Part 4 — THE HIGHER PANTHEISM IN A NUTSHELL
Reading edition
After Tennyson
One, who is not, we see: but one, whom we see not, is; Surely this is not that: but that is assuredly this.
What, and wherefore, and whence? for under is over and under; If thunder could be without lightning, lightning could be without thunder.
Doubt is faith in the main: but faith, on the whole, is doubt; We cannot believe by proof: but could we believe without?
Why, and whither, and how? for barley and rye are not clover; Neither are straight lines curves: yet over is under and over.
Two and two may be four: but four and four are not eight; Fate and God may be twain: but God is the same thing as fate.
Ask a man what he thinks, and get from a man what he feels; God, once caught in the fact, shows you a fair pair of heels.
Body and spirit are twins: God only knows which is which; The soul squats down in the flesh, like a tinker drunk in a ditch.
One and two are not one: but one and nothing is two; Truth can hardly be false, if falsehood cannot be true.
Once the mastodon was: pterodactyls were common as cocks; Then the mammoth was God; now is He a prize ox.
Parallels all things are: yet many of these are askew. You are certainly I: but certainly I am not you.
Springs the rock from the plain, shoots the stream from the rock; Cocks exist for the hen: but hens exist for the cock.
God, whom we see not, is: and God, who is not, we see; Fiddle, we know, is diddle; and diddle, we take it, is dee.
Algernon Charles Swinburne [1837-1909]