But
also without man God would not be thought, or--to clear the
interval--God would be nothing. If humanity needs an author, God
and the gods equally need a revealer; theogony, the history of
heaven, hell, and their inhabitants,--those dreams of the human
mind,--is the counterpart of the universe, which certain
philosophers have called in return the dream of God. And how
magnificent this theological creation, the work of society! The
creation of the demiourgos was obliterated; what we call the
Omnipotent was conquered; and for centuries the enchanted
imagination of mortals was turned away from the spectacle of
Nature by the contemplation of Olympian marvels.
Let us descend from this fanciful region: pitiless reason knocks
at the door; her terrible questions demand a reply.
"What is God?" she asks; "where is he? what is his extent? what
are his wishes? what his powers? what his promises?"--and here,
in the light of analysis, all the divinities of heaven, earth,
and hell are reduced to an incorporeal, insensible, immovable,
incomprehensible, undefinable I-know-not-what; in short, to a
negation of all the attributes of existence.
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