advantages; for in stomachs there were no categories or ranks.  Everything that exists, even the smallest production that man considers his exclusive work, is the work of the past and present generations.  By what right can anyone say ‘This is mine, mine only’?  Man is not consulted before he is formed if he wishes to burst forth into life.  He is born—­and from the fact of being born he has a right to well-being.”  Gabriel proclaimed his supreme formula, “Everything for everyone, and well-being for all.”

His friends listened in profound silence.  The right to well-being sank profoundly into their minds; it was the saying that most cruelly touched their poverty, taunted by the contrast of the wealth of the Church.

Don Martin, the young chaplain, was the only one who timidly raised any objections to the master’s sayings.  He wished to know if, when everything was for everyone, when man should have recognised his right to happiness, without laws or compulsion to force him to production—­would he work? seeing that work was a necessity, and not a virtue, as those who employ labour say, to glorify it.

Gabriel loudly affirmed the necessity of work in the future.  The man of the future would work without being forced to do so by his necessities; he would not be ruled by the body and its imperious requirements; his conscience would be inspired with the clear understanding of solidarity with his fellows and the certainty that if one abandoned social duties others would follow the example, thus rendering life in common impossible and so returning to the actual times of poverty and robbery.

“Why do not the few men of culture and sound conscience living at present kill and rob?” exclaimed Gabriel.  “It is not through fear of the law and its representatives, for a clear intelligence, if it takes the trouble, can easily find ways of evading both; neither can it be through fear of eternal penalties and divine punishment, as such men do not believe in these inventions of the past.  It is from that respect to his fellows which is felt by every elevated mind, from the consideration that all violence should be avoided, for if everyone gave themselves over to it, all social life must disappear.  When this understanding, which now only belongs to a few, embraces all humanity, men will live ruled by their own consciences without laws or police, working from social duty, without requiring man to be the only spring of activity, and sweating without compassion to be the only way to ease.”

Throughout all his revolutionary raptures Luna had no illusions as to the present.  Humanity was at present an infected land, in which the best seeds rotted, or which at best produced only poisonous fruits; we must wait till the equalising revolution begun in the human conscience a century ago should be completed, after that it would be possible and easy to change the basis of society; he had a blind faith in the future.  Man must progress in the same way as communities; these reckoned their evolutions by centuries, but man by millions of years.  How could a man of to-day be compared to the biped animal of prehistoric times, though bearing visibly the traces of the animalism from which he had lately emerged?  Living in fellowship with his ancestors the monkeys, the principal difference being the first babblings of speech, and the first trembling spark that began to burn in his brain.