POSITIVISM ON AN ISLAND. 



15 



when a horrible smell, like that of an open drain, 

 was suddenly blown in through the window. 



"Oh, rapture!" cried the professor, as Vir- 

 ginia was stopping her nose with her handker- 

 chief, " I smell the missing link." And in another 

 instant he was gone. 



" Well," said Virginia, " here is one comfort. 

 While Paul is away I shall be relieved from the 

 higher pleasures. Alas ! " she cried, as she flung 

 herself down on the sofa, " he is so nice-looking, 

 and such an enlightened thinker ! But it is plain 

 he has never loved, or else very certainly he would 

 love again." 



Paul returned in about a couple of hours, 

 again unsuccessful in his search. 



" Ah," cried Virginia, " I am so glad you have 

 not caught the creature ! " 



"Glad," echoed the professor — "glad! Do 

 you know that till I have caught the missing link 

 the cause of glorious truth will suffer grievously ? 

 The missing link is the token of the solemn fact 

 of our origin from inorganic matter. I did catch 

 one blessed glimpse of him. He had certainly a 

 silver band about his neck. He was about three 

 feet high. He was rolling in a lump of carrion. 

 It is through him that we are related to the stars 

 — the holy, the glorious stars, about which we 

 know so little. 



" Bother the stars ! " said Virginia ; " I 

 couldn't bear, Paul, that anything should come 

 between you and me. I have been thinking of 

 you and longing for you the whole time you have 

 been away." 



" What ! " cried Paul, " and how have you been 

 able to forego the pleasures of the intellect ? " 



" I have deserted them," cried Virginia, " for 

 the pleasures of the imagination, which I gathered 

 from you were also very ennobling. And I found 

 they were so ; for I have been imagining that you 

 loved me. Why is the reality less ennobling than 

 the imagination ? Paul, you shall love me ; I 

 will force you to love me. It will make us both 

 so happy : we shall never go to hell for it ; and 

 it cannot possibly cause the slightest scandal." 



The professor was more bewildered than ever 

 by these appeals. He wondered how Humanity 

 would ever get on if one-half of it cared nothing 

 for pure truth, and persisted in following the vul- 

 gar impulses that had been the most distinguish- 

 ing feature of its benighted past — that is to say, 

 those ages of its existence of which any record 

 has been preserved for us. Luckily, however, 

 Virginia came to his assistance. 



" I think I know, Paul," she said, " why I do 

 not care as I should do for the intellectual pleas- 



ures. We have been both seeking them by our- 

 selves ; and we have been therefore egoistic hed- 

 onists. It is quite true, as you say, that selfish- 

 ness is a despicable thing. Let me," she went 

 on, sitting down beside him, " look through your 

 microscope along with you. I think, perhaps, if 

 we shared the pleasure, the missing link's para- 

 sites might have some interest for me." 



The professor was overjoyed at this proposal. 

 The two sat down side by side, and tried their best 

 to look simultaneously through the eye-piece of 

 the microscope. Virginia in a moment expressed 

 herself much satisfied. It is true they saw noth- 

 ing; but their cheeks touched. The professor, 

 too, seemed contented, and said they should both 

 be in a state of rapture when they had got the 

 right focus. At last Virginia whispered, with a 

 soft smile : 



" Suppose we put that nasty microscope aside ; 

 it is only in the way. And then, Paul ! — dear 

 love, dove of a Paul — we can kiss each other to 

 our heart's content." 



Paul thought Virginia quite incorrigible, and 

 rushed headlong out of the room. 



XVIII. 



" Alas ! " cried Paul, " what can be done to 

 convince one-half of Humanity that it is really 

 devoted to the higher pleasures and does not care 

 for the lower — at least nothing to speak of? " 

 The poor man was in a state of dreadful perplex- 

 ity, and felt wellnigh distracted. At last a light 

 broke in on him. He remembered that as one of 

 his most revered masters, Professor Tyndall, had 

 admitted, a great part of Humanity would always 

 need a religion, and that Virginia now had none. 

 He at once rushed back to her. "Ah !" he ex- 

 claimed, "all is explained now. You cannot be 

 in love with me, for that would be unlawful pas- 

 sion. Unlawful passion is unreasonable, and un- 

 reasonable passion would quite upset a system of 

 pure reason, which is what exact thought shows 

 us is soon going to govern the world. No ! the 

 emotions that you fancy are directed to me are 

 in reality cosmic emotion — in other words are the 

 reasonable religion of the future. I must now 

 initiate you in its solemn and unspeakably signifi- 

 cant worship." 



"Religion!" exclaimed Virginia, not knowing 

 whether to laugh or cry. " It is not kind of you 

 to be making fun of me. There is no God, no 

 soul, and no supernatural order, and, above all, 

 there is no hell. How, then, can you talk to me 

 about religion ? " 



" You," replied Paul, " are associating relig- 



