23. The common doctrine concerning the nature of angels, demons, and the human soul, not admitting the existence of the law of progress, and observation having shown the existence of beings at different degrees of elevation, human beings have been led to conclude that these differences were the product of so many different creations. This view of the subject portrays God as an unjust and partial father, bestowing all his favors on some of his children, while imposing the hardest labors and privations on the others. It is not strange that during a long period the human race should have seen nothing objectionable in these assumed preferences, for they were guilty of the same injustice through their enforcement of the laws of entitlement and the various privileges accorded to so-called noble birth; could they believe they were capable of committing more errors than God? But, at the present day, the circle of ideas has become wider; human beings see more clearly; they have sounder notions of justice, they demand it for themselves, and, although they do not always find it upon the Earth, they hope, at least, to obtain it in Heaven; and, consequently, any doctrine, which does not show the Divine Justice in all its resplendent purity, is rejected by the human mind as repugnant to both conscience and reason.
