ings, and thus at once be happy in being cognizant of
all.

AGATHOS. Ah, not in knowledge is happiness, but in the acquisition of
knowledge! In for ever knowing, we are for ever blessed; but to know all
were the curse of a fiend.

OINOS. But does not The Most High know all?

AGATHOS. That (since he is The Most Happy) must be still the one thing
unknown even to Him.

OINOS. But, since we grow hourly in knowledge, must not at last all
things be known?

AGATHOS. Look down into the abysmal distances!--attempt to force the
gaze down the multitudinous vistas of the stars, as we sweep slowly
through them thus--and thus--and thus! Even the spiritual vision, is
it not at all points arrested by the continuous golden walls of the
universe?--the walls of the myriads of the shining bodies that mere
number has appeared to blend into unity?

OINOS. I clearly perceive that the infinity of matter is no dream.

AGATHOS. There are no dreams in Aidenn--but it is here whispered that,
of this infinity of matter, the sole purpose is to afford infinite
springs, at which the soul may allay the thirst to know, which is for
ever unquenchable within it--since to quench it, would be to extinguish
the soul's self. Question me then, my Oinos, freely and without fear.
Come! we will leave to the left the loud harmony of the Pleiades, and
swoop outward from the throne into the starry meadows beyond Orion,
where, for pansies and violets, and heart's--ease, are the beds of the
triplicate and triple--tinted suns.

OINOS. And now, Agathos, as we proceed, instruct me!--speak to me in
the earth's familiar tones. I understand not what you hinted to me, just
now, of the modes or of the method of what, during mortality, we were
accustomed to call Creation. Do you mean to say that the Creator is not
God?

AGATHOS. I mean to say that the Deity does not create.

OINOS. Explain.

AGATHOS. In the beginning only, he created. The seeming creatures which
are now, throughout the universe, so perpetually springing into being,
can only be considered as the mediate or indirect, not as the direct or
immediate results of the Divine creative power.

OINOS. Among men, my Agathos, this idea would be considered heretical in
the extreme.

AGATHOS. Among angels, my Oinos, it is seen to be simply true.

OINOS. I can comprehend you thus far--that certain operations of what we
term Nature, or the natural laws, will, under certain conditions, give
rise to that which