harp, of music
and song and dance, are all beautifully elaborated; but how about the
evolution of the human himself, the development of the basic and
intrinsic parts that were in him before he made his first tool or
gibbered his first chant? It is that which you do not consider, and
which I call biology. It is biology in its largest aspects.

"I know I express myself incoherently, but I've tried to hammer out the
idea. It came to me as you were talking, so I was not primed and ready
to deliver it. You spoke yourself of the human frailty that prevented
one from taking all the factors into consideration. And you, in turn,--or
so it seems to me,--leave out the biological factor, the very stuff out
of which has been spun the fabric of all the arts, the warp and the woof
of all human actions and achievements."

To Ruth's amazement, Martin was not immediately crushed, and that the
professor replied in the way he did struck her as forbearance for
Martin's youth. Professor Caldwell sat for a full minute, silent and
fingering his watch chain.

"Do you know," he said at last, "I've had that same criticism passed on
me once before--by a very great man, a scientist and evolutionist, Joseph
Le Conte. But he is dead, and I thought to remain undetected; and now
you come along and expose me. Seriously, though--and this is
confession--I think there is something in your contention--a great deal,
in fact. I am too classical, not enough up-to-date in the interpretative
branches of science, and I can only plead the disadvantages of my
education and a temperamental slothfulness that prevents me from doing
the work. I wonder if you'll believe that I've never been inside a
physics or chemistry laboratory? It is true, nevertheless. Le Conte was
right, and so are you, Mr. Eden, at least to an extent--how much I do not
know."

Ruth drew Martin away with her on a pretext; when she had got him aside,
whispering:-

"You shouldn't have monopolized Professor Caldwell that way. There may
be others who want to talk with him."

"My mistake," Martin admitted contritely. "But I'd got him stirred up,
and he was so interesting that I did not think. Do you know, he is the
brightest, the most intellectual, man I have ever talked with. And I'll
tell you something else. I once thought that everybody who went to
universities, or who sat in the high places in society, was just as
brilliant and intelligent as he."

"He's an exception," sh