be declared and Justice would
be satisfied.

"Your nature, when it sinned in its totality in its first seed, from
these dignities, even as from Paradise, was parted; nor might they be
recovered, if thou look right keenly, by any way save passing one or the
other of these fords: either that God, of his sole courtesy, should have
remitted; or that man should of himself have given satisfaction for his
folly. Man had not power, within his own boundaries, even to render
satisfaction, since he might not go in humbleness by after-obedience so
deep down as in disobedience he had framed to exalt himself on high; and
this is the cause why from the power to render satisfaction by himself
man was shut off. Wherefore needs must God with his own ways reinstate
man in his unmaimed life, I mean with one way or with both the two. But
because the doer's deed is the more gracious the more it doth present
us of the heart's goodness whence it issued, the divine Goodness which
doth stamp the world, deigned to proceed on all his ways to lift you up
again; nor between the last night and the first day was, nor shall be,
so lofty and august a progress made on one or on the other, for more
generous was God in giving of himself to make man able to uplift himself
again, than had he only of himself granted remission; and all other
modes fell short of justice, except the Son of God had humbled him to
become flesh." (VII, 85.)

From Mercury to Venus the ascent has been so rapid that Dante is unaware
that he has reached the third Heaven until he sees the greater
loveliness of Beatrice represented by her greater radiance. As ascent is
made heavenward it will also be found that the spirits are seen not as
human faces, as was the case in the Heaven of the Moon, but as lights
increasing in intensity and manifesting a movement of greater speed to
the accompaniment of diverse music. It is necessary to keep in mind this
plan of the poet lest thinking the lovely lights, and lovely sounds and
lovely movements are only terms descriptive of physical, though
impalpable phenomena, we lose the deep and beautiful symbolism that is
the magic secret of the seraphic poesy of the Paradiso. Of the
brilliancy and movement of the spirits of the Sphere of Venus--spirits
who in this life failed in Christian ideals because of their amours,
Dante says, and his description is that of an expert musician
distinguishing between the singing of one who sustains the main-theme
and