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THE POWER OF WORDS.
'Oinos.'
Pardon, Agathos, the weakness of a spirit new-fledged with
immortality!
'Agathos.'
You have spoken nothing, my Oinos, for which pardon is to be demanded.
Not even here is knowledge a thing of intuition. For wisdom, ask of
the angels freely, that it may be given!
'Oinos.'
But in this existence I dreamed that I should be at once cognizant of
all things, and thus at once happy in being cognizant of all.
'Agathos.'
Ah, not in knowledge is happiness, but in the acquisition of
knowledge! In forever knowing, we are forever 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 forever
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 methods 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 the 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 animalculæ.
'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 we 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 forever, 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 (forever) 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 all matter--upward and onward forever 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 being 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!
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