The
Creator sat upon the throne,
thinking. Behind him stretched
the illimitable continent of
heaven, steeped in a glory
of light and color; before
him rose the black night of
Space, like a wall. His mighty
bulk towered rugged and mountain-like
into the zenith, and His divine
head blazed there like a distant
sun. At His feet stood three
colossal figures, diminished
to extinction, almost, by contrast
-- archangels -- their heads
level with His ankle-bone.
When
the Creator had finished thinking,
He said, "I have thought. Behold!"
He
lifted His hand, and from it
burst a fountain-spray of fire,
a million stupendous suns,
which clove the blackness and
soared, away and away and away,
diminishing in magnitude and
intensity as they pierced the
far frontiers of Space, until
at last they were but as diamond
nailheads sparkling under the
domed vast roof of the universe.
At
the end of an hour the Grand
Council was dismissed.
They
left the Presence impressed
and thoughtful, and retired
to a private place, where they
might talk with freedom. None
of the three seemed to want
to begin, though all wanted
somebody to do it. Each was
burning to discuss the great
event, but would prefer not
to commit himself till he should
know how the others regarded
it. So there was some aimless
and halting conversation about
matters of no consequence,
and this dragged tediously
along, arriving nowhere, until
at last the archangel Satan
gathered his courage together
-- of which he had a very good
supply -- and broke ground.
He said: "We know what we are
here to talk about, my lords,
and we may as well put pretense
aside, and begin. If this is
the opinion of the Council
-- "
"It
is, it is!" said Gabriel and
Michael, gratefully interrupting.
"Very
well, then, let us proceed.
We have witnessed a wonderful
thing; as to that, we are necessarily
agreed. As to the value of
it -- if it has any -- that
is a matter which does not
personally concern us. We can
have as many opinions about
it as we like, and that is
our limit. We have no vote.
I think Space was well enough,
just as it was, and useful,
too. Cold and dark -- a restful
place, now and then, after
a season of the overdelicate
climate and trying splendors
of heaven. But these are details
of no considerable moment;
the new feature, the immense
feature, is -- what, gentlemen?"
"The
invention and introduction
of automatic, unsupervised,
self-regulating law for
the government of those myriads
of whirling and racing suns
and worlds!"
"That
is it!" said Satan. "You perceive
that it is a stupendous idea.
Nothing approaching it has
been evolved from the Master
Intellect before. Law -- Automatic Law
-- exact and unvarying Law
-- requiring no watching, no
correcting, no readjusting
while the eternities endure!
He said those countless vast
bodies would plunge through
the wastes of Space ages and
ages, at unimaginable speed,
around stupendous orbits, yet
never collide, and never lengthen
nor shorten their orbital periods
by so much as the hundredth
part of a second in two thousand
years! That is the new miracle,
and the greatest of all -- Automatic
Law! And He gave it a name
-- the LAW OF NATURE -- and
said Natural Law is the LAW
OF GOD -- interchangeable names
for one and the same thing."
"Yes," said
Michael, "and He said He would
establish Natural Law -- the
Law of God -- throughout His
dominions, and its authority
should be supreme and inviolable."
"Also," said
Gabriel, "He said He would
by and by create animals, and
place them, likewise, under
the authority of that Law."
"Yes," said
Satan, "I heard Him, but did
not understand. What is animals,
Gabriel?"
"Ah,
how should I know? How should
any of us know? It is a new
word."
[Interval
of three centuries, celestial
time -- the equivalent of
a hundred million years,
earthly time. Enter a Messenger-Angel.]
"My
lords, He is making animals.
Will it please you to come
and see?"
They
went, they saw, and were perplexed.
Deeply perplexed -- and the
Creator noticed it, and said, "Ask.
I will answer."
"Divine
One," said Satan, making obeisance, "what
are they for?"
"They
are an experiment in Morals
and Conduct. Observe them,
and be instructed."
There
were thousands of them. They
were full of activities. Busy,
all busy -- mainly in persecuting
each other. Satan remarked
-- after examining one of them
through a powerful microscope: "This
large beast is killing weaker
animals, Divine One."
"The
tiger -- yes. The law of his
nature is ferocity. The law
of his nature is the Law of
God. He cannot disobey it."
"Then
in obeying it he commits no
offense, Divine One?"
"No,
he is blameless."
"This
other creature, here, is timid,
Divine One, and suffers death
without resisting."
"The
rabbit -- yes. He is without
courage. It is the law of his
nature -- the Law of God. He
must obey it."
"Then
he cannot honorably be required
to go counter to his nature
and resist, Divine One?"
"No.
No creature can be honorably
required to go counter to the
law of his nature -- the Law
of God."
After
a long time and many questions,
Satan said, "The spider kills
the fly, and eats it; the bird
kills the spider and eats it;
the wildcat kills the goose;
the -- well, they all kill
each other. It is murder all
along the line. Here are countless
multitudes of creatures, and
they all kill, kill, kill,
they are all murderers. And
they are not to blame, Divine
One?"
"They
are not to blame. It is the
law of their nature. And always
the law of nature is the Law
of God. Now -- observe -- behold!
A new creature -- and the masterpiece
-- Man!"
Men,
women, children, they came
swarming in flocks, in droves,
in millions.
"What
shall you do with them, Divine
One?"
"Put
into each individual, in differing
shades and degrees, all the
various Moral Qualities, in
mass, that have been distributed,
a single distinguishing characteristic
at a time, among the nonspeaking
animal world -- courage, cowardice,
ferocity, gentleness, fairness,
justice, cunning, treachery,
magnanimity, cruelty, malice,
malignity, lust, mercy, pity,
purity, selfishness, sweetness,
honor, love, hate, baseness,
nobility, loyalty, falsity,
veracity, untruthfulness --
each human being shall have all of
these in him, and they will
constitute his nature. In some,
there will be high and fine
characteristics which will
submerge the evil ones, and
those will be called good men;
in others the evil characteristics
will have dominion, and those
will be called bad men. Observe
-- behold -- they vanish!"
"Whither
are they gone, Divine One?"
"To
the earth -- they and all their
fellow animals."
"What
is the earth?"
"A
small globe I made, a time,
two times and a half ago. You
saw it, but did not notice
it in the explosion of worlds
and suns that sprayed from
my hand. Man is an experiment,
the other animals are another
experiment. Time will show
whether they were worth the
trouble. The exhibition is
over; you may take your leave,
my lords."
Several
days passed by.
This
stands for a long stretch of
(our) time, since in heaven
a day is as a thousand years.
Satan
had been making admiring remarks
about certain of the Creator's
sparkling industries -- remarks
which, being read between the
lines, were sarcasms. He had
made them confidentially to
his safe friends the other
archangels, but they had been
overheard by some ordinary
angels and reported at Headquarters.
He
was ordered into banishment
for a day -- the celestial
day. It was a punishment he
was used to, on account of
his too flexible tongue. Formerly
he had been deported into Space,
there being nowhither else
to send him, and had flapped
tediously around there in the
eternal night and the Arctic
chill; but now it occurred
to him to push on and hunt
up the earth and see how the
Human Race experiment was coming
along.
By
and by he wrote home -- very
privately -- to St. Michael
and St. Gabriel about it. |