I could have wished more outward show of horror--prayers for forgiveness. No: Dr. Linister was always, in his own mind, an Aristocrat. The aristocratic spirit! How it survives even after the whole of the Past might have been supposed to be forgotten. Well: he was a tall and manly man, and he looked a born leader--a good many of them in the old days used to have that look. For my own part, I am short and black of face. No one would call me a leader born. But I deposed the Aristocrat. And as for him--what has become of him? "What would you have done for the People?" I asked him, "that would have been better for them than forgetfulness and freedom from pain and anxiety? You have always opposed the Majority. Tell us, at this supreme moment, what you would have done for them." "I know not now," he replied. "A month ago I should have told you that I would have revived the ancient order; I would have given the good things of the world to them who were strong enough to win them in the struggle: hard work, bad food, low condition should have been, as it used to be, the lot of the incompetent. I would have recognized in women their instinct for fine dress; I would have encouraged the revival of Love: I would have restored the Arts. But now--now--" "Now," I said, "that you have begun to make the attempt, you recognize at last that there is nothing better for them all than forgetfulness and freedom from anxiety, struggle, and thought." "Not so," he replied. "Not at all. I understand that unless the Spirit of Man mounts higher continually, the earthly things must grow stale and tedious, and so must perish. Yea: all the things which once we thought so beautiful--Music, Art, Letters, Philosophy, Love, Society--they must all wither and perish, if Life be prolonged, unless the Spirit is borne continually upward. And this we have not tried to effect." "The Spirit of Man? I thought that old superstition was cleared away and done with long ago. I have never found the Spirit in my Laboratory. Have you?" "No, I have not. That is not the place to find it." "Well. Since you have changed your mind--" "With us, the Spirit of Man has been sinking lower and lower, till it is clean forgotten. Man now lives for himself alone. The Triumph of Science, Suffragan, is yours. No more death; no more pain; no more ambition: equality absolute and the ultimate lump of human flesh, incorruptible, breathing, sleeping, absorbing food, living. Science can do no more." "I am glad, even at this last moment, to receive this submission of your opinions." "But," he said, his eye flashing, "remember. The Spirit of Man only sleeps: it doth not die. Such an awakening as you have witnessed among a few of us will some day--by an accident, by a trick of memory--how do I know? by a Dream! fly through the heads of these poor helpless sheep and turn them again into Men and Women, who will rend you. Now take me away."