“I still believe that you are not wrong,” murmured Crisóstomo [Ibarra] in a low voice, “when you say that justice should seek to do good by rewarding virtue and educating the criminals. Only, it’s impossible, Utopian! And where could be secured so much money, so many new employees?” “For what, then, are the priests who proclaim their mission of peace and charity? Is it more meritorious to moisten the head of a child with water, to give it salt to eat, than to awake in the benighted conscience of a criminal that spark which God has granted to every man to light him to his welfare? Is it more humane to accompany a criminal to the scaffold than to lead him along the difficult path from vice to virtue? Don’t they also pay spies, executioners, Civil-Guards? These things, besides being dirty, also cost money.” “My friend, neither you nor I, although we may wish it, can accomplish this.” “Alone, it is true, we are nothing, but take up the cause of the people, unite yourself with the people, be not heedless of their cries, set an example to the rest, spread the idea of what is called a fatherland!” “What the people ask for is impossible. We must wait.” “Wait! To wait means to suffer!” “If I should ask for it, the powers that be would laugh at me.” Elias desires Ibarra to put himself at the head of the people and secure their emancipation from these horrors. Ibarra draws back; all the instincts of his class and the prejudices of his education are against anything of that kind. “But if the people support you?” said Elias. “Never! I will never be the one to lead the multitude to get by force what the Government does not think proper to grant, no! If I should ever see the multitude armed I would place myself on the side of the Government, for in such a mob I should not see my countrymen. I desire the country’s welfare; therefore I would build a school-house. I seek it by means of instruction, by progressive advancement; without light there is no road.” “Neither is there liberty without strife!” answered Elias. “The fact is that I don’t want that liberty!” “The fact is that without liberty there is no light,” replied the pilot with warmth. It is like a conversation in Rizal’s own heart between the spirit of the college and the spirit of his country. Into it, beyond a doubt, he put the conflict that was torturing his soul. The spirit of love and good will in him grappling like Jacob with the soul that told him that from oppressions by violence could come only revolt by violence. It may be profitable to follow this farther. It is a page of Rizal’s own revealing always overlooked by those that insist he was opposed to Philippine independence.