“Only apparently,” answered Pentaur, “only because that which transcends sense is communicable through the medium of the senses alone.  When God manifests himself as the wisdom of the world, we call him ‘the Word,’ ‘He, who covers his limbs with names,’ as the sacred Text expresses itself, is the power which gives to things their distinctive forms; the scarabaeus, ‘which enters life as its own son’ reminds us of the ever self-renewing creative power which causes you to call our merciful and benevolent God a monster, but which you can deny as little as you can the happy choice of the type; for, as you know, there are only male scarabei, and this animal reproduces itself.”

Nebsecht smiled.  “If all the doctrines of the mysteries,” he said, “have no more truth than this happily chosen image, they are in a bad way.  These beetles have for years been my friends and companions.  I know their family life, and I can assure you that there are males and females amongst them as amongst cats, apes, and human beings.  Your ‘good God’ I do not know, and what I least comprehend in thinking it over quietly is the circumstance that you distinguish a good and evil principle in the world.  If the All is indeed God, if God as the scriptures teach, is goodness, and if besides him is nothing at all, where is a place to be found for evil?”

“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.”