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THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.— SUPPLEMENT. 



The curate answered promptly that, if no re- 

 storatives were given her, she would probably 

 die in a few minutes. " And to let her die," 

 he said, " is clearly our solemn duty. It will be 

 for the greatest happiness of the greatest num- 

 ber." 



" No," said the professor ; " for our sense of 

 pity would then be wounded, and the happiness 

 of all of us would be marred by that." 



" Excuse me," said the curate ; " but exact 

 thought shows me that pity for others is but the 

 imagining of their misfortune falling on ourselves. 

 Now, we can none of us imagine ourselves exact- 

 ly in the old woman's case ; therefore it is quite 

 impossible that we can pity her." 



"But," said the professor, "such an act 

 would violate our ideas of justice." 



" You are wrong again," said the curate ; " for 

 exact thought shows me that the love of justice 

 is nothing but the fear of suffering injustice. If 

 we were to kill strong men, we might naturally 

 fear that strong men would kill us. But, what- 

 ever we do to fainting old women, we cannot ex- 

 pect that fainting old women will do anything to 

 us in return." 



" Your reasoning cannot be sound," said the 

 professor; "for it would lead to the most horri- 

 ble conclusions. I will solve the difficulty better. 

 I will make the old woman happy, and therefore 

 fit to live. — Old woman," he exclaimed, " you are 

 yourself by your own unhappiness expiating your 

 son's sins. Do but think of that, and you will 

 become unspeakably happy." 



Meanwhile, however, the old woman had died. 

 When the professor discovered this he was 

 somewhat shocked ; but at length, with a sudden 

 change of countenance, "We neither of us did 

 it," he exclaimed ; " her death is no act of ours. 

 It is part of the eternal not-ourselves that makes 

 for righteousness — righteousness, which is, as we 

 all know, but another name for happiness. Let 

 us adore the event with reverence." 



" Yes," said the curate, " we are well rid of 

 her. She was an immoral old woman ; for hap- 

 piness is the test of morality, and she was very 

 unhappy." 



" On the contrary," said the professor, " she 

 was a moral old woman ; for she has made us 

 happy by dying so very opportunely. Let us 

 speak well of the dead. Her death has been a 

 holy and a blessed one. She has conformed to 

 the laws of matter. Thus is unhappiness destined 

 to fade out of the world. Quick ! let us tie a 

 bag of shot to all the sorrow and evil of Human- 

 ity, which, after all, is only a fourth part of it ; 



and let us sink her in the bay close at hand, 

 that she may catch lobsters for us." 



IX. 



" At last," said the professor, as they began 

 dinner that evening, " the fullness of time has 

 come. All the evils of Humanity are removed, 

 and progress has come to an end because it can 

 go no further. We have nothing now to do but 

 to be unspeakably and significantly happy." 



The champagne flowed freely. Our friends 

 ate and drank of the best ; their spirits rose, and 

 Virginia admitted that this was really "jolly." 

 The sense of the word pleased the professor, but 

 its sound seemed below the gravity of the occa- 

 sion ; so he begged her to say " sublime " instead. 

 "We can make it mean," he said, "just the 

 same, but we prefer it for the sake of its associa- 

 tions." 



It soon, however, occurred to him that eating 

 and drinking were hardly delights sufficient to 

 justify the highest state of human emotion, and 

 he began to fear he had been feeling sublime pre- 

 maturely ; but in another moment he recollected 

 he was an altruist, and that the secret of their 

 happiness was not that any one of them was hap- 

 py, but that they each knew the others were. 



"Yes, my dear curate," said the professor, 

 " what I am enjoying is the champagne that you 

 drink, and what you are enjoying is the cham- 

 pagne that I drink. This is altruism ; this is be- 

 nevolence ; this is the sublime outcome of en- 

 lightened modern thought. The pleasures of the 

 table, in themselves, are low and beastly ones ; 

 but if we each of us are only glad because the 

 others are enjoying them, they become holy and 

 glorious beyond description." 



" They do," cried the curate, rapturously, " in- 

 deed they do ! I will drink another bottle for 

 your sake. It is sublime ! " he said, as he tossed 

 off three glasses. " It is significant ! " he said, 

 as he finished three more.—" Tell me, my dear, 

 do I look significant ? " he added, as he turned to 

 Virginia, and suddenly tried to crown the gen- 

 eral bliss by kissing her. 



Virginia started back, looking fire and fury at 

 him. The professor was completely astounded 

 by an occurrence so unnatural, and exclaimed in 

 a voice of thunder : " Morality, sir — remember 

 morality ! How dare you upset that which Pro- 

 fessor Huxley tells us must be forever strong 

 enough to hold its own ? " 



But the last glass of champagne had put the 

 curate beyond the reach of exact thought. He 



