for false Gods, and least of all for the meanest, was _alike_ for
both. Astarte does not kill Sayth on the spot, but by a judgment.
Gods, no more their God, spake an instant law. Even the prophets are
properly no prophets, but only the mode of speech by God,--as clear as
He _can_ speak. Men mistake God's hate by their own. So neither could
He reveal Himself. A vast age would be required for seeing God.

But for the thought of man as evil (or of any other form of evil), as
reconcilable with their idea of a perfect God, a happy idea may, like
the categories, proceed upon a necessity for a perfect _inversion_ of
the _methodus conspiciendi_. Let us retrace, but in such a form as to be
apprehensible by all readers. Analytic and synthetic propositions at
once throw light upon the notion of a category. Once it had been a mere
abstraction; of no possible use except as a convenient cell for
referring (as in a nest of boxes), which may perhaps as much degrade the
idea as a relative of my own degraded the image of the crescent moon by
saying, in his abhorrence of sentimentality, that it reminded him of the
segment from his own thumb-nail when clean cut by an instrument called a
nail-cutter. This was the Aristotelian notion. But Kant could not
content himself with this idea. His own theory (1) as to time and space,
(2) the refutation of Hume's notion of cause, and (3) his own great
discovery of synthetic and analytic propositions, all prepared the way
for a totally new view. But, now, what is the origin of this necessity
applied to the category as founded in the synthesis? How does a
synthesis make itself or anything else necessary? Explain me that.

This was written perhaps a fortnight ago. Now, Monday, May 23 (day fixed
for Dan Good's execution), I _do_ explain it by what this moment I seem
to have discovered--the necessity of cause, of substance, etc., lies in
the intervening synthesis. This you _must_ pass through in the course
tending to and finally reaching the idea; for the analytical presupposes
this synthesis.

Not only must the energies of destruction be equal to those of creation,
but, in fact, perhaps by the trespassing a little of the first upon the
last, is the true advance sustained; for it must be an advance as well
as a balance. But you say this will but in other words mean that forces
devoted (and properly so) to production or creation are absorbed by
destruction. True; but the opposing phenomena will be going o