8. This system is open to a variety of objections, of which the principal are the following: — It being impossible to conceive Divinity without the infinitude of God’s perfections, how can a Perfect Whole be formed of parts so imperfect as we see them to be, and having so great a need of progression? These parts being subjected to the law of progress, it follows that God must also progress incessantly; and, if God has been progressing from all eternity, it also follows that God must formerly have been very imperfect. But how is it possible that an imperfect being, made up of wills and ideas so widely divergent from one another, should have been able to conceive the harmonious laws, so admirable in their unity, wisdom, and forethought, that govern the universe? If all souls are portions of the Divinity, all of them must have concurred in establishing the laws of nature; how comes it, then, that they are perpetually murmuring against those laws which, according to this doctrine, are of their own inventing? No theory can be accepted as true unless it can both satisfy our reason and furnish a rational explanation of all the facts with which it deals; if it is belied by a single one of those facts, it cannot be true.
