And while these linguistic exercises were going on Cavor seems experienced considerable relaxation confinement "The first dread and distrust our unfortunate conflict aroused is being," , "continually effaced deliberate rationality of all " . " now able and go as I please, or restricted only own good So apparatus, and, assisted by happy find material littered enormous store-cave, contrived to despatch these messages not the slightest attempt made to interfere with me , though it quite clear to Phi-oo that signalling earth

"'You talk to other ? ' he asked, watching me

"'Others,' said I

"'Others,' 'Oh yes, Men ? '

"And I went on transmitting "

Cavor was continually making corrections previous accounts Selenites as fresh facts flowed upon him to modify his conclusions, and accordingly one gives the quotations that follow with certain amount of reservation quoted ninth, thirteenth, and sixteenth messages, and, altogether vague and fragmentary , they probably give as complete picture social life strange community as mankind can now hope for many generations

" moon," says Cavor, "every citizen knows his place born place, elaborate discipline of training and education and surgery he undergoes fits him at last so completely that he has neither ideas nor organs for any purpose beyond it 'Why should he ? ' Phi-oo would ask If, for example, Selenite is destined mathematician, his teachers and trainers set out at once end They check any incipient disposition to other pursuits, they encourage his mathematical bias with perfect psychological skill His brain grows, or the mathematical faculties brain grow, rest of him only as is necessary to sustain this essential part of him At last, save for rest and food, his one delight lies exercise and display facility, his one interest in its application, his sole society with other specialists own line His brain glows continually larger, portions engaging in mathematics are concerned; they bulge ever larger and seem to suck all life and vigour rest frame His limbs shrivel, his heart and digestive organs diminish, his insect face is hidden under its bulging contours His voice becomes mere stridulation stating of formula; he seems deaf to all but properly enunciated problems The faculty of laughter, save sudden discovery of some paradox, is lost to him; his deepest emotion evolution of novel computation And so he attains his end

"Or, again, Selenite appointed minder of mooncalves is earliest years induced and live mooncalf, his pleasure in mooncalf lore, his exercise in their tending and pursuit trained wiry and active, his eye is indurated tight wrappings, the angular contours that constitute 'smart mooncalfishness ' He takes at last no interest deeper part moon; he regards all Selenites not equally versed in mooncalves with indifference, derision, or hostility His thoughts are of mooncalf pastures, dialect an accomplished mooncalf technique So also he loves his work, and discharges in perfect happiness the duty that justifies his being And so with all sorts and conditions of Selenites - each is perfect unit in world machine . .

"These beings with big heads, on whom the intellectual labours fall, form sort of aristocracy strange society, and head , quintessential moon, marvellous gigantic ganglion the Grand Lunar, into whose presence finally The unlimited development minds intellectual class is rendered possible absence of any body skull lunar anatomy, that strange box of bone that clamps developing brain of man, imperiously insisting 'thus far and no farther' to all his possibilities They fall into three main classes differing greatly in influence and respect administrators, of whom Phi-oo is one, Selenites of considerable initiative and versatility, responsible each for certain cubic content moon's bulk; the experts like the football-headed thinker, trained to perform certain special operations; erudite, the repositories of all knowledge latter class belongs Tsi-puff, the first lunar professor of terrestrial languages With regard latter, curious little thing to note unlimited growth lunar brain has rendered unnecessary the invention of all those mechanical aids to brain work distinguished the career of man no books, no records of any sort, no libraries or inscriptions All knowledge is stored in distended brains much honey-ants of Texas store honey in their distended abdomens The lunar Somerset House lunar British Museum Library are collections of living brains .

"The less specialised administrators, I note, do most part take very lively interest in me whenever they encounter me come way and stare at me and ask questions Phi-oo will reply them going hither and thither with retinue of bearers, attendants, shouters, parachute-carriers, and so forth - queer groups The experts most part ignore me completely, even ignore , or notice me only clamorous exhibition distinctive skill The erudite most part are rapt in an impervious and apoplectic complacency, only denial erudition can rouse them Usually led about by little watchers and attendants, and often small and active-looking creatures, small females usually, that inclined are sort of wife ; but profounder scholars are altogether too great for locomotion, carried from place in sort of sedan tub, wabbling jellies of knowledge that enlist my respectful astonishment just passed one in coming place where permitted to amuse myself electrical toys, vast, shaven, shaky head, bald and thin-skinned, carried grotesque stretcher In front and behind came his bearers, and curious, almost trumpet-faced, news disseminators shrieked his fame

" already mentioned the retinues that accompany most intellectuals: ushers, bearers, valets, extraneous tentacles and muscles, as it were, to replace the abortive physical powers hypertrophied minds Porters almost invariably accompany them also extremely swift messengers with spider-like legs and 'hands' for grasping parachutes, and attendants with vocal organs that could well nigh wake the dead Apart from their controlling intelligence these subordinates are as inert and helpless as umbrellas in stand They exist only in orders to obey, the duties to perform

"The bulk insects, however, who go to and fro spiral ways, who fill the ascending balloons and drop past me clinging to flimsy parachutes are, I gather, operative class 'Machine hands,' indeed, are in actual nature - figure of speech, the single tentacle mooncalf herd is profoundly modified for clawing, lifting, guiding, the rest no more than necessary subordinate appendages important mechanisms, have enormously developed auditory organs; some whose work lies in delicate chemical operations project vast olfactory organ; others again have flat feet for treadles with anchylosed joints; and others - who told are glassblowers - seem mere lung-bellows but common Selenites at work is exquisitely adapted social need it meets Fine work is done by fined-down workers, amazingly dwarfed and neat Some hold palm hand even sort of turnspit Selenite, very common, whose duty and only delight to apply the motive power for various small appliances And to rule over these things and order any erring tendency in some aberrant natures are the most muscular beings moon, sort of lunar police, trained from their earliest years perfect respect and obedience swollen heads

"The making various sorts of operative very curious and interesting process dark , but quite recently upon number of young Selenites confined in jars only the fore-limbs protruded, who were being compressed machine-minders of special sort The extended 'hand' highly developed system of technical education is stimulated by irritants and nourished by injection, while the rest body is starved Phi-oo, unless I misunderstood him, explained that earlier stages these queer little creatures are apt to display signs of suffering in their various cramped situations, but they easily become indurated lot; and me on to where number of flexible-minded messengers were being drawn out and broken in quite unreasonable, , but such glimpses educational methods beings affect me disagreeably , however, pass off, and I more aspect wonderful social order That wretched-looking hand-tentacle sticking out jar seemed sort of limp appeal for lost possibilities; it haunts me still, although, really end far more humane proceeding than our earthly method of leaving children to grow into human beings, and then making machines