"Lycurgus would not sanction this, my little Spartan girl."
"Perhaps not, papa; but times have altered. Legislators used to seek for a numerous population. Now, Dr. Malthus says the world is over-peopled."
"Why, Hester, I did not think these were subjects that you cared for at all."
"But I do care for them, papa—more, much more than you think; and what I ask of you is to forget that I am a girl, and let me think and study everything—political economy, social economy, natural philosophy, ethics, and aesthetics. I want to know how each of these bears upon the condition the race, to see what man might be. I want to know why man is created—to what he tends."
"Man is created to enjoy life, my child."
"Then why are so many miserable? Why have we disease, plague, famine, war, and bloodshed?"
"'These are partly the result of man's ignorance."
"And yet man has existed nearly six thousand years, and every kind of experience and teaching has been his; and philosophers, sages, religionists, lawgivers have been trying to instruct him, and he is ignorant still."
"You forget, Hester, that every individual that is born into the world is born ignorant and helpless; and yet every individual must realize instruction ere ignorance can be banished. Where you have an educated people to work upon, you may propound improvements and be understood, and then you will find instruments who will co-operate with you; but now look at the population. Occupied in daily toil, as the price of life, how can they comprehend high theories, or study experimental philosophy. If they go into it at all, it must be to take upon trust a few ideas, and they are as likely to take the wrong ideas as the right ones, by that means."
"And is there no remedy for this? Is all this toil necessary? It seems to me as if a great deal of unnecessary work is always being performed. Spartan frugality would disapprove of much of modern luxury; and is not half the toil for luxury merely?"