hrust
upon us. Besides, it seems blasphemous to me to believe that God has
given to every human being the power to bestow an eternal existence.
The responsibility is great enough when it is simply a matter of so
living that noble souls may seek to be born of us, and undertaking to
give them sound minds and bodies."

Adam looked unconvinced and troubled. "Where on earth did you get all
that?" he asked.

"Well, it is to my mind only an elaboration of Descartes' 'I think,
therefore I am.' I am, presupposes that I have been, and will be. If
you can't destroy one drop of water, you can't destroy me. If you drop
the water on red-hot iron, it instantly becomes an imperceptible mist,
the mere ghost of itself, but it will ultimately become fluid again.
It seems to me that the scientific fact gives a sound basis for the
psychologic probability."

"But think of all the miserable human beings born daily. Do you think
any one would choose such surroundings?"

"You and I never wanted to go anywhere badly enough to crowd ourselves
under the cow-catcher, or upon the trucks, but there were those who
did. We didn't want to see the parade badly enough to stand on the
street corner for hours; but you worked your way through college, and
we have both sat in the top gallery to hear 'Tannhaeuser.' We were
willing to put up with the whips and scorns, which is another way of
saying the garlic and tobacco, for the sake of the music. In any event
the experiment was of brief duration. No one gets more than a fragment
in an ordinary lifetime."

"If you think that," said Adam, "I can't see that there is any
responsibility about it. We should not thrust life on any one."

"True," she assented. "Your position is unassailable, but still it
seems to me the responsibility remains. In the first place, granting
that my hypothesis is true, how can we tell whether to live is gain?
How do we know that the next generation would be better and stronger
than we are? Moreover, I only give this to you as my idea. I do not
say it is true; I believe it to be so, but I do not know anything
whatsoever about it. I can't prove it, and it may be transcendental
rubbish. I rather imagine you think it is."

"Not exactly that," he said, coloring and laughing, "but certainly it
is rather amazing when one hears it for the first time. I daresay I
shall come to believe it too. So far as I can see, you are about as
unorthodox as I am."

"I have times of relapse," she sa