"Is pure study a good in itself?" asked Don Nicola.
"What is good?" retorted the theologian viciously. "I wish you would define it!"
Don Nicola was silent, for though he could think of a number of synonyms for the conception, he remembered no definition corresponding to any of them. He waited.
"Good and goodness are not the same thing," observed the theologian; "you might as well say that study and knowledge are the same thing."
"But study should lead to knowledge."
"And goodness should lead to good; and, compared with ignorance, knowledge is a form of good. Therefore study is a form of goodness. Consequently, as you have a turn for erudition, the best thing you can do is to go on with your studies."
"I see," said Don Nicola.
"I wish I did," sighed the theologian, when the priest was gone. "How very pleasant it must be, to be an archæologist!"
After that, whenever Don Nicola was troubled with uneasiness about his profession, he soothed himself with his friend's little syllogism, which was as full of holes as a sieve, as flimsy as a tissue-paper balloon, and as unstable as a pyramid upside down, but nevertheless perfectly satisfactory.
"Of course," says humanity, "I know nothing about it. But I am perfectly sure."