Our Prophet's simple yet sublime setting forth is far more pointed and specific than the presentment made by Plato of a doctrine somewhat similar. The Greek philosopher, as quoted by Emerson, says: "Let us declare the cause which led the Supreme Ordainer to produce and compose the universe. He was good; and he who is good has no kind of envy. Exempt from envy, he wished that all things should be as much as possible like himself. Whosoever, taught by wise men, shall admit this as the prime cause of the origin and foundation of the world, will be in the truth" ("Plato," Emerson's "Representative Men"). There is a fitness, a propriety, in man's becoming like his Maker—God's child, fashioned in his image and endowed with divine attributes, developing to the fulness of the parental stature, as taught by Joseph; but how the same can be predicated of "all things," as Plato implies, is not so clear. That the lower animals, and in fact all forms of life, are to be perpetuated and glorified, is more than an inference from the teachings of the Prophet (D. and C. 29:24, 25; 77:2-4). But undoubtedly all will retain their identity in their respective orders and spheres. No creature of God's excepting man can become like God in the fullest and highest sense.

[17]. D. and C. 93:36.

[18]. Rom. 1:16.

[19]. D. and C. 76:50-70; 93:33; Abr. 3:26.

ARTICLE TWELVE.

The Great Vicissitudes.

Fall and Redemption.—The Fall of Man and the Redemption from the Fall, are the great vicissitudes of human experience. One is sequel to the other, and both are steps in the march of eternal progress. The Gospel, therefore, embraces the fall as well as the redemption. Both were essential, and both were preordained. The one prepared the way before the other. Had there been no fall, there could have been no redemption; for the simple reason that there would have been nothing to redeem.

The Creation.—Preliminary to the fall, came the creation. Earth, created as an abode and a place of probation for mortal man, was not made out of nothing, as human theology asserts, but out of previously existing materials, as divine revelation affirms. Millions of earths had been created in like manner before this planet rolled into existence.[[1]]

To create does not mean to make something out of nothing. Such a doctrine is neither scientific nor scriptural. Nothing remains nothing, of necessity; and no power, human or divine, can make it otherwise. Creation is organization, with materials at hand for the process. Joseph Smith's position upon this point, though combatted by doctors of divinity, is confirmed by the most advanced scientists and philosophers of modern times. The dogma that earth was made out of nothing is an attempt to glorify Deity by ascribing to him the power to perform the impossible—to do that which cannot be done. As if Deity could be glorified with anything of that sort, or had need of any such glorification. It is also an effort to escape from what many religious teachers consider a dilemma, the other horn of which would commit them to what they mistakenly deem a fallacy—namely, the eternity and self-existence of matter.[[2]]

Eternity of Matter.—"Mormonism" stands firm-footed upon this ground. It holds matter to be uncreateable, indestructible, without beginning or end, and consequently eternal.[[3]] As for modern science, here are a few of its most recent conclusions upon the point at issue. Says Herbert Spencer: "The doctrine that matter is indestructible has become a commonplace. All the apparent proofs that something can come out of nothing, a wider knowledge has one by one canceled" ("First Principles"). And John Fiske confirms him in saying: "It is now inconceivable that a particle of matter should either come into existence, or lapse into non-existence" ("Cosmic Philosophy"). Robert K. Duncan clinches the argument with the emphatic pronouncement: "We cannot create something out of nothing" ("New Knowledge").