"Let's put it simply," the doctor replied. He broke off for the waiter to distribute their drinks. "If the energy you expend on living gives you only that amount of life, then your living conditions will never improve. Correct?"
"Umm."
"But your living conditions do improve. You have more and better food than your great-great grandmother, or your grandfather thirty-eight times removed. Much better. Somebody, therefore, has put more into life than he has taken out, as long as the general living level of the human race continues to improve."
"And so?"
"And so," Dr. Zellermann said, "if the theory that we get no more out of life than we put into it is true, somebody is in the red. A lot of somebodys. Because the human race keeps progressing. And if each individual got no more out of what he put into it, life on the whole would remain the way it is."
"Umm."
"Are ideas energy?" the Saint asked.
"There you have it," Dr. Zellermann said. "Are ideas energy." It wasn't a question. "Are they? I don't know. A certain amount of energy must go into the process of producing ideas which may be translated into practical benefits to the race. What that amount of energy is, or whether it can be measured, is a point to be discussed in future years by scientists who are equipped with instruments we have never heard of."
"But have we heard of the Orient?" asked the Saint.
"I don't follow you," Dr. Zellermann said.