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THE KEY OF KNOWLEDGE.
the different aspects of mind, it will be worth while to enquire whether we are not actually endeavouring to effect, in thought, a partition, with metes and bounds, between things which are not intended by nature to be so divided off from one another,
We may now apply ourselves to the elucidation of the myth which has furnished us the title of our present chapter.
That the Biblical Trinity does not represent actual beings, but is a secret doctrine imparted in concealed metaphor, like the legend of the 'fall,' is clear from the very constitution of the Trinitarian Board, which comprises (1) a father, (2) a son, and (3) a ghost ; for there can be no partnership between living beings and a phantom, even though it be a holy one. But this is not the only objection to the acceptance of the idea in the literal sense; for each member of this puzzling body is further supposed to be diffused in the other two, and all the three to be compressed, or compressible, into one. But no amount of eloquence or ingenuity can ever hope to succeed in making the rational intellect grasp the manner in which, or the method by which, three individualities may exist separate and distinct and yet be reducible to one. Nor are we able to picture to ourselves the kind of relationship which is inplied by the terms father and son when both are posited as co-eval in point of time. The more one reflects on these elements of confusion, the more does one become convinced of the fact that the description is not intended, and was never intended, to convey to the human mind the knowledge of a family of gods or men, who outrival all the freaks of
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