"Though I did not mean to do so, by chance I diverted the conversation. 'Master,' said I, 'you have just said the Trinity is more deeply impressed on the face of the stars. What would you express by that? Indeed, as the Bible says, I see God's story uttered by the stars, but I see in these stars no evidence of what you call Trinity.' He replied:
"'Physical science is not yet adequately advanced; you have not studied them in their present state. Have you heard of the discoveries in electricity? Certainly you have, for all who are educated have attended to them. Well, have you not observed that the philosophers who so contemned and despised the divine Trinity, have in this point of view recognised it? Have they not said there was no electricity without heat and light? In this they see that Trinity they will not acknowledge in God.'
"He then began to talk of nature, and said we should refer all its phenomena to one uniform rule. 'Life is one. There is in life one action. The only question to ascertain is, how we live in obedience to one universal law, without being absorbed in that law?'
"For my own sake, I would gladly have heard him elucidate this great theme. Spartacus, though, for some time had appeared less attentive to what he said. The reason of this was not that he did not attend to them. The old man's mind, however, would not always last; he sought, therefore, to improve it by bringing him back to the subjects he loved the best.
"Rudolstadt observed his impatience. 'You no longer follow the train of my ideas,' said he. 'Does the science of nature, as I understand it, seem inapproachable? You are in error if you think so. I estimate the labor of learned men as lightly as you do, when they become empirics. If they act thus, they will build up no science, but merely a glossary. Others beside myself are of this opinion. I became in France acquainted with a philosopher I loved deeply, Diderot, who often blamed the collection of scientific matter without any idea. Such is the work of a stone-cutter. Yet no trace of the mason or architect is apparent. Sooner or later, then, doctrine will come in contact with the natural science. These are our materials. Think you, now, the naturalist really understands nature without a perception of the living God who fills it? Can they see or know it? They call light and sound matter, when matter is light and sound.'
"'Think not,' said Spartacus, 'I reject what you say about nature. Not so. I see there can be no true knowledge, except from the appreciation of the godly unity, and the likeness of all phenomena. But you point out the paths to us, and I tremble at the idea of your silence. Enable me to make some progress in one of those paths.'
"'In which?' said Albert.
"'I think of humanity and the future.'
"'I see you wish,' said Albert, with a smile, 'that I should give you my Utopia.'
"'That was what I desired to ask you,' said Spartacus. 'I wished the new Utopia you bear in your brain and bosom. We know the society of the Invisibles searched for and dreamed of its bases. That labor has matured in you. Let us take advantage of it. Give us your republic, and, as far as it seems realisable to us, we will put it in practice. The sparks from your fire will enliven the universe.'