s a standard.

A PHILOSOPHY

Toward the end of their course Caesar presented himself one day in his
friend Alzugaray's office.

"I think," he said, "that I am getting my philosophy into shape."

"My dear man!"

"Yes. I have tacked some new contours on to my Darwinian pragmatism."

Alzugaray, in whom every treasure-trove of his friend's always produced
great surprise, stood staring naively at him.

"Yes, I am building up my system," Caesar went on, "a system within
relative truth. It is clear."

"Let's hear what it is."

"In regard to us," said Caesar, as if he were speaking of something
that had happened in the street a few minutes before, "our uncertain
instrument of knowledge makes two apparent states of nature seem real to
us; one, the static, in which things are perceived by us as motionless;
the other, the dynamic, wherein these same things are found in motion.
It is clear that in reality everything is in motion; but within the
relative truth of our ideas we are able to believe that there are some
things in repose and others in action. Isn't that so?"

"Yes. That is, I think so," replied Alzugaray, who was beginning to
wonder if the whole earth was trembling under his feet.

"Good!" Caesar continued. "I am going to pass from nature to life: I
am going to assume that life has a purpose. Where can this purpose be
found? We don't know. But what can be the machinery of this purpose?
Only movement, action. That is to say, struggle. This assertion once
made, I am going to take a hand in carrying it out. The things we call
spiritual also are dynamic. Who says anything whatsoever says matter and
force; who says force affirms attraction and repulsion; attraction and
repulsion are synonymous with movement, with struggle, with action. Now
I am inside of my system. It will consist of putting all the forces near
me into movement, into action, into struggle. What pleasure may there be
in this? First, the pleasure of doing, the pleasure, we might call
it, of efficiency; secondly, the pleasure of seeing, the pleasure of
observing.... What do you think of it?"

"Fine, man! The things you start are always good." "Then there is the
moral point. I think I have settled that too."

"That too?"

"Yes. Morals should be nothing more than the true, fitting, and natural
law of man. Man considered solely as a spiritual machine? No. Considered
as an animal that eats and drinks? Not that either. Man considered as a
complet