The gateway was now crowded with angels and cherubim, saints, male and female, and a number of the blest, who all formed a circle round the stranger and smilingly surveyed him.
From amongst them there stepped forth St. Job:—“I think,” said he, “that this gentleman would be convinced that he had lived in error if he could see the Universe as it actually is. Why not appoint a commission from amongst us to accompany Doctor Pertinax and show him the construction of the immense piece of architecture, as Lope de Vega says, whom I am sorry not to see among us.”
Great was the respect for St. Job, and they immediately proceeded to a nominal vote, which took up a good deal of time, as more than half the martyrology had repaired to the gate. The following were by the results appointed members of the commission:—St. Job, by acclamation; Diogenes, by a majority; and St. Thomas the Apostle, by a majority. St. Thomas of Aquinas and Duns Scotus had votes.
Dr. Pertinax gave way to the supplications of the commission, and consented to survey all the machinery and magic, with which they might deceive his eyes, said he, but not his mind.
“My dear fellow, don’t be downhearted,” said St. Thomas, as he sewed some wings on to the Doctor’s shoulder-blades: “Look at me, I was an unbeliever, and....”
“Sir,” replied Pertinax, “you lived in very different times, the world was then in its theological age, as Comte said, and I have passed through all those ages and have lived side by side with the ”Criticisms of Pure Reason“ and the ”Philosophia Ultima“; so that I believe in nothing, not even in the mother who bore me; I only believe in this, inasmuch as I know that I am, I am conscious, but without falling into the preconception of confounding representation with essence, which is unattainable, that is to say, excepting the being conscious, putting aside all that is not myself (and all being in myself) I know, by knowing that everything is represented (and I as everything else) by simply appearing to be what it is, and the reality of which is only investigated by another volitive and effective representation, a harmful representation, being irrational and the original sin of the Fall; therefore, this apparent desire undone, nothing remains to explore, since not even the will for knowledge remains.”
Only St. Job heard the last word of this discourse, and, scratching his bald crown with his potsherd, he replied—
“The truth is, you savants are the very devil for talking nonsense, and do be offended, but those things, whether in your head or imagination, as you please, will give you warm work to see them in reality as they are.”
“Forward! forward!” shouted Diogenes at this moment; “the sophists denied me motion, and you know how I proved it; forward!”