It has never been enough for me. The impenetrable immortality of all our bodies has been a constant source of exasperation to me.

Pallas.

Is it not much to know?

Æsculapius.

Yes; but it is more to do. The most perfect theory carries a monotony and an emptiness about with it, if it is never renovated by practice. In Olympus the unbroken health of all the inmates, which we have accepted as a matter of course, has been more advantageous to them than it has been to me.

Pallas.

I quite see that it has made your position a more academic one than you could wish.

Æsculapius.

It has made it purely academic, and indeed, Pallas, if you will reflect upon it, the very existence of a physician in a social system which is eternally protected against every species of bodily disturbance borders upon the ridiculous.