"Science!" said the young enthusiast, who had recovered something of his self-possession: "Can conclusions wrested often with perverted ingenuity from artificial principles and arbitrary axioms, be honoured with the name of science? And the law, to obtain this fictitious resemblance to a science, leaves justice behind and unthought of. I will study it, my father, as I would practise any mechanical art, if you should prescribe it as a means of being serviceable to my family; but you--who are a scholar--ah! place not a tissue of technicalities, however skilfully interwoven, on a level with truth, which has its basis in the nature of things. I would help my fellow-men to justice; but must I spend my life, and dry up and impoverish my very soul, in regulating his disputes according to rules that are something very different from justice?--often mere logical deductions from certain legal abstractions, in which all moral right and wrong,--all substantial justice between man and man, is utterly forgotten?" "My son," said the father, "you are young, and therefore rash. You think it, perhaps, an easy thing to do justice between man and man. _We cannot do justice between man and man._ No combination of honesty and intelligence can effect it; the whole compass of society affords no means for its accomplishment. To administer moral justice, each case must be decided on its own peculiar merits, and those merits are to be found in the motives of the human heart. We cannot promise men justice. But we must terminate their disputes. Therefore it is we have a system of law--our only substitute for justice--by which men are contented to be governed because it _is_ a system, and applicable to all alike. Believe me, that wise and able men of all countries are well occupied in rendering more symmetrical, more imposing, and as little immoral and unjust as possible, their several systems of jurisprudence." Petrarch was silent; it was neither his wish nor his policy to prolong the discussion. Besides, his heart was too full. Had he dared, he would have pleaded for his own liberty; for choice of poverty and intellectual freedom--for poverty and greatness! But what he felt within him of the promptings of ambition, the assurance of fame, the consciousness of genius, he had too much modesty to express. He could not do justice to himself, without appearance of overweening pride. It was better to be silent than to say but half. It was the remembrance of this visit which, on the present occasion, made him listen with a painful curiosity to every step upon the stairs. And now a step _was_ heard. It came nearer and nearer, higher and higher--a rapid step which never paused an instant till it reached his own door. A loud knocking followed. But this time it was no spy upon his literary hours. On opening the door, a fellow-student, breathless with haste, rushed into the room, and related the tragical event which had taken place at the house of their common friend Giacomo.