Had I not reflected on this danger, I should only have allowed numbers of persons to receive an education which, neglecting the paramount principle of eradicating the faults of men of talent, would have laid them open to the promptings of evil spirits, by whom, perhaps, under the guise of beneficence, they would have been led to use the powers of good for purposes of evil.  Our very progress would have given strength to powerful bad men, and my system, in spite of improvements, would have carried within it the cause for its own eventual destruction.

Many beautiful systems had been tried in Montalluyah, but, from inattention to small details, they had perished.  The men who used for evil purpose powers given them for good, have unknowingly laboured to their own destruction and that of the highly civilized communities where they dwelt; which have thus been swept from the face of the earth.

They had tasted the fruits of the Tree of Knowledge before they had been thoroughly disciplined in the powers of resistance and of self-denial.  Hence the wholesome food was changed to poison; the sweet waters were made bitter; the stream, which in its fullness bore fertility and refreshment, burst its banks, and carried destruction everywhere.

So was it even with the priests of one of our ancient religions, who had the custody of great secrets intended for good.  During a time extending over some generations, they practised the virtues they inculcated, and used their power for a beneficial end.  They increased their power by their virtue and goodness; but their successors, from whose natures the minute germs of physical and mental perversity had not been removed, used their increased might for evil purposes, enervating to the governing will, and to the directing powers necessary to guide an irresistible force.

It is known that the results of every act, whether good or evil, will be felt for all time.  The result of evil was likened in Montalluyah to a virulent disease, which had its beginning in a minute germ; a good act to an ear of nourishing corn, that goes on propagating till it has supplied nations with food.

It was not enough that my laws worked with the beauty, regularity, and unity of a well-balanced machine, the parts of which assisted each other in attaining the immediate object of its construction.  The political and social machine possessed also the faculty of acquiring at every movement increased powers of production.

I had satisfied myself that amongst the numerous precautions to be taken to secure the highest degree of beauty, power, and intelligence in adults, on which so much depended, was the care of the infant, and that this should commence from the earliest period, before the features, form, and organization had received the first approaches of enduring outline, since then all would be in a malleable or plastic state, ready to take any impressions caused by accident or design, whether tending to good or evil, to beauty or deformity.