In his rare hours of heart-searching he was well aware that the mystical system of numbers which passed by that name had neither sense nor purpose.

He knew it had no correspondence with any natural reality; that it was no more than an instrument whereby cheats and jesters--Casanova assumed these roles by turn, and was a master player in both capacities--could lead credulous fools by the nose.
Nevertheless, in defiance of his own better judgment, he now undertook to defend the Cabala as a serious and perfectly valid science.

He spoke of the divine nature of the number seven, to which there are so many references in Holy Writ; of the deep prophetic significance of pyramids of figures, for the construction of which he had himself invented a new system; and of the frequent fulfilment of the forecasts he had based upon this system.

In Amsterdam, a few years ago, through the use of arithmancy, he had induced Hope the banker to take over the insurance of a ship which was already reported lost, whereby the banker had made two hundred thousand gold guilders.

He held forth so eloquently in defence of his preposterous theories that, as often happened, he began to believe all the nonsense he was talking.