against the dangers of a course which cuts him adrift from human love. But Paracelsus has his answer ready. "The wisdom of the past has done nothing for mankind. Men have laboured and grown famous: and the evils of life are unabated: the earth still groans in the blind and endless struggle with them. Truth comes from within the human intellect. To KNOW is to have opened a way for its escape—not a way for its admission. It has often refused itself to a life of study. It has been born of loitering idleness. The force which inspires him proves his mission to be authentic. His own will could not create such promptings. He dares not set them aside."
The depth of his conviction carries the day, and the scene ends with these expressive words:—
"Par. ...
Are there not, Festus, are there not, dear Michal
Two points in the adventure of the diver,
One—when, a beggar, he prepares to plunge,
One—when, a prince, he rises with his pearl?
Festus, I plunge!
Fest. We wait you when you rise!"
(vol. ii. p. 38.)