The economy of the animal kingdom, considered anatomically, physically, and philosophically

발행: 1846년

분량: 540페이지

출처: archive.org

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necessity and the appetite to open them have died togother. Norean the foui again migrate back into life by means of an ovum; according to the dreams of the old philosophers; for the volumuos the animal suid is great, and cannot possibly begin a ne existence e minimo. Therofore the foui is under the permanent necessity of living in iis oWn State, and in no Other. 352. But the mirid, ardently destrous to sud in duath thodeepest tranquillity, oblivion of miseries, and eVerlaSting Sleep, Will Deeds indulge itself in presuming a privation Os ali the attributes that aro alliud to form, and thus found to have areat existerice. Νay, to leave no stone of doubi unturned, it Will inevitably suggest the idea, that the spirituous suid, Dot in iiseis continuous, but consisting of myriads os distinet individual paris, Would seem rather io go tO Ureck and dissipation in the universe, thau again to tend to reunion; for it may boasked, What force is there to drive ono individual part to seoliand sud another, hoWever intimately tho tWo Nere Once united in tho body. Yet the truth is, that sueti a Surmi Se Or presumption ean arise Only Dom mero ignorance of the persection os nature's Substances in her prior and highest sphoro. And I thinliit Will be seon that tho contrary is the faet, is We compare theproperties of the universat aura With thosse of tho fluid noWunder consideration. With respeet to this aura, according to

tho modet of the forces of nature in her most perfeci State, and cumprises ali possibility of applying itself to every inconceiv- able minutia of variety, and of concurring Willi every assign- able determination; and thereby meriis the name os essentialforce, essentiat elasticity, and primitive nature, Whicli involvesneither impetus, gravity Or levity, or resistance, but only agentand patient, helice nothing but agreement among iis paris. Isthere be nothing resistant in it, of coursu this fluid can bo du- termined Whereuer the foui attracts it. An d besides iis similarnatural perfection, Ρari II., 11. 312, 313,) it has this furtherendoWment, that it is persectly alive in ali iis singulars or individual paris, and that iis intuitions and representationS Rre coextensive With the created universe; as We indicated above, nud shali prove in tho sequel. Thus perpetuat Vital TVS extend-

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ing to the ends of the universe, must reciprocatly discover thoplaces aud presenue Os similar lives supposing sor a moment, What We do not grant, that the lives Were Separate), and beeOme associated with thom by the sume relationshis and love as in the body. Nor can they be held afunder by Space, sor Spacedoes not oppose them. Is by the guidatice of the doctrine oforder We penetrate to the real perfection Os primitive nature, Weshali indoed bo persuaded, that as it must be considerest almostapari Dom moments in time, so it must also be considered almost apari Dom degrees in motion and space; or that time and Space, distance and Obstacle, are only to be predicated of it analogicalty or transcendentally. I have thought it botter tu

have recourse to demonstrations grounded in nature, to provethat the individual paris of the spirituous fluid are necessarilyassocialed With each other; and for this reason, because it gives me an opportunity of sheWing, that nature is so ordered as tu Serve life as an instrumental cause, subject to the Will of auintelligent belli g, Who uses it to promoto ends by essect8. Pari II., Π. 234, seqq.) But I acknowledge, Since We have made so litile progress in the doctrine of Order, that the above- mentioned persections are predientes too like conjectures or pro positions derived Dom an occult quali ty; although Wheu We ascend Dom persection to persection by the ladder of degrees, they result as consequences Dom positive laWs. But it is nottho fauit of the teucher but of the percipient, is things are notcomprehended as they are in themselves. MeanWhile, I have soli bound to declare this natural cause, test Dr the reaSOn

divino and infinite; which being universat in singulars, and most singular in the universe, cannot but associale ali thingstogether at the fame time that it distinguishos ali things. Forthat infinite persection os action, With Which no natural perseetion is comparabie, cannot surely alloW aught that pertainsto the proper essetice of any individual, to bu indistinci and separate. Is such a faculty of consociation may be seeu alid

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recogniged to be natural ly possibie, by the mediation os tho aura of the universe, hoW much more stiali it be possibie supernaturally, by the thorough and intimate action of the spirit of liso 'Especialty When it is considered, that there is a morat disserendo or distinction belWeen disserent soliis, or human forins undeSSeneeS respectively, Recording to Whicli caeli man Ioads his oWn illa, and enjoys his oWn happiness, a distinction arisingsrom the gist of free choice, as the universat mean by WhichsOuis are specificatly distinguished from each other; in ordor perhaps that a harmonio variety of soliis, as the perfection of the WhOle, Or a most perfeci universat form of a SocietD may bethe result. Ρari II., 11. 299, 335.)354. That there is to be such a consociation of the livingindividualities of this spirit uous fluid assumed as the SOui, Wemay perceive even in this life as by a sliadoW, Dom the love that belongs to our animal and rationat mitids. These hoWover aro Deble and dim rays to illustrate the reflection, although they Will afford iis the occasion of thinhing more tosillyand distinetly. Love in animatu beings corresponds to likenes Sand harmonio agreement in inanimate things : it is thoro re defined as conjunction os dispositions, arising 1 rom real Or apparent likeness of operations. Datly experienee SheWS US What

infer Dom this love os parenis toWards their child ren, that every individual part of this purust suid vehemently aspires to mutuat conjunction With ali iis follows; and we have ali eady prOVed ab ove that iis Wishes aro granted. But the best demonstrationos the fact will bo supplied by tho mathematical doctrine OfuniverSals, When it institutos iis calculus about the nature ofl0ve, and applies it to other marvellous sympathieS.

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leius, Origen, Ambrose, Basit, Justin Martyr, Ρsellus, ' and Lactantius, belloved that angeis are natural hodies. Augustiuin deed pronounced doubifully, that he thought it Would bo rashin him to decide Whether spiriis are not clothed in hodies composed os uir, as though he Would say, not of our grOSS Or

fluid assumed as the foui.) B ut Dionysius the Areopagite, Philo

Judaeus, Athanasius, Chrysostom, and Thomas Aquinas With the Seli OOJ-men, maintained that angeis are Without bodies. Gregoryand Damascen took a middie course, and held that angelsrelatively to God susem to bo corporeat, but relatively to man, incorporeat. Diat ali in modern times agree, that we shali bepuris ed bodies, or spiriis Without bones and flesti; into the composition of Whicli, and of the red blood, as We have SheWn in Va-TiΟUS plaeeS, terrene matters enter, that are ultimately to be put

357. Anil live a life pure beyonit imastination. Then, thatis to say, the foui Will live iis oWn liso, nam ely, in iis OKn intelligetice, in the representation of the universe, in the intuition of ends, in tho beginning of determinations; a life inexpressi bie by Words; incommunicabio in iis degreo to the b0dy;

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most distinet, unanim OuS, constant, immutable; above the nature of the sublunary World; beyond time; almost apart DOm degreus and momenis, excepi that myriads of iis moments and degrees Will equat but one of ours, and yet myriads of Ours Will notappear to ii as One appears to us: a life ouly terminabio in iis representations and intuitions, by the created universe. The ea though it lius in a carved recess in the petrous bone of the tem

trates nevertheless to the sun and stars, and by the assistance ofari pierces into the substances of nature's purer sphere. Themiud goes even beyond the stars. What then is the range Osthe foui, Whicli is above the minit, a representation of the univerSe, Order, truth, ab ove the rules Which govern essecis, in the very aura of the universe. Nay, but in respect to iis operations, it does not terminate With nature, but is capable os regarding ends beyond nature, and there re of rising to the Creator. Why should I say more 3 If the mind Would represent to iiself the persections of this exalted lise, it must riserebove itself, and out of the region of the abstraci talie ineffabie forms of things, and then so sar as it Leeps persistent there, and lined ab ove the animus, thought carries it aWay, I know not Whither. 358. Furthermore, that nol the smallest deed is done designeHyin the life of the bo , and not the least word utlered by consent of the wili, but shali then appear in the bright lipht os an inherent

wisdom, before the tribunal of iis conscience. In Ordor to arriveat the subject of this tribunal, We must 1irst consider What Will be the nature of the memory astor death, and also What the conscience is. With respect to the memory, See ab OVe Pari II., Π. 297), Where ave have shewn that it is Deither apicture of objecis Or imagos paluted iapon a tabula rasa, Or blankSUrsace, nor a copy imprinted in the way in Whicli the primaryobjeci appears, but that it is only an adaptation Or Recommodu-tion of the paris constituting the most delicate si bres, by a Species of expansion, to the properties of the spirituous fluid ; ora reStoration Os them to a state more Dearly approaching the in-

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tuitivo state of the foui, Whicli is science, and upon Whicli, asa principie, the principies of natural aud morat things are imprinted. And thus things nos o ly fali undor iis intuition, butal SO clearly reacti Our consciousness by folloWing the course of the fibres. In ordor that the foui may converse intellectuallyWith tho materials of perception Or memory, the fibrillary 8 Stances must be put together on the modet os iis intuitive and

representative nature, und over these substances it must run,

and reduce agresting Simples analytieatly to a compound form, and then to a practical result, si om Whicli Will can issue. Butthis adaptation or accommodation of the fibres a posteriori, is nos Only a general one of images Or sensibi e things, but also a Singular one of the fame, as Weli as of higher or intellectualthings, Whicli are only derived Dom the form os diction or os Words, abstracted ly Dom images. The fibres, hoWever, are

the Order of Our nature, consequent upon the nece88ity Under

memory Willi even greater distinctiaess, because by a SION pr0ce88, and being perceived intellectually, induco iapon the substances of the fibriis at onoe a singular and a generat State. This stlows that nothing Whatevor is insinuatost a posteriori, butprodUCOS SOme Change, generat, Singular, Or most Singulari iu

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the state of the paris. Τhe reason Why everything is not reprO- dueed, and Why some things 8hould be apparently erased, dependsupou a disserent ground ; indeed, upou the Same cause as theloss of memory in lesions or obstructions of the brain; or atteast upon a similar cause : but more particularly uson any COntinuod inordinate excitement, through the Senses, of generalcupidities and ideas. Whenever the miud is free Dom these, and devotes itself to the regarit os causes in an ordorly manne and increnses at the fame time iis sire by destre or geat of any kind, and ei ther deprives the senses of their penetrating Sharp-ness and microscopic intensisy, or tulis them entirely, as in fleep,-then long buried things return Without confusion Domtheir pro und abiding-places, and bring along With them theseverat helps that belong to the present analytic state. Os this

lations of the mitid, or buries them in tho body. Nothingascend s luto the intellectual sphere, by means of the bl ood, Domthe loWest or non-intellectual spheres. The mind is disengaged om nil the objecis that had formerly roused and assailed it. Tho

permanently passive as the body in iis deopest fleep. In a WOrd, the foui noW descends With fuit light and total intuitioninio tho hali of the miud, empty and Dariess of ali disquietudes, and the mitid into the corresponding couris of the animus and the body; and at onoe vieWs ali things and resecis iapon allthings. And is the constitution of the foui approacti more perfectly to the morat state, it then smiles at the things contemplated beneath it, rightly discerning of itself Whatever theycontain that is congruous to tho truth, and Whatever that is repugnant; and it operily sees and judges of iis past insanities,muel, as One Who regnitis his right miud aster a sit os delirium,

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361. But the question os conscience remaius to be considered. It is very common to appeat to conscience in the liotos a Witness, or judge; to rejoice in the possession os a good conscience; to suffer With the patias of a bad one; to place thehighest human happiness in the former; the greatest unliappi Dess in the lalter: to value the morality os a mala precisely in

proportiori as he himself values his conscience : to eSteem Con- Science as the queen of Our actions, and the nearest boud and

whilo oti either si de by the love of somo purpOsed end. Aster the conflict is Over, conscience is found to be either killed, orWOunded, or Victorious. Is Lilled, it is a sigii that the mindlias given itself up to be governed by the loWer sorces, and has Ahalion Oss ali sense, rogard and Dar of those things that occupythe higher placu; and that iis morat state is degraded to a natural state. Is conscience be wounded, it is then either tormented With a present idea of punishment, or drivon hither and thither

through contrary states; at One moment abandoning hope, atanother riSing, and reneWing the contest. Or else it seelis forati asylum, Whither to retreat in quest Os some generat Solace,

and sies to the doctrine of prodestination, to a dead fuith Whichil supposes to be living; to an absolute mediatorial poWer; to universat grace bestoWed Without any essoris to deserve it. Orsomelimes it attactis and impugns the truth, although the consciunce that Wili do this, is Woli nigh dead of iis Wound. On theother harid, is conscience be victorious, thon it is sillod With

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With the truth, and What that is repugnant thereio, then, in the

comparison) the natural state of the oye is injured, the patii is exquisite in proportion to the infensity of the light; and more so stili under the glare of lightuing; though ali the time the

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universe is nothing else than a complex Os means to a universal end.

365. Is thon overything in the universe respeeis Some endas the ground of iis existetice; and is ends and means ascendfroin nature to lise, Dom life to intelligetice, and Dom intelligetice to Wisdom, it folioWs, that the universe is created for the ultimate subjects of creation, in si Ort, for men as the abodes of intelligetice; and there re assuredly sor their Aouis; lar humanSOuis do not exist as means to the organic forms of human

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