"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 ?" "Then you can accuse those whose existence you disbelieve in ?" retorted Melissa with angry zeal.