Good._ Because man is made after God's eternal likeness, and this likeness
consists in a sense of harmony and immortality, in which no evil can
possibly dwell. You may eat of the fruit of Godlikeness, but as to the
fruit of ungodliness, which is opposed to Truth,--ye shall not touch it,
lest ye die.

_Evil._ But I would taste and know error for myself.

_Good._ Thou shalt not admit that error is something to know or be known,
to eat or be eaten, to see or be seen, to feel or be felt. To admit the
existence of error would be to admit the truth of a lie.

_Evil._ But there is something besides good. God knows that a knowledge of
this something is essential to happiness and life. A lie is as genuine as
Truth, though not so legitimate a child of God. Whatever exists must come
from God, and be important to our knowledge. Error, even, is His offspring.

_Good._ Whatever cometh not from the eternal Spirit, has its origin in the
physical senses and material brains, called _human intellect_ and
_will-power_,--_alias_ intelligent matter.

In Shakespeare's tragedy of King Lear, it was the traitorous and cruel
treatment received by old Gloster from his bastard son Edmund which makes
true the lines:

The gods are just, and of our pleasant vices
Make instruments to scourge us.

His lawful son, Edgar, was to his father ever loyal. Now God has no
bastards to turn again and rend their Maker. The divine children are born
of law and order, and Truth knows only such.

How well the Shakespearean tale agrees with the word of Scripture, in
Hebrews xii. 7, 8: "If ye endure chastening, God dealeth with you as with
sons; for what son is he whom the father chasteneth not? But if ye be
without chastisement, whereof all are partakers, then are ye bastards, and
not sons."

The doubtful or spurious evidence of the senses is not to be
admitted,--especially when they testify concerning Spirit, whereof they are
confessedly incompetent to speak.

_Evil._ But mortal mind and sin really exist!

_Good._ How can they exist, unless God has created them? And how can He
create anything so wholly unlike Himself and foreign to His nature? An evil
material mind, so-called, can conceive of God only as like itself, and
knowing both evil and good; but a purely good and spiritual consciousness
has no sense whereby to cognize evil. Mortal mind is the opposite of
immortal Mind, and sin the opposite of goodness. I am the infinite All.
From me proceed