Page:Complete Works of Count Tolstoy - 13.djvu/152

 of the latter kind in God, through the constant contemplation of these traces.” (p. 95.)

In confirmation of these unintelligible, perverse, intricate words there are quoted the words of St. John Damascene, which are almost as unintelligible and perverse.

“By knowing what is ascribed to God and from that ascending to the essence of God, we comprehend not the essence itself, but only what refers to the essence (τὰ περὶ τὴν οὐσίαν,) just as, knowing that the soul is incorporeal, inquantitative, and invisible, we do not yet comprehend its essence; just so we do not comprehend the essence of a body, if we know that it is white or black, but we comprehend only what refers to its essence. But the true word teaches us that the Deity is simple and has one action (ἐνεργείαν,) simple and doing good in everything.” (p. 96.)

However painfully hard it is to analyze such expressions, in which every word is a blunder or a lie, every connection of a subject and predicate a tautology or a contradiction, every connection of one sentence with another a blunder or an intentional deception, it will have to be done. It says “spirit signifies substance.”

Spirit is only the opposite of substance. Spirit is, above all, a word which is used only as an opposition to every substance, to everything visible, audible, tangible, perceptible by the senses. Essence, nature, substance is only a distinction of perceptive, sensual objects. By their nature, by their substance, by their essence, stones, trees, animals, men are distinguished.

But spirit is that which has not the essence of Nature. What, then, can the words, “Spirit signifies substance,” mean? Further: “We know only two kinds of substances, complex material and simple spiritual substances.” We do not know and cannot know any simple spiritual substances, because “spiritual substance” is a mere contradiction. The plural number used with simple spiritual