exchange of lives. ”

“ The process of ascent is slow and purely evolutionary—an evolution that constantly conforms itself to ever-changing environments.
"Your own so-called Declaration of Independence, which so many of your people do not care to comprehend, was drawn from the keystone of our own national arch—Human Equality, [42] the climax of human civilization and happiness. ”

“ Powerful prelacies have grown up in all the religious divisions, ambitious of temporal power, and untold evils have resulted, not from the system of religion, but from the love of power and authority, non-spiritual in its nature, and as a result the spirit or principle of religion has suffered undeserved obloquy. ”

“ They glide over the broad, smooth and perfectly kept roadways, through the depths of the ether, or along the waters, with the same imperceptible motion, and can be put to a rate of speed that makes our limited railway trains seem like lumbering farm wagons. ”

“ We do not seek, as a rule, knowledge of individualities in the outside world, but confine our inquiries to matters of general moment. We know of the steps of progress, retrogression, of savagery and butchery and wrong and oppression which dominate an embryotic civilization. ”

“ One day as we rested in a charming suburb of the Lesser City, Alpaz, the Curator of Learning and Progress, appeared in a splendidly appointed Aerocar, accompanied by his entire family and attended by a fleet of Aerocars carrying his assistants, provincial officials [109] and men and women, who made up his entourage. It proved to be a most delightful company.
After sailing overhead for hundreds of miles we descended to an island, along the beach of which lay a complement of Merocars, to accommodate the entire party, as well as some of the insular citizens who begged to accompany us. ”

“ Every fifth day was a holiday, during which no labor was performed, except such as was necessary for the enjoyments of the day.
Manufacturing and business of different kinds were diffused in proportion to the population. There were no great factories or business houses, but innumerable small ones. No manufacturer employed more than ten persons, usually but five, and two or three employes were sufficient for the business houses.
The remarkable discoveries and inventions of the land revolutionized all our ideas of manual [88] labor and mechanics. Heavy and bulky machinery is entirely unknown. ”

“ He may change from one line of business to another, but may not buy or sell real estate for mere speculation. He may not acquire property other than his earnings until he reaches maturity, and designs to marry and become the head of a family. If his intent fail, or remains unfulfilled for three years, the home thus acquired becomes public property, and may be sold to another who assumes the marital relation, and the proceeds divided equally between the municipal treasury or bank and the former owner. ”

“ All persons of both sexes must take up an occupation at the age of twenty, and continue therein, or in some other occupation, until sixty years of age, unless incapacitated, and deposit in the municipal bank or treasury at least one-twentieth of their monthly earnings. At sixty they may retire from active life, and their accumulations are subject to their wants and demands under salutary rules. The residue, along with their other personal property, is distributed pro rata among their direct descendants, and if there be none, in is turned into the general treasury of the Commonwealth. ”

“ The human mind is the vase; Knowledge is the grain, from [37] which Wisdom will germinate. The vase expands by a process too subtle for your comprehension. To crowd it beyond its capacity with the idea of expanding its receptiveness is a dangerous and fatal folly. That is why mental dwarfs multiply and mental giants diminish in proportion to the increase of your people. Two things are uppermost in your mind:
"First, you believe you are in a supernatural sphere and surrounded by a supernatural people. ”