"
"No, Ernest, it is the system of Epicurus and Lucretius. Without going
so far back, there are a thousand others quite as ridiculous, with
which it is unnecessary to charge your young heads."
"All madmen are not in confinement, and it may be that Epicurus and
Lucretius had arrived at those limits of human reason, where genius
begins in some and folly in others."
"It is not that, Fritz; but if men, says Malebranche somewhere,[A] are
interested in having the sides of an equilateral triangle unequal, and
that false geometry was as agreeable to them as false philosophy, they
would make the problems equally false in geometry as in morality, for
this simple reason, that their errors afford them gratification,
whilst truth would only hurt and annoy them."
"Very good," observed Willis; "this Malebranche, as you call him, must
have been an admiral?"
"No, Willis, nothing more than a simple philosopher, but one of good
faith, like Socrates, who admitted that what he knew best was, that he
knew nothing."
The sun had gradually disappeared in the midst of purple tinged
clouds, leaving along the horizon at first a fringe of gold, then a
simple thread, and finally nothing but the reflection of his rays,
sent to the earth by the layers of atmosphere,[B] like the adieu we
receive at the turning of a road from a friend who is leaving us.
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