Posthumous tracts

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The minit Ges not receive it for certain that the foui is a pure Simple substance, uniess it knows precisely what kind of simple substance. Having banished the atoms of the ancient philosophers Dom the stage of the learned World, in laci, theseatoms have died os mere Oid age, or only furvive in the historical records of philosophy,) the moderns have adopted instenda theory of monads and simples as the primordial substances Oftho Worid. So fashionabie has this become, that me herer os nothing Dom the pulpit and the professorial chair but meresimples, Whicli are received With unanimous delight by applaud-ing audiences. But Were I to add my voice to the throng, Iscarcoly thinii that I should sweli the estimation in Whicli theselavored entities are held ; at any rate, so long as Ι am in igno-

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rance of their nature and qualities, I should but contributo with

And we are indeed consolandest With the variety os monadsund simples, of Whicli a number is fabricated equat to meet the

os simple Substances; and there We concentrate Dearly ali thequalities that We cati possibiy recognige in the effeci. Rationalsouis are held to be simple substances, but in order that their peculiar attributes, essentials and qualities may be admitted, the simplisis assirm that these substances are gisted With under- standing and Will. The fouis of brutes are also regarded assimple substances, involving indeed an analogue Os reason, butdestitute os understanding and Dee Will. Spiriis also, no matterhOW numerous Or hoW diverse, are ali reserred to the class of simple substances. The elements of the mundane System, and the primordial substances of the first creation, are RiSO prOD Ounced to be simple substances, to Whicli the philosophersattach their peculiar attributes and essentiais, Whicli must continue the fame While modes vary in succession; consequently they are regarded as persistent and capable Os modification, Orthe subjecis os intrinsic determinations, constant anu variable. In a WOrd, Whereuer series Os things are Observed in the WOrid, there do these philosophers come besore us With their simple substances, in Which, as the principies of the former, We aredestred to conceive an analogue Os similar Series. ΤΟ eVery Such substance in generat stud in particular they attribute essoris, forces, determinations, laWs, series; Or What amounts to the Same thing, a certain proportional or analogue of the suid qualities; With other predicates, Which We must conceive and represent to OurSelves abstractedin purely, analytically, by thebare faculty os understanding and imagination. They assertiliat ali sentities and substances of the kind are begotten and produced DOm the fame Origin; vig., ait Dom nothing; and nevertheless that there are assections in them, Whicli affectionsare not of nothing, but sultable qualities Os every essence What-

limiis separating paris, but Within them nil is pure, mere

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essences With their proper forces, essoris and determinations, whicli nevertheless again are limited and sinite, because naturat, and subject to the restraint of their own distinctive laWs : theyare indivisibie into potnis or paris, because intrinsicatly devoidos politis or paris; but is divided, they would relapse into their pristine nothingness; surthermore, they are destititute of the degrees or quantities of quality, as Neli as Os momenis; or of dimenSion, mensure, ke. --φ ε Here thirty-tWO pages of the ΜS. are Wanting.J- - - - most morsu to tho truth; and this is the reason Why rational philosophy is so osten the 8Ource of errorS, and why iis most celebrated cultivators stray more Widely Dom theright path than those Who place their ultimate causes in mere

srom essecis, it frequently inculcates upon the foui, With a poWer amounting to command, a belles in certain effecis Or consequences eques to the belles in the causes: as is the wont With systems os nil Linds. But this by the Way. MeanWhile, in prosecuting the physiological argument We have no right at the very ouiset resilessty to enquire into tho substance of the foui, With iis proper sorces and laWs, that is tosay, into the causes of essecis, and at once to prophecy that thesout is generaled immediately Out of nothing, and is simplerthan aught in nature; and thereiapon to reason to the effecis bya nent apparatus Os consequences. Τo arrive in this Wise at thetruth os consequences Would indeed suppose nothing shori os a

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divine understanding. Once possessed of this, the darii seeress,mindless of her tortuous rid dies, shali ulter the sayings of the time to come With prophetic certain ty. But dismissing recondite principies, let us confine Ourselves to en quiring, Whether We are to regard the foui as in the worid, or Within the circle of nature, contrary to the opinion Os Our contemporaries, and tofome of the lights of modern philosophy, Who turn the Soulout of the Worid, and give sortii that it Would bo nil the fame is

we have established that the foui is With in the circle of nature, or belongs as an entity to the purest sphere of the Shy, Wemay then proceed under the direction os philosophy to enquire

substances; likeWise into the conneXion, relatio Ahip, and familiis bond that it establishos botWeon iiseis and the organs Ofinferior rank, numely, the Series constituting iis body, and whicli it has o fidently taken into the most close amity and Lindredship. That the foui has the sceptre, and occupies theimperiat throne, of the microcosm, she herseis declares to us; lihewiso that she orders the fortunos and provides for the wellare of her body ; and that her influence is paramount in Wortis and actions, Whether coming Dom the Will, or Whether derived

Dom instinct Without any appenrance of an antecedent eXercise os choice.

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and the causate, the essicient und the effeci, eniteavor aud motion, Will and action, the sirst term of the series and the last ali stand lar one cause. The whole microcosm is One SerieS,although it consists of numberless connected paris, ali disserent, but ali unanimous. Such being the closeness Os conneXion, therelare ali the paris breathe a common purpose, and liVetogether in series and combination; every part being Sentient, for not a membrane, AO long as it is connected With the system,can be touched Without sensation. Is the generat weal sussernny Violence or convulsion, Or is any pari fail into incompetency

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funes of the olida gered and salting republic in Whose counciisit SWays. In a WOrd, so great and binding is their friendshis, that so long as the foui and the body live, there is no possessionbelonging to the paris but belongs to the whole. That solitthen that thou carnest With thee Whithersoever thou goest, is enclosed in space and in iis oWn World; yet stili abides in thehighest place, in iis oWn senatorial hall. The corollary is, that the body lives in dependetice on iis solii, and the foui in depend- ence on iis body; also that the foui is no purely simple Substance ; no imaginary being, of Which nei ther place, nor con-ΠeXion in any Sense, nor extension can be predicated; and italso solioWs that the existence of the worid and the body arenot indisserent to the foui.'That the foui is Within the circle os nature, and is in theworid, and in the human body, and therelare in place or Space, is rendered additionalty evident froni the consideration, that thesout cannot be released from the ties of iis body, by anythingshort of the ulter death of the latior, Whicli alone is sufficientio breuit the chain and delach the strong conneXion. AS SOOHas the day arrives Whicli is fatal to the body, the foui eludes thechains and sies out of the prison os iis habitation; and thenstraightWay the nerves and the tendons and ligamenis dropclown saccid; the membranes und the cords Whicli gave tone to the system lie loose and purposeless; the poWers of the muscies evaporate; ali Warmili and continuity Of tension disappear out of tho blood; then too nil sensatious, whicli are common to the foui With the body, peristi, and the very organs os the Senses

Contrisy to the doctrino of Loibnitet, and in later times to that of Berkoley, that Sensation, perception, and in generat, the mentes faculties, might be e oyed, Without the presence Os an externat wOrid, Or a material bOdy. - Tro ' In asserting that the foui is in nature and in place, Swedonborg implies that itis a part of creation-Of the finite sphere : he does not mean to deny that it is a partof tho spiritual moriri but that worid, at this period of his life, he regarded asWithin the circle of nature; i.e., Mite creation. Νor is he peculiar in this ; forbesoro the spiritual Worid was revealed exporimentally, it may be doubted Whether the conception existed of a universe altogether beyond nature, yet finitely substantiat, and totalty externat, as that worid is, to the human mind and foui. But his argument for the non-simplicity and the intelligibie reality of the foui, is not impatred by this necessary shoricOming in his eXPerience.- Tro

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these ties are annullod, that the foui is si eod si om the prison- house, and retires Out of her Lingdom. his is a sigit, thattho solit is inherently tied to iis body, and enclosed in the membranous Celis and compariments of the latior ;' Which could notbe Were it a simple substance, sor in this case iis in carceration uid seem to be impossible; and less stili could it Loes iis place in the bra in so long as ever it Was not stripped of the membranous fies of iis body. Therofore the foui aWalis thus te of the series that are placed under it to serve it, and Whenthese lose their naturat harmony, the body thon undergoes the

celestiat aura, the more purely and holily it has liuod in iis

microcosm, and the more finely it has there been moulded into correspondence With the genuine state of the causos of heavenand the principies of iis oWn particular essenue. And stili impressed most purely upon iis simplest modisiable substances ascauses, there remaliis in it the ostigy of the body With iis motions and effecis, just as tho figure os a truo With ali iis dotalisis involved in the seed. Also ut this timo Whatever actions

' It must not be supposed that Swedonborg evor modified this doctrino in his theological Works. On the contrary, he there states it With additional particulars, and gives it an experimentat basis. See especialty the Arcana Coel tia, vol. i., n. 179, Where in describing DOm personat experience) tho resuscitation Os mansrom the dead, ho dwelis at some tength upon this en losure of the foui, as being soreal and complete, that Without a special divine attraction, resurrection Would beimpossibie. Ιf that maiorialism is frightsul which gives us nothing but body for asoul, at least equalty frightfut is that immaterialism, whicli asseris a fout with no

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through the instrumentality of the body have by long usagebecome habitual or instinctive, are stili reprosented to the liso in the separated foui. Is there re the s ut be formod in thobody, under the gractous providen ce of God, by the practice of Viriue, into a corresponden ce With the principies of morality in conjunction With religi iis laith; that is to say, into a correspondence With the supremely constant causes and the originaland only trullis of heaven, of Whicli the foui in iis highor integri ty is the adequale recipient; and is the process have been maintainod untii it has become a habit and almost an instinci, to Will and destre nothing but What is in accordance With those genuine and purest causes; then is the foui a true and most fit-ting subjeci, organ and instrument of the almost instantaneous and hight y harmonic modes of heaven. And thus heaven, Whichis perpetuatly receiving life hom similar soliis, creates by iis

with whicli thosse of this gross Worid admit Os no compariSon; SO SlOW, impure, mixed, and Osten so discordant, is the musicos Our loWer sphere. But of this more in an Other place. It solioWs Dom What we have laid doWD, that the foui is in the worid, and by the intervention Os nature, is in connexion

os nature,' attached on the One haud to the bodily microcosin, contiguous, on the Other, With heaven, and dependent uponthe aura of heaven : consequently it is a substance belonging toboth the purer and the grosser World; and meant to be conformed by means of the grosser Worid, While it lives in societywith iis body, to the state of the purer Worid. Thus the foui has a place, a time, an Origin; also a poWer and a force os passion and of action. Wo are deceived anu mocked by our senses and the imperfeci sphere in Whicli they live, and our senses by their peculiaratmospheres, Whicli are so remote frOm the purest atmospheres, that scarcely any comparison can be instituted betWeen the twosave by very hio proportions and analogies. What is the unitor minimum in the externat Sen8es, may be the aggregate, pro-

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duci or maximum in the purer senses and auras. The series Osthe grOSSer senses may commeneo Where the series of the purer Senses terminale; and the sensation of sight may begin Where the SOuPs sensation censes. The smallest degreos and moments

proper to the organism of Sight Or hestring, may serve for thegrentest in the soles. That is to say, Within the minutest moment' of sight or hearing, thousands Or myriads of corresponding moments may be formed in the purest organ, of Which

' Α moment is literalty a movement, Or any distinet part os a mensured series of things; thus in an hour the fixty proximate divisions are termed moments ; and any particular delati of a given thing, is a moment of that thing.- Tr. 9' It is remarkable that in our own time more than one system has arisen that has professedly taken the nothino for iis starting POint. Τhere is some candOur in this, whicli os right ought to have been done long ago by many philosophies. Hegel, however, asseris that nothiny and being are identicui. Weli does Christian Wolfrsay : Nihilum mentitur causam' - Tro

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disserent Liniis; a contiguous connexion by the mani id liquidsand fluids of the system: and that the one plays the part os

agent, essicient and modifier, that is, of principie and cauSe; the other, the part of patient, effeci, principiate or CauSate. Τo fheW that necro ali thinos in the animal hody are membranacesus and in this way continuous, let iis hegin froin the primordial ovum. NoW in the semulo the frest ova are en velopedin 1110Si pure tunius and matres' of their OWti; und the testicles RS Weli as the Ovaries ure constructed by the orderly juxtaposition Os membranes. Aud When the ova are quickened, and the imprisoned embryo is expanded With nil the power and form ofits fallier, then the enlarging and thichening tunius hecome obvious to sight and totich. In this event the embryo is Sur- rounded With the amnion unu chorion, and iis head With theslaeenta, Whether one or severat, anil in the case of brute animais, With the farciminal or ullantoid membrane alSO; to Saynothing of the twistud umbilicui cord . NoW these are nil meretiantes originating DOm the ovum, and Whicli are exquisitelytender at sirst, but gradually thielion aud indeod harden usthey ad vanue; and they run through these Stages in Orderthat the quiuii elements and atmospheres may form them ni celyon the modet of their oWn series, according to the laWs of their Severat pressures, actions and modifications. We need

' Tho reader Will find tho argument on this subjeci finely handled by Swedeliborgin his Outtines of a Philosophi ai Argument on the In sinite, and the Final Cau8e