“We’d better go home,” said the distressed father. “How carefully they guard the interests of the dead, and how indifferent they are to the interests of the living.”
And they returned home.
He sat down and began to work. He had to copy the manuscript of an academical treatise on over-population.
The subject interested him and he read the contents of the whole book.
The young author who belonged to what was called the ethical school, was preaching against vice.
“What vice?” mused the copyist. “That which is responsible for our existence? Which the priest orders us to indulge in at every wedding when he says: Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth?”
The manuscript ran on: Propagation, without holy matrimony, is a destructive vice, because the fate of the children, who do not receive proper care and nursing, is a sad one. In the case of married couples, on the other hand, it becomes a sacred duty to indulge one’s desires. This is proved, among other things, by the fact that the law protects even the female ovum, and it is right that it should be so.
“Consequently,” thought the copyist, “there is a providence for legitimate children, but not for illegitimate ones Oh! this young philosopher! And the law which protects the female ovum! What business, then, have those microscopic things to detach themselves at every change of the moon? Those sacred objects ought to be most carefully guarded by the police!”
All these futilities he had to copy in his best handwriting.
They overflowed with morality, but contained not a single word of enlightenment.