Landripp belonged to the new school of materialists. His religion was the happiness of humanity. Man to him was a mere chance product of the earth’s crust, evolved in common with all other living things by chemical process. With the cooling of the earth--or may be its over-heating, it really did not matter which--the race would disappear--be buried, together with the history of its transient passing, beneath the eternal silences. Its grave might still roll on--to shape itself anew, to form out of its changed gases another race that in some future æon might be interested in examining the excavated evidences of a former zoological period. Meanwhile the thing to do was to make man as happy as possible for so long as he lasted. This could best be accomplished by developing his sense of brotherhood out of which would be born justice and good will. Man was a gregarious animal. For his happiness he depended as much upon his fellows as upon his own exertions. The misery and suffering of any always, sooner or later, resulted in evil to the whole body. In society, as it had come to be constituted, the happiness of all was as much a practical necessity as was the health of all. For its own sake, a civilized community could no more disregard equity than it dare tolerate an imperfect drainage system. If the city was to be healthy and happy it must be seen to that each individual citizen was healthy and happy. The pursuit of happiness for ourselves depended upon our making others happy. It was for this purpose that the moral law had developed itself within us. So soon as the moral law within us came to be acknowledged as the only safe guide to all our actions, so soon would Man’s road to happiness lie clear before him. That something not material, that something impossible to be defined in material terms had somehow entered into the scheme, Mr. Landripp was forced to admit. In discussion, he dismissed it--this unknown quantity--as “superfluous energy.” But to himself the answer was not satisfactory. By this reasoning the superfluous became the indispensible, which was absurd. There was his own favourite phrase: The preservation of the species; the moral law within, compelling all creatures to sacrifice themselves for the good of their progeny. To Mr. Arnold S. Landripp, aware of his indebtedness for his own existence to the uninterrupted working of this law; aware that his own paternal affections had for their object the decoying of Mr. Arnold S. Landripp into guarding and cherishing and providing for the future of Miss Emily Landripp; who in her turn would rejoice in labour for her children, and so ad infinitum, the phrase might have significance. His reason, perceiving the necessity of the law, justified its obligations.