acrificed, but that is of little
import; progress continues on its way, and from the blood of those
who fall new and vigorous offspring is born. See, the press itself,
however backward it may wish to be, is taking a step forward. The
Dominicans themselves do not escape the operation of this law, but are
imitating the Jesuits, their irreconcilable enemies. They hold fiestas
in their cloisters, they erect little theaters, they compose poems,
because, as they are not devoid of intelligence in spite of believing
in the fifteenth century, they realize that the Jesuits are right,
and they will still take part in the future of the younger peoples
that they have reared."

"So, according to you, the Jesuits keep up with progress?" asked Don
Filipo in wonder. "Why, then, are they opposed in Europe?"

"I will answer you like an old scholastic," replied the Sage, lying
down again and resuming his jesting expression. "There are three
ways in which one may accompany the course of progress: in front of,
beside, or behind it. The first guide it, the second suffer themselves
to be carried along with it, and the last are dragged after it and to
these last the Jesuits belong. They would like to direct it, but as
they see that it is strong and has other tendencies, they capitulate,
preferring to follow rather than to be crushed or left alone among the
shadows by the wayside. Well now, we in the Philippines are moving
along at least three centuries behind the car of progress; we are
barely beginning to emerge from the Middle Ages. Hence the Jesuits,
who are reactionary in Europe, when seen from our point of view,
represent progress. To them the Philippines owes her dawning system
of instruction in the natural sciences, the soul of the nineteenth
century, as she owed to the Dominicans scholasticism, already dead
in spite of Leo XIII, for there is no Pope who can revive what common
sense has judged and condemned.

"But where are we getting to?" he asked with a change of tone. "Ah,
we were speaking of the present condition of the Philippines. Yes,
we are now entering upon a period of strife, or rather, I should say
that you are, for my generation belongs to the night, we are passing
away. This strife is between the past, which seizes and strives
with curses to cling to the tottering feudal castle, and the future,
whose song of triumph may be heard from afar amid the splendors of the
coming dawn, bringing the message of Good-News from other