The poet's view of the problem of evil and the destiny of humanity becomes clearer if the _Légende_ is read in connexion with the two poems mentioned in the Preface to the volume of 1859, as designed to form with it an immense trilogy: _Dieu_ and _La Fin de Satan_. Neither was published till after the poet's death, and the latter was left in an unfinished condition. But they were both planned in the days when, isolated on his rock and severed from active life, the poet meditated on the deep questions of life and death. They were meant to be, the one the prelude, and the other the sequel of his poem of humanity. The leading thought of _Dieu_ is the falseness of all the positive systems of religion which have burdened or inspired humanity, and the truth that 'Dieu n'a qu'un front: Lumière; et n'a qu'un nom: Amour,' though it is only death which will fully reveal that light. The theme of _La Fin de Satan_ is the final reconciliation of good and evil. As Satan falls from heaven, a feather drops from his wing, and from that feather the Almighty creates the angel Liberty, who is thus the child equally of the spirit of Good and the spirit of Evil; that angel finally brings about the pardon of Satan, when the demon finds that it is impossible for him to live without the presence of the Almighty. Man is endowed with liberty, this child of good and ill, and his spirit hovers therefore ever between the exalted and the mean. So humanity appears to the seer in _Dieu_: Et je vis apparaître une étrange figure; Un être tout semé de bouches, d'ailes, d'yeux, Vivant, presque lugubre et presque radieux; Vaste, il volait; plusieurs des ailes étaient chauves. En s'agitant, les cils de ses prunelles fauves Jetaient plus de rumeur qu'une troupe d'oiseaux, Et ses plumes faisaient un bruit de grandes eaux. Cauchemar de la chair ou vision d'apôtre, Selon qu'il se montrait d'une face ou de l'autre, Il semblait une bête ou semblait un esprit. Il paraissait, dans l'air où mon vol le surprit, Faire de la lumière, et faire des ténèbres. To Hugo, therefore, evil is not an equal force with good, nor is it eternal. It was created in time, it will end in time. It is a mistake to suppose that he accepted any kind of Manichaeism as his solution of the problem of the universe. In reality his thought is much more permeated with Christian feeling than with Manichaeism. Though he rejected dogmatic Catholicism, and indeed assailed it with Voltairian mockery, yet his vision of the Eternal as the embodiment of that mercy and goodness which is greater than justice is in its essence a Christian conception. Inspired, in part at least, by Christian thought seems also to be his conception of the eventual reconciliation of good and evil, and that belief in the restoration of all things which finds expression in the concluding lines of _L'Âne_: