those privileged philosophers. His mother has made
courtiers of them again; and he, who looks for everything from the magic
arts, has never yet met a Magian who could have been one of them."

At this the Syrian clapped his hands, exclaiming: "And you propose to
use Philip as your signbearer to talk to the emperor of a thaumaturgist
who is hand in hand with all the learning of the Museum? A cursed good
idea! But the gem-cutter's son does not look like a simpleton; and he is
a skeptic into the bargain, and believes in nothing. If you catch him, I
shall really and truly believe in your miraculous powers."

"There are harder things than catching him," said the Magian.

"You mean to break his will," said the Syrian, looking down at the
ground, "by your eye and the laying on of hands, as you did mine and
Triphis's two years ago?"

"That, no doubt, formed the first bond between us," said Serapion. "I
now need only your ventriloquism. Philip himself will come half-way to
meet me on the main point."

"And what is that?"

"You called him a skeptic, and he does, in fact, pride himself on going
further than the old masters of the school. Diligent study has brought
him to the point of regarding nothing as certain, but, on the other
hand, everything as possible. The last result he can arrive at is the
probability--since certainty there is none--that it is impossible ever
to know anything, be it what it may. He is always ready to listen with
sympathetic attention to the arguments for the reappearance of the souls
of the dead in the earthly form they have quitted, to visit and converse
with the living. He considers it a fallacy to say that anything is
impossible; and my arguments are substantial. Korinna will appear to
him. Castor has discovered a girl who is her very image. Your arts will
convince him that it is she who speaks to him, for he never heard her
voice in life, and all this must rouse his desire to see her again
and again. And thus the skeptic will be convinced, in spite of his own
doctrine. In this, as in every other case, it is the passionate wish
that gives rise to the belief."

"And when you have succeeded in getting him to this point?" asked the
Syrian, anxiously.

"Then," replied the Magian, "he will help me, with his triumphant
dialectics, to win Caesar over to the same conviction; and then we shall
be able to satisfy the emperor's desire to hold intercourse with the
dead; and for that I count on your power