Page:The Campaner thal, and other writings.djvu/53

 the ladder of beings above us,—no one has counted those beneath us. What if the former were less, the latter greater, than we have hitherto imagined. The eternal promotion of souls from angels to archangels, in short, the nine philosophical hierarchies have only been asserted, but not proved. The common opinion, that the immense difference between man and the Eternal must be filled up by a chain of spiritual giants, is false; as no chain can shorten the distance, much less fill it, for it will ever retain the same width; and the seraph, i. e. the highest finite being according to human thoughts, must imagine just as many, if not more, beings above him, as I do beneath me. Astronomy, this sawing machine of suns, this ship's wharf and laboratory of earths, would persuade us that the enlargement of worlds and beings is a sign of their improvement. But over the whole sky there hang only earth and fire-balls, and all things on them, from milk-way to milk-way, are less than the wishes and longings of our hearts. Then why should our earth alone, why not every other also, be progressing? why should they, rather than we, have the start in this inaugural eternity? In short, it may be disputed if in the whole universe there are other angels and archangels than Victor and Jean Paul. It seems scarcely credible to me. But truly the melodious progression to sublime beings has hitherto been merely taken for granted. I believe in a harmonious one, in an eternal ascension, but in no created culmination.

I presume Karlson intended to answer my argument, not on the seraphs, but on ephemera, when Nadine, who had borrowed the fly in order to examine it, held it too near her eyes, and thereby disturbed and extinguished our Mendelssohn-Platonic conversation. For Madame Berlier (such was the noble name of our temporary host-