If you have an idea upon any subject, I will utterly annihilate it to my own most profound satisfaction; if you have none concerning any special point, I will force you to accept mine, as mine, or to die the intellectual death.

That is the general theory of the idea." "And what does it prove ?" inquired the Wanderer.
"If you knew anything," answered Keyork, with twinkling eyes, "you would know that a theory is not a demonstration, but an explanation.

But, by the hypothesis, since you are not I, you can know nothing certainly.
Now my theory explains many things, and, among others, the adamantine, imperishable, impenetrable nature of the substance vanity upon which the showman, Nature, projects in fast fading colours the unsubstantial images of men.

Why do you drag me through this dismal passage ?" "I passed through it this morning and missed my way." "In pursuit of the idea, of course.

That was to be expected.