"No, father, never!" cried Emile, dismayed by Monsieur Cardonnet's terrible energy; "for that is not the road for mankind to follow. There is in it no trace of love or pity or gentleness. Man was not born to know naught but suffering and to extend his conquests over matter only. The conquests of the intellect in the domain of ideas, the pleasures and refinements of the heart, which, according to your plan, should be carefully regulated accessories in the workingman's life, will always be the noblest and sweetest aspiration of every normally constituted man. Do you not see that you cut off one whole side of the benevolent intentions of God? that you do not give the slave of toil time to breathe and to know himself? that education directed solely to moneymaking will make mere brutish machines and not complete men? You say that you conceive an ideal to be realized in the course of centuries, that a time may come when every one will be rewarded according to his capacity. Well, I say that your formula is false because it is incomplete, and unless we add to it: 'To everyone according to his needs,' it is unjust, it is simply asserting the right of him who is strongest in intellect or will, it is aristocracy and privilege under other forms. O father, instead of fighting with the strong against the weak, let us fight with the weak against the strong. Let us try! but in that case let us not think of making our fortunes, let us renounce the idea of hoarding for our own benefit. Give your consent, for I, for whom you are working to-day, give my consent. Let us try to identify our ideals in this way, and let us renounce personal profit while devoting ourselves to work. Since we cannot by ourselves alone create a society in which all the members have an equal interest, let us be the workmen of the future, devoted to the weak and incapable of the present." [Illustration: _EMILE IN CONFERENCE WITH HIS FATHER._ _When he realized from the young man's bitter tone and desperate expression that it really was as serious as he had feared, he determined to go around the obstacle and to manœuvre in such a way as to recover his influence._]