"Indeed no!"' said M. Bertolot. "The master says it would seem but a ridiculous phrase in this all-disputing age. All faculties, whether of mind or body or soul, seem now confounded. Positiveness usurps the place of reason, and the mere child is allowed to question, instead of being compelled at once to obey. If the world goes on with this principle in action twenty years longer, we shall have little men and women in plenty, but no children left, and then woe to the generation that succeeds: a generation untrained and undisciplined by wholesome restraint, with intellects prematurely developed without the adjunct of self-government, which only moral training can impart. What a world it will make! Methinks its inevitable tendency is to undue animal preponderance. It is frightful to think of!" "I was just making the same remark to Professor K----," said Eugene; "but though I see the evil, I cannot discern the remedy." "It is indeed difficult to compass the remedy," said M. Bertolot, "the departure has been so wide. Men have ceased to distinguish between the result of mere human intelligence and that of a loftier lore, and they now use the intellect as the slave of the only good recognizable in their system, _i. e._ of bodily ease or pleasure. Practically men ignore the soul and its high destiny. Hence the disorder of the times. Animalism is essentially selfish, and animalism is the tendency of modern times--refined, veiled, adorned, with much of intellectual allurement I admit, but nevertheless animalism thorough and entire." "I have thought of this before," said Eugene, "but my ideas are as yet vague and undefined. I want data to go upon some firm ground on which to plant my feet. The guesses of philosophers content me not." "Nor should they, my young friend, since, as you say, they are but guesses, without a sure foundation. But have you heard of nothing beyond philosophy? Has it never occurred to you that the creative intelligence has revealed himself to the creature of his formation, and that through that revelation we are informed of that which it interests us to know--of our own soul, of the object of our creation, and of the final destiny of man?" "I have heard of religion certainly," said Eugene, "but I cannot say I ever studied it or practised it." {178}