“I know everything about humankind,” he thinks, still dreaming, and he resolves to reject both Settembrini and Naphta—or rather, to reject the stark choice between life and death, illness and health, recognizing that “man is the master of contradictions, they occur through him, and so he is more noble than they.” During his years on the mountain, he’s become one of death’s intimates, and his initiation into its mysteries has immeasurably deepened his understanding of life—but he won’t let death rule his thoughts. He won’t let reason either, which seems weak and paltry before the power of destruction. “Love stands opposed to death,” he dreams; “it alone, and not reason, is stronger than death.”
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