is not a province of thought whose deepest depths I have not tried to fathom; and when I recognized that it is not given to mortals to apprehend the essence of the divinity because the organs bestowed on us are too small and feeble; when I refused to pronounce whether that which I can not apprehend exists or not, was that my fault, or theirs?  There may be divine forces which created and govern the universe; but never talk to me of their goodness, and reasonableness, and care for human creatures!  Can a reasonable being, who cares for the happiness of another, strew the place assigned to him to dwell in with snares and traps, or implant in his breast a hundred impulses of which the gratification only drags him into an abyss?  Is that Being my friend, who suffers me to be born and to grow up, and leaves me tied to the martyr’s stake, with very few real joys, and finally kills me, innocent or guilty, as surely as I am born?  If the divinity which is supposed to bestow on us a portion of the divine essence in the form of reason were constituted as the crowd are taught to believe, there could be nothing on earth but wisdom and goodness; but the majority are fools or wicked, and the good are like tall trees, which the lightning blasts rather than the creeping weed.  Titianus falls before the dancer Theocritus, the noble Papinian before the murderer Caracalla, our splendid Alexander before such a wretch as Zminis; and divine reason lets it all happen, and allows human reason to proclaim the law.  Happiness is for fools and knaves; for those who cherish and uphold reason—­ay, reason, which is a part of the divinity—­persecution, misery, and despair.”

“Have done!” Melissa exclaimed.  “Have the judgments of the immortals not fallen hardly enough on us?  Would you provoke them to discharge their fury in some more dreadful manner?”

At this the skeptic struck his breast with defiant pride, exclaiming:  “I do not fear them, and dare to proclaim openly the conclusions of my thoughts.  There are no gods!  There is no rational guidance of the universe.  It has arisen self-evolved, by chance; and if a god created it, he laid down eternal laws and has left them to govern its course without mercy or grace, and without troubling himself about the puling of men who creep about on the face of the earth like the ants on that of a pumpkin.  And well for us that it should be so!  Better a thousand times is it to be the servant of an iron law, than the slave of a capricious master who takes a malignant and envious pleasure in destroying the best!”

“And this, you say, is the final outcome of your thoughts?” asked Melissa, shaking her head sadly.  “Do you not perceive that such an outbreak of mad despair is simply unworthy of your own wisdom, of which the end and aim should be a passionless, calm, and immovable moderation?”

“And do they show such moderation,” Philip gasped out, “who pour the poison of misfortune in floods on one tortured heart?”