"According to your teaching death sentences are condemned, as also are wars."
"Not so. The criminal may forfeit his right to a life which he is given to enjoy upon condition that he conduce to the welfare of his fellows. If, instead thereof, he be a scourge to mankind, he loses his rights. As to the matter of war: we must guard the civilization we have built up by centuries of hard labor and study after improvement. We must protect our frontiers against the incursions of the barbarians. Unless they be rolled back, they will overwhelm us. Self-preservation is an instinct lodged in every breast, justifying man in defending his life and his acquisitions."
"It is not a philosophy. It is a revelation."
"A philosophy is a groping upwards. A revelation is a light falling from above. A philosophy is reached only after the intellect is ripe and experienced, attained to when man's mind is fully developed. A revelation comes to the child as his mind and conscience are opening and shows him his way. Here, little one! stand on that _cippus_ and answer me."
Castor took the child in his arms and lifted him to a marble pedestal.
"Little child," said he, "answer me a few simple questions. Who made you?"
"What did the Great Master say was the law by which we are to direct our lives?"
"'He that loveth God, let him love his brother also.'"
"Those that have done good shall be called to life everlasting, and those that have done evil will be cast forth into darkness, where is weeping and gnashing of teeth."
The bishop took the child from the pedestal, and set him again on the ground.
Then, with a smile on his face, he said to Æmilius, "Do we desire to know our way _after_ we have erred or _before_ we start? What was hidden from the wise and prudent is revealed unto babes. Where philosophy ends, there our religion begins."
Æmilius paced the rope-walk in deep thought. He did not speak during several turns, and the bishop respected his meditation and kept silence as well.
Presently the young man burst forth with: "This is fairly put, plausible and attractive doctrine. But what we lawyers demand is evidence. When was the revelation made? In the reign of the god Tiberius? That was two centuries ago. What proof is there that this be not a cleverly elaborated philosophy--as you say, a groping upwards--pretending to be, and showing off itself as, a lightening downwards?"