n, the most perfect animal on this globe, bore
within himself a portion of the divine, he would not die; but he does
die. To solve this difficulty, Socrates and his school invented the
Soul. I, the successor of so many great and unknown kings, the rulers of
this science, I stand for the ancient theories, not the new. I believe
in the transformations of matter which I see, and not in the possible
eternity of a soul which I do not see. I do not recognize that world
of the soul. If such a world existed, the substances whose magnificent
conjunction produced your body, and are so dazzling in that of Madame,
would not resolve themselves after your death each into its own element,
water to water, fire to fire, metal to metal, just as the elements of my
coal, when burned, return to their primitive molecules. If you believe
that a certain part of us survives, _we_ do not survive; for all that
makes our actual being perishes. Now, it is this actual being that I
am striving to continue beyond the limit assigned to life; it is our
present transformation to which I wish to give a greater duration.
Why! the trees live for centuries, but man lives only years, though
the former are passive, the others active; the first motionless and
speechless, the others gifted with language and motion. No created thing
should be superior in this world to man, either in power or in duration.
Already we are widening our perceptions, for we look into the stars;
therefore we ought to be able to lengthen the duration of our lives. I
place life before power. What good is power if life escapes us? A wise
man should have no other purpose than to seek, not whether he has some
other life within him, but the secret springs of his actual form, in
order that he may prolong its existence at his will. That is the
desire which has whitened my hair; but I walk boldly in the darkness,
marshalling to the search all those great intellects that share my
faith. Life will some day be ours,--ours to control."

"Ah! but how?" cried the king, rising hastily.

"The first condition of our faith being that the earth belongs to man,
you must grant me that point," said Lorenzo.

"So be it!" said Charles de Valois, already under the spell.

"Then, sire, if we take God out of this world, what remains? Man. Let
us therefore examine our domain. The material world is composed of
elements; these elements are themselves principles; these principles
resolve themselves into an ultimate