There is yet another skeptic set forth by Scott, whose peculiarities may be deemed worthy of examination. I refer to Agelastes, the treacherous and hypocritical sage of 'Count Robert of Paris.' In this man we have, however, rather the refined sensualist and elegant scholar who amuses himself with the subtleties of the old Greek philosophy, than a sincere seeker for truth, or even a sincere doubter. His views are fully given in a short lecture of the countess: 'Daughter,' said Agelastes, approaching nearer to the lady, 'it is with pain I see you bewildered in errors which a little calm reflection might remove. We may flatter ourselves, and human vanity usually does so, that beings infinitely more powerful than those belonging to mere humanity are employed daily in measuring out the good and evil of this world, the termination of combats or the fate of empires, according to their own ideas of what is right or wrong, or more properly, according to what we ourselves conceive to be such. The Greek heathens, renowned for their wisdom, and glorious for their actions, explained to men of ordinary minds the supposed existence of Jupiter and his Pantheon, where various deities presided over various virtues and vices, and regulated the temporal fortune and future happiness of such as practised them. The more learned and wise of the ancients rejected such the vulgar interpretation, and wisely, although affecting a deference to the public faith, denied before their disciples in private, the gross fallacies of Tartarus and Olympus, the vain doctrines concerning the gods themselves, and the extravagant expectations which the vulgar entertained of an immortality supposed to be possessed by creatures who were in every respect mortal, both in the conformation of their bodies, and in the internal belief of their souls. Of these wise and good men some granted the existence of the supposed deities, but denied that they cared about the actions of mankind any more than those of the inferior animals. A merry, jovial, careless life, such as the followers of Epicurus would choose for themselves, was what they assigned for those gods whose being they admitted. Others, more bold or more consistent, entirely denied the existence of deities who apparently had no proper object or purpose, and believed that such of them, whose being and attributes were proved to us by no supernatural appearances, had in reality no existence whatever.'