more repugnant than that act of reproduction of living beings, against which all delicate minds always have revolted and always will revolt?  Since all the organs which have been invented by this economical and malicious Creator serve two purposes, why did He not choose another method of performing that sacred mission, which is the noblest and the most exalted of all human functions?  The mouth, which nourishes the body by means of material food, also diffuses abroad speech and thought.  Our flesh renews itself of its own accord, while we are thinking about it.  The olfactory organs, through which the vital air reaches the lungs, communicate all the perfumes of the world to the brain:  the smell of flowers, of woods, of trees, of the sea.  The ear, which enables us to communicate with our fellow men, has also allowed us to invent music, to create dreams, happiness, infinite and even physical pleasure by means of sound!  But one might say that the cynical and cunning Creator wished to prohibit man from ever ennobling and idealizing his intercourse with women.  Nevertheless man has found love, which is not a bad reply to that sly Deity, and he has adorned it with so much poetry that woman often forgets the sensual part of it.  Those among us who are unable to deceive themselves have invented vice and refined debauchery, which is another way of laughing at God and paying homage, immodest homage, to beauty.

“But the normal man begets children just like an animal coupled with another by law.

“Look at that woman!  Is it not abominable to think that such a jewel, such a pearl, born to be beautiful, admired, feted and adored, has spent eleven years of her life in providing heirs for the Comte de Mascaret?”

Bernard Grandin replied with a laugh:  “There is a great deal of truth in all that, but very few people would understand you.”

Salnis became more and more animated.  “Do you know how I picture God myself?” he said.  “As an enormous, creative organ beyond our ken, who scatters millions of worlds into space, just as one single fish would deposit its spawn in the sea.  He creates because it is His function as God to do so, but He does not know what He is doing and is stupidly prolific in His work and is ignorant of the combinations of all kinds which are produced by His scattered germs.  The human mind is a lucky little local, passing accident which was totally unforeseen, and condemned to disappear with this earth and to recommence perhaps here or elsewhere the same or different with fresh combinations of eternally new beginnings.  We owe it to this little lapse of intelligence on His part that we are very uncomfortable in this world which was not made for us, which had not been prepared to receive us, to lodge and feed us or to satisfy reflecting beings, and we owe it to Him also that we have to struggle without ceasing against what are still called the designs of Providence, when we are really refined and civilized beings.”