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

발행: 1846년

분량: 540페이지

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pared. By ail Which We are laWfully confirmed in Bacon's doctrine of the necessity Os experienee; for untii experienee Wasgiven, the spiritual World Was unknown ; and untii an adequale intellect was sent, and added to Such experieuce, iis quality WasunknOWn. The experienee Without the reason had existud in the propheis of the old Testament, and in the Book of Revelations ; nay, Dom time immemorial in dreams and supernaturalmanifestations Of proved authenticity: the reason without theexperience is What philosophers have attempted since the date of history. But nothing came, or could come, of either, untii the two Were ad equately combinest in one organigation; i. e., in SWedenborg. And that in him they Were combined Will survive and defy contradiction. The question of saut is the sirst in aliscientisic or philosophical processes, Where human thought is tomorti; aud so it is the first in Swedent, org's case, and determines that os possibility : afterWards reasons may be discussed in matters profrering themselves to reason, and the facts Willucquire their rational value When their principies are found

sense unlihely. There re honesty requires the reasoner to

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never en gendered 8O smali a peculiar terminology. The ternas,hOWeVer, are used With precision, and Whereuer they are commonto his scientisc and theological Works, the meaning is continuedfrom the one to the Other. But as Dei ther class of these Worksis metaphysical,' so Deither requires any initiretion beyotid

permanent reality in iis oWn place, and as Such is even essentialto the existence Of What succeeds and inspires it. Furthermore these Wortis contain no metaphysical aXiouis Or postulates Whichliave a right to goVern our underStanding of them; i. e., none

Which havo that rank gi ven them by the author; but their sensemust be gathered, not hom particulares erected into principies, but hom tho entire sold, or Dom Sueli generat and representative declarations as after est the modification, exclusion and rejection, or Subtraction, Whicli other passages inflict, are stillsound to bo os susticient significance to amount to principies, and of sussicient applicability to conciliate ali subsidiary accounts of any particular doctrine. Wo have suid that SWede borg Was a realist, but Ue do notmean that ho belonged to the metaphysical school os realism, but ruther that he Was a platu man, Who might have existed, sor aught that appears to the contrary, before philosophy Wasthought of ; or besore creation, existence and perception hadbeen either scepticatly ussirmed or dented. To tho und of his life he was as Dee DOm the obsession os metaphysical questions

Edmund Burke had a good idea of this negative qualification os a divinelycommissioned religious teacher. If Our religi Ous tenets, ' says he, V should everWant a further elucidation, We shali not cali on infidelity to explain them. We shallnot light up our temple froin that unliallowed fire. It will be illuminated with otherlighis. It will be perfumed with other incense than the infectious stuir Whicli is imported by the smugglers of adulteraled metaphystcs.

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the treacherous undermining of n bassied intelleci. Tho authors DOm Whom he cites, are in evidelice that faet Was his quest; oris he usos Aristolle, Loche, or Wolfr, it is that they confirmhis induction, and uot that he alloWs them to generate it. Heloved to see the truth : to be in his senses at ali times : not for

to apply the sciences, and in the nexi place to rise to philosophy; and not to renson of things belOW reason, Such as the objects of the Senses, but simply to See and perceive them; and only toreason os rationat Objecis, i. e., forms scientiscatly apprehendedin the objects of the senses. For the objects of Sense are linoWn by sense as thoroughly as they can be knoWn; or more properlyspeahing, knowledge is not applicabie to them, but sense only. Quoad sensibio objecis it is impossibie to thiuli ab ut them ,- impossibie to asti, Willi meaning, Whether they are things orideas, or Whether they are Within or Without tho mirid. Stilli hese questiolis, though no deeper than Word 8, have the poWer of mistending reason to attempt the Work of sense; the workWhicli is done by sensu atre dy, and whicli is undone is rensoninterseres. When the mitid persisis in entertaining them, theobjects of Sense beeome shrouded in a metaphysical limbus, and nature's ouilines peristi : the sciences, too, are impoSSible, sortite basis of ali is unsetfled. The history of philosophy provestoo surely that the repetition os them has so corrupted the intelleci, that at various times it has ulmost censen to inhabit the

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We may learn DOm science justly unded iapon sense; and What the JOKer sciences cannot teach, We may learn Do m philosophylaunded upon them, Whicli is their OKn higher science; and what this Worldla philosophy, science and sense cannot attain to, is communicated by Revelation, Whicli is again amen able in thesame order to the threesold organism of Sense, science and philosophy : the doctrine of God being similarly circumstanced tothe doctrine of nature; and ali being real; by no meanS queStionable as faet, yet meant to be interrogated as respecis iis causes by the scientific and philosophical mind. There re materialism and identism, Whicli are but two potes of One doctrine, vig., this, that nature is holloW,) areequalty at variance With the philosophy of SKedenborg;' aslike Wise is that positive'' science, congenerate With materialismand idealism, Which seelis for laWs, but repudiates causes; Whichis in laci but sensual nominalism. For the widust inductiondemonstrates that laWs and causes are united, or that ali triae formulas exist in a body of their own, Whicli it is the businessos science to discover. Thus sensation is an attribute of the

universat human body, diffused through ali iis paris; and yetit is not only a las of the body, coextensive With iis life, butthe predicate Of a speciat organic cause, to Wit, the nerVOuS System. Thus gravitation is not only a la of matter, but

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Where it is an embodiud cause, identisiod With tho vortical forces. Τhus thought is a las and universat predicate of human actions, but it has also a special body, Or i8 an organie CRUSO, ViZ., thorational miud aud philosophicat science. Aud the fame rule istrue of everything, the adjective of the lower existerice belligal Ways a substantive in the higher. In other WOrds, WhereVer ala presides Over a number of facis, it is uot Ouly omni presentin the facis, but has a body of iis oWn over aud above them, byWhicli it becomes in a maniter oue of them, and with this bollyconStitutes a cause, and thereby Operates ali the esse is Whichthe laW expresses. Aud thus nature is a plenum, a body of triue dimension, parallel With the trinity of poWors in man. There re When We induce a la , it cannot be regarded as operatiVe, Or RS Seen experimentalty in iis oWn sphere, utitit it is vlewed in connexion With iis proper mechanism; or utitii by science it is exhibited as a cause. Heuce the importatice of the doctrine Ofthe animal spirit in studying the human body; sor tho dental

of this fluid involves a dental of nil the causos in the animal kingdom. ' Hence the importance of the doctrine of the auras; for he Who dotabis their existence, precludes himselffrom the investigation os ali phenomena, and DOm discovering

and to limit experience accordingly ; in stiori, to erect ignoraneo into an ari: ulso, that though he be no philosopher, 3 et in spite os disclaimer, he is a disappotnted but inveterate metaphySician, fuit, it may be, os remorse, yet very far indeed Dom

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conceive the inmost law of the body as a foui or spirit uous fluidWhOse action in the complex is an abiding human form : yet Weare no Whit nearer dispensing With sortii in the case, thoughaster discarding the highest forin, Our conceptions neceSSarily

an animal. And the fame thing might be explained ut longiliby numerous prerogative instances; SO as to SheW that, sor allthought, laws inhabit causos; but that tho nominatist habituallyselocis the lowest and lensi sultable fornas for tho bodies of his laWs; and which, as in potnt of excellence they are nexi tonothing, can be the most readily passed Over as is they Were such absolutely. And here me dismiss those three protenues, Whicli are nos, and yet are,'' Vig., idealism, materialism, and their connectingaxis or potnt Os indisseretice, nominalism. The scientific mitid is a tWosold organism according to the two divisions os mathematius, namely, arithmetic and geometry, Or the science of quantity and the science of quali ty, or that os

number and that os form; for numbers nre the substances Osthings fas Ρythagoras taught), and qualities are the sortiis. The

main part of accredited science belongs to tho srst of thoso categories, to arithmetic or quantity, While S edent,Org is almost the Only representative of the Second, or quality. Hencetiis Works are properly geometrical, and ns applied to nature, mechanicat; or Speahing correspondentially, analytic Or intellectual; for geometry, Dym, quality, mechanies, are objecis Ostho intulleci, Whicli is itself the mechanies of the assections, Orthe primo machine by Whicli the Will operatus. The labors os others, on the contrary, are chieny arithmetical or quantitativo, boing rather occupied With the analysis and synthesis of substances than os forms. SWede borg's vlew is sirst os corpuscules, second of volumes; the generat doctrine is one os volumesonly. Thus in his chemicat Ρrodromus V he sociis the shapes

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os atoms, and the forces they have agreeably to their sh es. The orthodox chemisis, on the other haud, eXplore the relationsos volumes, to sud their arithmetical and not their geomotriculvalve. The disseretice is nearly that belWeen the en quiry into causes and the investigation os effecis. The ab ove subdivisionmay perhaps be usefui, as giving position to tWo great classes ofenquiry, and in a maniter justisying both; and particularly aseXpressing the relation Which SWedent,org bears to the sciontificWOrid, and vice versu. There is no doubi that the quantitativeor arithmetical analysis Will in time give place to the qualitati veor geometricat, for the sirst pertains to the insancy of subjecis, the second, to the maturity: and when the second begius to bedestred, SKedent, org's Wortis must be piat in request. It maybe observed, that mathematius supplies the ab ove division, be- cause it is the loWost or the least concrete of the sciences, themost generat doctrine of physic8; and Wheroas the universalgives unity, the generat adds division and distinction, or supplies tho linus for intellectuat analyties.' Is any charge against S Wedeliborg is likely to commandalmost generat assent, it is the charge of unbridled imagination :even his solioWers, Who repudiate the stigma as against his theology, are disposed to admit it to some extent of his scientificWritings. The Induction V there put sortii is so utilille induction generally; so plensant and satisfactory to the miud, combining philosophy and common sense; gathered, by the Autho s

Suggestive of morat, political, and economical ideas ; that it is too good to bu true bestiles Whicli, Were it true, Others of the learned must have seen it besore: Where re imagination istis characteristic, and nos science. NOtWithstanding the plausibility of such a viem, We contend that Strength of right reason, and not domina cy os imagination, is What distinguishes S Wedenborg's induction, and loads to iis various peculiarities. Forthe trullis he teaches aro but the upper steps of that ladder atthe ot of Whicli our sensos live and the objects of the common

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gladiy droops into imagination, to vi eW the sery Wheels throughiis tempering medium. It is thus that nature hides the mys

vious education; falling Whicli, their ordor or justico Wili bemissed, and imagination employed to necount for discrepaneios and waut os logic Whicli exist noWhere but in the reader. Imagination, like Other Words, is used in very divergent Senses. Iu these Wortis it signis es the poWer Which srst han illos the images of things; the degree of minit closu above bodilySight; the activity of the momory, or the intollect of the animus . t Using the term in this sense, the doctrines of SKe-

Economy, VOl. I., p. 285.' See above the note On this Subjeci, P. lV. . As this subject is os consequenee, we here cite Dom Our Indices the reserences concerning imagination. ECoΝΟΜY.V-The more deeply me can penetrate into the trullis Os the sciences, the less shald we trust the imagination, 9. Animias possess imagination, but notthought, ΙΙ., 26I, 339. Imagination survives the externat senses, II., 263. It is

a Lind of generat thought, arid cupidity a generat Wili; ali such assection belligpurely animal, II., 293, 339.

U ANIMAL Κ1ΝGDOΜ. -Imagination is reserable to the 1irst internat sense Whicli Comes nexi to ocular vision, II., 95. It cannot reduce the materials in the memoryto any order but that whicli assecis the externat senses and the inferior mind of the

body, II., 354. It is the activi ty of the memory, ibid. In respect of sensation, it is

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ginative Writer, is the bodily form of his thoughts ; a quali ty in

Which he exceeds the most adventurous materialist, especialty in his theological Works. For it is generalty supposed that While imagination deals With imagus, thought oti tho Other haud has pure abstractions for iis objecis. This, hoWever, is a mistahe, probably arising Dom taking mathematius as the archetype Osreason, Whereas they are iis loWest typo. The truth is, that

reason is a more concrete faculty than imagination, and tho more Spiritual the reaSon, the more Organie and concrete itbecomes. Imagination and reason both have poWer over thenearly at one With ocular sight, ΙΙ., 442. Ιt is distinct Dom both gight and thought and exigis in brutes devoid of reason, but thought is properly human, ibid. The fame view is talien in the Author's theological Writings. Thus he says in the Arcana Coelestia, V n. 3020 : To it the natural minitJ belongs ali the imaginative principie, Whicli is the inner sensual principie of man, and Whicli is in the grestest Vigor in early life; . . . biat the rationes mirid is more internat. This meaning of the word imagination, appears to be borne out by iis usage in theauthorigod version of Scripture see Cruden's Concordance ') ; Whicli Ahews, ut any rate, that it is iis primary meaning in the Englisti language.' Sampson Reed, ΟΡ. Cit., p. 42.

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than imagination, and disposus iis objecis into an Order of iis O n. Reason is as the hand of man, but imagination is thopalpus Or tentaculum os animal nature. Reason bellolds tho Samo Sursaces as imagination, Only it does not stos With the Surface, but penetrates to the form and mechanism underlying the color a d shape of the objeci, being in faci that poWer Which acknowledges the intri sic solidity of nature. A familiar illustration of these predicates may be furnished by the disserent result of the Ptolemnio and COpernicari RStronomies. The former Was a hypothesis Or imagination; r Whatis imagination With referetice to reason generally, is hypothesis

luminous potnis, of smali sige, a d at litile distance Dom thocarth, the sun being the clites of these glittering spangles. The carth was the centre of the imaginary universe. Thereseomed litile to know in tho heaveus; for they suggested se problems to the curiosity of man. Τhe sun gave light by day,

and the moon by night, nud here their known ossices terminated. Such Was the Ρtolemaic or imaginative astronomy, Whicli, instead of informing the mind for the perception or admission OsneW delatis, gave activity to the appearances of Sen8e, and converted them into fallacies. HOW disserent the issues of rationalastronomyi The bright spois in the heavens turn out to behuge planeis, like our earth. The sun is the centre of iis uni- VerSe, and filis a greater space than ali the bodies of the systemtogether. Distances so immense come into rechoning as bassio Conception. The miud nos admits at onco that the sold os astronomy is inexhaustibi e : that there is more to know than humanity cari destre. The objects of the Coperuican theory arefound to bo indesiuitely more real and concreto than thOse Oftho Ptolomaic hypothosis. And so it is With nil the objects of reaSOn as compared With those of imagination.' For God aud

There is nothing existing in human thought, even though relating to themost mysterious tenet of faith, but has combined With it a natural and sensual idea. V S ederiborg, Arcana Coelestia, V n. 3310.)' The greatest instance is to be found in the revelation os the spiritual Woriduouchsafed to Swederiborg, as compared with the imaginative notions Of the sub -

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