Page:The Works of J. W. von Goethe, Volume 4.djvu/413

Rh as well as to all the spirits whose sweet uprising to their origin he had embittered. And so that happened which is intimated to us under the form of the Fall of the Angels. One part of them concentrated itself with Lucifer, the other turned itself again to its origin. From this concentration of the whole creation—for it had proceeded out of Lucifer, and was forced to follow him—sprang all that we perceive under the form of matter, which we figure to ourselves as heavy, solid, and dark, but which, since it is descended, if not even immediately, yet by filiation, from the Divine Being, is just as unlimited, powerful, and eternal as its sire and grandsire. Now, the whole mischief, if we may call it so, having arisen merely through the one-sided direction of Lucifer, the better half was indeed wanting to this creation; for it possessed all that is gained by concentration, while it lacked all that can be effected by expansion alone: and so the entire creation might have been destroyed by everlasting concentration, become annihilated with its father Lucifer, and have lost all its claims to an equal eternity with the Godhead. This condition the Elohim contemplated for a time: and they had their choice, to wait for those eons, in which the field would again have become clear, and space would be left them for a new creation; or, if they would, to seize upon that which existed already, and supply the want, according to their own eternity. Now, they chose the latter, and by their mere will supplied in an instant the whole want which the consequence of Lucifer's undertaking drew after it. They gave to the Eternal Being the faculty of expansion, of moving toward them: the peculiar pulse of life was again restored, and Lucifer himself could not avoid its effects. This is the epoch when that appeared which we know as light, and when that began which we are accustomed to designate by the word creation. However much this multiplied itself by progressive degrees,