"For millions of millions of ages must we shiver in tempests of fire:
then shall we enter anew into some slime primordial,--there to quicken,
and again writhe upward through all foul dumb blind shapes. Innumerable
the metamorphoses!--immeasurable the agonies!... And the fault is not of
any Gods: it is thine!"
"Good or evil," muttered the Man,--"what signifies either? The best must
become as the worst in the grind of the endless change."
"Nay!" cried out the Souls; "for the strong there is a goal,--the goal
that thou couldst not strive to gain. They will help to the fashioning
of fairer worlds;--they will win to larger light;--they will tower and
soar as flame to enter the Zones of the Divine. But thou and we go
back to slime! Think of the billion summers that might have been for
us!--think of the joys, the loves, the triumphs cast away!--the dawns
of the knowledge undreamed,--the glories of sense unimagined,--the
exultations of illimitable power!... think, think, O fool, of all that
thou hast lost!"
Then the Souls of the Man turned themselves into worms, and devoured
him.