petition for instruction in
Castilian it has been because I saw in it an advantage to our studies
and nothing more. My destiny is different; my aspiration reduces
itself to alleviating the physical sufferings of my fellow men."

The jeweler smiled. "What are physical sufferings compared to moral
tortures? What is the death of a man in the presence of the death of a
society? Some day you will perhaps be a great physician, if they let
you go your way in peace, but greater yet will be he who can inject
a new idea into this anemic people! You, what are you doing for the
land that gave you existence, that supports your life, that affords
you knowledge? Don't you realize that that is a useless life which is
not consecrated to a great idea? It is a stone wasted in the fields
without becoming a part of any edifice."

"No, no, sir!" replied Basilio modestly, "I'm not folding my arms,
I'm working like all the rest to raise up from the ruins of the past
a people whose units will be bound together--that each one may feel
in himself the conscience and the life of the whole. But however
enthusiastic our generation may be, we understand that in this great
social fabric there must be a division of labor. I have chosen my
task and will devote myself to science."

"Science is not the end of man," declared Simoun.

"The most civilized nations are tending toward it."

"Yes, but only as a means of seeking their welfare."

"Science is more eternal, it's more human, it's more
universal!" exclaimed the youth in a transport of enthusiasm. "Within a
few centuries, when humanity has become redeemed and enlightened, when
there are no races, when all peoples are free, when there are neither
tyrants nor slaves, colonies nor mother countries, when justice rules
and man is a citizen of the world, the pursuit of science alone will
remain, the word patriotism will be equivalent to fanaticism, and he
who prides himself on patriotic ideas will doubtless be isolated as
a dangerous disease, as a menace to the social order."

Simoun smiled sadly. "Yes, yes," he said with a shake of his head,
"yet to reach that condition it is necessary that there be no
tyrannical and no enslaved peoples, it is necessary that man go about
freely, that he know how to respect the rights of others in their own
individuality, and for this there is yet much blood to be shed, the
struggle forces itself forward. To overcome the ancient fanaticism
that bound consciences it w