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Chapter 7
1. However, the words that he said spread throughout the city—and the students and scholars listened attentively.
2. And one of them said, ‘The Hour that you announce to us—it’s Science and nothing else that will signal it.’
3. But he said, ‘Your Science is a very beautiful light no doubt—but they have hidden it deeply away.
4. ‘For, there are millions of brains worthy of knowing and helping in its progress—but they groan in ignorance.
5. ‘Because they have bent them since their tender youth under wearying and mechanical burdens.’
6. Another then said, ‘We must spread primary education—and through tests make higher education accessible to all.’
7. But he said, ‘The education that you impose on children—is good for making them sick of learning anything forevermore;
8. ‘For, everything is offensive to logic and healthy reason—starting with spelling and grammar.
9. ‘And you require that a child prove himself through tests to be submitted to all this—before allowing him to tackle real science.’
10. Now one headmaster said, ‘But mustn’t they learn the rules—to speak and write correctly?’
11. But he said to them, ‘This man seems like a June bug at the end of a string—always turning in the same circle.
12. ‘What indeed is it to write and speak correctly for him?—unless according to the rules that he teaches?’
13. But a scholar said to him, ‘Mustn’t we piously preserve—the customs and traditions of our fathers?’
14. He answered, ‘Embalm dead things, let them rot in peace—and don’t clutter us with mummies.’
15. But a lawmaker came to him and said, ‘It’s true that the laws are often unjust—must we make new ones?’
16. He said, ‘Every law that you make is pregnant with crimes—which wouldn’t exist without them.
17. ‘For, the law pretends to prevent the effect that is produced—whose cause it cannot touch.
18. ‘Search for the causes of offenses and crimes and destroy them—you will no longer need laws or punishments.’
19. Then a moralist said to him, ‘Man suffers because he is eager for pleasure—and his nature tends to evil.’
20. But he said, ‘His nature tends to live, to seek happiness and flee from suffering—and that is not evil.
21. ‘Those who teach the contrary are blind guides—powerless to fight against the universal suffering.
22. ‘Whoever denies pleasure so that man be willing to renounce it—glorifies suffering so that he resign to it, which is excellent for some.’
23. But the moralist said, ‘According to you, then, there is no Good or Evil?’ He answered, ‘Come down from the clouds to earth.
24. ‘In truth I tell you: Everything that is pleasurable is good—and everything that is painful is evil.
25. ‘It is good to live intensely, satisfying all your needs, and to be in harmony with your fellowmen—because all this is pleasure and joy.
26. ‘It is evil to waste away in the dark of a prison, mortifying the flesh, and to live in discord with other men—because all this is sadness and pain.
27. ‘It is good to be happy; it is evil to suffer—every other law is only a lie.
28. ‘What science ought to teach man is what is really good—and what is in the bad sense only the appearance of good.
29. ‘For, men often fool themselves, mistaking poison for a productive remedy—and prepare themselves for a great pain instead of a little pleasure.
30. ‘Or they seek happiness in ways that they know won’t lead there—and all this because that are ignorant.
31. ‘But the time will come, I’m announcing it to you—when everyone will demand his share of knowledge and his share of happiness,
32. ‘And when the prophets of resignation and death will be taken for their word and severely tried.
33. ‘For, if it is wise to resign to inescapable evil—it is criminal and crazy to accept without rebelling the evil that can be combated.’
Chapter 6 * Chapter 8
Black Lung
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