Note (return) — Chapter XII

(v.) He is the ever-blessed God.--"The life of God is of a kind with those highest moods which, with us, last a brief space, it being impossible they should be permanent; whereas, with Him they are permanent, since His ever-present consciousness is pleasure itself. And it is because they are vivid states of consciousness, that waking, and perception, and thought, are the sweetest of all things. Now essential perception is the perception of that which is most excellent,... and the mind perceives itself by participating of its own object of perception; but it is a sort of coalescence of both that, in the Divine Mind, creates a regular identity between the two, so that with God both (the thinker and the thought, the subject and object) are the same. In possession of this prerogative, He subsists in the exercise of energy; and the contemplation of his own perfections is what, to God, must be most agreeable and excellent. This condition of existence, after so excellent a manner, is what is "so astonishing to us when we examine God's nature, and the more we do so the more wonderful that nature appears to us. The mood of the Divine existence is essential energy, and, as such, it is a life that is most excellent, blessed, and everlasting. 752