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‘Ah, then you are in earnest! My dear fellow, upon my
word I don’t know. There! I’ve said it now!’
‘You don’t know, but you see God? No, you are not some-
one apart, you are myself, you are I and nothing more! You
are rubbish, you are my fancy!’
‘Well, if you like, I have the same philosophy as you, that
would be true. Je pense, donc je suis,* I know that for a fact;
all the rest, all these worlds, God and even Satan — all that
is not proved, to my mind. Does all that exist of itself, or
is it only an emanation of myself, a logical development of
my ego which alone has existed for ever: but I make haste
to stop, for I believe you will be jumping up to beat me di-
rectly.’
- I think, therefore I am.
‘You’d better tell me some anecdote!’ said Ivan misera-
bly.
‘There is an anecdote precisely on our subject, or rather
a legend, not an anecdote. You reproach me with unbelief;
you see, you say, yet you don’t believe. But, my dear fellow,
I am not the only one like that. We are all in a muddle over
there now and all through your science. Once there used to
be atoms, five senses, four elements, and then everything
hung together somehow. There were atoms in the ancient
world even, but since we’ve learned that you’ve discovered
the chemical molecule and protoplasm and the devil knows
what, we had to lower our crest. There’s a regular muddle,
and, above all, superstition, scandal; there’s as much scan-
dal among us as among you, you know; a little more in fact,
and spying, indeed, for we have our secret police depart-