His income was sufficient for comfort; he made few changes in old John’s investments. However, he purchased a long grey roadster of rather expensive make; there was something about mechanical excellence that pleased his curious character. He drove the machine with almost miraculous dexterity, slipping through traffic like wind through grain. His slim, tentacular fingers seemed especially designed for the management of machinery, and the thrill of driving was as intense as if he used his own muscles. Sometimes he drove to the open country, selecting unpatrolled dirt roads, and here drove at breath-taking speed, pitting his skill against the vagaries of the terraine.

His courses neared completion. Toward the end, the queer Edmond was somewhat less content; a sense of futility oppressed him, and he perceived no outlet anywhere for his energies. The curious being was lonely.

“I am enclosed in a viscid mist,” he reflected. “Knowledge is a barren thing, since I see no closer to its end than the dullest of these about me.” And his other mind replied, “This conclusion is unwarranted since hitherto I have made no attempt to attain happiness, but have let my fortunes drift without plan to the beckonings of chance.”

Thereafter he formed a plan. His degree was granted and he departed, making no effort to serve as an intern, since he did not wish to practice. An experiment awaited him that he relished; if happiness could be reduced to formula, he meant so to reduce it, solving at least for himself the elusive mystery.

Yet an unusual sense of sadness pursued him; he endured the graduation exercises in a sombre silence. After the return to his home, he put away his car, and wandered aimlessly westward, past the decrepit school of his early youth, past the house that had been Vanny’s home, past the high school now empty for the summers recess. The half-deserted summer streets seemed sterile and melancholy; he was lonely.

Before him spread the glass fronts of a business street. A group of half a dozen persons clustered before the window of one—a pet shop. A glance revealed the attraction—the gambols and grimaces of a small monkey. Edmond paused for a moment; an impulse stirred him. He entered the shop, emerging in a moment bearing a paper-wrapped cage. The group filtered away as the attraction vanished.

“Here is my companion,” thought Edmond, “and my defense against loneliness. At least he will be as understanding as any among these who watched him.” He bore the chattering little animal to the house on Kenmore.

“Your name,” he said, “shall be Homo, after the being who apes you less successfully than you him.” He smiled as the creature chattered in reply. “My friend,” he continued, “your sympathy and intelligence shall aid me in my appointed task.”

The monkey Homo chattered and grimaced, and rattled the bars of his flimsy cage; Edmond slipped the catch, and the little being pushed open the door, bounding with tree-born agility to Edmond’s knee. There he sat in patent enjoyment of his liberty, while his strange master watched him with an expression almost or amusement, finding in his antics a momentary release from his own sombre nature. The youth toyed with his unusual emotion of pleasure, reflecting, “This creature, unthinking and happy, may direct my quest, who am thinking and therefore unhappy; let me see whether I can complete the circle, and in the pursuit of knowledge find happiness.” Thus Edmond entered upon his search.

BOOK I

THE PURSUIT OF KNOWLEDGE

CHAPTER I

TRAFFIC WITH NATURE

DURING this epoch of his life, Edmond was not unhappy, at least until the period was approaching its end. He threw himself into a round or labors and speculations; he spent many hours in the unraveling of mysteries by processes purely rational. For a span of several months he found no need for the mechanics of experiment since the tabulations of others’ results were available for his use. He absorbed the facts and rejected the speculations of science. This rejection was due in part to his distrust of the theories of these half-minded creatures about him; he was inclined to doubt the truth of any hypothesis promulgated by such beings.

He set about his own researches, therefore, working with an enthusiasm that almost deluded himself. He realized, indeed, that his purpose in these researches was artificial and sterile; he had no consuming love of knowledge, and no deep inherent desire to serve humanity; what drove him like a seven-tongued scourge was the specter of boredom standing just behind him. To a being of Edmond’s nature this was sufficient incentive.

His income was ample for his immediate needs. He subsided therefore into a quiet regime of speculation, building for himself an esoteric picture of the universe to assist his purposes. In this field as well he found little meat in the hypotheses of his predecessors; excepting, and with qualification, Einstein.

“The Bohr atom, the Schrodinger atom,” he reflected, “are two meaningless attempts to describe that which is forever indescribable and are worthless for my purposes. The very nature of matter is a problem not entirely physical, but partly metaphysical, and as such defies any absolute resolvence, at least by human kind with its single viewpoint.

“From my standpoint, the universe consists, not of concepts or sensations, like Berkeley’s, not of matter and energy, like the scientists of the first decade, not even of mathematical quantities, like James Jeans, but purely and entirely of Laws, or perhaps a Law. This chair on which I lean is an aspect of a law; my breath, this very thought, are other phases.”

His companion self, following an allied course, continued, “Einstein’s little booklet, assuming of course its correctness, represents my universe, yet even this conception lacks something! One does not eat a law, live in, carve, sleep, nor reproduce with an equation.