"When one climbs to the top of the ladder one has reached God. God is revealed, and one has but to enter into heaven." Cimourdain made the gesture of one who calls another back: "Gauvain, return to earth. We want to realize the possible." "Do not begin then by making it impossible." "The possible may always be realized." "Not always. Rough usage destroys Utopia. Nothing is more defenceless than the egg." "Still, Utopia must be seized and forced to wear the yoke of reality; she must be circumscribed by a system of actual facts. The abstract must be resolved into the concrete: what it loses in beauty it gains in usefulness; although contracted, it is improved. Justice must enter into law; and when justice has become law, it is absolute. That is what I call the possible." "The possible includes more than that." "Ah, there you go again, soaring away into the land of dreams!" "The possible is a mysterious bird, always hovering above the head of man." "We must catch it." "And take it alive too." Gauvain continued:-- "My idea is this: Ever onward. If God had intended that man should go backwards He would have given him an eye in the back of his head. Let us look always towards the dawn, the blossom-time, the hour of birth. Those things which are falling to decay encourage the new springing life. In the splitting of the old tree may be heard a summons to the new one. Each century will do its work,--civic, to-day; humane, to-morrow: to-day, the question of justice; to-morrow, that of compensation. Wages and Justice are in point of fact synonymous terms. Man's life is not to be spent without a suitable compensation. When He bestows life, God contracts thereby a debt: justice is the inherent compensation; remuneration is the acquirement thereof." Gauvain spoke with the calm serenity of a prophet; Cimourdain listened. The parts were changed, and now it seemed as if it were the pupil who had become the master. Cimourdain murmured,-- "You go at a rapid rate." "Perhaps because I have no time to lose," replied Gauvain with a smile. He continued:-- "Ah, master, here is the difference between our two utopias. You would have military service obligatory; I demand the same for education. You dream of man the soldier; I, of man the citizen. You wish him to strike terror; I would have him thoughtful. You establish a republic of swords, while I desire to found--" He broke off. "I should like to establish a republic of minds." Cimourdain looked down on the flag-stones of the dungeon. "And in the mean time what would you have?" he asked. "The existing condition of things." "Then you absolve the present moment." "Yes." "Why?"