Having set the so-called spirits in motion, and through them set afloat a system which I fancied would supplant Christianity, whether in its Catholic or its sounder Protestant forms, my work seemed done, and I could retire from my labors. My superintendence was no longer necessary, and whether the agents I employed were really the spirits or souls of the dead, as they themselves asserted, or mere elemental forces of nature, as I was inclined to believe or had wished to persuade myself, became to me a question of no interest. The work would go on of itself now, and in a few years Christianity and the Church would be undermined and fall of themselves. Then monarchy, aristocracy, republicanism, all forms of civil government, would crumble to pieces, and universal freedom, leaving every one to believe and do what seems right in his own eyes, will be realized, and all here, as well as those not here, will be placed on the plane of eternal progression—progression towards—what? CHAPTER XVI. A REBUFF. I asked not the question, for in fact it did not occur to me; but I asked another question, What shall I do with myself? A grave question this. Do what I would, turn the matter over as I might, there was, now the novelty of the idea had worn off, nothing inspiring in this idea of eternal progression;—this ever learning, and never coming to the knowledge of the truth—this everlasting chase after good, and never coming up with it. Why continue a pursuit which you know beforehand will bring you never any nearer the object than you are, for as you pursue, it flies. Is not this evil rather than good, hell rather than heaven? Is not this the punishment of Ixion?—That war of the Titans upon the gods, has it not a deep significance? The Titans, the Giants, the Earthborn, _Terræ filii_, would dethrone the gods, the heaven-born, the divine, and were defeated and doomed to punishment, to turn forever a wheel, to roll a huge stone up the steep hill, and just as it is about to reach the summit, have it slip from the hands and roll down with a thundering sound; to a task never completed, and always to be renewed, or to hunger, with food ever in sight, and always just beyond reach; to thirst, standing to the neck in water, and have it recede always as approached with the lips. Is not, after all, this the doom that they bring on themselves who reject the wisdom from above and follow what my friend Mr. Merton calls the wisdom from below?