Thursday, September 8, 2011

Thomas Mann, Doctor Faustus pages 193-194

"You want to put me on my honour as a humanist," said I. "Human reason! And besides, excuse me; 'constellation' is your every other word. But surely it belongs more to astrology. The rationalism you call for has a good deal of superstition about it--of belief in the incomprehensibly and vaguely dæmonic, the kind of thing we have in games of chance, fortune-telling with cards, and shaking dice. Contrary to what you say, your system seems to me more calculated to dissolve human reason in magic."

He carried his closed hand to his brow.

"Reason and magic," said he, "may meet and become one in that which one calls wisdom, initiation; in belief in the stars, in numbers. . . ."

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