B335 <=> B337 [BTG XXIV Beelzebub’s fifth flight, p. 336]

“At this point in the speech of this sympathetic terrestrial three-brained being, an attendant offered him a bowl of water, and after he had eagerly drunk the water, he continued to speak, but now more calmly.

“He said further:

“’Take myself as an example: I am not an ordinary learned man. I am known by all Babylon and by people of many other towns as an exceedingly learned and wise man.

“’I finished the course of study higher than which has never yet existed on the Earth, and which it is almost impossible will ever exist again.

“’But what then has this highest development given to my Reason in respect of that question which, already during one or two years, is driving all Babylonians insane?

“’This Reason of mine which has received the highest development, has given me during this general dementia concerning the question of the soul nothing else but “five-Fridays-a-week.”

“’During this time, I have very attentively and seriously followed all the old and new theories about the “soul” and there is not a single theory with the author of which I do not inwardly agree, since all of them are very logically and plausibly expounded, and such Reason as I have cannot but agree with their logic and plausibility.

“’During this time I have even myself written a very lengthy work on this “question-of-the-beyond”; and many of those present here have surely become acquainted with my logical mentation and most probably there is not one of you here who does not envy this logical mentation of mine.