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Page 91
OINOS. But in this existence, I dreamed that I should be at once
cognizant of all things, and thus at once be happy in being cognizant
of all.
AGATHOS. Ah, not in knowledge is happiness, but in the acquisition of
knowledge! In for ever knowing, we are for ever blessed; but to know
all were the curse of a fiend.
OINOS. But does not The Most High know all?
AGATHOS. That (since he is The Most Happy) must be still the one
thing unknown even to Him.
OINOS. But, since we grow hourly in knowledge, must not at last all
things be known?
AGATHOS. Look down into the abysmal distances! -- attempt to force
the gaze down the multitudinous vistas of the stars, as we sweep
slowly through them thus -- and thus -- and thus! Even the spiritual
vision, is it not at all points arrested by the continuous golden
walls of the universe? -- the walls of the myriads of the shining
bodies that mere number has appeared to blend into unity?
OINOS. I clearly perceive that the infinity of matter is no dream.
AGATHOS. There are no dreams in Aidenn -- but it is here whispered
that, of this infinity of matter, the sole purpose is to afford
infinite springs, at which the soul may allay the thirst to know,
which is for ever unquenchable within it -- since to quench it, would
be to extinguish the soul's self. Question me then, my Oinos, freely
and without fear. Come! we will leave to the left the loud harmony of
the Pleiades, and swoop outward from the throne into the starry
meadows beyond Orion, where, for pansies and violets, and heart's --
ease, are the beds of the triplicate and triple -- tinted suns.
OINOS. And now, Agathos, as we proceed, instruct me! -- speak to me
in the earth's familiar tones. I understand not what you hinted to
me, just now, of the modes or of the method of what, during
mortality, we were accustomed to call Creation. Do you mean to say
that the Creator is not God?
AGATHOS. I mean to say that the Deity does not create.
OINOS. Explain.
AGATHOS. In the beginning only, he created. The seeming creatures
which are now, throughout the universe, so perpetually springing into
being, can only be considered as the mediate or indirect, not as the
direct or immediate results of the Divine creative power.
OINOS. Among men, my Agathos, this idea would be considered heretical
in the extreme.
AGATHOS. Among angels, my Oinos, it is seen to be simply true.
OINOS. I can comprehend you thus far -- that certain operations of
what we term Nature, or the natural laws, will, under certain
conditions, give rise to that which has all the appearance of
creation. Shortly before the final overthrow of the earth, there
were, I well remember, many very successful experiments in what some
philosophers were weak enough to denominate the creation of
animalculae.
AGATHOS. The cases of which you speak were, in fact, instances of the
secondary creation -- and of the only species of creation which has
ever been, since the first word spoke into existence the first law.
OINOS. Are not the starry worlds that, from the abyss of nonentity,
burst hourly forth into the heavens -- are not these stars, Agathos,
the immediate handiwork of the King?
AGATHOS. Let me endeavor, my Oinos, to lead you, step by step, to the
conception I intend. You are well aware that, as no thought can
perish, so no act is without infinite result. We moved our hands, for
example, when we were dwellers on the earth, and, in so doing, gave
vibration to the atmosphere which engirdled it. This vibration was
indefinitely extended, till it gave impulse to every particle of the
earth's air, which thenceforward, and for ever, was actuated by the
one movement of the hand. This fact the mathematicians of our globe
well knew. They made the special effects, indeed, wrought in the
fluid by special impulses, the subject of exact calculation -- so
that it became easy to determine in what precise period an impulse of
given extent would engirdle the orb, and impress (for ever) every
atom of the atmosphere circumambient. Retrograding, they found no
difficulty, from a given effect, under given conditions, in
determining the value of the original impulse. Now the mathematicians
who saw that the results of any given impulse were absolutely endless
-- and who saw that a portion of these results were accurately
traceable through the agency of algebraic analysis -- who saw, too,
the facility of the retrogradation -- these men saw, at the same
time, that this species of analysis itself, had within itself a
capacity for indefinite progress -- that there were no bounds
conceivable to its advancement and applicability, except within the
intellect of him who advanced or applied it. But at this point our
mathematicians paused.
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