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Scenes From The Magico Prodigioso: From The Spanish Of Calderon
by
NOTE:
133 would transcr.; should 1824.
DAEMON:
I deny your major.
These responses are means towards some end
Unfathomed by our intellectual beam.
They are the work of Providence, and more 150
The battle’s loss may profit those who lose,
Than victory advantage those who win.
CYPRIAN:
That I admit; and yet that God should not
(Falsehood is incompatible with deity)
Assure the victory; it would be enough 155
To have permitted the defeat. If God
Be all sight,–God, who had beheld the truth,
Would not have given assurance of an end
Never to be accomplished: thus, although
The Deity may according to his attributes 160
Be well distinguished into persons, yet
Even in the minutest circumstance
His essence must be one.
NOTE:
157 had transcr.; wanting, 1824.
DAEMON:
To attain the end
The affections of the actors in the scene
Must have been thus influenced by his voice. 165
CYPRIAN:
But for a purpose thus subordinate
He might have employed Genii, good or evil,–
A sort of spirits called so by the learned,
Who roam about inspiring good or evil,
And from whose influence and existence we 170
May well infer our immortality.
Thus God might easily, without descent
To a gross falsehood in his proper person,
Have moved the affections by this mediation
To the just point.
NOTE:
172 descent transcr.; descending 1824.
DAEMON:
These trifling contradictions 175
Do not suffice to impugn the unity
Of the high Gods; in things of great importance
They still appear unanimous; consider
That glorious fabric, man,–his workmanship
Is stamped with one conception.
CYPRIAN:
Who made man 180
Must have, methinks, the advantage of the others.
If they are equal, might they not have risen
In opposition to the work, and being
All hands, according to our author here,
Have still destroyed even as the other made? 185
If equal in their power, unequal only
In opportunity, which of the two
Will remain conqueror?
NOTE:
186 unequal only transcr.; and only unequal 1824.
DAEMON:
On impossible
And false hypothesis there can be built
No argument. Say, what do you infer 190
From this?
CYPRIAN:
That there must be a mighty God
Of supreme goodness and of highest grace,
All sight, all hands, all truth, infallible,
Without an equal and without a rival,
The cause of all things and the effect of nothing, 195
One power, one will, one substance, and one essence.
And, in whatever persons, one or two,
His attributes may be distinguished, one
Sovereign power, one solitary essence,
One cause of all cause.
NOTE:
197 And]query, Ay?
[THEY RISE.]
DAEMON:
How can I impugn 200
So clear a consequence?