_God hath no attributes, unless To Be Be one: 'twould mix him with the things He hath made._ _Festus._ Can imperfection from perfection come? Can God make aught defective? _Lucifer._ How aught else? There are but three proportions in all things-- The greater--equal--less. God could not make A God above himself, nor equal with-- By nature and necessity the highest; So if he make it must be lesser minds-- Little and less from angels down to men, Whose natures are imperfect, as his own Must be all-perfect." Here we have it stated that evil results from, or is synonymous with, imperfection; and all creature-minds are necessarily imperfect, inasmuch as they are inferior to God. But in the lines printed in italics, God is represented as having "no attributes;" for that would mix or liken Him with what He creates. There is, therefore, no room for comparison between the creature and the Creator, there can as little be inferiority as equality. He first finds an argument, such as it is, in the inalienable perfection of God's attributes, and then--embracing the Absolute of Hegel, (to us a mere shadow)--denies that God _has_ attributes. The contradictory doctrines taught in this poem, by different speakers, or the same speaker at different times, are to be explained, we presume, by the dramatic exigencies of the piece. We throw out this supposition, as a possible ground of defence or explanation; but to us it seems that we are taught the most contradictory dogmas by speakers of equal authority. The generally received doctrine of future rewards and punishments is asserted at one time, and exploded, very positively, and with very little reverence, at another. The Scriptural tenet of redemption is generalised into a law of the universe, and the Son of God is always suffering to redeem guilty planets. Nay, as he bore suffering for man, we are told that he bears sin for the salvation of fiends:-- "_Son of God._ For men I bore with death--for fiends I bear with sin; And death and sin are each the pain I pay For the love which brought me down from Heaven to save Both men and devils." Yet, if all _creature-minds_ are necessarily imperfect, and therefore necessarily evil, it is difficult to understand in what the action of redemption can consist; or how any creature can be redeemed from evil, since evil belongs essentially to it, as a creature.