Chapter 5, Section 1h

is attacking the irreligious attitude in science, philosophy, and life. We must seek for all things (including our own personalities) not in themselves but in God. The great defect of Natural Science in the nineteenth century was its failure to do this. It was, perhaps, the defect of Gnosticism in earlier days, and is the pitfall of Occultism to-day. But even if we grant 142 the truth of his contention, we must remember the Scripture which saith: “I did not show these things unto thee that thou mightest follow after them,” but that through such knowledge of these as is suited to our faculties we may be led up (so far as is possible) to the Universal Cause. We must then attribute unto It all things in one All-Transcendent Unity, inasmuch as, starting from Being, and setting in motion the creative Emanation and Goodness, and penetrating all things, and filling all things with Being from Itself, and rejoicing in all things, It anticipates all things in Itself, in one exceeding simplicity rejecting all reduplication; and It embraces all things alike in the Transcendent Unity of Its infinitude, and is indivisibly shared by all (even as a sound, while remaining one and the same, is shared as one by several pairs of ears). 10. Thus the Pre-existent is the Beginning and the End of all things: the Beginning as their Cause, the End as their Final Purpose. He bounds all things. and yet is their boundless Infinitude, in a manner that transcends all the opposition between the Finite and the Infinite. 388 388 i.e. He gives each thing its distinctness while yet containing infinite possibilities of development for it. For, as hath been often 143 said, He contains beforehand and did create all things in One Act, being present unto all and everywhere, both in the particular individual and in the Universal Whole, and going out unto all things while yet remaining in Himself. He is both at rest and in motion, 389 389 He is always yearning yet always satisfied. Cf. St. Augustine, Confessions, ad in. A reproduction of this state has been experienced by some of the Saints. Cf. Julian of Norwich: “I had Him and I wanted Him.” and yet is in neither state, nor hath He beginning, middle, or end; He neither inheres in any individual thing, nor is He any individual thing. 390 390 He is the ultimate Reality of all beings, and is not one Being among others. We cannot apply to Him any attribute of eternal things nor of temporal things. He transcends both Time and Eternity, and all things that are in either of them; inasmuch as Very Eternity 391 391 Very Eternity perhaps corresponds to the aeternitas of St. Thomas and Eternity to his aevum (with which cf. Bergson’s durée). Eternity is a totum simul without beginning or end, aevum is a totum simul with beginning but no end. It is eternity reached through Time, or Time accelerated to the stillness of infinite motion and so changed into Eternity, as in human souls when finally clothed with perfected immortality. The Absolute, or Godhead, is beyond Very Eternity, because this latter is a medium of differentiated existence (for the differentiated Persons of the Trinity exist in it), whereas the Godhead is undifferentiated and beyond relationships. This world of Time springs out of Very Eternity and is rooted therein, being made by the differentiated Persons. and the world with its standard of measurement and the things which are measured by those standards have their being through Him and from Him. But concerning these matters let that suffice which hath been spoken more properly elsewhere.