Tiphernus died about 1466. From that time forth science was flouted. It gave the world, nevertheless, what it was destined to give—fire-arms, Greece, many admirable things—everything but happiness, which it had never undertaken to provide. And it was precisely on this point that the great mistake was made. What, men asked, is the good of learning, money, labour, or even semblances of joy, if we are oppressed by a life of contention and heaviness? Why are we born with wits, why should we rule multitudes, thrill men’s souls, dwell in palaces, if our hearts are empty? Suppose we wrest Nature’s secrets from her, work every vein of ore, crop every blade of grass: suppose the race of men to form one magnificent herd, fat and flourishing, and even peaceably inclined—what is the good of it all if there is no joy? All things live by love; the heart makes itself heard above the claims of work, above the intellect, demanding for life a recompense, a goal. We perish for lack of something to love; out of mere self-pity we ought to bestow on ourselves the alms of life, which is love. All is vanity save this vanity, for before our birth, until our death, throughout our whole existence, it bears in front of us the torch of life. Perhaps it might be better if men could be governed mechanically and reasonably from an armchair in the library by dint of syllogisms. Unhappily, they love only what pleases them; they are big, greedy children, listless and lazy if you talk to them of reason, but ready to break their necks in pursuit of an illusion. Hence it is very necessary to choose one’s illusions well, and well to employ them. The eternal illusion is love. But what _is_ love? That is the real question. If it is a Petrarchan flower, we crush it under our steel-tipped boots; if it is a coarse sensation, it crushes us, and we have to wrestle with it. Thus we must arrive at a new fact—a love which is neither a beautiful superfluity nor a vile sensual thing; which, in short, is a direct outcome of the worship of beauty. We must discover a new sensibility, lofty, strong, fruitful, spiritual, almost sacerdotal, which serves to link minds together in their common pursuit of a high ideal. To us French this intricate problem seemed highly discouraging and perhaps silly, but its importance was recognised in Italy, the classic ground of love’s quintessences, where even to-day a candidate for Parliament had better speak of love than of the sugar bounties.