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.
OINOS. And why, Agathos, should they have proceeded?
AGATHOS. Because there were some considerations of deep interest
beyond. It was deducible from what they knew, that to a being of
infinite understanding -- one to whom the perfection of the algebraic
analysis lay unfolded -- there could be no difficulty in tracing
every impulse given the air -- and the ether through the air -- to
the remotest consequences at any even infinitely remote epoch of
time. It is indeed demonstrable that every such impulse given the
air, must, in the end, impress every individual thing that exists
within the universe; -- and the being of infinite understanding --
the being whom we have imagined -- might trace the remote undulations
of the impulse -- trace them upward and onward in their influences
upon all particles of an matter -- upward and onward for ever in
their modifications of old forms -- or, in other words, in their
creation of new -- until he found them reflected -- unimpressive at
last -- back from the throne of the Godhead. And not only could such
a thing do this, but at any epoch, should a given result be afforded
him -- should one of these numberless comets, for example, be
presented to his inspection -- he could have no difficulty in
determining, by the analytic retrogradation, to what original impulse
it was due. This power of retrogradation in its absolute fulness and
perfection -- this faculty of referring at all epochs, all effects to
all causes -- is of course the prerogative of the Deity alone -- but
in every variety of degree, short of the absolute perfection, is the
power itself exercised by the whole host of the Angelic
intelligences.
OINOS. But you speak merely of impulses upon the air.
AGATHOS. In speaking of the air, I referred only to the earth; but
the general proposition has reference to impulses upon the ether --
which, since it pervades, and alone pervades all space, is thus the
great medium of creation.
OINOS. Then all motion, of whatever nature, creates?
AGATHOS. It must: but a true philosophy has long taught that the
source of all motion is thought -- and the source of all thought is-
OINOS. God.
AGATHOS. I have spoken to you, Oinos, as to a child of the fair Earth
which lately perished -- of impulses upon the atmosphere of the
Earth.
OINOS. You did.
AGATHOS. And while I thus spoke, did there not cross your mind some
thought of the physical power of words? Is not every word an impulse
on the air?
OINOS. But why, Agathos, do you weep -- and why, oh why do your wings
droop as we hover above this fair star -- which is the greenest and
yet most terrible of all we have encountered in our flight? Its
brilliant flowers look like a fairy dream -- but its fierce volcanoes
like the passions of a turbulent heart.
AGATHOS. They are! -- they are! This wild star -- it is now three
centuries since, with clasped hands, and with streaming eyes, at the
feet of my beloved -- I spoke it -- with a few passionate sentences
-- into birth. Its brilliant flowers are the dearest of all
unfulfilled dreams, and its raging volcanoes are the passions of the
most turbulent and unhallowed of hearts.
~~~ End of Text ~~~
======
THE COLLOQUY OF MONOS AND UNA
9,88@
_ Sophocles - Antig _:
"These; things are in the future."
_ Una._ "Born again?"
_ Monos._ Yes, fairest and best beloved Una, "born again." These
were the words upon whose mystical meaning I had so long pondered,
rejecting the explanations of the priesthood, until Death himself
resolved for me the secret.
_Una._ Death!
_Monos._ How strangely, sweet Una, you echo my words! I observe,
too, a vacillation in your step - a joyous inquietude in your eyes.
You are confused and oppressed by the majestic novelty of the Life
Eternal. Yes, it was of Death I spoke. And here how singularly sounds
that word which of old was wont to bring terror to all hearts -
throwing a mildew upon all pleasures!
_ Una._ Ah, Death, the spectre which s
ate at all feasts! How
often, Monos, did we lose ourselves in speculations upon its nature!
How mysteriously did it act as a check to human bliss - saying unto
it "thus far, and no farther!" That earnest mutual love, my own
Monos, which burned within our bosoms how vainly did we flatter
ourselves, feeling happy in its first up-springing, that our
happiness would strengthen with its strength! Alas! as it grew, so
grew in our hearts the dread of that evil hour which was hurrying to
separate us forever! Thus, in time, it became painful to love. Hate
would have been mercy then.
_ Monos._ Speak not here of these griefs, dear Una - mine, mine,
forever now!
_ Una._ But the memory of past sorrow - is it not present joy? I
have much to say yet of the things which have been. Above all, I burn
to know the incidents of your own passage through the dark Valley and
Shadow.
_ Monos._ And when did the radiant Una ask anything of her Monos
in vain? I will be minute in relating all - but at what point shall
the weird narrative begin?
_Una._ At what point?
_Monos._ You have said.
_Una._ Monos, I comprehend you. In Death we have both learned the
propensity of man to define the indefinable. I will not say, then,
commence with the moment of life's cessation - but commence with that
sad, sad instant when, the fever having abandoned you, you sank into
a breathless and motionless torpor, and I pressed down your pallid
eyelids with the passionate fingers of love.
_ Monos._ One word first, my Una, in regard to man's general
condition at this epoch. You will remember that one or two of the
wise among our forefathers - wise in fact, although not in the
world's esteem - had ventured to doubt the propriety of the term
"improvement," as applied to the progress of our civilization. There
were periods in each of the five or six centuries immediately
preceding our dissolution, when arose some vigorous intellect, boldly
contending for those principles whose truth appears now, to our
disenfranchised reason, so utterly obvious - principles which should
have taught our race to submit to the guidance of the natural laws,
rather than attempt their control. At long intervals some masterminds
appeared, looking upon each advance in practical science as a
retro-gradation in the true utility. Occasionally the poetic
intellect - that intellect which we now feel to have been the most
exalted of all - since those truths which to us were of the most
enduring importance could only be reached by that analogywhich speaks
in proof tones to the imagination alone and to the unaided reason
bears no weight - occasionally did this poetic intellect proceed a
step farther in the evolving of the vague idea of the philosophic,
and find in the mystic parable that tells of the tree of knowledge,
and of its forbidden fruit, death-producing, a distinct intimation
that knowledge was not meet for man in the infant condition of his
soul. And these men - the poets - living and perishing amid the scorn
of the "utilitarians" - of rough pedants, who arrogated to themselves
a title which could have been properly applied only to the scorned -
these men, the poets, pondered piningly, yet not unwisely, upon the
ancient days when our wants were not more simple than our enjoyments
were keen - days when mirth was a word unknown, so solemnly
deep-toned was happiness - holy, august and blissful days, when blue
rivers ran undammed, between hills unhewn, into far forest solitudes,
primæval, odorous, and unexplored.
Yet these noble exceptions from the general misrule served but to
strengthen it by opposition. Alas! we had fallen upon the most evil
of all our evil days. The great "movement" - that was the cant term -
went on: a diseased commotion, moral and physical. Art - the Arts -
arose supreme, and, once enthroned, cast chains upon the intellect
which had elevated them to power. Man, because he could not but
acknowledge the majesty of Nature, fell into childish exultation at
his acquired and still-increasing dominion over her elements. Even
while he stalked a God in his own fancy, an infantine imbecility came
over him. As might be supposed from the origin of his disorder, he
grew infected with system, and with abstraction. He enwrapped himself
in generalities. Among other odd ideas, that of universal equality
gained ground; and in the face of analogy and of God - in despite of
the loud warning voice of the laws of gradation so visibly pervading
all things in Earth an Heaven - wild attempts at an omni-prevalent
Democracy were made. Yet this evil sprang necessarily from the
leading evil, Knowledge. Man could not both know and succumb.
Meantime huge smoking cities arose, innumerable. Green leaves shrank
before the hot breath of furnaces. The fair face of Nature was
deformed as with the ravages of some loathsome disease. And methinks,
sweet Una, even our slumbering sense of the forced and of the
far-fetched might have arrested us here. But now it appears that we
had worked out our own destruction in the perversion of our taste, or
rather in the blind neglect of its culture in the schools. For, in
truth, it was at this crisis that taste alone - that faculty which,
holding a middle position between the pure intellect and the moral
sense, could never safely have been disregarded - it was now that
taste alone could have led us gently back to Beauty, to Nature, and
to Life. But alas for the pure contemplative spirit and majestic
intuition of Plato! Alas for the which he justly regarded as an
all-sufficient education for the soul! Alas for him and for it! -
since both were most desperately needed when both were most entirely
forgotten or despised. {*1}
Pascal, a philosopher whom we both love, has said, how truly! -
"que tout notre raisonnement se rèduit à céder au sentiment;" and it
is not impossible that the sentiment of the natural, had time
permitted it, would have regained its old ascendancy over the harsh
mathematical reason of the schools. But this thing was not to be.
Poe, Edgar Allen - The Complete Works of Edgar Allen Poe Page 144