Let us now consider some of these “guesses” at the answer to the Final Question.  Some thinkers have held that the Absolute was bound by a Divine Necessity to manifest itself as Many.  The answer to this is that the Absolute could not be bound by anything, inner or outer, else it would not be Absolute and Infinite, but would be Relative and Finite.  Another set of thinkers have held that the Absolute found within itself a Desire to Manifest as Many.  From whence could come such an action-causing Desire?  The Absolute could lack nothing, and there would be nothing for it to desire to gain, other than that which It already possessed.  One does not desire things one already has, but only what he lacks.

Another school would tell us that the Infinite wished to Express itself in the phenomenal world.  Why?  Such a phenomenal world could only be reflection of Its power, witnessed only by Itself, and could contain nothing that was not already contained in the All.  To what end would such a wish tend?  What would be accomplished or gained?  The Infinite All could not become anything more than It already was—­so why the wish for expression?  Some say that the whole phenomenal world is but Maya, or Illusion, and does not exist at all.  Then who else than the Infinite caused the Illusion, and why the necessity?  This answer only removes the question back one point, and does not really answer it.  Some would say that the Universe is the “dream of the Infinite.”  Can we conceive the Infinite Being as exercising the finite faculty of “dreaming”—­is not this childish?

Others would have us believe that the Absolute is indulging in a “game” or “play,” when he makes Universes, and those inhabiting them.  Can anyone really believe this of The Absolute—­playing like a child, with men and women, worlds and suns, as Its blocks and tin-soldiers?  Why should the Infinite “play"?—­does It need amusement and “fun” like a child?  Poor Man, with his attempts to read the Riddle of the Infinite!

We know of teachers who gravely instruct their pupils in the idea that the Absolute and Infinite One manifests Universes and Universal Life, and all that flows from them, because It wishes to “gain experience” through objective existence.  This idea, in many forms has been so frequently advanced that it is worth while to consider its absurdity.  In the first place, what “experience” could be gained by the Absolute and Infinite One?  What could It expect to gain and learn, that it did not already know and possess?  One can gain experience only from others, and outside things—­not from oneself entirely separated from the outside world of things.  And there would be no “outside” for the Infinite.  These people would have us believe that The Absolute emanated a Universe from Itself—­which could contain nothing except that which was obtained from Itself—­and then proceeded to gain experience from it.  Having no “outside” from which it could obtain experiences and sentences and sensations, it proceeded to make (from Itself) an imitation one—­that is what this answer amounts to.  Can you accept it?