in bygone days to Socrates, horizons hitherto beyond our ken—a foretaste of the divine. Tired of spinning round in the vain and narrow circle of reasoning, these men, sceptics in their own despite, come to place their trust in sentiment, in hope and love: they lean upon women who see things with the eyes of love. In this they find a certain happiness, and at all events the secret of strength. No doubt the men of the fifteenth century did not attach to the idea of number the philosophic importance given it since their time; it was recognised that in the name of the rights of intelligence a general should command a whole army, a professor direct his pupils, a master his workmen; three robbers united against one honest man, though in the majority, did not appear to have right on their side; but it is none the less true that intellectual isolation has always created a situation of difficulty. “The vulgar may judge me as they please and take me for what they will,” heatedly exclaims Tiphernus, the professor of whom we have already spoken; “let others please the multitude! As for me, I pride myself on pleasing two or three.” All the clever men who speak so eloquently are sure to be in bondage to some woman; for, after all, the approbation of two or three men, howsoever intelligent, would not carry them very far, while with the enthusiasm of two or three women one can at a pinch be satisfied. And thus the work of civilisation is accomplished; vulgarity, even the vulgarity of common sense, is hidden under a coating of the ideal, women having a horror of force, of the law of number, of all that is banal and coarse.