feelings, worshipping in the dust the spirit of power and bidding its disciples kiss the very lust. It gave forth that the omnipotent "realm of stupidity" was not as stupid as it looked, that we, on the contrary, wore the stupid ones who did not notice that behind it stood God, who, though addicted to dark, devious and wonderful ways, yet, in the end, “brings everything to a glorious end." This new myth of God, who hitherto had been mistaken as a race of giants or Moira, and who Himself was the wearer of purposes and webs, finer even than those of our intelligence—so fine as to make them appear unintelligible, nay, unreasonable—this myth was so bold a subversion and so daring a paradox, that the overrefined ancient world could not resist it, however mad and contradictory the matter seemed; for, confidentially speaking, there was a contradiction in it: if our intelligence cannot divine the intelligence and purposes of God, whence did it divine this quality of its intelligence, and this quality of Gol's intelligence? In more modern times a doubt has, indeed, sprung up), whether the brick, which fell from the roof, was really thrown down by "divine love"—and men again begin to fall back upon the old romance of giants and dwarfs. Let us then learn, for it is high time, that even in our presumed separate realm of purposes and reason the giants are the rulers. And our purposes and reason are not dwarfs but giants. And our own webs are as often and as clumsily broken by ourselves as by the brick! And not
