AGATHOS. That (since he is The Most Happy) must be still the one thing unknown even to Him. OINOS. But, since we grow hourly in knowledge, must not at last all things be known? AGATHOS. Look down into the abysmal distances!—attempt to force the gaze down the multitudinous vistas of the stars, as we sweep slowly through them thus—and thus—and thus! Even the spiritual vision, is it not at all points arrested by the continuous golden walls of the universe?—the walls of the myriads of the shining bodies that mere number has appeared to blend into unity? OINOS. I clearly perceive that the infinity of matter is no dream. AGATHOS. There are _no_ dreams in Aidenn—but it is here whispered that, of this infinity of matter, the _sole_ purpose is to afford infinite springs, at which the soul may allay the thirst _to know_, which is for ever unquenchable within it—since to quench it, would be to extinguish the soul’s self. Question me then, my Oinos, freely and without fear. Come! we will leave to the left the loud harmony of the Pleiades, and swoop outward from the throne into the starry meadows beyond Orion, where, for pansies and violets, and heart’s-ease, are the beds of the triplicate and triple-tinted suns. OINOS. And now, Agathos, as we proceed, instruct me!—speak to me in the earth’s familiar tones. I understand not what you hinted to me, just now, of the modes or of the method of what, during mortality, we were accustomed to call Creation. Do you mean to say that the Creator is not God? AGATHOS. I mean to say that the Deity does not create. OINOS. Explain. AGATHOS. In the beginning only, he created. The seeming creatures which are now, throughout the universe, so perpetually springing into being, can only be considered as the mediate or indirect, not as the direct or immediate results of the Divine creative power. OINOS. Among men, my Agathos, this idea would be considered heretical in the extreme. AGATHOS. Among angels, my Oinos, it is seen to be simply true. OINOS. I can comprehend you thus far—that certain operations of what we term Nature, or the natural laws, will, under certain conditions, give rise to that which has all the _appearance_ of creation. Shortly before the final overthrow of the earth, there were, I well remember, many very successful experiments in what some philosophers were weak enough to denominate the creation of animalculæ. AGATHOS. The cases of which you speak were, in fact, instances of the secondary creation—and of the only species of creation which has ever been, since the first word spoke into existence the first law.