People related everywhere how wondrous were the gifts of the heaven favoured student.

Early inspired by the desire to benefit my fellow-creatures, I often asked myself why, in a world teeming with blessings, so much suffering existed? and why endless riches in the seas, in the air, in the earth, remained unworked as though they did not exist for the use of man?

At that time the state of civilization and knowledge in Montalluyah was in many respects not unlike that of the most civilized countries of your world.  The religion of fire had long been replaced by the worship of the living God, and morality and goodness were respected by most, preached by many, and practised by a few.

Wars were waged with relentless cruelty by brother against brother, bad passions ruled, the rich oppressed the poor, and became in turn the victims of their own excesses, and vice, disease, and misery were rampant throughout the land.

We had money of various metals and precious stones.  The greed to possess money was the cause of great crimes and loss of power.  I asked myself whether men could not be brought to seek knowledge and goodness as ardently as they sought money?

I could not then answer the question, but saw that, could this be done, the boundaries of intelligence being everywhere extended, the discovery of never-ending fructifying resources would follow, with the means also of multiplying those already known.

Notwithstanding wars and pestilence, the numbers of our people had largely increased, whilst our stocks had seriously diminished, and scarcity and dearth afflicted my world.

The increasing numbers of the population would, I saw, become a means of plenty, by supplying additional numbers and power to the phalanx of nature’s workmen, each, with redoubled skill fitly applied, joyfully labouring in his sphere to create abundance and secure the general well-being.

I applied myself with unwavering perseverance to the study of humanity and the arts of government, and soon found that like aspirations had ruled many wise and good men in the different ages of my planet.  I applied myself to the knowledge of their great wisdom and many precepts, and sought to discover why, notwithstanding the truthfulness and beauty of the golden lessons of these sages, and the eloquence and persuasion of their words, corruption and ruin still so largely prevailed.

Not content with meditating on what had been done and written, I attended the schools, observed the children’s ways, and the mode of educating and rearing the husbandmen of Nature’s vineyard.  I visited the hospitals for the sick, and the theatres of anatomy.  I examined into the causes of disease, and the effects of the existing remedies.  I visited the prisons, and studied the results of punishment and the causes of crime.  I visited the poor in their hovels, the rich in their palaces; I observed mankind in various phases, and as it were dissected men’s minds and passions.  I saw everywhere never-ending power in man and nature recklessly wasted or turned against the community.