that Shakespeare and Darwin have died too, that their
thoughts have not saved them, nor the earth, nor you, and that if
life is deprived of meaning in that way, all science, poetry, and
exalted thoughts seem only useless diversions, the idle playthings
of grown up people; and you leave off reading at the second page.
Now, let us suppose that people come to you as an intelligent man
and ask your opinion about war, for instance: whether it is desirable,
whether it is morally justifiable or not. In answer to that terrible
question you merely shrug your shoulders and confine yourself to
some commonplace, because for you, with your way of thinking, it
makes absolutely no difference whether hundreds of thousands of
people die a violent death, or a natural one: the results are the
same--ashes and oblivion. You and I are building a railway line.
What's the use, one may ask, of our worrying our heads, inventing,
rising above the hackneyed thing, feeling for the workmen, stealing
or not stealing, when we know that this railway line will turn to
dust within two thousand years, and so on, and so on. . . . You
must admit that with such a disastrous way of looking at things
there can be no progress, no science, no art, nor even thought
itself. We fancy that we are cleverer than the crowd, and than
Shakespeare. In reality our thinking leads to nothing because we
have no inclination to go down to the lower steps and there is
nowhere higher to go, so our brain stands at the freezing point--
neither up nor down; I was in bondage to these ideas for six years,
and by all that is holy, I never read a sensible book all that time,
did not gain a ha'porth of wisdom, and did not raise my moral
standard an inch. Was not that disastrous? Moreover, besides being
corrupted ourselves, we bring poison into the lives of those
surrounding us. It would be all right if, with our pessimism, we
renounced life, went to live in a cave, or made haste to die, but,
as it is, in obedience to the universal law, we live, feel, love
women, bring up children, construct railways!"

"Our thoughts make no one hot or cold," the student said reluctantly.

"Ah! there you are again!--do stop it! You have not yet had a
good sniff at life. But when you have lived as long as I have you
will know a thing or two! Our theory of life is not so innocent as
you suppose. In practical life, in contact with human beings, it
leads to nothing but horrors and follies. It has been my lo