"That woman shall be its queen."
"You mean that you demand for both man and woman—"
"Equality."
"'Equality'! Can you dream of such a thing? The two beings are so entirely unlike!"
"I said equality, not identity."
There was another pause, a sort of truce as it were, between these two minds exchanging their lightning flashes. Cimourdain broke it.
"And the child? To whose care would you intrust that?"
"First to the father who begets, then to the mother who gives him birth, later to the master who educates, and to the city that makes a man of him, then to the country which is his supreme mother, and lastly to humanity which is his great ancestress."
"You have not mentioned God."
"Each step—father, mother, master, city, country, humanity—is but a rung in the ladder that leads to God."