By these means we are free from all the dangers and difficulties of that state of society which preceded the Communistic cataclysm.

We have poor men, and men who can live only by daily labour; but these have dissipated their wealth, or are looking forward at no very distant period to a sufficient competence.

The entire population of our planet does not exceed two hundred millions, and is not much increased from generation to generation.

The area of cultivable land is about ten millions of square miles, and half a square mile in these equatorial continents, which alone are at all generally inhabited, will, if well cultivated and cared for, furnish the largest household with every luxury that man's heart can desire.

Eight hours' labour in the day for ten years of life will secure to the least fortunate a reasonable competence; and an ambitious man, with quick intelligence and reasonable industry, may always hope to become rich, if he thinks wealth worth the labour of invention or of exceptionally troublesome work." "Mars ought, then," I said, "to be a material paradise.