"That sounds modest enough," said the poet, "but I know the arrogance to
which your labors are leading you. Everything that you see with your own
eyes and touch with your own hand, you think infallible, and everything
that escapes your observation you secretly regard as untrue, and pass by
with a smile of superiority. But you cannot carry your experiments
beyond the external world, and you forget that there are things which lie
in a different realm."

"I know nothing of those things," answered Nebsecht quietly.

"But we--the Initiated," cried Pentaur, "turn our attention to them also.
Thoughts--traditions--as to their conditions and agency have existed
among us for a thousand years; hundreds of generations of men have
examined these traditions, have approved them, and have handed them down
to us. All our knowledge, it is true, is defective, and yet prophets
have been favored with the gift of looking into the future, magic powers
have been vouchsafed to mortals. All this is contrary to the laws of the
external world, which are all that you recognize, and yet it can easily
be explained if we accept the idea of a higher order of things. The
spirit of the Divinity dwells in each of us, as in nature. The natural
man can only attain to such knowledge as is common to all; but it is the
divine capacity for serene discernment--which is omniscience--that works
in the seer; it is the divine and unlimited power--which is omnipotence
--that from time to time enables the magician to produce supernatural
effects!"

"Away with prophets and marvels!" cried Nebsecht.

"I should have thought," said Pentaur, "that even the laws of nature