To this the reply is given : 



"The world is blind ; 

 And thou in truth comest from it. Ye, who live, 

 Do so each cause refer to heaven above, 

 E'en as its motion, of necessity. 

 Drew with it all that moves. If this were so, 

 PVee choice in you were none; nor. justice would 

 There should be joy for virtue, woe for ill. 

 Your movements have their primal bent from heaven ; 

 Not all ; yet said I all ; what then ensues ? 

 Light have ye still to follow evil or good, 

 And of the will free power, which, if it stand 

 Firm and unwearied in Heaven's first assay, 

 Conquers at last, so it be cherish'd well. 

 Triumphant over all. To mightier force. 

 To better nature subject, ye abide 

 Free, not constrain'd by that which forms in you 

 The reasoning mind uninfluenced by the stars. 

 If then the present race of mankind err, 

 Seek in yourselves the cause, and find it there." 



Dante, giving his absolute allegiance to the creeds of the so- 

 called Infallible Church of his day, seems to have been buffeting 

 the troubled waves of doubt concerning this question of Free 

 Will, for he again alludes to it in "Paradise," where he makes 

 his ancestor Cacciaguida say : 



"Contingency, whose verge extendeth not 

 Beyond the tablet of your mortal mold, 

 Is all depictured in the eternal sight ; 

 But hence deriveth not necessity. 

 More than the tall ship, hurried down the flood, 

 Is driven by the eye that looks on it." 



In this perhaps we are as abysmally ignorant as we are 

 concerning an existence in the eternal hereafter. 



Perhaps some of the expressions in this book would imply 

 a partial adoption of what is called "Christian Science," that 

 peculiar creed which disavows the material, but so inconsistent- 

 ly runs to the dentist when the tooth throbs with pain, or con- 

 sults the oculist when the eye-sight fails. 



At the conclusion of this strange and remarkable work, 

 when Satan says "I must go now, and we shall not see each 

 other any more," a question is asked, "In this life, Satan, but 

 in another?" the answer is given, "There is no other." . . . 



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