State, and the help it wanted from the ability, vigour, and general usefulness of the Principles, had more and more forced up the latter towards the Accident ranks. Still there was much Marsian pride in the purity of Accident. The maintenance of the independent self-superiority of Accident over Principle was the foundation stone of Old Party sentiment.
By certain adaptations of the public law, the Accidents, as a body, were insured an adequate provision, without having to depend on any mere personal qualities or exertions; this provision being, in many cases, something of quite enormous magnitude. The head of the great Pobb-Likk, in particular, was always a pure Accident. Any attempt to introduce Principle in that high quarter—any proposition to select personal suitability for the high office in question, would have at once convulsed the planet over its entire circumference.
Such was the political condition of Mars about the time of the first visit from our earth. A great struggle had recently taken place between the two parties, on the question of admitting a much larger, and more equally adjusted, section of the Principles into the Pobb-Likk. This ended in the subsequent measure known as the great "Tca Mrofer," if I may thus attempt to lay down the difficult Marsian jargon. The New Party had been able just barely to carry this great change, the opposition of the Old Party having been most bitter, vehement, and protracted. And yet already, even at the time of the first visit from our earth, it was held, by common Marsian consent, to have been a proper and wise step, from which retreat was now as undesirable as impossible. And such has
