that keep play with the revolutions of the iron work, robbed at that hour of their natural rest, as of air and exercise by day: observe their pale and ghastly features, more ghastly in that baleful and malignant light, and tell me if you do not fancy yourself on the threshold of Virgil's hell, where Continuo auditae voces, vagitus et ingens, _Infantumque animae flentes_, in limine primo, Quos _dulcis vitae exsortes_, et ab ubere raptos, _Abstulit atra dies_, et FUNERE MERSIT ACERBO! As Mr Escot said this, a little rosy-cheeked girl, with a basket of heath on her head, came tripping down the side of one of the rocks on the left. The force of contrast struck even on the phlegmatic spirit of Mr Jenkison, and he almost inclined for a moment to the doctrine of deterioration. Mr Escot continued: _Mr Escot._ Nor is the lot of the parents more enviable. Sedentary victims of unhealthy toil, they have neither the corporeal energy of the savage, nor the mental acquisitions of the civilised man. Mind, indeed, they have none, and scarcely animal life. They are mere automata, component parts of the enormous machines which administer to the pampered appetites of the few, who consider themselves the most valuable portion of a state, because they consume in indolence the fruits of the earth, and contribute nothing to the benefit of the community. _Mr Jenkison._ That these are evils cannot be denied; but they have their counterbalancing advantages. That a man should pass the day in a furnace and the night in a cellar, is bad for the individual, but good for others who enjoy the benefit of his labour. _Mr Escot._ By what right do they so? _Mr Jenkison._ By the right of all property and all possession: _le droit du plus fort_. _Mr Escot._ Do you justify that principle? _Mr Jenkison._ I neither justify nor condemn it. It is practically recognised in all societies; and, though it is certainly the source of enormous evil, I conceive it is also the source of abundant good, or it would not have so many supporters. _Mr Escot._ That is by no means a consequence. Do we not every day see men supporting the most enormous evils, which they know to be so with respect to others, and which in reality are so with respect to themselves, though an erroneous view of their own miserable self-interest induces them to think otherwise? _Mr Jenkison._ Good and evil exist only as they are perceived. I cannot therefore understand, how that which a man perceives to be good can be in reality an evil to him: indeed, the word _reality_ only signifies _strong belief_. _Mr Escot._ The views of such a man I contend are false. If he could be made to see the truth---- _Mr Jenkison._ He sees his own truth. Truth is that which a man _troweth_. Where there is no man there is no truth. Thus the truth of one is not the truth of another.[7.2]