Il semblait une bête ou semblait un esprit.
Il paraissait, dans l'air où mon vol le surprit,
Faire de la lumière, et faire des ténèbres.
To Hugo, therefore, evil is not an equal force with good, nor is it eternal. It was created in time, it will end in time. It is a mistake to suppose that he accepted any kind of Manichaeism as his solution of the problem of the universe. In reality his thought is much more permeated with Christian feeling than with Manichaeism. Though he rejected dogmatic Catholicism, and indeed assailed it with Voltairian mockery, yet his vision of the Eternal as the embodiment of that mercy and goodness which is greater than justice is in its essence a Christian conception. Inspired, in part at least, by Christian thought seems also to be his conception of the eventual reconciliation of good and evil, and that belief in the restoration of all things which finds expression in the concluding lines of L'Âne:
Dieu ne veut pas que rien, même l'obscurité,
Même l'Erreur qui semble ou funeste ou futile,
Que rien puisse, en criant: Quoi, j'étais inutile!
Dans le gouffre à jamais retomber éperdu;
Et le lien sacré du service rendu,
A travers l'ombre affreuse et la céleste sphère,