"But" said M. de Villeneuve, "how does the knowledge of the material world affect man's existence as a moral agent? The laws which regulate materiality leave and impress of invariability upon them—a want of power to change themselves, at any rate. They are obedient to a will to which they appear insentient. This is true not only of inert, stolid matter, not only of vegetable life, but of animals, even of those wondrous developments of instinct which approach so near to reason that they are scarcely distinguishable from it. The highest mere animals are creatures of circumstance—circumstance ruled, indeed, by appetite and instinct, but not by recognition of a higher law, not by any consciousness of affinity to a higher state of existence. Therefore, you can tame them by an appeal to their appetites; you can rule them by providing for their animal natures; you can subdue them if you bring to bear on them a force stronger than their own. But, surely, we may assume that man is more than a mere animal. He has inborn affinities to higher natures which force cannot subdue, and which rise superior to animal temptations. These affinities may be starved out, it is true, by not providing them with their own fitting nutriment, which is not the food of the body. They may be crushed or restrained in their development by overloading the soul with extraneous objects; but in proportion as these powers are starved out or crushed out, the man sinks, the animal rises. And the animal man is, I assure you, a very ferocious kind of beast, and nonetheless so for having intelligence developed; rather is he dangerous in proportion."
"You would not, then, developed intelligence?"
"On the contrary, I think it the highest and holiest task in which a human being can be employed. I rejoice in all the plans that tend to raise the race; I applaud your benevolence in forming these establishments, although I feel that you are preparing for yourself a disappointment."
"But why?"
"Because you have begun on the wrong principle. It is good that you have begun at all to see the principle acknowledged that man is man, and not a mere machine to win riches for the few; that principle emanated from selfishness in the beginning, but selfishness will not root out selfishness. I admire your idea principally because it proves your own zeal, your own earnestness, your own capability of sacrificing yourself for others; even the disappointment impending will be fraught with good if it do not discourage you from seeking the true principle, which I hope it will not do. Faith in man is easily overset, because man can fall of himself, but of himself he cannot rise."
"You believe, then, as I do, that a new era is dawning on mankind, and that the laborer must be protected and enlightened?" said Hester.
"I do!" said M. de Villeneuve.
"Yet you do not believe that my schools and arrangements will make him happier?"
"Will you forgive me if I say I do not?"