The monk regarded him with friendly but always compassionate eyes.
“I not only think it—I know it!” he replied.
El-Râmi met his gaze fixedly.
“You would seem to know most things,”—he observed—“Now in this matter I consider that I am more humble-minded than yourself. For I cannot say I ‘know’ anything,—the whole solar system appears to me to be in a gradually changing condition,—and each day one set of facts is followed by another entirely new set which replace the first and render them useless——”
“There is nothing useless,” interposed the monk—“not even a so-called ‘fact’ disproved. Error leads to the discovery of Truth. And Truth always discloses the one great unalterable fact,—GOD.”
“As I told you, I must have proofs of God”—said El-Râmi with a chill smile—“Proofs that satisfy me, personally speaking. At present I believe in Force only.”
“And how is Force generated?” inquired the monk.
“That we shall discover in time. And not only the How, but also the Why. In the meantime we must prove and test all possibilities, both material and spiritual. And as far as such proving goes I think you can scarcely deny that this experiment of mine on the girl Lilith is a wonderful one?”
“I cannot grant you that;”—returned the monk gravely—“Most Eastern magnetists can do what you have done, provided they have the necessary Will. To detach the Soul from the body, and yet keep the body alive, is an operation that has been performed by others and will be performed again,—but to keep Body and Soul struggling against each other in unnatural conflict requires cruelty as well as Will. It is, as I before observed, the vivisection of a butterfly. The scientist does not think himself barbarous—but his barbarity outweighs his science all the same.”
“You mean to say there is nothing surprising in my work?”