332 MAN AND GOD. 



why should not the unnumbered stars contain 

 myriads of beings Incomparably loftier than the 

 obscure denizens of a paltry planet ? What, then, 

 is the use of man, and the use. In any case, of count- 

 less beings ? Why should the Absolute strive to 

 become Imperfectly self-conscious in the lower stages 

 of spiritual existence, when it might do so perfectly 

 In the highest ? What sense is there in attaining by 

 a long, laborious process, what might have been 

 attained with instantaneous ease ? Assuredly, 

 neither the human nor any other reason can ever 

 discover the meaning of a world-process, which 

 takes means to an end which mi^ht have been 

 attained without them. To our " finite " minds 

 such a process must always appear an absurdity ; 

 it is a process which can reveal nothing but the ulti- 

 mate insanity of all things. 



And if the means of the world-process are thus 

 absurd and irrational, its end Is no less meaning- 

 less. For how can it " enrich the Absolute " } 

 Can any process which takes place within the 

 infinite All add one feather's weight to its sub- 

 stance, diminish or increase by one jot or tittle 

 the belnof of that which Is all thin£s and has all 

 things ? Will it not be what It is alike amid the 

 crash of worlds and amid the throes of their birth '^. 

 It would be paying the utter absurdity of this con- 

 ception of the Infinite concerned In a process, an un- 

 merited compliment to liken it to a spider spinning 

 elaborate cobwebs out of Its own substance, and then, 

 finding that there was nothing else to catch In them, 

 proceeding to enmesh itself in its own web, and after 

 infinite labour succeeding In reabsorbing its own 

 production. And yet such melancholy absurdities 

 are put forward not by one or two philosophies, but 



