"She stood and spake intuitive of Heaven,
The World-divining Spirit whilom named.
Now such as man is to himself is His
Divine idea; but the God which is,
Is not the God men worship, not alone
Ineffable, but inconceivable;
How shall an atom comprehend the Heaven?
Two points men occupy in space and time,
And half exist of matter and in form:
Thus, His existence is their opposite;
And all is either God or nothingness,
Being with nonbeing identical."
And so we are landed in the Absolute of Hegel; and in that insufferable jargon of his, by which, (confounding the laws of thought with the nature of things,) he proves, because we cannot think of existence without a reference to non-existence, nor think of non-existence without the contrasted idea of existence, that therefore existence itself includes non-existence, and non-existence includes existence, and they are identical—(sein = nicht sein.)
We cannot compliment Mr Bailey on the skill he has displayed in his combination of Hegelian philosophy with his theological doctrines. In the following extract Lucifer is the spokesman:—
"Lucifer.—All creature-minds, like man's, are fallible:
The seraph who in Heaven highest stands
May fall to ruin deepest. God is mind—
Pure, perfect, sinless. Man imperfect is—
Momently sinning. Evil thus results
From imperfection.
God hath no attributes, unless To Be
Be one: 'twould mix him with the things He hath made.
Festus. Can imperfection from perfection come?
Can God make aught defective?
Lucifer. How aught else?
There are but three proportions in all things—
The greater—equal—less. God could not make
A God above himself, nor equal with—
By nature and necessity the highest;
So if he make it must be lesser minds—
Little and less from angels down to men,
Whose natures are imperfect, as his own
Must be all-perfect."
Here we have it stated that evil results from, or is synonymous with, imperfection; and all creature-minds are necessarily imperfect, inasmuch as they are inferior to God. But in the lines printed in italics, God is represented as having "no attributes;" for that would mix or liken Him with what He creates. There is, therefore, no room for comparison between the creature and the Creator, there can as little be inferiority as equality. He first finds an argument, such as it is, in the inalienable perfection of God's attributes, and then—embracing the Absolute of Hegel, (to us a mere shadow)—denies that God has attributes.
The contradictory doctrines taught in this poem, by different speakers, or the same speaker at different times, are to be explained, we presume, by the dramatic exigencies of the piece. We throw out this supposition, as a possible ground of defence or explanation; but to us it seems that we are taught the most contradictory dogmas by speakers of equal authority. The generally received doctrine of future rewards and punishments is asserted at one time, and exploded, very positively, and with very little reverence, at another. The Scriptural tenet of redemption is generalised into a law of the universe, and the Son of God is always suffering to redeem guilty planets. Nay, as he bore suffering for man, we are told that he bears sin for the salvation of fiends:—
"Son of God. For men
I bore with death—for fiends I bear with sin;
And death and sin are each the pain I pay
For the love which brought me down from Heaven to save
Both men and devils."