About midnight the Count caused the Devil and Faustus to be arrested, and cast into a frightful dungeon. Faustus commanded the fiend to submit quietly, because he wished to see how far these hypocrites would carry their wickedness. When in prison, the dreadful scene of the day flitted before his mind's eye in colours of tenfold horror; and wild thoughts against Him who rules the destiny of man arose from the contemplation of it. His soul became inflamed; and at length he exclaimed, with scornful laughter: "Where is here the finger of the Godhead, and where is that Providence which presides over the path of the righteous? I see the just man insane, and the wretch who drove him to madness rewarded; I disclosed to the tyrant, who affects virtue, the wickedness of his favourite, and he found him only so much the more worthy of his friendship and favour. If this be the order and harmony of the moral world, then there is harmony and order in the brain of the poor lunatic, who is suffered to fall unprotected and unrevenged." He continued, while the Devil listened and laughed: "But allowing that man is obliged, by necessity, to do every thing he does, then must his deeds and his actions be ascribed to the Supreme Being, and they thereby cease to be punishable. If nothing but what is good and perfect can flow from a Perfect Being, then are our deeds, horrible as they seem to us, good and perfect. If they are wicked, and in reality what they seem to us, then ought that Being to be looked up to with horror and aversion. Come, fiend, resolve my doubts, and tell me what causes the moral misery of man." _Devil_. A truce to your doubts! no one clothed in flesh is permitted to untie that knot, and _therefore_ _a thousand fools will hang_, _drown_, _and destroy themselves_. Do not, O Faustus, forget the end which we proposed to ourselves at our first interview. I promised to show thee men in their nakedness, in order to cure thee of the prejudices thou hadst imbibed from thy books, so that they might not disturb thee in the enjoyment of life. But when thou hast rid thyself of all these human frailties, and hast discovered that the pretended guidance of the Eternal One whom thou hast renounced on my account, and before whose sight thou mayst commit, undeterred, the most horrible atrocities, is only a delusion, perhaps thy soul will then have sufficient strength to understand these horrible mysteries; and, if so, I will reveal them to thee. _Faustus_. Then, by the mysteries of evil which surround men from their birth to their grave, I shall yet be the greatest of my race; for, in summoning thee, I shall have threaded the labyrinth in which the rest must grope about to all eternity.