How does Victor view his switch to mathematics? What does he compare it to?

Victor is preoccupied with the question of how one might communicate with ­ or even raise ­ the dead. He finds no answer in the works of his Roman idols, and becomes entirely disillusioned with them when he witnesses a lightning storm. Since the Romans have no satisfactory explanation for this phenomenon, Victor renounces them entirely and devotes himself (at least for the time being) to the study of mathematics.