And who could raise a word against his release? He had done more than his share for the progress of the race. He had watched the interests of his science and made it an essential of all advance. He had braced his energies again and again to meet the requirements of a new age, another march ahead into the night. He had time after time molten the Piramo into a new unity by the magnetism of his enthusiasm. More than once he had extended the years of his life that he might serve his race. And now he had skilled men and women under him, who could do all that he had done, and more. The exceptional needs of the new time had found their attendants mechanic or human. The strain it had put on the efforts of the race was unbent. Why should he linger in a world grown so stale to him, a world that needed no longer his guidance or even his help? There was one question to answer before the mind of the community was made up. It was the final scientific question. Was his vitality great enough yet to bear the strain, were the impulses of another new age to give it enthusiasm? Was the soul already too detached from the body to allow of the two being closely reunited for another great effort? The question was one for their medical science and psychology to answer. The sidralan or biometer abridged the task of the medical elders. It reported a low pitch of vital energy, too feeble to bear up through the labours and watches of another period. But they were afraid to trust wholly to so newly invented an instrument and fell back upon their old elaborate methods of testing; they investigated the state of every organ and tissue of the aged body with lavolans, the heart and brain with especial care. And it was clear from their state that the spirit could not long reside in them and function them with ease. It was at this point that the Ooaromo came in to aid them with their instruments for testing the bond between soul and body, and for measuring the psychic power that still remained ready to use the brain and its instruments the senses. Their older methods and their newest apparatus, the ooaran, all agreed in confirming the conclusion that the medical elders had come to.