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“Medicine, it would appear, is an art and not a science, and only artists should engage in it, men of subjective reasoning and occult prescience.”
    Echion wondered why he had ever considered the maiden beauteous. He saw the discreet smiles of the others. He said, “I have cut for the stone, and the stones were identical! There was no art in it!”
    “But,” said Aspasia, “some lived after the operation and some did not. Therefore, the sufferers were not identical, nor could their lives or their deaths have been anticipated.”
    Echion said with triumph, “Those who survived were healthful of thought, and those who did not were diseased of mind!”
    “How can that be proved—if medicine is an exact science—sire?”
    When he did not reply Aspasia said, “It is all subjective. There is no way to prove it with exactitude, and so it is not a science but an art, and art is unpredictable.”
    “I have said, Aspasia, that though medicine is an exact science no man is like another.”
    “You have never admitted that before,” said the maiden, and nodded with approval. “So men are not always their own malady, but are driven by mysterious courses which we do not as yet discern and may never discern. Tell me: Is a disease in one man exactly as it is in another?”
    “No. But again it is the matter of the individual response of the mind.”
    “The mind, then, is subjective. Who has seen a mind? Can you cut for it, or change it with a scalpel? It can be subdued with opium, as you have once told us, but it will not remain subdued. True it is that a man can kill himself by his own thoughts, and as the mind is subjective then it follows that the body is also. But is it not true that a diseased body can affect the mind, that pain can turn a philosopher, however much of a Stoic he is, into a screaming animal without shame or dignity?”
    “He induced it first in his mind,” said the physician, who was beginning to hate the damsel.
    “How can that be proved, sire?”
    “It cannot be proved, of a certainty!” he shouted.
    “Then that which cannot be proved of a certainty is not objective, and not a science. It is only a hypothesis. Does it not follow then that medicine is hypothetical?”
    There had been Egyptian teachers who had spoken of this, and Echion had despised them as arcane dreamers, unacquainted with reality. “Is it your contention, Aspasia, that we should regard medicine as mere thaumaturgy?” His voice had become softly vicious.
    “We should not discard thaumaturgy as part of subjective medicine,” replied Aspasia with the utmost seriousness. “Do we not have Delphi and the priests and our religion, which is based on magic, contemplation, reflection and belief in what is not discernible by the open eye? To deny that is blasphemy and heresy.”
    “You are a Sophist,” said Echion, suddenly turning deadly pale. “You also twist the truth and muddy crystal waters with your vaporings. Your reasoning is fallacious. What do you consider you are, you mere maiden?”
    “I am a subjective realist,” said Aspasia, with another of her lovely and apparently innocent smiles.
    “A contradiction in terms!”
    “As is all our philosophy, and even our lives, themselves.”
    Echion thought of Thargelia, who had often teased him with similar dissents. Yet he knew that Aspasia also disagreed with Thargelia on many matters. “You are disputatious,” he said, with severity. “You argue only for your own pleasure, and I doubt you believe in those arguments yourself.”
    “I seek only knowledge,” said Aspasia, with unbearable demureness.
    “And what has your limited knowledge taught you?”
    “That nothing exists but the mind, and as the mind is subjective all else is subjective also.”
    “My child,” said Echion, recovering himself and achieving a superb smile, “if ever you are cut for the stone, or deliver a child, you will of a surety know that the pain is objective and not subjective.”
    “If I