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280, must be absolutely independent, and cannot be subject to any external influence; it cannot be internal either, as a mere exertion of arbitrary will, for if God could will this, or will the other, he might also will something imperfect, in opposition to his nature; he can only will the perfect, and his will is deed, so all in him is inevitable necessity. God has the world in him, and is in it; God and the world are alike eternal. Truly those who have thought of God as something above the world, floating in empty space (which does not exist), to them God was before the world; he created it out of nothing, and still hovers over it in Heaven. But long ago men were aware that from nothing something cannot come, and so must have recourse to strange theories of emanation. So the world remains ever something that God has cut loose from himself, which he watches over and with which he interferes from time to time; so that, according to their theory of things, the miracles are acts by which God disturbs the once firmly settled order of nature, his own revelation. But miracles were done only as long as men believed in them; in our time there are no more. Are we therefore forsaken of God? In any case, if this were the true view, but it is not, for God is not the external cause, but the internal innate cause of the world's existence, in him all is an act of free necessity, everything—"

"Look! look! there is a white raven!" cried