I met abroad.  I do not like the daily press, and consider it as one of the plagues sent down to torment humanity.  The swiftness with which the world becomes acquainted with current events is equal to the superficiality of the information, and does not compensate for the incredible perversion of public opinion, as any one who is not prejudiced must perceive.  Thanks to the daily press, the sense which knows how to sift the true from the false has become blunted, the notions of right and wrong have well-nigh disappeared, evil stalks about in the garb of righteousness, and oppression speaks the language of justice; in brief, the human soul has become immoral and blind.

There was, among others, also Stawowski, who is considered a leader among the advanced progressists.  He spoke cleverly, but appeared to me a man suffering from a two-fold disease:  liver, and self.  He carries his ego like a glass of water filled to the brim, and seems to say, “Take care, or it will spill.”  This fear, by some subtle process, seems to communicate itself to his audience to such an extent that nobody dares to be of a different opinion.  He has this influence over others because he believes in what he says.  They are wrong, those who consider him a sceptic.  On the contrary, he is of the temperament which makes fanatics.  Had he been born a hundred years ago and been a judge, he would have sentenced people to have their tongues cut out for uttering blasphemy.  Born as he is in the more enlightened times, he hates what he would have loved then; but essentially it is the same man.

I noticed that our conservatives crowded round Stawowski, not so much out of curiosity to hear what he said as rather with a certain watchful coquetry.  Here, and maybe in other countries, this party has little courage.  They looked at the speaker with insinuating smiles, as if they would say:  “Although conservatives, nevertheless—­” Ah! that “nevertheless” was like an act of contrition, a kind of submission.  This was so evident that I who am a sceptic as to all party spirit, began to contradict Stawowski, not as a representative of any party, but simply as a man who is of a different opinion.  My audacity excited some astonishment.  The matter in question was the position of the working-men.  Stawowski spoke of their hopeless condition, their weakness and incapacity for defending themselves; the audience which listened to his words grew every minute larger, when I interrupted:—­

“Do you believe in Darwin’s theory, the survival of the fittest?”

Stawowski, who is a naturalist by profession, took up the challenge at once.

“Of course I do,” he said.

“Then allow me to point out to you that you are inconsequent.  If I, as a Christian, care for the weak and defenceless, I do so by the doctrine of Christ; but you, from a standpoint of a struggle-for-life existence, ought to see it in a different light:  they are weak, they are foolish, consequently bound to succumb; it is a capital law of nature,—­let the weaker go to perdition.  Why is it you do not take it this way? please explain the contradiction.”