He did
not love knowledge for itself--for its own exceeding great reward--but in
order to be powerful. This poison-speck infected his mind from the
beginning. The priests suspect him, circumvent him, accuse him; he is
condemned, and thrown into solitary confinement: this constituted the
_prologus_ of the drama. A pause of four or five years takes place, at the
end of which Michael escapes from prison, a soured, gloomy, miserable man.
He will not, cannot study; of what avail had all his study been to him? His
knowledge, great as it was, had failed to preserve him from the cruel fangs
of the persecutors; he could not command the lightning or the storm to
wreak their furies upon the heads of those whom he hated and contemned, and
yet feared. Away with learning! away with study! to the winds with all
pretences to knowledge! We _know_ nothing; we are fools, wretches, mere
beasts. Anon I began to tempt him. I made him dream, gave him wine, and
passed the most exquisite of women before him, but out of his reach. Is
there, then, no knowledge by which these pleasures can be commanded? _That
way_ lay witchcraft, and accordingly to witchcraft Michael turns with all
his soul. He has many failures and some successes; he learns the chemistry
of exciting drugs and exploding powders, and some of the properties of
transmitted and reflected light: his appetites and his curiosity are both
stimulated, and his old craving for power and mental domination over others
revives.
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