“You now see, Camille,” said Spero, resorting at last to language which I could clearly understand, “that life on Mars has developed as peacefully and nobly as it began.  There is no break between our vegetable kingdom and our animal kingdom.  We are nourished, like your plants, trees, and herbs, by the air which we breathe.  Ten million years ago your world was also a scene of innocence and tranquil felicity.  The land was overgrown with a wildly beautiful vegetation that fed on the gentle winds of heaven, and primitive forms of animal life had spread from the depths of the sea along the shallow shores, and were there learning to extract from the air a nourishment similar to that which they obtained from the water.  But by a woeful chance, one of your primitive animals—­a deaf, blind, sexless clot of jelly—­then had its body pierced by a drop of sea-water thicker than usual, and it found that this way of feeding was quicker than simple respiration.  Such was the origin of the first digestive tube, which has exercised so baleful an influence on the course of terrestrial life, and turned the earth into a vast slaughterhouse.”

“Is there no hope for us?” I said.

“No,” he replied; “the earth is a shipwrecked planet.  None of the higher organisms there will ever rise to our level.  How can they alter the structure of their bodies, and empty their veins of blood, and fill them with the subtle electricity which serves us as a life force?  And the grossness of their blood-fed senses!  How can all the fine powers of the immortal soul ever develop along with such degraded instruments of knowledge?”

“But even if our earth is a shipwrecked planet,” I exclaimed, “there is at least some means of escaping from it.  You and Iclea, for instance——­”

“Yes, there is a way of escape,” said Spero, “the Uranian way.  By soaring aloft into the serene region of spiritual ideas, a terrestrial soul can still free itself from its animality.  Some save themselves by their high moral qualities, others are purified and uplifted by their imagination and intellect.  Virtue and science are the wings that enable earth-born spirits to mount the skies.  The destiny of a soul is determined by its works and aspirations.  Lovers of knowledge sojourn awhile on Mars, which is only the first stage in the eternal progress.  Spirits animated by divine feelings rise at once into high regions of starry splendour.  The Uranian way is open to all, and the day will arrive when every inhabitant of your wild, dark planet will recognise that he, too, is a citizen of heaven.  Then Urania will at last inspire and direct him, and point out the path by which he can ascend from the blood-stained earth to the fairer mansions prepared for him in the skies.”

As he was speaking our aerial chariot floated down to a fairy palace by the shore of an enchanted sea.  I alighted; and a radiant, flower-like maiden, who was standing by the portal, unfolded her rainbow wings and shadowed me with them, and murmured, “Do you wish to return to earth?”