“Well,” he continued kindly, “the truth is that man begins to know a little here and there. He would seem to be on the right track--but only just groping at the beginning of it. Of course you can perceive how Mental Inoculation works. Given a character, the problem is where to improve it. For generations all physical cowards were inoculated with Courage: therefore physical cowardice is practically unknown; a rash soul we tinge with Caution; one prone to hoard, receives the diluted virus of Thriftlessness; a fanatical character is dosed with Common Sense; and so forth. Indeed, Common Sense is a panacea. It is certain that we should again relapse into the chaos of a thousand years ago but for our stock of that. I who speak to you was inoculated with Charity. There were fears that by some streak of atavism I might repeat the errors of a selfish great-great-great-grandfather.” “Do you inoculate with Truth?” I asked. “Ah! the truth about Truth is at last determined; but only quite recently. Human Nature has not reached the power to grasp Absolute Truth. It exists, but no psychological chemist has ever succeeded in securing it. A race of empirics still seek for it in secret; but they are as mad as the alchemists of the prime. No, when Truth is reached, æons hence, the world will come to an end and the chain be completed. From the amorphous life-cell, from the protoplasm to Truth----but we need not pursue that. Let me return to Inoculation Day. Upon that notable anniversary each young human life receives a sort of compensating balance to character; and the result is such a high level of understanding, patience, self-control and general regularity that the human race already begins to approach the blissful perfection of a machine in its regularity and rapid progress.” “And we used to say that, come what come may, human nature still remained unalterable!” “One of the funny persistent fallacies of the old folks in the Nineteenth Century. It has been proved otherwise. Nothing happens now but the expected and anticipated.” “It is glorious--magnificent--the supreme triumph of the human mind!” I ejaculated. But he shook his head. “A step in the right direction--scarcely more. Besides, there yet linger among us people who dare to declare that there exist objections to machine-made character. These poor weaklings seem to be the survival of a sort of madmen common in early times. They represent the aborted mental condition that went in its former dreadful development to produce poets and prophets and other unbalanced creatures, including all ‘great men,’ as they were called.” “Geniuses, in fact.” “That was the curious word. Great men are now not possible. A minority of twaddlers still pursue these shadows--not in the sane spirit of the antiquary, but with the affectation that the history and the rhymed nonsense of those dark ages may still be read with profit to-day.” “Then Art is dead!” I gasped. “Happily,” he answered. “Romance?”