n the nations, between
the two alternatives of the problem, whole generations have preferred
this solution of it. Hence the doctrine of the two principles of
Magianism, brought from Asia and adopted in Europe under the form of
Satan warring with the Eternal Father. But this religious formula and
the innumerable aspects of divinity that have sprung from it are surely
crimes against the Majesty Divine. What other term can we apply to
the belief which sets up as a rival to God a personification of Evil,
striving eternally against the Omnipotent Mind without the possibility
of ultimate triumph? Your statics declare that two Forces thus pitted
against each other are reciprocally rendered null.

"Do you turn back, therefore, to the other side of the problem, and say
that God pre-existed, original, alone?

"I will not go over the preceding arguments (which here return in full
force) as to the severance of Eternity into two parts; nor the questions
raised by the progression or the immobility of the worlds; let us
look only at the difficulties inherent to this second theory. If God
pre-existed alone, the world must have emanated from Him; Matter was
therefore drawn from His essence; consequently Matter in itself is
non-existent; all forms are veils to cover the Divine Spirit. If this
be so, the World is Eternal, and also it must be God. Is not this
proposition even more fatal than the former to the attributes conferred
on God by human reason? How can the actual condition of Matter be
explained if we suppose it to issue from the bosom of God and to be
ever united with Him? Is it possible to believe that the All-Powerful,
supremely good in His essence and in His faculties, has engendered
things dissimilar to Himself. Must He not in all things and through all
things be like unto Himself? Can there be in God certain evil parts
of which at some future day he may rid Himself?--a conjecture less
offensive and absurd than terrible, for the reason that it drags back
into Him the two principles which the preceding theory proved to be
inadmissible. God must be ONE; He cannot be divided without renouncing
the most important condition of His existence. It is therefore
impossible to admit of a fraction of God which yet is not God. This
hypothesis seemed so criminal to the Roman Church that she has made the
omnipresence of God in the least particles of the Eucharist an article
of faith.

"But how then can we imagine an omnipotent mind which