“You talk like a school-boy,” said Pentaur indignantly.  “All that is, is good and reasonable in itself, but the infinite One, who prescribes his own laws and his own paths, grants to the finite its continuance through continual renewal, and in the changing forms of the finite progresses for evermore.  What we call evil, darkness, wickedness, is in itself divine, good, reasonable, and clear; but it appears in another light to our clouded minds, because we perceive the way only and not the goal, the details only, and not the whole.  Even so, superficial listeners blame the music, in which a discord is heard, which the harper has only evoked from the strings that his hearers may more deeply feel the purity of the succeeding harmony; even so, a fool blames the painter who has colored his board with black, and does not wait for the completion of the picture which shall be thrown into clearer relief by the dark background; even so, a child chides the noble tree, whose fruit rots, that a new life may spring up from its kernel.  Apparent evil is but an antechamber to higher bliss, as every sunset is but veiled by night, and will soon show itself again as the red dawn of a new day.”

“How convincing all that sounds!” answered the physician, “all, even the terrible, wins charm from your lips; but I could invert your proposition, and declare that it is evil that rules the world, and sometimes gives us one drop of sweet content, in order that we may more keenly feel the bitterness of life.  You see harmony and goodness in everything.  I have observed that passion awakens life, that all existence is a conflict, that one being devours another.”

“And do you not feel the beauty of visible creation, and does not the immutable law in everything fill you with admiration and humility?”

“For beauty,” replied Nebsecht, “I have never sought; the organ is somehow wanting in me to understand it of myself, though I willingly allow you to mediate between us.  But of law in nature I fully appreciate the worth, for that is the veritable soul of the universe.  You call the One ‘Temt,’ that is to say the total—­the unity which is reached by the addition of many units; and that pleases me, for the elements of the universe and the powers which prescribe the paths of life are strictly defined by measure and number—­but irrespective of beauty or benevolence.”

“Such views,” cried Pentaur troubled, “are the result of your strange studies.  You kill and destroy, in order, as you yourself say, to come upon the track of the secrets of life.  Look out upon nature, develop the faculty which you declare to be wanting, in you, and the beauty of creation will teach you without my assistance that you are praying to a false god.”