“Please, Mayboom, no bad jokes to-day,” said Dorfling gently.

The comic song writer sighed and again sank into deep thought, and the philosopher went on: 

“The science of truth, to which every atom adheres, dwells in men.  We must not forget that man is a collection of countless millions of atoms; the collected consciousness of mankind can know just as much of what each atom knows, as a whole people can understand of Greek or Sanscrit because one or other of its members can read those languages.  Only through intercommunication can the knowledge of the few become the knowledge of the many.  The development of the living being I regard in this way, that the atoms at first only hang loosely, gradually becoming more closely knit together, until they make a substantial organism.  The single atoms in the course of this process of development step over the boundary toward consciousness.  At first it is a trembling, insecure foreboding, like the sensation of light to one nearly blind, then the outlines of truth become clearer, and all at once grow sharp and clearly defined.  The different attempts at explanation of the secrets of the world are the expression of these forebodings of truth.  So every one of the religious and philosophical systems is to my mind a grain of the truth, and the whole of it will be found in the great unity which we shall reach in a higher development.”

“As charming as a pretty story,” said Schrotter, “but—­it is only a story after all.  You conjecture that the thing is so situated, but you are not in a condition to prove it; and if I deny it, you have no means of compelling me to believe, as I can compell you to believe that twice two makes four.  No, no; nothing can come of these metaphysical speculations.  The whole philosophy is not worth psychological treatment.  We are no further to-day than the old Greeks, whose knowledge led to the formula, ‘Know thyself.’  “We can hope to know ourselves some day, to know what goes on in our brains.  I hardly believe, however, that science will ever arrive at it.”

“The study of natural science has brought me to the same conclusion,” said Wilhelm.  “We know nothing to-day of the nature of phenomena—­we knew nothing yesterday, and we shall know nothing to-morrow.  The great advance in thought has only brought us to the point of no more self-deception, and exactly knowing what we do know, whereas yesterday men deceived themselves, and imagined that the fables of religion and metaphysics were positive knowledge.  The history of physical science is in this respect very interesting.  It teaches that every step forward does not consist of a new explanation, but rather goes to prove, that the earlier explanations were untrustworthy.  The sphere of the exact sciences does not grow wider, but narrower.  It would be very instructive to study the history of natural science at the point it has reached.”

“Why do you not write such a history?” asked Schrotter.