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“What has that to do with the unborn?” I asked, quite puzzled.

“Don’t you see that the czarship will die out?”

“How so?”

“No one will risk being born into the Imperial family. I should say that birth within four degrees of consanguinity of the Czar would be so rare that it would come to be regarded as criminal.”

“Yes, that and many another question will be solved quite peaceably,” said the publisher. “You saw me reject a noble grandfather; the growth of democratic ideals among us must ultimately abolish hereditary aristocracy. So, too, the question of second marriages and the deceased wife’s sister may be left to the taste and ethical standards of the unborn, who can easily, if they choose, set their faces against such unions.”

“You see the centre of gravity would be shifted to the pre-natal period,” explained Marindin, “when the soul is more liable to noble influences. The moment the human being is born it is definitely moulded; all your training can only modify the congenital cast. But the real potentialities are in the unborn. While there is not life there is hope. When you commence to educate the child it is already too late. But if the great forces of education are brought to bear upon the unformed, you may bring all Itigh qualities to birth. Think, for instance, how this will contribute to the cause of religion. The unborn will simply eliminate the false religions by refusing to be born into them. Persuade the unborn, touch them, convert them! You, I am sure, Mr. Fore,” he said, turning to the worthy publisher, “would never consent to be born into the wrong religion!”

“Not if hell-fire was the penalty of an unhappy selection,” replied Mr. Fore.

“Of course not,” said Marindin. “Missionaries have always flown in the face of psychology. Henceforward, moreover, Jews will be converted at a period more convenient for baptism.”

“We hope to mould politics, too,” added the publisher, “by boycotting certain races and replenishing others.”

“Yes,” cried Marindin; “it is my hope that by impregnating the unborn with a specific set of prejudices, they might be induced to settle in particular countries, and I cannot help thinking that patriotism would be more intelligent when it was voluntary; self-imposed from admiration of the ideals and history of a particular people. Indeed this seems to me absolutely the only way in which, reason can be brought to bear on the great war question, for in lieu of that loud eloquence of Woolwich infants there would be exercised the silent pressure of the unborn, who could simply annihilate an undesirable nation, or decimate an offensive district by refusing to be born in it. Surely this would be the most rational way of settling the ever-menacing Franco-Prussian quarrel.”

“I observe already a certain anti-Gallic feeling in Ante-land,” put in the publisher. “A growing disinclination to be born in France, if not a preference for being made in Germany. But these things belong to la haute politique”

“My own suspicion is,” I ventured to suggest, “that there is a growing disinclination to be born anywhere, and this new privilege of free choice will simply bring matters to a climax. Your folks, confronted by the endless problem of choosing their own country and century, their own family and their own religion, will dilly-dally and shilly-shally and put off birth so long that they will never change their condition at all. They will come to the conviction that it is better not to be born; better to bear the evils that they know than fly to others that they know not of. What if the immigration of destitute little aliens into our planet ceased altogether?”

Marindin shrugged his shoulders, and there came into his face that indescribable look of the hopeless mystic.

“Then humanity would have reached its goal: it would come naturally and gently to an end. The euthanasia of the race would be accomplished, and the glorified planet, cleansed of wickedness at last, would take up its part again in the chorus of the spheres. But like most ideals, I fear this is but a pleasant dream.” Then, as the publisher turned away to replace the P. Ts. in a safe, he added softly: “Intelligence is never likely to be so widely diffused in Ante-land that the masses would fight shy of birth. There would always be a sufficient proportion of unborn fools left who would prefer the palpabilities of bodily form to the insubstantialities of pre-natal existence. Between you and me, our friend the publisher is extremely anxious to be published.”

“And yet he seems intelligent enough,” I argued.

“Ah, well, it cannot be denied that there are some lives decidedly worth living, and our friend Fore will probably bring up his parents to the same profession as himself.”

“No doubt there would always be competition for the best births,” I observed, smiling.

“Yes,” replied Marindin sadly; “the struggle for existence will always continue among the unborn.”

Suddenly a thought set me a-grin. “Why, what difference can the choice of parents make after all?” I cried. “Suppose you had picked my parents–you would have been I, and I should be somebody else, and somebody else would be you. And there would be the three of us, just the same as now,” and I chuckled aloud.

“You seem to have had pleasant dreams, old man,” replied Marindin. But his voice sounded strange and far away.

* * * * *

I opened my eyes wide in astonishment, and saw him buried in an easy-chair, with a book in his hand and two tears rolling down his cheeks.

“I’ve been reading of Tiny Tim while you snoozed,” he said apologetically.