hich presumably you
possess in the region of your intellect; of representing also the moral
qualities with which you are endowed, and which are, Monsieur, living
forces,--as living as a cataract, as a steam-engine of three, ten,
twenty, fifty horse-power. Ha! this is progress! the movement onward to
a better state of things; a movement born of the spirit of our epoch; a
movement essentially progressive, as I shall prove to you when we come
to consider the principles involved in the logical co-ordination of
the social fabric. I will now explain my meaning by literal examples,
leaving aside all purely abstract reasoning, which I call the
mathematics of thought. Instead of being, as you are, a proprietor
living upon your income, let us suppose that you are painter, a
musician, an artist, or a poet--"

"I am a painter," said the lunatic.

"Well, so be it. I see you take my metaphor. You are a painter; you have
a glorious future, a rich future before you. But I go still farther--"

At these words the madman looked anxiously at Gaudissart, thinking he
meant to go away; but was reassured when he saw that he kept his seat.

"You may even be nothing at all," said Gaudissart, going on with his
phrases, "but you are conscious of yourself; you feel yourself--"

"I feel myself," said the lunatic.

"--you feel yourself a great man; you say to yourself, 'I will be a
minister of state.' Well, then, you--painter, artist, man of letters,
statesman of the future--you reckon upon your talents, you estimate
their value, you rate them, let us say, at a hundred thousand crowns--"

"Do you give me a hundred thousand crowns?"

"Yes, Monsieur, as you will see. Either your heirs and assigns will
receive them if you die, for the company contemplates that event, or
you will receive them in the long run through your works of art, your
writings, or your fortunate speculations during your lifetime. But, as
I have already had the honor to tell you, when you have once fixed
upon the value of your intellectual capital,--for it is intellectual
capital,--seize that idea firmly,--intellectual--"

"I understand," said the fool.

"You sign a policy of insurance with a company which recognizes in you a
value of a hundred thousand crowns; in you, poet--"

"I am a painter," said the lunatic.

"Yes," resumed Gaudissart,--"painter, poet, musician, statesman--and
binds itself to pay them over to your family, your heirs, if, by reason
of your death, th