enter as comfortable as we can.
Now, I think we ought to be very careful about doing anything of the
kind. We know, of course, very little about the conditions of the
unborn. But I think it highly probable that, like labour, as described
by the political economists, they form throughout the universe a single
mobile body, with a tendency to gravitate wherever the access is freest
and the conditions most favourable. And I should be very much afraid
of attracting what we may call, perhaps, the unemployed of the universe
in undue proportions to this planet, by offering them artificially
better terms than are to be obtained elsewhere. For that, as you know,
would defeat our own object. We should merely cause an exodus, as it
were, from the outlying and rural districts. Mars, or the moon, or
whatever the place may be; and the amount of distress and difficulty on
the earth would be greater than ever. At any rate, I should insist,
and I dare say Wilson agrees with me there, on some adequate test. And
I would not advertise too widely what we are doing. After all, other
planets must be responsible for their own unborn; and I don't see why
we should become a kind of dumping-ground of the universe for everyone
who may imagine he can better himself by migrating to the earth. For
that reason, among others, I would not open the gate too wide. And,
perhaps, in view of this consideration, we might still permit some
people not to marry. At any rate, I wouldn't go further, I think, than
a fine for recalcitrant bachelors. Wilson, I dare say, would prefer
imprisonment for a second offence, and in case of contumacy, even
capital punishment. On such a point I am not, I confess, an altogether
impartial judge, as I should certainly incur the greater penalty.
Still, as I have said, in the general interests of society, and in view
of the conditions of the universal market, I would urge caution and
deliberation. And that is all I have to say at present on this very
interesting subject.

"The other point that interested me in Wilson's remarks was not,
indeed, so novel as the discovery about fathers having children, but it
was, in its way, equally important. I mean, the announcement made with
authority that the human race really does, as has been so often
conjectured, progress. We may take it now, I suppose, that that is
established, or Wilson would not have proclaimed it. And we are,
therefore, in a position roughly to determine i