THE DEMONSTRATION.

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are frailty and error. But at the same time, it reveals itself as stretching beyond us, and assures us that in that world into which it permits us to look as through a glass darkly, it possesses a character of absolute intelligence. Who is there to whom reason does not reveal itself as containing more light than he has beheld, more truth than he has comprehended? It is not reason subjected to the infirmities of the flesh, but reason taken absolutely, reason in its fulness, in its Godhead, of which I speak. I speak of it in its absoluteness, because it assures me that it is absolute, and if I may not trust it when it gives me this assurance, I know not what right I have to rely on it when it assures me of my

own existence.

"Reason once established in its absoluteness, the intelligence of God is demonstrated. From his intelligence and independence, I think the induction of his personality follows as a matter of course. His freedom is asserted in his independence. He is independent and absolute. No power out of himself then can force him to act. He cannot be subjected to any external necessity. All the necessity he can be under of acting must be in himself. He is then perfectly free. He need not act unless he please; and he may act as he pleases. Conceive a being thus free, and at the same time absolute intelligence, and tell me if it be possible for him to act without self-consciousness, without knowing that he acts and wherefore he acts? Must he not from the very nature of the case act from volition, because he wills to act? Now, a being that is self-conscious, who knows what he does, and acts from volition, it strikes me, must possess personality in the highest degree. I am a person no further than I am a free intentional causality. But God is an infinitely free intentional causality. Therefore he must be infinitely more of a person than I am."

"But you have as yet clothed your God with no moral attributes."

"All in good time. But beware how you undertake to cut the Divinity up into attributes. He is ONE. He is, as we have thus found him, absolute substance, an infinite, free, intelligent, intentional causality. Would you determine whether he is just or not, you must descend into reason, and inquire whether you have the absolute idea of justice. You will find this idea, as we have already found the absolute idea of goodness. The absolute can reside only in the absolute. God then is not only absolute substance, an inde

pendent, free, intelligent causality, but he is also just and good. You must go through with all the absolute ideasof reason, and when you have exhausted these you have determined the number and character of the attributes of the Deity."

"I am not certain that I have followed you through all the steps of your analysis and induction, but if I have, and rightly comprehended you, you have indicated a process by which the existence of God may be as satisfactorily demonstrated as any article of human belief. But you must not expect me to acquiesce at once. I must have time to reflect,. and to go over the subject in my own mind. I can hardly persuade myself as yet, that you have not committed some mistake, for your conclusion seems too evident not to be doubtful."

"Take all the time you please. You say rightly I have indicated a process. I have only indicated it. To give a complete demonstration would require more time than I have at my command, and more patience than I fear you have to bestow upon so dry, though so important a subject."

"But Mr. Morton, though you have obtained a God, I do not see that he has done any thing. How do you demonstrate

the fact that he creates ?"

CHAPTER XXII.-CREATION.

"You will bear in mind, that we have found God as a cause, not a potential cause, occasionally a cause, accidentally a cause, but absolute cause, cause in itself, always a cause, and everywhere a cause. Now a cause that causes nothing is no cause at all. If then God be a cause, he must cause something, that is, create. Creation then is necessary."

"Do you mean to say that God lies under a necessity of creating?"

"God lies under nothing, for he is over all, and independ ent of all. The necessity of which I speak is not a foreign necessity, but a necessity of his own nature. What I mean is, he cannot be what he is without creating. It would be a contradiction in terms to call him a cause, and to say that he causes nothing."

"But out of what does God create the world? Out of nothing, as our catechisms have it?"

"Not out of nothing certainly, but out of himself, out of his own fulness. You may form an idea of creation by noting what passes in the bosom of your own conscious

ness. I will to raise my arm. My arm may be palsied, or a stronger than mine may hold it down, so that I cannot raise it. Nevertheless I have created something; to wit, the will or intention to raise it. In like manner as I by an effort of my will or an act of my causality, create a will or intention, does God create the world. The world is God's will or intention, existing in the bosom of his consciousness, as my will or intention exists in the bosom of mine.

"Now, independent of me, my will or intention has no existence. It exists, is a reality no further than I enter into it; and it ceases to exist, vanishes into nothing the moment I relax the causative effort which gave it birth. So of the world. Independent of God it has no existence. All the life and reality it has are of God. It exists no further than he enters into it, and it ceases to exist, becomes a nonentity the moment he withdraws or relaxes the creative effort which calls it into being.

"This, if I mistake not, strikingly illustrates the dependence of the universe, of all worlds and beings on God. They exist but by his will. He willed, and they were; commanded, and they stood fast. He has but to will and they are not; to command, and the heavens roll together as a scroll, or disappear as the morning mist before the rising sun. This is easily seen to be true because he is their life, their being;-in him, says an apostle, 'we live and move and have our being.'

"The question is sometimes asked, where is the universe? Where is your resolution, intention? In the bosom of your consciousness. So the universe, being God's will or intention, exists in the consciousness of the Deity. The bosom of the infinite consciousness is its place, its residence, its home. God then is all round and within it, as you are all round, and within your intention. Here is the omnipresence of the Deity. You cannot go where God is not, unless you cease to exist. Not because God fills all space, as we sometimes say, thus giving him as it were extension, but because he embosoms all space, as we embosom our thoughts in our own consciousness.

"This view of creation, also, shows us the value of the universe, and teaches us to respect it. It is God's will, God's intention, and is divine, so far as it really exists, and therefore is holy, and should be reverenced. Get at a man's intentions, and you get at his real character. A man's intentions are the revelations of himself; they show you

what the man is. The universe is the revelation of the Deity. So far as we read and understand it, do we read and understand God. When I am penetrating into the heavens and tracing the revolutions of the stars, I am learning the will of God; when I penetrate the earth and explore its strata, study the minuter particles of matter and their various combinations, I am mastering the science of theology; when I listen to the music of the morning songsters, I am listening to the voice of God; and it is his beauty I see when my eye runs over the varied landscape or 'the flower-enamelled mead.'

"You see here the sacred character which attaches to all science, shadowed forth through all antiquity, by the right to cultivate it being claimed for the priests alone. But every man should be a priest; and the man of science, who does not perceive that he is also a priest, but half understands his calling. In ascertaining these laws of nature, as you call them, you are learning the ways of God. Put off your shoes then when you enter the temple of science, for you enter the sanctuary of the Most High.

"But man is a still fuller manifestation of the Deity. He is superior to all outward nature. Sun and stars pale before a human soul. The powers of nature, whirlwinds, tornadoes, cataracts, lightnings, earthquakes, are weak before the power of thought, and lose all their terrific grandeur in presence of the struggles of passion. Man with a silken thread turns aside the lightning and chains up the harmless bolt. Into man enters more of the fulness of the Divinity, for after his own likeness God made man. The study of man then is still more the study of the Divinity, and the science of man becomes a still nearer approach to the science of God.

"This is not all. Viewed in this light what new worth and sacredness attach to this creature man, on whom kings, priests, and nobles have for so many ages trampled with sacrilegious feet! Whoso wrongs a man defaces the image of God, desecrates a temple of the living God, and is guilty not merely of a crime, but of a sin. Indeed, all crimes become sins, all offences against man, offences against God. Hear this, ye wrong-doers, and know that it is not from your feeble brother only, that ye have to look for vengeance. Hear this, ye wronged and down-trodden; and know that God is wronged in that ye are wronged, and his omnipotent arm shall redress you, and punish your oppres

sors. Man is precious in the sight of God, and God will

vindicate him.

"All this is very fine, but it strikes me that you identify the Deity with his works. You indeed call him a cause, but he causes or creates, if I understand you, only by putting himself forth. Independent of him, his works have no reality. He is their life, being, substance. Is not this pan

theisin?"

"Not at all. God is indeed the life, being, substance of all his works, yet is he independent of his works. I am in my intention, and my intention is nothing any further than I enter into it; but nevertheless my intention is not me; I have the complete control over it. It does not exhaust me. It leaves me with all my creative energy, free to create anew as I please. So of God. Creation does not exhaust him. His works are not necessary to his being, they make up no part of his life. He retains all his creative energy, and may put it forth anew as seems to him good. Grant he stands in the closest relation to his works; he stands to them in the relation of a cause to an effect, not in the relation of identity, as pantheism supposes.'

"But waiving the charge of pantheism, it would seem from what you have said that creation must be as old as the Creator. What then will you do with the Mosaic cosmogony, which supposes creation took place about six thousand years ago?"

f

"I leave the Mosaic cosmogony where I find it. As to the inference that creation must be as old as the Creator, I would remark, that a being cannot be a creator till he creates, and as God was always a creator, always then must there have been a creation; but it does not follow from this that creation must have always assumed its present form, much less that this globe in its present state must have existed from all eternity. It may have been, for aught we know, subjected to a thousand revolutions and transformations, and the date of its habitation by man may indeed have been no longer ago than Hebrew chronology asserts.

"But much of this difficulty about the date of creation arises from supposing that creation must have taken place in time. But the creations of God are not in time but in eternity. Time begins with creation, and belongs to created nature. With God there is no time, as there is no space. He transcends time and space. He inhabiteth eternity, and is both time and space. When we speak of beginning in