ur thousand
years comprising our history can compare with those elementary men who
have slowly evolved and maintained on the earth the existence of our
species, exposed thousands of times to annihilation. The day on which
our ancestors cared for the sick and wounded, instead of abandoning
them as all animals had previously done; on which the first seed was
planted, the first arrow shot, brought nature face to face with the
greatest of her revolutions. Only one in the future will be able to
equal it; if man in remote times was able to free his body, now he
requires the great revolution to free his mind. The races who go
furthest in their intellectual development will be the ultimate
survivors; they will be masters of the earth, destroying all others.
The least wise in those days will probably be far superior to the most
cultivated intellects of the present times. Each individual will find
his happiness in the happiness of his fellows, and no one will try to
exercise compulsion on his neighbour. No laws or penalties will exist,
and voluntary associations will supply through the influence of reason
the present power of authority. This will be in the future--far, very
far off. But what do centuries matter in the life of humanity! They
are like seconds in our existence. On the day when man shall be
transformed into this superior being, with the full development of
all his intellectual faculties, now so embryonic, this earth will no
longer be the vale of tears spoken of by religion, but the paradise
dreamed of by the poets."

In spite of the enthusiasm with which Gabriel spoke, his hearers did
not appear to share these illusions. They were silent, and their
attitude was one of coldness before the immense distance of that
future to which their master confided all his hopes of universal
prosperity. They wished for it at once, with the eagerness of a child
who is shown a dainty which is afterwards put out of its reach. The
sacrifices, the slow work for the future, struck no chord in their
minds. From Gabriel's explanations they only drew the fact that they
were unhappy, but that they had the same right to happiness and
comfort as those privileged few whom they had formerly respected in
their ignorance. As a certain portion of human felicity belonged to
them they wished to possess it at once, without delay or resistance,
with all the fervour of one claiming what belongs to him. Luna
remarked in this silence a certain rebellion,