And Pierre was grieved to think that those young people, instead of discarding the past and marching on to the truths of the future, were relapsing into shadowy metaphysics through sheer weariness and idleness, due in part perhaps to the excessive exertion of the century, which had been overladen with human toil.
However, Francois had begun to smile again.

"But you are mistaken," said he; "we are not all like that at the Ecole Normale.

You only seem to know the Normalians of the Section of Letters, and your opinions would surely change if you knew those of the Section of Sciences.

It is quite true that the reaction against Positivism is making itself felt among our literary fellow-students, and that they, like others, are haunted by the idea of that famous bankruptcy of science.

This is perhaps due to their masters, the neo-spiritualists and dogmatical rhetoricians into whose hands they have fallen.