“That is all true, Arnold,” he answered, “and sometimes, even now, that old, inherited weakness that men termed conscience stirs in me. That fatal atavistic folly!—for what is death, after all? A painless end, a placid journey into nothingness, a resolution of the material atoms into new forms, which shall, in turn, create that consciousness men used to term a soul. Their children? Bah! Arnold, through suffering we win upward. In the world-nation that is to come, the narrow, selfish instinct called parental love—a trick of Nature to ensure the rearing of the race—will not exist. It will have served its purpose. All I have done is nothing in comparison with the great secret now almost within my grasp. That is the meaning of the vivisection table—the research work that will enable me to offer man immortality!” I recoiled in horror at the sight of the fearful fanaticism upon his face. “Yes, it is that, Arnold, which I am almost ready to bestow upon the world!” he cried triumphantly. “The old problem of consciousness and tissue life on which we worked so long has practically been solved by means at my disposal in a civilized world. Then we shall live indeed. There will be no requirement that knowledge should progress painfully through the inheritance of our fathers’ labors. We ourselves shall climb the ladder of omniscience. The fit shall live forever, and we shall weed out the moron and defective without scruple, preserving a race of mortal slaves to labor for us in the factories and in the fields, holding them subdued by the threatened loss of that life which we shall control and permit to them so long as they are obedient. That is the noble climax of man’s aspirations. Immortal life, in these bodies of ours, and Esther mine, not for a span, but for eternity!” I believed him—I could not help but believe. Can anything be impossible, so long as man is gifted with free will for good and evil? Must he not have the ladder to scale Olympus, and thereby learn of heights beyond? I flung myself upon my knees before Sanson, like some poor father pleading for his son’s life, and implored him to draw back. As he stood watching me I babbled about the terror in the world, the boon of death, the long-linked chain of humanity, bound all together as a spiritual unit, which he would sever. I reminded him of the old days under Sir Spofforth, of the old, free world we had lost. How had he bettered it? I think I moved him, too, though, when I ended, he was regarding me with a cold smile of negation.