there any impiety in the right use of our reason, whatever the issue.
Smote with superstition, shall we let it wither and die out, a dead,
limb to a live trunk, as the mad devotee's arm held up motionless for
years? Or shall we employ it but for a paw, to help us to our bodily
needs, as the brutes use their instinct? Is not reason subtile as
quicksilver--live as lightning--a neighing charger to advance, but a
snail to recede? Can we starve that noble instinct in us, and hope
that it will survive? Better slay the body than the soul; and if it be
the direst of sins to be the murderers of our own bodies, how much
more to be a soul-suicide. Yoomy, we are men, we are angels. And in
his faculties, high Oro is but what a man would be, infinitely
magnified. Let us aspire to all things. Are we babes in the woods, to
be scared by the shadows of the trees? What shall appall us? If eagles
gaze at the sun, may not men at the gods?"

"For one," said Media, "you may gaze at me freely. Gaze on. But talk
not of my kinsmen so fluently, Babbalanja. Return to your argument."

"I go back then, my lord. By implication, you have granted, that in
times past the future was foreknown of Oro; hence, in times past, the
future must have been foreordained. But in all things Oro is
immutable. Wherefore our own future is foreknown and foreordained.
Now, if things foreordained concerning nations have in times past been
revealed to them previous to their taking place, then something
similar may be presumable concerning individual men now living. That
is to say, out of all the events destined to befall any one man, it is
not impossible that previous knowledge of some one of these events
might supernaturally come to him. Say, then, it is revealed to me,
that ten days hence I shall, of my own choice, fall upon my javelin;
when the time comes round, could I refrain from suicide? Grant the