Meanwhile the two other travelers had gone on their way, for neither of them cared about pleasure; one was a grave-looking man who walked with his eyes on the ground, looking curiously at every rock and shrub he passed by the wayside, and often pausing to examine more closely a strange herb, or to pick to pieces a flower; the other had a calm, sweet face, and he walked erect, his eyes lifted towards the great mountains that lay far away before them. By-and-by there came along the road towards the two travelers a company of men carrying banners, on which were inscribed as mottoes-- "Knowledge is Freedom!" " Science knows no law but the law of Progress!" "Liberty, Equality, Fraternity!" "Utility is Virtue," and a great many other fine phrases. Most of the persons who marched first in this procession wore spectacles, and some were clad in academical costumes. The greater number had gone past, when the grave-looking traveler--he who had interested himself so much in the stones and foliage by the wayside--courteously stopped one of the company and asked him what the procession meant. "We are worshippers of Science," answered the man whom he addressed; "today we hold solemn rites in honor of our deity. Many orations will be made by her high priests, and a great number of victims slain,--lambs, and horses, and doves, and hinds, and all manner of animals. They will be put to death with unspeakable torments, racked, and maimed, and burned, and hewn asunder, all for the glory and gain of Science. And we shall shout with enthusiasm as the blood flows over her altars, and the smoke ascends in her praise." "But all this is horrible," said the grave man, with a gesture of avoidance; "it sounds to me like a description of the orgies of savages, or of the pastimes of madmen; it is unworthy of intelligent and sane men." "On the contrary," returned his informant, "it is just because we are intelligent and sane that we take delight in it. For it is by means of these sacrifices that our deity vouchsafes her oracles. In the mangled corpses and entrails of these victims our augurs find the knowledges we seek," "And what knowledges are they?" asked the traveler. "The knowledge of Nature's secrets," cried the votary of Science with kindling eye, "the knowledge of life and death; the magic of the art of healing disease; the solution of the riddle of the universe! All this we learn, all this we perceive, in the dying throes of our victims. Does not this suffice?--is not the end great enough to justify the means?" Then, when the second of the travelers heard these words--he whose face had been lifted as he walked--he drew nearer and answered:--