Other Gnostics, who had not been followers of the Mosaic religion, but who had, at an earlier period, framed to themselves an oriental Gnosis, regarded the Demiurge as a being absolutely _hostile_ to the Supreme G.o.d. He and his angels, notwithstanding their finite nature, wish to establish their independence: they will tolerate no foreign rule within their realm. Whatever of a higher nature descends into their kingdom, they seek to hold imprisoned there, lest it should raise itself above their narrow precincts. Probably, in this system, the kingdom of the Demiurgic Angels corresponded, for the most part, with that of the deceitful Star-Spirits, who seek to rob man of his freedom, to beguile him by various arts of deception, and who exercise a tyrannical sway over the things of this world. Accordingly, in the system of these Sabaeans, the seven Planet-Spirits, and the twelve Star-Spirits of the zodiac, who sprang from an irregular connection between the cheated Fetahil and the Spirit of Darkness, play an important part in everything that is bad. The Demiurge is a limited and limiting being, proud, jealous, and revengeful; and this his character betrays itself in the Old Testament, which, the Gnostics held, came from him. They transferred to the Demiurge himself, whatever in the idea of G.o.d, as presented by the Old Testament, appeared to then defective. Against his will and rule the [Greek: ???] was continually rebelling, revolting without control against the dominion which he, the fashioner, would exercise over it, casting off the yoke imposed on it, and destroying the work he had begun. The same jealous being, limited in his power, ruling with despotic sway, they imagined they saw in nature. He strives to check the germination of the divine seeds of life which the Supreme G.o.d of Holiness and Love, who has no connection whatever with the sensible world, has scattered among men. That perfect G.o.d was at most known and worshipped in Mysteries by a few spiritual men.
The Gospel of St. John is in great measure a polemic against the Gnostics, whose different sects, to solve the great problems, the creation of a material world by an immaterial Being, the fall of man, the incarnation, the redemption and restoration of the spirits called men, admitted a long series of intelligences, intervening in a series of spiritual operations; and which they designated by the names, _The Beginning, the Word, the Only-Begotten, Life, Light_, and _Spirit_ [Ghost]: in Greek, [Greek: ????, ?????, ?????e???, ???, F??] and [Greek: ??e?a], [Arche, Logos, Monogenes, Zoe, Phos, and Pneuma]. St. John, at the beginning of his Gospel, avers that it was Jesus Christ who existed in the Beginning; that He was the WORD of G.o.d by which everything was made; that He was the Only-Begotten, the Life and the Light, and that He diffuses among men the Holy Spirit [or Ghost], the Divine Life and Light.
So the Pleroma [[Greek: ?????a]], Plenitude or Fullness, was a favorite term with the Gnostics, and Truth and Grace were the Gnostic Eons; and the Simonians, Doketes, and other Gnostics held that the Eon Christ Jesus was never really, but only apparently clothed with a human body: but St. John replies that the Word did really become Flesh, and dwelt among us; and that in Him were the Pleroma and Truth and Grace.
In the doctrine of Valentinus, reared a Christian at Alexandria, G.o.d was a perfect Being, an Abyss [[Greek: ?????].. Buthos], which no intelligence could sound, because no eye could reach the invisible and ineffable heights on which He dwelt, and no mind could comprehend the duration of His existence; He has always been; He is the Primitive Father and Beginning [the [Greek: ???pat??] and [Greek: ??a???]..
Propator and Proarche]: He will BE always, and does not grow old. The development of His Perfections produced the intellectual world. After having pa.s.sed infinite ages in repose and silence, He manifested Himself by His Thought, source of all His manifestations, and which received from Him the germ of His creations. Being of His Being, His Thought [[Greek: ?????a].. Ennoia] is also termed [Greek: ?????] [Charis], Grace or Joy, and [Greek: S???], or [Greek: ????t??] [Sige or Arreton], Silence or the Ineffable. Its first manifestation was [Greek: ????]
[Nous], the Intelligence, first of the Eons, commencement of all things, first revelation of the Divinity, the [Greek: ?????e???] [Monogenes], or Only-Begotten: next, Truth [[Greek: ????e?a] .. Aletheia], his companion. Their manifestations were the Word [[Greek: ?????].. Logos]
and Life [[Greek: ???].. Zoe]; and theirs, Man and the Church [[Greek: ?????p??] and [Greek: ?????s?a].. Anthropos and Ekklesia]: and from these, other twelve, six of whom were Hope, Faith, Charity, Intelligence, Happiness, and Wisdom; or, in the Hebrew, _Kesten, Kina, Amphe, Ouananim, Thaedes_, and _Oubina_. The harmony of the Eons, struggling to know and be united to the Primitive G.o.d, was disturbed, and to redeem and restore them, the Intelligence [Greek: ????] produced Christ and the Holy Spirit His companion; who restored them to their first estate of happiness and harmony; and thereupon they formed the Eon Jesus, born of a Virgin, to whom the Christos united himself in baptism, and who, with his Companion Sophia-Achamoth, saved and redeemed the world.
The Marcosians taught that the Supreme Deity produced by His words the [Greek: ?????] [Logos] or Plenitude of Eons: His first utterance was a syllable of four letters, each of which became a being; His second of four, His third of ten, and His fourth of twelve: thirty in all, which const.i.tuted the [Greek: ?????a] [Pleroma].
The Valentinians, and others of the Gnostics, distinguished three orders of existences:--1st. The divine germs of life, exalted by their nature above matter, and akin to the [Greek: S?f?a] [Sophia], to the mundane soul and to the Pleroma:--the spiritual natures, [Greek: f?se??
p?eat??a?] [Phuseis Pneumatikai]: 2d. The natures originating in the life, divided from the former by the mixture of the [Greek: ???]--the psychical natures, [Greek: f?se?? ?????a?] [Phuseis Psuchikai]; with which begins a perfectly new order of existence, an image of that higher mind and system, in a subordinate grade; and finally, 3d. The UnG.o.dlike or Hylic Nature, which resists all amelioration, and whose tendency is only to destroy--the nature of blind l.u.s.t and pa.s.sion.
The nature of the [Greek: p?e?at????] [pneumatikon], the spiritual, is essential relationship with G.o.d (the [Greek: ????s??? t? ?e?]..
h.o.m.oousion to Theo): hence the life of Unity, the undivided, the absolutely simple (??s?a ?????, ???e?d??.. Ousia henike, monoeides).
The essence of the ??????? [psuchikoi] is disruption into multiplicity, manifoldness; which, however, is subordinate to a higher unity, by which it allows itself to be guided; first unconsciously, then consciously.
The essence of the ????? [Hulikoi] (of whom Satan is the head), is the direct opposite to all unity; disruption and disunion in itself, without the least sympathy, without any point of coalescence whatever for unity; together with an effort to destroy all unity, to extend its own inherent disunion to everything, and to rend everything asunder. This principle has no power to posit anything; but only to negative: it is unable to create, to produce, to form, but only to destroy, to decompose.
By Marcus, the disciple of Valentinus, the idea of a ????? t?? ??t??
[Logos Tou Ontos], of a WORD, manifesting the hidden Divine Essence, in the Creation, was spun out into the most subtle details--the entire creation being, in his view, a continuous _utterance_ of the Ineffable.
The way in which the germs of divine life [the sp??ata p?e?at???..
spermata pneumatika], which lie shut up in the Eons, continually unfold and individualize themselves more and more, is represented as a spontaneous a.n.a.lysis of the several _names_ of the Ineffable, into their several _sounds_..An _echo_ of the Pleroma falls down into the ???
[Hule], and becomes the forming of a new but lower creation.
One formula of the pneumatical baptism among the Gnostics ran thus: "In the NAME which is hidden from all the Divinities and Powers" [of the Demiurge], "The Name of Truth" [the ????e?a [Aletheia], self-manifestation of the Buthos], which Jesus of Nazareth has put on in the light-zones of Christ, the living Christ, through the Holy Ghost, for the redemption of the angels,--the Name by which all things attain to Perfection. The candidate then said: "I am established and redeemed; I am redeemed in my soul from this world, and from all that belongs to it, by the name of ????, who has redeemed the Soul of Jesus by the living Christ". The a.s.sembly then said: "Peace (or Salvation) to all on whom this name rests!"
The boy Dionusos, torn in pieces, according to the Bacchic Mysteries, by the t.i.tans, was considered by the Manicheans as simply representing the Soul, swallowed up by the powers of darkness,--the divine life rent into fragments by matter:--that part of the luminous essence of the primitive man [the [Greek: p??t?? ?????p??] [Protos Anthropos] of Mani, the [Greek: p???? ?????p??] [Praon Anthropos] of the Valentinians, the Adam Kadmon of the Kabalah; and the Kaiomorts of the Zendavesta], swallowed up by the powers of darkness; the Mundane Soul, mixed with matter--the seed of divine life, which had fallen into matter, and had thence to undergo a process of purification and development.
The [Greek: G??s??] [Gnosis] of Carpocrates and his son Epiphanes consisted in the knowledge of one Supreme Original being, the highest unity, from whom all existence has emanated, and to whom it strives to return. The finite spirits that rule over the several portions of the Earth, seek to counteract this universal tendency to unity; and from their influence, their laws, and arrangements, proceeds all that checks, disturbs, or limits the original communion, which is the basis of nature, as the outward manifestation of that highest Unity. These spirits, moreover, seek to retain under their dominion the souls which, emanating from the highest Unity, and still partaking of its nature, have lapsed into the corporeal world, and have there been imprisoned in bodies, in order, under their dominion, to be kept within the cycle of migration. From these finite spirits, the popular religions of different nations derive their origin. But the souls which, from a reminiscence of their former condition, soar upward to the contemplation of that higher Unity, reach to such perfect freedom and repose, as nothing afterward can disturb or limit, and rise superior to the popular deities and religions. As examples of this sort, they named Pythagoras, Plato, Aristotle, and Christ. They made no distinction between the latter and the wise and good men of every nation. They taught that any other soul which could soar to the same height of contemplation, might be regarded as equal with Him.
The Ophites commenced their system with a Supreme Being, long unknown to the Human race, and still so the greater number of men; the [Greek: ?????] [Buthos], or Profundity, Source of Light, and of Adam-Kadmon, the Primitive Man, made by the Demiourgos, but perfected by the Supreme G.o.d by the communication to him of the Spirit [[Greek: ??e?a].. Pneuma].
The first emanation was the Thought of the Supreme Deity [the [Greek: ?????a].. Ennoia], the conception of the Universe in the Thought of G.o.d. This Thought, called also Silence ([Greek: S???].. Sige), produced the Spirit [[Greek: ??e?a].. Pneuma], Mother of the Living, and Wisdom of G.o.d. Together with this Primitive Existence, Matter existed also (the Waters, Darkness, Abyss, and Chaos), eternal like the Spiritual Principle. Buthos and His Thought, uniting with Wisdom, made her fruitful by the Divine Light, and she produced a perfect and an imperfect being, _Christos_, and a Second and inferior wisdom, _Sophia-Achamoth_, who falling into chaos remained entangled there, became enfeebled, and lost all knowledge of the Superior Wisdom that gave her birth. Communicating movement to Chaos, she produced Ialdabaoth, the Demiourgos, Agent of Material Creation, and then ascended toward her first place in the scale of creation. Ialdabaoth produced an angel that was his image, and this a second, and so on in succession to the sixth after the Demiourgos: the seven being _reflections_ one of the other, yet different and inhabiting seven distinct regions. The names of the six thus produced were IAO, SABAOTH, ADONAI, ELOI, ORAI, and ASTAPHAI. Ialdabaoth, to become independent of his mother, and to pa.s.s for the Supreme Being, made the world, and man, in his own image; and his mother caused the Spiritual principle to pa.s.s from him into man so made; and henceforward the contest between the Demiourgos and his mother, between light and darkness, good and evil, was concentrated in man; and the image of Ialdabaoth, reflected upon matter, became the Serpent-Spirit, Satan, the Evil Intelligence. Eve, created by Ialdabaoth, had by his Sons children that were angels like themselves. The Spiritual light was withdrawn from man by Sophia, and the world surrendered to the influence of evil; until the Spirit, urged by the entreaties of Wisdom, induced the Supreme Being to send Christos to redeem it. Compelled, despite himself, by his Mother, Ialdabaoth caused the man Jesus to be born of a Virgin, and the Celestial Saviour, uniting with his Sister, Wisdom, descended through the regions of the seven angels, appeared in each under the form of its chief, concealed his own, and entered with his sister into the man Jesus at the baptism in Jordan. Ialdabaoth, finding that Jesus was destroying his empire and abolishing his worship, caused the Jews to hate and crucify Him; before which happened, Christos and Wisdom had ascended to the celestial regions. They restored Jesus to life and gave Him an ethereal body, in which He remained eighteen mouths on earth, and receiving from Wisdom the perfect knowledge [G??s??.. Gnosis], communicated it to a small number of His apostles, and then arose to the intermediate region inhabited by Ialdabaoth, where, unknown to him, He sits at his right hand, taking from him the Souls of Light purified by Christos. When nothing of the Spiritual world shall remain subject to Ialdabaoth, the redemption will be accomplished, and the end of the world, the completion of the return of Light into the Plenitude, will occur.
Tatian adopted the theory of Emanation, of Eons, of the existence of a G.o.d too sublime to allow Himself to be known, but displaying Himself by Intelligences emanating from His bosom. The first of these was His spirit [??e?a.. Pneuma], G.o.d Himself, G.o.d thinking, G.o.d conceiving the Universe. The second was the Word [?????.. Logos], no longer merely the Thought or Conception, but the Creative Utterance, manifestation of the Divinity, but emanating from the Thought or Spirit; the First-Begotten, author of the visible creation. This was the Trinity, composed of the Father, Spirit, and Word.
The Elxates adopted the Seven Spirits of the Gnostics; but named them Heaven, Water, Spirit, The Holy Angels of Prayer, Oil, Salt, and the Earth.
The opinion of the Doketes as to the human nature of Jesus Christ, was that most generally received among the Gnostics. They deemed the intelligences of the Superior World too pure and too much the antagonists of matter, to be willing to unite with it: and held that Christ, an Intelligence of the first rank, in appearing upon the earth, did not become confounded with matter, but took upon Himself only the _appearance_ of a body, or at the most used it only as an envelope.
Noetus termed the Son the first Utterance of the Father; the Word, not by Himself, as an Intelligence, and unconnected with the flesh, a real Son; but a Word, and a perfect Only-Begotten; light emanated from the Light; water flowing from its spring; a ray emanated from the Sun.
Paul of Samosata taught that Jesus Christ was the Son of Joseph and Mary; but that the Word, Wisdom, or Intelligence of G.o.d, the ???? [Nous]
of the Gnostics, had united itself with Him, so that He might be said to be at once the Son of G.o.d, and G.o.d Himself.
Arius called the Saviour the first of creatures, non-emanated from G.o.d, but really created, by the direct will of G.o.d, before time and the ages. According to the Church, Christ was of the same nature as G.o.d; according to some dissenters, of the same nature as man. Arius adopted the theory of a nature a.n.a.logous to both. When G.o.d resolved to create the Human race, He made a Being which He called THE WORD, THE SON, WISDOM [?????, ???, S?fia.. Logos, Uios, Sophia], to the end that He might give existence to men. This WORD is the Ormuzd of Zoroaster, the Ensoph of the Kabalah, the ???? [Nous] of Platonism and Philonism, and the S?f?a or ?e??????? [Sophia or Demiourgos] of the Gnostics. He distinguished the Inferior Wisdom, or the daughter, from the Superior Wisdom; the latter being _in_ G.o.d, inherent in His nature, and incapable of communication to any creature: the second, by which the Son was made, communicated itself to Him, and therefore He Himself was ent.i.tled to be called the Word and the Son.
Manes, founder of the Sect of the Manicheans, who had lived and been distinguished among the Persian Magi, profited by the doctrines of Scythia.n.u.s, a Kabalist or Judaizing Gnostic of the times of the Apostles; and knowing those of Bardesanes and Harmonius, derived his doctrines from Zoroasterism, Christianity, and Gnosticism. He claimed to be the ?a?????t?? [Parakletos] or Comforter, in the Sense of a Teacher, organ of the Deity, but not in that of the Holy Spirit or Holy Ghost: and commenced his _Epistola Fundamenti_ in these words: "Manes, Apostle of Jesus Christ, elect of G.o.d the Father; Behold the Words of Salvation, emanating from the living and eternal fountain." The dominant idea of his doctrine was Pantheism, derived by him from its source in the regions of India and on the confines of China: that the cause of all that exists is in G.o.d; and at last, G.o.d is all in all. All souls are equal--G.o.d is in all, in men, animals, and plants. There are two G.o.ds, one of Good and the other of Evil, each independent, eternal, chief of a distinct Empire; necessarily, and of their very natures, hostile to one another. The Evil G.o.d, Satan, is the Genius of matter alone. The G.o.d of Good is infinitely his Superior, the True G.o.d; while the other is but the chief of all that is the Enemy of G.o.d, and must in the end succ.u.mb to His Power. The Empire of Light alone is eternal and true; and this Empire is a great chain of Emanations, all connected with the Supreme Being which they make manifest; all HIM, under different forms, chosen for one end, the triumph of the Good. In each of His members lie hidden thousands of ineffable treasures. Excellent in His Glory, incomprehensible in His Greatness, the Father has joined to Himself those fortunate and glorious Eons [????e?.. Aiones], whose Power and Number it is impossible to determine. This is Spinoza"s Infinity of Infinite Attributes of G.o.d. Twelve Chief Eons, at the head of all, were the Genii of the twelve Constellations of the Zodiac, and called by Manes Olamin. Satan, also, Lord of the Empire of Darkness, had an Army of Eons or Demons, emanating from his Essence, and reflecting more or less his image, but divided and inharmonious among themselves. A war among them brought them to the confines of the Realm of Light.
Delighted, they sought to conquer it. But the Chief of the Celestial Empire created a Power which he placed on the frontiers of Heaven to protect his Eons, and destroy the Empire of Evil. This was the Mother of Life, the Soul of the World, an Emanation from the Supreme Being, too pure to come in immediate contact with matter. It remained in the highest region; but produced a Son, the first Man the _Kaiomorts_, Adam-Kadmon, ???t?? ?????p?? [Protos Anthropos,] and Hivil-Zivah; of the Zend-Avesta, the Kabalah, the Gnosis, and Sabeism; who commenced the contest with the Powers of Evil, but, losing part of his panoply, of his Light, his Son and many souls born of the Light, who were devoured by the darkness, G.o.d sent to his a.s.sistance the living Spirit, or the Son of the First Man ???? ?????p?? ... Uios Anthropou, or Jesus Christ. The Mother of Life, general Principle of Divine Life, and the first Man, Primitive Being that reveals the Divine Life, are too sublime to be connected with the Empire of Darkness. The Son of Man or Soul of the World, enters into the Darkness, becomes its captive, to end by tempering and softening its savage nature. The Divine Spirit, after having brought back the Primitive Man to the Empire of Light, raises above the world that part of the Celestial Soul that remained unaffected by being mingled with the Empire of Darkness. Placed in the region of the Sun and Moon, this pure soul, the Son of Man, the Redeemer or Christ, labors to deliver and attract to Himself that part of the Light or of the Soul of the First Man diffused through matter; which done, the world will cease to exist. To retain the rays of Light still remaining among his Eons, and ever tending to escape and return, by concentrating them, the Prince of Darkness, with their consent, made Adam, whose soul was of the Divine Light, contributed by the Eons, and his body of matter, so that he belonged to both Empires, that of Light and that of Darkness. To prevent the light from escaping at once, the Demons forbade Adam to eat the fruit of "knowledge of good and evil," by which he would have known the Empire of Light and that of Darkness. He obeyed; an Angel of Light induced him to transgress, and gave him the means of victory; but the Demons created Eve, who seduced him into an act of Sensualism, that enfeebled him, and bound him anew in the bonds of matter. This is repeated in the case of every man that lives.
To deliver the soul, captive in darkness, the Principle of Light, or Genius of the Sun, charged to redeem the Intellectual World, of which he is the type, came to manifest Himself among men. Light appeared in the darkness, but the darkness comprehended it not; according to the words of St. John. The Light could not unite with the darkness. It but put on the _appearance_ of a human body, and took the name of Christ in the Messiah, only to accommodate itself to the language of the Jews. The Light did its work, turning the Jews from the adoration of the Evil Principle, and the Pagans from the worship of Demons. But the Chief of the Empire of Darkness caused Him to be crucified by the Jews. Still He suffered in appearance only, and His death gave to all souls the symbol of their enfranchis.e.m.e.nt. The person of Jesus having disappeared, there was seen in His place a cross of Light, over which a celestial voice p.r.o.nounced these words: "The cross of Light is called The Word, Christ, The Gate, Joy, The Bread, The Sun, The Resurrection, Jesus, The Father, The Spirit, Life, Truth, and Grace."
With the Priscillianists there were two principles, one the Divinity, the other, Primitive Matter and Darkness; each eternal. Satan is the son and lord of matter; and the secondary angels and demons, children of matter. Satan created and governs the visible world. But the soul of man emanated from G.o.d, and is of the same substance with G.o.d. Seduced by the evil spirits, it pa.s.ses through various bodies, until, purified and reformed, it rises to G.o.d and is strengthened by His light. These powers of evil hold mankind in pledge; and to redeem this pledge, the Saviour, Christ the Redeemer, came and died upon the cross of expiation, thus discharging the written obligation. He, like all souls, was of the same substance with G.o.d, a manifestation of the Divinity, not forming a second person; unborn, like the Divinity, and nothing else than the Divinity under another form.
It is useless to trace these vagaries further; and we stop at the frontiers of the realm of the three hundred and sixty-five thousand emanations of the Mandaites from the Primitive Light, Fira or Ferho and Yavar; and return contentedly to the simple and sublime creed of Masonry.
Such were some of the ancient notions concerning the Deity; and taken in connection with what has been detailed in the preceding Degrees, this Lecture affords you a true picture of the ancient speculations. From the beginning until now, those who have undertaken to solve the great mystery of the creation of a material universe by an Immaterial Deity, have interposed between the two, and between G.o.d and man, divers manifestations of, or emanations from, or personified attributes or agents of, the Great Supreme G.o.d, who is coexistent with Time and coextensive with s.p.a.ce.
The universal belief of the Orient was, that the Supreme Being did not Himself create either the earth or man. The fragment which commences the Book of Genesis, consisting of the first chapter and the three first verses of the second, a.s.signs the creation or rather the _formation_ or _modelling_ of the world from matter already existing in confusion, not to IHUH, but to the ALHIM, well known as Subordinate Deities, Forces, or Manifestations, among the Phnicians. The second fragment imputes it to IHUH-ALHIM,[3] and St. John a.s.signs the creation to the ????? or WORD; and a.s.serts that CHRIST was that WORD, as well as LIGHT and LIFE, other emanations from the Great Primeval Deity, to which other faiths had a.s.signed the work of creation.
[Footnote 3: _The Substance_, or _Very Self_, of which the Alohayim are the manifestations.]
An absolute existence, wholly immaterial, in no way within the reach of our senses; a cause, but not an effect, that never was not, but existed during an infinity of eternities, before there was anything else except Time and s.p.a.ce, is wholly beyond the reach of our conceptions. The mind of man has wearied itself in speculations as to His nature, His essence, His attributes; and ended in being no wiser than it began. In the impossibility of conceiving of immateriality, we feel at sea and lost whenever we go beyond the domain of matter. And yet we know that there _are_ Powers, Forces, Causes, that are themselves _not_ matter. We give them names, but _what_ they really are, and what their essence, we are wholly ignorant.
But, fortunately, it does not follow that we may not _believe_, or even _know_, that which we cannot _explain_ to ourselves, or that which is beyond the reach of our comprehension. If we believed only that which our intellect can grasp, measure, comprehend, and have distinct and clear ideas of, we sh+ ould believe scarce anything. The senses are not the witnesses that bear testimony to us of the loftiest truths.
Our greatest difficulty is, that language is not adequate to express our ideas; because our words refer to _things_, and are images of what is substantial and material. If we use the word "_emanation_," our mind involuntarily recurs to something material, _flowing out_ of some other thing that is material; and if we _reject_ this idea of materiality, nothing is left of the emanation but an unreality. The word "thing"
itself suggests to us that which is material and within the cognizance and jurisdiction of the senses. If we cut away from it the idea of materiality, it presents itself to us as _no_ thing, but an intangible unreality, which the mind vainly endeavors to grasp. _Existence_ and _Being_ are terms that have the same color of materiality; and when we speak of a _Power_ or _Force_, the mind immediately images to itself one physical and material thing acting upon another. Eliminate that idea; and the Power or Force, devoid of physical characteristics, seems as unreal as the shadow that dances on a wall, itself a mere _absence_ of light; as spirit is to us merely that which is _not_ matter.
Infinite s.p.a.ce and infinite time are the two primary ideas. We formulize them thus: add body to body and sphere to sphere, until the imagination wearies; and still there will remain beyond, a void, empty, unoccupied s.p.a.cE, limitless, because it _is_ void. Add event to event in continuous succession, forever and forever, and there will still remain, before and after, a TIME in which there was and will be no event, and also endless because it too _is_ void.
Thus these two ideas of the boundlessness of s.p.a.ce and the endlessness of time seem to _involve_ the ideas that matter and events are limited and finite. We cannot conceive of an _infinity_ of worlds or of events; but only of an _indefinite_ number of each; for, as we struggle to conceive of their _infinity_, the thought ever occurs in despite of all our efforts--there must be _s.p.a.ce_ in which there are _no_ worlds; there must have been _time_ when there were no events.
We cannot conceive how, if this earth moves millions of millions of miles a million times repeated, it is still _in the centre of s.p.a.ce_; nor how, if we lived millions of millions of ages and centuries, we should still be in the centre of eternity--with still as much _s.p.a.ce_ on one side as on the other; with still as much _time_ before us as behind; for that seems to say that the world has not moved nor we lived at all.
Nor can we comprehend how an infinite series of worlds, added together, is no larger than an infinite series of atoms; or an infinite series of centuries no longer than an infinite series of seconds; both being alike infinite, and therefore one series containing no more nor fewer units than the other.
Nor have we the capacity to form in ourselves any idea of that which is _immaterial_. We use the word, but it conveys to us only the idea of the absence and negation of materiality; which vanishing, s.p.a.ce and Time alone, infinite and boundless, seem to us to be left.
We cannot form any conception of an effect without a cause. We cannot but believe, indeed we know, that, how far soever we may have to run back along the chain of effects and causes, it cannot be _infinite_; but we must come at last to _something_ which is not an effect, but the first cause: and yet the fact is literally beyond our comprehension. The mind refuses to grasp the idea of _self_-existence, of existence without a beginning. As well expect the hair that grows upon our head to understand the nature and immortality of the soul.
It does not need to go so far in search of mysteries; nor have we any right to disbelieve or doubt the existence of a Great First Cause, itself no effect, because we cannot comprehend it; because the words we use do not even express it to us adequately.
We rub a needle for a little while, on a dark, inert ma.s.s of iron ore, that had lain idle in the earth for many centuries. Something is thereby communicated to the steel--we term it a _virtue_, a _power_, or a _quality_--and then we balance it upon a pivot; and, lo! drawn by some invisible, mysterious Power, one pole of the needle turns to the North, and there the same Power keeps the same pole for days and years; will keep it there, perhaps, as long as the world lasts, carry the needle where you will, and no matter what seas or mountains intervene between it and the North Pole of the world. And this Power, thus acting, and indicating to the mariner his course over the trackless ocean, when the stars shine not for many days, saves vessels from shipwreck, families from distress, and those from sudden death on whose lives the fate of nations and the peace of the world depend. But for it, Napoleon might never have reached the ports of France on his return from Egypt, nor Nelson lived to fight and win at Trafalgar. Men call this Power _Magnetism_, and then complacently think that they have explained it all; and yet they have but given a new _name_ to an unknown thing, to _hide_ their ignorance. What is this wonderful Power? It is a real, actual, _active_ Power: that we know and see. But what its _essence_ is, or how it acts, we do not know, any more than we know the essence or the mode of action of the Creative Thought and Word of G.o.d.
And again, what is that which we term _galvanism_ and _electricity_,--which, evolved by the action of a little acid on two metals, aided by a magnet, circles the earth in a second, sending from land to land the _Thoughts_ that govern the transactions of individuals and nations? The mind has formed no notion of matter, that will include _it_; and no name that we can give it, helps us to understand its essence and its being. It _is_ a Power, like Thought and the Will. We know no more.
What is this power of _gravitation_ that makes everything upon the earth tend to the centre? How does it reach out its invisible hands toward the erratic meteor-stones, arrest them in their swift course, and draw them down to the earth"s bosom? It _is_ a _power_. We know no more.
What is that _heat_ which plays so wonderful a part in the world"s economy?--that _caloric_, latent everywhere, within us and without us, produced by combustion, by intense pressure, and by swift motion? Is it substance, matter, spirit, or immaterial, a mere Force or State of Matter?
And what is _light?_ A _substance_, say the books,--_matter_, that travels to us from the sun and stars, each ray separable into seven, by the prism, of distinct colors, and with distinct peculiar qualities and actions. And _if_ a substance, what is its essence, and what power is inherent in it, by which it journeys incalculable myriads of miles, and reaches us ten thousand years or more after it leaves the stars?
All power is equally a mystery. Apply intense cold to a drop of water in the centre of a globe of iron, and the globe is shattered as the water freezes. Confine a little of the same limpid element in a cylinder which Enceladus or Typhon could not have riven asunder, and apply to it intense heat, and the vast power that couched latent in the water shivers the cylinder to atoms. A little shoot from a minute seed, a shoot so soft and tender that the least bruise would kill it, forces its way downward into the hard earth, to the depth of many feet, with an energy wholly incomprehensible. What are these mighty forces, locked up in the small seed and the drop of water?
Nay, what is LIFE itself, with all its wondrous, mighty energies,--that power which maintains the heat within us, and prevents our bodies, that decay so soon without it, from resolution into their original, elements--Life, that constant miracle, the nature and essence whereof have eluded all the philosophers; and all their learned dissertations on it are a mere jargon of words?