56 HERMES TRISMEGISTUS. 



The God, that is The Father that is The Good, to Whom 

 none of other things belong (a). For the World indeed 

 and the Sun itself also father of things according (&) to 

 their common being, is not moreover equally the cause of 

 the good to the animals nor of their living. But if this thus 

 be the case, it is nevertheless entirely as being compelled 

 by The Good Will ; apart from which it will be possible 

 neither to be, nor to be generated. 



3. For the father is the cause of the children, and of the 

 seed, and of the nutriment, having taken the appetite of 

 the Good from the Sun. For The Good is The making- 

 power (c). But this is not possible to be ingenerate (d) in 

 any other but in Him only; Him receiving indeed nothing, 

 but willing all things to be. 1 I will not say, Tat ! mak- 

 ing (e) ; for a maker is defectible in much time, in that 

 he sometimes makes, sometimes does not make, both in 

 quality and quantity (/). At one time they are so many 

 and of such quality, at another the contrary. But The 

 God is Father and The Good, in that He is all things. 2 



(a) Kpofftart. (b) x,otroi fAtrovaiav, participation. 



(c) TO TTOYiTtxov, making. (rf) gyyz/ff$os;. (e) Troiovvri. 



(/) TTOIOTYITOS XXI TTOffOTJJTOf. 



1 Here, as in other places, the writer wholly differs from the notion 

 of the Deity being a mere constructor or arranger of formless matter; 

 an opinion attributed by some to Plato. See ante, note to ch. v. 4. 

 Malebranche energetically maintained that there was no other im- 

 mediate principle, no other efficient reason, no other real mover than 

 the Grace and the Will of God. See his Promotion Physique, p. 93; 

 Recherche de la V6rite (1712), last part; Meditations Chretiennes, vi. ; 

 Traite de Morale, 94. 



The doctrine of this Chapter is energetically and luminously set 

 forth by William Law in his " Way to Divine Knowledge " (Works, 

 vii. p. 146). 



2 " God derives not His being from creatures, but all creatures are 

 but imperfect participations of the Divine Being" (Malebranche, 

 Recherche de la Verite, lib. 3, pt. 2, c. vi.). " God is so far all Being 

 that He has all the being of each of His creatures, retrenching their 

 bounds. Remove this boundary and difference and you remain in 

 the Universality of Being, and consequently in the infinite perfec- 

 tion of Self-existence" (Fenelon, Existence de Dieu, part 2, v. 1). 

 tf I believe that there is no substance purely Intelligible but that of 



