necessary I will first perform the duties of the lowest paraschites."

Pentaur pointed out to the leech what a bad exchange he would be making,
and at last exclaimed, when Nebsecht eagerly contradicted him, "This
dissecting of the heart does not please me. You say yourself that you
learned nothing by it. Do you still think it a right thing, a fine
thing--or even useful?"

"I do not trouble myself about it," replied Nebsecht. "Whether my
observations seem good or evil, right or heinous, useful or useless,
I want to know how things are, nothing more."

"And so for mere curiosity," cried Pentaur, "you would endanger the
blissful future of thousands of your fellow-men, take upon yourself the
most abject duties, and leave this noble scene of your labors, where we
all strive for enlightenment, for inward knowledge and truth."

The naturalist laughed scornfully; the veins swelled angrily in Pentaur's
forehead, and his voice took a threatening tone as he asked:

"And do you believe that your finger and your eyes have lighted on the
truth, when the noblest souls have striven in vain for thousands of years
to find it out? You descend beneath the level of human understanding by
madly wallowing in the mire; and the more clearly you are convinced that
you have seized the truth, the more utterly you are involved in the toils
of a miserable delusion."

"If I believed I knew the truth should I so eagerly seek it?" asked
Nebsecht. "The more I observe and learn, the more deeply I feel my want
of knowledge and power."