But this Unoriginating, what is it? We can but withdraw, silent, hopeless, and search no further. What can we look for when we have reached the furthest? Every enquiry aims at a first and, that attained, rests. Besides, we must remember that all questioning deals with the nature of a thing, its quality, its cause or its essential being. In this case the being- in so far as we can use the word- is knowable only by its sequents: the question as to cause asks for a principle beyond, but the principle of all has no principle; the question as to quality would be looking for an attribute in that which has none: the question as to nature shows only that we must ask nothing about it but merely take it into the mind if we may, with the knowledge gained that nothing can be permissibly connected with it. The difficulty this Principle presents to our mind in so far as we can approach to conception of it may be exhibited thus: We begin by posing space, a place, a Chaos; into this existing container, real or fancied, we introduce God and proceed to enquire: we ask, for example, whence and how He comes to be there: we investigate the presence and quality of this new-comer projected into the midst of things here from some height or depth. But the difficulty disappears if we eliminate all space before we attempt to conceive God: He must not be set in anything either as enthroned in eternal immanence or as having made some entry into things: He is to be conceived as existing alone, in that existence which the necessity of discussion forces us to attribute to Him, with space and all the rest as later than Him- space latest of all. Thus we conceive as far as we may, the spaceless; we abolish the notion of any environment: we circumscribe Him within no limit; we attribute no extension to Him; He has no quality since no shape, even shape Intellectual; He holds no relationship but exists in and for Himself before anything is. How can we think any longer of that "Thus He happened to be"? How make this one assertion of Him of whom all other assertion can be no more than negation? It is on the contrary nearer the truth to say "Thus He has happened not to be": that contains at least the utter denial of his happening.

When thou mindest, thinkest and considerest what there is in this world, and what there is without, besides or distinct from this world, or what the...

ANSWER: 'neti, neti'—'not this, not that!' Of THAT the wise assert simply 'It IS.'" And as other ancient sages have said: "The imagination, the understanding,...

Although here the Tongue of Man cannot utter, declare, express, nor fathom this great Depth, where there is neither Number nor End, yet we have Power...

The only-begotten God, who is in the bosom of the Father, He hath declared Him," -calling invisibility and ineffableness the bosom of God. Hence some ...

If, then, space be some godlike thing, it is substantial; but if 'tis God [Himself], it transcends substance. But it is to be thought of otherwise...

That, then, which so transcends, which is not subject unto sense, [which is] beyond all bounds, [and which] cannot be grasped,—That transcends all...

A: Thy argument (logos), Thrice-greatest one, is not to be gainsaid; air is a body. Further, it is this body which doth pervade all things, and so,...

Now on the subject of a “Void,” —which seems to almost all a thing of vast importance,—I hold the following view. Naught is, naught could have been,...

By “Space” I mean that in which are all things. For all these things could not have been had Space not been, to hold them all. Since for all things th...

In addition to these things, we must examine how we know God, Who is neither an object of intellectual nor of sensible perception, nor is absolutely...

If nothing, then, is void, so also Space by its own self does not show what it is unless you add to it lengths, breadths [and depths],—just as you...

For every Creature looks but into its Mother that is fixed [or predominant] in it. The material Creature sees a material Substance, but an immaterial ...

In like way must we also talk concerning “Space,” —a term which by itself is void of “sense.” For Space seems what it is from that of which it is...

This is a short entrance or introduction, shewing how one must consider the divine and the natural being. Henceforth I will describe the true ground...

Infinite Space, therefore, has always been the accepted occult and esoteric symbol by means of which men are able to "think of" the Infinite...

Now if you consider what preserves all thus, and whence it is, then you find the eternal Birth that has no Beginning, and you find the Original of the...

The principals of all that are, are, therefore, God and Æon. The Cosmos, on the other hand, in that ’tis moveable, is not a principal. For its...

Must we not understand this in a sense befitting God? For we must reverently suppose that He is moved, not as beseems carriage, or change, or alterati...

Thou seest in this world nothing but the deep, and therein the stars, and the birth or geniture of the elements: Now wilt thou say, God is not there?...

But, if the Divine initiations are above such, what would any one say respecting those still more uninitiated, such as both portray the Cause exalted ...