No matter how pure the motive, no matter what misery it was sought to alleviate, the leperous cry, ‘Unclean! Unclean!’ was ready to be raised at any one who should seek to direct some of the unstinted light of a marvellous age into this dark domain of ignorance and injustice. To be sure, every one freely acknowledged that black and mephitic vapours were continually arising from this great uncleared land. Every one marvelled that it could be so enveloped in darkness, when there was life and light, change and improvement continually going on about it. The wailing which came from this dark Continent was a source of continual commiseration on the part of every one, and the recitals of the heartrending cruelties, the pestilential scandals, and the shameful deeds that were enacted in this dark country, and which far exceeded those of Siberia, constituted a large and staple part of the intelligence of the newspapers. An age which boasted that it could foretell its weather, and measure the stars, and girdle the earth, was supinely and superstitiously content to let the relation between man and woman remain an unstudied and unimproved part and parcel of a benighted and slave-driving past! As if beyond anything else that concerned mankind, his relations to woman, next to his relation to his Creator, were not the most important, the most deserving of free scientific and conscientious research, and the one supreme improvement for which the world’s highest premiums should be offered.” There was a choking sound in Mr. Lister’s throat. He seemed like one about to weep. But he continued, “Zugassent saw all this. He fully realized that the man who conscientiously gave his mind to the study of these problems, who honestly sought to illumine this great department of human life with some of the light which was being prodigally shed elsewhere, would be reviled and misunderstood. He knew that the impure would call him impure, and that the thoughtless would jeer at him. He knew that many good people, still somewhat bound by the fast-failing chains of superstition, would suspect his motives, and would deem any investigation of this subject unlawful. Nevertheless, Zugassent determined that in no other field of human interest was discovery and improvement so wofully and pitifully lacking, and that though for the present his name might be covered with obloquy, future generations would respect his effort if this did not. He therefore resolved, with all the desperate earnestness of a man who is preparing to take leave of his home and friends forever, to light his humble torch and go alone into the murky caverns of this dark Continent. He would, if possible, open some part of it to the light of day. He did so, and his beneficent discovery, but just beginning to be made known, has placed him at the very head of those who have honestly and successfully toiled for the betterment of the human race.”