just because we are intelligent and sane that we take delight in it.
For it is by means of these sacrifices that our deity vouchsafes
her oracles. In the mangled corpses and entrails of these victims
our augurs find the knowledges we seek," "And what knowledges are
they?" asked the traveler. "The knowledge of Nature's secrets,"
cried the votary of Science with kindling eye, "the knowledge of
life and death; the magic of the art of healing disease; the
solution of the riddle of the universe! All this we learn, all
this we perceive, in the dying throes of our victims. Does not
this suffice?--is not the end great enough to justify the means?"

Then, when the second of the travelers heard these words--he whose
face had been lifted as he walked--he drew nearer and answered:--

"No; it is greater to be just than to be learned. No man should
wish to be healed at the cost of another's torment." At which the
stranger frowned, and retorted impatiently, "You forget, methinks,
that they whom we seek to heal are men, and they who are tormented
merely beasts. By these means we enrich and endow humanity."
"Nay, I forget not," he answered gently, "but he who would be so
healed is man no longer. By that wish and act he becomes lower
than any beast. Nor can humanity be enriched by that which beggars
it of all its wealth." "Fine speeches, forsooth!" cried the
worshipper of Science; "you are a moralist, I find, and doubtless
a very ignorant person! All this old-fashioned talk of yours
belongs to a past age. We have cast aside superstition, we have
swept away the old faiths. Our only guide is Reason, our only
goal is Knowledge!" "Alas!" returned the other, "it is not the
higher but the lower Reason which leads you, and the Knowledge
you covet is not that of realities, but of mere seemings. You