“I should not escape grave consequences were I to attribute to him a heresy so detestable,” said my host.  “Even the Campta would not be rash enough to let it be said that he doubts the infallibility of science, or of public opinion as its exponent.  But as it is the worst of offences to suggest the existence of that which is pronounced impossible or unscientific, the supreme authority can always, in virtue of the enormity of the guilt, insist on undertaking himself the executive investigation of all such cases; and generally contrives to have the impossibility, if a tangible one, brought into the presence either as evidence or as accomplice.”

“Well,” I rejoined, after a few minutes’ reflection, “I don’t know that I have much right to complain of ideas which, after all, are but the logical development of those which, are finding constantly more and more favour among our most enlightened nations.  I can quite believe, from what I have seen of our leading scientists, that in another century it may be dangerous in my own country for my descendants to profess that belief in a Creator and a future life which I am superstitious enough to prefer to all the revelations of all the material sciences.”

“As you value your life and freedom,” he replied, “don’t speak of such a belief here, save to the members of my own family, and to those with whom I may tell you you are safe.  Such ideas were held here, almost as generally as you say they now are on Earth, some twelve thousand years ago, and twenty thousand years ago their profession was compulsory.  But for the last hundred centuries it has been settled that they are utterly fatal to the progress of the race, to enlightenment, to morality, and to the practical devotion of our energies to the business of life; and they are not merely disavowed and denounced, but hated with an earnestness proportioned to the scientific enthusiasm of classes and individuals.”

“But,” said I, “if so long, so severely, and so universally discountenanced, how can their expression by one man here or there be considered perilous?”

“Our philosophers say,” he replied, “that the attractiveness of these ideas to certain minds is such that no reasoning, no demonstration of their absurdity, will prevent their exercising a mischievous influence upon weak, and especially upon feminine natures; and perhaps the suspicion that they are still held in secret may contribute to keep alive the bitterness with which they are repudiated and repressed.  But if they are so held, if there be any who believe that the order of the universe was at first established, and that its active forces are still sustained and governed, by a conscious Intelligence—­if there be those who think that they have proof positive of the continued existence of human beings after death—­their secret has been well kept.  For very many centuries have elapsed since the last victim of such delusions, as they were solemnly pronounced by public vote in the reign of the four-hundredth predecessor of the present Campta, was sent as incurable to the dangerous ward of our strictest hospital for the insane.”