In this remarkable prose-poem, master storyteller Edgar Allen Poe (1809-1849) builds on known scientific truths to propound a universe governed by the immutable laws of attraction and repulsion, i.e., expansion and a return to unity. The irascible, vindicative God of the Old Testament and the Deists' Master Clockmaker are routed by Poe's pantheistic World Spirit who, through the force of expansion, is diffused throughout his creation. Moreover, we human beings are all part of this universal spirit and each of us is his own god. The end result of our being is not eternal torment but a return to the primal unity.