Page:The Collected Works of Theodore Parker Discourse volume 1.djvu/101

54 above the grovelling ideas of the temple and the marketplace. The people who know not the law, are often better off than the sage or the soothsayer, for they know only what it is needed to know. “He is oft the wisest man that is not wise at all.” Religion lies so close to men, that a pure heart and mind, free from prejudice, see its truths, its duties, and hopes. But before mankind passes from Fetichism to pure Monotheism, at a certain stage of religious progress, there are two subordinate forms of religious speculation which claim the attention of the race, namely, Dualism and Pantheism. The one is the highest form of Polytheism; the other a degenerate expression of Monotheism, and both together form the logical tie between the two.

Dualism is the deification of two principles, the Absolute Good and the Greatest Evil. The origin of this form of religious speculation has been already hinted at. Philosophically stated, it is the recognition of two absolute beings, the one Supreme Good, the other Supreme Evil. But this involves a contradiction; for if the Good be absolute, Evil is not, and the reverse. Another form, therefore, was invented. The Good Being was absolute and infinite; the Evil Principle was originally good, but did not keep his first estate. Here also was another difficulty: an independent and divine being cannot be mutable and frail, therefore the evil principle must of necessity be a dependent creature, and not divine in the proper sense. So a third form takes place, in which it is supposed that both the Good and the Evil are emanations from one Absolute Being, that Evil is only negative, and will at last end; that all wicked, as all good, principles are subject to the Infinite God. At this point Dualism coalesces with the doctrine of one God, and dies its death. This system of Dualism, in its various forms, has extended widely. It seems to have been most fully developed in Persia. It came early into the Christian Church, and still retains its hold throughout the greater part of Christendom, though it is fast dying away before the advance of Reason and Faith.