A definition of the word “Deus,” God, is an impossibility, because it refers to a state beyond the conception of the limited mind. Eckhart says:—“A god of whom I could conceive would not be a god, but a limited creature.” We can therefore only say, God is the universal will in its highest aspect as divine love; which is the supreme law and the life of all things. A necessary consequence of the action of divine law is divine justice; because it would be impossible to imagine how one being could be favoured without doing injustice to another, and thus depriving the law of universal divine love of its unity and equality. This divine law of justice, according to which every cause created by a rational being returns with all its effects to its creator, is called in the East the law of _Karma_, and may be translated as the law of Eternal Retribution. H. P. Blavatsky says:— “_Karma is the unerring law which adjusts effect to cause, on the physical, mental, and spiritual planes of being. As no cause remains without its due effect from greatest to least, from a cosmic disturbance down to the movement of your hand, and as like produces like, Karma is that law which adjusts wisely, intelligently and equitably each effect to its cause, tracing the latter back to its producer._”[43] This law of _Karma_ is in common parlance called the Will of God; which means the action of divine justice throughout the universe, and it is the cause not only of social evils, distinctions of classes in society, of the unequal distribution of wealth and comfort, good luck and misfortune, but also of defects of character, mental abnormalities and physical diseases. All diseases in fact are effects of the law of _Karma_, the effects of causes, which are all based upon one universal Law; but this is not to be understood as if it meant “fatality,” or as if nothing could be done to cure such effects; for _Karma_ is also the source of good, and if the patient finds a physician able to cure him, it proves that it was his _Karma_ to find him and that he should be cured by him. “All health and all disease comes from God, who also furnishes the remedy. Each disease is a purgatory, and no physician can effect a cure until the time of that purgatory is over. Ignorant physicians are the devils of that purgatory; but a wise physician a redeeming angel and a servant of God. The physician is a servant of nature, and God is its Lord. Therefore no physician ever performs a cure unless it is the will of God curing the patient through him.” (“Paramir.,” I., C. iv., 2 and 7.)