I rejoiced inwardly at this, for I was certain that my literal interpretation of his injunction to silence would prove irksome to him in the end.
"A treatise on chemistry?" I suggested. "Or perhaps a monograph on one of the rare elements?"
"Wrong, Edward, wrong again. I am writing the philosophy."
"The philosophy?" I queried.
"I call it the philosophy, for it is the only true one. I am the only man who can explain mind and matter—of what the universe is made—why it is, and what the nature of the Supreme Being is."
"What is the universe?" I ventured, hoping to draw him out. Mental hallucinations were novelties to me at that time, and for once Prospero had interested me.
"The universe, Edward, is a complex chemical equation which I am solving. On one side of this equation you have material manifestations of energy; on the other, the manifestations which we call mind and spirit."
"I think I have heard something like this before," I said, a little disappointed.
"The germ of my philosophy, Edward, is to be found in Confucius and repeats itself again in the sayings attributed to Buddha."
"Indeed?"