it are surely crimes against the Majesty Divine. What other term can
we apply to the belief which sets up as a rival to God a
personification of Evil, striving eternally against the Omnipotent
Mind without the possibility of ultimate triumph? Your statics declare
that two Forces thus pitted against each other are reciprocally
rendered null.

"Do you turn back, therefore, to the other side of the problem, and
say that God pre-existed, original, alone?

"I will not go over the preceding arguments (which here return in full
force) as to the severance of Eternity into two parts; nor the
questions raised by the progression or the immobility of the worlds;
let us look only at the difficulties inherent to this second theory.
If God pre-existed alone, the world must have emanated from Him;
Matter was therefore drawn from His essence; consequently Matter in
itself is non-existent; all forms are veils to cover the Divine
Spirit. If this be so, the World is Eternal, and also it must be God.
Is not this proposition even more fatal than the former to the
attributes conferred on God by human reason? How can the actual
condition of Matter be explained if we suppose it to issue from the
bosom of God and to be ever united with Him? Is it possible to believe
that the All-Powerful, supremely good in His essence and in His
faculties, has engendered things dissimilar to Himself. Must He not in
all things and through all things be like unto Himself? Can there be
in God certain evil parts of which at some future day he may rid
Himself?--a conjecture less offensive and absurd than terrible, for
the reason that it drags back into Him the two principles which the
preceding theory proved to be inadmissible. God must be ONE; He cannot
be divided without renouncing the most important condition of His