Listen, are we helpless? Are we doomed to do it again and again and again? Have we no choice but to play the Phoenix in an unending sequence of rise and fall? Assyria, Babylon, Egypt, Greece, Carthage, Rome, the Empires of Charlemagne and the Turk: Ground to dust and plowed with salt. Spain, France, Britain, America—burned into the oblivion of the centuries. And again and again and again. Are we doomed to it, Lord, chained to the pendulum of our own mad clockwork, helpless to halt its swing? This time, it will swing us clean to oblivion.

Soon the sun will set'- is that prophecy? No, it's merely an assertion of faith in the consistency of events.

The captain looked defensive. "You regard our customs as primitive?"Every society to its own tastes, captain. The wisdom of one society would be folly for another. Who is qualified to judge? Only the universe, which passes the judgment of survival on all peoples.

When you tire of living, change itself seems evil, does it not? for then any change at all disturbs the deathlike peace of the life-weary.

I'm not so sure he's mad, Father. Just a little devious in his sanity.

That's where all of us are standing now, he thought. On the fat kindling of past sins.

Because a doubt is not a denial. Doubt is a powerful tool, and it should be applied to history.