and sculpture to where great corridors, halls, and galleries, stocked
with properties and merchandise of every description, were crowded
with people. No one was in attendance; and those who came and went,
carried with them what they pleased. No money was passed, nor did
compensation of any kind seem forthcoming. "If anything strikes your
fancy, take it," said Ah Ben. "All things here are free, and yet
everything is paid for."

Paul asked for an explanation, which Ah Ben gave as follows:

"The city before you is located in the year 3,000, more than a
thousand years in advance of our time. It is called _Levachan_, and
will appear upon earth about 700 years hence; in about four hundred
years from which time it will attain the size and splendor you now
behold. We here see it in its spiritual state, which precedes and
follows all material forms. It will begin its descent into matter,
through the minds of physical man, about the time I have mentioned.
It is merely a type of a class toward which we are tending, and I
show it to you that you may see the vast strides we shall have made
by that time. In the state of society in which we find ourselves,
compensation is made by a system of absolute freedom in exchange.
Here, if a man wants a coat, he takes it, and the owner reimburses
himself from the great reservoir of the world's goods, which is open
to all men as integral parts of a unit."

"What check have you upon the unreasoning rapacity of a thief, who
will take ten times as much as he requires?"

"The system operates directly against the development of that trait.
Here, men are only too anxious to have their goods admired and taken;