UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA. 
 
 FROM THE LIBRARY OF 
 
 DR. JOSEPH LECONTE., 
 
 GIFT OF MRS. LECONTE. 
 
 No. 
 
ON 
 
 It 
 
 THE RELATIVE ADVANTAGE 
 
 OF 
 
 TUBS WITH BOTTOMS 
 
 AND 
 
 TUBS WITHOUT 
 
 BEING A RAMBLING LETTER FROM A COOPERS 
 
 APPRENTICE TO A 8WEDENBORGIAN 
 
 CLERGYMAN 
 
 " To be merely aware of these truths and yet fail to see them in 
 applications to things that stand out bodily before the eye, is only to be 
 aware of them as abstract entities ; and these last are things that 
 abide with a man no longer than as long as he is thinking about 
 them ; they are mere matters of analysis derived from the science 
 of metaphysics. * * * For an acquaintance with matters that 
 are merely abstract is like some airy thing that wings itself away ; 
 but abstract matters, when they are applied to things that belong to this 
 world of ours, become like a thing espied by the physical eye, which 
 then sticks forever in the memory," SWEDENBORG ; Divine Love and 
 
 PRINTED FOR THE AUTHOR 
 
 FOR SALE AT 2O COOPER UNION 
 
 NEW YORK 
 
 
C. G. Burgoyne's Printing Business, 146-150 Centre Street, N. Y. 
 
A FORE- WORD 
 
 The following letter was begun as a private communica- 
 tion, and was not intended for other than private circulation. 
 This is my only excuse, if an excuse at all, for the mangled 
 and most unsatisfactory manner in which I have treated of 
 the subjects which it considers. Those subjects are : 
 
 1. Degrees, discrete and continuous, and the differences 
 between the two kinds of degrees. 
 
 2. Order, successive and simultaneous, and the difference 
 between the two kinds of order. 
 
 3. The origin of all made substance, as having come about 
 once for all, and at the beginning ; and as having consisted 
 merely in an off-throw, from God, of substance which was 
 living substance in His Body before it was thrown off, but 
 became dead as soon as thrown off, and thenceforth remained 
 dead and spiritually inert, and wholly unneeding any Divine 
 upholding for the preservation of its reality. - 
 
 4. The presence of God in all made substance, as being a 
 presence of His Uses only, and not in the least a presence of 
 His substance; no portion of made substance being any 
 longer such substance as is He, yet it all being not less real 
 than is His substance. 
 
 5. The nature of the Life-current as being the vibrator}' 
 beat or swing which is constantly maintained by God in such 
 organized forms of dead substance as possess spiritual sub- 
 stance capable of vibrating to that swing ; that swing being 
 a swing which goes on only in spiritual substance ; and that 
 Life-current being merely a stream of motion, and not being 
 in the least a stream of substance. 
 
 6. The nature of Action and He-action. 
 
 186718 
 
7. The essential distinction between, on the one hand, that 
 kind of presence of one being with another which might be 
 imagined as consisting in the presence of the substance of the 
 first being in the substance of the second being; and, on the 
 other hand, that kind of presence of one being with another 
 which consists, not in the presence of the substance of the 
 first being, but in a presence of an Activity or Power exerted 
 by the first being upon the second, resulting in the produc- 
 tion of an Image of the first being in, or upon, the second. 
 Also the impossibility of the first-mentioned kind of presence. 
 
 8. The analyzing of Motion in general, and of the partic- 
 ular motions recognized as Light and Sound, into (1) mere 
 Agitation, without reference to the form or mode of agita- 
 tion ; (2) Form or Mode of Agitation, without reference to 
 actual agitation ; (3) Agitation according to form or Mode ; 
 which is produced by a combination of the two preceding 
 factors into a general result. Also, the illustration of mental 
 and spiritual facts, including the nature of Life itself, by 
 means of the phenomena called Sound and Light, to which 
 (but maintained in a discretely finer atmosphere than either 
 the aerial or the ethereal) Life closely corresponds. 
 
 An understanding of these subjects is essential to any un- 
 derstanding of Swedenborg. A fair understanding of some 
 of them comes by intuition to all practical persons ; and comes 
 to these without any active thought comes indeed in the 
 absence of thought; these concepts being tacit concepts. 
 And a much better understanding, upon the whole, comes to 
 those persons who do not know how to talk about them, than 
 to those who know how. In general, it can be said, that il- 
 literate people understand most of these things pretty well ; 
 and the reason is, that in their daily life they are familiar 
 with truths that are the same with these concepts, though 
 expressed upon a lower and more obvious plane. Illiterate 
 people do not lose their thought in words ; they think by 
 things, i. e., by visible mental pictures. But men of letters, 
 if they are not at the same time men of a practical and (I 
 
may say) mechanical turn of mind, rarely think by mental 
 pictures, but mostly by words, and they lose their thought in 
 words, and are unable to think with coherence upon any of 
 these subjects, because these subjects are deep deeper than 
 Thought for the most part, deep as Fact itself. 
 
 I ought perhaps to add, as a further excuse for the un- 
 satisfactory nature of the treatment I give these subjects, 
 that in truth I know next to nothing at all about them. 
 In this respect I shall be thought to differ from the majority 
 of Swedenborg's readers, the most of whom I am told 
 are well informed in regard to these topics, however little of 
 such information may thus far have been betrayed by them 
 in writing or in conversation. My confession of my own 
 ignorance may serve a use, viz., to warn the reader against 
 accepting any theory or statement which he shall find in this 
 letter, unless he finds it applied in detail and in every 
 detail, and accurately in each detail to Facts, to facts in 
 nature apprehensible by some one of the five bodily senses, 
 and familiar to himself by daily observation. For whatever 
 effect this statement of my views may produce upon the 
 mind of any reader and I have small belief that it will 
 produce much effect I wish that such effect at least may 
 not be that of causing him to stand still farther abstracted 
 from the world of common sense and common experience 
 than at present he may chance to stand. The principles of 
 Swedenborg are principles which are all-sublime ; but many 
 of the principles which have been retailed to the public as 
 his, are, in my opinion and in that of some other persons, 
 entirely opposed to common rationality in respects quite 
 independent of religious belief. The misapprehension of 
 Swedenborg's doctrines by many of his followers is due, I 
 think, to several causes. One is the total ignorance of 
 science joined with some ignorance of Latin, which mostly 
 has obtained with his translators. The other is the tinge of 
 pantheism, got from Berkeley, with which the earlier trans- 
 lators appear to have entered upon the study of Swedenborg, 
 
and which colored the earliest translations of Swedenborg. 
 This, progressing gradually, has finally dyed many passages 
 in translation, and most of the so-called " collateral works " 
 in English, to a deep pantheistic black. I am well aware 
 that an imputation of ignorance of Latin will be more or less 
 resented by men some of whom are of literary culture. It 
 still is true that the translations are filled with errors such 
 as those which the birch, and only the birch, has ever been 
 serviceable in extirpating. Of ten thousand illustrations, let 
 me give a single yet well-nigh all-pervading one. In treating 
 of the original creation of the substances and matters in the 
 universe, as distinguished from the constantly repeated crea- 
 tion of individual living creatures by the ordinary process of 
 reproduction, Swedenborg invariably uses the tense of per- 
 fectly completed action ; this original creation having been 
 effected, as he teaches, not in Time, but at the very begin- 
 ning of Time ; thus, before all times ; and having been brought 
 about by successive compositions and recompositions of 
 primary particles w r hich for this purpose were taken from 
 the circumambient sphere of substances that had been ex- 
 haled and transpired from the Body of the Divine Man. 
 These substances had ever existed in that Body. In that 
 Body they had not been made out of nothing. They had 
 not been made, indeed, at all. From eternity they had been. 
 The substance of God's Body they had been. What we call 
 " creation " was not an originating of those substances. It 
 was merely an evolution of them out of the Infinite it was 
 a finiting of them. And because this so-called " creation of 
 substance," but really change of state or quality in such sub- 
 stance, took place at the beginning of all things, thus, before 
 any other event could possibly have taken place, Sweden- 
 borg, in speaking of it, uses often a tense denoting a time 
 still prior to that denoted by the tense of perfectly completed 
 action ; he uses often the pluperfect tense. In speaking of 
 it he uses sometimes the active voice and sometimes the pas- 
 sive voice. But where he uses the passive voice creatus est, 
 
was created the translators, all eager to transmute Sweden- 
 borg's straightforward teaching that Matter has, since crea- 
 tion, nothing of God's substance, into a doctrine setting 
 forth that Matter is at bottom no other than the living 
 God Himself, and that Matter's visible outside is but a 
 sort of Maya or Illusion of the Senses, and that the only 
 creation is a steady Causing-to-Seem, the translators thus 
 eager, I say, have changed his " was created " to an " is 
 created ;" nor do I lack an instance in which the perfect tense 
 active (which, as Latin scholars know, it is impossible to 
 mistake) has been translated into a present passive, in order 
 to teach a constant or continuing so-called creation of all 
 substances and matters. Some of these tense-errors have been 
 corrected, I understand, in the Swedenborg Printing and 
 Publishing Society's latest edition of The Divine Love and 
 Wisdom, yet against great opposition. As for the Latin 
 passive participle denoting (and invariably denoting) 
 "wholly past and completed action suffered," this participle 
 has by all of them, I believe, been held of too small consequence 
 for notice, but has been boldly extinguished, and the English 
 participle denoting a still continually accomplishing creation, 
 or creative act still each instant undergone or suffered, has 
 been substituted. All this, in order to twist Swedenborg 
 into teaching that the substance of the Universe was not 
 made and wholly finished before Time was, but is made at 
 each moment of time, and is in fact inwardly the living God, 
 if you will only prick it deep enough. Thus with their 
 traditions have they brought to naught the commandment 
 of God asset forth in the first chapter of Genesis, whose teach- 
 ing Swedenborg strictly follows ; and in which, as I am inform- 
 ed, the Hebrew tense of " forever-completed-action " is used, 
 instead of that tense of " continuing action " for which 
 Swedenborg's translators mostly contend. What, in the 
 Hebrew as well as in the English, God is declared to have 
 done, these translators would make Him to be now about 
 doing, or to be about to do. 
 
8 
 
 " The heavens and the earth were finished" says Genesis. 
 "Finishing "is "Uniting." There is no "beginning" possi- 
 ble for anything, save a beginning as the Infinite. There 
 is no " finishing " possible for anything, save in and by its 
 " Uniting ; " its finiting or what is the same, its " finishing " 
 (Latin finis, an end ; finire, to bring to determination) is the 
 un-infiniting of that which had been Infinite. No substance 
 springs from nothing, and to nothing no substance can turn. 
 " God ended the work which He had made," says Genesis. 
 " He rested from all his work which He had made," says 
 Genesis. Not so, think the most of the Swedenborgian 
 writers. The substances of which heaven and earth were 
 formed, they think were at bottom never finited, but at bot- 
 tom are still the Infinite ; these have never been finished, 
 but He is ever seeming to finish them. He never ended, 
 they think, the work of making an atom of substance. The 
 words " His work which He had made " mean, they think, 
 " His work which He had not made, but was only beginning 
 to make, or rather was beginning to seem to make.' "He 
 rested from all His work which He had made," says Genesis. 
 " Not so " they think ; " He must ever be tinkering at each 
 atom of substance; none of it is completed, and all of it would 
 plunge into nothingness, did He not forever tinker it." 
 
 And they not only think thus, but in all sincerity they 
 think thus. And they think thus because they are sunk in 
 materialism, and cannot think of anything spiritual, but un- 
 derstand in a material sense all spiritual things. Whatever 
 Swedenborg says of God's constant sustentation of His 
 creatures, they apply to that mere Stuff which requires no 
 sustentation ; and what he says of the steadily given Life- 
 motion, they turn into a doctrine which teaches that each 
 atom of substance constantly flares forth from God and that 
 its flare is constantly renewed. The making new of " all 
 things," which is the steady stream of life-motion pouring 
 into all animated creation, they think means a steady re- 
 creation of Matter and Substance. The "new things," the 
 
9 
 
 " hidden things," which are " created NOW and not from 
 the beginning" (Isaiah XL VIII., 6, 7), to wit, the things 
 that relate to the Life-sphere and thereby to the things of 
 Spirit, they turn into things that relate to the Death-sphere 
 and to the world of Matter; they turn the ever "new things," 
 the ever " hidden things," into the opposite to what is " ever 
 new " and " ever hidden ;" into the " former things," into 
 the things which God "did suddenly " and at " the begin- 
 ning ;" into the things which at the beginning He did fairly 
 and completely " bring to pass " (Isaiah XLVHL, 3 ; Genesis 
 I., 1 ; Genesis H, 1, 2). In other words, they turn spiritual 
 facts into the grossest materialism. 
 
 Most of Swedenborg's present pupils, I believe, profess 
 Idealism and vaunt its glories. They will stop the use of 
 this word, however, as soon as they shall have read him so far 
 as to hit upon some of the various passages in which he con- 
 demns idealism and describes it as a notion of the inf ernals. 
 I say they will stop the use of the word ; but they may con- 
 tinue to hold to the theory. Yet is there not a true idealism 
 as well as a false ? Idealism belongs to the realm of Form 
 and Arrangement ; it does not belong to the realm of Sub- 
 stance. The idealism that teaches an ideal arrangement, by 
 the Creator, of real substances which He has separated from 
 Himself and thereby finited, and which, after such separa- 
 tion, if He had not arranged them in an ideal order, would 
 be a chaos, is a time and heavenly idealism. Idealism be- 
 comes false and infernal when it extirpates real substances, 
 and holds the Idea to be antecedent to the Substance, and 
 pretends that the Idea is very Substance. Such idealism is, 
 in philosophy, what Faith without Love is, in theology a 
 substitution of Form for Substance, an ideal Arrangement of 
 somewhat within which no Substance whatever sits or re- 
 sides. 
 
 There is no connection, I think, between the doctrines of 
 Swedenborg upon these fundamental subjects and the doc- 
 trine of the majority of his followers. Whether I am right or 
 
10 
 
 wrong in alleging this, may appear on examining the con- 
 siderations which I bring forward in this rapidly written 
 letter. 
 
 Whenever a religious body, or a majority large enough to 
 sway the body, discovers a blunder to which it has become 
 committed, two courses lie before it. The first, the natural, 
 the obvious, the perhaps invariable course, is to brazen out 
 the blunder and decoy attention toward some other than the 
 principal matter. It is usually in the supposed interests of 
 religion in general and of that religious body in particular, 
 that this course is taken. The other course a divine and 
 perhaps thus far untried method of dealing with the 
 proofs of a theological blunder is to say with Anthony, 
 promptly and from the heart, 
 
 " Who tells me true, though in his tale lie Death 
 I hear him as he flattered" 
 
 But the children of this world are wiser in their genera- 
 tion than the children of light. 
 
 In respect to the various sins I shall commit against the 
 aesthetic, whether in wording or in typography, let me say 
 that there seems to be only a choice between those venial 
 offenses and the mortal sin of unintelligibleness. Over-ital- 
 icising is offensive to some, because it impeaches the reader's 
 intelligence ; but a reader should be ever patient ; the minds 
 of readers are surely most unlike. Moreover, if the criti- 
 cisms of Swedenborg's expounders which I offer shall later 
 seem well-founded, not even the most extraordinary gro- 
 tesqueness in presenting them will appear otherwise than in 
 place and order and consonance. 
 
11 
 
 SEPT. 22d, 1889. 
 
 MY DEAB SIB : 
 
 The passage in the " True Christian Religion," which I 
 think you cited a year ago, to the effect that an atom of nat- 
 ural substance is formed by a congregating or putting to- 
 gether of atoms of spiritual substance, is at no. 280, in the 
 paragraph which begins, " Before we parted, we had some 
 further conversation about this matter." In that paragraph 
 Swedenborg says : 
 
 (1) That the natural world and all natural things are ma- 
 terial, and, that the spiritual world and all spiritual things 
 are substantial. He also 
 
 (2) Shows that the substantial or spiritual is characterized 
 by consisting of singles ; and the material or natural by 
 being composite (or put together) from singles ; or, what is 
 the same thing, the spiritual is characterized by consisting 
 of particulars, and the natural by consisting of generals 
 formed out of such particulars. 
 
 (3) That the spiritual is to the natural as a single fibre of 
 a nerve is to the nerve itself, which is composed of an assem- 
 blage of fibres ; or as the small filaments in a rope-yarn (fila- 
 ments small enough to be drawn through the eye of a 
 needle * ) are to some large rope used aboard ship, which 
 rope is composed or made up by uniting small filaments into 
 rope yarns, and by uniting rope-yarns into strands, and by 
 uniting strands into a rope. He further shows 
 
 (4) That the things that "went into," " began," or made 
 up " material or natural things at their creation, were sub- 
 stantial or spiritual things. " Sunt initia" he says, in 
 speaking of " substantial " things ; meaning by " in-itia " the 
 things that " go into " a composite ; thus, the things which 
 are the " beginnings " of the composite ; and he therefore 
 
 " Traduci per foramen acus netorii," n. 280. 
 
12 
 
 asks, " What is matter save an assemblage of things sub- 
 stantial f ' * And because material substance was made by 
 the putting together of spiritual substance, and because 
 spiritual substance was made by the putting together of 
 substances which had issued forth from the Divine Body 
 (Divine Love and "Wisdom, n. 291), but had lost the Divine 
 Life (id. n. 294) thus because all things were derived, by 
 composition and repeated recomposition, from that firs^ 
 sphere which had issued forth from the Divine Man's Body 
 therefore, in explaining the difference between the celes- 
 tial and the spiritual, and between the spiritual and the 
 material, Swedenborg, in the passage you refer to (T. C. R., 
 n. 280) speaks of such composition and recomposition, and 
 says that one natural contains several spiritual, and one spir- 
 itual contains several celestial ; and says that " by subdivis- 
 ion " (which is the inverse of the process of composition) " a 
 thing is not rendered more and more simple, but more and 
 more many-fold, because it thereby approaches nearer and 
 nearer to the Infinite." f This fact of increasing multiplic- 
 ity by advancing subdivision can plainly be seen in the 
 structure of the rope of which Swedenborg there speaks ; but 
 it is hard for most Swedenborgians to understand, because 
 they, like others, are unwilling to think of the spiritual as 
 real stuff or as anything more than some thinking activity. 
 
 This rope, regarded as " a general," is but one or a unity. 
 Now divide it into the strands which compose it ; you will find 
 them to be triple, or three in number ; divide the strands 
 into rope-yarns, and you will find the rope-yarns more mul- 
 tiple or numerous than three ; divide the rope-yarns into 
 fibres ; those fibres are vastly more multiple or numer- 
 ous; take at last a microscope and divide any fibre still 
 further and you find it infinitely more multiple in its sub- 
 
 * " Quid materia nisi congregatio substantiarum ?" n. 280. 
 t * * Quod divisum non fiat plus et plus simplex, sed plus et plus 
 multiplex, quia," etc., n. 280. 
 
18 
 
 divisions. Therefore, in the Arcana Ccdestia, no. 6465, 
 Swedenborg teaches that all things exist by successive for- 
 mations ; posterior things by formation from prior things ; 
 and that each successive formation exists separate from 
 those that go before it and from those that come after it ; 
 but that still the posterior formation depends ever on the 
 prior, so that without the prior the posterior could not pos- 
 sibly exist ; for the posterior is held by the prior in coher- 
 ence and in shape ; and that it must not be imagined that 
 the advancing purity of interiors over exteriors consists 
 in an unbroken advance ; and that it must not be conceived 
 that interiors and exteriors are united by an unbroken pro- 
 gression ; and that it must not be conceived that the union 
 between interior things and exterior things exists without 
 there being at the same time those separations or distinc- 
 tions that are effected by the successive formations of pos- 
 terior things from prior things. 
 
 TAKE THINGS INSTEAD OF WOBDS. 
 
 Dear Sir, I pray you to turn from the words which there 
 he uses to the ideas or actual things which the words repre- 
 sent ; and thus to see, with your own eyes, by applying to 
 real objects the abstract truths of Swedenborg, whether a 
 new light does not break upon you. Take things, things, 
 THINGS ; do not take mere words ; take real things, and put 
 those things before the eye of your mind. Take a rope, for 
 example. Actually see the separate or " discrete " degrees 
 in it. Do this by parting it into its strands. See how the 
 rope is "composed," or made up, of its strands. Count 
 the strands. Observe that several single strands must be put 
 together or " congregated " in order to make a rope. Next 
 take a single one of those strands, and examine it separate 
 from all the rest. Really part it into its rope-yarns. See 
 how the strand is "composed," or made up, of rope-yarns. 
 
14 
 
 Observe that several single rope-yarns must be put together 
 or " congregated" in order to make a strand. Take next a 
 single one of these rope-yarns and examine it separate from 
 all the rest. Part it into its filaments or fibres, which are of 
 coir, hemp, etc., according as the kind of rope may be. See 
 how the rope-yarn is really " composed," or made up, of those 
 filaments. Now, is it not wholly and absolutely clear to 
 every sane man, woman and child not as a matter of trust, 
 or confidence or belief, but as matter of fact that this 
 rope exists by successive formations, the posterior things in 
 it existing by formation from prior things I Is not the rope 
 itself a " postreme " or aftermost thing ; and is not the strand 
 a " prior " or foregoing thing to the rope ? Is not the strand 
 a posterior or after thing to the rope-yarn, and is not the 
 rope-yarn, in its turn, a " prior " or foregoing thing to the 
 strand? Is not the rope-yarn a "posterior" or after thing 
 to the fibre, and is not the fibre a " prior" or foregoing thing 
 to the rope-yarn 7 Is it not perfectly clear that " each for- 
 mation exists separate from another ?"* If it is not perfectly 
 clear to you, look at the rope ; untwist or " unlay " it ; pull it 
 apart into strands, or (as sailors say) " strand " it. When 
 you shall have pulled it apart in this way, you will have 
 three strands quite separate from each other, and quite sep- 
 arate from any rope ; for the strands, when " unlaid " or 
 stranded, are only strands and are not in the least a rope ; the 
 formation called " strand " is quite separate or " discrete " 
 from the formation called "rope." In like manner take 
 a strand, and pull it apart into its rope-yarns ; the forma- 
 tion called "rope-yarn" will then be plainly seen to be 
 "separate" or "discrete" from the formation called 
 " strand." Do the same again with a rope-yarn, and part it 
 into its fibres ; a fibre, you will see, is a distinct, discrete, or 
 separate formation from a rope-yarn. Now take the rope, 
 
 **' Quod imaquse vis formatio existat separata ab altera." Arc. 
 Ccel., no. 6465. 
 
15 
 
 and consider, in a general way, its successive formations : 
 do you not also see that though " each formation " in the 
 rope " exists separate from each other formation," 1 yet still 
 the posterior or later formation " depends "* upon the prior 
 or earlier, " so that without the prior or earlier, the posterior 
 or later could not exist T'f For although the rope-yarn is 
 quite distinct from the fibre, the rope-yarn " would be noth- 
 ing at all " if you took the fibres out of it ; and although the 
 strand is quite distinct from the rope-yarn, the strand 
 "would be nothing at all" if you took away the rope-yarns ; 
 and although the rope is quite distinct from the strands, the 
 rope "would absolutely not exist" if you took away the 
 strands. Is it not also evident that the " advancing purity " 
 of which Swedenborg so often speaks and which we find in 
 tracing, from generals to particulars or from composites to 
 singulars, the process of the composition of this rope of his 
 is not a purity that advances " by an unbroken advance/'f but 
 is a purity whose advance is broken by the difference be- 
 tween rope and strand, and again by the difference between 
 strand and rope-yarn, and still again by the difference between 
 rope-yarn and fibre? Really examine a rope ; it will be hard 
 for you to bring yourself to do this, perhaps ; and probably 
 you will insist that you know it well already ; but do it, I 
 beg you ; do it here and now ; try it ; pick a rope apart ; and 
 then you will understand Swedenborg's words as you have 
 never understood them, and thereby you will also see why he 
 says that the matter of formation by discrete degrees is a 
 muddle unless it is explained and illustrated by things that 
 can be sensed and apprehended in the world of Nature and 
 that stand out bodily before the eye ; but that it becomes as 
 
 *" Quod posterior dependeat a priori." Arc. Coel., no. 6465. 
 
 f'Adeo ut [posterior] non subsistere queat absque priori." 
 Arc. Ccel., no. 6465. 
 
 J" Sicut continue puriora et sic per continuum cohserentia." 
 Arc. Ccel., no. 6465. 
 
16 
 
 clear as things of sense themselves when it is seen by apply- 
 ing it actually to those things of sense.* 
 
 LOOK AT THINGS VISIBLE. 
 
 He says, indeed (D. L. W., 228), that things when stated 
 in the abstract are wont to be better grasped than when 
 stated in their applications to visible things ; but he takes 
 care to state the reason why, viz., that it is because they have 
 an all-embracing and never-erring application, if stated in 
 the abstract ; whereas, when they are stated in their appli- 
 cations, they must be stated in a perpetual variety of ways ; 
 and when this latter course is taken, the inexhaustible 
 variety of the things to which the principle applies, draws 
 the mind off from a recognition of the one universal principle 
 which pervades the applications. The moral of this last re- 
 mark of Swedenborg's would seem then to be this, viz., that 
 the principle ought to be shown by means of its application 
 to some visible thing ; and then again by application to some 
 other visible thing ; and thus again and again, until it is 
 shown to be " universal " ; next, by comparing one applica- 
 tion with another, it can be seen in what respects the appli- 
 cations or illustrations differ or "vary'' from each other, and 
 in what respect they are all just alike; then next, it will be 
 found that in one respect they all are just alike ; thus it will 
 be recognized that the respect in which they are all just 
 alike is the pervading or universal principle ; in this way a 
 recognition of the universal principle at last gets beaten into 
 the dullest brains, because each varying illustration repeats 
 that principle and repeats nothing but that principle ; be- 
 cause, in each successive illustration, the circumstances are 
 various or are "in variety", and therefore no one of 
 
 *" Anceps, quid non per applicationes ad sensibilia et percepti- 
 bilfa in natura illustratum" Divine Love and Wisdom, n. 218. 
 
17 
 
 them is repeated or borne in upon the mind with that force 
 with which the ever-recurring principle is borne in. As soon 
 as the student has reached this stage where strong is his 
 impression of the ever-recurring and never- varying principle, 
 and where weak is his impression of the ever- varying and 
 never-recurring detail of circumstance or of visible application, 
 he has passed out of the region where " variety obscures," 
 and has passed into the region where " the universal princi- 
 ple is better seen than is its application" (Div. Love and Wis., 
 n. 228), " and is better seen because it is universal." It is 
 vain to claim that this stage has been reached among 
 the Swedenborgians ; it is untruthful to affirm that any 
 considerable progress is making towards that stage. There- 
 fore with respect to the doctrine of separate or " discrete " 
 degrees, we ought, by observation, to collect a thousand ex- 
 amples and every sane man, if he will, can observe a thou- 
 sand daily. Yet well I know that but few of Swedenborg's 
 present class of pupils will voluntarily or of themselves seek 
 out a single example ; they being quite willing to accept his 
 words, and quite careless of seeing that his words are true 
 or of learning in what manner they must be understood. But 
 do not let me squander your time upon digressions. If you 
 will really take a rope (or, for that matter, if you will take 
 anything whatever that is visible), and will actually pick it 
 to pieces with your fingers, I am sure that with your able 
 and observing mind you will immediately begin to under- 
 stand the doctrine of separate or discrete degrees so profoundly 
 that you will be seized with wonder when you turn and 
 think of the way in which Swedenborg's readers generally 
 take this doctrine, viz., without the slightest perception of 
 the meaning of the words he uses in announcing it. 
 
 " Attamen ilia sdre et non per application's ad existentia videre, est 
 modo scire abstracta ; inde est quod * * * de tills gradibus parum 
 si quicquam in mundo scitur." Div. Love and Wis, 189. 
 
18 
 
 DEGREES DISCRETE AND CONTINUOUS. 
 
 These " breaks " or separatenesses between the stages of 
 all composite formation are what have caused him to give 
 them the name of " discrete degrees." The word " discrete" 
 is from a Latin word which means at bottom, " to put a 
 screen or division bet ween two things ;" thus, to partition one 
 off from the other. If you wish to see the difference between, 
 on the one hand, discrete degrees (these being degrees between 
 which the formation " breaks joints," if I may use a phrase 
 of builders), and on the other hand, continuous degrees 
 (being degrees between which the formation spreads con- 
 tinuously and without break whatever in its arrangement), 
 compare such a rope as I have just decribed, consisting, as 
 it does, of quite separate formations, with that peculiar kind 
 of rope that was once used for the "breeching " (as it is called) 
 of cannon. That kind was used for breeching, on account of its 
 greater pliability ; it is a kind which is not made of strands, 
 but is made of rope-yarns unstranded, i. e., of rope-yarns 
 which have not been twisted into strands. The principle of 
 a " continuous " degree is not perfectly shown in such a 
 rope ; because, even in this kind of rope, the rope-yarns are 
 formed out of fibres that have been twisted into rope-yarns; 
 thus there is at least one separate or " discrete " degree in 
 rope so used for "breeching." But imagine a rope made 
 out of fibres that have not even been twisted into rope- 
 yarns ; compose the rope, if you can do it, immediately from 
 the fibres without any mediate formation. Compare such 
 a rope with the rope of the three discrete degrees which I 
 first mentioned, and you will see the difference. In the rope 
 made of strands, such as Swedenborg refers to (Tr. Chr. 
 Eel., n. 280), you see an advance by discrete degrees, viz., 
 from fibre to rope-yarn, from rope-yarn to strand, and from 
 strand to rope ; you may go a step (gradus) further, if you 
 like ; and, by twisting several such ropes together, make a 
 cable; this last, I reckon, is indeed the "funis nauticus" 
 
19 
 
 (T. C. B., n. 280) which above I rendered as "rope." If you 
 wish to see an advance by " continuous degrees," on the other 
 hand, take say a dozen rope-yarns and lay them together so 
 that they will form a unity a kind of rope perhaps a quar- 
 ter of an inch in thickness. Take next say thirty-six rope-yarns 
 and lay them together, making a kind of rope perhaps half 
 an inch thick. Take again a greater number of rope-yarns, 
 and make a rope bigger yet. Lay these three ropes or bundles 
 beside each other, and compare them. The "advance" from the 
 bundle of a dozen rope-yarns to the bun die of thirty-six rope- 
 yarns, and from that of thirty-six to a bigger bundle still, is an 
 advance by continuous degrees ; 'tis a matter of less and 
 more. An advance by " discrete degrees "is an advance 
 by breaks instead of by continuity. An advance by " breaks" 
 or by " discrete degrees," will be made by taking three 
 separate bundles of one dozen each, and twisting them so as 
 to make one bundle ; and a second advance by "breaks" or 
 "discrete degrees," will be made by taking a number of bun- 
 dles like those which you thus last made, and twisting them 
 so as to make one still greater bundle. Such then is the dif- 
 ference between formations which are separate or " discrete," 
 and formations which are unbroken or "continuous." Unless 
 this difference be well nay, thoroughly understood, no New 
 Church doctrine can be understood at all ; and unless this 
 difference be first thorougly understood- in physical or ma- 
 terial things, it cannot be understood at all in spiritual or 
 substantial things. 
 
 ORDER SIMULTANEOUS AND SUCCESSIVE. 
 
 Along with the difference between separate degrees or de- 
 grees with breaks, on the one hand, and continu- 
 ous degrees or degrees without breaks, on the other 
 hand, stands almost wholly in darkness (among 
 Swedenborg's present class of readers), the dif- 
 
20 
 
 ference between degrees of successive order, and degrees 
 of simultaneous order. I do not mean that words in abund- 
 ance are not used by Swedenborg's readers about order suc- 
 cessive and order simultaneous ; but I mean that their words 
 have little meaning and are used with no intelligence. And 
 the reason is the same as before, viz., that with respect to 
 this distinction, just as with respect to the other distinction, 
 words, and not visible things, have been the subjects of 
 thought ; yet things and not words are what this difference 
 resides in ; and this difference, like the other difference, 
 must be seen in things visible before it can be seen in things 
 invisible; it must be seen in many, many applications, 
 before it can be seen in the abstract ; and it must be seen 
 under many varieties before it can be seen to be a principle 
 of universal domination. 
 
 There is no end to the applications of this principle. 
 Permit me to invite your attention to an application which is 
 the same as that which Swedenborg suggests, at n. 280 of 
 the True Christian Eeligion, for discrete degrees, viz., that of 
 rope making. 
 
 SUCCESSIVE OBDEK. 
 
 The fibre, the rope yarn, the strand, the rope, are the sub- 
 jects of " successive " order, when the formation of each is 
 regarded in the aspect of their " successive " formation, i, e., 
 when the order in which we regard them is the order in 
 which the ropemaker proceeds to form them. Thus, he first 
 puts together the fibres into a rope-yarn, and binds them 
 together by an envelope to contain and distinguish them (as 
 Swedenborg declares must be done with every successive de- 
 gree) which binding he effects by twisting them, so that 
 the twist then holds them together, and every strain upon 
 the rope then only binds the fibres still more closely together. 
 This putting together and twisting together of the fibres so 
 that they make a rope-yarn, is the first degree of successive 
 
21 
 
 order in the rope. Next lie does the same thing with a num- 
 ber of rope-yarns ; he puts rope-yarns together, and binds, 
 envelopes, distinguishes and ' ' contains " this new unity by 
 giving its component parts a twist, and thus he forms a 
 strand. This second operation " succeeds " the first, and 
 makes therefore the second degree of successive order 
 Next, he does the same thing with a number of strands ; and 
 he binds, envelopes, distinguishes, and <; contains " this new 
 unity by giving its component parts a twist, and thus he 
 forms a rope. This third successive operation is a third de- 
 gree of successive order, and finishes the rope ; its creation 
 is now finished, and the maker " rests in quiet." He makes 
 that rope, at least, no more; the rope, too, "rests in quiet, ' J 
 because its making is over. 
 
 How THE MAKER is PRESENT IN His WORK. 
 
 Note, in passing, that its making was ever quite and 
 absolutely outside the active maker, and that clearly the active 
 maker is not within the rope ; just, as says Swedenborg, the 
 Universe is not in God any more than the earth is in the 
 sun (True Chr. Kel., n. 46). 
 
 The maker of the rope is not present in the rope, other- 
 wise than that the " USES " he had in mind are present there- 
 in ; it is thus and thus only, says Swedenborg (Div. Wis. 
 HI., 2), that the Divine Maker can be present in His works ; 
 not materially, he says, but spiritually (Div. Wis., HI., 2) 
 for Uses, he says, are not material (Div. Wis., ITT., 2). The 
 end or purpose of the maker is visible in that rope, and so is 
 his intelligence and wisdom. I merely remark this visibility 
 as I go. I note it, in part, by way of contrasting Swedenborg's 
 teaching with your theory. Your theory is that the Maker 
 has not really made anything, but that all things, after being 
 said to have been made, are still at bottom at very bottom 
 either nothing whatsoever, or else remain really unman- 
 
22 
 
 ufactured, and do yet at bottom, at very bottom, remain His 
 very self. And your theory is that His presence consists in 
 a presence of His substance, instead of a presence of mere 
 Use from Him a Use devoid of any substance that now 
 is He. 
 
 It is also for a second purpose that I call your attention 
 to the fact that the ropemaker's aim and intelligence are 
 visible in the rope when made. This second purpose is that 
 of showing that here we find an illustration of the difference 
 between successive order and simultaneous order. 
 
 There was a time when the ropemaker had merely formed 
 a wish to make the rope. Next, in successive order, his 
 wish formed or put together the intelligence required for 
 making it. Next in successive order, from the wish, by 
 means of the intelligence, he actually made the rope. Now 
 as soon as the rope is made, there is plainly to be seen 
 there in the rope, not only (a) the fact or act of making it 
 but also (b) the intelligence whereby it was made, and fur- 
 thermore (c) the wish or end for which it was made, viz.- 
 the Use of the rope, to wit, the use that things might be 
 bound thereby, or be lifted thereby, or be hauled thereby. 
 There, thus, in the rope, when the rope has actually been 
 made, are seen, in "simultaneous order" or in "order all to- 
 gether on one plane," the three degrees which, before its 
 making, were in " successive order ; " successive order being 
 the order of " one below another/' or " one following after 
 another." Examine numbers 190 and 205 of Sweden- 
 borg's Divine Love and Wisdom, and construct for yourself 
 a few hundred illustrations from Nature. Beat 
 thus out of your mind all his words, and beat 
 thus into your mind all his meaning ; and then you 
 will perfectly understand him. But in the poor illustration I 
 have given, take note that only the marks or tokens of the 
 wish and intelligence which produced the rope are visi- 
 ble in the rope, and that the wish and intelligence them- 
 selves are not really there ; for the wish and intelligence are 
 
23 
 
 movements of spiritual substances which are of human shape 
 and are in the ropemaker alone (Div. Love and Wis., n. 42), 
 and have not gone out of him in the least (Heaven and Hell, 
 n. 139 ; Div. Love and Wis., n. 59.) The ropemaker is 
 present only in the " Use" or " good" or " benefit " of the rope 
 (Div. Wis. HX, 2) ; nor can any being's wish and intelligence 
 exist outside of his own very substance (Div. Love and Wis., 
 n. 209 near end), since both of these are but states and 
 changes of states of his own very substance (Div. Love and 
 Wis., n. 209). 
 
 THE SUCCESSIVE AND THE SIMULTANEOUS. 
 
 But since this illustration of simultaneous order may not 
 seem clear, because in this illustration the comparison passes 
 partly out of the visible, permit me to furnish an illustration 
 which, like the illustration which I have given of successive 
 order, lies wholly within the visible, and which thus can 
 readily be examined by the physical eye. Let me furnish an 
 illustration which will at once be illustrative of " successive 
 order" and of "simultaneous order," and in which both 
 orders will be seen ; the one, successively, or one degree after 
 another; the other simultaneously, or all degrees together. 
 For the sake of convenience let me once more take Sweden- 
 borg's rope for an illustration. Only do not think I take the 
 rope by reason of poverty of illustration, or that you and 
 I cannot use as an illustration any visible thing soever 
 which may be nominated for that purpose. 
 
 To the middle of a cardboard cut in circular form, say a 
 foot in diameter, fasten one end of a long thread or fibre, 
 as long as a room is high; so that the thread or fibre 
 would hang freely down from the cardboard, were the card- 
 board fastened in a horizontal position upon the ceiling 
 of the room. Next, around this fibre, fasten to the card- 
 board other like fibres in just that fashion ; fasten a good 
 
24 
 
 many; so that you will have several hundred fibres 
 with one end fastened to the cardboard, and so to 
 speak growing out of it, and hanging down long from 
 it, much as flowing hair hangs down from the back 
 of a woman's head. Now, fasten this cardboard to the ceil- 
 ing ; the fibres will then hang straight down and just touch 
 the floor ; and they will hang free and clear of each other. 
 Let us next proceed to make rope from these fibres. In doing 
 this we shall proceed by degrees of successive order. But 
 when we have finished, the degrees which we formed suc- 
 cessively one after another, will, as later you shall see, be 
 found existing there in simultaneous order near the floor; 
 the degrees of successive order will all be found there in 
 succession, one after another, proceeding from top to bottom' 
 and the degrees of simultaneous order will all be found 
 there all together, all at the bottom; and you will see 
 there, in image, all the things that are described there in 
 D. L. W., n. 205, where the author speaks of successive 
 order as a column, and of simultaneous order as a plane, 
 and of successive order passing into simultaneous order as 
 a column may sink down into a plane. You will see for the 
 first time, I think, what Swedenborg means, and what no 
 literary reader of him has ever seen ; but what to unlettered 
 men like myself, or to scientific men unlike myself, is as 
 plain as a pikestaff. 
 
 Take a number of those fibres, as they hang ; take neigh- 
 boring ones ; take, say one twenty-seventh of the whole num- 
 ber and begin to twist them together ; let the twist begin at 
 one-fourth of the distance down from the ceiling, and let 
 there be no twist whatever above that one-fourth point you 
 can prevent this, if you desire, by transverse threads which 
 shall run crosswise through the fibres at that height and be fas- 
 tened to the sides of the room but let there be a perfect twist 
 from that point down to the floor. We now, by one degree of 
 composition, have formed a rope-yarn; there is rope-yarn reach, 
 ing from the floor to three-fourths way up the ceiling ; and 
 
25 
 
 above that point there is no rope-yarn, but only separate 
 fibres. Now serve the remaining fibres, portion by portion, 
 and twenty-six portions in all, one after another, in the 
 same way as you served that twenty-seventh portion of their 
 number, viz., by twisting them just as you did the first ; you 
 will then have twenty-seven rope-yarns, all hanging near each 
 other, and all reaching from the floor to three-fourths way up 
 to the ceiling ; and from that point up to the ceiling you 
 will have no rope-yarn whatever, but only separate fibres ; 
 and from that point downward you will have no fibres, but 
 only rope-yarns. 
 
 For the second degree of composition, do as follows : 
 Take nine of the twenty-seven rope-yarns ones that hang 
 neighboring to each other ; and proceed to give them a twist 
 together, and let the twist reach from the floor to a point 
 half the height of the room; and arrange it so that the 
 rope-yarns shall from that point up to the ceiling remain not 
 twisted at all. The twisted portion of their length (which 
 is the lower half of the full length from floor to ceiling) will 
 then be called a "strand." Now, take another nine of the 
 twenty-seven rope-yarns, and treat them as you treated the first 
 nine ; then take the third nine and treat them likewise ; you 
 will thus have made two " strands " more ; and these two and 
 the first strand will be three strands. Thus, from the middle 
 height of the room to the floor you will have three strands, 
 and from the middle height of the room to three-fourths way 
 up to the ceiling there will be no strands, but only rope- 
 yarns; and between three-fourths way up and the ceiling 
 itself, there will be no rope-yarns, but only fibres. 
 
 For the third degree of composition, do as follows : Take 
 all the strands that hang there ; three they are ; and twist 
 them together throughout so much of their length as lies 
 between the floor and a point one-fourth way up to the ceil- 
 ing, but do not let the twist reach higher up than that. 
 This twist of three strands makes a rope. And now you 
 have rope from the floor to one-fourth way up ; rope only. 
 
26 
 
 The fourth which hangs next above the rope is in strands, 
 strands only. The fourth which hangs above the strands 
 is in rope-yarns, rope-yarns only. And the fourth which 
 hangs at top is of fibres, fibres only. 
 
 SIMULTANEOUS ORDER. 
 
 Now take the rope portion in your hand, and put the 
 lower end or foot of it under a sharp-edge, such as is used 
 for card cutting, and cut it square off, so that you will have 
 a perfect cross-section of the rope. Let the rope then fall ; 
 it will hang as before, and the flat end or cross-section of it 
 will just touch the floor, and will form one and the same 
 plane with the surface of the floor itself. And there on that 
 plane, at the very bottom of the rope, will lie, " in simul- 
 taneous order," and " all together on one plane," the various 
 degrees of successive order. Pick up the rope, look at the 
 end of it, and see if it is not so. Look at it closely ; at the 
 butt end of it, I mean ; at that cross-section ; turn the rope 
 up so that you can see the cross-section and every detail 
 which it contains ; you were best to use a magnifying glass. 
 You will see there, first of all, a rope. i. e., a section of the 
 rope. Observe this rope more interiorly, and you will see 
 strands, i. e., a section of strands ; three of them. Look at 
 the section of any strand and regard it still more interiorly, 
 and you will discover nine rope-yarns ; take any one of these 
 rope-yarns and examine it still more interiorly the which 
 may need a magnifying glass and you will find many, many 
 fibres. There they all lie, the fibre degree, the rope-yarn 
 degree, the strand degree, the rope degree, all in order 
 simultaneous, or all together on one plane, and forming one 
 plane surface. 
 
 SUCCESSIVE ORDER. 
 Now lift your eyes to the ceiling, and letting your eyes fall 
 
27 
 
 slowly, behold successively the degrees of successive order. 
 Topmost the fibres; next downward the rope-yarns, com- 
 posed of fibres ; next downward the strands composed of 
 rope-yarns that had been composed of fibres ; and, lowest of 
 all, the rope composed of strands that had been composed of 
 rope-yarns that had been composed of fibres. I italicise the 
 words "had been," because these words are in conflict with 
 your theory of the formation of Substance, whether spiritual 
 or material ; and because this "had been " is an essential of 
 all successive order ; for in successive order one thing takes 
 place after another. But you deny all degrees of succession, 
 and deny that one thing can take place after another thing, 
 and deny all successive order, and really admit only simul- 
 taneous order ; you being able to think only in the ultimate 
 or lowest degree of thought, viz. : the degree of mere effect. 
 And because you do not see what successive order is, but 
 only what simultaneous order is which last is the order in 
 which things are seen when they are regarded only in their 
 effects and not in their successive stages of causation you 
 believe that each particle of substance is created anew each 
 moment, and refuse to believe that it had been formed by 
 successive formations, each prior of which must have been 
 formed before any posterior could have been formed. Thus, 
 you destroy all succession, although succession is as essen- 
 tial to the spiritual world as to the natural (Heaven and 
 Hell, n. 162) ; and you consider all (i. e., both God and all 
 created substance) as " simultaneous." You do not say this, 
 but you do it. To do this is to deny a Creator and make out 
 Nature's inmost to be still God. But let us pass this mat- 
 ter by ; and let us return to our fibres, our rope-yarns, our 
 strands, our rope. 
 
28 
 
 THE TOPMOST or SUCCESSIVE OEDEK is THE INMOST OF SIMUL- 
 TANEOUS ORDER. 
 
 There, lowering your eye from the top toward the bottom, 
 you see them in succession, in succession just as they have 
 been formed, one after another, just ? as one after another they 
 were formed ; here are degrees of height or altitude, but seen 
 in successive order. Turn your eyes to the lowest degree, 
 and look once more at the cross-section of the rope. There 
 you will see the same degrees of height or altitude, yet you 
 will see them, not in successive, but in simultaneous order- ; 
 you will see them, not in the order in which you were 
 framing them, but in the order in which they lie when they 
 have been quite framed and finished. You will see them all as 
 described at Div. Love and Wis., n. 205 ; will see them, I 
 mean, provided you either are an illiterate man, or, if not 
 illiterate, are a man of science ; but if you are a man of 
 letters and not a man of science, you probably will not see. 
 Either an illiterate or a scientific man, I say (since either of 
 these can think by images and not by words, and therefore 
 see the objects of his thoughts) will see there, in that cross-sec- 
 tion of the rope, in simultaneous order, " the highest things 
 of successive order " (Div. Love and Wis., n. 205), viz., the 
 original fibres ; and will see that they are " in the inmost " 
 (ibid), to wit., in the inmost construction of the rope (not in 
 the local inmost) ; will see that they are the " inmost " in the 
 true sense, viz., that they, in the first, or highest, or inmost 
 degree ; that is to say, are causal of the rope ; will see, also, 
 the " lower things " (ibid), viz., the rope-yarns, and (after 
 them) the strands ; and will see that these, viz., the rope- 
 yarns and the strands, are "in the middle " (ibid), to wit, in 
 the media or means whereby the final rope is to be made 
 in other words, will see that they are mediately or second- 
 arily causal to the rope ; and, finally, will see ' ' the lowest 
 of all " (ibid), to wit, the rope itself ; and will see that the 
 rope itself is " in the outmost " (ibid) ; and that the rope 
 
29 
 
 is, in the true or essential sense, the outmost, viz. , that it is 
 an Effect, not a cause. If " inmost " " middle " and " out- 
 most " had a spatial significance (i.e., a meaning relating to 
 locality), those words would here be absurd ; for the fibre, 
 " inmost " as it is, is nevertheless, (spatially speaking) found 
 also on the very outside of the rope, for there it makes up 
 the rope's surface no less than it makes up the rope's 
 insides. 
 
 TUBS WITHOUT BOTTOMS. 
 
 But it is well nigh useless to speak concerning Facts, in 
 speaking with Swedenborg's present class of readers ; they 
 mostly despise Facts as men despise the lower rooms at 
 feasts, and as men despise bottles compared with wine ; 
 they despise Facts as bark is despised when compared with 
 heart- wood, and as the outmost skin of the body is despised 
 compared with the vitals. Nevertheless, it still is true that 
 except through lower rooms there is no coming at upper rooms, 
 and that with broken bottles all wine runs out and is lost in 
 the ground ; that a tree stript of bark must die, and a man 
 when flayed must perish in agony. The reason is, that all 
 Strength and Conservation resides in Ultimates. Save as 
 made in watering-pots of stone, no spiritual wine is make- 
 able. Stone means sensuous truth, and pots or vessels mean 
 the ultimate pictorial images formed from observation by the 
 senses. They are not water, still less are they wine. But 
 without them there can be no wine. Of them the most 
 of Swedenborg's readers at present will have none. Or, if by 
 chance they have any, they seek to break those watering- 
 pots to flinders ; and in this manner many of them merge 
 all the reactive vessels of natural Thought into the bound- 
 less ocean of Pantheism. 
 
30 
 
 THE HOMOGENEOUS AND THE HETEROGENEOUS. 
 
 The fibre, the rope-yarn, the strand and the rope are all 
 homogeneous substances, i. e., are substances of the same 
 kind. Having come to understand, when seen in visible 
 things, the principles of successive order and of simultane- 
 ous order in homogeneous substances, we are prepared to 
 understand those principles when applied to substances 
 which are heterogeneous, i. e., are substances of a different 
 kind. Spiritual substances are of one kind; natural sub- 
 stances are .of another kind. Love and wisdom, on the one 
 hand, and material substance and its arrangement, on the 
 other hand, are heterogeneous, and of absolutely different 
 essence. Love and wisdom are human and man-shaped, re- 
 side in man, and are never outside of him, and in fact are 
 man, man spiritual ; which man is ever in the human shape. 
 Material substance may be taken from the world of matter, 
 and be cast into the human shape, as in the making of man's 
 body is actually done ; but material substance does not 
 thereby become of essence ho>mogeneous with man. 
 
 THE Two KINDS OF ORDER AGAIN. 
 
 Now, let me trace the principles of successive and simulta- 
 neous order of discrete degrees, with Love, Wisdom and 
 Use, in seeming heterogeneous succession. This, for want 
 of time, I must do most hurriedly, and doubtless unsatis- 
 factorily. Every one can do it better for himself and to him- 
 self, in thought-pictures, than another can in words do it for 
 him. 
 
 An architect wishes to build a house for his family to re- 
 side in and be sheltered from the weather and therein to 
 lead the family life. This is a matter of his Will; it is his 
 end or ami. It precedes the whole process of designing 
 and building a house. It is the highest degree of successive 
 order. 
 
31 
 
 Next, he designs the house ; with cellar, floors and garret, 
 with kitchen, dining-room, parlor, bedrooms, and so on. 
 This second process is a matter of his Intellect; it is his 
 Plan, the assembling and sorting of his various desires as to 
 a house ; it is produced from his desire ; it consists of small 
 but distinct filaments or fibres, as it were, of his Desire ; 
 just as the rope-yarn consisted of threads of coir fibre. Thus 
 he desires a parlour ; he desires a kitchen ; he desires 
 three, five, ten bedrooms, etc., etc. ; his total desire consists 
 of these separate yet entwined or interlaced desires. His 
 design is the second or middle degree of successive order. 
 
 Having formed his plan, he builds the house ; he builds it 
 out of his Will or desire, and according to and by means of, 
 his Intellect or Plan : the material indeed is borrowed from 
 the World of Matter, but he throws the Matter into a shape 
 the nearest possible resembling his immaterial ideal Plan 
 and his Desire. And this process is the third or ultimate 
 degree of successive order. These three degrees in the 
 process of creating that house follow and " succeed " each 
 other in point of time, and this is why they are called de- 
 grees of " successive " order. 
 
 In that house, when the architect's Desire has at last fully 
 passed into the third degree, which is that of realization or 
 accomplishment, are found and beheld all three degrees, no 
 longer in " successive " but in "simultaneous order." In 
 the third degree of that house, in the house as it stands, 
 with his family living in it and enjoying all its benefits, 
 we behold the second degree, viz., his Plan, at least we 
 shall see the plan and its wisdom if we examine more in- 
 teriorly into the structure of the house ; for the material 
 has been shaped into that very Plan, and thus the Ideal 
 has been set forth visible. We behold moreover, on re- 
 garding it still more interiorly, the Desire which was 
 within the Plan. All these three we see there ; and in truth 
 Tve behold there the architect himself as to his Will and Wis- 
 dom architectural ; i. e., we read them. The architect's Will 
 
32 
 
 and Wisdom themselves, however, are not in the bricks or the 
 timbers, or in any of the space within the house, but they 
 are present in the "Use" of the house, are present spiritu- 
 ally, not materially, for Uses are immaterial (Div. Wis., HI., 
 2). Just thus is it with the Great Architect and the home 
 which He has made for us. But you and the majority of 
 Swedenborgian expounders, if I understand you, would have 
 it that He is present in the substances themselves, and is in 
 the very walls ; just as really as the bones of eleven thousand 
 virgins or others might be in (and mostly make up) the walls 
 of that old church at Cologne. True it is that all substance, 
 both spiritual and material, was made out of that which had 
 been God and had been put off from Him so that it was He 
 no longer ; but the presence of God in the dead universe is 
 other than the presence there of that which had been thus put 
 off from Him and was thenceforth other than He. His pres- 
 ence in the dead universe is by virtue of His ARRANGEMENT of 
 it into forms of USE ; He is present in the Use and in Use 
 alone. 
 
 Two CENTRES; NOT ONE CENTRE. 
 
 His presence in the dead universe is as the presence 
 of a woman in the locks of her hair which she has cut off 
 and with care has braided as a keepsake for one she loves. 
 She, in her substance, is not there in the braid, but the im- 
 age of her, i. e., the trace and picture of her will and of her 
 care, is visible in the braid ; and the calling of these to mind 
 is the Use of that braid, and in that Use she is present. The 
 keepsake was her substance ; but her substance it is not 
 now. She put it off from her. She is no longer in it. On 
 this subject read n. 59 of the Divine Love and Wisdom. 
 Bead also n. 35 of the True Christian Religion. Head there 
 about the existence of two centres and two expanses thence 
 proceeding, instead of the one centre and the one expanse 
 which you conceive. Consider how the unbeliever of whom 
 
33 
 
 Swedenborg there tells, did, just like yourself, make the Life- 
 centre to be one and the same with the centre of Nature ; 
 and how at first he would not have it that there are two 
 centres ; and would, at first, not consent to place the Life- 
 centre at any distance from the centre of Nature, nor consent 
 to look at the centre of Nature from the standpoint of the 
 centre of Life, but wished to identify the two centres and 
 make them one and the same centre. That one centre of 
 his, the unbeliever had called Nature. You, on the other 
 hand, have called it God. The difference between yourself 
 and the unbeliever is one of names only. If you identify 
 two centres as being one centre in fact, what matters it 
 whether you gave to that sole centre the name of this or the 
 name of that ? 
 
 A " centre/* in this connection, does not mean a local or 
 spatial centre. It means that which is causal ; it means 
 that which is constantly causal ; if not constantly causal it 
 were not still a centre, but were only a centre which was, and 
 which is no longer. Force and Motion can constantly be 
 causal. Thus, from the Life-centre, transmitted through 
 spiritual atmospheres, can the motion of certain spiritual 
 substances which exist in the structure of the members of 
 the vegetable world, be constantly caused ; and thus from 
 the Nature-centre, which is the sun-body of any solar system, 
 transmitted through natural atmospheres, the motion of 
 those natural substances which mainly form the structure of 
 the members of the vegetable kingdom, can constantly be 
 caused. But a centre for the constant procession of some- 
 thing else than Force and Motion, i. e., a centre for the 
 constant procession of Substance itself, cannot be given ; for 
 Substance, if it proceeds once, has once for all proceeded ; 
 and if more Substance thereafter proceeds, that additional 
 Substance is still other Substance than that which first pro- 
 ceeded. Hence the two centres of which Swedenborg 
 speaks are centres, not for the constant procession of Sub- 
 stance, but for the constant procession of undulatory Force 
 
34 
 
 in the one case natural, and in the other case spiritual. 
 These centres are now-existing and continual centres. The 
 Life-centre was also, in the beginning, the centre for the 
 procession of all Substance ; but since any substance can but 
 once proceed forth and does never re-enter, that original 
 centre did at creation cease to be a centre of substance ; i.e., 
 no longer continued a centre for the forming of substances ; 
 and a new centre was thereupon formed for all Nature, to 
 wit, the solar body in each respective solar system ; from 
 which solar body the substances and matters of its satellites 
 were once for all thrown off, and from which thereafter a 
 stream of Force and undulatory Motion known as sunshine 
 is steadily thrown off. And this is why Swedenborg teaches 
 (Tr. Chr. Kel., n. 35) that there is not One centre, but that 
 there are two centres ; and why he sets the Life-centre far 
 distant infinitely far distant from the Nature-centre ; and 
 why he makes it that the point of contact between their 
 respective expanses is on their circumferences only, where 
 the Divine proceeding from the Life-centre does, at its 
 utmost circumference, impinge on the circumference which 
 is from the Nature-centre and there at the " infima naturae. " 
 (Div. Love and Wis., n. 160) cause all that life in vegetation 
 (Div. Love and Wis., n. 61, at end) which the worshippers 
 of Nature have ascribed to the Nature-centre, and not to the 
 Life-centre (Div. Love and Wis., n. 350 to n. 357). But 
 who is there that cannot see that if all substances, instead 
 of having been once for all sent forth from God, were to be 
 constantly still sent forth from Him as you imagine, there 
 would be but one centre, instead of two centres ? Do you 
 not see that there must be one centre of dead substance, 
 which substance can be acted upon by Life, and be stirred 
 to living (not dead) movement ; and that in the animal and 
 vegetable kingdoms alone (and not in the mineral) there can 
 be such stir effected ; and do you not see that there must 
 be a wholly other centre, which shall be the Life- 
 centre, from which a wave of Life-motion shall be 
 
35 
 
 propagated against organized forms of dead substance, 
 in order to move them with living motion ? Were 
 substance still to be propagated from a centre, do you not 
 see that there would be but one expanse, and not two 
 expanses, of substance? If you say that the material 
 expanse is outside the spiritual expanse, but surrounding it, 
 do you not see that you thus make but one centre and one 
 virtual expanse? 
 
 Regard, I pray you, the two centres as distinct ; and 
 regard the Nature-centre as having been derived from the 
 Life-centre, but not as being still derived ; for if you do the 
 latter, you destroy one of the two centres, and also you 
 merge all into one centreless expanse. Look at the Nature- 
 centre from the point of view of the Life-centre (Tr. Chr. 
 Bel., n. 35) ; you cannot do this if you fuse them into one. 
 
 For other, however, than God's presence in the dead uni- 
 verse (which presence is solely a presence in its uses) is His 
 presence with living creatures. With living things, just as 
 with dead things, His presence is not a presence of His sub- 
 stance; for the substance out of which they were made, 
 though it was His, is He no longer ; but His presence with 
 them is more than a presence of Uses : it is a presence of His 
 Operation or Power in steadily agitating their inmost struct- 
 ure with that Beat which is the Beat of Life. 
 
 CONTINUAL CAUSES AND CONTINUAL MEDIATIONS. 
 
 Now, although in some of the passages which are cited in 
 the report to the Swedenborgian Convention upon this sub- 
 ject (see the New Jerusalem Magazine for August, 1889*) 
 Swedenborg refers not in the least to the creation of sub- 
 stance, but to the sustentation of life (i. e., refers to the sus- 
 tentation of living or wishing motion in organized forms), 
 
 * This report may be found in the appendix to this present letter. 
 
36 
 
 nevertheless the parity of the respective facts is such that all 
 what he says as to the sustentation of the life-movement can 
 be made true also as to the original and once-for-all creation 
 of substance, spiritual and natural. Let us now see if it does 
 not seem plain how, with regard to Substance and Matter 
 of course, regarding Substance and Matter as distinguished 
 from the life communicated to spiritual beings and to ani- 
 mal and vegetable substance organized into living forms 
 let us see, I say, how, instead of the absolute errors of which 
 that report is composed, there is absolute truth in the pas- 
 sages quoted from Swedenborg in that report. 
 
 Take that quoted from A. E. 906 " To create is not only 
 " to cause to be, but also to cause to be perpetually, by con- 
 " tinuation and sustentation." 
 
 Also that quoted (N. J. Mag., Aug. 1889, p. 460) from 
 D. L. W., 303. 
 
 " They who do not deduce the creation of the universe 
 and all things thereof by continual mediations, from the 
 First, can but construct broken hypotheses torn from their 
 causes." 
 
 Also that quoted (N. J, Mag., Aug., 1889, p. 461) from 
 A. C., 5116. 
 
 " Every effect without a continual influx of the cause, van- 
 ishes in a moment." 
 
 Let us now apply to FACTS these doctrines, instead of ap- 
 plying them to mere words or to mere imaginations, or in- 
 stead of omitting to give them any application. 
 
 Is it not clear that the fibre " creates " (or " causes to be ") 
 the rope-yarn ; similarly, that the rope-yarn " creates " (or 
 " causes to be ") the strand ; similarly, the strand, the rope ? 
 and that each of these is what causes the next after it "to be 
 perpetually, by continuation and sustentation;" also that the 
 fibre is to the rope-yarn " a continual cause, " without which 
 continual cause the rope-yarn " would vanish in a moment j" 
 also that any one of these " disconnected from the first of 
 all " (as is quoted in N. J. Mag., Aug., 1889, p. 461, from 
 
*F 
 
 [UNIVERSf 
 
 37 
 
 A. C. 5116) would "fall to nothing in a moment?" Is it not 
 very clear that the ultimate thing called a rope must be 
 created by " continual mediations from the first," which 
 " first " is the primary coir fibre or hemp fibre ? also that 
 even the smallest fibre in the rope-yarn must have been com. 
 posed of still finer things, and that these again must have 
 beon composed of still finer ones ; and so on (by discrete 
 degrees Div. Love and Wis., nn. 190, 184, 195, 197) until 
 the finest natural substance has been reached? and is it not 
 clear to the rational eye that when this finest natural sub- 
 stance has been reached, this finest natural substance can 
 have no existence except by virtue of its being " a congrega- 
 tion of particles " which previously, and until they were so 
 " congregated " had been spiritual particles (True Chr. Rel., 
 n. 280, as cited above) 1 Moreover, take, in imagination, one 
 of these particles which had been spiritual ; take, for ex- 
 ample, a particle of the spiritual ultimate or soil (see Ap. 
 Ex., n. 1212, continuation 6, where Swedenborg says that the 
 soils in the spiritual world are the ultimate of spiritual sub- 
 stance there ; see also Div. Love and Wis., n. 302). Do you not 
 see that such a particle cannot but have been composed of a 
 number of other finer particles compressed together, and that 
 these finer ones again must have been formed from the com- 
 pression of still finer which had similarly been compressed ; 
 just as a solid particle must have been composed from finer 
 ones which had been liquid ones, and just as a liquid particle 
 must have been composed from still finer or gaseous ones 
 a liquid particle being a compression together of a number 
 of gaseous particles, and a solid particle being a compression 
 together of a number of liquid particles * Do you not see 
 that this process of composition and recomposition is de- 
 scribed in terms applicable to either world alike (yet the sub- 
 stances concerned in these two worlds respectively being ut- 
 terly unlike) in the "Divine Love and Wisdom," at n. 302; and 
 that the expression in the next following number, viz., n. 303, 
 about the necessity of "deriving creation from the first by 
 
38 
 
 " continual " or "unbroken " mediations (which the Report 
 to the Convention so fearfully misconceives), refers, not to 
 any continuousness or constancy or unbrokenness of time, 
 but to a continuousness or unbrokenness in the chain of 
 mediate or intermediate compositions f Is it not clear that 
 this expression of Swedenborg's refers to the con- 
 tinual series of composition and recomposition by these dis- 
 crete degrees which series reaches from the finest even to the 
 grossest ? Does it not seem clear to the very eye, that the 
 "mediations" which Swedenborg means are real substances, 
 which are intermediate between (a) the first substance 
 which first substance until so used in creation, had been the 
 substance of the spiritual Sun and (b) that last or ultimate 
 substance called Matter, which visibly makes up any visible 
 thing ? Does it not seem clear that the fibre does not each 
 moment form afresh the rope-yarn, and that the rope-yarn 
 does not each moment form ajresh the rope ; but that the 
 "unbrokenness " meant by Swedenborg is the unbroken suc- 
 cession of composition and recomposition, whereby all sub- 
 stances have been manufactured from the substance which 
 was substance of the Spiritual Sun ; and that in Swedenborg 
 there is no notion so absurd as that of forming again and 
 again (or " continually " in point of time) the rope from the 
 strands ; and that there is in Swedenborg no notion so ab- 
 surd as that of forming again and again (or " continually " 
 in point of time), the strands from the rope-yarns; and that 
 there is in him no notion so absurd as that of forming again 
 and again (or "continually" in point of time), the rope-yarn 
 from the fibres ? Is it not clear that each of these fibre, 
 rope-yarn, strand did in each case, completely and once for 
 aU> make up the thing which was posterior to it, and that 
 no repeated formation is necessary or even possible ? and 
 that the " continualness " referred to by Swedenborg is this, 
 viz., that the process of formation from fibres to rope-yarn is 
 "continued," i. e., extended or repeated, in the formation of 
 rope-yarns into a strand; and is "continued," or "repeated," 
 
39 
 
 in the formation of strands into a rope ; and that the " con- 
 tinual" or "unbroken" character of this process of the 
 " creation " of a rope consists in the unbrokenness of the 
 chain of composition and recomposition, and does not consist 
 in some imaginary re-creation of the rope at successive 
 moments, by a supposed "unbroken" succession of repeti- 
 tions of the act of making a rope ? Would it not seem clear 
 enough that a chain is made or created " unbroken," when 
 the links are joined together, and when each successive link- 
 ing repeats the mode or fashion of the next previous . link- 
 ing ; and that the creation of the chain, to however great a 
 length the chain be continued, or how long soever the 
 created chain may endure, is not repeated as a whole, but 
 when once created needs no repeated creation, and stands 
 fixed and fast, subsistens in quiete (see " The Angelic Idea of 
 Creation," in the " Divine Wisdom ;" also Tr. Chr. Kel. n. 
 46 ; also Div. Love and Wis. nn. 302, 160) ; its maker also 
 then at last resting from at least that labor? Would it not 
 seem clear that if this is the true interpretation with respect 
 to the visible or natural portion of the series of compositions 
 and recompositions of the Universe, it must be true also with 
 respect to the invisible and spiritual portions ? 
 
 " CONTINUAL " HAS Two MEANINGS. 
 
 When we come to examine into another subject, viz., the 
 condition and maintenance of the living portion of the Universe, 
 i. e., the vegetable and animal kingdoms, with respect to 
 the existence of any one living vegetable or animal creature, 
 would it not seem, on the contrary, that its life is an internal 
 Activity and Motion of its substance, and that this motion is 
 a far other subject to consider than is the substance of which 
 that creature consists ? In order for a movement to continue 
 in substances which are incapable of self-movement, must 
 not this movement be "constantly" maintained (continue 
 
40 
 
 actuatae, Div. Love and Wis., n. 291) by fresh efforts from 
 the Divine (Div. Love and Wis., n. 291) ? Else will not those 
 substances, being dead in themselves, cease to be moved or 
 affected or have Affection which is spiritual motion or 
 Emotion ? Will they not become emotionless upon the instant 
 when ceases the effort upon them which moves them ? Must 
 not their motion, emotion or affection cease the instant they 
 cease to be moved or affected ? Do you not see that this "con- 
 tinually" (continue, Div. Love and Wis., n. 291), unlike that 
 other " continually," is an adverb of time, and refers, not to a 
 constant repetition, on lower and lower planes, of the com- 
 position and recomposition of a posterior thing from a prior, 
 or of one thing from another, but refers to a "continual "or 
 " unbroken " series of repetitions of impulse imparted to cer- 
 tain substances which already beforehand had been created ; 
 and that this Impulse is there described as imparted without 
 cessation from the Divine Heart and Lungs to the dead and 
 self-motionless substances surrounding God's Body, and 
 from those substances is propagated onward and outward, 
 as the waves of motion are propagated in the phenomena 
 of sound and heat and light waves of mere radiating motion 
 in substances which only quiver with the motion, as Sweden- 
 borg teaches and as since his day has become well known, 
 and are by no means transfers of the substances themselves? 
 Do you not remember that " into the things which receive 
 Life, Life enters in no other wise than as heat and light 
 and sound flow into the organs which receive them" (Apoc. 
 Exp., 1134, continuation, n. 1122, continuation); and that 
 they " do not commix themselves with the things into which 
 they flow" (Apoc. Exp., n. 1121, continuation)? 
 
 PUT THEOBY TO THE PROOF or FACT. 
 
 Now here, in these two citations we find, quite pat, a 
 chance to try your theory of the mode and manner of 
 
41 
 
 life-influx. Let us try it and see how it works. Sweden- 
 borg says (Apoc. Exp., n. 1122, continuation), that life 
 comes from God just as sound comes into the ear. 
 You declare that this life comes steadily to all substance, 
 and steadily creates all substance. Now does that in- 
 flowing beat or pulse of mere motion in the air which 
 is called sound, create the substance of the ear, or does it 
 merely agitate an already created substance there? Sweden- 
 borgsays (Apoc. Exp., n. 1122, continuation), that life from 
 God comes just as light comes into the eye. Now does that in- 
 flowing beat or pulse of mere motion in the ether, which is 
 called light, create the substance of the eye, or does it merely 
 agitate an already created substance there 7 Yet you hold 
 that life-influx constantly creates all matter; you hold 
 that matter is maintained by this influx ; you hold that 
 but for such influx all matter and substance would turn to 
 nothing ; and you hold that Swedenborg teaches this. Does 
 he teach it in these passages, which avowedly treat of the 
 nature of life-influx ? Have you read them in wakefulness, 
 or have you read them in a dream ? Which view, now, is 
 reasonable ? Do you not see that " continualness " when ap- 
 plied to the maintenance of a stream of motion carried into 
 created substances, is quite a different thing from " continual- 
 ness " in the chain of composition of those substances them- 
 selves, by which chain they have been created ? Is it not clear, 
 moreover, that the difference between spiritual substance and 
 natural substance is, that the latter is in a discrete or separate 
 degree from the former, having been derived from the former 
 by composition, just as a nerve is formed from the fibres 
 composing it (True Chr. Bel., n. 280) ; and that the subject 
 treated of at n. 280 of the True Christian Religion is the 
 creation of substance, and not the creation of Motion in sub- 
 stances? and that the subject matter in those passages where 
 Swedenborg tells of the maintenance of life in organized as- 
 semblages of substance is quite a different subject matter f 
 Is it not clear that Life is a motion among substances, or a 
 
42 
 
 motion of substance, and (in created beings) is not itself a 
 substance at all ? Is it not clear, moreover, that the motion 
 which is life is a motion that cannot be imparted except to 
 just such substances as are capable of taking up just its kind 
 of motion, i. e., cannot be imparted except to substances that 
 are spiritual ; and that consequently it is a motion that cannot 
 be kept up except in spiritual substances ? and that these 
 spiritual substances, when moved by that motion (as they 
 solely can be moved), are said to be " alive" ? and does it not 
 seem clear that this motion of spiritual substance cannot pass 
 over to natural substance, because natural substance is irre- 
 sponsive to it (is not " susceptible " of it, see Conj. Love, n. 
 189) ; all natural substance being of discretely different de- 
 gree, and quite incapable of vibration to the life movement ? 
 Just as a great floe of ice cannot possibly vibrate to the min- 
 ute ripple which freely prevails in the particles of liquid in 
 which the ice floe notwithstanding floats, and from which the 
 ice indeed had been composed by a discrete degree of form- 
 ation, so just so no natural substance can be moved by the 
 life-beat. What we call life, in natural substances, is but an 
 imitation of the life movement, an imitation effected by purely 
 natural forces as instrumental causes, yet ever guided by 
 the spiritual organism, just as the engine's elemental forces 
 are guided into intelligent action by the engineer's intelli- 
 gence. 
 
 MOTION is NOT SUBSTANCE. 
 
 But if these things do not seem clear to you, does 
 it not at least seem clear that substance is one thing, and 
 the vibration or motion of that substance is quite another 
 thing ; and that before the vibration or motion can exist, 
 the substance itself must exist ? " Life itself," says S weden- 
 borg, " the which is God, is unbroken in its nature, and 
 cannot be cleft at any point whatever," vita * * * quae 
 Deus * * * est continens et non separabilis (Apoc. 
 
43 
 
 Exp., n. 1121, continuation) ; " but out of substances that 
 have no life, Life is able to shape forms where it can indwell 
 and to which it can give that they shall, as it were, live," 
 sed creare potest formas ex substantiis qitae non vitae sunt, 
 quibuspotestinesse et dare sicut vivant (Apoc. Exp., n. 1121, 
 continuation). Now if created life is not a furnished sub- 
 stance, but is a motion or vibration furnished to substances, 
 is it not clear that a substance may either vibrate or not 
 vibrate ; also that at one time it may vibrate and at another 
 time may cease to vibrate ; consequently that the reality of 
 any substance is one affair, but the question of whether it is 
 alive (i. e., of whether it is vibrating to the life-bringing beat 
 or pulse of the heavenly atmosphere) is quite another affair! 
 Have you not surely been confounding Life or spiritual mo- 
 tion on the one hand, and the reality of created substance on 
 the other hand ? Do you not mix the two things " which 
 do not mingle " quae non se commiscent " (Apoc. Exp., n. 
 1121, continuation), viz., Life and the substance which, when 
 fitly organized, can receive Life vita et recipiens ejus (Apoc. 
 Exp., n. 1121, continued) ? Swedenborg says (ibid.), that 
 those two are " as the active and the passive." Must not 
 the passive be something real, and be at bottom quite other 
 than the active, in order that it may be passive and not be 
 the active itself? Now all things are real, but only organized 
 things, having spiritual substance that has not been 
 " clotted " into natural substances, receive life. Even the 
 spiritual sun and the spiritual atmosphere do not " receive " 
 life in the sense of " retaining " it ; they only transmit it ; 
 none of it is absorbed by them ; they do not bring into rest 
 its motion ; this is just as with sound in the air ; the air 
 does not " receive " any sound ; the air only transmits the 
 energy of the sound-wave and with energy diminishing as 
 the square of the distance increases ; it is the ear only the 
 organized ear only that can receive sound. Kecall what 
 Swedenborg says A. E.,nn. 1121, 1122, continuations that 
 Life, the which is God, cannot create living things except out 
 
44 
 
 of substances which are not alive, and that life flows in just 
 as light flows into the eye, or as sound flows into the ear ; 
 consequently that there must be dead substances created, 
 before living things can be created out of them. But you, 
 if I understand it, will have it that there are no dead sub- 
 stances, and that all substances, dead or alive, are inmostly 
 alive with a stream of Life ; and you will have it that Life 
 (even after the creation of dead substance) is an indwelling, 
 inmost, living reality of every dead substance, and is its 
 very reality ; thus you make dead Substance and Matter 
 to be (inmostly considered) God, or a part of God. You 
 say that you do not make its inmost reality to be God, 
 forasmuch as you consider it to be only coming from God. 
 But if it comes (now and presently) from God, must it not, 
 at the moment when, according to your theory, it shall fairly 
 have arrived at being the inmost of a particle of created sub- 
 stance, be either He absolutely, or absolutely not He, or else 
 absolutely nothing whatsoever ? If, after such arrival (i. e. t 
 after its change of state, as you think, whereby it shall be- 
 come that particle of created substance) you consider it to be 
 still He, do you not make God to be the Ens Uhiversi, and 
 to be the inmost activity of Nature a doctrine which stinks 
 in the spirit world, says Swedenborg, and is held by those 
 who have no God I If, after the arrival which you imagine, 
 " the inmost reality " is not God, has it by arrival, become 
 unreal I If, by so arriving, it has become unreal, where on 
 its journey thither did it become unreal I And if its reality 
 is something which streams steadily forth into each particle 
 (instead of its reality once-f or-all, at the beginning, at crea- 
 tion, having come forth out of God, and having once-for-all 
 furnished the whole substance of that particle), what be- 
 comes of the flood that (as you think) comes into that par- 
 ticle at the present moment, in view of the fact that another 
 flood of the same sort is, as you think, to come in at the next 
 moment, and likewise is to enter into that particle ? Are 
 both floods to stay in it, and are they both to constitute it ? 
 
45 
 
 Is an additional supply to be furnished each moment I Now 
 ask yourself soberly, is such a phenomenon reasonable, or is 
 it a disordered dream? But you hold, if I understand 
 aright, that the inflowing Life makes up, and each 
 moment freshly furnishes, the substance of the thing into 
 which it flows. Yet Swedenborg, whom you mean to follow, 
 teaches that the flood of life is like that flood of motion, 
 which, as Sound, flows into the ear. Must you not there- 
 fore believe that the vibration of the air which is Sound, does 
 compose and constitute the substance of the ear into which 
 it flows ? I pray you to look at this thing, and see which of 
 us two is unreasonable, and see whether this thing has been 
 well considered by Swedenborg's readers, of whom the great 
 majority believe as you do. I know you will say that the pas- 
 sages which I cite from Swedenborg about the influx of 
 lif e refer not at all to the process of sustentation of Substance 
 and Matter which you maintain, and therefore are incapa- 
 ble of use in opposition to your theory. I admit that they 
 do not refer to any such process. But point me out, if you 
 can, any passage which you think suggests such a process 
 as you imagine. Examine it well, and see if it does not ad- 
 mit an application to the sustentation of life in living crea- 
 tures ; and see whether this application is not the obvious 
 application ; and consider whether, did Swedenborg intend 
 any other application, he would not, as a writer of at least 
 average carefulness, have taken pains to enforce that other 
 application by the use of terms that would be unmistakable ; 
 forasmuch as the application which I maintain is a natural 
 and easy one, whereas the application which you maintain is 
 one which involves, if true, a new departure from common 
 belief and from common sense. Common sense, indeed, 
 might be in error : but if Swedenborg sought to overthrow 
 its dictates by some new doctrine, would he have used mis- 
 takable language in seeking to overthrow them ? 
 
 You have declined any f urther correspondence upon this 
 subject ; which I dare say is wise, for our eyes are utterly 
 
46 
 
 unlike. And probably I am unwise in troubling you with 
 this communication. I would not have troubled you with 
 it, but for the inquiry you made in your last letter as to the 
 whereabouts of the passage with reference to which this 
 communication begins. But if you have the patience to read 
 through this letter, perhaps you will have the patience to 
 think over what is in it. I hope so ; for what I have written has 
 no other end in view than the supremacy of the two grand doc- 
 trines of the Coming Church ; viz., the doctrine, first, of Repent- 
 ance, and second, the worship of a Man-God of sheer human 
 bodily outline, who, by means of such outline, is lovable be- 
 cause approachable in thought, and is that very He who 
 arose from the dead with flesh and bones, quite able to be 
 touched, and who is utterly and forever to be distinguished 
 from either the inmost activity of Nature, or any essence of 
 natural or spiritual substance, and who consequently is not 
 at present either the inmost life or the inmost essence of a 
 single particle of spiritual or natural created substance ; for- 
 asmuch as all those particles (even the first particles of all, 
 such as are in the spiritual sun) possess no life whatever, 
 whether original or supplied, but are inmostly dead, and 
 neither inmostly, outmostly nor intermediately are His 
 present Substance, but at their creation and before this earth 
 was made, were rejected from His Body and thereby ceased 
 to be He, although they did not cease to be real (see Div. 
 Love and Wis., n. 291 to 294). Open, I beseech you, your 
 sight organs intellectual, and see that Life (except in the sub- 
 stance of God's own Divine Body) is not substance, but is a 
 mere agitation imparted to dead substances ; and distinguish 
 well, I beseech you, between substance and mere agitation 
 of substance. 
 
 How Do SPHERES EMANATE ? 
 
 I think that you, together with that large class of minds 
 which are in unison with you, will omit to avail of a great 
 
47 
 
 benefit to spiritual clear-seeing, should you omit to consider in 
 real idea (that is to say, in pictorial mental form, summoning 
 before the mind a real picture) what Swedenborg says in the 
 Divine Love and Wisdom at n. 291 to n. 294, about the 
 sphere which emanates from and surrounds the Man-God, 
 and about the sphere which emanates from and surrounds 
 each man, each animal, each vegetable, each mineral ; which 
 sphere is different in each case according to the being or ob- 
 ject from which it emanates ; the sphere thus emanating from 
 the Man-God being what is called the spiritual Sun, being 
 composed of substances which have emanated from His Body 
 and become thereby devoid of life, and are no longer He, yet 
 are agitated throughout by the wave of motion propagated 
 from His Heart and Lungs, against which motive pulse they 
 react, and thereby are enabled to beat and pulse with motion 
 which when communicated, through transmitting or non-ab- 
 sorbent media, to spiritual substances that have been organ- 
 ized into forms more or less imitative of the Divine or Man- 
 Form, causes and maintains in those substances an imitative 
 agitation which is their very life. Now Swedenborg says 
 that the sphere which is the spiritual Sun is composed of 
 substances which constantly emanate ; and he says that this 
 constant emanation is like that which constantly goes on from 
 any human being, etc., etc. If I understand aright yourself 
 and all those gentlemen whose minds are as your own, you 
 all regard these statements as meaning that the sum total of 
 all the substances which at any instant compose the spiritual 
 sun does at each moment thus emanate ; and you do not re- 
 gard them as meaning that only somewhat of that sphere 
 does at each moment emanate. But Swedenborg says that 
 with the emanating sphere called the spiritual Sun, the case 
 is not otherwise (as to its emanation) than it is with the 
 emanating sphere about any man, animal, tree or mineral ; 
 Therefore, I shall understand that you all believe that the 
 sum total of the sphere surrounding any created being or 
 object does in like manner at each instant emanate ; and that 
 
48 
 
 the emanation which is thus always going on is not gradual, or 
 an emanation of some part of the emanating sphere. You, in 
 other words, believe that the sphere in its totality is each 
 moment freshly sent forth. Now what I want to get from 
 you is this, viz., that you should ask yourselves whether this 
 last can be true, and whether it is according to reason ; also 
 that you should ask yourselves what next becomes of such 
 a whole emanated sphere when it shall be swiftly and at the 
 next moment replaced (as you think it is each moment re- 
 placed) by another fresh whole sphere issuing forth as, in 
 your belief, such sphere does each instant issue. I would ask 
 this The regular and reasonable course of emanation from 
 very created thing, is it not as follows, viz., that the surround- 
 ing sphere is only gradually renewed ; being dissipated little 
 by little upon its circumference, and being freshly supplied, 
 little by little, from the central source of supply. Is not the 
 reasonable course as follows, viz. That as to the correspond- 
 ing sphere constantly emanating from the Man-God (who 
 has created all things from His own substance which has been 
 thus put off from Him an d thereby has ceased to be He) the 
 sphere be only gradually renewed ; the substances at the cir- 
 cumference passing off (at various crises of creative energy) 
 and becoming substances of more composite nature ; which 
 more composite substances, in their turn, are to be again re- 
 composed in every case to be re-composed by discrete 
 degrees, like as with the recompositions of the coir fibre, the 
 rope-yarn, the strands, etc., etc. all this being effected (in 
 the prior stages) by atmospheres, as Swedenborg says, i. e., 
 by successive recompositions of atmospheric substance which 
 have not yet reached even a fluid state ; and the totality 
 of the spiritual sun being maintained near the centre of that 
 sphere, by fresh emanation of substance ; which emanation 
 steadily supplies the waste of the remoter substance which 
 has been thrown off as aforesaid from the circumference ; 
 and the constant emanation (losing substance ever in part, yet 
 ever renewed in part) forming, despite all changes, a sphere 
 
49 
 
 which on the whole is a constant identity to be denominated 
 the spiritual Sun ; the process of emanation being a constant 
 process by virtue of being only a gradual process ; 
 and being a constant process in this sense alone and 
 in this manner alone. Might it please you to compare, for 
 rationality and coherence, this theory and your theory of in- 
 stant total dissipation and instant total renewal ? For these 
 two theories, as you see, are utterly opposed. Remember 
 that Swedenborg says that the emanation from God is like 
 the emanation from a mineral. Consider, then, what this 
 process of emanation must be with a mineral ; consider 
 whether a mineral's whole sphere is each instant renewed, or 
 whether only a part of it is is each instant renewed ; and 
 then think the same as by Swedenborg you must about 
 God's sphere called the spiritual Sun, which Sun is the prime 
 substance out of which all substances have been composed. 
 Let me add something further ; since in addressing my- 
 self to your own form of mind, I perhaps or probably may 
 address a class. 
 
 CONTIGUITY AND REACTION. 
 
 You think that the manner in which the various things of 
 the universe are receptive of God is this, viz., that God's sub- 
 stance spreads out or reaches out into them ; and you think 
 (as the lately-written little tract on Matter, published by the 
 New Church Board of Publication, clearly holds) that the in- 
 most essence of each particle of matter is still He. I, on the 
 other hand, hold that from and after the creation of dead 
 Substance (long, long ago effected, being the creation of the 
 sphere called the spiritual Sun), there is nothing of God's 
 substance in any created substance, but that the inmost of 
 each created substance was, once for all, set utterly off from 
 Him, and was thenceforth, to its very bottom, other than He. 
 You hold that an inmost essence which constitutes its very 
 
50 
 
 reality is steadily communicated to every created substance, 
 living or dead. I hold that the inmost essence of every par- 
 ticle of all created substance, whether of dead created things 
 or of living created things, was indeed once God, but at the 
 creation of that Sun did once-for-all pass out of Him, and 
 thus lost its life or living character, yet could not but pre- 
 serve its reality; which reality did thenceforth need no 
 Divine assistance or other interference for the preservation 
 of its reality. In like manner in respect to any living thing, 
 you hold that the way in which it receives God is by a spread- 
 ing or continuation of His substance into it of course, into 
 its inmost. I hold that a living thing receives not a whit of 
 God's substance ; just as a dead thing receives not a whit of 
 His substance ; but that each living thing receives only a 
 stream of impulse, literally impulse, and only impulse ; and 
 that this impulse is communicated to the spiritual substances 
 in that living thing, by transmission through spiritual sub- 
 stances lying outside of that living thing ; which substances 
 are called spiritual atmospheres; the reactive power and 
 consequent reaction of each of whose atmospheric particles 
 enables those atmospheres to transmit the impulsive energy 
 instead of absorbing it ; just as the reaction of aerial parti- 
 cles constitutes their capacity of transmitting that steady repe- 
 tition of thrusts which is called Sound, or as the reaction of 
 ethereal particles constitutes their capacity of transmitting 
 the steady repetition of thrusts which is called Light (Apoc. 
 Exp., nn. 1121, 1122, continuations). In a vacuum this trans- 
 mission, says Swedenborg, could not take place (see Div. 
 Love and Wis., n. 82); for the transmission of energy 
 through media is by virtue of the reaction of each particle of 
 that substance of which the medium consists, each particle 
 being separate from all other particles, and receiving by it- 
 self the impulse sunt substantiae discretee, SINGILLATIM re- 
 cipiunt solem, says he (Div. Love and Wis., n. 174). It is 
 evident that just as in a vacuum there can be no transmis- 
 sion of thrust or energy, so in a medium, there can be no 
 
51 
 
 transmission except there be " contiguity " between the par- 
 ticles of the medium ; for if there is not such contiguity, 
 there will be as many little vacuums as there are particles in 
 the line of transmission ; and any little vacuum will be as 
 fatal to transmission as one big or universal vacuum would 
 be. The " contiguity " of particle to particle need not, how- 
 ever, be constantly maintained ; it will be sufficient if a 
 " contiguity " between a particle and its neighbor be brought 
 about at each instant of thrust ; and such a " contiguity v is 
 effected by means of the " swing " (as it is called) which each 
 particle undergoes under the impulse of the thrust ; this 
 " swing " causes a particle to strike against the particle 
 which is in front of it, and thus to become for an instant 
 " contiguous " to that particle in front ; and the instant that 
 this " contiguity " is effected, the force of the thrust is trans- 
 mitted from the first particle to the second particle ; thus it 
 comes about that all transmission of action or force is owing 
 to reaction in the particles (Div. Love and Wis., n. 68) and 
 to " contiguity " between the particles (Div. Love and Wis., 
 n. 56). Now the first source of all life-energy or mot us vitce, 
 is the Heart and Lungs of the Divine Man ; and the very be- 
 ginning of transmission of life-energy from Him. is to be 
 found at the internal concave surface of the sphere of those 
 substances which have emanated from Him and still 
 hem Him about (ilium circumstipant, Div. Love and Wis., 
 n. 291) ; and the life-beat from His Heart and Lungs is 
 able to be communicated from Him to the substances of 
 that surrounding sphere, by virtue of this, viz., that those 
 substances are " contiguous " to His Body (contiguae cor- 
 poris ejus, Div. Love and Wis., n. 291), and, because con- 
 tiguous, are able to be kept in motion by the motion 
 of His Heart and Lungs (continue actuatce per binosjontes 
 motus vitce, Div. Love and Wis., n. 291) ; and this sphere 
 of substance nearest or adjoining to Him being in 
 throbbing motion, keeps a-throbbing the atmospheres 
 which, being situate outside of it, are " contiguous " to it 
 
52 
 
 (atmospheras insuas activitates excitent, Div. Love and Wis., 
 n. 291) ; and this communication of throbbing (communi- 
 cated always by means of " contiguity " of one particle to 
 another, whereby the impetus given to one particle is com- 
 municated to the next particle, the substance of one particle 
 never spreading or continuing itself into the next particle 
 nonper continuum sed per contiguum, Div. Love and Wis., 
 n. 56 but only its motion being spread to the next or con- 
 tiguous particle), this spread of the throbbing, I say, is 
 solely by virtue of " contiguity " of the substances through 
 which the throb is passing ; thus it is that Swedenborg 
 (Div. Love and Wis., n. 56) in referring to this very subject, 
 viz., the reception of Life by every living thing, says, that 
 these living things are alive not by virtue of God's spreading 
 into them, but by virtue of " contiguity " as between them 
 and God ; that it is non per continuum sed per contiguum 
 Div. Love and Wis., n. 56 that they get to receive God ; and 
 that by means of " contiguity " alone, and not at all by means 
 of some imagined passing-into-them of His Substance, is their 
 conj unction with Him ; and that all this is able to take place be- 
 cause all things which have been created are (from creation) 
 such in the arrangement or " lay " of their respective sub- 
 stances that, in nearer or further degree, they " fit " to Him 
 (est enim conveniens, Div. Love and Wis., n. 56/ concordent 
 quia desumpta ex formis corporis illorum, Div. Love and 
 Wis., n. 294 ; conveniat vitce ejus, Div. Love and Wis. , n. 
 55 ; moreover consider, yet for the material body, the words 
 "quceprorsus concordant * * * et apte conjungi pos- 
 sent, Apoc. Exp., n. 1207, continuatio). 
 
 A SPIKITUAL ABOMINATION. 
 
 Your thought of God's still living substance as spreading 
 or "continuing" itself forth so as to be, and to presently con- 
 stitute, the inmost of any created substance, instead of there 
 
53 
 
 being merely an Agitation (inotus vitce, Div. Love and Wis., 
 n. 291) spreading itself forth by the sole means of contiguity 
 (Div. Love and Wis., n. 56, n. 291) between reactive sub- 
 stances (Div. Love and Wis., n. 58, n. 68) is horrible to Sweden- 
 borg ; and he says (Div. Love and Wis., n. 55), in connection 
 with this question of how living things receive God, that if 
 there were anything of God continued into a created thing, 
 that thing would be God Himself ; and that the things which 
 have been created by God do no more have God continued or 
 spread into them than a man's self is continued or spread 
 into that sphere which surrounds a man and belongs to a 
 man. That this is the meaning of that passage, you will see 
 on comparing closely the words " like that in man which has 
 been derived out of his life, but from which his life has been 
 withdrawn, and is such in its nature that it fits in with his 
 life yet still is not his life " (Div. Love and Wis., n. 55) with 
 the words of the corresponding passage at n. 294 of the 
 same work, where, in speaking of the substances of the 
 spiritual Sun, he says, "They are not life in itself, but have 
 been stripped of all life in itself, just as those things which 
 flow forth from an angel or from a man and make the spheres 
 that surround either, are not the angel and are not the 
 man, but are from the angel and from the man, stripped of 
 the man's life, stripped of the angel's life ; and are things 
 which do in no other sense make one with the angel 
 or with the man, than in the sense that they are in 
 accord with the angel or with the man, forasmuch as 
 they have been taken from the forms of the body of the 
 angel or of the man, which forms were forms of life whilst 
 they were in the angel or in the man, but now are in the 
 angel or man no longer." Kegard well this passage, for in 
 it you can read how much of God's substance is now present 
 in any created substance ; that is to say, you can read, and 
 must read, that not one atom of His substance is present in 
 any atom of created substance. So much for substance. 
 
54 
 
 LIFE is PROPELLED BY CONTIGUITY AND REACTION. 
 
 Next, as to the life of certain forms of substance, viz., forms 
 vegetable, animal, human, angelic, diabolic. If you will bear 
 in mind the natural truths relating to the manner of the 
 propulsion of the light waves, and remember how this pro- 
 pulsion is maintained by virtue of " contiguity " and "reac- 
 tion " in the ethereal particles, and how an image in the 
 looking-glass, for instance, is steadily maintained by virtue 
 of such " contiguity " and " reaction " ; that is, firstly, by 
 virtue of " contiguity " and " reaction " between a man's real 
 face and the particles of ether contiguous to his skin, by 
 virtue of which " contiguity " and " reaction " the quiverings 
 or motus of the surface of his skin which "motus" in 
 its various kinds is what we call " color " are communicated 
 to the ether again ; and, next in order, by virtue of the 
 " contiguity " and " reaction " between each successively 
 agitated particle of ether in the line of propulsion of the 
 wave; and, thirdly, by virtue of the "contiguity" and "re- 
 action " between the thus agitated particles of ether and the 
 smooth surface of the quicksilver at the back of the glass 
 plate if you will bear in mind, I say, this transmitted 
 motus as being transmitted throughout by virtue of " the 
 contiguous " and not a whit by virtue of " the continuous " 
 (Div. Love and Wis., n. 56), you will see how it is and 
 why it is that Swedenborg says (Div. Love and Wis., n. 56) 
 that the conjunction of God with a living thing is such 
 that it is like the conjunction maintained between a 
 real man and his image in a glass ; and you will see why 
 it is that Swedenborg says that there is nothing of God 
 in any created thing; just as (says he) there is nothing 
 of a man in his image in a looking-glass, although the 
 man is visible there in the looking-glass (Div. Love and 
 Wis., n. 58). I think you will, in spite of your preconceived 
 opinions, confess that no substance comes forth from a man's 
 face or enters the looking-glass ; I think you will admit that 
 
55 
 
 the color and shape of his face (i.e., the rate of the " motus " 
 or vibration, and the outline of the vibrating surface), is 
 merely imitated in the form of motion of the substance of 
 the quicksilver. That is, you will admit that only the form of 
 his vibrating surface, and not the substance of his vibrating 
 surface is transmitted to the surface of the quicksilver in 
 other words, that the quicksilver's surface merely vibrates with 
 the same rate of motion with the motus existing on the sur- 
 face of the man's real skin, and merely possesses a similar 
 outline of vibrating surface. Just that same is the truth, as 
 between God's life or spiritual " motus " on the one hand, 
 and the life or spiritual '" motus " of created living things, on 
 the other hand. If God withdrew Himself an instant, all 
 the life or " motus " would instantly vanish from man, just 
 as a man's face will vanish instantly from a glass if the man 
 withdraw himself, but the quicksilver itself will by no means 
 be annihilated or even be a whit diminished ; so neither 
 would any created substance be annihilated or diminished 
 did God withdraw Himself. Nay, did He not at their very 
 creation wholly withdraw His life from all created sub- 
 stance (sunt orbata mta in se, Div. Love and Wis., n. 294) ? 
 For is He not Life itself (vita in se spectata, quce Deus, 
 Apoc. Exp., n. 1121 cont.) ? And since from those substances 
 all life withdrew (Div. Love and Wis., n. 294) must it not 
 be that no whit of God Himself, but only His picture as in a 
 looking-glass, is any longer in any of them (sicut imago 
 hominis in speculo, in quo quidem homo apparet, sed usque 
 in ilia nihil hominis est, Div. Love and Wis., n. 59) ? Yet, 
 albeit created substances have no whit of His living sub- 
 stance within them, they are real, though dead. Let us 
 stamp our feet upon the solid ground, and let us cease to 
 dream of phantasms. Let us do this, not because Sweden- 
 borg says that the truth is such, and says that such and such 
 things are phantastical ; but because the facts are such as 
 they are. As for example, let us see for ourselves that when 
 the respective sources of motion which maintain an image 
 
56 
 
 in the glass are removed or destroyed, removed or destroyed 
 must on the instant be that reproduced image ; for that im- 
 age is but a secondary, repeated or imitative agitation. Even 
 so with the life of angels, devils, men, animals and vege- 
 tables. You, on the contrary, hold that all substance con- 
 stantly flows out from God, and that it is constantly and 
 ever a-fresh received by, and steadily constitutes, the inmost 
 essence of each particle of created substance. How can this 
 be, if, as Swedenborg says, the reception of God by created 
 things, is only by mere " contiguity," and not at all by an 
 imagined extending of Himself into them (non per 
 continuum, Div. Love and Wis., n. 56, n. 55) ? How can 
 this be, if, as Swedenborg says, there is no more of God in 
 any of the contents of the Universe than there is of a man in 
 his mere picture in a mirror (Div. Love and Wis., n. 59) ? 
 Unless, as perhaps you think, all spiritual and material sub- 
 stance is unreal, like as a mere image in a glass is unreal. 
 But, even though that image is unreal, can an unreal image 
 exist, without there being some real, not ideal, quicksilver 
 there 1 And this quicksilver is not only real, but what is 
 fatal to your theory is a thing quite other than the Man 
 whose image is reproduced upon its surface. 
 
 SPHERES RADIATE MOTION, NOT SUBSTANCE. 
 
 You think that the whole sum total of the sphere called 
 the spiritual Sun does each instant, in its sum total, go forth 
 from God, instead of thinking that what goes forth from 
 that sphere each instant is a mere beat or thrust upon sub- 
 stances which had gone forth already long before ; and you 
 think that it is by an exudation of substance itself, instead of 
 an out-going of a wave of mere motion propagated through 
 already created substances, that Affection and Thought are 
 propagated from God to man. 
 
 Read I beg you, D. L. W., n. 42, where you will read 
 
57 
 
 that there is absolutely no going forth of any substance of 
 affection and thought (nihil a se emittunt\ but that Affec- 
 tion and Thought all take place within the being who has 
 them, being mere shif tings of arrangement (sunt modo inuta- 
 tiones) effected in certain substances, which substances are 
 there in him and do not go out of him in the least (non sunt 
 entia * * * fluentia) ; consequently neither do their 
 shif tings or changes go on outside of him ; but that, neverthe- 
 less, these changes propagate their motion through the 
 sphere which has already gone out of him, and which 
 is already outside of him, and which encompasses him ; and 
 thence, through that surrounding sphere, these changes pro- 
 pagate motion into the more distant surrounding atmosphere, 
 and thus produce a perception which is as the presence of him 
 elsewhere far and near. Atmosphceras in suas activitates 
 excitent, et per id sistant perceptionem sicut proesentiam 
 illius apud alias, et sic quod NON sir ALIA SPELERA AFFECTIONTJM 
 ET COGITATIONUM qucz exit et continuatur; quia affectiones 
 sunt meri status formarum mentis IN illo, Div. Love and 
 Wis., n. 291. It is not, says Swedenborg, that a sphere of 
 affection and thought goes forth out of him ; but it is that a 
 sphere of mere agitation of atmospheres goes forth, and that 
 the source of the agitation is in his very substance ; and his 
 substance does not go forth to constitute his presence with 
 others. No otherwise than thus, save as in due difference 
 between the Infinite and the finite, is God's presence with 
 created things. Review the natural facts and you will see 
 the spiritual facts. Is it not plain that the reproduction of 
 the image on the sensorium (by means of activities of an 
 atmosphere, as in the case of an image in the looking-glass) 
 is what produces the presence of any spirit with others ; and 
 that this same thing, in an infinite manner, is what produces 
 the universal presence of the Lord with all things that live, 
 i. e., with all things that absorb or repeat in themselves the 
 agitation proceeding from Him ? Is it not by means of 
 similar agitation through the spiritual atmosphere, that from 
 
58 
 
 an angel (i. e. , from his own, though derived and unoriginal 
 activity) are produced all changes in the form or arrange- 
 ment of spiritual substance round about him ; so that he 
 makes and varies constantly thereby his own surroundings ? 
 Not that his surroundings are unsubstantial or imaginary, 
 but that they are forms of most real substance. Not that he 
 makes any substance there, but that by his constantly-pro- 
 duced agitations of the intervening atmospheres, he shapes 
 the substance there already made. Just as a man's face, by 
 ethereal vibrations, constantly shakes the quicksilver surface, 
 and thus makes his image in a looking-glass, which image 
 changes just according to the changes in his countenance. 
 See Div. Love and Wis, nn. 322, 63 ; True Chr. Eel., n. 
 78. 
 
 ACTION AND EEACTION. 
 
 The capability which the particles of any medium have of 
 transmitting a " motus " or force depends, as I have said, on 
 two elements, one of which is the " contiguity " of the me- 
 dium's particles, the other of which is the " reaction" in 
 each particle (Div. Love and Wis., n. 58, n. 68). This reac- 
 tion, or action back, will, in all media (consequently in the 
 substances of the spiritual sun and of the spiritual atmos- 
 pheres), consist of two elements combined ; one of which ele- 
 ments is that it acts at all, and the other of which is that it 
 is backward that it acts. That part which consists in its 
 acting at all, is owing wholly to that which acts upon it 
 (Div. Love and Wis., n. 68). The other part (which consists 
 in its acting backward, or in a direction opposite to the 
 action which impels it) is owing to its resistance ; and this re- 
 sistance is due to something in that thing's self, namely, is 
 due to something in the particle that has thus been moved 
 by the action of a particle foreign to itself ; and that some- 
 thing in it is a certain vis inertice, owing to its being in itself 
 inert ; and it is able to be inert only by virtue of this, viz., 
 
59 
 
 that it is really something in itself : for, if it were not some- 
 thing in itself, it could not have an vis inertice to oppose to 
 the vis which acts upon it. Nor can something which is not 
 really anything in itself be said to " receive " (Div. Love and 
 Wis., n. 68), or to "be acted upon" (Div. Love and Wis., n. 
 68), or to be " a reagent," or " continent," or " containant " 
 (Div. Love and Wis., 58) of that which is received by it. 
 In order to " receive," a thing must be a reality, and be some 
 other reality than that which it receives. Still more clearly 
 must it be a reality if it is to " react " against something 
 which " acts " upon it : there is no sane person who cannot 
 see that all this is necessary. This reality in the particle is 
 a reality which it has solely by virtue of its having been 
 originally God's substance, and of its therefore being real 
 substance. In God it was real substance while it was still a 
 portion of Him ; and when it was cast out of Him (substantia 
 quce ex Ipso exivit, True Chr. Eel., n. 33), it did not lose re- 
 ality, although it did lose life. 
 
 That the reality in this cast-off substance is now other 
 than God can also be seen from this, viz., that in 
 the wave motion of the spiritual Sun and spiritual atmos- 
 pheres, it (that is to say, this inmost reality in each 
 of these particles) re-acts against the Divine motus or 
 effort ; yet re-act it could not, if it also were in any man- 
 ner God, for thus God would be acting contrary to Himself; 
 moreover the very inmost of such a particle is what you 
 think is still God; yet this inmost is its essence and is what 
 thus re-acts ; thus an inmost which is God would be reacting 
 against God's self. I have said that any particle's inmost 
 is its essence, yet by essence must not be understood any 
 living essence; by essentia Swedenborg usually means life, 
 i. e., he means living being, or the essence of living being. 
 
60 
 
 SOUND AND LIGHT ABE MOTIONS, NOT SUBSTANCES. 
 
 I am well aware that both you and the school to which 
 you belong will not accept the interpretation I have put on 
 Swedenborg's language with regard to life being, like sight 
 and sound, mere communicated agitation and not communi- 
 cated substance ; nor on his language as to the distinction be- 
 tween continuity and contiguity ; nor, indeed, on any of his 
 language. I am therefore compelled to enforce my interpre- 
 tation by Swedenborg's own words, and to seethe, as it were, 
 your kid in its mother's milk. Listen, I pray you, to these 
 words from his Principia, Part I., Chapter I. They ought 
 to suffice to convince you as to his theory of the nature of 
 Sound and Light, to whose mode of entry into the ear and 
 eye he compares the entry of all given Life. You will see 
 that, with him, the entry is the entry of a motion, and not 
 of a substance. 
 
 " It is known that the undulating air flows into the 
 " ear, and occasions in its tympanum a motion imitative 
 " of itself, that it afterwards continues the same motion 
 " throughout its malleus, incus, cochlea, and various 
 *' channels and instruments of sound, towards the in- 
 " terior parts ; so that the undulation of the air seems 
 " to have formed a mechanism of its own, with a view 
 '" to be received and transmitted farther towards mem- 
 " branes of the same kind lying within, for the recep- 
 " tion of sensation. What a wonderful mechanism is 
 " apparent in the eye, where there are so many coats, 
 " so many humors and fibrils, so many nerves leading 
 "" from them towards the interior parts by means of 
 " which whatever is received from the ether in the eye, 
 " insinuates and propagates itself from thence towards 
 " the coats of the same kind in the meninges, and thus 
 " more and more deeply ; so that the ether seems to 
 
61 
 
 " have formed in the eye a mechanism of its own, by 
 " which its undulations can be received, and be farther 
 " transferred towards the interior parts, till sensation is 
 " experienced. These contrivances and minute ma- 
 " chines, most exactly formed, according to the laws of 
 " mechanics, for the reception of the modifications of 
 " the air and ether, it is in our power to view, examine, 
 " and scrutinize in all their parts, and to see how their 
 " membranes and coats are prolongated, as it were, 
 " from the interior recesses of the head into the light 
 " of day, in order that the elements may be able to 
 " operate immediately upon them, and more speedily 
 " convey the impressed motions from thence towards 
 " the interiors; an operation which is effected gradually, 
 " by first affecting the coats of the same kind, and then 
 " such as are smaller and possessed of more acute sen- 
 " sibility." 
 
 WHAT SWEDENBORG MEANS BY "CONTIGUITY" AND BY "CON- 
 NEXION." 
 
 I ask also your attention to the following observations of 
 his on contiguity, and on the perpetual nexus from first prin- 
 ciples to ultimates a nexus whose perpetualness you think 
 is due to efforts perpetually repeated from moment to mo- 
 ment, but which you will see means, with Swedenborg, a 
 nexus which is once for all effected, and is never repeated, 
 save that in each successive link of the chain it is repeated, 
 and in this sense, and this sense only, is "perpetual." With 
 respect to substance and its formation, as distinguished from 
 motion of substances and the formation and continuance of 
 that motion, he says (I italicise here and there): 
 
 " The mechanism of the world consists in contiguity 
 " without which, neither the world nor its mechanism 
 
62 
 
 " could exist. Unless one particle were to operate both 
 " upon another and by means of another, or the whole 
 " mass were to operate by all its particles respectively, 
 41 and at the same time at a distance, nothing element- 
 " ary, capable of affecting or striking the least organ of 
 " sense, could exist. Contiguity is necessary to the 
 " production of every operation. Without perpetual 
 " connexion between the end and the means, 
 " the existence of elementary nature, and of the 
 " vegetable and animal natures thence originat- 
 " ing, would be impossible. The connexion between 
 " ends and means forms the very life and essence of 
 " nature. For nothing can originate from itself ; it 
 " must originate from some other thing ; hence there 
 " must be a certain contiguity and connexion in the ex- 
 " istence of natural things ; that is, all things, in regard 
 ' " to their existence, must follow each other in succes- 
 " sive order. Thus all things in the world owe their 
 " existence to their mutual dependence on each other, 
 " there being a connexion, by mediums, from ultimate 
 " to ultimate, whence all things have respect to their 
 " first source from which they derive their existence. 
 " For if all things had not respect to their first source, 
 " but only to some intermediate link, this intermediate 
 " would be their ultimate ; but an intermediate cannot 
 " exist but from something prior to itself, and whatever 
 " exists from something prior to itself cannot be the 
 " ultimate, but only an intermediate ; or else if it were 
 " the ultimate, the world would stop short at this ulti- 
 " mate and perish, because it would have no connexion 
 " with its proper ultimate by something antecedent. 
 " These remarks have reference to the subject of exist- 
 " ence." 
 
63 
 
 With respect to motions in substances, or to modifications 
 of substances, or to whatever may befall a substance, as dis- 
 tinguished from a substance itself ; thus with respect to the 
 maintenance of the/arms of organized substance, i. e. y to the 
 maintenance of life in the vegetable and animal kingdoms ; 
 and with respect to the nexus of causation of their life from 
 first principles to ultimates, and with regard to that causa- 
 tion as effected by contiguity and not by continuity, and 
 with respect to their destruction if cut off from the first 
 cause of life a destruction which you take to mean an an- 
 nihilation of substance itself, whether an animal, vegetable 
 or mineral he speaks as follows (I again italicise) : 
 
 " With respect to the subject of contingencies, or 
 " modes and modifications, which exist both from ulti- 
 " mate and simple and from intermediate substances, 
 " neither can these be otherwise than continuous and 
 " mutually connected, depending successively on each 
 " other from one end to the other. Thus must all 
 " things, both such as are essential and such as are con- 
 " tingent, necessarily have a connexion with their first 
 " substantial principle; for they proceed solely from 
 " simple or compound substances ; and as these sub- 
 41 stances depend, for their existence, mutually upon 
 " each other, it follows that the modifications related to 
 " those substances must be dependent on the same con- 
 " nexion. We see then that there is contiguity in all 
 " things, and that nature produces them by means of 
 " the connexion, extending from one end to the other, 
 " both of substances and causes. Whatever is first 
 " produced by such connexion, must continue to sub- 
 " sist by the same means. We see in vegetables that 
 " there is a connexion between the root and the ex- 
 " tremities, and every part of the extremities ; that 
 41 there is a connexion between the intermediate stem 
 
64 
 
 " and the little twigs and leaves, by infinite filaments 
 " stretching from one shoot, branch and stalk, into an- 
 " other, and thus affording secret passages for the con- 
 tf tinual reception of aliment. It is in such a contiguity 
 " that vegetation itself consists : and the life of the 
 " vegetable afterwards continues in the same contiguity 
 " and connexion ; the part where it ceases no longer 
 " grows, but withers and dies, and drops useless from 
 " its stem. The case is the same in animals ; parts 
 " cover over parts, and grow by contiguity. Both the 
 " nervous and membraneous system is coherent and 
 " contiguous. There is no part in the whole animal to 
 " which the fibres, muscles, veins and arteries do not 
 " extend ; no fibre, which is not derived and ramified 
 " from some larger nerve ; no nerve, which does not 
 " proceed from the medulla spinalis or oblongata and 
 " its teguments; and no channel, but what originates from 
 " that great one which flows immediately from the 
 " heart. The medulla and its teguments, with which 
 " the nerves are connected, are in contiguity with the 
 " membranes of the whole brain ; its grosser coats are 
 " contiguous to its more sub tile ones ; the dura mater to 
 " the pia mater ; the pia mater to the more subtile 
 " parts ; and thus the contiguity is continued till it 
 " arrives at those simple, active substances, from which 
 " all motions or affections can afterwards reflect and 
 " expand themselves to the most subtile principles of 
 " all. Hence it is manifest that there is a continual con- 
 " nexion of the whole body with its minutest parts. If 
 " the connexion with any part were broken, that part 
 " would no longer partake of the life of the rest of the 
 " body, but would die, having lost its contiguity. If a 
 " connecting part, mediating between the grosser and 
 " more subtile motions or affections of the body were 
 
65 
 
 " to be broken, a resemblance of death would be super- 
 " induced upon the part. Hence also the poets have 
 " compared the life and fates of man to a continuous 
 " thread woven by the Parcse, and feigned that if this 
 " thread were anywhere severed, his life would also be 
 " cut off and all the series of his destinies." 
 
 Whether my statement is truthful of what Swedenborg 
 means by " contiguity " when he says that creatures receive 
 God not by any continuity of His substance into them, but 
 solely by contiguity (Div. Love and Wis., no. 56), you may 
 judge perhaps from what he further says as follows : 
 
 " But to return to our elementary world. If we ad- 
 " mit a contiguity, we immediately have a cause for 
 " every contingent occurrence ; but if there be no con- 
 " tiguity, no contingent circumstance can occur in the 
 " world, because there is no cause for its occurring 
 " either in one manner or another. The cause and 
 " reason of all effects and phenomena is to be found in 
 " contiguity and connexion. If this contiguum of na- 
 " ture were to begin to be diminished and rarefied, the 
 " world, as to the phenomena existing in it, and every 
 " part, would pant, as it were, for breath and be reduced 
 " to its last extremity. Thus all things depend on 
 " something contiguous to them ; as the body depends 
 " on light, hearing on the air, sight on the ether. The 
 " equilibration of all things in the elements depends 
 " also on contiguity. The air itself could not undergo 
 " and communicate pressure, according to its altitude, 
 " nor could it force up the mercury in the barometer to 
 " indicate the approaching weather^ unless its particles 
 " were contiguous to and incumbent upon each other, 
 " and unless the pressure and weight of its lowest par- 
 " tides, or those nearest the earth, were balanced with 
 
66 
 
 " those which are above the clouds : neither could any 
 " particle of air expand itself, nor could so exact a pro- 
 " portion exist between the degree of its expansion and 
 " the superincumbent weight, without the contiguity, 
 " continuous action, and consequently equal pressure, of 
 41 the circumfluent particles. Neither without contiguity 
 " could the air undulate so distinctly and harmoniously, 
 *' or actuate the drum of the ear in a manner conforma- 
 "" ble to itself, and operate as it does in every direction. 
 *' Without the existence of other more subtile elements 
 " the particles of which are contiguous to each other, 
 " from the sun to our globe, by means of which a con- 
 " tiguity is effected between the sun and the eye, it 
 " would be impossible for the eye to behold the sun ; 
 " there would be no light, and no sight or perception 
 " of light ; but as the eye enjoys the sight and sensation 
 " of objects which are nevertheless at a distance, it is a 
 " sign that there is some kind of contiguity between 
 " itself and these objects, such as the sun, the stars, 
 " and the planets. In short, no reason can be assigned 
 " for any phenomenon, unless we admit the existence 
 " of continuity of connexion ; for no phenomenon can 
 " can exist except in something contiguous. * * * 
 
 " Unless a motion is able to penetrate successively, 
 " by means of contiguity, from grosser principles to- 
 " wards such as are more subtile, it either stops in 
 " grosser or mediate principles, or passes into a state 
 " of obscurity. In proportion, therefore, as a man's 
 " store of experience or experiments is greater, and its 
 " disposition and distribution through the organs is 
 " more perfect ; in proportion, also, as the harmony of 
 " his mediate organs is more exact, and their figure 
 " better adapted to the conveyance of every kind of 
 " tremors or vibrations ; and in proportion as the pas- 
 
67 
 
 " sage is more deeply opened, in series and contiguity, 
 " to the most subtile principles of all ; so much the 
 " wiser may the man become. * * * For we see 
 " that all things are acted upon and put in motion ac- 
 " cording to rules ; they all flow from the motion and 
 " situation of corpuscles of different figures in mutual 
 " contact. * * * 
 
 " In such a man we may conceive to have existed 
 " such a complete contiguity throughout the parts of 
 " his system, that every motion proceeding with a free 
 " course from his grosser parts or principles, could ar- 
 " rive through an uninterrupted connexion, at his most 
 " subtile substance or active principle, there being 
 " nothing in the way which could cause the least ob- 
 " struction. Such a man may be compared to the world 
 " itself, in which all things are contiguous from the sun 
 " to the bottom of our atmosphere ; thus the solar rays 
 " proceed with an uninterrupted course, and almost in- 
 " stantaneously, by means of the contiguity of the more 
 " subtile or grosser elements through which they pass, 
 " through the ether into the air, till they arrive at the 
 " eye and operate upon it, by virtue of such connexion, 
 " as if they were present ; FOR CONTIGUITY OCCASIONS THE 
 " APPEARANCE OF PRESENCE. " * * * Thus whatever 
 " presented itself to the eye would immediately flow, 
 " through the little membranes put in motion by its 
 " undulations, to those successively more subtile, till it 
 " arrived at the most subtile principle. The case would 
 " be the same with motions occurring in the ear, smell, 
 " and taste ; which phenomena would also be most 
 " easily transmitted to the most subtile principle, 
 " through the medium of the sight, and the harmony ol 
 " the several senses." 
 
68 
 
 CAUSES or THE WAR BETWEEN SWEDENBOBG AND His FOLLOWERS. 
 
 The whole subject of God and His "Universe, of the 
 conjunction between them, and of the relations between them, 
 is very clearly laid down by Swedenborg, yet in such terms 
 that it can be seen only by one who thinks with scientific 
 thought and not with literary thought. The reason why it 
 can seem clear only to one who thinks with scientific thought 
 is, that only such a man possesses in his mind the ideas or 
 mental pictures into which those truths can be put, or, so to 
 speak, the vessels into which those truths can be poured. 
 For the ideas of scientific thought are ideas relating to facts / 
 i. e., are ideas relating to things which have actually been 
 done, and done by the Divine ; and hence they are fit vessels 
 for spiritual truth. But the ideas of literary thought are 
 ideas relating chiefly to man's diseased economy and to 
 man's illogical and incoherent performances, and hence the 
 ideas which are based on those studies that are called the 
 " humanities " are unfit to receive divine truths, but must 
 either kill them or turn them upside down. This is why 
 Swedenborg' s preparation for his mission which consisted 
 first of all in understanding divine truths himself had to be 
 obtained, not through literary studies, but through scientific 
 studies. The same is the reason why it is taught (John HE. 
 12), that it is only by believing earthly things that heavenly 
 things can be believed. The meaning there is, not that 
 there must be some prior practice in becoming credulous, 
 before heavenly things can be believed ; but the meaning is 
 that true belief is perception itself, and the perception of 
 heavenly truths cannot be had except by and through a per- 
 ception of the corresponding truths of Nature ; it is for that 
 same reason that the Lord spoke always in parables or com- 
 parisons. The invisible is only to be apprehended by ap- 
 proaching the form and formation of the visible. But the 
 manner in which Swedenborg has been treated by the large 
 majority of his followers is far otherwise. In order to un- 
 
69 
 
 derstand the philosophical part of the New Church doctrines, 
 there is necessary a scientific training, and yet more, a habit- 
 ually scientific cast of thought and of thinking ; which cast 
 consists in thinking with, or by help of, mental pictures of 
 actual facts and actual processes familiar to experience. In 
 order to understand that portion of the New Church doc- 
 trines which is practical and is far the more important por- 
 tion, this training is not necessary. But even for that more 
 important portion are necessary two qualifications whose 
 combination is most rare with educated people, viz., first, that 
 God be thought of in human figure, because only thus is He 
 approachable and loveable ; and, second, that repentance be 
 practiced steadily from the heart. Both the philosophical 
 and religious elements of the New Church doctrine meet 
 thus far with intense difficulty of reception by Swedenborg's 
 devoted readers ; the philosophical element of its doctrine 
 meets with intense difficulty of reception by them, because 
 almost none of his readers are of a scientific cast of thought, 
 or think habitually by means of ideas of natural facts ; and 
 the religious element of its doctrine meets with intense dif- 
 ficulty of reception by his readers, because the better edu- 
 cated among them, as among other Christians, are opposed 
 to the thought of God as being of man-figure ; as may be 
 clearly seen on examining the contents of Swedenborgian 
 periodicals ; although the literal Man-figure of God distinctly 
 outlined is the central doctrine of Swedenborg. Conse- 
 quently the doctrines of the New Church are largely con- 
 verted into pantheistic doctrines by Swedenborg's readers 
 and by his so-called disciples. In the Christian heart, if 
 Swedenborg is to be credited and the literature of his fol- 
 lowers is excellent proof and illustration of his accuracy in this 
 assertion there is an inward bitterness towards any thought 
 of God in human shape, although it is this thought only 
 that marks Him off from Nature. Christians, if educated 
 persons, hate to think thus of Him. They hate to think 
 thus of Him, because they think of Him from space, and not 
 
70 
 
 spiritually or from affection ; and they do this although they 
 might know that great love and vast truth are not spatially 
 measurable, and although they might know that Infinite love 
 and Infinite truth are still less spatially measurable. And 
 because they regard Him from space, and not from love as 
 toward a Man who is our Father, they think that He would 
 have to be as long and broad and big as the Universe, if He 
 were to have a human figure ; hence, they assign to Him 
 substance only, and deny Him a Shape of His substance ; al- 
 though they know, or might know, that substance without 
 shape is impossible; and although they know, or might 
 know, that shape is not unspiritual except when it is mere 
 dead shape, but that all shape is spiritual as far as it is living 
 and changeable according to the movements of living sub- 
 stance governing its shape ; and although they know, or 
 might know, that shape is so far spiritual that, unlike any 
 natural thing, it is quite independent of space, forasmuch as it 
 is all the same, whether presented in statuette size or in 
 heroic size (see Div. Love and Wis., n. 285 ; Apoc. Exp., 
 1116, continuation, at the end ; True Chr. Eel. , n. 64). 
 
 Nevertheless, the very " stones," i. e., those natural truths 
 that are merely sensuous, will and must " cry out " and de- 
 clare these verities, if the higher and more living principles 
 in the mind shall persist in holding their peace. Must cry 
 out, I say ; so strong is the downward pressure for expres- 
 sion from the world of truth above us. Might I beseech the 
 readers of Swedenborg to listen to the cry of these mere 
 stones'? For within a minute, as I think, through these 
 hard facts of Matter shall more New Church truth be heard 
 and understood by them than in all their lives before. Will 
 they but open their eyes, they shall see these divine truths 
 carved all over the universe truths which hitherto they 
 never have imagined. 
 
71 
 
 THE EVERLASTING THEEE. 
 
 To the Father, Son and Holy Spirit, which together make 
 up the Soul, the Body, and the Effective Power of Him who 
 rose from the dead with flesh and bone, and was touched by 
 Thomas, and is still and ever He who so rose and was 
 touched, there correspond in the world of Matter these 
 three, viz., the Stuff or Substance, the Lay the Logos or Ar- 
 rangement of the Stuff or Substance, and the Strength pro- 
 ceeding from the union of the Stuff and its existing Lay or 
 Arrangement. In other words, the world of Matter has 
 these three, Substance, Form and Force: these are its 
 three hypostases or fundamentals, and without each and 
 all of these three no matter can for an instant be. That the 
 Form is the Son or Offspring of Substance, through which 
 Offspring alone can Substance show or manifest itself, will 
 hardly be denied. As to the third fundamental, which is 
 Force or Strength, its procession from Substance and Form 
 is everywhere, I think, admitted by scientific men ; for from 
 this admission comes the axiom of physics that Force never 
 exists except as proceeding from Substance whilst Substance 
 is undergoing a change of Form. But this axiom is usually 
 made to relate to active Force only ; and before the corre- 
 sponding spiritual truth can be seen in and by this natural 
 axiom, it is necessary to take from out of an active sphere, and 
 put into a motionless sphere, the application of this axiom; for 
 in a motionless sphere alone can it be examined at leisure by 
 the rational eye. We shall be taking it into a motionless 
 sphere, if we consider well those conditions which are found 
 necessary for the exhibition of passive Force or Strength in- 
 stead of active Force or Strength. This we shall be doing 
 if we contemplate that which is called the " strength of ma- 
 terials," as, for instance, the strength of an arch. Examine 
 an arch. Its strength is measured by the weight it will 
 sustain without being crushed out of Form. But its 
 strength consists in the maintenance of a union between 
 
72 
 
 the Substance or Stuff in the arch, on the one hand, and the 
 Form (I mean that exact Form) of the arch, on the other 
 hand. As long as the Stuff stays in that precise Form, i. e. } 
 in the form of that very arch, so long will the greatest pos- 
 sible opposing force be unable to overcome its strength 
 or passive force. The strength of the arch proceeds 
 from the union of that exact Substance and that exact Form ; 
 and the overcoming or destruction of its strength will 
 consist in crushing, or otherwise crowding, the Stuff out oj 
 that Form or Shape. This formula as to the source or ori- 
 gin of Strength corresponds to the theological formula 
 whereby the Holy Ghost (which is the Strength or power Di- 
 vine) is represented as "proceeding " from the Father and 
 the Son. The comparison halts, indeed; because the 
 strength of materials is static, whereas the Divine Force, 
 which is the Holy Ghost, is dynamic ; of course, there is also 
 a further difference in that the one, even were it active, would 
 still be a dead force, while the other is a spiritual and living 
 force. 
 
 FORCE is NOT SUBSTANCE. 
 
 It is easy to present in visible and dynamic application 
 the same general truth that Force proceeds from Substance 
 and Form, and is what comes of the union of those two. 
 Let me give a simple illustration, the simpler the better ; 
 the principles that govern it govern also the working of 
 the subtlest forces of nature. Take a small rubber band ; 
 twist it so that it will remain for a moment twisted into a 
 a sort of coil or ball. Hold this coil or ball in the closed 
 fist and feel it there. You will presently feel something 
 else than a mere motionless coil ; you will feel a Force ; it is 
 the rubber uncoiling itself within your hand ; this feeling is 
 not the same sensation as the sensation of the motionless coil 
 of rubber ; this Force which now you feel, and which you 
 did not feel before the rubber began to uncoil, is a dynamic 
 
73 
 
 force, and it differs from what you felt before precisely as 
 any dynamic or active force differs from every static or pas- 
 sive force ; but it is Force all the same. It " proceeds/' if I 
 may keep the theological expression, from a change of Form 
 in the Stuff of the rubber band ; the form of the band was, 
 before, that of a coil ; now, it is more or less that of a loop. 
 Presently you will wholly cease to feel that Force ; this ces- 
 sation will take place when there is no longer any change of 
 Form going on in the rubber. But when you shall have 
 ceased to feel the Force, will any of the Substance have es- 
 caped meanwhile from within your hand 1 No ; the same 
 amount of substance is there now that was there before. 
 The Force is all gone ; the Substance, however, all remains. 
 If, when all the Force has gone away, all Substance remains 
 behind, it must be that Force is quite other than Substance. 
 Force is one hypostasis, Substance is quite another hypos- 
 tasis. But you will never find any Force except where Sub- 
 stance is, and you will never find it except with both Substance 
 and Form behind the Force ; passive or fixed Force you will 
 be finding if the Form is passive or fixed ; and active or 
 changing Force you will be finding if the Form is active, i. e. 9 
 if the Form is changing. These truths I have expressed 
 them in the baldest fashion can be put into innumerable 
 shapes, and be put to innumerable applications, and always 
 they will agree with each other and with the facts of science ; 
 and on them, as on a mother's bosom, the whole material 
 universe rests sweetly. 
 
 The pantheism that prevails, not in Swedenborg, indeed, 
 but in many of Swedenborg's supposed adherents, arises 
 in some cases, and in people of more or less literary turn of 
 mind, from a non-perception of the fundamental natural 
 truth that Force is quite other than Substance. Unlettered 
 persons, if thoughtful, understand this difference instinct- 
 ively, for they picture things to themselves when they think, 
 instead of picturing mere words ; and if any one picture 
 things instead of words, his thoughts take shape by the 
 
74 
 
 same laws by which real things are shaped, and thereby his 
 thoughts are true. If an active Force which is Divine is 
 said by Swedenborg to be acting upon a creature, Sweden- 
 borg's reader, if a pantheist, infers at once that Sweden- 
 borg means that God Himself is in that creature ; for the 
 pantheist has dissolved into a shiny fog the Trinity ; he 
 does not see that Substance and Force are not the same, and 
 does not see that in mere Force there is no Substance ; and 
 he does not reflect that in order for God Himself to be pre- 
 sent in any being, His Substance and His Form as well as 
 His Force must be present in that being. Moreover, the 
 pantheist is unable, because unwilling, to see a distinction 
 between (a) the Force which is within an object or being, 
 within God for example and which constitutes the third 
 of the three elements or hypostases necessary to His being 
 at all ; and (b) the Force which, though developed through 
 the force of activity within an Object or Being, takes effect 
 not within that Object or Being, but quite outside of Jlim, 
 and is not by any possibility to be found within Him, but 
 is found in fact active in only something else than that Ob- 
 ject or Being, viz., in other objects or beings as in vege- 
 tables, in animals, in man, for example. See and read at- 
 tentively the True Ghr. JReL, n. 46, n. 43. A rational man can 
 perceive that that Force in a man which proceeds from a 
 change of form in the substance of his muscles while he is 
 at work, is part of the man, and is he himself at least is he 
 as to his body ; and a rational man can perceive that that 
 Force which is exerted by him outside of him, upon things 
 which are not he but which he only fashions, is not really 
 he, and is wholly without him and is really other than he. 
 Yet many men who otherwise are rational cannot see this 
 truth in respect to God ; and the reason is, they do not 
 form an outline of God, but they merge him into the vague 
 unseen powers of natural substance or of spiritual sub- 
 stance. They will have a God unapproachable in thought ; 
 none other will they worship, albeit they readily worship 
 
75 
 
 Swedenborg. And though they worship Swedenborg, they 
 shut their eyes to his teaching in respect to this central 
 doctrine : they adore Indefinition : they will have no God 
 who has " Lasts " as well as " Firsts/' and they hate that of 
 God which is His Last and Lowest. Boundaries and Out- 
 mosts they abominate ; in God they abominate these as 
 they abominate them in all things intellectual ; they will 
 have no walls or ultimates, no five gates through those walls; 
 they make direct for the penetralia; they will have no ob- 
 servation by the five wits, no Scientific Fact, no Porter to open ; 
 no thought of God in Man Shape ; to the Father they wish 
 to climb by some other and transcendental way. 
 
 THE KEY. 
 
 At n. 391 of the Divine Love and Wisdom, and elsewhere, 
 Swedenborg makes clear the outline which distinguishes be- 
 tween the Divine and the non-Divine ; and the essence of the 
 clearness with which he puts it, lies in his exhibiting God 
 in the human shape which belongs to Him, and in thus 
 marking Him off from every whit of His creation. There, 
 at n. 291, and at no. 56, a child can clearly distinguish be- 
 tween (a) the Divine Force which is within the Divine Man 
 (and which, with the Substance in Him, and the Lay, Lo- 
 gos or Arrangement of that Substance in Him, constitutes 
 the Trinity or Three-ness in Him), and (b) the Force which 
 is not within the Divine man, but is an activity around and 
 outside o/Him and merely is derived from the activity which 
 is within Him. The activity which is outside of Hun is not 
 an essentially Divine Activity ; because, in order for it to 
 be essentially Divine it must be not only an activity, but an 
 activity going on in Divine essential Substance : it must 
 have with it not only the Force Divine, but also Substance 
 Divine and Form Divine. But the substances in which this 
 Force outside of the Divine Man exists, or in which it goes 
 
76 
 
 on, are not Divine Substance (for Divine Substance is only 
 within the Divine Man), but are undivine substances, finite 
 substances, created substances ; and the active Force exist- 
 ing in them is of kind such as they, and is developed by their 
 reaction against the Divine active impulse or motus vitae; 
 nevertheless this active force in them is steadily dependent 
 solely upon the steadily-thrusting and essentially Divine Force 
 existing within the Divine Man. The active force in them which 
 is thus dependent is not a natural force, or a force such as that 
 which we find in natural substances. It is a spiritual force 
 and is communicable to spiritual substances alone. In nat- 
 ural substances, these having been fashioned from spiritual 
 substances, and being fixed and permanent as to state, the 
 forces are fixed, like the substances, and are unalterable. As 
 to the spiritual Force which exists outside of the Divine 
 Man, this is Divine in the sense, and only in the sense, that 
 to God (and to God only) its activity is constantly owing ; and 
 in the sense that thus, by reason of its original source of 
 derivation, this force is attributable to God, and is able to be 
 called Divine ; but God's Self this force is not ; whereas, on 
 the other hand, the Activity or active Force within the Di- 
 vine Man is essentially God and is absolutely Divine ; for it 
 is not separated from Substance Divine and Shape Divine, 
 but is, with them, the third of those three fundamentals or 
 hypostases that make up God. 
 
 Forasmuch as this distinction is not always seen, it is 
 thought by some of Swedenborg's readers that the Holy 
 Spirit, the third essential element of God, is the spiritual 
 Sun, and by others of them it is thought that the Holy Spirit 
 is Heaven. I know a beloved clergyman, a member of the 
 "Convention," who believes this last; I have lately spoken with 
 him. He believes that the energy of the spiritual Sun is resi- 
 dent within that Sun, and is not maintained from other 
 source than that Sun's own substance. Whereas the truth 
 is wholly opposite, viz., that the third element of God is in 
 Him and is not outside of Him ; nevertheless, His sphere of 
 
77 
 
 operation upon beings which are not He, is still rightly 
 called "the operation of His Holy Spirit, "white yet His essen- 
 tial Spirit, or the element which maintains His essential 
 Divine Operation, is in Himself alone, and not outside Him- 
 self. This thing, as between God and living creatures, is 
 comparatively as it is between an engine and the various sets 
 of machinery which singly or simultaneously it is used to 
 work or to maintain in motion. The three essentials of such 
 an engine, which are (a) its substances, (b) the form or ar- 
 rangement of its substances, and (c) the activity existing in 
 that form, are all within the engine ; they are its funda- 
 mentals or hypostases, and they constitute the active engine 
 itself. But this engine's activity may be exerted at hundreds 
 of yards away, or even at miles away. By virtue of reaction in 
 certain media, or means between, it can be exerted thus far 
 away. These means or media may be cranks, may be cog- 
 wheels, may be belting, may be wire for transmitting electric 
 vibration, etc., etc. ; nevertheless, the engine itself is not 
 thereby projected to a distance ; still less does the engine 
 become thereby the sets of machinery which it keeps in mo- 
 tion ; only its sphere of operation is projected to a dis- 
 tance. So, and not otherwise, with God, who (though of 
 man-shape) is above all space and without any distance. 
 The three essentials of His very being (as indeed of any 
 being or object) which essentials are Substance, Arrange- 
 ment or Logos of the Substance and Strength or Working 
 of Substance and of its Arrangement are all within Him 
 and only within Him. The sphere of operative power out- 
 side of Him, however which sphere is from Him indeed, 
 yet is not He, but is His effect on others can take place 
 only in others than He, and therefore wholly outside of 
 His own Divine Body. See the Divine Love and Wisdom, at 
 n. 56 ; also the Invitation to the New Church, n. 11 ; also the 
 True Chr. Eel, n. 46, n. 43, n. 64 ; also the Apocalypse Ex- 
 plained, n. 1219, continuation ; also On the Divine Wisdom, 
 xii, 3; in which passages it can be seen that the only possible 
 
78 
 
 presence of one being with another is a presence not of sub- 
 stance but of effective operation ; and that such, and such only, 
 is the Divine Omnipresence. As for spatial presence, this is 
 quite impossible; for two things cannot occupy the same space 
 at the same time ; besides, the Divine is without space what, 
 ever. Moreover those on whom Love Infinite is acting, were 
 they at bottom (or in their inmost reality) its very Self, then 
 were Infinite Love a Self -Love, which is no love at all. 
 Were they not inmostly and really somewhat, yet inmostly 
 other than He, then were Infinite Love a sham love, conceal- 
 ing under a phantom garb of altruism an all-swallowing 
 selfishness (see Div. Love and Wis., n. 47, n. 49). 
 
 THE NATURE OF GOD'S PRESENCE. 
 
 "To be in God," means therefore "to be in the 
 sphere of His operative power;" and it means no more 
 than this. In this sense only do all living things 
 live in God; but in Himself alone can any of His 
 substance be. See the Div. Love and Wis., n. 55, where 
 the angels are said to declare that they are in God and that 
 God is in them, yet naught of God that at bottom is God ; 
 where also it is said that the universe is full of God by 
 virtue of its being an image of God. Now we know that 
 no image of a thing is the real thing itself, and that only 
 the form and not the substance of that which is imaged is 
 in an image. But the universe is substance; hence 
 its substance is its own substance, not God's sub- 
 stance; and its image is God's, not from itself. It is 
 only in USES that He is present (A. E., n. 1226, contin. 7) ; 
 " not materially, but spiritually ; for He is in Uses, and Uses 
 regarded in themselves are immaterial, but the necessary 
 things whereby the Uses are brought to pass are material " 
 (Divine Wisdom III., 2). The outer operation from Him is 
 this His sphere of Use ; it is divine and yet is not God ; just 
 
79 
 
 as the beatings or pulses on the shores of some pond at whose 
 middle point a man is steadily rocking a boat from side to 
 side, may be said to be " human " operations, and yet they 
 are not the man himself who is in the boat ; this man him- 
 self is to be found only inside of his cuticle. Let us use 
 language and not abuse it. The word " Divine " means 
 always " of God." Sometimes that which is said to be " of 
 God " is still in Him, and is essentially Himself ; and 
 sometimes that which is "of God " is only from Him and 
 no longer in Him, and thereby is essentially other than 
 He. At n. 139 of the Heaven and Hell, Swedenborg lays 
 down clearly the distinction between his doctrine and the 
 doctrine which has been revived by some of his pupils ; 
 and with the distinction there given are to be understood 
 his words in the New Church Canons, On the Holy Spirit, 
 at Heads First, Second and Third. Think of a Man, a Man 
 only, in human shape, all personal (Coronis, n. 48) ; think 
 of the three things in every man, and then think of one of 
 these things (viz., his effective Force) as also producing an 
 effect beyond and around him ; and you will have the truth. 
 Having seen that the Influx of Life takes place " not by 
 continuity but by contiguity," that is to say, that it takes 
 place not by any such process as the "continuing " of sub- 
 stance from the Life-giver into that to which life is given, 
 but that it takes place by contiguity between the successive 
 particles of the intervening medium and by virtue of action 
 upon those particles, and by virtue of transfer of action from 
 one particle to the next, and by virtue of the reaction of each 
 particle in succession, whereby each particle as it reacts 
 against action, carries on and transfers to its neighbor par- 
 ticle the action impressed upon it ; having seen these things 
 in a general way, it only remains that we see them in their 
 three-fold order, and see the discrete or separate degrees in 
 which they lie, and the successive order in which those de- 
 grees exist as long as they are in process of being brought 
 about ; and that we also see them in the discrete or separate 
 
80 
 
 degrees of simultaneous order in which they exist after being 
 brought about, i. e., as beheld in the living creation to which 
 Life is thus supplied. 
 
 THE HYPOSTASES OF MOTION. 
 
 Communicated life not being a communicated substance, 
 and being no substance whatever, but only communicated 
 Impulse, Motion or Activity, it is necessary first of all to 
 observe, in this Impulse, this Motion or this Activity, the 
 three Essentials or Hypostases without which nothing can 
 be, and of which Essentials the Impulse, Motion or Activity 
 consists. And this cannot be done by abstract reasoning ; 
 for such reasoning looks wise and may look pious, but it is 
 mere talk. This can be done however in the concrete, and 
 thus most swiftly and thoroughly ; that is to say, can be 
 done by the examination of visible facts in which these 
 things are to be found. They are to be found in the phe- 
 nomena of Sound and Light, which phenomena Swedenborg 
 teaches the influx of Life resembles with absolute precision 
 (Apoc. Exp., n. 1122, cont. ; n. 1134, cont.). To those phe- 
 nomena let us therefore look ; and, first, to the phenomena 
 of Sound ; because the phenomena of Sound have long been 
 pretty well known, whereas those of Light have but latterly 
 become known and only to the scientific world, and, in the 
 minds of Swedenborg's expounders hitherto, appear to be 
 involved in most wretched misconceptions misconceptions 
 which Swedenborg himself flung wholly away. 
 
 Life, says Swedenborg (Apoc. Exp., n. 1122 ; True Chr. 
 Bel., n. 30), enters the subject to which it is communicated 
 in no other wise than as sound enters the ear. Let us see, 
 then, how sound enters the ear. Not as a substance, but as 
 an agitation of substances, does it enter. When a woman 
 plays the harp, her finger-tips budge the strings out of a 
 straight line; each string thus budged flies back to a 
 
81 
 
 straight line again, and flies on beyond the straight line, and 
 bucks or bends itself the other way nearly as much as it first 
 was budged one way. Then back it bucks again; 
 and thus it keeps on bucking back and forward; 
 and all this while it is agitating the air, and thus it 
 maintains in the air an agitation like its own ; and the agi- 
 tation is propagated through the air, and the trembling air 
 communicates its agitation to the ear-drum, so that in the 
 ear-drum there is reproduced an agitation similar to that 
 which the harp-string is suffering ; and the sensorium senses 
 this reproduction ; and this reproduction, when sensed, is 
 Sound. That is why Swedenborg says that reproduced 
 Life is just like the reproduced ear- vibration called Sound. 
 For just as the agitation in the harp is the source and foun- 
 tain of the agitation in the ear, and steadily maintains the 
 agitation in the ear, so (Div. Love and Wis., n. 291) is the 
 self -springing Motion in God the source and steady fountain 
 of the life of all living creatures. Now, dear sir, I shall not 
 argue this with you : you can either see this or not see it ; 
 and you yourself must judge whether I speak ill or well in 
 saying what I have said. I only rehearse the general pro- 
 cess of sound-making in order to lay a foundation for setting 
 out the details of it, and for calling your attention to the 
 trinal degrees in it, and the manner of their formation ; 
 which manner is by composition of course, and takes place 
 according to the same process which we observed in the 
 making of a rope. 
 
 And, first, see that there are three degrees. Motion is of 
 Force ; and though Force is neither Substance nor Shape, 
 but is the third to those two, it still has three elements which 
 correspond to those three fundamentals. It has (1) what is 
 substantial ; it has (2) what is formal ; it has (3) what is 
 effective. The substantial of Force is its Essence or JEsse ; 
 the formal of Force is its mode, its manifestation, its Exist- 
 ere ; and the effective of Force is its Kesult or Operari. 
 The formal of it is made up by composition from its sub- 
 
82 
 
 stantial, just as a rope-yarn is made up by composition from 
 the fibres. I am well aware that to the present class of 
 Swedenborg's readers these words will for the most part be 
 mere words ; let me, therefore, swiftly make them other than 
 mere words, by turning them into things. 
 
 The substantial, or if you like, the substance, of the harp- 
 sound, is clearly the Agitation. Not the agitation on this 
 string rather that on that ; not this kind of agitation rather 
 than that kind of agitation, even on the same string. Not 
 the manner in which the strings are agitated when one air is 
 played, or the manner in which they are agitated when an- 
 other air is played. But agitation itself; agitation merely , 
 agitation any how, anywhere and any when. Agitation is 
 the primary and essential out of which all airs are builded. 
 
 But mere agitation does not make music. We must sort 
 the agitations and must bundle them together, as we bundle 
 the fibres into rope-yarns. Sound-waves of regular length, 
 enough of such waves to last long enough to be recognized by 
 the ear, when we shall have bundled them together as we bun- 
 dled the fibres into rope-yarns, make a note of pitch distinct. It 
 may be a note of full length, or it may be only a hemi-demi- 
 semi-quaver ; but it is a note, a unity, a thing distinct. It takes 
 a good many waves to make such a unity, just as it took a good 
 many fibres to a rope-yarn ; but whenever it is fairly made 
 it is a unity, although it be only one sixty-fourth as long as a 
 full note. Again, we can put some of these unities together 
 and make one fresh unity of them ; just as out of a number 
 of rope-yarns we made a strand. There are several ways of 
 doing this ; one very simple way is by a slur, which slur is a 
 binding of two different notes into one syllable ; a slur is 
 perfectly a unity. Other and constantly recurring ways of 
 making distinct formations, are by combining notes into bars, 
 combining bars again into sections, etc., etc.; these ways are 
 like combining strands into a rope and like combining ropes 
 into a cable. Now all that differentiates a cable from a 
 sufficiently numerous but indiscriminate lot of fibres ; and all 
 
83 
 
 that differentiates a musical air from a sufficient but indis- 
 criminate lot of sound-waves, is Arrangement or Lay of the 
 fibres in the case of the rope, and of the primal agitations in 
 the case of the air. Arrangement then, or Lay (what in 
 that other dialect of our Aryan tongue called Greek was 
 known as Logos) is the second degree of composition, and 
 without it there can be no rope creation, no musical creation. 
 
 But Arrangement or Lay has in itself no substance. The 
 score in music is not an air, nor is the theory of rope-making 
 a rope. Take away the first degree of composition from the 
 second degree of composition, and you have, in music, merely 
 the score ; and in rope-making, you have only the way in which 
 rope should be made. To make either the first or the second 
 degree complete, you must bind these two together and form 
 thereby a third degree ; which third degree is, in music, the 
 air itself when sung or played ; and, in rope-making, the rope 
 itself when made. There, in the actual air itself when 
 played or sung, and in the actual rope itself all tangible, you 
 have the primal agitations, you have the primary fibres ; not 
 one of them is missing ; these primal agitations, these pri- 
 mary filaments, constitute the first or Esse degree of dis- 
 crete order. 
 
 You have there also the score of the air, which is the plan 
 whereby its filaments or fibres (as it were) are to be composed 
 into notes of various numbers of vibrations, and of various 
 rapidities of vibration ; and whereby the notes thus composed 
 are to be recomposed into bars, and again into sections, and 
 so on. This stage of music-creation exhibits the second or 
 formal degree of discrete order. 
 
 Lastly you have a third degree composed of the union of 
 those two prior degrees, viz., (1) the vibrations ; (2) their 
 scheme of arrangement ; (3) the vibrations when actually ar- 
 ranged according to that scheme : the actual arrangement 
 and real production is the air itself, just as it was the rope 
 itself. Eegard them in the course of manufacture, and you 
 have the three degrees in successive order. Eegard them 
 
84 
 
 in the rope when really manufactured and grasped in the 
 hand, or in the air when really heard by the ear, and you 
 have all three degrees together, in what is called simultaneous 
 order. The rope and the air were produced by degrees of 
 successive order; they exist, however, after production, in 
 degrees of simultaneous order. 
 
 But take note that in order for these three degrees to be 
 simultaneous degrees in real existence, and in order to pre- 
 sent an analogy or correspondence to the influx of Life, which 
 Swedenborg says they do present, they must be in the ear 
 itself, and not outside of it ; they must be agitations of sub- 
 stance in the ear and belonging to the ear, to wit, in the ear- 
 drum and thence in the sensorium. And (1) the agitation in 
 general must be there ; (2) the modes of arrangement of the 
 Agitation must be there ; and (3) the Agitation must really 
 have taken effect, or have come into Operari. In the very 
 substance there the Agitation must have come into Operari ; 
 and have (1) come about there, (2) through, according to, or by 
 means of, the Arrangement or Lay of (3) the various actual 
 assembled agitations. 
 
 GAUGE THE THEORIES. 
 
 Now you see that, contrary to your theory, the source or 
 fountain of Activity, namely the harp, has not transferred it- 
 self into the ear, and has not transferred anything into the 
 ear, but has been causing a mere reproduced Activity in the 
 ear. The ear must have been made already before the harp 
 could play upon it ; and the play of the harp does not make 
 the ear, but plays upon the ear. The Divine Harper, however, 
 both has made all living things on which He plays, and also 
 He steadily makes them hear, that is, steadily makes them 
 live ; but He has to make their substance before He can 
 make them hear or live. And He cannot make anything hear, 
 that is, live, except He first organize it so that it will answer 
 
85 
 
 to the pulsations of the spiritual atmosphere which brings 
 Life from Him. Only spiritual substance can answer to the 
 vibrations or life-beat of the spiritual atmosphere. Now 
 spirits are of that spiritual substance which solely answers to 
 that life-beat ; men are spirits with an added accretion from 
 material substance ; animals have also (besides material sub- 
 stance) certain spiritual substances, though of lower degree 
 than have men ; and so do vegetables have some spiritual 
 substances present with them, though of degree still lower ; 
 hence all these live if vegetables can be said to live and 
 are subjects of spiritual influx ; i. e., of spiritual motion. But 
 the mineral kingdom has no spiritual substances in it, that 
 is, none united to it ; but themineral kingdom exists by vir- 
 tue of this, viz., that spiritual substances were, at creation, 
 clotted or bundled together to make natural substance, and 
 their very bundling together deprived them of the nature of 
 spiritual substance, and did, per se y fashion and convert 
 them into material substance ; which material substance 
 is not able to be affected by the agitation going on in the 
 spiritual sun, but only by the agitation going on in that sun's 
 substitute in the material world, viz., the visible solar body, 
 or by material agitation of similar calorific kind, which may 
 be artificial in its origin. 
 
 THE HYPOSTASES OF LIGHT. 
 
 Whatever I have said of sound may be said of Light 
 (meaning by Light, also Heat and Actinism) ; only Light is 
 the tremor of a still finer and more impressible atmosphere 
 than air. And what can be said of Heat, Light and 
 Actinism, can be said of that Influx of Life which is Love, 
 Enlightenment, and Activity derived from Love and En- 
 lightenment. In that Influx, Love or Wish is the essential 
 Activity or actuating power ; it is simply and barely actua- 
 tion or agitation, just as Heat is essentially actuation or 
 agitation ; or just as the primitive elements of sound are 
 
86 
 
 essentially mere actuations or agitations. The second de- 
 gree, whether of Love or of Heat, is Intelligence or Light ; 
 this degree is the form or arrangement of the Substantial or 
 of the first degree, just as the music-score is the form or 
 arrangement of the actuations or agitations of the sound- 
 waves. Who does not see that Love or Wish is the very 
 constituent fibre and filament which infills every thought, 
 and without which no thought could exist, any more than 
 thought could exist without tremors and movements in 
 brain-atoms, or than tunes could exist without some agitations 
 in the ear ? The actual combination of these two degrees, 
 if the subject-matter is one of Physics, is Actinism ; if it is 
 moral, this combination is moral Actinism, or what is known 
 as Conduct. 
 
 But this particular nomenclature of physical ethereal 
 agitation is as yet philosophical only ; it has not yet become 
 also scientific. TJae names Heat, Light and Actinism as 
 now in use are distributed among sundry effects merely, and 
 are so distributed for the sake of practical convenience, and 
 not of philosophic order. For example, it is convenient to 
 have the term Actinism to denote a particular effect of the 
 ethereal vibration, viz., the shaking apart of a bundle of so- 
 called atoms ; let us respect this nomenclature. It still 
 stays true that the imparting of vibration to such bundle, 
 without actually shaking it to pieces, equally constitutes 
 what we call an effect of ethereal vibration. The two kinds 
 of effect are indeed different, but this does not arise from an 
 essential difference in the ethereal vibration in those two 
 cases respectively ; just as the operation of the voice when a 
 man so sings as to shatter a very thin wineglass, is not 
 essentially different from its operation when he so sings as 
 merely to cause the glass to take up a synchronous, sympa- 
 thetic and audible vibration. So with respect to the applica- 
 tion of the terms Heat and Light ; these names were 
 originally applied on considering observed effects, and were 
 not selected on a thorough knowledge of causes ; nor do 
 
87 
 
 their present significations answer strictly to a sorting of 
 their causes. These names are well assigned for practical 
 uses, but not for philosophical arrangement, but philoso- 
 phic is Swedenborg's terminology where (Apoc. Exp., n. 
 1206, cont.), he points out Heat as that which agitates ; and 
 points out Light as that which gives modus, measure, form 
 or fashion to the agitation a modus a measure a form or 
 a fashion which varies according to the inborn construction 
 of that which is agitated. Thus Heat, when parted from 
 Light, may be compared to mere Noise, for Noise lacks 
 modus, or established measure (or measures) of beat, in its 
 little waves; it is a mere stir, in whose movement no apparent 
 order has been established ; but Light is order and arrange- 
 ment, and is comparable to a clear tone, a pure Klangfarbe 
 as distinguished from Noise confused ; yet stir, or actuation, 
 be it remembered, is still the essential or Esse both of Light 
 and Tone ; and Light and Tone are the regulated forth-body- 
 ing or existere of the substantial esse. This Esse and this 
 Existere are not two, but one, yet without merging 
 (Div. Love and Wis., n. 14) ; they cannot be really 
 parted. If they seem ever to have parted company, 
 this seeming comes only from the feebleness of our 
 senses ; for Substance (here Agitation) and Form (here 
 Mode of Agitation) cannot be parted, although Forms or 
 Modes may become so complicated as to be untraceable and 
 be thought to have turned to nothingness. 
 
 As between Love, which is the stir of spiritual substance, 
 and Wisdom, which is the modus, the form, or the arrange- 
 ment of that stir, all things are true which are true between 
 Heat and Light, when Heat and Light are considered 
 philosophically or according to a knowledge of causes. And 
 between Love and Wisdom all things are true which are 
 true as between the mere unordered agitation of sound- 
 waves, and that ordering and arrangement of them which is 
 Tune and Music. It is a general law in dynamics, 
 corresponding to the law I have mentioned in statics, 
 
that the composition and putting together of stirs 
 or actuations, makes up the second or middle discrete 
 stage of formation, and that this stage, just as in statics, is 
 effected by an orderly putting together of what I may be 
 supposed to call filaments of agitation, in the same manner 
 as (through the putting together of filaments) we have seen 
 a rope is made. This is equally true in ethereal and 
 atmospheric vibration, and in the constitution or putting 
 together of Life itself. But since I am not learned in any 
 of these matters, it behooves me to come quickly to an end. 
 Nor would I have said anything whatever about these 
 matters, if some other would have shown a mind to speak. 
 May the stage of pious unintelligence and pious impercep- 
 tion which has hitherto characterized the Swedenborgian 
 following (of which imperception and unintelligence I 
 accuse myself as heartily as I accuse others) come soon to its 
 due end ; and may a stage of consideration of FACTS begin. 
 For Facts are that " lowest room '' at the feast of wisdom, 
 which must be first occupied by every man, ere he can by 
 any means be invited up higher or let partake of choice 
 viands at the upper tables. 
 
 A PASSAGE IN THE " DIVINE LOVE AND WISDOM." 
 
 Those who, with you, believe that the inmost of matter is 
 Divine, and that the inmost activity of Nature is really God, 
 have been wont to rely on n. 157 of the Divine Love and 
 Wisdom, which they think teaches that the reality of ma- 
 terial substance would become nothingness were it not 
 maintained by influx from the spiritual world. The wretched 
 translations of this passage, indeed, teach by inference such 
 an absurd and monstrous doctrine; but Swedenborg's 
 Latin has an altogether other meaning, and relates to an 
 absolutely other subject. On inspection this will be evident 
 to any mere Latin scholar, I think ; but if not evident to a 
 
89 
 
 mere Latin scholar, then to any person who weighs the 
 contents of that number and of the next following number, 
 and considers the subject matter, which subject matter is 
 the fact of vegetable growth as achieved through the com- 
 bined effects of the sun of the natural world and the sun of 
 the spiritual world. Keferring to this growth, which is a 
 perpetual creation of the individuals belonging to the plant 
 kingdom, Swedenborg says (Div. Prov., n. 3) that the char- 
 acteristics of growth and prolification in the vegetable world 
 spring neither from anything in the seed nor from any- 
 thing in the sun of this world, which sun he says is mere 
 fire, " but is in the seed from God Creative, whose wisdom 
 is infinite ; and that it not only was in the seed from God 
 Creative when it was created, but also is steadily in it from 
 Him afterward ; for SUSTENTATION is PERPETUAL CREATION like 
 as subsistence is perpetual existence." 
 
 From this passage, as from many others, can be seen what 
 is the " perpetual creation" which those gentlemen who are 
 of your opinion have supposed to be a perpetual creation of 
 matter, but which in fact is only a perpetual creation of 
 living forms. For the creation and sustentation of such 
 forms, both spiritual and natural, was the cause, and is the 
 whole drift and purpose of creation ; and you prostitute 
 Swedenborg's conception of such perpetual creation if you 
 divert it from the world of life and apply it to the atoms of 
 lifeless substance. Lifeless substance he disregards; 'tis 
 not concerning this that he was sent to teach ; therefore he 
 leaves it out of sight, save in those passages in which he 
 expressly and explicitly declares how and whence it ob- 
 tained its creation, viz., that it was created by successive 
 compositions and recompositions of substances that had 
 been thrown off from a sphere of dead substance which had 
 been made to encompass the Man-God, and which is called 
 the spiritual Sun. Except in such passages, I say, as treat 
 expressly of its origin, he leaves matter and indeed all 
 created substance (as mere substance) completely out of 
 
90 
 
 sight ; and he busies himself with the organized and living 
 forms into which certain portions of this substance have 
 been built, being forms which have been created from age to 
 age and from year to year, and been from moment to 
 moment sustained in perpetual creation or recreation of 
 their forms, but not by recreation of the substance which 
 makes up their forms. Mere substance as such, I say, he 
 seldom treats of ; and mostly, I say, he leaves it out of con- 
 sideration ; holding it of no importance to consider, save to 
 declare that God created it, and to declare how He created 
 it. Therefore in the treatise " On the Divine Love " (VULL), 
 he tosses matter aside, and treats of living things as exhaust- 
 ing the whole field of view, and calls living things " all 
 things in the world." "By all things in the world, "he 
 says, "by omnia mundi,we mean living things, as well as those 
 that walk and creep on the earth, as those that fly in the 
 heavens, and that swim in the waters ; and we mean also 
 the subjects of the vegetable kingdom, whether trees, shrubs, 
 flowers, shoots or grasses ; but as for the atmosphere, but 
 as for the waters, but as for the matters in the earth, these 
 three are nothing more than the means for the generation and 
 production of those others " to wit, of those living things 
 which he calls " every thing in the world." In interpreting 
 Swedenborg, however, the gentlemen who think with you 
 have mainly and, in one sense, exclusively, applied his ob- 
 servations with the opposite effect, and have represented 
 him as referring to dead and inconsequential substances, 
 instead of living forms built up out of those substances, 
 in the passages where he speaks of " all things " and where 
 he says that " all things " would perish were it not for con- 
 stant influx, and in passages where, using the word " noth- 
 ing," he says that " nothing " could exist without that con- 
 stant influx. 
 
91 
 THE MEANING OF " PERPETUAL CREATION." 
 
 At n. 3 of the Divine Providence, just cited, if you will 
 read the context, appears most clearly what the author re- 
 fers to, in declaring that " sustentation is perpetual cre- 
 ation, like as subsistence is perpetual existence/' viz., the 
 living vegetable and animal kingdoms. But since a single 
 passage, however conclusive for some, may not conclude for 
 others the true mean ing of subsistence as being perpetual 
 existence in conservation, examine, I beseech you, n. 222 of 
 the Conjugial Love. Without the marriage of the Good 
 and the True, he there says, nothing would subsist that ever 
 was brought into existence (nihil subsisteret quod exstitit). 
 In what now, and how now, will this subsistence which is 
 necessary to continued existence be achieved ? Is it to take 
 place in dead matter, and is it to consist in an influx which 
 each moment would sustain each atom of substance and pre- 
 vent it from turning into nothingness * Swedenborg goes 
 on there to describe in what this continued subsistence takes 
 place, and how it is brought about. There, if anywhere, he 
 must introduce your process. 
 
 WHAT THE SPHERE OF " CONSERVATION " is. 
 
 Instead of doing this, he shows a very different process, 
 and he confines it to quite other matters. He says there is 
 a sphere of conserving the created universe, and that this 
 sphere proceeds from the Lord ; and he says that it is the 
 UNIVERSAL of all spheres proceeding from the Lord, and that 
 the conjugial sphere is supereminently the sphere of conserv- 
 ing the created universe ; and he says that the reason why the 
 conjugial sphere is the universal sphere of all spheres proceed- 
 ing from the Lord, is that the conjugial sphere is the 
 sphere of propagation; and he says that the means whereby 
 this sphere is supereminently the sphere of conservation of 
 
92 
 
 the Universe, is that it conserves the universe by successive 
 generations. Now if there were such a sphere needful as 
 you believe in, to wit, a sphere that continually issuing forth 
 from God, shall first make Nothing into All Things, and 
 then forever steadily keep All Things from lapsing back into 
 Nothing, do you not think that such a sphere must be even 
 more " supereminent " than the sphere of conjugial love, 
 which only effects the preservation of the live creation 1 
 Would not Swedenborg at least have put it into the list of 
 spheres which here he gives us ? Moreover he declares the 
 conjugial sphere to be the universal of all the spheres proceed- 
 ing from God. If among the proceeding spheres there be 
 such a sphere as you conceive, even did Swedenborg here for- 
 get to mention it, it must follow that since the conjugial or 
 propagative sphere is the universal of all spheres, it is the 
 universal of your sphere of producing Something out of 
 Nothing and of preserving each substance from relapsing 
 into nothingness. The universal and essential principle in 
 your sphere, then, must be that conjugial propagative prin- 
 ciple which pervades all spheres ; and it will follow, not only 
 that each bit of rock is kept from turning into nothingness 
 by the influx of your sphere, but also that the influx of your 
 sphere produces this result in a conjugial and propagative 
 manner, i. e., that bits of rock breed and beget young rocks ; 
 and beget, not by formation of young rock out of the sub- 
 stance of parent rock, but by a fresh creation of young rocks 
 out of substance freshly put forth by your sphere of reality 
 proceeding out of God. And something to this effect indeed 
 you may quote from Swedenborg, if you interpret him as 
 you will. " Nothing (nihil) in Nature," he says, " exists 
 save from a seed, or grows save by virtue of warmth." (On 
 the Divine Wisdom, in, n. 2). This would show that rocks 
 spring from seed, and that they grow by means of sunshine! 
 Dear Sir, I beseech you, lift your eyes to the world of life 
 and spirit, when Swedenborg speaks of what is living and 
 thereby spiritual. And when he speaks of matters scien- 
 
93 
 
 tific, of matters not involving vitality, study well those scien- 
 tific matters and master the sciences therewith concerned ; 
 else you cannot even know what his topic is, and must 
 surely confuse the sky and the earth into a mental chaos. 
 Eegard the context, when he uses the words " omnia" and 
 " nihil " / and do not degrade to an interpretation death- 
 ward the asseverations he brings us hither from the world 
 of spiritual life. In the report printed in the New Jerusa- 
 lem Magazine to which I have above referred is an enormous 
 stride toward reason. That stride consists in admitting 
 now for the first time I think that all words in Sweden- 
 borg must be interpreted in the light of the context. This 
 is substantially admitting that when Swedenborg says " all 
 things are sustained by influx," the context must be examined 
 in order to discover whether the subject-matter is the world 
 of life alone, on the one hand, or the atoms of inert sub- 
 stances that .compose the bodies and ranging-ground of the 
 subjects of the world of life, on the other hand. 
 
 WHAT is " ACTUAUTAS ?" 
 
 Let us return to n. 157 of the Divine Love and Wisdom, 
 which you think teaches that each atom of material sub- 
 stance would turn into an atom of nothingness, were it not 
 for a steady influx of substance into it from God. 
 
 Swedenborg there says, " The sun of the natural world is 
 mere fire, and thereby is dead ; and Nature, since she gets 
 her origin from that sun, is dead ; " and he adds " The spir- 
 itual Sun is quick (vivus) and what is dead does not of itself 
 work anything, but it is worked upon." 
 
 Elsewhere he says that the sun of the natural world (mean- 
 ing, not snnshine, but the sun's body) is composed of sub- 
 stances whose activity produces fire. At n. 157, he is referring 
 to the sunshine. But let that pass ; only note the distinction 
 between substances on the one hand, and the activity of sub- 
 stances on the other hand. Substances have to be, before 
 
94 
 
 there can be any activity among substances ; and this is as 
 true of the substances of the spiritual sun as of the sub- 
 stances of the natural sun. 
 
 The world's sun is dead, and Nature is dead too, says 
 Swedenborg. You think that " dead " here means " without 
 independent reality." You think that all things that are, are 
 alive, and that the only difference between the things which 
 we call dead (as minerals for example), on the one hand, and 
 the things which we call living (as animals for example), 
 on the other hand, is, not that animals have life and minerals 
 no life, but that minerals have one degree of life a 
 low degree and that animals have a higher degree. I ask 
 you where Swedenborg says this. You will answer, " In this 
 passage and in that, by inference." But should such a doc- 
 trine be laid down only by inference ? Granting that mere 
 inference ought to satisfy, should we not here, at 
 the supposed stronghold of your doctrine, find at 
 least the inference. The very opposite however is here 
 laid down. In the next number, viz., n. 158, we find a re- 
 petition of the substance of n. 157, as found in facts familiar 
 to every one ; and there at n. 158, he shows that the dead- 
 ness of Nature consists, not in the absence of any reality in 
 matter except as derived from your supposed influx into 
 matter, but in sheer inability to produce vegetable forms. 
 Inability to do anything from itself (non agit quicquam a 
 se, n. 157), this is the essence of the deadness that is in 
 Nature. The thing which it is unable to do of itself is also 
 there indicated. A clod of earth is able to do some things 
 of itself, viz., to stand if it is placed, or to go if it is set in 
 motion in an unresisting medium, etc., etc. But there is 
 one thing which of itself it is unable to do, viz., "to produce 
 the forms of uses, which are vegetables, or the forms of life 
 which are animals," n. 158. To be unable to do this of itself 
 is what Swedenborg calls being unable to do anything of itself 
 (n. 157) ; and the reason why he calls this inability an inabil- 
 ity to do anything, is, that the subject matter is the produc- 
 
95 
 
 tion of vegetables and animals ; and if a clod can of itself do 
 nothing in this direction, he says the clod is unable to do 
 anything at all, meaning, is unable to do anything relating 
 to the subject matter. 
 
 He says (n. 158) the clod can do nothing of itself, because 
 {n. 157) " what is dead works nothing of itself, but is worked 
 upon ; and to ascribe to that dead thing any part in the work 
 of creating, would be like ascribing to an instrument fash- 
 ioned by the workman's hands the work which the work- 
 man's own self does. " You suppose that the " work of creat- 
 ing " here referred to is your suggested work of constantly 
 recreating Matter. How different is the work which Sweden- 
 borg here describes, viz. , the perpetual work of creating and 
 sustaining the vegetable and animal kingdoms ! You think 
 the " life " that the spiritual Sun constantly communicates to 
 Nature is, amongst other things, a reality constantly be- 
 stowed upon the clod. Swedenborg, on the contrary, teaches 
 (n. 158) that the life communicated by the spiritual Sun con- 
 sists in " actuating " (actuari) the soils, and causing them 
 " to produce the forms of uses which are vegetables." And 
 he says that the soils are able thus to be " actuated," because 
 they are surrounded (circumcincta) by spiritual substances 
 proceeding from the spiritual sun. Surrounded? How 
 comes this ? Natural substances surrounded by spiritual 
 substances ! Is it not your theory, and the theory of nine- 
 tenths of Swedenborg's pupils, that each atom of natural 
 substance is still dependent on the spiritual for its existence, 
 and that within each atom of natural substance there is cer- 
 tain substance which is and remains spiritual, and that 
 within this spiritual substance is the living God, who with a 
 Divine Push does each instant act upon the spiritual sub- 
 stance within the natural substance, and thereby does each 
 moment cause the atom of natural substance to BE ; so that 
 a stream of reality comes to that atom of natural substance 
 from its inmost where (as they imagine) dwells the living 
 God, and from whence working outward He breeds each in- 
 
96 
 
 stant the reality of that atom ? And yet here at n. 158 the 
 supposed father of this doctrine declares that the effects which 
 living substance produces on dead substance are effects pro- 
 duced, not from within the dead substance, but from without 
 it, through spiritual substance located not in its interior, 
 but wholly outside of and surrounding it. " Ah," you will say, 
 " the application here is to something else, viz., to the growth 
 of vegetables ; it is unfair," you will say, " to adduce mere 
 context or proximity, in order to impugn the well-established 
 doctrine of the next preceding number, viz., n. 157." Be it 
 so, I say ; read carefully once more n. 157, your stronghold 
 where you think you find it taught that (see the British 
 and Foreign Swedenborg Society's translation, A. D. 1883) 
 " the actuality " (i. e., reality) " of the natural sun is not 
 from itself, but from the living force proceeding from 
 the sun of the spiritual world ; wherefore if the living force 
 of that sun were withdrawn or taken away, the natural sun 
 would collapse," i. e. t would become a nothingness. There in 
 your stronghold, by virtue of grotesque translation, you 
 will find this extraordinary teaching. But notice the 
 reason there given why that quality of the natural 
 Bun which you suppose to be its reality, would disappear 
 were the quickening power (vis viva) of the spiritual sun to 
 be withdrawn. The " quickening power " which you take to 
 be a stream of reality, and which you suppose brings each 
 moment into existence the substance of the natural sun 
 bringing it into existence from within, as you suppose and 
 cannot but suppose this "quickening power," I say, 
 Swedenborg there describes as taking effect, not from within, 
 but from without. He says : " The Divine quickening is in 
 ternally, or from within (intus), in the fire of the sun of the 
 spiritual world, but is externally or from without (extus) in 
 the fire of the sun of the natural world. From this it can be 
 seen that the actualitas of the natural sun is not from itself, 
 but from the quickening power (vis viva) preceding from 
 the sun of the spiritual world ; wherefore, if this quickening 
 
97 
 
 power were kept back, or were taken away, the sun of the 
 natural world would collabi (collaberetur)" How, dear sir> 
 is it possible that God can be within any atom of substance, 
 and thence supply to it its reality, and yet supply that real- 
 ity from without ? How does the reality which is within, 
 where (as you think) God sits yet in it, find its way to the 
 outside from which it is to strike in again and effect its pur- 
 pose ? If it does find its way, how needless the journeying 
 round about ! If at all it can produce such an effect, must 
 not that effect be necessarily produced even while it is pass- 
 ing toward the outside ? Perhaps you will say that intus 
 and extus mean, not " from within " and " from without/' but 
 " internally" and "externally." Be it so. Put it that the 
 reality of any atom of the natural sun's substance is 
 owing to a constant stream of reality deposited in that atom, 
 not in that atom's inwards, but on its exteriors. Now it is 
 true that paint can be laid on a thing upon its exteriors ; but 
 is it true that Reality can be communicated by being applied 
 to exteriors? Examine your conception of Reality. 
 You say it is a stream, steadily pouring forth from 
 God, and that if it ceased for an instant to flow, all created 
 atoms of substance would disappear. Examine, dear Sir, 
 the internal quality of such a species of Reality. Its char- 
 acteristic, as you describe it, is that, in and by itself and un- 
 assisted, it has the power an innate power, and in fact an 
 innate necessity inevitable to turn into Nothing. On such a 
 reality, dear sir, your system is based. Out of realities 
 of this sort, is not the major portion of the system of 
 Swedenborg's present expounders composed ? 
 
 WHAT is MEANT BY " COLLAPSE." 
 
 The natural sun's substance, you say, would fall into noth- 
 ingness were that inflowing stream of yours to cease its 
 pour thereinto. Thus you render Swedenborg's " colleger- 
 etur" The sun's body, you say, would " collapse." 
 
98 
 
 What is " coUapsing ?" To collapse is to " faU in." A 
 bladder collapses when the air inside comes out. A house 
 collapses when its walls so fall together that there is no 
 longer an inside of the house. A boiler collapses when its 
 sides are pushed inward by atmospheric pressure. Do you 
 think the sun would " collapse " in some such manner? Yes, 
 perhaps. But is not the sun a solid, unlike the bladder, 
 the house, the boiler ? Or say it is hollow, would a " col- 
 lapse " diminish its substance? Is it so with bladders, 
 houses, boilers, when " collapsing f Yet the substance of the 
 sun and not its form alone, is what you think would come to 
 nothingness. In that case, you will admit that Swedenborg 
 has used here a most misleading word, colldberetur, where 
 he ought to have said " nihil fieret" Why not change his 
 Latin ? You have changed him in the English. 
 
 The " collapse " which would ensue is predicated upon 
 the default of an influx of life. Whether or not life flows, 
 as you think it does, and as I think it does not, into min- 
 erals, in order to continue their dead reality, it does certainly 
 flow, as you and I agree, into living things. What now do 
 you understand by " collapse" when applied to living things? 
 What do physicians understand by a " collapse ?" Is it not 
 a loss of vital power* 1 * Is it anything but a loss of vital 
 power I If what enables the sunshine to produce living- 
 things on earth is, as Swedenborg says, a certain vital power 
 accompanying it from the sunshine of the spiritual world, 
 is it not plain that if the latter sunshine were to be with- 
 drawn, the natural sunshine would " suffer collapse," i. e. , 
 would have no vital power, would, in fact, as Swedenborg 
 declares in the next number (n. 158), be unable to produce 
 either living vegetables or living animals ? Yet you think, 
 and nearly all of Swedenborg's readers think with you, that 
 this "collapse 5 ' would be an annihilation of the sun's body. 
 Do you not yet know that the Latin " sol " means " sun- 
 shine " a hundred times for every one time that it means the 
 " sun-body ?" When we say that this plant is "in the sun," 
 
99 
 
 and that that plant is " out of the sun," do we mean " in the 
 sun-body," or do we mean " in the sunshine 1" When we say 
 "the sun is in the room," do we mean the sun-body is in 
 the room ? When Swedenborg says (Div. Love and Wis., n. 
 74) that the atmospheres of the natural world consist of 
 particles each one of which by itself " receives the sun " 
 (singillatim recipiunt solem), does he mean that the sun- 
 body enters into each little aerial particle ? Do you not 
 see that Swedenborg's topic is the sunshine and its effects on 
 vegetation, and not the sun-body or the attractive power of 
 its mass exerted upon the earth ? 
 
 I remember a learned criticism which appeared in a 
 Swedenborgian periodical some eight or ten years ago, 
 in which the critic boldly overthrew the theory of the sun's 
 supply as obtained from meteors falling into it, and cour- 
 ageously substituted your theory of a Divine supply in con- 
 formity with the supposed meaning of D. L. W., 157. Evi- 
 dently he either supposed that the sun's substance turns to 
 nothing as it burns, or else that the fresh substance he sup- 
 posed God to furnish as per D. L. W., n. 157, would be 
 manufactured of such quality as that it would lack all of the 
 attractive power that belongs to Mass, and thereby would 
 fail to overthrow the solar system by deranging its balance 
 and consequently plunging the planets into the sun. Such, 
 dear sir, are the absurdities into which those fall who skip 
 the religious doctrines of the New Church, viz., those relat- 
 ing to belief in a Man-God visible and to the practice of Ke- 
 pentance and to a consequent attainment unto a genuine 
 Love and Charity ; yet who, without any long and conscienti- 
 ous scientific preparation, busy themselves with evolving 
 scientific dogmas out of statements of Swedenborg's, whose 
 comprehension requires either a scientific education or a 
 shrewd adherence to the facts of universal experience. 
 
100 
 
 PEINCIPAL AND INSTRUMENTAL CAUSES. 
 
 In that number (n. 157), Swedenborg says that whereas 
 the sunshine of the natural world is only dead, and whereas 
 the sunshine of the spiritual Sun only has quickening power 
 in it, and whereas what is dead cannot act upon anything, 
 but only what is quick can act upon anything ; therefore, to 
 ascribe to the sun of nature anything of the creative pro- 
 cesses in Nature would be like ascribing to the instrument 
 with which a workman works, the works of the workman's 
 self. At n. 340 he says that the forces of Nature in 
 producing vegetable and animal forms are no more than is 
 the instrument in the hands of the workman. And at n. 
 315 he says that the forces of the sun of Nature do not of 
 themselves produce the effects seen in vegetable growth, but 
 these forces regarded in themselves are naught, and that by 
 forces from the spiritual sun the forces of the natural sun 
 are steadily made to act. 
 
 I know right well how you interpret these things. You 
 think the spiritual force is within (intus, not extus) the 
 natural force, and steadily causes the natural force to be a 
 force ; not steering or guiding the natural force, as a helms- 
 man intelligently steers a ship forced onward blindly by the 
 breeze ; but really begetting the natural force, as a child 
 might imagine a ship might be impelled by the helmsman's 
 breath puffed from well aft against the sails. This last is 
 the way in which you, in common with the majority of 
 Swedenborg's readers, believe that spiritual forces " cause 
 natural forces to act." 
 
 You think that the spiritual is the " principal cause " 
 and in this you are right; and that the natural is the 
 " instrumental cause " and in this also you are right ; and 
 you think that the principal cause is the parent of the sub- 
 stance of the instrumental cause and in this also you are 
 right. 
 
101 
 
 But you think that the principal cause did not only at 
 Time's beginning furnish, but also at all times and 
 presently and with ever renewed substance does still 
 furnish, the substance of the instrument or instrumental 
 cause. You also think that the mode in which the principal 
 cause ever makes the instrumental cause to effect its pur- 
 pose is by ever creating the substance (instead of merely 
 handling the forces) of the instrumental cause ; which crea- 
 tion being thus (as you think) perpetually achieved, the 
 instrumental cause perpetually acts as agent. All persons 
 indeed think thus who confound the principal and the in- 
 strumental cause ; they have no knowledge of discrete de- 
 grees, and they cannot rise from the region of Blind Force 
 as an agent or as an instrumental cause, to the region of In- 
 telligent Will as an Actor or principal cause. 
 
 Let us, however, now rise. There is nothing easier, if we 
 take Facts and not Words, whereby to rise. 
 
 "ACTUALITAS" MEANS ACTIVITY OB PRODUCTIVENESS. 
 
 Let us look at this word " actualitas." 
 
 The Romans and their forefathers had a word " ago" It 
 meant " I drive." It meant, to drive as shepherds drove 
 their flocks, or as the wind drove those flocks of the Sun 
 which the folk of olden time descried in the clouds. 
 
 From the root ag, sprang ag-men, meaning " a driven 
 herd," or, as we say, a drove, and finally " an army." From 
 ag, came ag-nus, a driven beast, thus a lamb of the flock. 
 From ag came ag-ilis, meaning drive-like, driving, drivable ; 
 that is to say, not knocked-up, or lying down as unable to be 
 driven further, but a-foot and rushing, plunging, kicking, 
 scurrying, leaping, altogether as is the wont of driven sheep 
 and kine ; thus, nimble or agile. 
 
 They who begot the fathers of the Romans and 
 the fathers of ourselves were shepherds and herders. 
 
102 
 
 Their tongues show it clearly. The Roman word for 
 "money" ran back to "flock." Our impecunious man is, 
 etymologically, a man " without flock." To pay a man his 
 " fee," means to pay him " cattle." We get this word " fee," 
 not from the Latin, but from the Norse and from the 
 Saxons ; yet Grimm's law shows it to be the same root as 
 pec in the Latin pecus, a flock, whence pecunia, money. 
 The word runs back to a time when our blue-eyed stock had 
 not begun to swarm southwest to the Mediterranean, or 
 northwest toward the Baltic. To-day, this word " fee," 
 meaning " cattle " in German, sounds in German just as in 
 English, although spelled otherwise. In Sanscrit, does not 
 the word for "battle " mean " a scrimmage about the cows?" 
 The Sanscrit "go-cara," which literally means " ranged over 
 by one's cattle," means derivatively, " within one's scope of 
 action." In those old times, herd-words ran into civil life, 
 as on our western plains to-day, and made their marks in 
 language ; they ran even into family relationships, and they 
 partly named those relationships. In our Northern tongues, 
 and in Greek as well, is not " daughter " the " dug- worker," 
 that is, the milker of the cows and ewes ? 
 
 The life of these pre-historic fathers was largely one of 
 idleness. Every shepherd told his tale under the hawthorn 
 in the dale. They lived by their flocks and herds ; their 
 work was to drive these from one spot to another, to grass 
 or to water. Thence it came that, with them, " work " lay 
 in driving ; and to " drive " meant to work, to do, to make, 
 to carry on business, to put through and accomplish. 
 
 In the supine, and in the perfect participle passive, the g of 
 ago hardens into c, because there the hard consonant t fol- 
 lows the g. Thus, in conjugating ago, the Roman ancestors 
 got ac-tum esse, " to have been driven," or (what was then the 
 same thing), " to have been done or performed ;" thus ac-tus, 
 a driving, a drift, meant also a deed or performance, a bit 
 of accomplished business, or, as we say, an act. Actio was 
 the driving of a matter, or the pushing of it forward in a 
 
103 
 
 lively way. So we Saxons call a live man of business a driv- 
 ing man, or a thriving man for " thrive " is the same word 
 with " drive " and we call him a thrifty man, or a man of 
 thrift ; and when we mean to ask what business a man has 
 been about, or what he has been doing, we may ask what 
 he has been driving at. To bid one " drive " some busi- 
 ness that has been entrusted to him, is to bid him act with 
 energy ; and a man whose wont it is to act thus is said to 
 have some drive in him. Thus, in old Norse, drifa, meaning 
 to drive, means also to perform " sig drifa " is to exert 
 oneself ; and in German, " Be-He#-samkeit," which literally 
 means drivingness, is the " activity " with which one bestirs 
 himself in his daily calling. 
 
 Thus, in their bottom meaning, the derivatives of 
 "ago" necessarily take the notion of efficiency, performance, 
 or, as we say, oc-tion ; and these words all relate to that 
 third degree of Life which is involved in Activity, as dis- 
 tinguished from the second degree, which is involved in Con- 
 templation, and which is a matter of the Intellect ; and as 
 still more distinguished from the first degree, which 
 first degree is involved in Hankering and Desire, and which 
 is matter of the Will. Nothing is at all real whilst it is only 
 a matter of Desire. Nothing begins to be real without first 
 becoming a matter of Plan and Understanding ; or until, as 
 we say, it " begins to be realized." And nothing becomes 
 absolutely real until it has passed into Act. And because 
 when it has passed into Act, it has become real, the acting 
 out of any desire or plan comes (of late) to mean the realiz- 
 ing of it, or the making of it into a reality. Now after it 
 has become a reality, the dynamic action whereby it became 
 a reality may easily be forgotten, and only the static fact of 
 its present reality be borne in mind ; thus, of late years, it 
 has come about that act-u-ality, which before had referred 
 to a state of acting or really performing, as distinguished 
 from a state of ideal hankering and ideal planning, means 
 
104 
 
 now a state of bare Fact or Keality, without any the least 
 suggestion of activity. 
 
 The adjective and noun derived from " ago" viz : " act- 
 ual-is " and " act-ual-itas," meant respectively " being in ac- 
 tivity," and " the state of being in activity. With these 
 meanings alone they were taken over into several European 
 tongues, including English ; and in English they long pre- 
 served their original meaning. Till long after Swedenborg's 
 school-days were over, " actual " and " actuality " meant in 
 English what I have stated, and seldom or never had any 
 reference to "reality." It was not till within the memory of 
 our grandfathers that this new meaning of " reality " began 
 to attach in English. In French the change was somewhat 
 earlier. All this, as to English, can be clearly seen in John- 
 son's Dictionary ; i. e. the tendency to this change can be 
 seen ; but in Johnson's time the change had not come about. 
 
 From Johnson's English Dictionary, published some 
 dozen years before the writing of the Divine Love and Wis- 
 dom, I make the following extract, on the words " actual " 
 and "actuality." I supplement with a few words of the 
 context the quotations he makes from Milton and from 
 Cheyne, showing the meaning of the respective writers. The 
 words which I thus supply I put in brackets ; if the words in 
 brackets are stricken out, the extract from Johnson will be 
 exact : 
 
 " ACTUAL, adj. [actuel, Fr.] 
 
 " 1. That which comprises action. 
 
 " In this slumbry agitation, what besides her walk- 
 " ing and other actual performances, what, at any 
 " time, have you heard her say I 
 
 " Shakespeare's Macbeth. 
 
 " 2. Eeally in act ; not merely potential. 
 
 " [Meanwhile in Paradise the hellish pair 
 
 " Too soon arrived ; ] Sin, there in pow'r before 
 
105 
 
 " Once actual ; now in body, and to dwell 
 " Habitual habitant. 
 
 " Milt. Paradise Lost, b. x. I 587. 
 
 " 3. In act, not purely in speculation. 
 
 " For he that but conceives a crime in thought 
 " Contracts the danger of an actual fault ; 
 " Then what must he expect, that still proceeds 
 " To finish sin, and work up thoughts to deeds ? 
 
 " Dryderis Juvenal, Sat. XIH. 
 
 " ACTUALITY, n. s. [from actual] The state of being actual. 
 
 " The actuality [, as the metaphysicians speak, ] of these 
 " spiritual qualities is thus imprisoned, though their potenti- 
 " ality be not quite destroyed ; and thus a crass, extended, 
 " impenetrable, passive, divisible, unintelligent substance is 
 " generated, which we call matter [, but when this matter 
 " thus formed out of a spiritual substance is again infinitely 
 " refined and exalted, these Powers and Qualities are un- 
 " loosed, set at freedom again, and exert themselves as for- 
 " merly.] 
 
 " Cheyn. Phil. Princ." 
 
 In the citation from Macbeth, actual clearly means " re- 
 lating to act ; " walking being one of her act-ual or act-ive 
 performances, and her other act-ual or act-ive performances 
 being now enquired about. Note the concurrence of the 
 cognate word " agitation," just as with " agitur " and " actu- 
 alitas " in D. L. W. n. 157, and just as with " actuantur " 
 and " actualitates " and " activitates " meaning " vires," in 
 D. L. W. n. 200. 
 
 In the citation from Milton, note the meaning, viz., that 
 before Sins' bodily arrival (or, as the nineteenth century 
 English would read, before its actual presence) in Paradise, 
 Sin was present in that it was powerful and act-ual (or 
 act-ive, as we say in the nineteeth century) in Paradise. 
 
106 
 
 Note that this, the former use, of " actual " is quite opposite 
 to its present use. 
 
 In the citation from Dryden, note that an " actual fault " 
 does not mean a fault considered as a reality, but a fault in 
 act, wrought out from the thought, a fault not in the 
 thought or conception but in act. During the time it is 
 still in the thought or conception merely, a fault is (in the 
 modern sense of the word) quite as " actual " as after it has 
 been performed. Not such meaning as at present had the 
 word in Dryden's time. 
 
 In the citation from Cheyne (who wrote A. D. 1715), ob- 
 serve that the " actuality " of the spiritual qualities, which is 
 described as " imprisoned " so long as spiritual substances 
 are conglomerated into matter, is a quality which, when 
 matter is (as that writer holds) exalted again into spiritual 
 substance, is set loose and at freedom, and then " exerts " 
 itself. Their " actuality " is a quality which is imprisoned 
 at first, and afterwards is set free and exerts itself. Now 
 for " act-uality " read " act-ivity," and the words make sense, 
 be they true or not. For " act-uality " read " reality," and 
 the words make nonsense, just as in the favorite trans- 
 lations of D. L. W., nn. 157, 82, 200 . Arc. CoeL, nn. 633, 
 6138, 6961 ; True Chr. ReL, n. 530 ; Sp. Diary, nn. 
 3708, 39941 4039, 4055, 4224, 4080, 4091, 4113. Similar 
 nonsense is made by rendering in modern English, " act- 
 ualis " as " actual." Modern lexicographers may endeavor 
 to import into the ancient use of " actual " the modern 
 meaning. Let the whole context of their citations be well 
 examined. 
 
 In two or three passages Swedenborg uses " actualis " in a 
 sense approximating the new sense ; but in all the hundreds 
 of other cases, he uses " actualis " in its original sense, mean- 
 ing "relating to action," or "relating to daily life," or "re- 
 lating to what a man does as distinguished from what he 
 thinks or pretends." He uses " actualitas " invariably in 
 this latter sense, i. e., the sense of "doing," "effecting," 
 
107 
 
 " performing," "producing," "acting." Compare the " act- 
 ualitas " of the Divine Love and Wisdom, n. 157, with the 
 same word at n. 200 ; and with the " act-uari " at n. 158 ; 
 and with the " quod mortuum est, non ag-it quicquam, sed 
 ag-itur " of n. 157 ; and compare the " act-ualitas " of n. 200, 
 with the " act-ualitates " of n. 200, and the " act-uantur" of 
 n. 177; do these things, and you will not fail to see the 
 meaning of " act-ualitas." Immanuel Tafel, in his German 
 translation, at n. 157 of the Divine Love and Wisdom r 
 rightly renders it " Thatigkeit," meaning " activity ; " not 
 Wirklichkeit, which means actuality, i. e., reality. 
 
 AN ILLUSTRATION OF " ACTUALITAS " OB EFFECTIVENESS. 
 
 You have probably seen a steam dredge or mud excavator 
 a machine used for dredging out piers and harbors. About 
 the dredge itself there is not much that is interesting ; but 
 the dredge when in actual operation is a very interesting 
 object. With a high degree of intelligence and with much 
 care, and with all due gentleness, it swings out, with its long 
 arm, a great pot or scoop, in fashion such as that in de- 
 scending into the water the scoop shall clear the sides of 
 the dredge. Then with the same care and gentleness it 
 lowers the scoop down to the bottom, and with superb skill 
 deposits the scoop so as to take hold of the mud ; and as 
 soon as it has got a good scoopful it raises up the scoop with 
 great caution, and when the scoop has reached the proper 
 height, swings the same tenderly in-board, and deposits the 
 mud softly within the dredge. Were this witnessed by a 
 savage, or indeed by any simple-mi Tided person unacquainted 
 with steam machinery, and unacquainted with the perfection 
 of the processes to which machinery is now applied, and es- 
 pecially unacquainted with the present perfection of steam 
 dredges, such a person might well declare that the steam en- 
 gine is possessed of an intelligent will and of a correspond- 
 
108 
 
 ing wisdom. The truth is, there are two causes for this 
 behavior of the dredge. One of them is what Sweden- 
 borg calls an " instrumental " cause ; the other is what 
 he calls a " principal " cause ; and he says the prin- 
 cipal cause compels the instrumental cause to work ; and 
 says that it, through the instrumental cause, does 
 itself produce all the effects that are produced ; 
 wherefore, says he, to ascribe to that cause (which I 
 here call the instrumental) any of the effects produced by it, 
 would be like ascribing to the instrument which the work- 
 man has made, the work which the workman's self has pro- 
 duced (D. L. W., n. 157, n 315, etc.). These two causes are 
 separated by a discrete degree. The lower cause, which is 
 the instrument, consists of the heat produced in the furnace, 
 which heat generates steam in the boiler, and thus works 
 the engine. This is a blind force, an unintelligent force, a 
 force that has no will ; a force that of itself could not pro- 
 duce any such effect as the dredging out of pier or harbor. 
 The higher force is intelligent and has a will ; it resides 
 within the mind of the engineer who runs the dredge. This 
 engineer " compels " the furnace, the boiler, the engine, to 
 do those things which they perform (D. L. "W., n. 315). I 
 say the higher force is separated from the lower force by a 
 discrete degree. The lower force is purely natural, and its 
 forces are all derived from the realm of nature. The higher 
 force is purely spiritual, and it is wholly derived from the 
 realm of spirit. It is true that there is belonging to the 
 engineer that is to say, to his body a certain force which 
 belongs equally to the realm of nature with the force of the 
 engine. This natural force of the engineer is a force which 
 is generated in his body by changes of form in the sub- 
 stances which he takes into his mouth as food and 
 takes into his lungs as oxygen. But besides this natural 
 force which the engineer's body possesses, there is a higher 
 force within him, which is that same intelligent and willing 
 force that I have mentioned, and which is separated from 
 
109 
 
 the lower forces (including in these lower forces both the 
 forces of his own body and the forces of the engine's body) 
 by a discrete degree. The higher force within him, which 
 is a " principal " cause, and which compels all " instrumen- 
 tal " causes to work its will, is a force which prevails in cer- 
 tain spiritual substances in his brain, which lie in among the 
 natural substances of his brain (D. L. W., nn. 257, 260); and 
 these spiritual substances are of nature such as that their 
 particles not having been collected or massed into material 
 particles they are capable of vibrating to the pulse of the 
 spiritual ether, the vibrations of which (as spiritual heat and 
 spiritual light) are propagated through the spiritual Sun, 
 from their inmost source of motion, which source is the 
 Heart and Lungs of the Divine Man (D. L. W., n. 291) 
 
 ANALYZE THE TWO CAUSES. 
 
 Let us set completely separate and apart from each other 
 the two elements of which this total wise and useful working 
 of the steam dredge its actualitas, D. L. W. n. 157 is 
 composed. The engineer's will and wisdom, which consti- 
 tute a spiritual force, are or, if you like, is one of thess 
 two parts. This part is the " principal " cause. This prin- 
 cipal cause lies in the spiritual portion of those substances 
 of which his natural mind is composed (Div. Love and Wis., 
 nn. 257, 260) ; some of which substances are spiritual and 
 some of which are natural ; it being only in the spiritual 
 substances of his mind find not at all in the natural sub- 
 stances of his mind that the thinking and willing which are 
 necessary to control and " run " the steam dredge go on ; 
 the reason of this fact being that essential thought is merely 
 a change of form of substances, and that such change is only 
 to be produced by that pulsing motion of the spiritual ether 
 which is known as spiritual heat and spiritual light, and 
 which consequently (Div. Love and Wisdom, nos. 257, 5.) is 
 only to be produced in spiritual substances, since only spir- 
 
110 
 
 itual substances are able to beat to the beat of the spiritual 
 ether, which ether derives its pulse from the Heart and 
 Lungs of the Divine Man (Div. Love and Wisdom nos. 291, 
 174, 176). Here, I say, in the spiritual substances of his 
 natural mind, in their changes of form (which changes pro- 
 duce the force that results ever from any change of form), 
 resides the head cause, or " principal " cause, of the working 
 of that steam dredge, so useful, so intelligent, so powerful. 
 On the other side on the other side, let me repeat it, 
 lie all the natural forces which work the dredge, to wit ; the 
 forces proceeding from the change of form in the natural 
 substances of the engineer's natural mind, the forces pro- 
 duced in his body and its muscles by virtue of the changes 
 of form in the substance of his food, and the forces produced 
 in the engine (and thence upon the steam dredge's crane 
 and scoop) by the change of form in the substances called 
 carbon and oxygen (furnished from the coal and from the air 
 admitted to the furnace), and by the consequent change of 
 form produced in the water-particles in the boiler where 
 they change into steam particles by being shaken to pieces, 
 and in the still further consequent and steady change of 
 form in the engine, which change of form of engine the pis- 
 ton (being thrust upon and hammered with innumerable 
 blows of innumerable madly-rushing steam particles, and 
 constantly giving ground before those blows) produces, 
 moving thus constantly up and down, and thus turning the 
 crank of the engine. All these forces reckoning even from 
 the forces proceeding from change of form in such sub- 
 stances of the natural mind as are merely natural, down to 
 the forces proceeding from the steady change of form in the 
 engine are all natural, all purely natural, and all therefore 
 " dead " (Div. Love and Wis. n. 157), because belonging 
 merely to the realm of Nature ; and in them there is no in- 
 telligence or life whatsoever. Whereas in the other set of 
 forces, to wit, the forces proceeding from change of form 
 in such of the substances of the natural mind as are spirit- 
 
Ill 
 
 ual (Div. Love and Wis. n. 257, 5) there is intelligence 
 and there is life. 
 
 It is natural fire that makes the engine go ; and if we 
 trace back the history of the coal, we shall find that it is fire 
 of the natural sun, such as is referred to in the Div. Love and 
 Wis. n. 157. It is sheer natural fire, from which all life 
 has been abstracted (Div. Love and Wis. n. 157). It is 
 " dead," and what is dead does not act upon anything," 
 (Div Love and Wis. n. 157); nor consequently can it 
 deepen harbors by digging out the mud, as does this steam 
 dredge ; " it is only acted upon " (Div. Love and Wis. n. 
 157), and is forced and " compelled" (Div. Love and Wis. n. 
 315) to deepen the harbor by scooping out the mud. 
 
 Two INDEPENDENT KINDS OF HEAT. 
 
 That which makes the intelligence which makes and runs 
 the steam dredge, is also fire ; but it is living fire ; fire in 
 which (Div. Love and Wis. n. 157) is Life from God, a 
 vita divina. This fire is therefore the " principal " cause. 
 To ascribe to the fire of the furnace, which is a dead fire, 
 anything of the work of deepening the harbor, " would be 
 like ascribing to the instrument which is worked by the hand 
 of the workman, the work which the workman himself doth 
 work " (Div. Love and Wis. n. 157). But look you now : 
 the fire which is in the engineer's mind and is spiritual, 
 " enters into " the fire which is in the furnace and is natural, 
 and "perpetually makes it work to the above purposes" 
 (Div. Love and Wis. n. 315). Do you not see that this is 
 so ? In your system of explaining the relation between the 
 spiritual and the natural, and in your system of interpreting 
 n. 157 of the Divine Love and Wisdom, you would have it 
 (or you would have it, were you thoroughly consistent always) 
 that some of the engineer's intelligence, as an actual quan- 
 tity of composing material, passes out of his mind and " en- 
 ters into " the furnace, and makes it burn, in the sense of 
 
112 
 
 furnishing to it an unseen fuel, and thus causing it to 
 drive the engine ; and you would have it that this spiritual fire 
 in fact comprises and makes up the substance of the coal, 
 and originates the substantial motion arising from the coal's 
 consumption. For you do not raise your eyes above Nature, 
 nor understand that spiritual intelligence and natural force 
 " are so distinct that they have nothing common between 
 them, although they have been so created that they com- 
 mune, yea are joined together, by virtue of the correspond- 
 ence between them " (Div. Love and Wis. n. 83). You 
 cannot understand that spiritual heat and light, on the one 
 hand, and natural heat and light, on the other hand, " are of 
 utterly diverse essence " (Div. Love and Wis. n. 90), and 
 that these two activities " have no other communication than 
 by virtue of this, viz., that one answers to the other " 
 communicatio non alia datur quam per correspondents 
 (Div. Love and Wis. n. 90). You will have it that one sits 
 actually inside of the other and in fact makes the other up 
 steadily ; and that if a man might prick the one deep enough, 
 he should surely find the other inside of it ! 
 
 But, dear sir, the truly human (as well as the angelic) idea 
 of the two several fires whereby the steam dredge is im- 
 pelled to scoop up mud and deepen harbors, is as follows : 
 One is a fire proceeding originally and once-for-all 
 from the sun of the natural world, and the other 
 is a fire proceeding steadily from the sun of the spirit- 
 ual world. There is a life from God which is inwardly, 
 or from within, in the fire of the spiritual world, and this 
 fire prevails in the engineer's mind and drives him (and also 
 guides him) to drive and guide the steam dredge. But this 
 fire from God is not "from within" (intus) in the furnace 
 fire ; the latter fire was originally from the sun of the natural 
 world alone ; the living fire is from God. The living fire is 
 in the operations of that furnace fire merely "from without," 
 (extus) ; that is to say, it acts upon that furnace and upon the 
 steam dredge's motive fire "from without ;" and, from with- 
 
113 
 
 out, it causes that fire to be kindled and fed in a rational 
 manner, and guides and manages that fire (as also the 
 movements of the engine and dredge) in intelligent fashion, 
 altogether as you see ; but not a bit of its substance enters 
 that natural fire, or ever is within it in any other sense than 
 that it is present in the Uses of that natural fire. Uses are 
 spiritual, and in Uses the Life from God can be present, but 
 Life from Him cannot be present in a material sense, which 
 material sense is the sense you contend for. " From all this 
 it is able to be seen that the performing power or effectuating 
 capacity (actualitas)" of the furnace fire " is not from itself but 
 from the living power proceeding from the sun of the spiritual 
 world" (Div. Love and Wis. n. 157); to which the fire of 
 the furnace is added that it may furnish aid, as a kind of 
 substitute in the realm of matter (Div. Love and Wis. n. 
 153) ; forasmuch as spiritual intelligence and warmth can- 
 not of themselves push pistons up and down, but must use 
 agents for that purpose, viz., natural substances whose forms 
 are changing and which therefore are developing a fit force, 
 viz., a natural force capable of budging a piston. " And for 
 the above reason, were the living power of the sun of the 
 spiritual world to be held back or taken away " (Div. Love 
 and Wis. n. 157), the furnace fire would quickly go out, being 
 neglected, and thereby would lose all "capacity of producing'' 
 (actualitas) those intelligent those indeed comically intelli- 
 gent effects which the steam dredge's crane and scoop do 
 constantly bring about. But you, dear sir, think the actu- 
 alitas of the steam dredge is its mere substance merely float- 
 ing there in the water; you think its actualitas is its mere 
 reality, its " actuality" as you say costing some fifty dollars 
 a day to the owner and still more to the Government doubt- 
 less, yet perhaps doing no work whatever, or at least no in- 
 telligent and faithful work ; and yet in all such uselessness 
 fulfilling completely your notion of " actualitas." 
 
 With the vegetable creation, whose constant bringing about 
 is described in the Divine Love and Wisdom at nn. 157, 158, 
 
114 
 
 the double process is just the same as with intelligent steam 
 dredging. You see I have freely applied the terms of green- 
 house culture to a description of steam-dredge working. 
 But the sublime processes of botany are not to be described 
 in this poor letter. Go to books on botany and you will find 
 them described. 
 
 THE "ACTIVE," THE "MIDDLE" AND THE "PASSIVE" FORCES. 
 
 In books on botany you will find described the action of 
 the atmospheres, which are the " active forces ;" of the 
 liquids which are the " middle forces;" and of the earthy 
 matters which are the "passive forces" (Dw. Love and Wis., 
 nn. 173, 174, 177 whicE compare with the Apocalypse Ex- 
 plained, n. 1208 to n. 1220, continuations) ; and you will also 
 find described many other things mentioned casually in the 
 Divine Love and Wisdom, which can be understood only by 
 one who knows what Swedenborg had in mind, and the 
 botanical processes with which he was familiar beyond any 
 man of his day, and which since his day have become 
 matters of common scientific knowledge. The tree is just as 
 much of a machine as is the steam dredge ; there are 
 its "active powers" which are in the atmospheres, 
 both aerial and atmospheric, and belong to the 
 gaseous degree ; just as the vibratory ether (whose 
 pulses move the engine) belongs to the gaseous degree or 
 stage. Its middle powers, which are water and also sap, belong 
 to the liquid degree or stage, just as the water of the boiler 
 belongs to the liquid degree or stage. Its passive powers are 
 the matters from the soil, and are also the eventually-formed 
 woody cells, and they belong to the solid degree or stage, 
 just as the hard reactive substances of the boiler the cylinder 
 and the piston belong to the solid degree or stage. But 
 in a tree (as in a steam dredge when it is " run " by a 
 capable and watchful engineer), there are present, be- 
 sides these three forces of nature, the analogous forces of 
 
115 
 
 Spirit ; and the field in which the forces of Spirit bear sway 
 is in those spiritual substances which are among the natural 
 substances of the soil, and which He outside of the soil's 
 natural substances, and which lie surrounding those natural 
 substances (Div. Love and Wis., n. 158) and which do not 
 in the least lie inside, although you hold quite the contrary. 
 The field of those forces of Spirit is likewise in spiritual 
 substances which are outside the natural atmospheres (Die. 
 Love and Wis., n. 175) not inside, though you hold the 
 contrary. These spiritual substances are most subtle (Div. 
 Love and Wis., n. 310) and are able to be brought into 
 organic union (conjunctionem cum materiis ex origine 
 naturali) with those natural substances which are fur- 
 nished from the atmosphere and the earth (Div. Love and 
 Wis., n. 310), as soon as the natural particles in the grow- 
 ing seed are somewhat shaken apart by the heat vibrations. 
 It is these spiritual substances which are present with the 
 plant (or rather it is the molecular movements constantly 
 produced within these spiritual substances by the beating of 
 the heat-and-light waves of the spiritual ether) it is these 
 that give the plant its growing power and its prolific power. 
 A kind of life they give to it ; and in controlling and direct- 
 ing the dead and merely natural forces which it derives from 
 the world of nature, they play a corresponding and similar 
 part to the part played by the spiritual substances which 
 form part of the natural mind of the engineer that runs the 
 steam dredge (Divine Love and Wis. nn. 340, 257, 5). 
 
 INTERNAL PRESENCE AND EXTERNAL PRESENCE. 
 
 I pray you to observe why and how we can truly say that 
 it is externally, or from without (extus), that the engineer or 
 driver of the dredge is in the operation of the machine ; 
 and to observe why and how it is impossible that we should 
 ever truly say that he is internally, or from within (intus), 
 in its operation. For the sake of clearness, let us concen- 
 
116 
 
 trate our attention upon a definite portion of that machine ; 
 let us take the very heart and centre of its activity, viz., 
 the furnace fire, which is really the essence of all the activity 
 of the dredge ; all the other activities of the machine being 
 merely applications and modifications of this primary 
 activity. This primary activity consists in the rushing to- 
 gether of atoms of carbon in the coal, on the one hand, and 
 atoms of oxygen in the atmosphere on the other hand. 
 This rushing together of atoms is what makes the heat ; and 
 the heat it is that makes the dredge do work. When these 
 atoms rush together they make what I may call a splash in 
 the ether ; and since an innumerable number of atoms are 
 rushing together each moment, a series of splashes in the 
 ether is maintained ; thus a pulse of motion is maintained 
 in the ether, and this pulse is transferred to the molecules of 
 iron in the boiler, so that these iron molecules take up and 
 maintain a pulsation, and these iron molecules beat against 
 the water molecules in the boiler and shake them apart, thus 
 producing the gaseous molecules which, being no longer 
 bound together into water molecules, and being urged by 
 the pulsation of the ether, rush furiously forward, and 
 furnish the energy which moves the piston. 
 
 It is easy to see that the engineer of the dredge, i. e., the 
 will and intelligence of the engineer, is not operative 
 in the rushing together of the atoms of carbon in the coal 
 and oxygen in the atmosphere. Those atoms would rush 
 together and beget heat, did the opportunity for them to do 
 so come by mere accident ; that is to say, did the oppor- 
 tunity come without the intervention of the engineer or of 
 any intelligent desire whatever. 
 
 This rushing together of the atoms is what constitutes the 
 true internal and essential of the furnace fire, and it is 
 thereby the true internal and essential of the physical 
 activity of the dredge. But this internal or essential of 
 activity has also an external ; which external consists in the 
 form or manner in which the activity is exerted ; as, for 
 
117 
 
 instance, there may be fewer atoms rushing together, 
 or more atoms rushing together. This will be regulated by 
 the amount of coal which is put on, and by the amount of 
 draft which is admitted to the furnace. This external will 
 moreover (and, indeed, primarily) consist in the shape of 
 the furnace, the manner in which the fire is laid, etc., etc. 
 In all of this external of the activity of the furnace fire, the 
 desire and intelligence of the engineer will be found ; that 
 is to say, his desire and his intelligence it is that determine 
 what the fashion of the furnace shall be ; how much coal 
 shall be put on ; how much draft shall be admitted ; how 
 the fire shall be laid ; whether it shall burn to-day or 
 not before to-morrow ; and whether it shall be burning at 
 full power, or whether the fire shall be banked. He will 
 create the formal or "accidental," but not the essential, of 
 the motive power. Thus and in this fashion it is, 
 as you see, and not in any other fashion certainly 
 not in any mystical, dreamy or idealistic fashion that the 
 will and intelligence of the engineer will be present in the 
 furnace fire. Now the essence of anything is its internal ; 
 but its form, its mode, its fashion or, as the schoolmen 
 said, its accidents, make its external. You may also clearly 
 observe why it is, and how it is, that we can truly say that 
 the engineer " compels " these forces of nature to do their 
 work in scooping up mud from the bottom of the harbour. 
 You can clearly see that the engineer " compels " the forces 
 of nature to this work, not " from within " or by really orig- 
 inating their activity each moment, but simply by controlling 
 and directing the form and manner of the manifestation 
 thereof ; and you can see that he does this always from 
 without (extus), and that the energy of mind with which he 
 " compels " them to this task which without this compul- 
 sion they would not perform is of a totally different nature 
 from their own energy, because his energy is of a spiritual 
 nature, and their energy is of a material nature ; and what 
 is spiritual and what is material are so unlike that, as 
 
118 
 
 Swedenborg says, it is utterly impossible that the two should 
 be together, because they are of a different essence. Much 
 more clearly is it impossible that the spiritual should be 
 within the natural substance ; wherefore Swedenborg places 
 the two external to each other. But when he speaks of liv- 
 ing forms, he speaks of the spiritual as being interior to the 
 natural ; and the reason is that then he speaks of forms, not 
 of substances ; and the spiritual is what causes the sub- 
 stance to maintain that form ; now, what is causal is said to 
 be interior to what is caused ; thus, the spiritual is said, in 
 living forms, to be interior to the form, or interior to the 
 living creature. That the form and not the substance is 
 what it is interior to, is evident from this, viz., that when 
 the spiritual is withdrawn the substance does not perish, 
 but only the form ; i. e., the carcass rots and changes its 
 form, but without annihilation of substance. 
 
 With the mechanism of a tree or plant and of its growth 
 and fructification by means of two fires one the material 
 forces of the sun of this world, the other the spiritual fires 
 of the sun of the other world (all of which is treated of in the 
 Divine Love and Wisdom at nn. 157, 158) the process is, 
 in its way, just the same as with the mechanism of the steam 
 dredge which is run by the joint operation of material fires 
 and spiritual fires. But I think that the present class of 
 Swedenborg's readers will not be able to see this until, each 
 for himself, they shall have given the subject some real 
 thought ; nor before they shall, by a thousand illustrations 
 (to be drawn from daily observation by each one for himself) 
 have come clearly to perceive from the experiences of every- 
 day life, in harnessing the forces of nature, how it is that 
 the spiritual " compels " the forces of nature to complete 
 the ends of the spiritual and to work them out on a ma- 
 terial plane. Not till they shall begin to open their eyes and 
 look at Facts, will they begin to abandon that dreamy and 
 mystical interpretation of Swedenborg which is the farthest 
 possible from Swedenborg's meaning. Not till then will 
 
119 
 
 they begin to see that the spirituality which is to mark and 
 distinguish the New Jerusalem consists, not in superstitious 
 and fanciful interpretations which are at war with common 
 sense, but in the process of marking a man's internal and 
 external conduct to conform to the Divine law ; and that, 
 in brief, it consists, not in being "taken out of the world," i. e., 
 not in being divorced from scientific sense and reason, but 
 " in being delivered from the evil," i. e., in purification of 
 motive. Then, and not till then, will the so-called " collat- 
 eral works " cease to consist at all of abstract specula- 
 tions upon matters which both the writers and the readers 
 are perchance not well fitted, either by education or by bent 
 of character, to consider ; and will begin to consist first and 
 foremost in investigations into the duties of life and in ap- 
 plications of the Ten Commandments to the plane of actual 
 conduct in each several employment. To such studies when- 
 ever a study of the natural sciences shall begin to be added, 
 the eyes of the blind shall be really opened, and the ears of 
 the deaf shall really be unstopped ; and real spiritual 
 waters shall break forth in the wilderness, and springs in the 
 desert. 
 
 CHANGING SCENERY IN THE WORLD OF MINDS. 
 
 With respect to scenery and other objects described by 
 Swedenborg, as seen in the spiritual world, I understand it 
 is your opinion, as also the opinion of the majority of his 
 readers, that these, appearing suddenly as they are de- 
 scribed as doing, and disappearing with equal suddenness, 
 are brought about, not by a change in the form of some per- 
 manent and indestructible substance out of which they are 
 fashioned at the moment that they appear, and which merely 
 passes into other and unseen forms when they vanish from 
 the eye, but that they are formed out of substance which, 
 as you think, is brought into reality for the purpose 
 of making them, and on the occasion of making them ; 
 
120 
 
 and that when they disappear, their substance turns to 
 nothingness ; or else, as some hold, that they have no sub- 
 stance whatever, and that their so-called " reality " consists 
 in their being a seeming which answers to some thing predi- 
 cated of the Divine. It is your opinion, as I understand, 
 like the opinion of the majority of Swedenborg's readers, 
 that it is by sending forth ever some sphere of substance of 
 His that the Divine Being produces these appearances ; and 
 that the substance, if any, that underlies their forms, is set 
 forth by Him for the occasion, being in fact created by 
 Him for the nonce ; or else that there is no substance in 
 them, and that no substance is necessary in order for them 
 to be real. It is likewise your opinion, I understand, as it is 
 the opinion of the same majority, that the various sub-crea- 
 tions, so to speak, which Swedenborg describes as taking 
 place about individual spiritual beings, and about societies 
 of spiritual beings (which sub-creations consist of scenery, 
 etc., etc., corresponding to the internal condition of such in- 
 dividuals or of such societies), are of substance which 
 is created upon the occasion of the appearance of such 
 scenery, and which turns into nothing when the scenery dis- 
 appears ; or else are not of any substance whatever ; a 
 consonance in form with Divine ideals being, for all your 
 purposes, a substantiality quite sufficient for them. 
 
 SUBSTANCE is UNCKEATABLE, BUT CAN BE FINITED. 
 
 It is probably useless to remind you, or to remind the 
 majority, that to say that any substance can be created, is 
 in terms a contradiction. It is nevertheless true that 
 Omnipotence itself cannot create substance, that is to say, 
 cannot make something out of nothing ; substance, in plain 
 language, being that which is something at bottom. That 
 God did not, and could not create, any substance out 
 of nothing, is one of Swedenborg's first principles ; and he 
 
121 
 
 attacks in a lively manner the common theological fallacy 
 in that behalf. Substance is uncreatable. When we speak 
 of any substance having been created, we mean merely that 
 such substance has been finited ; we mean that substance 
 which had been in the Infinite Being, and was then partak- 
 ing of His quality of infinity, has been separated from the 
 Infinite Being, and deprived of any infinite quality, and been 
 caused to be finite. Substance which thus has been finited 
 can never return into God ; to say that it can return would 
 be saying that the finite can turn into the Infinite. Nor 
 can substance which has been finited from the Infinite, ever 
 turn to nothing ; for could it so turn, it must originally, 
 whilst in the Infinite Being, have been really nothing there. 
 To admit that substance which had been in the Infinite can 
 turn to nothing, would be denying God Himself, because it 
 would be declaring His Infinite substance to be nothing. 
 Therefore, contrary to your opinion, the changes of scenery, 
 and the appearance and disappearance of objects in the 
 spiritual world all of which Swedenborg calls " creations " 
 in the spiritual world are by no means a creating of 
 substance ; yet by no means are they void of substance ; but 
 they are changes of form in substances which long before 
 had been finited and which, when those particular forms 
 of scenery, etc., was "created, ""were merely assuming new 
 forms ; were merely passing just as substances in this 
 world are well known to pass out of states in which 
 the substance is invisible to the senses, into states in which 
 the substance becomes visible to the senses ; and may 
 swiftly pass back, like substances in this world again, out 
 of states in which their substance is visible to the senses, 
 into states in which their substance will become invisible. 
 
 FORMATION BY DISCRETE DEGREES. 
 
 But why and how there exist in the worlds, both spiritual 
 and natural, these constantly recurring changes of invisible 
 
122 
 
 substance into forms whose substance then becomes visible, 
 and these constantly recurring changes of forms whose sub- 
 stance is visible into substance invisible, cannot be well 
 understood by any one until he becomes acquainted with the 
 doctrine of discrete degrees ; and with this doctrine almost 
 none of Swedenborg's readers are as yet acquainted, al- 
 though they are familiar with many words relating to the 
 subject of discrete degrees. 
 
 The three stages of matter, viz., gaseous, liquid and solid, 
 are in discrete degrees ; posterior degrees are formed from 
 prior degrees by composition and re-composition; several 
 units of a prime degree compose one unit of an after or poste- 
 rior degree, and several units of a posterior degree compose 
 one unit of an aftermost or postreme degree. If a solid par- 
 ticle be shaken apart by the vibrations of the ethereal atmo- 
 sphere, its substance separates into finer particles which are 
 known as liquid particles ; and if one of these liquid par- 
 ticles be shaken to pieces by the vibrations of the ethereal 
 atmosphere, the pieces into which it is shaken are particles 
 known as gaseous. Solids are called by Swedenborg " ulti- 
 mate " substances ; and are said to belong to the ultimate or 
 postreme degree; whereas liquid particles belong to an 
 earlier or prior degree ; and gaseous particles belong to an 
 earliest or prime degree. 
 
 The heat-pulsation of the ether tends to drive the particles 
 asunder, because it gives them motion, or tends to increase 
 such motion as they already have ; and tends to drive them 
 asunder because, being thus set in motion (or rather in more 
 violent motion), they hurtle against each other with such 
 force as to overcome their attraction for each other ; hence 
 comes the kinetic motion of all gases. 
 
 Reversing the means whereby solid particles are converted 
 into liquid particles, and liquid particles into gaseous parti- 
 cles a process which is effected by heat pulsations and 
 applying the opposite process, we find as follows ; If gase- 
 ous particles be compressed and some of the heat-motion 
 
123 
 
 which they possess be abstracted, the bringing of them 
 closer together increases (in the ratio of the square) their at- 
 traction. If at the same time the force which drove them 
 asunder is withdrawn, they will group or clot themselves into 
 crowds whose individual members adhere to each other by 
 attraction and form a unit as it were ; such a unit is a liquid 
 particle, and each such liquid particle retains some motion 
 in the form of heat, which motion keeps it clear and free from 
 other liquid particles. Destroy still further the heat-motion 
 of each of these clots, and they will, by virtue of attraction 
 for each other, clot themselves again together, forming still 
 larger units which are solid particles. This formation of 
 liquid particles from gaseous particles, and of solid particles 
 from liquid particles, is a formation by discrete or separate 
 degrees ; and the passage from one degree to another is not 
 gradual or continuous, but with a break and by means of a 
 leap or bound. The laws of heat applying to these discrete 
 degrees are most interesting ; but here is not the place to 
 explain them. On the other hand, solid particles may also 
 in the same manner clot or unite together, and may do this 
 so far as to become a clot large enough to be visible; but 
 such clotting or unition does not proceed by a discrete de- 
 gree ; there is no essential difference between a group of a 
 thousand solid particles and a group of a hundred million ; 
 but there is an essential difference between a liquid particle 
 and a solid particle, and between a liquid particle and a 
 gaseous particle. Increment of solids by the clotting together 
 of their particles, is increment, not by a discrete degree, but 
 by a degree unbroken by chasm, by a degree without a leap ; 
 thus by a degree called " continuous." 
 
 HEAT-PULSATIONS CAUSE CHANGE or DEGREE. 
 
 In the spiritual world, as in the natural, liquids are 
 formed thus from atmospheres, and solids from liquids. 
 
124 
 
 In that world, as in this, they are formed by ultimations 
 through heat-abstraction. In that world, as in this, it is by 
 heat-pulsations that liquids are formed from solids, and 
 atmospheres or gases from liquids. In that world, as in this, 
 only the solid and liquid stages of substance are, for the 
 most part, capable of reflecting ethereal pulsation in such 
 manner as to produce an image in the eye. In that world, 
 as in this, the atmospheric stage of substance is one in which 
 most substances are invisible. But in that world, all sub- 
 stance is swiftly or slowly transmutable from one degree 
 into another wholly according to circumstances ; whereas in 
 this world regular times govern the rate of transmutation ; 
 so that with regular forces here, the rate of transformation 
 here is regular. In the other world indeed, this last is 
 equally the case; but there the force is almost infinitely 
 variable, whereas here the force varies only in a finite man- 
 ner. Heat-pulsation in either world, conveyed along the 
 ether-atmosphere, is the means of effecting changes. 
 
 The source of heat in the natural world, whence all heat- 
 pulsation here, is a sphere of substance in intense agitation, 
 called the sun; thence comes all heat-power; but much 
 power from thence has been stored up for ages in substances 
 on earth. 
 
 The source of heat in the spiritual world, whence all heat- 
 pulsation there, is a sphere of substance in intense agitation, 
 called the spiritual Sun ; thence all hea-tpower, and thence, 
 by admitting or by withdrawing that power come all 
 changes of form there, and often these changes are accom- 
 panied with disappearance of the object previously seen. 
 But the ethereal atmosphere of the spiritual world is capable 
 of an almost infinite variety and power of vibration, as 
 compared with the ethereal atmosphere of this world. The 
 marvels of photography, all produced through light-waves, 
 are clod-like things compared with the things effected by 
 the light-waves there. 
 
125 
 SUB-CREATIONS. 
 
 Moreover there every spirit makes a petty sun about him 
 consisting of a sphere of substances which have been exhaled 
 from his body ; just as the spiritual Sun consists of sub- 
 stances which have been exhaled from God's Body ; and 
 through each petty sun, as through the Grand Sun, beats a 
 continuous pulsation derived from the invisible vital move- 
 ments of the substances in the living man within. These 
 pulsations, by the laws of action and reaction, are propa- 
 gated ever outward, radiating through the ethereal atmos- 
 phere, and affect the grossest atmospheres, and thereby pro- 
 duce a presence which is an image formed by a motion 
 similar to the motion prevailing at the central source. Just 
 as on earth an object is made present in image, on the screen 
 of a photographic camera, so is presence and imagery pro- 
 duced in the world of Mind. But such image there may be 
 either in the spirit's own true form, the human ; or it may be 
 in a lower form, which is the animal form ; or in a still lower 
 one, which is the vegetable form. If the image is produced 
 in " prior " substance, where the heat vibration is more 
 active and living, the image is an animated one, i. e. y an 
 animal. If the image is produced in " ultimate " substance 
 there which is solid there as here, and which in general is 
 the soil there the image is less animate, and may be in a 
 vegetable form. Yet in all cases it is an image ; it may 
 even be produced in mineral form. But as for substance 
 being created on the nonce there, did not people formerly 
 think the substance of trees was taken from the earth 1 And 
 had they earlier known that not one-twentieth of the sub- 
 stance comes from thence, would they not have sworn that 
 the substance of all growing trees is created for the occasion 
 and out of nothing ; and that the substance of all burning 
 wood passes into nothing, or else into Spirit, when it burns ? 
 And, by the way, Mr- Sewall, if I mistake not, suggests no very 
 very different alternative at pp. 70, 71, of his work on Meta- 
 
126 
 
 physics. At present we know that the chief part of the 
 substance in trees is made out of the invisible atmosphere, 
 and to that atmosphere eventually returns. Slow in this 
 world is the change ; in the other world it is instantaneous. 
 Always from sun-centres does the change proceed. Only 
 it is to be remembered that the agitation in that world 
 at the centre is in each case from the Lord Himself ; there- 
 fore the vision of Him wheels ever on pivot with any angel 
 as the angel wheels his body ; from thence come all heat- 
 pulsations ; and thence, by means of these pulsations, are 
 effected all changes in degree of substance, viz., changes 
 from solids into fluids, and even into invisible atmospheres, 
 and from invisible atmospheres into visible fluids and visible 
 solids ; and from the same source, by the plastic or mould- 
 ing powers inherent in the vibratory forces which are sup- 
 plied to the spiritual ether, come all the visible changes in 
 the forms of objects visible in the spiritual world. The 
 case is the same in this world ; only here the vibratory 
 powers of the natural ether, propagated from the natural 
 sun, take effect principally upon surfaces ; whereas in the 
 other world they take effect throughout, that is to say, take 
 effect in cubical instead of merely superficial dimension. In 
 this world the light-waves produce such images as are 
 photographs of trees, houses, etc. ; in the other world 
 the light-waves produce such images as are real trees, 
 real houses, etc. In either world, the production is effected 
 by means of undulations propagated, through atmospheres, 
 from active centres ; these atmospheres stretch, as it were, 
 the sphere of an object so that it extends far and near. Not 
 that the sphere of substances exhaling from an object is 
 thus stretched or expanded, but the sphere of undulation or 
 impulse propagated from an object is thus stretched or ex- 
 panded, in manner such that the activities going on at the 
 surface of an object are propagated in wave forms. This is 
 the case with objects that are audible, i. e. 9 objects which 
 are in vibration sufficiently rapid (and not too rapid) to be 
 
127 
 
 sensed by the ear ; these pulses are, by means of the aerial 
 atmosphere, transported to a great distance, and arouse at 
 a great distance a similar excitation in objects on which 
 they strike. It is likewise the case with objects visible, i. e. 9 
 objects whose surface particles (particles of extreme fineness 
 and lying so loose that they are like a sphere encompassing 
 the object) are in vibration a vibration induced by agita- 
 tions propagated from the sun or other source of illumina- 
 tion and which are in vibration sufficiently rapid (and not 
 too rapid) to be sensed by the eye. The pulses of these 
 substances are, by means of the ethereal atmosphere, trans- 
 ported to immense distances ; and at immense distances 
 they arouse a similar excitation in objects on which they 
 strike. In similar manner to this are sight and hearing and 
 presence effected in the spiritual world. In an infinite way 
 the sight and voice and presence of the Lord are effected ; 
 and, in a finite way, the sight and voice and presence of 
 spirits and angels. 
 
 THE NATURE OF GOD'S PRESENCE. 
 
 But I know that you, like the majority, think that the 
 Lord's living Substance and own proper Self lies within 
 each angel's substance, and makes up the angel's substance, 
 and that this is the reason why the glowing Sphere which 
 surrounds the Lord is seen ever in front by an angel, to 
 what quarter so ever the angel turn himself. It is not true, 
 however, that the Lord's substance lies within the angel's 
 substance. The angel's substance is angelic, and only 
 angelic, to its inmost ; and in no portion is it Divine ; to its 
 inmost it is mere dead substance, nor does any divine sub- 
 stance lie within it. What does lie within the angel, and 
 what you mistake for Divine Substance lying within him, is 
 an inmost activity, communicated steadily from the Lord, 
 through impulses of the spiritual ether, to the angel's in- 
 
128 
 
 most substance ; and the angel, when he feels the Lord's 
 original activity from which the activity in himself is de- 
 rived, perceives the Lord and perceives Him in front, for 
 from in front the activity flows into him, unless he be a 
 devil and turn his back on God in which case it flows into 
 him from behind and not from in front. This reason, and 
 not your reason, is the reason why the sun of the spiritual 
 world wheels, as it were, with the angels, and is ever seen 
 by them in front, however they turn their bodies. The case 
 herein is just as in the natural world, whose laws are the 
 same as those of the spiritual world. Who does not now 
 know that that of which the sense of sight takes 
 cognizance is never substance, but is ever and 
 solely the agitation of substances ? For which reason 
 it is impossible to see any substance in the dark ; 
 because then there is no agitation of the surface of that sub- 
 stance, and yet agitation is all that the eye can perceive ; for 
 only by agitation can be produced the ether- waves which 
 agitate the nerve surface of the eye into a quivering, 
 which quivering does thus, with the person seeing, produce 
 the image of the object which he is said to " see." These 
 two, viz., (a), Force to produce, through ethereal pulsations, an 
 image, and (b\ an image produced, are the two elements and 
 factors of Presence as effected by the sense of sight. It is 
 the same with Presence as effected by the sense of hearing ; 
 only, in hearing, the pulsations are of a coarser atmosphere, 
 and the image is a quivering of coarser (discretely coarser) 
 particles. It is the same with Presence as effected by the 
 senses of touch, taste and smell ; in all of which there must 
 be the Force absolute or relative to produce an image on a 
 sentient surface ; and there must be an image produced. 
 But in touch, taste and smell, there is an image stamped up- 
 on a motionless surface, instead of an image maintained in a 
 quivering surface. Nay, with things not sentient even, 
 the Presence of one thing with another consists, and 
 consists only, in Force and Image. The presence of one 
 
129 
 
 brick with another brick that lies next under it in a 
 house-wall, is the presence of a Force from the former 
 exerted upon the latter, and a consequent image or sort 
 of imprint of the former upon the latter. Who cannot see 
 that were Presence a presence of the substance of one thing 
 with the substance of another, there could be no presence 
 of one thing with another ; for then they must either 
 occupy the same space at the same time, which is impos- 
 sible, or must be one substance instead of being two sub- 
 stances ? From these considerations it can be seen what 
 God's Omnipresence is, viz., that it is an exertion of Force 
 upon every living thing, with a conscious or unconscious 
 reproduction of Image. Do not think that God's sub- 
 stance is within angel's substance when the angel sees 
 His sphere. What the angel perceives is only the Lord's 
 activity exerted upon him. Within him there is no more of 
 the Divine Substance than there is of a human voice within 
 the hill from whose side that voice is echoed ; and no more 
 than there is of the sun's body within any object upon 
 which the explosions in the sun hurl light- waves, thereby 
 causing that object to reflect those waves, and thereby mak- 
 ing the object visible. But it is all useless to say these 
 things to the many. Spiritual truths cannot be seen save 
 in natural truths, and these latter the many have not as yet. 
 And I do not think that a man can see any of the 
 things which (in a very poor way, I admit) I have described, 
 unless he be a person so constituted as that, from the heart, 
 and not from the mind only or from the lips only, he be- 
 lieves in the very and essential Man-shape of the Deity. 
 The reason is, that all true thinking is thinking according to 
 the form or construction of heaven, and this form or con- 
 struction is that of a man; and the ultimate of a man, ideally, 
 is the man-shape. Hence it is that they who do not think 
 of the Deity as verily of man-shape cannot pass into 
 heaven (Apoc. Exp., no. 1109, cont.) ; by which is 
 at the same time meant that they have not in them so 
 
130 
 
 much as the thieshold of heavenly thought, which threshold 
 is the ultimate of heavenly thought ; for heavenly thought 
 is man-shaped, and has this shape for ultimate. I say 
 that they have not so much as the threshold of heavenly 
 thought ; and this is true, though it sounds mystical : neverthe- 
 less it is not mystical ; for entering heaven is not entering 
 into a place essentially, but it is essentially entering into a 
 state ; and this state has its threshold as well as its pene- 
 tralia, and if the outer walls and the threshold are destroyed 
 the penetralia perish also. Moreover, all true thought is a 
 Divine formation, and all divine formation proceeds from 
 first principles to ultimates, and stops never short of ulti- 
 mates, and in ultimates are its divinity, its strength and 
 its persistence. The ultimate of the thought of God 
 is the thought of Him as of man-shape: this thought, 
 when it proceeds from love, is indeed "the Son of the 
 Highest ; " for the Highest in a man is Love or Affection ; 
 and when a man, from love, thinks of God as of man-shape, 
 such thought in him is the offspring of Love. It is other- 
 wise with the first material investiture or embodiment 
 of that thought ; the first embodiment of that thought gets 
 its outward substance merely from the sensuous impressions 
 of childhood : in this latter respect that thought is but as 
 " the Son of Mary ; " yet only the enemy will crucify or slay 
 it ; moreover only the enemy will declare such a thought to 
 be a son of a carpenter or joiner, i. e., to be the product of 
 mere human constructive intelligence, or a putting together 
 of this and that by men in their childhood or by races in 
 their childhood. In the thought of God as of man-shape 
 and in the doctrine of Kepentance, lie the necessary ultimates 
 of all spiritual wisdom. They are the corner stone of the spir- 
 itual Temple, and they are what the builders reject, because 
 the builders prefer an undefined God to the Man-God, and 
 prefer a clap-trap Benevolence to a genuine Charity that has 
 been evolved through Repentance. See the Apocalypse Ex- 
 
131 
 
 plained, nn. 1115, 1116, continuations ; also n. 1124, con- 
 tinuation, at end. 
 
 Swedenborg makes these two doctrines to be the all in all 
 of the Church : yet although the so-called " collateral works " 
 are hundreds in number, I know not one of them whose sub- 
 ject, wholly or in part, is either ; and never but once have I 
 heard from a Swedenborgian pulpit a sermon professing to 
 teach either. That such as this reception would be the re- 
 ception of his doctrines, viz., that they would be essentially 
 rejected, Swedenborg foresaw and foretold ; but his follow- 
 ers mostly suppose that in thus speaking he was speaking 
 not of themselves, but of outsiders ; yet outsiders cannot be 
 said to receive them or to reject them, forasmuch as they do 
 not even examine them. Verily, it is nowhere but in the 
 house of its friends that Truth can be wounded : the reason 
 is, that no others come nigh it, or come to a fit reach for 
 stabbing it. 
 
 Since I shall print this letter, I warn the reader once more 
 to take nothing herein but as he shall find it proved. As 
 for the criticisms I have made of the writings of Sweden- 
 borg' s followers, I speak of some, indeed of many, but not 
 of all. In all of them, as I think, can be found most excel- 
 lent thoughts thoughts which cannot be likened to cas- 
 tles in the air or to birds of paradise, but which are sound 
 practical thoughts relative to conduct. Such thoughts, 
 rather than thoughts philosophical, are Divine. 
 Dear Sir, I am very truly yours, 
 
 At the outset I assumed to treat of the relative advantage 
 of tubs with bottoms, and of tubs without. 
 
 I have omitted, however, to treat specifically of the advan- 
 tages of the latter, since these will be self-evident when we 
 
132 
 
 consider the disadvantages of the former. The use of tubs is 
 to hold various liquids, and to carry liquids from one point to 
 another. It is evident that if anything that is not merely 
 airy be put into a tub with a bottom, such a tub will there- 
 upon become heavier and more difficult of carriage. But 
 however much be put into a tub without a bottom, the tub 
 and whatever may be within it, remains still light and easy 
 of carriage. Idealism is such a vessel. Idealism dissolves 
 all problems, as by a Greater Menstruum and Universal 
 Solvent. There is no equation which cannot be reduced to 
 simplicity itself by a skillful introduction of a zero. I my- 
 self have often beheld a couple of self-styled Swedenborgians 
 put half the facts of modern science into one of these vessels, 
 and then have seen them, though only half -educated persons, 
 raise it from the earth with perfect ease and bear it aloft to 
 a vast height. On the other hand, the truths belonging to 
 the region of the five senses, if borne in a mind possessing a 
 firm and reactive basis, are very heavy and difficult to lift, 
 and only with painstaking and sustained exertion can be 
 raised toward the empyrean. 
 
133 
 
 [The following is the memorial upon which was 
 rendered the Keport of the Council of Swedenborgian 
 Ministers to the Swedenborgian Convention at Boston 
 in 1889, and is the Report mentioned at p. 35 of the 
 foregoing letter.] 
 
 A MEMORIAL TO THE GENERAL CONVENTION OP THE NEW 
 JERUSALEM IN THE UNITED STATES. 
 
 I humbly beg that your body may be pleased to ap- 
 point a committee to be composed of qualified persons 
 who can conveniently meet together for conference, of 
 which the duty shall be to report to your body, at its 
 next assembling, upon the following subject, namely : 
 
 The distinction to be drawn or not to be drawn be- 
 tween, on the one hand, the processes of the creation of 
 substances and matters, and, on the other hand, the 
 communication of life. 
 
 I am informed upon good authority that upon this 
 point exists a difference of opinion ; and that the larger 
 number of the students of our illuminated author hold 
 the belief that the process of creation, like the process 
 of life-giving, is a constantly continued process ; that 
 it extends to all matter ; that by virtue thereof, and 
 thereof only, all matter has actuality or reality ; that 
 
134 
 
 all matter is inwardly alive, and is made alive by this 
 process, even though the matter is not visibly in an 
 organized form ; and that the stream of life which 
 others believe to be a transfer of motion only (consid- 
 ered to enliven with a spiritual quickening certain of 
 the substances and matters which have already been 
 brought into existence), is in fact a constant transfer of 
 substance from the Divine, which substance so trans- 
 ferred maintains the actuality of all things visible. The 
 smaller number of Swedenborg's students (and accord- 
 ing to the best authorities it would seem to be a very 
 small number) affirm that the two processes are abso- 
 lutely distinct ; the process of creation having been, as 
 they conceive, already long ago completely achieved, 
 and the process of life-giving being perpetual. The 
 difference of belief, as I understand it, is wholly analo- 
 gous to the difference of belief which formerly existed 
 among scientific persons with regard to the nature of 
 that influx of light from the sun which produces color ; 
 one school holding that the colors are deposits of sub- 
 stance transported from the sun along the ether ; but 
 the other school holding that color is a mere vibration 
 induced by the vibrations of the ether, which vibrations 
 are caused by activity in the solar body, and which are 
 thence communicated through the ether-ocean to terres- 
 trial objects. This difference of belief is also, as I under- 
 stand, like a difference of opinion which may exist with 
 regard to the nature of great waves, or of a heavy 
 swell at sea ; such swell being, in one man's opinion, 
 the actual transfer forward of a mass of water pro- 
 gressing bodily at the rate of several miles an hour ; 
 and, in another man's opinion, being a forward move- 
 ment of form or figure only, produced by a mere up- 
 ward and downward motion of particles of water ; the 
 
135 
 
 seeming advance being a deceit of the eye which inter- 
 prets the phenomenon to be a very onset of the mass. 
 
 Since this difference is radical, and since it immedi- 
 ately concerns the subject of God's presence in the 
 world, and since it may in many minds create the differ- 
 ence between pantheism and belief in God, I venture to 
 hope that your body may take a step in aid of the 
 solution of this difference. The age of reprobation in 
 matters of religious opinion is doubtless nearly past ; 
 but the age of sincere and friendly investigation has 
 almost or even quite begun. 
 
 In presenting this my petition or memorial, I have en- 
 deavored to save time to your body by stating directly 
 the object for which I pray , and I trust that all proper 
 expressions of my diffidence in asking your attention to 
 this exceedingly important difference of belief may be 
 supplied between the lines. . 
 
 EEPORT OF THE COUNCIL OF MINISTERS. 
 
 [Into this report are now interjected a few comments 
 by the author of this little book, they being placed 
 in brackets in order to distinguish them from the text.] 
 
 The Council of Ministers to which was referred the memorial 
 
 of Mr. respectfully report that it appears to them to be 
 
 hardly within the province of the Convention to pronounce judg- 
 ment upon particular points of doctrine, except as they relate to 
 matters on which it must act as a body, inasmuch as doctrines are 
 not settled by Councils (T. C. R. 489), but are to be learned by study 
 and from individual interpretation ; yet the memorial having been 
 received and referred to the Council, they have committed it to a 
 sub-committee whose report has been received and approved, and is 
 respectfully submitted as that of the Council : 
 
136 
 
 The doctrinal question which the memorial asks to 
 have answered is, "The distinction to be drawn, or 
 not to be drawn, between 1. The processes of the crea- 
 tion of substances and matters and their respective for- 
 mation by successive composition ; and 2. The commu- 
 nication of life." 
 
 There can be no answer to this question but such as 
 is revealed in the Heavenly Doctrines ; and what the 
 doctrines teach on the subject, as interpreted by their 
 own light, is the matter to be considered. 
 
 The memorial represents that " a very small number 
 affirm that the two processes " of creation and the com- 
 munication of life, " are absolutely distinct, the process 
 of creation having been long ago completely achieved, 
 and the process of life-giving being perpetual." 
 
 In order more full}* and exactly to meet the question 
 of the memorial, it seems necessary to make some refer- 
 ence to other communications of the memorialist, in 
 which his views are more distinctly defined, and reasons 
 for them attempted, and some general reference to the 
 writings made which is supposed to sustain them. But 
 it will not be practicable or necessary to quote from 
 these very lengthy communications than so much as 
 will give the essential and fundamental principles of the 
 views involved in the memorial. The following quota- 
 tions will suffice. He says : 
 
 Swedenborg teaches that the one only living Substance 
 did create from His own living Substance certain dead sub- 
 stance; and created this substance in various degrees of 
 being, of which dead substance so created that which he 
 calls the spiritual is the finest, and that which he calls mat- 
 ter is the grossest, and various degrees of dead substance 
 exist between these two extremes of dead substance. * * * 
 All these things as to the manufacture of substance He 
 
137 
 
 did, and got done with doing ; and of this act of manufac- 
 ture Swedenborg always speaks in the perfect and pluper- 
 fect tenses sometimes, indeed, in the passive voice, but al- 
 ways unmistakably in the tense or tenses denoting a perfectly 
 completed act. Thus his creatus est is always indicative of 
 an act of creating which had been achieved, and about which 
 God is no longer engaged. * * * 
 
 According to Swedenborg, there have been, with respect 
 to every living creature, two processes necessary, which two 
 processes are distinctly to be severed. The first is the pro- 
 cess of creating some substance which shall be utterly dead, 
 and which shall still be entirely real, and which shall be 
 dead by virtue of its being entirely independent of Deity. If it 
 were at all dependent on Deity for the reality of its substance, 
 that substance would be entirely alive, by virtue of such con- 
 stant communication bestowing reality, and it would in fact 
 be God, because not cut off from God really. But because it 
 has been cut off from God, and is no longer dependent upon 
 Him for anything, it is utterly dead, and by its being dead, 
 yet real, a basis is laid for a subsequently derived vitality 
 which shall be constantly communicated to it by virtue of a 
 steady beating of the pulse of (the Divine) life. * * * 
 
 Swedenborg teaches that there is an influx, and a 
 constant one, from the Creator into certain portions 
 of the dead substance which He did in the beginning 
 create, and he teaches that the substances into which such 
 influx continues are organized substances only that is to 
 say, substances which have been organized into forms or 
 organs capable of receiving an influx of lif e from Him. He 
 further teaches that this influx in the so organized forms of 
 dead substance consists, not of an influx of substance, but 
 solely of an influx of force or motion 
 
 When Swedenborg says " nothing " can exist except by 
 constant influx from the Divine, he means that nothing 
 living can so exist ; for it is the world of life and not the 
 world of physics and dead matter that his function is to 
 
138 
 
 teach about. See that passage at the beginning of one of 
 the captions of " Divine Love " (D. L. ex A. E. VIII.), where 
 he says that " by all things in the world" omnia mundi 
 are meant living creatures only ; and that the matters of 
 
 wych they are composed are not meant 
 
 When Swedenborg says that except for constant main- 
 tenance from the Deity "everything" (omnia) would in- 
 stantly perish, by " everything " he means " every living 
 thing " ; and when he says that nothing can exist a moment 
 without influx, he means that " no living thing " can exist 
 for a moment without influx. 
 
 These so positive statements of what " a very small 
 number " affirm that the doctrines teach, are made 
 without any particular reference to passages where 
 such things are believed to be taught ; and except the 
 single reference to D. L. ex A. E. VIII. no passage is 
 cited which is supposed even indirectly to support 
 them. In fact there are no such passages ; it is all a 
 misconception of what the writings most plainly teach 
 so plainly that, with remarkable unanimity, almost 
 all readers of the writings have concurred in under- 
 standing them to teach the exact opposite of what is 
 here affirmed. 
 
 To answer effectively the question of the memorial, 
 it is necessary to clear away these fundamental miscon- 
 ceptions, by citing some of the very many passages in 
 the writings that disprove and correct them. 
 
 And first, as to the one passage which the writer 
 relies upon, to support his affirmation that wherever 
 Swedenborg says that " nothing" can exist for a 
 moment without continued influx from the Divine, and 
 that " everything " exists by such influx, he means, 
 always and only, every living thing. To be rightly 
 understood the passage referred to (D. L. ex A. E. 
 
139 
 
 VIII.) must be considered in its relation to the general 
 subject there treated of, as shown by reference to the 
 preceding sections. The first and second sections 
 relate to the definition of what love is, that it is life ; 
 and that " the Lord is love itself, because life itself." 
 The heads of the following sections are these : 
 
 III. Life, which is Divine love, is in form. 
 
 IV. That form is the form of use, in every complex. 
 V. Man in particular is in such form. 
 
 VI. Man in general is in such form. 
 VII. Heaven is in such form. 
 
 Then comes the passage referred to : 
 
 VJLLL. All things in the world (omnia mundi) are in simi- 
 lar form. By all things in the world (omnia mundi) are 
 meant animate things those that walk and creep on the 
 earth, those that fly in the heavens, and those that swim in 
 the waters. And things that vegetate are also meant trees 
 and shrubs, flowers, plants and grasses. But the atmos- 
 pheres, waters and matters of the earth are only means for 
 their generation and production. 
 
 The subject here is life, or love ; and the teaching is 
 that life only exists in forms, which are forms of use. 
 Forms of use that are receptive of life are living, or- 
 ganic forms which are only in the animal and vege- 
 table kingdoms. The forms of use below these, in the 
 mineral kingdom, are not receptive of life, but of 
 activities from life, and are not here treated of. Hence, 
 in this connection, where life and forms of life in the 
 universe are treated of, omnia mundi are defined to 
 mean all living things. But this limitation of the mean- 
 ing of the terms is local in this particular connection. 
 To affirm that it is of universal application to these and 
 
140 
 
 similar terms throughout the writings, is a forced and 
 entirely groundless assumption. There need be no 
 other proof that it is so than the fact that in a pre- 
 ceding part of this very treatise the part appended to 
 the last numbers of the A. E. Swedenborg defines 
 these same words, omnia mundi, as including in that 
 connection all the subjects of " the three kingdoms of 
 nature " (A. E. 1197). And so with the terms " all 
 things of nature " (A. E. 1208) ; " all things in the uni- 
 verse " (D. L. W. 52) which are said to be " full of the 
 Divine love and wisdom," expressly include " all things 
 of the mineral kingdom "; and " all things that are 
 created " (D. L. W. 61) include " all things of the 
 mineral kingdom in general and particular." And so 
 of other similar expressions throughout the writings. 
 It is indeed more just to infer from such local limita- 
 tion as is above referred to, that wherever such terms 
 are not limited, expressly or by clear implication, the 
 author intends them to be taken to mean " all things " 
 in the widest sense . 
 
 The Ministers have omitted to observe the pre- 
 cise manner in which, says Swedenborg, this union 
 exists of the spiritual and the natural in " every- 
 thing in the world." No one questions that Sweden- 
 borg sometimes uses the words omnia mundi 
 " everything in the world " so as to embrace other 
 things than animals and vegetables. The question 
 is, does he ever use them in this all-comprehensive 
 sense when he declares that " every thing" would 
 perish but for an inflow maintained from God? The 
 context of the various passages alone can 
 
141 
 
 decide this question ; and the Council of Ministers 
 have not cited any passages which involve this 
 question; i. ., they have not cited any of those 
 passages where it is said that " every thing " 
 would perish save for such maintained inflow. The 
 nearest approach they make to such a citation is 
 perhaps at n. 1197 of the Apocalypse Explained, 
 where our author says : 
 
 " That the spiritual and natural have been 
 " united in each and every thing in the world in 
 " such wise that it is with those two as it is with 
 " the soul's residing in each and every thing in 
 " the body, * * * can be illustrated and con- 
 " firmed by the subjects and objects of the three 
 " kingdoms of Nature, which are every thing in 
 "the world." 
 
 He thereby states what the Ministers omit to 
 state the manner in which the spiritual has been 
 united to the natural; viz, that it is the same 
 manner in which the soul and the body are 
 united. Observe strictly this manner of union. 
 The Ministers have omitted to observe this man- 
 ner, although distinctly stated ; and they have in- 
 vented, or from Berkeley imported, a wholly dif- 
 ferent manner. We shall have it, according to the 
 Ministers (who believe that the spiritual is united 
 to the natural in the sense that the spiritual 
 flows steadily into each atom of natural substance 
 
142 
 
 and produces its mass and reality) I say we 
 shall have it, according to the Ministers, that the 
 soul produces the substance (and each moment 
 maintains the substance) of each atom in the 
 body human ; and that when the soul departs, the 
 atoms of the body vanish into nothingness ; for in 
 the manner in which the soul resides in the body 
 and not otherwise, says Swedenborg, does the spir- 
 itual reside in, and stand united to, the natural. 
 Such an absurdity as the above his followers 
 have attributed to Swedenborg ; not this very ab- 
 surdity, but one exactly like it. Let us hear him 
 where he speaks of causes. He says, " The reason 
 why nothing exists in Nature except from the spir- 
 itual, is because there can be no effect without a 
 cause ; whatever exists in effect has its being from 
 the cause thereof ; and that which has not from 
 the cause its being, is [What? Non-entity? 
 Nothingness ? O, no] is borne off or put one side 
 (separatur)." A thing which can be borne off or 
 put one side is not a non-entity or nothingness in a 
 material sense, but it is a spiritual non-entity, be- 
 cause there is nothing spiritual in it. He says 
 the above in the same passage in which he says, 
 " The reason why not a thing in Nature (nihilin 
 natura) exists save from the spiritual, is because 
 there cannot be any thing in existence," i. e., alive 
 or living, "unless it have a soul. All is called 
 soul that is Being (essentia). What has no Being 
 
143 
 
 in itself does not exist (non existit), for it is a non- 
 entity, because there is no Esse from which it 
 could come. And so stands the case with Nature." 
 (Apoc. Exp. n. 1206, continuation 1). Now if 
 what Swedenborg here means includes any 
 atom of natural substance, and if these atoms 
 would vanish into nothingness but for steady 
 spiritual influx, how, when such influx is with- 
 drawn, would there be anything remaining of 
 which Swedenborg could say that it is then 
 "borne off" or "put one side"? But if he is 
 speaking of living organic forms, does he not 
 speak truths familiar to anatomists and botanists ? 
 Does he not say the same thing in the Principia, 
 Part 1, Chap. 1 ? " We see then," he writes 
 * * * " that Nature produces them by means 
 of the connexion extending from one end to the 
 other, both of substances and CAUSES * * * 
 If the connexion with any part were broken, that 
 part would no longer partake of the life of the 
 rest of the body, but WOULD DIE." He says this 
 of living vegetable and animal bodies. The ex- 
 tract can be seen at length at pp. 61-64 of the 
 foregoing letter. The Ministers cannot be per- 
 fectly familiar with the forms of animal and 
 vegetable life ; else they would know that, as be- 
 tween the soul and the body, the soul is found 
 united not only to so-called living natural sub- 
 stances, but also united as it were, by means of 
 
144 
 
 the so-called living substances as links or interme- 
 diaries, to other natural substances which are wholly 
 dead, and which by scientists are recognized as 
 wholly dead, and which are recognized as having 
 already been " borne off " or " put aside " from the 
 organic body, even though they may still be linger- 
 ing within it within it, if we speak from the thought 
 of space or may still be clinging on the outskirts. 
 Such substances are particles of effete carbon 
 in the body, which being no longer in vital union 
 with the soul, are " borne off " through the lungs ; 
 such substances, morever, are the nails and the 
 hair and the cuticle in their outermost growths, all 
 of which are " borne off" by falling loose, unless 
 earlier they are pared or cut or scraped or worn 
 away. Such substance, in the vegetable king- 
 dom, is the outermost bark or skin of trees. As 
 soon as any of these substances cease to be kept 
 internally in organic living form by the inflow of 
 life, they in general are put aside and carried be- 
 yond the camp. If they are not " removed " in a 
 spatial sense of the word, they still are removed, 
 as it were, by virtue simply of being cut off from 
 an inflow of life ; thus the tips of the finger nails 
 and of the hair, and the scruff of the skin, form no 
 longer a part of the body when they are dead, 
 even though the nails and hair be let go un- 
 trimmed, or though the skin remain unwashed or 
 remain unclean from lack of friction. 
 
145 
 
 But the Ministers, when they cite the passage 
 showing what no one has questioned that " om- 
 nia mundi " sometimes means with Swedenborg 
 the subjects of the three kingdoms of Nature, 
 omit to cite the next preceding passage of the 
 context ; which preceding passage is more to the 
 point. He says (Apoc. Exp., n. 1196, cont.) : 
 
 " The spiritual and the natural are in every 
 " created thing in this world ; the spiritual as soul, 
 " and the natural as body ; or the spiritual as 
 " an inside and the natural as an outside ; or the 
 " spiritual as a cause, and the natural as an effect. 
 " That those two cannot be separated (sepa- 
 " rari) in one single thing is known to every man 
 " of wisdom ; for if you separate (separai] the 
 " cause from the effect, the effect perishes (dilab- 
 11 itur), just as you when you separate the soul 
 from the body." 
 
 There is then just one sense in which, and just 
 one way, in which, the effect called "natural" 
 perishes, when separated from the cause called 
 " spiritual." The sense and way, says Sweden- 
 borg, in which it perishes is the sense and way in 
 which the body perishes when the soul departs. 
 It does not perish in the sense that its atoms turn 
 to nothing. As a body, it perishes absolutely and 
 instanter. As a carcass, it flourishes a long time 
 thereafter in redolent, effluvial might. 
 
146 
 
 He says, " If you separate the Cause from the 
 Effect, the Effect perishes (dilabitur)" What 
 kind of Cause does he mean, and what kind of 
 Effect does he mean ? A Cause which is a sub- 
 stance, and an Effect which is a substance ? the 
 Cause being the composing material of the Effect, 
 and " causing " the effect in the sense that it is the 
 composing material of the Effect ? a Cause such 
 as component strands are to the rope composed 
 thereof, or such as as component rope-yarns are 
 to the strand composed thereof, or such as 
 the hemp or coir fibres or filaments are 
 to the rope-yarn composed thereof? Such 
 Causes and such Effects, viz., Causes and Effects 
 consisting each of Substance, do exist, as we see ; 
 and with them the universal law holds good that 
 if you pull away the Cause, the Effect will 
 straightway vanish. This application of the law, 
 indeed, is " known to every man of wisdom ; " but 
 Swedenborg does not here refer to this applica- 
 tion ; since it is known also to men of no wisdom 
 that a rope-yarn vanishes if you take away all the 
 fibres in it. What Swedenborg speaks of here, is 
 Cause in the sense of causing Form or change of 
 Form ; and he here speaks of Effect in the sense 
 of being a Form or change of Form effected ; of 
 Form, not of Substance, he here is speaking. The 
 atoms of matter have no natural and inborn pro- 
 pensity to group themselves into forms of ani- 
 
147 
 
 mals and vegetables. The forces whereby they 
 are grouped into living forms are from a source 
 internal to those atoms ; but the intelligence where- 
 by those forces are harnessed and perpetually 
 guided is from a source external to those atoms. 
 Instantly the living intelligence is withdrawn, the 
 atoms begin to take on a new arrangement under 
 pressure of their own inborn blind and unintelli- 
 gent forces ; and the living form gradually changes 
 to a form which is other than a form of life. The 
 Cause of the living form, says Swedenborg, is the 
 Spiritual ; of it the living form is a steadily pro- 
 duced Effect ; separate the Cause, and the Effect 
 " slips all asunder " dilabitur, says Swedenborg 
 slips all asunder as do the atoms of the arrangement 
 called the Body when the Body dies and decays. 
 These things Swedenborg does not stop to prove ; 
 he says they are known already to every man of 
 wisdom. The things which the Ministers set forth 
 cannot be these, for the things which the Ministers 
 set forth were never known until certain dreamers 
 arose and told their dreams. 
 
 But Swedenborg does not stop here. In that 
 same passage he says : 
 
 " There is not a thing (ne hilurri) in Nature, nor 
 " can there be a thing in Nature, in which the 
 " spiritual is not. That the spiritual sits in each 
 " and every thing that is in the three kingdoms of 
 " Nature, and THE FASHION in which it sits therein 
 
148 
 
 " (quomodo inest), shall be told in the following 
 " passages." 
 
 How this spiritual dwells in the mineral King- 
 dom is the question at issue. The Ministers think 
 it dwells in mineral atoms by pouring steadily 
 into each atom a current of substance, which cur- 
 rent causes (they think) the atom to continue real. 
 In the passage just cited, Swedenborg promises to 
 solve the question and tell us just how the spir- 
 itual dwells in the mineral kingdom. And he tells 
 us. First (nn. 1197, 1198, cont.) he tells us how it 
 dwells in the animal kingdom ; viz., that animals 
 of all kinds know how to propagate their species, 
 to tend and feed their young, to choose fodder 
 for themselves and to choose company for them- 
 selves. " Such KNOWLEDGE, he says, is spiritual ; 
 " so too is the AFFECTION whence that knowledge 
 " is begotten." Observe that Knowledge and Af- 
 fection are what is spiritual. Where these flow in, 
 the spiritual flows in. Where these do not flow in, 
 the spiritual does not flow in. Do Knowledge and 
 Affection flow into mineral atoms? Do these 
 either consciously or unconsciously feel and 
 know? The more degraded negroes of the West 
 Coast believe these flow into minerals. These 
 negroes are animists, and they hold and profess 
 that an inward spiritual essence sits within 
 their fetishes. So do the Pantheists. Not so 
 the worshipper of Christ. 
 
149 
 
 Next (n. 1203 to n. 1215 cont.) Swedenborg tells 
 us how the spiritual dwells in the vegetable king- 
 dom. The plastic power which governs and guides 
 the formation of substances into vegetable forms 
 is not Affection, is not Knowledge ; it is USE. 
 Use is neither Affection nor Knowledge ; it is a 
 derivative from Affection through Knowledge ; it 
 is the application of knowledge, from affection, to 
 Force. If the Force is a blind and unintelligent 
 Force, clearly there is no influx of knowledge and 
 affection into it ; thus there is no spiritual influx ; 
 but if an affectional and intelligent principle shall 
 guide (guide, not produce) the force, the application 
 of the force is what is called Use. The machine 
 known as a tree or plant is " run " by two forces, 
 one blind and unintelligent, proceeding from the 
 time-beats (modificatio, Apoc. Exp. n. 1206, cont. . 
 n. 1134, cont.) of the solar radiance ; the other an 
 intelligent and voluntary force, proceeding from 
 the time-beats of the radiance of the Sun of 
 Minds ; and the latter force steers or guides the 
 former, employing the former as an instrumental 
 cause to produce the effects which it, the principal 
 cause, intends and designs. This effort of the 
 principal cause upon the instrumental cause is 
 like the effort of the mind of an engineer upon 
 some mighty engine ; the engineer's mind availing 
 itself of the powers of the engine, but not gener- 
 ating them in any sense whatever. Yet in nature, 
 
150 
 
 unlike as in the engine, the natural was originally 
 created, even as to its substances and as to their 
 blind and unintelligent forces, from spiritual sub- 
 stances and forces ; and in this sense the spiritual 
 WAS (not is) the prime material of nature. 
 
 The effort of spiritual affection and intelligence 
 upon the forces of nature the effort to make a 
 USE of them as instrumental causes, is what 
 Swedenborg calls a " conatus ;" and he says this 
 effort acts on even the minutest bodies, and pro- 
 ceeds from the spiritual acting in them and upon 
 them. 
 
 This " conatus " is what has been mistaken for 
 some imaginary mystical power supposed to pre- 
 serve from annihilation the whole mineral uni- 
 verse. Swedenborg states distinctly what this 
 conatus or effort in the mineral kingdom is. He 
 says (Div. Love and Wis., n. 61) that it is the 
 conatus or effort " to bring forth SHAPES (not sub- 
 stances) which relate to Man ; which shapes, as 
 already has been said, are each and every thing 
 belonging to the vegetable kingdom ; thus the 
 effort to bring forth USES." The so-called Sweden- 
 borgians mostly hold that this " conatus " includes 
 the perpetual sustentation of the substance of min- 
 eral atoms by feeding them with Divine Substance 
 poured steadily into them. Not so holds Sweden- 
 borg himself. In that same passage he says : 
 " The ' conatus ' toward turning into vegetable 
 
151 
 
 shape, and thus towards subserving uses, is the 
 OUTMOST BOUNDARY of effort proceeding from the 
 Divine in things which He has created (ultimum 
 ex Divino in creatis)." I know the Ministers will 
 say, " Yes, but Swedenborg only calls this the 
 utmost or outermost boundary ; why shall not our 
 beloved re-creation-effort be lying somewhere in 
 between the God-centre and that utmost boundary 
 of creative effort which we admit consists merely 
 in elevating mineral forms into vegetable forms " ? 
 I reply, the reason why that is not true is this : 
 There are two centres with two separate expanses 
 (True Chr. ReL, n. 35) ; one, the Life-Centre with 
 its Life-expanse surrounding it ; the other the 
 Nature-centre, with its Nature-expanse surround- 
 ing it ; and the Life-centre and its expanse is so 
 distinct and separate from the Nature-centre and 
 its expanse, that the expanse (and a fortiori 
 the centre) of the one is visible objectively 
 from the standpoint of the other centre and 
 expanse (modo etiam velit ex centra et expanse 
 Vitae spectare centrum et expansum Naturae 
 et non vice versa). And the two are so distinct 
 that they have nothing in common, being of 
 utterly diverse essence, and having no other 
 communication than simply that one answers 
 to the other (D. L. W., nn. 83, 90). Thus the 
 Life-centre is not the centre of the Nature-ex- 
 panse ; but the Life-centre and the Nature-centre 
 
152 
 
 are far apart ; and their respective expanses (and 
 thereby their respective circumferences) are only 
 externally tangent to each other ; that is, it is only 
 on the outside of each that each touches the other ; 
 and the point at which they touch each other is 
 the mineral " conatus toward turning into vege- 
 table shape and thus subserving USES " (Div. Love 
 and Wis., n. 61). 
 
 If there were some creative effort, as the Min- 
 isters believe, acting upon matter and taking effect 
 upon portions of the Nature-expanse which lie (as 
 they imagine) between the Life-centre and that 
 vegetative and outermost effort or conatus pro- 
 ceeding from the Life-centre, then would it not be 
 necessary that the Nature-expanse should first 
 have obtruded itself into the Life-expanse ? thus 
 would it not be necessary that the two expanses 
 should first have overlapped each other and have 
 partly commingled together ? Yet these two ex- 
 panses do not intermingle ; vita et recipient ejus 
 * * * non se commiscent (Apoc. Exp., n. 1121, 
 cont.). Moreover, the spiritual distance from the 
 Life-centre to the outmost or vegetative boundary 
 of its effort is far differently occupied and taken 
 up. It is occupied and taken up with a series of 
 Life-efforts from centre toward circumference, these 
 being as follows, viz.: centre-ward, or nearest the 
 centre, the life celestial-human ; next outward, 
 the life spiritual-human ; next outward, the life 
 
153 
 
 natural-human ; next outward, life animal ; and 
 outmost of all, the vegetative vitality, which is 
 not really life at all, says Swedenborg (in ultimis 
 est non vivum; * * * anima vegetativa non 
 vivat. Apoc. Exp., n. 1212, 6, cont.), and is, as he 
 says, the utmost boundary of the Divine Effort. The 
 boundary, he says. Now the boundary of a thing 
 is where the thing ceases, and where it is no longer. 
 But the Ministers think of the Life -centre as lying 
 within the Nature-expanse and as generating stead- 
 ily that expanse, and think of God as being the 
 inmost of nature (cogitatio quod intimum Naturae 
 sit Deus. Apoc. Exp., n. 1131, cont.) ; for they 
 think that from that inmost He still and steadily 
 generates all substance. They forget that spirit- 
 ual substance lies, not within natural substance, 
 but surrounding natural substance (spiritualibus 
 * * * a quibus nisi circumcincta forent, etc., 
 Div. Love and Wis. 3 n. 158 ; sed usque ambiuntur 
 ab atmosphaeris spiritualibus, Ib., n. 175; vita 
 Divina sit * * * extus in igne solis mundi 
 naturalis, Ib., n. 157) ; and they forget that it is 
 from the outside that natural substances in the 
 soils are impregnated with substances that are of 
 spiritual origin (D. L. W., n. 310) ; and forget 
 that substances of the natural world are acted upon 
 from without by the substances of the spiritual 
 world, and do thereupon resist and do react 
 against the latter (D. L. W., n. 260). 
 
154 
 
 As already observed, Swedenborg says that the 
 spiritual is in each of the three kingdoms of 
 nature ; and he says (Apoc. Exp., 1196. cont.) he 
 will now proceed to tell us the manner (quomodo). 
 
 After describing the manner in which the spir- 
 itual is in the animal kingdom, he tells the manner 
 in which it is in the vegetable kingdom. If the 
 Ministers are right in their theory as to the man- 
 ner in which the spiritual is in the mineral king- 
 dom, Swedenborg makes a strange omission ; for 
 after making the promise squarely, he nowhere 
 fulfills it as to the mineral kingdom, nor even so 
 much as hints at the Ministers' theory. But if it 
 is true, as (Div. Wis., III., 2) he says it is, that God 
 is not present in His works materially, but spirit- 
 ually, being present (as he says) in their USES, and 
 their Uses being (as he says) not material, but 
 spiritual if all this is true of God and true of the 
 spiritual which comes from God, then Swedenborg 
 fully redeems his promise ; for the passages which 
 follow the promise do set forth clearly the Uses 
 which the subjects of the mineral kingdom per- 
 form. Chief among these he mentions (Apoc. 
 Exp., n. 1207, cont.), their being so shaped that 
 they perfectly accord with substances of the spiritual 
 world ; and says that this is true as to substances 
 of the natural atmosphere, of the natural waters 
 and of the natural soils ; and is true of them as to 
 each individual particle ; seeing, as he says, that 
 
155 
 
 these last are effects "which WERE produced 
 (effectus producti, not effectus qui producuntur) 
 from the spiritual as a cause" referring, of 
 course, to the original creation of them by com- 
 position from elements which had been spiritual 
 until, by such combination, they became natural 
 (True Chr. Eel, n. 280; also see p. 11 of the 
 letter to which this is an appendix). And he says 
 (Apoc. Exp., n. 1207, cont.), that these natural 
 substances are so constituted that they can be 
 brought into combination with spiritual substances, 
 into a combination in which they will Jit (apte 
 conjungi possint). Thus it is that the substances 
 of the mineral kingdom form a sort of ready 
 locker promptuarium, he says at Apoc. Exp. n. 
 1208, con. in which are stored at hand the sub- 
 stances needful to furnish bodies for the animal 
 soul and for what he calls the vegetable soul. 
 These natural substances furnish, he says, an out- 
 fit of clothing an induitio, as he says for those 
 souls ; thereby (as he says in the Divine Love and 
 Wisdom near the passage where he tells about 
 Hans Sloan's bird) the soul is set forth in the stuff 
 called Matter, or is " stuffed," as he says, with 
 natural substances. 
 
 If USE be what the spiritual resides in, then 
 surely the spiritual does reside in this Use of 
 matter and minerals. But the merely sensuous 
 mind finds it hard, or even impossible, to rise to 
 
156 
 
 the conception of residence in Use as being any real 
 residence. Use is spiritual ; and what is spiritual 
 seems, to the sensuous mind, as nothing real. Yet 
 what man of reason will deny that there is something 
 spiritual in everything constructed so as to be useful. 
 For Form or Arrangement is all that makes sub- 
 stance useful ; and Form or Arrangement is 
 spiritual. Is not Arrangement the very Logos 
 whereby the world was made ? Arrangement has 
 none of the attributes of matter ; it has all the 
 attributes of spirit. Apply it to spiritual sub- 
 stance, i. e. 9 throw spiritual substance into fit Form 
 or Arrangement, and you have a real spiritual 
 thing. Apply it to natural substance and you have 
 a natural thing, but the Arrangement is not less 
 spiritual than before. Does not the intellect per- 
 ceive Arrangement ? can the physical eye see, 
 i. e., understand, Arrangement, or see anything 
 but the mere substances arranged ? Nay, friend, 
 lif t up your eyes. Will you affirm there is nothing 
 " spiritual " in Millet's Angelus unless it be in the 
 substance of each atom of the paint and oils 
 thereof? Take, then, those atoms of paint and 
 oil, and rearrange them and paint your barn door 
 therewith ; you then will have, you may think, as 
 much of the spiritual as you had before. But 
 perhaps you will say " The painter arranged those 
 atoms in a peculiar way ; it is the way in which 
 he has arranged them that is spiritual." Quite 
 
157 
 
 true ; and just as artistic is the Creator's work 
 which He did in shaping forth the atoms of the 
 mineral kingdom and of all inorganic substance ; 
 His arrangement of them is wise or spiritual ; and 
 this is what Swedenborg means by saying that 
 the spiritual can be descried even in such forth- 
 sh apings. 
 
 The Ministers continue as follows :] 
 
 It is true and a misunderstanding of the fact may 
 have misled the memorialist that Swedenborg in illus- 
 trating the continuance and perpetual operation of the 
 Divine creative energy, takes his illustrations almost 
 exclusively from subjects of the animal and vegetable 
 kingdoms the kingdoms of organic life ; rarely, and 
 only in a general way, from the mineral kingdom. But 
 this is not because the Divine creative power is now 
 only exercised in these two kingdoms, and not also in 
 the sustentation or perpetual creation of inorganic 
 forms. The reason is clearly indicated in D. L. W. 313. 
 Swedenborg there says : 
 
 In all forms of uses there is a certain image of creation. 
 Forms of uses are of three kinds ; forms of uses of the 
 mineral kingdom, forms of uses of the vegetable king- 
 dom, and forms of uses of the animal kingdom. The forms 
 of uses of the mineral kingdom cannot be described^ because 
 they are not visible to the eye. 
 
 He then tells very briefly and generally what these 
 invisible forms of uses in the mineral kingdom are ; and 
 goes on to illustrate the subject, as usual, by examples 
 from the vegetable and animal kingdoms, where the 
 forms of uses are visible and can be described. Thus, 
 
158 
 
 the reason why his illustrations are taken from the two 
 organic kingdoms is, that they only furnish visible illus- 
 trations not because in them only, but in them ob- 
 viously, there is " a certain image of creation" ; while 
 in the subjects of the mineral kingdom, though just as 
 real, it is not obvious, but " lurks recondite in their 
 efforts" to produce uses in forms (75., 313, 310). 
 
 The Ministers say that the reason why Sweden- 
 borg gives not many illustrations of the " susten- 
 tation or perpetual creation of inorganic forms " 
 (as they claim), is because he says that "the 
 forms of uses of the mineral kingdom cannot be 
 described, because they are not visible to the eye "; 
 and they say that " in the subjects of the mineral 
 kingdom," the operation of creating or sustaining 
 the reality of their substance, " is, though just as 
 real, not so obvious, but ' lurks recondite in their 
 efforts ' to prove uses in forms." 
 
 Referring to nn. 313, 310, of the Divine Love 
 and Wisdom, whence the Ministers make the quo- 
 tation about " lurking recondite," we find (n. 313, 
 at end) that what lurks recondite is not the act of 
 creation, but a TYPE OB IMAGE of creation ; and 
 that that in which it lurks recondite is not the 
 substances from which the soil is derived, but is 
 the " conatus" or effort of those substances [not 
 in the least to come into being or into reality, but] 
 to produce the forms of uses, which (n. 158) are 
 vegetables. Granting, in the interests of sheer 
 
159 
 
 imagination, that the substance of vegetables is 
 created immediately out of spiritual substance, 
 there would still remain lacking an explanation of 
 the manner in which the substances of the solid 
 earth-ball (tellus) are, as the Ministers think, per- 
 petually recreated; for the process which the 
 Ministers suppose to be described at nn. 313, 310, 
 and which they suppose to be a process of matter- 
 making, is a process confined to the shallow coat- 
 ing of the soils (terrae), which soils Swedenborg, 
 at n. 314, carefully distinguishes from the earth- 
 ball. The translators convert the soils (terrae) 
 into "earths" (failures). Where Swedenborg, as 
 at D. L. W., n. 310, treats of substances of 
 spiritual origin which are in the soil and which 
 there conjoin themselves with matters of natural 
 origin (also where, as at D. L. W., nn. 302, 303, Apoc. 
 Exp., n. 1207 to n. 1215, cont., he treats of the 
 two distinct sets of substances in the soils, one set 
 being natural and the other set being spiritual, and 
 where he traces back the origin of the set of spirit- 
 ual substances to the spiritual Sun) in these and 
 similar passages, I say the translators make him 
 derive all the substances of the earth-clod immedi- 
 ately from the spiritual Sun, after a compression , 
 etc., of their substance (nn. 303, 305), and make 
 him find in them some quality gotten from the sub- 
 stance of the spiritual Sun. My friend Frank 
 Sewall goes further in his work on Metaphysics 
 
160 
 
 (pp. 81, 82) ; and considering our earth-ball to be 
 one of the " earths " into which the translators 
 have converted Swedenborg's terrae or soils, 
 affirms that water is " produced from atmospheric 
 air," and that the mineral earth (p. 87, middle) is 
 produced from water ! 
 
 The quotation from D. L. W., n. 313, which the 
 Ministers make, as showing (they think) the reason 
 why Sweden borg does not draw from the mineral 
 kingdom many illustrations of their extraordinary 
 doctrine of a perpetual creation of all mineral 
 atoms, viz., that " forms of uses of the mineral 
 kingdom cannot be described, because they are 
 not visible to the eye," seems plausible enough 
 until we read the very next words in Swedenborg ; 
 upon reading which we learn that the origin of at 
 least a portion of these minerals, supposed by the 
 Ministers to spring each instant from the creative 
 Hand, is, in fact, rotten vegetables and animal 
 carcasses, and the reeking exhalations thence aris- 
 ing. It is not because these particles of subtile 
 fragrance steal miraculously hither each in- 
 stant out of the Infinite, that they are " invisible 
 to the eye ;" but simply, as Swedenborg says, be- 
 cause they are too small to be seen I may add, too 
 small to be seen either by the naked eye or even 
 with the help of such microscopes as could be had 
 a hundred years ago. The same can be said of the 
 two other elements of the soil proper (which soil 
 
161 
 
 proper it is to be remembered is but a portion of 
 any clod of visible soil) ; consisting of most minute 
 particles and of groups of such particles ; by these 
 I understand the various gaseous, liquid and solid 
 particles of which the elements of the soil proper 
 are composed. 
 
 The Ministers continue as follows :] 
 
 We now proceed to take up severally the more fun- 
 damental misconceptions involved in the memorial and 
 expressed in the above extracts, and subject them to 
 the light of the express teaching of the writings. They 
 are : 
 
 1. That creation is a past Divine work, once for all 
 achieved and ended ; and there is no creation of sub- 
 stance since. 
 
 2. That the universe thus once created exists " en- 
 tirely independent of Deity." 
 
 3. That there is no influx from the Divine except in- 
 flux of life into organic forms. 
 
 1. It is true that Swedenborg often speaks of the 
 past of creation, and then in a past tense, as of a com- 
 pleted act. But it is equally true that he often speaks 
 of creation and frequently in the same immediate con- 
 nection in the present tense, as of a work now going 
 on ; not as completing an unfinished work, but as con- 
 tinuing and sustaining what was first created, by per- 
 petual creation, through the constant operation of the 
 same Divine creative energy. Thus in D. L. W. 291- 
 294, respecting the first of creation the creation of the 
 spiritual sun. He says : 
 
 That sun is not the Lord, but is the proceeding from His 
 Divine love and Divine wisdom. It is called the proceeding 
 
162 
 
 because it was brought forth from the Divine love and the 
 Divine wisdom, which are substance and form in themselves, 
 and through this the Divine proceeds. But as it is of the 
 nature of human reason not to acquiesce unless it sees a 
 thing from its cause, that is unless it perceives how here, 
 how the sun of the spiritual world, which is not the Lord, 
 l)ut the proceeding from Him, is produced therefore, some- 
 thing shall be said on this subject. I have conversed much 
 with the angels about it. * * * They said it is similar 
 to the sphere of affections and thoughts therefrom which 
 surrounds every angel, whereby his presence is realized to 
 others, near and far ; that this surrounding sphere is not 
 the angel himself, but is from each and all things of his 
 body, whence substances continually flow forth as a stream, 
 and what flows forth surrounds him. And that these sub- 
 stances contiguous to his body, being actuated by the two 
 fountains of motions of his life, the heart and the lungs, ex- 
 cite the atmospheres to their activities, and by this means 
 produce a perception as of his presence with others. And 
 thus that there is not a separate sphere of affections and re- 
 sulting thoughts which goes forth and is continued, al- 
 though it is so spoken of ; for that affections are mere states 
 of the forms of the mind in him. They said moreover that 
 there is such a sphere about every angel because there is 
 about the Lord ; and that the sphere about the Lord is in 
 like manner from Him, and that that sphere is their sun, or 
 the sun of the spiritual world. It has often been given me 
 to perceive that there is such a sphere around each angel 
 and spirit. * * * By these experiences I have been 
 convinced that a sphere consisting of substances set free and 
 apart from their bodies encompasses every one in heaven 
 and every one in hell. It was perceived also that a sphere 
 flows forth not only from angels and spirits, but from each 
 and all things that appear in the spiritual world ; from trees 
 and their fruits, from shrubs and their flowers, from herbs 
 and grasses, yea, from earths, and their very particles. 
 
163 
 
 Whence it was evident that it is universal, both with living 
 and with dead things, that each individual thing is en- 
 vironed by the like of that which is within it, and that this 
 is continually exhaled by it. That it is so in the natural 
 world is known by observation of many of the learned, and 
 that a wave of effluvia is continually flowing forth from a 
 man, and from every animal, and likewise from every tree, 
 shrub, flower, yea, even from every metal and stone. The 
 natural world derives this from the spiritual world, and the 
 spiritual world from the Divine. 
 
 Since the things that constitute the sun of the spiritual 
 world are from the Lord, therefore they are not life in it- 
 self, but are devoid of life in itself just as the things that 
 flow forth from an angel or a man are not the angel or man, 
 but are from them devoid of their life making one with 
 the angel or man no otherwise than that they are concord- 
 ant, because derived from the forms of their bodies, which 
 were forms of their life within them. 
 
 The Ministers err in causing Swedenborg to 
 affirm that the Sun of the spiritual world " is pro- 
 duced." The tense in Swedenborg is the tense 
 of past and completed action ; and the Latin 
 reads that the Sun of the spiritual \rorld " WAS 
 produced" (productus est, not producitur). With 
 reference to how spheres go forth and how they 
 suffer waste, I pray the reader to examine the sec- 
 tion " How do Spheres Emanate ?" pp. 46-49, and 
 pp. 56-58 of the foregoing letter; and I pray the 
 reader to compare the theory there set forth with 
 the theory which the Ministers next set forth in 
 words and figures following, to wit ; They say :] 
 
164 
 
 Here it is plainly taught, by precept and by illustra- 
 tion, that the sun of heaven though first spoken of in a 
 past tense, is a continual creation ; that it is a sphere of 
 substance perpetually going forth from the Lord, and 
 surrounding him that is, perpetually created, for " to 
 proceed from the infinite is to be created" (D. P. 219) ; 
 and consequently it is spoken of also in the present 
 tense, as " proceeding." It is plainly taught here by 
 illustration, that as with an angel there is not a separ- 
 ate sphere of his life of affection and thought, but that 
 the sphere of substance going forth is actuated by the 
 motions of the two fountains of his life, so there is not 
 a separate sphere of Divine love and wisdom, or Divine 
 life, but " in like manner " the sphere of substance per- 
 petually going forth from the Lord is perpetually actuated 
 by His life. Thus the Divine in its very going forth, 
 and by going forth, creates perpetually the substantial 
 medium which it actuates and through which it pro- 
 ceeds. And this is true of the Divine in all its goings 
 forth, through successive degrees, down to the last and 
 lowest things even of the material universe ; for this is 
 declared to be "universal in living and in dead things." 
 In like manner as the spiritual sun is a sphere of sub- 
 stance perpetually going forth, so are the spiritual at- 
 mospheres proceeding from that sun; and these are 
 spoken of not merely in a past tense, as having pro- 
 ceeded, but as proceeding. Thus in D. L. W. 296, it 
 having been shown that heat and light proceed from 
 that sun, we are told that : 
 
 The third thing which proceeds from that sun is atmos- 
 phere, which is the containant of heat and light ; and this 
 proceeds from the Divine of the Lord which is called use. 
 
 And so, by means of atmospheres Divine substance 
 
165 
 
 is represented, in the present tense, as proceeding 
 downwards, through successive degrees of finiteness, to 
 " all things in the created universe " : 
 
 The angels say there is only one substance whence all 
 things are, and that the sun of the spiritual world is that 
 substance ; . . . and that that one only substance, which 
 is the sun, proceeding by means of atmospheres, according 
 to continuous degrees and at the same time according to dis- 
 crete degrees, presents the varieties of all things in the cre- 
 ated universe. (D. L. W. 300.) 
 
 Again in the present tense : 
 
 The atmospheres in both worlds decrease in their down- 
 ward progression, and become continually more compressed 
 and inert, and finally so compressed and inert that they are 
 no longer atmospheres but substances at rest, and in the 
 natural world fixed like those of the earth, called matter. 
 (ib. 302.) 
 
 The substances and matters of which earths consist are 
 the ends and terminations of atmospheres which proceed as 
 uses from the spiritual sun. (ib. 310.) 
 
 Again : 
 
 The uses of all things created ascend by degrees from the 
 last things to man, and through man to God the Creator, 
 from whom they are, as was shown above in n. 65 to 68. 
 Creation continually proceeds to this last, and through these 
 three, end, cause, and effect ; for these three are in the Lord 
 the Creator, (ib. 170, 171.) 
 
 In n. 65, which the author himself here refers to, 
 " the last things " are defined to mean " all things of 
 the mineral kingdom, in general and in particular 
 which are matters of various kinds, stony, saline, oily, 
 mineral, metallic substances," etc. Passages in which 
 
166 
 
 creation is thus spoken of as a continuing Divine work 
 might be multiplied indefinitely. 
 
 It is a well known doctrine of physical science, 
 abundantly demonstrated, that there can be no com- 
 munication of force or power or motion without a sur- 
 rounding medium which reacts from the centre or 
 source of motion ; thus, that there can be no communi- 
 cation of sound, or of light and heat, without atmos- 
 pheres, as vibrating media, to receive and convey the 
 forms or modes of motion that are cognized in the sen- 
 sation of sound or sight or warmth. But a too implicit 
 following of the inductions of physical science into the 
 realm of spiritual truth may be very misleading, because 
 physical science in itself has no knowledge and takes no 
 account of the fact that there is a spiritual universe 
 within the natural, as the soul in its body. Physical 
 science, therefore, assumes that the atmospheres and 
 all things are self-existent and so eliminates the omni- 
 presence of the Creator from the creation. It does not 
 and cannot recognize the fact that the Divine Creator 
 constantly creates from Himself the media through 
 which He acts, from first things to last. Thus to follow 
 a science that is spiritually blind into the realm of 
 spiritual truth leads to the denial of truth which is 
 fundamental to all true philosophy, as taught in the 
 doctrines of the New Church. 
 
 With reference to such irrational theories, Sweden- 
 borg says : 
 
 They who do not deduce the creation of the universe and 
 all things thereof, by continual mediations, from the First, 
 can but construct broken hypotheses torn from their causes 
 hypotheses which when surveyed by a mind of clearer and 
 deeper vision appear not as houses, but as heaps of rub- 
 bish. (D. L. W. 303.) 
 
167 
 
 The signification of " continual mediations," 
 viz., as meaning " mediations (or middle things) 
 without gap or cut-off between thing and thing," 
 appears from the antithesis which Swedenborg 
 there sets forward, viz., the opposite system ; in 
 which the hypotheses whereby effect is traced back 
 to its cause, and whereby that cause is traced still 
 further back to its cause, and so on back until the 
 first cause of all is reached, are " broken " apart 
 from each other, like the parted links of a broken 
 chain, and thus have no " continual " chain of 
 derivation, because the links are broken apart, 
 and because effects are thus torn from their 
 causes. That this " continual " or unbroken chain 
 of causation whereby the ultimate effect called 
 creation was brought about, is what Sweden- 
 borg refers to when he uses here the word " con- 
 tinual," and that he does not mean a " continual" 
 repetition of the once-performed act of bringing 
 the ultimate effect about, can be seen in the fore- 
 going letter, in the section on " Continual Causes 
 and Continual Mediations," pp. 35-42. 
 
 The Ministers continue their Report as follows:] 
 
 2. It ought not to be necessary to make ^quotations 
 to prove to any reader of the writings of Swedenborg 
 that they give no countenance to the idea that the 
 created universe, or any part of it, exists or can exist 
 " entirely independent of Deity." Such passages as 
 
168 
 
 the following, which are not unfrequent, should be con- 
 clusive : 
 
 What is in itself is uncreate and infinite ; but what is from 
 Him is created and infinite, because it carries nothing with 
 it that is in itself. (D. L. W. 52.) 
 
 That which is in itself is very esse, from which all things 
 are (ib. 76.) 
 
 The writings abundantly and most clearly teach that 
 the created universe exists perpetually as an effect from 
 the creative cause ; and that any effect disconnected 
 " cut off" as the writer affirms from its cause must 
 instantly cease to be. For example : 
 
 All things that exist in the world's nature (omnia quae in 
 natura mundi existunt), the atmospheres as well as waters 
 and earths, as to all the individual things of them, are effects 
 produced from the spiritual as a cause ; and the effects act as 
 one with the cause, and are entirely concordant according 
 to the axiom that nothing exists in the effect that is not in the 
 cause. But the difference is that the cause is a living force 
 because it is spiritual, and the effect from it is a dead force 
 because natural. (A. E. 1207). 
 
 The Ministers make Swedenborg say that the 
 atmosphere, waters, etc., are effects produced from 
 the spiritual as a cause. He does not say this. 
 He says they are effects which WERE produced 
 from the spiritual as a cause. The Latin is 
 " effectus producti" not " effectus qui producuntur" 
 The Latin has no present passive participle. 
 Where Swedenborg speaks of a continuing 
 creation (as in the living world he does), he uses 
 the present tense passive creatur, creantur. 
 
169 
 
 The need for constant struggle in matters of 
 elementary learning is what makes the discussion 
 of these subjects both wearisome and hopeless. 
 The Ministers proceed as follows :] 
 
 The force of creating is the force of producing causes and 
 effects from beginning to end : and it goes on (pergit) from 
 the First through intermediates to the last. The first is the 
 sun itself of heaven, which is the Lord ; intermediates are 
 things spiritual, afterwards things natural, then terrestrial 
 from [all] which in the last are productions, (ib. 1209.) 
 
 The force of pergit, the present tense, meaning 
 " goes on," as distinguished from the past tense, 
 appears from the subject matter ; which is the 
 production of vegetable forms from things ter- 
 restrial, but not the production of mineral atoms. 
 As the Ministers observe above (pp. 138, 139), 
 " To be rightly understood, the passage referred 
 to must be considered in its relation to the 
 general subject there treated of, as shown by 
 reference to the preceding sections. * * * The 
 forms of use below these " productions, i. e., the 
 forms which are in the mineral kingdom, " are not 
 receptive of life, but of activities from life, and 
 are not here treated of." 
 
 The Ministers continue their report as follows :] 
 
 An effect is a continuance of the cause, and if the cause 
 ceases the effect ceases; and hence every effect without a 
 continual influx of the cause vanishes in a moment. A thing 
 
170 
 
 disconnected [" cut off"] from the First of all, that is from 
 the Divine, falls to nothing in a moment. (A. C. 5116.) 
 
 Let me ask the reader to examine again upon 
 this point, the section on " Continual Causes and 
 Continual Mediations," pp. 35-42 of the foregoing 
 letter. The Ministers continue as follows :] 
 
 3. When it is said, in these and very many other 
 passages, that without a continual influx of the cause 
 the effect " vanishes in a moment," or as expressed in 
 D. L. W. 152 is " instantly dissolved," it is very clear 
 that influx of life into organic forms is not meant, as the 
 writer affirms ; for it is not true of organic forms that 
 they "vanish in a moment," or are " instantly dis- 
 solved " when life is withdrawn. The lifeless, organic 
 forms continue until they gradually dissolve ; and the 
 less soluble portions are often many years, sometimes 
 ages, in process of dissolution. 
 
 A part of what the Ministers says is true, viz., 
 that " the lifeless organic forms continue until 
 they gradually dissolve ;" yet it is not true that the 
 influx of life into organic forms is not here meant 
 by Swedenborg. And it is not true that the influx 
 of life into inorganic forms is meant. It is in- 
 deed, as the Ministers say, " not true of organic 
 forms that they vanish in a moment," or are " in- 
 stantly dissolved when life is withdrawn." But 
 the question is not whether the organic forms 
 themselves vanish, but whether the being or crea- 
 
171 
 
 ture which is a living being or living creature so 
 long as the life-beat from God's Heart and Lungs 
 beats within him, vanishes the instant that Beat 
 ceases, so that no longer can we say that a living 
 being or living creature stands there before us. 
 I affirm, and the Ministers deny, that when a horse, 
 for example, dies, the horse " vanishes in a mo- 
 ment," and is " instantly dissolved," because " the 
 life is withdrawn." What remains is not a horse, 
 but a carcass, which only formerly was a horse. 
 The horse, on being " disconnected from the First 
 of all, that is, from the Divine, falls to nothing in 
 a moment," precisely as the Ministers cite from 
 A. C. n. 5116, where Swedenborg lays down a very 
 different doctrine from the Ministers. Had they 
 read the words immediately preceding the words 
 they cite, they would thence have discovered 
 that the subject treated of in that passage, is the 
 marvels, not of mineral substance, but of vege- 
 table life ; which marvels, says Swedenborg, pro- 
 ceed from the spiritual world. The words which 
 the Ministers cite as proving constant and perpet- 
 ual re-creation of mineral atoms are addressed by 
 Swedenborg expressly to those non-believers in 
 the Divine who attribute to Nature all the won- 
 ders of vegetable life. Had the Ministers, I say, 
 read the words immediately preceding the words 
 they quote, they would have seen that living ex- 
 istence is the existence expressly referred to ; for 
 
172 
 
 there, in speaking of the representation of the 
 Everlasting and Infinite which the propagation 
 and multiplication of the seeds of vegetables ex- 
 hibit, our author declares that " PROPAGATION 
 is perpetual creation." Verily we see what 
 we bring eyes to see. Those who seek 
 the spiritual will see it everywhere ; and those 
 who pursue the sensuous will find everywhere the 
 sensuous ; and, finding it, will call it spiritual. At 
 the instant Pan caught the fleeing Syrinx, that 
 sweet nymph was turned suddenly into a reed in 
 order that she might escape ; and Pan clutched 
 the reed instead of herself ; yet, taken no whit 
 aback, he clutched it stoutly, and, pufiing after 
 his run, heard his own breath wheezing through 
 the reeds, and mistook it for the nymph, and cried 
 out, " It is her voice !" For Pan at this time 
 was beside, or other than, himself ; forgetting that 
 Allfather has so built the reed as that it may not 
 be played upon from without, but only from 
 within ; whence, indeed, Pan, being truly godlike, 
 was wont to play upon it, making a divine melody 
 which is the actual voice of Syrinx. It is only 
 from within, from the spiritual, that the spiritual 
 can be attained, and the flaming sword of sensuous 
 Hankering wheels ever hither and thither and 
 bars the way to the Tree of Life. The Land of 
 Sparks is too warm and bright to be dwelt in by 
 any not born there, and Swart sits at the end of 
 
173 
 
 that land, with sword ablaze in hand, and keeps 
 out all who would break in. 
 
 The falsifications to which the doctrine he pro- 
 claimed would be subjected, were foretold by 
 Swedenborg ; but his reputed followers aver that 
 those who know nothing of this doctrine are 
 those who falsify it. 
 
 Let me refer the reader to pp. 91, 92, 93, of the 
 foregoing letter, where the meaning of " Perpetual 
 Creation " is treated of, and where the sphere of 
 " Conservation " is treated of. 
 
 The Ministers further say as follows :] 
 
 The writer of the memorial has endeavored to explain 
 away the many passages where it is taught that noth- 
 ing except God is self-existent, and that nothing can 
 exist for a moment without influx, by affirming that 
 "for Swedenborg's purpose," and " in the theological 
 sense " inanimate things cannot be said to exist that 
 is, " stand forth " ; that Swedenborg uses the terms 
 " exist " and " existence " only when speaking of things 
 that are forms of life. This, like his attempted limita- 
 tion of omnia, is a mere invention. There is abso- 
 lutely no ground for it in the writings. Swedenborg 
 uses the term " exist" freely, without any such limita- 
 tion, as in A. E. 1207, where he says that atmospheres, 
 waters and earths " exist," and in very numerous other 
 cases the term is applied equally to inanimate and ani- 
 mate things. But, unfortunately for the writer's argu- 
 ment, Swedenborg does not always use the term " ex- 
 ist " in speaking of the dependence of all things 
 upon the Divine. In many instances, as in D. W. L. 
 
174 
 
 52 and 76, above cited, he says " be" instead of 
 " exist." 
 
 To answer now the question of the memorial : It can- 
 not be said that there are two processes, one of creation 
 and another of communication of life ; just as we are 
 taught in D. L. W. 291-294 above quoted, that there 
 are not two spheres, one of substance and another of 
 affection and thought going forth from an angel or man, 
 but one sphere of substance actuated by affection and 
 thought. We are told that the sphere of substance 
 continually going forth from the Lord and constituting 
 the sun of heaven, is " in like manner " from Him 
 that is, not two spheres, one of substance and another 
 of life, but one sphere of substance actuated by and 
 conveying the Divine life of love and wisdom. Life, in 
 its very going forth, and in all degrees of its going 
 forth, continually creates the substance that it actuates 
 and the forms that react from it, just as the substantial 
 sphere surrounding an angel or a man is perpetually 
 going forth from him and is perpetually actuated by 
 the two motions of his life. The Divine sphere of sub- 
 stance and of life thus goes forth perpetually through 
 successive discrete degrees of finiteness down to the 
 last ; and then first begins the return, as it were, of 
 creation to its Creator, by the production of organic 
 forms of higher and higher uses, looking up to man, 
 and through him to the Divine Creator of all things, 
 as briefly set forth in the following passage from L. 
 J. 9: 
 
 Creation began from the highest or inmost, because from 
 the Divine, and went forth to last things or extremes and 
 then first subsisted. The last creation is the natural world 
 [or universe] (mundus naturalis) and in that the terraqueous 
 globe with all things thereon. When these were finished 
 
175 
 
 man was created, and into him were gathered all things of 
 Divine order, from first things to last. 
 
 And just as the universe was created, we are taught 
 that it is sustained, or perpetually created, for : 
 
 To create is not only to cause to be, but also to cause to 
 be perpetually, by continuation and sustentation, by the 
 Divine proceeding (A. E. 906). 
 
 There ends the Keport of the Ministers. 
 
 I know the " natural " man must feel that if 
 God's substance be excluded from the profound 
 interior of matter and of spiritual created sub- 
 stance, His substance cannot exist or be real ; 
 there being then, as the natural man thinks, no 
 substance left which can be He. I know he 
 feels thus ; yet the thing cannot be helped. God 
 is Life ; and from all created substances Life was 
 abstracted in their creation ; thenceforward noth- 
 ing of God or Life remained in them. There is 
 only one help for the natural man who wishes 
 yet to believe in God. It lies not through intellec- 
 tual speculation. It lies through Repentance, 
 which consists in recurring self-examination by 
 the Ten Divine Laws, and in ever-recurring 
 amendment of the inner and the outer life. As 
 this progresses, he becomes aware of other sen- 
 sations than before. A new world opens to him. 
 What man, born blind, deaf, dumb, numb and 
 without taste and smell, and remaining all his life 
 in that condition, would not swear (if he could 
 
176 
 
 reason), that none of the realities exist which all 
 of us perceive ? Just thus is it with those who, 
 like myself and some of my friends, have no spirit- 
 ual sensation. Till spiritual sensation in some 
 measure be attained, I know of no help for the 
 natural man but this which Swedenborg puts for- 
 ward :] 
 
 " Yet because it is in but very feeble measure that the 
 natural man can free from times and spaces the ideas of his 
 thought, the best way for a simple-minded man is, that when 
 he is thinking about God's being everywhere, he should not 
 think from the reasoning power of the Intellect. 'Tis better 
 for him that from a principle of religion he believe these 
 things in all simplicity ; and if he gets a-thinking from rea- 
 son, let him say to himself that they are true, because they 
 relate to God, God being everywhere and being without 
 end ; let him think, too, of how the Word teaches this. And 
 if from Nature and Nature's spaces he gets a-thinking about 
 these things, let him say to himself that they come about in 
 some miraculous fashion : Apoc. lxp. n. 1220, cont. 2. 
 
177 
 
 A MEMORANDUM UPON PART IV OP THE " DIVINE 
 LOVE AND WISDOM." 
 
 The Fourth Part of the "Divine Love and Wisdom" 
 treats chiefly of how the subjects of the vegetable kingdom 
 are produced. The reason why most readers have under- 
 stood this Part to be a treatise on the creation of the mineral 
 kingdom is two-fold. In part it is because both they and the 
 translators into the vernacular in which this author has 
 chiefly been read, were not acquainted with the scien- 
 tific facts involved in the subject matter ; and partly it is 
 because the minds of his readers are largely steeped in 
 materialism. They use, indeed, many words involving spirit- 
 ual subjects ; but largely they treat these in a materialistic 
 fashion, and they do not raise their eyes above mere matter 
 to that height where they might, if they would, behold the 
 spiritual element which is discernible in material forms, 
 viz., the arrangement of the matters in those forms, although 
 in that arrangement an infinite wisdom and spirituality are 
 discernible. And if they do raise their eyes and behold 
 such a spiritual arrangement of material substances, they 
 nevertheless are dragged, as it were, toward believing that 
 this spiritual, and indeed divine, arrangement is induced 
 upon matter from matter's interior ; being induced, as they 
 think, from matter's inmost. In the inmost of matter they con- 
 ceive the Deity to reside ; toward believing this they are, as it 
 were, interiorly dragged. Therefore when in the Fourth 
 Part of this wonderful work they read about the productions 
 which God is ever making upon the earth, being the marvels 
 of vegetable life marvels which spring, as to the living 
 element in their composition, not from the sun of this 
 world, but from the sun of minds they so interpret all the 
 things they read in Swedenborg, that they understand 
 him to be treating of the production, not of these marvels, 
 or not of these marvels alone, but of the accursed dust of 
 matter itself, in which these marvels are wrought ; and the 
 
178 
 % 
 
 continual creation of living things concerning which Swed- 
 enborg treats, they debase into an imagined continual re- 
 creation of mineral atoms. I say they are, as it were, 
 dragged down toward this debasing interpretation. The 
 reason they are dragged is because matter is to them quite 
 obvious and real, but the Divine arrangement of any material 
 substance, considered as mere arrangement, is not to them 
 so obvious ; and to them the spirituality of this arrange- 
 ment is a thing vague and shadowy and unsubstantial. If 
 there they read that the spiritual is in the natural, they can 
 think only of a material and spatial residence of the spirit- 
 ual within the natural ; and they think that the sense in 
 which the spiritual is visible within the natural is that the 
 former is within the latter just as wine is within its cask, or 
 as a man lives in a house which he has built. If you remind 
 them that, even with wine and its cask, no particle of wine 
 lies within any particle of the wood, thus that the substance 
 of the wine is still external to the substance of the cask, 
 they make no intelligible reply. If you tell them that a 
 house-builder still is spiritually visible in his house at the 
 very moment when he is a thousand miles away from it ; that 
 is to say, if you tell them that he is in it by virtue of his 
 desires and intelligence having shaped forth the house, and 
 by virtue of their so impressing themselves upon its form and 
 structure as to be discernible in the house, they will not listen, 
 because you now are speaking of spiritual things, viz., of 
 affection and intelligence ; and these two last do not seem to 
 them obvious as matter is. They wrest Swedenborg into a 
 confirmation of their notions ; and they indeed are often 
 able thus to wrest him. The reason why they often thus 
 can wrest him is, that although when he mentions Creation 
 he is almost always treating of the living creation this latter 
 creation alone being the end and object and sole original 
 motive of the creation of matter he nevertheless does oc- 
 casionally refer to the creation both of the mere substances 
 ^which belong to the spiritual universe and of the mere mat- 
 
179 
 
 ters which belong to the material universe, quite apart from 
 ihe forms which these substances may from time to time 
 take on ; and he represents the substances of the spiritual uni- 
 verse as having been formed by composition and re-com- 
 position from the substance of the spiritual sun ; and he 
 represents material substance as having been formed by the 
 composition and re-composition of spiritual substances ; thus 
 he represents the substance of matter as having been 
 originally derived from the spiritual world. In this way he 
 represents the spiritual as having, when matter was created, 
 furnished the internal substance of matter. But his readers 
 mostly fail to observe that the origin of matter as thus traced 
 by Swedenborg, is an origin which was achieved only once 
 and in the beginning, and which need not be re-achieved and 
 cannot be re-achieved ; and they mostly fail to comprehend 
 that it was only by an alteration of its nature and quality 
 that any spiritual substance could be converted into natural 
 matter ; and they fail to understand that substances that have 
 been thus converted are no longer that which they were, but 
 are only that which upon such conversion they did become ; 
 thus they fail to understand that there is no longer a whit 
 of the spiritual within the natural, in the sense of 
 remaining spiritual and yet constituting the composing 
 elements of the natural, or of constituting the composing 
 elements of matter. And when you remind them that 
 Swedenborg describes those substances which still remain 
 spiritual, as surrounding or be-girding natural substance 
 (D. L. W., nn. 158, 175) and as acting upon natural sub- 
 stance from without (D. L. W., n. 260), they know not what 
 to answer, and only mumble something unintelligible. 
 
 They cannot conceive of spiritual substance as being real 
 unless by virtue of being something conceived to lie with- 
 in material substance, and conceived as making up material 
 substance ; and the reason why they cannot conceive other- 
 wise is, because their minds are tied down to what is ma- 
 terial. They cannot conceive that any spiritual substance 
 
180 
 
 should exist by itself ; and even if they bring themselves to 
 believe that material substance has been created by a re- 
 composition from spiritual substance, they think they must, 
 at the same time, believe that all spiritual substance has 
 been thus converted into natural substance. This, however, 
 is much the same as if a man should believe that since all ice 
 has been composed from water, therefore there can be no 
 water unless such as is potentially contained in the formation 
 called ice ; and it is much the same as if a man should be. 
 lieve that because the formation called water has been com- 
 posed from steam or vapour, therefore there can be no steam 
 or vapour except such as may lie potentially contained in the 
 formation called water ; in other words, it is as if a man 
 should believe that steam and water and ice cannot exist 
 each for itself and by itself. It is also the same as 
 if, because a particle of some gas is composed of still 
 finer particles, a man should believe that there are none 
 of those finer particles but such as have already been 
 formed into gaseous particles ; in this way such a man 
 might deny the existence of the ether which never- 
 theless lies in between the several particles of a gas. 
 In the same manner if we trace still further back the pro- 
 cess of composition such a man may deny that any portion 
 of spiritual substance exists except such portions as have 
 already been composed into natural or material substance. 
 For his thoughts are tied down to material substance, and 
 where material substance is not, he conceives that nothing 
 can be. He is like those unintelligent ones described by 
 Swedenborg (Conjugal Love, n. 207) who, considering the 
 spiritual to be quite apart from the material as in all right 
 thinking they must indeed consider it could not conceive of 
 the spiritual as other than a mere vacuity and nothingness, 
 because they were considering the spiritual apart from the 
 material ; for they could not understand that spiritual sub- 
 stance is the very stuff or filling (plenitudo) whence all the 
 stuffs in matter got their origin ; hence they were aston- 
 
181 
 
 ished to know of such things as books and paper and ink 
 and pens in the world of Spirit all consisting of spiritual 
 substance thrown into those forms. Such men, if with the 
 mouth they say they believe that spiritual substance exists, 
 still conceive that, if real, it must be within material sub- 
 stance, and must be only those portions thereof that have 
 been formed into material substance ; hence they believe 
 that when the human body dies and the particles which 
 compose it are dissipated, there is no substance remaining 
 to man, and consequently no form remaining to him ; or if 
 they say that some substance remains, they cannot conceive 
 that it has a form, viz., the human : in this they are like 
 their fellows who say there is a substantial God, yet deny 
 Him any Form, and above all deny Him the human form ; 
 not perceiving that a substance or essence that has no form 
 is but an entity existing only in the reasoner's reasoning 
 mind (Conjugal lave, n. 315). Such a man, if his thoughts 
 were all concordant, would seek in the atoms of the carcass the 
 substances of the surviving spiritual body ; would seek those 
 substances there, after the body's death, just as he claims 
 to find them in those atoms whilst the body still lives. And 
 some conceive, or speak as if they conceived, that the fine or 
 gaseous stuff into which solids and fluids change their form 
 when under the influence of heat, is other than matter, and 
 is Substance in a spiritual sense of the word ; and conceive 
 that the supposed spirituality of this fine substance is what 
 gives matter its substantiality.* And when in Swedenborg 
 
 * " If, however, we seek for substance in matter, rather than in 
 the spiritual or mental creation which it represents to our senses, 
 we shall surely fail to find. * * * As for substance, there is nothing 
 discoverable in matter which is not destructible, evanescent and 
 changing. * * * The totality of matter as now existing * * * 
 in the twinkling of an eye * * * vanishes away in the changes 
 that are every instant occurring throughout the whole physical 
 universe. All that remains unchanged, undiminishcd, unimpaired 
 
182 
 
 such men read of the spiritual as being ' -interior'' to the 
 natural or material, they instantly suppose he means that the 
 spiritual is presently within the natural or the material, in the 
 sense of being the composing element of the natural or ma- 
 terial ; and they do not perceive that when Swedenborg says 
 
 * as a whole,' is not matter but it is substance, that alone from 
 which matter borrows its ever-changing being : "The New Meta- 
 physics, pp. 70, 71. 
 
 If after a decomposable object suffers decomposition or sublima- 
 tion into gaseous particles, what still remains of that object is 
 Substance, as Mr. Sewall seems to admit ; and if this remaining 
 substance is, as he admits and alleges, " that alone from which 
 Matter borrows its ever-changing being ; " and if nevertheless, as 
 Mr. Sewall alleges, "we shall surely fail to find " any " substance in 
 Matter ; "if all these things are true, it must still be true that the 
 14 substance" which Mr. Sewall (in common with us all) finds in 
 Matter, after Matter's " vanishing away in the changes that are 
 every instant recurring throughout the whole physical universe ' * 
 (which Substance, he says, is "that alone from which matter 
 borrows its ever-changing being,") it must still be true, I say, that 
 the still remaining " substance " is either (1) a spiritual substance, 
 or (2) a material substance. If it, is a spiritual substance, then 
 (according to Mr. Sewall) the ordinary processes of sublimation 
 into gases would convert matter into spiritual substance. But if 
 this substance which survives sublimation remains notwithstanding 
 as merely material as before its sublimation, and if yet it is " that 
 alone from which matter borrows its never-changing being," we 
 cannot by any possibility need for Matter that constant and steady 
 re-begetting by virtue of a "spiritual or mental creation" which Mr. 
 Sewall and his brethren divine. It is fair to Mr. Sewall, however, to 
 suggest, as his possible inference, that when an apple, for instance, 
 decays and becomes invisible (experiencing one of * ' the changes 
 that are every instant occurring throughout the whole physical 
 universe)," the substance of the apple, after it has turned into gas, 
 does not cease there its sublimatory change, but then further turns 
 into spiritual substance, reaching thus that state of ' * Substance ; 
 that alone from which Matter borrows its ever-changing being." 
 
 Nearly similar to Mr. Sewall's theory is that of Mr. Warren (Mat- 
 ter-. Am. N. C. T. and Pub. Soc., J. B. Lippincott Co., Phil.). 
 
183 
 
 that the spiritual is within the natural and within the ma- 
 terial, he means that the activities of certain spiritual 
 substance, which also is present, take effect upon natural 
 and material substances, bringing natural and material 
 substances into a form or arrangement corresponding 
 to spiritual forms; thus that the sense in which the 
 
 Similar is Mr. Giles' theory (Nature of Spirit, 7th Edition). He 
 say'd (pp. 21, 22) : " The planets are carried around in their orbits 
 by a spiritual force. We very properly call it attraction, but attrac- 
 tion is only the name of the effect. The real force is spiritual. * * * 
 Wherever you see action * * * you may infer that spiritual 
 forces are present. * * * It is said that the changes and motions 
 which are continually taking place in matter are caused by the light 
 and heat of the sun. This is true in one sense. Heat acts on a 
 certain plane and to some extent. But it is a spiritual substance 
 within the heat which causes the heat. * * * The sun itself IS" 
 the capitalizing is not Mr. Giles* " created from the spiritual world, 
 and its magnetic forces and ever-radiating heat are perpetually fed 
 from it. * * * Wherever there is matter there is spirit." Simi- 
 lar is Mr. Grindon's theory in his otherwise noble book on "Life, 
 its Nature and Varieties." He says (pp. 12, 14, 23, 6th Am. Ed.) : 
 u Life in its proper, generic sense, is the name of the sustaining 
 principle by which everything out of the Creator subsists, whether 
 worlds, metals, minerals, trees, animals, mankind, angels or devils. 
 * * * Nothing is absolutely lifeless, though many things are 
 relatively so. * * * Strictly speaking every atom of the con- 
 stituent matter of our globe is alive. * * * Matter is not a 
 hearth existing anteriorly to life, and independently of life, and 
 upon which the flame of life is sometimes kindled. In its very 
 simplest and crudest forms it is a sign that the flame is already 
 burning. * * * Life does not necessarily imply organization or 
 reproduction." 
 
 Into such frightful confounding of the Spiritual and the Material 
 are plunged those admirers of Swedenborg, who, all-ignorant of 
 his Science and partly ignorant of his Theology all-ignorant and 
 partly ignorant, as it seems to me (yet I also am little better than 
 ignorant) think to embrace both his Science and his Theology in 
 mere expressions, in expressions not answering to any visible fact 
 in the world of Nature. 
 
184 
 
 spiritual is within the natural and material is, that the 
 spiritual substance present brings about, and constantly 
 maintains, the form in which natural and material sub- 
 stances are found, when found in living creatures; and 
 brings about (and maintains) that form, solely by virtue of 
 pulses of force in the spiritual ether, to which pulses a 
 spiritual substance alone is capable of beating. For when 
 such men hear the words "within 3 ' and "without," they 
 think only of a spatial inwardness and of a spatial 
 outwardness; and it is impossible for them to realize 
 what Swedenborg says when he declares that with the 
 higher intelligences the spatial notions of "inward'' 
 and "outward" disappear, and in their place are sub- 
 stituted the notions of Cause and Effect; the inward 
 being the Cause and the outward being the Effect; 
 thus such men cannot understand that the spiritual is said 
 to be " interior " to a material living form, in the sense and 
 in the sole sense that it causes that form to be brought 
 about originally and also maintains such form as long as 
 such form continues. 
 
 There is somewhat of the spiritual still dwelling within the 
 natural, only where the natural is a thing of which the 
 maintenance depends upon a steady supply from the spirit- 
 ual ; but even there, the spiritual is within the creature only 
 when the creature is taken merely as a whole / and it is not 
 within any atom of the material substance, as composing 
 or making up that atom. Within every living creature 
 there are natural or material substances and there are also 
 spiritual substances ; but no atom of the one resides within 
 any atom of the other ; yet that the spiritual is within the 
 creature is plain from this, viz., if the spiritual ceases to be 
 within it, the creature's molecules slowly part company with 
 each other ; the spiritual had been within the creature and 
 had caused the creature, considered as a unity ; but had not 
 been within the atoms of its natural substance, nor (except 
 at the creation of natural substances, at the beginning of all 
 
185 
 
 things) had it composed or made up that substance. Thus the 
 spiritual is in the natural in all things that are living ; and 
 as soon as the spiritual departs from such things, such things 
 perish instantly. But in these things so perishing, it is not 
 that any substance perishes; it is that the living form 
 perishes ; the perishing is a perishing of form, not of sub- 
 stance ; and the reason the form perishes is that the creature 
 requires a steady sustenance and effort from the spiritual, in 
 order that it may be preserved in the form or arrangement 
 of its substance ; but the substance itself does not require 
 any such sustenance or effort. 
 
 The Fourth Part of the " Divine Love and Wisdom " is 
 found full of wisdom if several things be kept in mind. 
 
 Let me simply name them ; there is no time now to prove 
 them. 
 
 1. As said above, the subject treated of is the production 
 of animal and vegetable forms. This production is described 
 as owing to " influx " ; to influx from the spiritual world. 
 Our author suggests nowhere, either here or elsewhere in 
 his works, so far as I am acquainted with them, any influx 
 from the spiritual world, save into the forms of animal and 
 vegetable life ; provided, of course, that we reckon among 
 animals all beings really higher than animals. It is true 
 that in two or three places he speaks of an effort which pro- 
 duces minerals ; but he takes care to say that the minerals 
 so produced are produced from the earth itself, and are or 
 have been produced by condensations from gases or vapors 
 in the earth. At n. 340 he treats of the produc- 
 tion of vegetables and animals, and says that 
 the marvels of these productions proceed from 
 the Lord through the sun of the spiritual world, and that 
 the earth merely furnishes the matters with which they are 
 stuffed or filled out in the world of nature ; and he says that 
 from these productions it may be seen that there is a con- 
 tinual influx from the spiritual world into the natural world. 
 And at n. 346 he says that the forms upon which an opera- 
 
186 
 
 tion by influx takes place are twin or twain (bince), to wit, 
 the vegetable form and the animal form. At n. 356 he Bays 
 that the " Lord, from Himself, by means of the spiritual 
 world, operates (operetur) all things that exist in nature." 
 In his book on Metaphysics Mr. Sewall (p. 52) interprets 
 this as a declaration that the atoms of the mineral kingdom 
 owe their continued reality to the continuance of this oper- 
 ation ; and Prof. Le Conte in his book on Evolution and its 
 Relation to Religious Thought (p. 271, lower half ; p. 282), 
 following, no doubt, the translators who have distorted 
 Swedenborg, interprets these words in the same sense as 
 Mr. Sewall. 
 
 The words of Swedenborg do not have this meaning. 
 What he says is, " These things, and others besides, are 
 outstanding proofs that the Lord, from Himself, by means 
 of the spiritual world, works (operetur) all things that are 
 alive (existunt) in nature." 
 
 What are " these things and others," which Swedenborg 
 says are outstanding proofs ? At n. 349 he begins to relate 
 these proofs ; and at the passage which I have quoted (n. 
 356) he gets done with relating them. At n. 349 where, as 
 I have said, he begins to relate them, he starts with this 
 proposition, viz., " That things which can be seen in the 
 created universe bear witness that nature never did produce 
 anything and does not produce anything ; but that the 
 Divine, from Himself, by means of the spiritual world, did 
 and does produce all things. And then he fetches up his 
 proofs ; and each of them is a proof adduced from vegetable 
 life or else from animal life, and none of them relates to the 
 mineral kingdom. I shall not rehearse these proofs. He 
 rehearses them again in the True Christian Religion, at 
 n. 12, and makes substantially the same comments. In re- 
 citing them, he calls attention to (1) the WISDOM of their 
 construction ; (2) the USE of their construction ; (3) the 
 AFFECTION they display ; (4) the KNOWLEDGE they display ; 
 (5) the quasi PRESCIENCE they display ; (6) their SYMBOLISM. 
 
187 
 
 These qualities mark them as productions from a thinking 
 and intelligent Being ; these are proofs of their origin. 
 
 He says that animal and vegetable wonders are proofs. 
 Proofs of what ? Proofs, he says, that the Lord works all 
 things in nature. Proofs, he says, not mere grounds for 
 guessing, however shrewdly. Proofs, auctoramenta, things 
 written or engraved in durable substance. Now does 
 proof that the construction and operation of animal and 
 vegetable life involve and demand a spiritual intelligence 
 and wisdom such as reside neither in the mechani- 
 cal vibrations of the particles of the dead ethereal atmos- 
 phere, nor in the wild kinetic hurtling of the particles of 
 the aereal atmosphere does proof of this, I ask, stand as proof 
 that the Lord constantly recreates the vile matters which 
 merely serve these spiritual marvels as material with which 
 to be stuffed and filled out in fixed and durable form ? (D. 
 L. W., n. 315, 310, 340, 344). Proof, perhaps we may say, 
 that the Lord, from Himself, by means of the spiritual 
 world, did at the first or in the beginning bring about even 
 the material atoms of the universe ; because the wonders of 
 which these proofs consist, suggest an end or purpose for 
 making the mineral atoms ; thus suggest that the steady 
 Author of those wonders, is one and the same Being with 
 Him who once did make the atoms of the mineral world ; 
 but assuredly not proof that instead of once for all creating 
 those atoms, the Lord creates them each moment, or con- 
 stantly re-creates them, as the Ministers and the most of the 
 present Swedenborgians assert. 
 
 2. In treating of the causes, and of the manner, of 
 vegetable production, Swedenborg contemplates two worlds 
 as being present, each world having its own elements, and 
 each world furnishing somewhat to the plan. The elements 
 which belongs to the spiritual world he calls substances 
 (substantiae) ; and the elements which belongs to the world 
 of nature he calls matters (materiae). Of this use of words 
 
188 
 
 there are illustrations at nn. 302, 303, 305, 310, 315, 340, 
 343, 344. 
 
 3. Since the two worlds are present together in the mak- 
 ing of these productions, Swedenborg treats together, or all 
 in one, or with double application of his words, these two 
 distinct elements, viz. ; " substances," meaning spiritual sub- 
 stances; and "matters," meaning material substances. 
 Since he treats of them both in one breath, it is necessary to 
 keep them well apart in mind ; as far apart indeed as the 
 spiritual, in its essence, is apart from the material. He 
 treats of these two kinds of material as in pairs ; and he tells 
 of how the higher of the pair, consisting of spiritual sub- 
 stance, has been derived from the sun of the spiritual world. 
 By parity of reasoning, which he evidently presumes the 
 reader will carry on without reminder, the material elements 
 which he calls " matters " can be understood to have been 
 derived from the sun of nature, through mediations from 
 finer to coarser by discrete degrees, i. e., progressing, or 
 rather retrogressing, from the gaseous form to the liquid 
 form, and from the liquid form to the solid form, all accord, 
 ing to the principles of composition and re-composition by 
 discrete degrees ; which principles hold good alike in either 
 world. 
 
 4. The " matters " which he speaks of as being in the soil, 
 and which are all material and which form the soil, are only 
 a small portion of the visible layer of so-called soil ; as is well 
 known to botanists. 
 
 5. The finest natural material he sometimes dignifies 
 with the name of substance itself ; as where, for example, at 
 n. 174, he calls by the name of " substances " the particles of 
 the natural atmosphere. 
 
 6. He seems also to apply occasionally the name " mat- 
 ters " to spiritual substances which have been so clotted or 
 conglomerated with each other, or been brought into such 
 intimate connection with matters of natural origin, as to 
 have lost the proper designation of strict "substances." 
 
189 
 
 An example of this is at n. 305, where he traces the origin of 
 at least some of the " substances and matters from which 
 are derived the soils " ; and he says that these substances 
 and matters were derived from the spiritual sun. But he 
 does not mean that from this original (without having 
 mediately been fashioned into the natural solar body, or 
 without having been thrown off from that body when 
 the earth was thrown off) come all the substances and 
 matters which go to make up even the soil proper. 
 For at n. 313 he refers to other, or partly other, sub- 
 stances and matters from which the soil is derived; and he 
 there, at n. 313, refers evidently and in part, to the various 
 worn-down particles of rock, etc., of which the soil is known 
 to be in part composed. 
 
 7. The substances which are of spiritual origin in the soil 
 do not lie within the atoms of material origin which are in 
 the soil ; but the two are perfectly distinct ; and at n. 310 he 
 tells how, after the seeds are "opened" by the sun's heat, 
 they are impregnated with very subtle substances which he 
 says must be of spiritual origin ; and says that then there is 
 a conjunction with matters of natural origin, and that those 
 forms of use which are vegetables are thence produced. 
 
 8. What he calls substances and matters in the soil, in- 
 clude also the various gases sublimated from the soil, such as 
 carbon, nitrogen, etc.; these are what he refers to as exhala- 
 tions from the soils into the atmosphere, at n. 310. In 
 treating of these things it must be remembered all along 
 that he treats of both worlds in one breath. In the corres- 
 ponding passages in the Apocalypse Explained, n. 1203 to 
 n. 1215, on the contrary, he deals mostly with the soils and 
 atmospheres of the spiritual world alone, and with the vege- 
 table productions in that world alone. In treating of vege- 
 table production in the natural world, these two elements the 
 spiritual and the natural must of necessity be treated of 
 together or combined ; but this necessity creates a risk of 
 much confusion. 
 
190 
 
 9. In this Part IV, his terrae, which the translators have 
 confounded with the substance of the earth itself, and which 
 some of them have confounded with the earth-ball, or with 
 the various planetary earth-balls (Mr. Sewall, for example ; 
 The New Metaphysics, pp. 58, 59), means " soil " and only 
 soil. At n. 314 he speaks of the tellurem investitam terris 
 the earth-ball clad with the soil. 
 
 10. The spiritual is not a mere thought or a mere desire ; 
 although most men so believe ; but it consists of substances. 
 Thought and desire are merely changes of form in certain 
 portions of the total amount of spiritual substance, viz., 
 changes of form in certain organized portions of such sub- 
 stance. Spiritual substance no more consists of thought 
 and desire than the material world consists of the gray 
 matter in the brain. The reason why men have imagined 
 that spiritual substance is limited to thought and desire, is 
 that only in thought and desire do men in this world appre- 
 hend the spiritual ; and they limit the spiritual, of course, 
 to those fields in which they have experienced it. Spiritual 
 substance is equally real with natural substance. It is dif- 
 ferent, indeed ; but it is a simple, or comparatively a simple ; 
 and it is from assemblages of it that what we know as matter 
 is a compound. And every compound is different from the sim- 
 ples of which it is composed ; thus the compound of oxygen 
 and hydrogen which is known as water is different from the 
 simples of which it is compounded. Nor like each other 
 were any two of the spiritual simples which entered into and 
 formed an atom of material substance. No two atoms, 
 be they spiritual or otherwise, can be alike ; for they came 
 from the Infinite. 
 
 " Not a single form," says Swedenborg, " nor even a single 
 particle, is altogether like another ; that is, so like another that 
 it can be substituted for that other without some par- 
 ticular alteration (absque aliqua alteratione), though it 
 might be but a trifling alteration." Arc. Cod. n. 3745. 
 Hence the compounding, called matter, of some of such 
 
191 
 
 various simples, may well differ from any of its sim- 
 ples ; as for example as to weight and size, dead fixity, 
 etc., and yet not differ from its simples in having different 
 from them the qualities of substance, shape and reality ; in 
 other words, those last three qualities can belong to spiritual 
 substance just as they belong to material substance, although 
 they may not be obvious to corporeal sensation. 
 
 Substance, Form and Change of Form must be kept 
 well apart in thought. A profound change of Form in 
 any assemblage of substances, makes a new thing of that 
 assemblage ; and of such a change Swedenborg says that 
 the thing consisting of those substances " was created, " 
 or "is created," as the case may be. Not otherwise is 
 the Maker a Creator than as He is a Shaper; unto 
 which agrees also the good old Luther. Substance itself 
 is not creatable, not even by Power of the Infinite. 
 The substance that is, always has been. Whilst it was in 
 God, it was living ; so much of it as came to be no longer in 
 God went dead, and dead it has stood since then. If not 
 creatable by even an Infinite Power, it would not be perish- 
 able in lack of Infinite support. The fear of the Ministers 
 that if God's imagined sustaining Might exerted upon an 
 atom of substance were withdrawn, the atom would lapse 
 into non-entity, is a sheer nervousness, as if one should fear 
 the sky might fall, or the like. Whither should substance, 
 even if neglected by the Deity, lapse ? Not back into Deity, 
 surely ? I hope not ; such a mishap would be distressing. 
 Can the Deity's conserving power, as the Ministers conceive 
 it, consist in pressing off these atoms lest they should tum- 
 ble back into Himself ? Is it in this sense that they think 
 all things tend back and up towards their Divine Creator ? 
 
 11. When Swedenborg uses the word "spiritual" he 
 sometimes has reference to spiritual substance ; but more 
 commonly either to the form of some spiritual being or 
 object, or else to a movement in some spiritual substance. 
 
 11. All made things, be they live things or dead things, 
 
192 
 
 are outside of the Maker, and are not any part of His Sub- 
 stance. With the idealists it is a favorite saying that all the 
 forms and workings of the universe are the Maker's thoughts. 
 This saying can be turned into what is true, provided it be 
 understood to mean that those forms and workings are of 
 similar shape to the shapes of the thoughts Divine. So 
 meant, this saying is intelligible to the intelligent ; just as 
 when we say of the picture of this man or of that man " It 
 is this man," or "It is that man." But thus the idealists 
 will not have it. Instead of beholding in created things 
 God's mere Image, an Image in which there is no more of 
 God than, in the looking-glass-image of a man, there is of the 
 very man's self (Divine Love and Wisdom, n. 59), they will 
 have it that the Substance of God is within that Imagery ; 
 and that from His Substance (which they declare to be 
 within), the Imagery is projected forth as a Divine cerebra- 
 tion. For they are pantheists, and make God to be all 
 things, and make all things to be God to be God in the 
 profound interior ; i. e., either in the profound interior of 
 those things or in the profound interior of the pantheists 
 themselves. If they tie themselves to Swedenborg, they still 
 pass by the passages in which he teaches that all created 
 substance is substance which at creation was ejected from 
 the Divine Structure and which thenceforth formed no 
 portion of the Divine Body, still less of the Divine Brain 
 (Div. Love and Wisdom, n. 291-294). And yet many of 
 them vaunt their scheme beyond the scheme of their fel- 
 low idealists who affirm that all the forms of the visible 
 world are but products of the mind of any one that contem- 
 plates those forms. Those idealists who falsely call them- 
 selves Swedenborgians or " New-Churchmen," vaunt their 
 own scheme beyond this latter scheme, for the reason (as 
 they say) that their scheme is a scheme whereby it is a 
 Divine and Public Brain that does the constant thinking- 
 process in which they allege the reality of all things con- 
 sists ; whereas, in the other scheme, each individual brain is 
 
193 
 
 a private manuf acturer of that reality. When you ask them 
 This Divine cerebration or movement in the Divine Brain, 
 how does it exist in substances that form no longer any por- 
 tion of the Divine Brain or even of the Divine Body ? (Div. 
 Love and Wis., n. 291-294) when you ask this, they mum- 
 ble something, and thenceforth they hold you to be a 
 materialistic scoffer and a proponent of questions that might 
 upset any system of theology conceivable by them. 
 
194 
 
 A PICTORIAL DESCRIPTION OF THE THEOLOGICAL 
 SYSTEM OF THE SWEDENBORGIANS AT PRESENT, 
 B T TT NOT OF SWEDENBORG'S SYSTEM. 
 
 [I cannot set this over into English, without 
 throwing out of line the more delicate adjustments 
 of the symbolism.] 
 
 Ante mare et terras et quod tegit omnia caelum, 
 Unus erat toto naturae vultus in orbe, 
 Quern dixere Chaos : rudis indigestaque moles, 
 Nee quicquam nisi pondus iners, congestaque eodem 
 Non bene junctarum discordia semina rerum. 
 Nullus adhuc mundo praebebat lumina Titan, 
 Nee nova crescendo reparabat cornua Phoebe, 
 Nee circumfuso pendebat in aere Tellus 
 Ponderibus librata suis, nee brachia longo 
 Margine terrarum porrexerat Amphitrite ; 
 
 Quaque fuit tellus, illic et pontus et aer. 
 
 f 
 
 Sic erat instabilis tellus, innabilis unda, 
 Lucis egens aer : nulli sua forma manebat, 
 Obstabatque aliis aliud quia corpore in uno 
 Frigida pugnabant calidis, humentia siccis, 
 Mollia cum duris, sine pondere habentia pondus 
 
SOME AWKWARD APPRENTICE-WORK 
 
 IN THE 
 
 BOTTOMING OF TUBS. 
 
 Omnis influxus Divlnus est a primis In ULTIMA, et PER NBXUM CUM ULTIMIS 
 in media . . . Quod ita sit est ex eo quod In ultlmls COBXISTANT OMNIA . . . 
 Ex quo patet quod Divinum In ultimo sit in suo pleno. 
 
 De Divina Sapientia, vm, 2. 
 
 Divinus Ordo nusquam subsistit in medio et ibi absque ultimo format 
 aliquid ; non enlm est [ibi] in suo pleno et pert ecto ; sed vadit ad ultimum ; 
 at cum est in suo ultimo, tune format, et quoque per media IBI COLL ATA se 
 redintegrat et producit ulterius. 
 
 De Coelo et Inferno, n. 315. 
 
197 
 
 Most of the following essays have been already published ; 
 but chiefly in periodicals more or less obscure. 
 
 It is not without shame that I offer them as specimens 
 of a manner in which spiritual truths can be rationally re- 
 ceived into the vessels of natural thought. They are so 
 poor that I limit narrowly their number ; having no time 
 to spare for the bettering of any. 
 
 Science, as far as I know aught of it, is perfectly a con- 
 texture of definite forms which, when applied to spiritual 
 matters, are definite spiritual truths. I am not poor in 
 samples to make good this assertion ; but my samples are 
 poor ; poor because my time is scanty. As soon as Sweden- 
 borg's writings, either in his Latin or in translations which 
 shall not falsify his meaning, shall be read by men of 
 thoroughly scientific education, who instead of thinking, like 
 most literary men, by words alone, shall think habitually in 
 the pictorial forms which Science alone furnishes as soon as 
 this shall come about, I know that the Spiritual Coopers 
 will be both deft and many. Meanwhile we must put up 
 with the rough-work of Apprentices ; and as such rough- 
 work I offer these fragments. The Bottoming of theologi- 
 cal Thought becomes daily more necessary. 
 
198 
 EACH ONE THING IS MADE UP OF THKEE. 
 
 It has been justly observed that " if any one shall say that 
 at least arithmetic is certain and exact, and that it is mathe- 
 matically impossible that three can be one, or one three, the 
 reply is, that this is true as far as arithmetic governs.'* 
 For arithmetic is a science of abstractions ; and mere num- 
 bers, parted from real things, are wholly imaginary. But 
 with all that is real, be it God, Mind, or Matter, not only is 
 it possible that one be three and that three be one, but also 
 it is impossible that any thing or being whatever shall exist 
 except by reason that, in such thing or being, one is three 
 and three are one. And this can swiftly be demonstrated. 
 
 No thing can be or be made, unless it consist of : 
 
 (1) SUBSTANCE. 
 
 (2) FOKM. 
 
 (3) A COMBINATION-INTO-ONE of Substance and Form, making 
 the thing itself. 
 
 These three are at once three and distinct ; and also, as 
 long as that thing exists, they are one and inseparable. No- 
 thing on earth can be found or imagined, of which this pro 
 position is not absolutely true. 
 
 For example, on the table before me is a horse-shoe. In 
 that horse-shoe is, first of all, SUBSTANCE, which happens to 
 be steel. If I beat it to powder, if I heat it till it is molten, 
 if I turn it into gas, the substance remains, though no horse- 
 shoe remains. Substance, then, is something in that horse- 
 shoe which stands on its own footing, and for its being 
 stands indebted neither to the horse-shoe nor to the horse- 
 shoe's form. If anything exists by itself and in itself, then 
 surely exists this substance which is in the horse-shoe. 
 
 Second. The FORM of that horse-shoe is utterly different 
 from the form of certain other steel articles, into any of 
 which, or many of which, I may remanuf acture the substance 
 which is in the horse-shoe. Nor, for its being, does this sec- 
 ond element Form depend upon that very same sub- 
 
199 
 
 stance, steel. I could make a horse-shoe out of another piece 
 or kind of steel, or make an iron horse-shoe, or a wooden one; 
 and make it of that very form. Or even I might make the 
 picture of such a horse-shoe without any substance at all, ex- 
 cept what consisted of the ink or the lead in the out- 
 line of the picture ; yet no one would pretend that Form is 
 less there then, than were it a real horse-shoe. 
 
 Third. If I PUT TOGETHER these two, viz., the substance and 
 the form ; that is, if I give to that substance this particular 
 form, and into this form throw that particular substance, I 
 have then a third thing which is other than the mere sub- 
 stance of a horse-shoe, and is other than the mere form of a 
 horse-shoe, but is a horse-shoe itself. And in that shoe these 
 three elements will then exist united, and they shall make in 
 it there one thing known as a horse-shoe. Strike out any one 
 of these three fundamentals or hypostases, and your shoe is 
 clean gone forever. I ask the disbeliever to try this reason- 
 ing with anything he pleases which he has ever seen ; and 
 when he finds one thing in which there are not these three 
 distinct hypostases or Up-stays of Being, these three distinct 
 personce or characters, or when he finds a thing in which 
 these three do not make one, exactly one, with not the small- 
 est fraction more or less than one, let him come to me, 
 and I will swiftly and openly abjure this Trinity. 
 
 Will you now touch that horse-shoe ? What impresses 
 your sense, when you touch it, is Force. In the last analysis 
 all our sensation of matter is the effect of Force. Not Force 
 itself, but the effect of Force. In all that we sense, then, we 
 find these three, Substance, Form and Force. The Substance 
 and the Form affect us as Force. Of these three, Substance 
 is the Father, and Form is the Offspring and Shaper, and 
 without Form is nothing made which is made. From the 
 substance and the form proceeds force, without which noth- 
 ing can be brought about. 
 
 Substance is an invisible father. No man ever saw sub- 
 stance ; Form, its offspring, is what brings it forth to 
 
200 
 
 view. Never shall man apprehend substance except through 
 form, as a go-between and Mediator. And neither form nor 
 substance can truly be made known to us except by the 
 operation of Force. What you feel in the horse-shoe is its 
 resistant force, according to its form ; and within this form 
 is Substance, old Father Steadfast. If the horse-shoe made 
 absolutely no resistance to your touch, you absolutely could 
 not feel it. In like manner, if it made absolutely no resist- 
 ance to the waves of light, you absolutely could not see it. 
 Sensation is based on impression of the senses, and without 
 an exertion of force there can be no impression. 
 
 The substance of the horse-shoe is certainly essential to 
 the horse-shoe. 
 
 You may say, if you please, that the form is nothing. 
 But destroy the form of the horse-shoe. Will you then be 
 willing to shoe with it one of your own horses ? To that 
 horse-shoe the form is not less essential than is the sub- 
 stance. 
 
 It is equally essential that a union of the substance and 
 of the form be effected. For the possession of the raw 
 material, and the possession, moreover, of the design or 
 form of a proper horse-shoe, will not give you a shoe, until is 
 brought about that union which makes up the shoe. 
 
 Is it not plain that these three essentials are distinct 1 ? 
 
 The substance is not the same thing as the form, nor is it 
 the same thing as the combination of the substance and the 
 form into the shoe, nor is the form the same thing as that 
 combination. 
 
 And yet are not these three one ? Look ; you grasp them 
 all three, and yet you see but one thing a shoe. 
 
 What a mystery is the trinity in that shoe ! Three are one 
 and one is three. A mystery, yet the foundation of all 
 being. O unbeliever, if God also is, can He be less than 
 Three, and can the Three be more than One ? If I am 
 wrong, then by this shoe which I can see with my bodily 
 eye, teach me concerning Him who by that eye may not be 
 
201 
 
 seen. Or, if you say He is a Spirit and that nothing can be 
 known about Him, waste no time in disputing this with me, 
 but look into your own spirit. Do you not find in your own 
 spirit a thing SUBSTANTIAL, the which is your real bent and 
 desire ? And to give your bent and desire a FORM, do you 
 not find your intellect or reason I And to carry out and 
 contrive and fulfil these two in the world of matter, do you 
 not find an effective RESOLUTION, and a force or power thence, 
 for the accomplishment of your bent and desire as often as 
 your intellect can shape its fulfilment? Do you not often 
 find that your wish is quite other than your reason ? And is 
 not the accomplishment of your wish other than your mere 
 wish ? And whenever you can combine your wish and your 
 thought into the corresponding act, are not all three there 
 wish, thought and act a trine in unity ? 
 
 Can a man of sound mind imagine that in God the Three 
 should make a One, and that this One should be a Three, 
 and yet that the nature of His being should fail to be 
 stamped and woven into a single thing that He has made '? 
 If Trinity is essential to Him, can what He has caused to be 
 stand without it ? If Trinity exists in all the visible, shall 
 it in the invisible be denied ? 
 
 Because God is Trine, His created world is thronged with 
 phases of the trinal. I have little room for illustration. 
 Yet for its passing truth and beauty, let me call to mind the 
 Trinity of Heat, Light and Actinism. These, which form- 
 erly were thought to be three that were merely three, are 
 now known to be three which at the same time are one, one 
 only. By a regular substitution of terms, the Deathless 
 Creed can be turned into formulas of Science as to Heat and 
 Light and Actinism. But here let no man lose himself. 
 There is no true ethereal Trinity, no Sun of Kighteousness, 
 save Christ ; in whom is the Father, and from whom goes 
 forth the Holy Spirit. In Him dwells, not a just Third part 
 alone, but ALL the fullness of the Godhead bodily. And 
 from His divine Love or Warmth, and His divine Logos, 
 
202 
 
 Light or Intelligence, combined into His Divine Life, 
 Pneuma, or spiritual actinic Force, and not from elsewhere, 
 comes the growth of all trees of Righteousness. He is their 
 Sun, and Him it behoves them to worship, even as the green 
 world worships the globe of fire. To receive, through re- 
 pentance and belief, good desires from Him ; to receive 
 keen spiritual intelligence from His Word and Works ; and 
 to combine these good desires and this keen intelligence into 
 a daily life of upright works cannot everyone see that this, 
 and this only, is spiritual growth, and that this is indeed wor- 
 shipping Him 1 Herein is glorified the Father-Soul dwell- 
 ing in Him, viz., that His own bring forth much fruit ; so, and 
 not otherwise, shall they be His disciples. The true glory 
 of the sun is neither in the eastern clouds at sunrise, nor in 
 in the gloaming, nor yet in the blaze of noonday ; but 
 his glory lies in the growth with which his actinism covers 
 the earth which without it would be a desert. Therefore at 
 the spring-time of the year the feast of the Trinity been 
 pitched ; at this green time it comes, in the very nick of 
 order. 
 
 THREE PERSONS IN ONE MAN. 
 
 1 * Men moet bij lezen denken, 
 Gelijk de kiekens drenken." 
 
 As thou readest, stop and think, 
 Like the chickens as they drink. 
 
 The soul is a person. Men that have gone to the other 
 world are persons now as before. They are not things. 
 Things are the bodies which they left behind. The Wish, 
 the Thought, and at least some Force of Will these are 
 
203 
 
 what make personality up ; and these make the soul up ; and 
 they make nothing else up. The soul is very person ; an 
 inner and essential person ; the person. 
 
 But nobody can see the soul. The body is what we see. 
 It is in the eyes and tones and gestures that the Wish 
 gleams forth ; by the tongue the Thought shows itself ; and 
 in deeds of the hands Force of Will comes out. As often as 
 we see the Wish, the Thought and the Force of Will which 
 together make up personality, we are seeing the body only ; 
 and therefore we call the body personal; we call it " person." 
 In English there is not a word more firmly rooted in its 
 meaning than the word " person " is rooted in this meaning 
 of " body." Daily we hear and speak of " tidiness of per- 
 son"; of "venturing the person"; of "beauty of person"; 
 of " injuries to the person " ; meaning always the body. In 
 law, both English and American, " the person " means just 
 the body, the body only. And this, as far as I know, is pre- 
 cisely what it means in every other living tongue into which 
 it has come into general use. 
 
 And rightly we call the body the " person " at least as long 
 as it is alive. Until it is a corpse, the body is more than a 
 body. With the personality of the soul it is fairly soaked, 
 and from it that personality is steadily dripping. We do not 
 wrench or stretch the word when we speak of the body as a 
 " person." The body is strictly " personal." It is the outer 
 or bodily person. It is the person. Thus we find that every 
 man consists of two distinct persons ; of two persons at least. 
 Practically however he possesses another person still. 
 
 The soul cannot presently strike us as a person, or affect 
 us with its personality, unless it strike or affect us through 
 the body ; and just so, if the body were always inactive, 
 neither body or soul could strike or affect us at all. For 
 personality is like the light : it lives only whilst a-moving. 
 It lies in spreading ripples and in pulses of agitation. It is 
 dynamic always and static never ; the hurtling of it against 
 us, and its onslaught upon our sensories physical and spirit- 
 
204 
 
 ual, are what make it, to us, itself. The cataleptic has soul 
 and has body ; but so long as a certain third element, con- 
 sisting of his active personality, is suspended, he is not quite 
 a " person." If a man has been mesmerized, and brought 
 under the will of another, then so long as this state lasts, he 
 is not a " person " ; for all this while his acts are the acts of 
 the other. That women are " persons " in all respects, is 
 denied in many countries. The reason is, that there by law 
 they are incapable of certain political activities ; and Activity 
 is one of the three elements of personality. A slave is held 
 to be a person in some respects ; in others, to be a thing. 
 His outer or bodily person the law has almost always recog- 
 nized, and the murderer of him suffers death ; while to kill a 
 horse of perhaps thrice the slave's value is punished only in 
 damages. His inner person too has been recognized ; and 
 for murder with intent by him, he might be hanged. But 
 to do what he willed and what he thought best to send 
 forth an Activity which is the offspring of untrammeled soul 
 and untrammeled body was not given to him as to free- 
 men ; his living, acting self, the best third of him, his prac- 
 tical entity, his total effective being all this was but a pup- 
 pet whereof his master pulled the strings ; and therefore his 
 acting self was not, and was not called, a " person." It was 
 a thing. And because this third part of him which summed 
 him really up, was a " thing/' he himself, summed up, was 
 a thing, and was called a " thing " or chattel. 
 
 The soul is indeed the inner person ; and the body is in- 
 deed the outer person ; and within these two, for themselves 
 and in themselves, personality lies complete. But this com- 
 pleteness is for themselves alone and in themselves alone ; 
 and that of them which works on others is not either of them 
 singly, but is the third element made up of the two. What 
 works on others is the force and forth-flowing energy of soul 
 and body, their very combination. Without the impact of 
 this complex energy, no impression of personality and at 
 
205 
 
 bottom no impression of a man's soul or even of his body 
 could be conveyed to another. 
 
 This last as to the body will be questioned by the 
 thoughtless ; but I affirm it with the widest sweep that the 
 words can take, and with utter soberness, and with a weigh- 
 ing of my words. Except for that processive force and 
 energy, absolute or relative, which each object cognizable by 
 any of the five senses exerts, not one of the five senses could 
 apprehend or take the object in. Your own hand at noon- 
 day you could by no means see, were it not for the quiver of 
 its surface, which trembles with the shock of the ether- 
 waves ; and which while thus a-struggling with those waves, 
 beats back toward your eye each wave, as a bluff rock beats 
 back the surging of the sea. You could not hear a bell rung 
 at your very ear, were it not for the same resistant force in 
 the particles of the bell-metal, which, although they yield to 
 the blow of the clapper, spring swiftly back to the position 
 they had before the blow was struck, and then leap still be- 
 yond that position, and then leap back, and thus vibrate 
 hither and yon, and thrash the air, and, through the air, 
 thrash the drum of the ear and the nerve of hearing. You 
 could not touch or taste or smell an apple, were it not for the 
 same resisting force in the apple's particles, which in solid, 
 in liquid, or in gaseous form make dint upon nerves in 
 the tongue. Men, beasts and things, all alike exert this 
 force ; alike they give themselves thus forth with out-flowing 
 energy. Or if they fail to give themselves forth, they sim- 
 ply stay unknown to us, stay utterly unknown ; to us, till 
 they shall be thus forth-given, they actually do not exist. In 
 that regard, the only difference between animate and inani- 
 mate objects is this: with the inanimate the effluence is 
 dead, and with the animate there is an effluence which we 
 call alive. And between beasts and men the only difference 
 is, that in beasts the effluent activity is purely animal, but in 
 man it is a " person "; it is his very person. 
 
 If you are choosing a servant, you will choose him by both 
 
206 
 
 his mind and body; yet not by these two in themselves, 
 but solely by. a third element in which you will find 
 these two conjoined. This element is their combined forth- 
 flowing Activity. For so far as this servant's mind and body 
 fail to join together in Activity, and fail to proceed forth 
 into work, you will say he is a lazy fellow, and not the 
 " person " you want. His mind or inner person is bright, 
 and his body or outer person is strong ; but the person you 
 are seeking is a third " person " still, and a very different 
 man from this sturdy good-for-naught. 
 
 The soul is substantially the man. Be he dwarf or giant, 
 in avoirdupois his substantial self by no means lies. There- 
 fore we shall call the soul the Substance of him. 
 
 In his bodily organization, and especially in the nervous 
 system, this Substance of him is unfolded and gets form. 
 And therefore we daily call (as philosophically we must al- 
 ways call) the body his Form. 
 
 The energy and output of his soul and body combined, 
 whereby he acts powerfully, or somewhat, or perhaps next 
 to none at all, on us, on the world, on the ages, the Ac- 
 tivity, in short, which his soul and body are always throwing 
 off, we daily call his Force. 
 
 And these three, Substance, Form and Force, are not* only 
 his, but are he. 
 
 The inner person is essentially the person, and is essen- 
 tially the man. It is the source and father of his manhood. 
 But no man has seen this father at any time. This father 
 has immortality and dwells in the light unto which no flesh 
 can approach. 
 
 Man's second person is, in general, all whereby this inner 
 soul's self may stand forth and be unfolded. In his mental 
 constitution, his Wish stands first and foremost ; and the un. 
 folding or presentation of this elemental self is the Intellect 
 or Thought. The Thought is that by which his Wish makes 
 all its little mental worlds ; it is his Wisdom, by the which 
 he founds his petty mental earth peculiar ; all things that he 
 
207 
 
 makes are made by it ; and without it, is nothing in him 
 made that is made. In the Thought, the Wish or Desires 
 express and form or formulate themselves. Who can know 
 or become aware of what he wishes, unless he thinks about 
 it, or unless already he has thought about it ! To such 
 thinking, his Wish impels him steadily ; to that Thought his 
 Wish is always Father ; and of that thought, as the Wish's 
 proper Son and Offspring, there is an eternal generation. 
 Do but remember this thing after some great joy or some great 
 sorrow shall have come upon you, and when you shall have 
 slept deeply, a full night's sleep, upon it, and in sleep shall 
 have lost it from mind. When suddenly you wake, at the 
 first instant of waking, and before you can bring distinctly 
 into mind that sorrow or that joy, you will surely feel the 
 brunt of one or the other as it bursts upon you ; and yet for 
 the moment you know not what it is ; and there for the mo- 
 ment you will be held in confused gladness or in confused 
 pain ; you are happy or you are wretched ; but wherefore 
 and wherein, you do not yet know, because the matter can- 
 not yet be brought before you in thought. Now, that un- 
 known pain or that unknown gladness is your unseen 
 Father-element, your Feeling. As soon as you are broad 
 awake, that Feeling shall " beget " or arouse a Thought 
 around or about itself. The Thought thus begotten was 
 yet beforehand a-lying in the very heart or bosom of the 
 Feeling ; and in the beginning, before you woke to con- 
 sciousness, this Thought was with that Feeling, and was 
 that Feeling ; and this Thought, being brought forth in 
 your waking mental world, reveals to you now that Feeling 
 and declares it; and now through this Thought, and in this 
 Thought, you feel and well know the back-lying bliss, or the 
 back-lying smart; for of that bliss or that smart this 
 Thought is the express image the brightness of its glory, 
 or the darkness of its despair. This Offspring-element, the 
 Thought, is the expression of your feeling ; it is its embodi- 
 ment, its veiy body. It is in the form of your feeling, and 
 
208 
 
 is equal to your feeling ; or if not equal as yet, you will keep 
 a-thinking and a-thinking and thereby shaping and molding 
 your thought, until it is quite equal to your feeling, and 
 until you have fully bodied forth in that thought your hap- 
 piness or your sorrow. 
 
 But in man's physical constitution, the unfolding of his 
 inner self takes place through his body or bodily person, 
 and takes place in that person. With the growth of that 
 outer person, before birth and after, and from childhood up, 
 the inner person forms and develops; and without some 
 growth and unfolding of the bodily person, before birth or 
 after, no evolution of the soul can come. This outer or 
 bodily person can do nothing of itself, but only what it per- 
 ceives the soul to be doing. The words that it speaks, it 
 speaks not of itself ; but the soul that dwells within, this is 
 what does the work done by the body. The soul is invisible; 
 but the body declares the soul. Suppose some singular un- 
 worldly friend should in a mystical manner begin to tell me 
 of a certain being, whom he declares I have not seen ; and 
 who, he strangely enough declares, is within him, and prompts 
 his acts. Shall I not say to my friend " Show him to me now, 
 I pray you ? " And will not my friend quickly answer ? " No 
 man comes at that in-dwelling being but through me, who 
 am his body. If you know me, the body, you know that 
 also, the soul ; and from henceforth you know it and have 
 seen it. Have I been so long time with you, and yet have 
 you not known me? He that has seen me has seen the 
 soul within me; how then say you, Show me the soul? 
 Believe me that I am in the soul and the soul in me, or else 
 believe me for my very acts' sake; for these acts show 
 my in-dwelling spirit. I can of my own self do nothing. I 
 seek not my own will, but the will of the soul within. I do 
 nothing of myself ; but as the soul teaches me, so I speak. 
 Many acts have I shown you from the soul. I and my 
 soul are one." 
 
 Great indeed is the mystery of our manhood the soul 
 
209 
 
 manifest in the flesh. In man, the holy or unholy is the 
 soul ; the entrance to it is a living way, the body ; through 
 the vail, that is to say, the flesh ; thereby with a true heart, 
 in full assurance of faith, may every one draw near the soul 
 of his friend. That is the way ; and no man comes to the 
 soul but by the body. For this second or bodily person is 
 the very incarnation and mundane exposition of the inner 
 person, of the spirit otherwise invisible. It is more than a 
 mere part of the man ; it is all swollen with the human 
 pleroma; and in it dwells all the fullness of the Manhood 
 bodily. 
 
 The third person in man is the whole sweep and swath of 
 his life; it is his active, effective, daily self. It proceeds 
 from his inner and outer persons ; and from it, and in it, 
 and by it, and strictly according to it, do we know him as 
 " a person." This third one never speaks from himself, but 
 he is the combination yes, complex of soul and body ; and 
 every instant he testifies about the body and about the soul ; 
 and the soul is ever sending him forth by the body, and the 
 body is ever sending him forth from the soul. He takes 
 from the body and shows it to the world. For the things 
 that belong to the soul belong thereby to the body ; and 
 therefore I say that this third person in man's constitution 
 takes from the body and shows it to the world. And here 
 and hereafter alike, of these three persons does man perforce 
 consist. For there is a spiritual body, as there is a natural 
 body; and in the coming as in the passing world, is man an 
 ever active being. 
 
 Daily then, we give the word three meanings essen- 
 tially different. Now it is the soul; now it is the body; 
 and now again it is neither soul nor body, but a third made 
 up of the two. Have we not here some trick, some evasion, 
 or at least a jumble of ideas ? None, none, my reader ; if 
 none in thee, if none in the putting together of thee, and in 
 the makings of thine own dear self. 
 
 For remember that here and now we are dealing not with 
 
210 
 
 three different beings, but with the essential elements of 
 any one being and of all being ; namely with the Substance, 
 the Form, and the combination of Form and Substance 
 called Force or Energy. And when we say there are three 
 of these elements, thereby we say that each is different from 
 the rest. For if not different, they would be the same ; and 
 they thus would be not three elements at all, but one. 
 Thereby also we say that essentially they are different ; for 
 they are themselves essentials, and not otherwise than es- 
 sentially can essentials differ. And all the while essentially 
 different, they yet shall have a common name, Person ; for 
 each is a person. 
 
 They are what the Greeks called Hypostases. Hupo, 
 " up from underneath," and stasis, a " staying " or a " lying ; " 
 thus an up-staying somewhat, a thing fundamental, a base, 
 an upshoring, an absolute essential there you have the 
 meaning of Hypostasis. Now Substance, Form and Force 
 are the bed-rock of the Universe. In men, in things, you 
 cannot do away with any one of these, unless you first abolish 
 the existences. They are the three props and underpin- 
 nings of all being ; the Was, the Is, and the Is-to-come 
 thereof ; the Beginning, the Staying and the End ; the 
 First, the Middle and the Last. Each of them is a person 
 when the being that possesses them is personal ; and each is 
 impersonal when it is a thing. True, the word " person " 
 at first had no such meaning as to-day. At first a mere 
 mask, a huge reverberating helmet, so resounding that its 
 resonance gave it the name, it next came to mean the part 
 or character which the mask showed forth, and which the 
 actor, with the mask to help him, was playing. It might be 
 the mask of Jupiter, the mask of Apollo, tho mask of a 
 nymph, a hero, a priest, a slave. The mask was so painted 
 as to represent the rdle or character ; and role or character 
 was all the word then meant. From the stage it passed 
 into daily use, and then it meant the part or function filled 
 by any of us players on that stage which is the world. The 
 
211 
 
 office or employment of a man, and not the man's self, was 
 what the word then stood for ; even as in the theatre it had 
 stood, not for the player's self, but always for some man or 
 some deity whom the player was trying to make seem pres- 
 ent, or, in other words, to represent. But when it passed 
 into modern tongues, its basal meaning mask or domino 
 was lost ; and with it was lost the meaning of role or func- 
 tion; and thereupon all men were called "persons," without 
 thought of any part they might be filling. Besides, every 
 man but self is regarded chiefly from his use to somebody or 
 his situation as to somebody generally (with motive good 
 or evil) his use or situation as to one's self. He is regarded 
 in the light of his function, his occupation, his relation us- 
 ward. What fox ever looked on goose as Anser cinereus, or 
 saw in her aught but a good square meal f Whatever a man 
 is good for or bad for, that is what (to us) he is ; and that is 
 really what dubs him " person." And since every one is 
 good or bad for something and has some function and plays 
 some character, every one is justly called a " person." Even 
 your bootblack is a persona, in the strict and true old class- 
 ical sense. Nay, the condemned murderer is a persona, 
 with the noose already under his ears. For has not he also 
 a role, a cast, a function, a part, an office, a capacity, a busi- 
 ness, an occupation ? namely, that he swing by the neck and 
 be choked off for a proof and example that the law holds 
 human life to be most sacred and that life may not by the 
 law be taken? But to-day who thinks of this? or means 'a 
 Personage or Impersonation when he says " person ? " Sup- 
 pose you could speak with a citizen of old Rome, and he 
 should ask, " What think you of Varro, the new actor, in 
 " Prometheus Bound " f Are you impressed the most with 
 his acting or with his magnificent physique? And suppose 
 you should answer. " If I may judge of him, the person is 
 far the finer of the two.' 7 Now, by " person " you would 
 mean physique, and not at all the acting. But by " person " 
 the Roman would understand you to mean this player's 
 
212 
 
 acting and his rendering of Prometheus, and never the 
 player's physique. A vast change, truly ! Yet all the three 
 great modern uses of persona lay half unfolded within it 
 from the time when it had come to mean " character " or 
 "office." They lay within it as chick in half -hatched egg, or 
 as corn in the freshly sprouted ear ; not quite visible, but in 
 due time forthcoming. And in all those uses, the inmost 
 protoplastic thought and mental picture was that of a man- 
 shaped persona, of the Human of the voluntary, intelligent, 
 executive Human. For naught but the Human was really 
 an actor or persona upon the earth ; all other beings and 
 things thereon were nopersonce, no actors/ they were mere 
 agents and reagents, doing his bidding and acted upon by 
 him. 
 
 The universal and truly catholic belief, then, is this : 
 
 That we see each man in trinity, and see trinity in unity ; 
 neither commixing the persons, nor dividing the substance. 
 Three persons in one manhood, and one man in three per- 
 sons, are to be reckoned. There is one person of the soul; 
 another of the body ; and another which proceeds from soul 
 and body, and bears both of them forth to the world. And 
 yet there are not three men, but One man. For as by our 
 mental constitution we are obliged to acknowledge that each 
 of these three persons by itself is man, so by common sense 
 are we forbidden to say of a man or an individual that there 
 are three. 
 
 These three persons who make up one sole man do not 
 stand side by side ; but they stand concentric. The first is 
 inside the second, and the second is outside the first ; and 
 from these two on every side proceeds the third still further 
 outwardly, even unto others. He who knows aught about 
 God the Lord, will know thereby somewhat about man also. 
 For the one is made in the image and likeness of the other. 
 
 Nobody doubts that these three persons in man make one 
 sole individual, not three ; and the reason is that with only 
 one of the three have the most of us anything to do. Sep- 
 
213 
 
 arate and apart from the body, there are no dealings what- 
 ever with the soul or inner person, unless it be by the table- 
 tippers. Separate and apart from the soul, there are no deal- 
 ings whatever with the body or outer person, unless it be by 
 the undertakers. With the soul and body conjoined and forth- 
 flowing, with spirit and incarnation combined into energy, 
 lie all our present dealings ; and, for us breadwinners, this 
 third person, this man-shaped Energy, sums up the indi- 
 vidual. Hence, for us breadwinners I say, " person " has 
 come by degrees to mean the same as "individual." 
 
 In bread winning, this change of meaning in the word per- 
 son works little mischief. In theology, the mischief might 
 grow till it should overthrow the creed called Athanasian. 
 Three invented individuals will not become less than three by 
 considering them to be Divine. It might be thought at first 
 that, with three Gods, there would be at the worst only two 
 Gods too many. It will be found at last that a belief in two 
 Gods too many turns slowly to a belief in one God less than 
 one. 
 
 A FAMILIAR MYSTERY. 
 
 " It is highly probable," says Dean Swift in one of his ser- 
 mons, " that if God should see fit to reveal to us the great 
 " mystery of the Trinity, or some other mysteries in our holy 
 " religion, we should not be able to understand them, unless 
 " He would at the same time think fit to bestow upon us 
 " some new powers or faculties of the mind which we want 
 " at present, and which are reserved to the day of resurrec- 
 " tion to life eternal. . . . There is no miracle mentioned 
 " in Holy Writ which, if it is strictly examined, is not as 
 
214 
 
 ." much contrary to common reason and as much a mystery 
 " as this doctrine of the Trinity." 
 
 Whatever may be thought of the Dean in respect to other 
 matters, it will not be denied that here he states an opinion 
 which had been universal, in the church and out of it, down 
 to his time. 
 
 It is commonly said, that the Divine Trinity is a mystery 
 and cannot be understood. What is Divine and heavenly 
 must certainly remain mysterious, until it is set forth by 
 something earthly analogous to it. The reason is, that no 
 knowledge can come to us except through some of the five 
 senses ; and these senses all look out upon the earth, and 
 not upon heaven and God. But because there is an analogy 
 between the things of earth and the things of heaven, it 
 comes about that when the senses of the body perceive an 
 earthly thing, the senses of the mind can, by virtue of that 
 analogy, perceive a heavenly thing. And herein lies the 
 power of parable, as a method of instruction in Divine and 
 heavenly things. 
 
 Now if it is true that a Trinity is inherent in God's na- 
 ture, and if God has made all earthly things, and if wise and 
 pious men are ever finding traces of God inherent in the 
 things of earth, it should seem strange if they fail to find 
 there a trace of God's inherent Trinity. And every wise and 
 pious man must allow that if he finds no trace, the reason 
 more likely is that he has not looked well enough, than that 
 no trace is there. For if Matter is not self-made, but came 
 from God ; and if, as the church believes, the Trine is so deep 
 and thorough in God that, without it, God were not God, it 
 must follow that in Matter also, as coming from Hun, the 
 Trine is so deep and thorough that, without it, Matter could 
 not be Matter. This, I say, is a conclusion of fact which 
 reason reaches. I shall now show that the fact itself is 
 apparent to the very senses, whether it be a reasonable fact 
 or not. 
 
 That there is a Trinity in God no man may, or should, be 
 
215 
 
 compelled to believe. That there is a Trinity in Matter 
 every sane man can be compelled to believe. It can be 
 shown before his bodily eyes, not only that the Trine exists in 
 Matter everywhere, and in every state of Matter, but also 
 what the nature of each of the Trine is, and also that the 
 Trine makes One there; and that unless the Trine there 
 made One and were One, 110 one thing could be imagined to 
 exist ; and that in every real thing which is a Unity, there is, 
 of an inborn necessity, wrapped up a Trinity. 
 
 Let us find and clearly recognize the first element of this 
 Trine. Take any object you please, whether of nature or of 
 art : let us say this quill with which I am writing. The quill 
 has Substance for one element of its being. Whether it be 
 a goose-quill, which is good for writing, or a hen's quill, 
 which is different in its texture and is not so good, there is 
 some Substance in it. 
 
 In trimming it, I may have given it a hard nib, or a soft 
 nib, and I may have shaped it well or ill ; but Substance is 
 there just the same. I may break it in pieces, and make it 
 useless as a pen ; I may even burn it ; but if I preserve in 
 one place the gases as well as the ashes of it, there is there 
 in that place just as much Substance as before, although the 
 form is destroyed. This element has been called Substance, 
 from the Latin sub, up, and stare, to stand or stay ; sub- 
 stare is to stand up or stand firm ; and substantia or sub- 
 stance is anything which stands thus, and therefore cannot 
 be toppled over or, in a deeper sense, be crushed out of 
 being. Similar is the meaning of sub-sistere, to subsist ; in 
 which sister e is a reduplicated form of stare ; to subsist mean- 
 ing to stand up continually, and being applicable more partic- 
 ularly to those living things which, because they constantly 
 change their substance, must constantly be supplied or fed 
 with fresh substance, else they will not sub-sist or " stand 
 up steadily," but on the contrary will dwindle, droop, peak, 
 pine, wilt, wither and die. The book men, however, have 
 thought that the sub in substare and subsistere has the force 
 
of " under," and thus that substare means "to stand under" 
 and that substantia means " what stands under " or, as we 
 say in English, the Underlying. The reason why they 
 thought so was that they were book men, and, therefore im- 
 agined that the savage who coined the word substare was a 
 metaphysician, and spent his time in thinking of the Seem- 
 ing and the Underlying, and had no opportunity to observe 
 that substantial objects in Nature are objects that " stand up " 
 against attack, whereas unsubstantial objects always cave in 
 when attacked. But it is useless to try to drive this imagin- 
 ation out of the book man's brain. Let it stay. Let sub- 
 stantia be the Underlying ; since anything that will really 
 " stand up " against attack must, it is true, at the same time 
 have something in it that underlies the outside, and enables 
 the thing to stand up by virtue^of its outside's receiving re- 
 inforcement thus from within. Let us then treat Substance 
 as the Underlying, and Form as what overlies it. 
 
 In this quill pen of mine, what overlies the underlying is 
 the form in which it appears as a well-shaped pen, as an 
 ill-shaped pen, or, perhaps, a spoiled or used-up pen, or even 
 as a pen reduced to gas and ashes. The form of it may 
 change ; the substance, or underlying of it, changes never. 
 
 No man ever saw that Underlying : no man ever shall see 
 it. Only through its overlying or form can it be seen. The 
 form reveals it. Our knowledge of Matter is in no sense a 
 knowledge of its Underlying or Substance, but is in, every 
 sense a knowledge of its Form. Whoever claims to have 
 climbed up to an understanding of the Underlying by some 
 other way than Form, is, intellectually, a thief and robber, 
 and pretends to be the owner of a knowledge which he does 
 not own, and cannot possibly acquire. 
 
 The second element in everything is the Mode in which 
 its Substance exists. I have already called it Form. It may 
 be also called Structure, and even Shape, provided the 
 inward shape as well as the outward be meant. The true 
 English expression for it is Build; which, philologically, is the 
 
217 
 
 English word nearest to the Latin forma. One distinction 
 between Substance and Form is this ; that the substance of 
 anything cannot be conceived of, without some form ; but 
 the form of everything can be conceived of, without any sub- 
 stance at least without any of the substance of that partic- 
 ular thing. Hence it is that Plans and Outlines are 
 recognized as entities, although the Substance is lacking. A 
 book might be written about quill-pens, for example, in 
 which the different kinds of them would be described by 
 their forms alone ; and this by language and by drawings 
 and pictures all without any suggestion of the underlying 
 Substance ; and still that book would be recognized as 
 dealing with very entities. But Fonn without Substance is 
 nothing. As Substance cannot exist without Form, some 
 form ; so Form cannot exist without Substance, some sub- 
 stance. If the substance is left to itself to shape its own 
 form, it gives birth to some form springing from its very 
 nature ; and that form is then its Offspring ; and is, as any 
 one may see, the express image of the father substance. The 
 external form is the express image of the substance extern- 
 ally ; and the internal form or structure is the express image 
 of the substance internally. As for Matter's Substance or 
 Underlying, it is the Cause or Father of all its Form ; it, 
 the Underlying, is hidden ; it dwells in darkness inacces- 
 sible ; but its Son or Offspring, which is Form, brings it 
 forth to view. And these two, Substance and Form, go 
 daily to the making up of everything, and without them was 
 nothing made which was made. 
 
 But wherever these two are, if they really are, there is a 
 third. This third is the thing itself whatever it be 
 which consists of that particular substance, disposed into 
 that particular form. I have here in my retort the ashes 
 and the gases of that quill-pen, and they are all the sub- 
 stance of it and they have none of its form. I have here in 
 my book a perfect description and drawing of that particu- 
 lar pen, its entire form ; and yet I have none of its sub- 
 
218 
 
 stance. That substance and that form are now not one, but 
 two, perfectly two. 
 
 Before I burned the quill I had still another thing, a quill- 
 pen, of that particular kind. If you do not believe that this 
 third thing is utterly a third, and different from the other 
 two, try to make either of the other two serve for a pen, 
 and you will be convinced. That third thing which I at 
 that time had, and which has since been destroyed, consisted 
 of that particular substance and of that particular form, and 
 it proceeded from those two, and was produced by the 
 union of those two, and it was destroyed by the severance of 
 those two. It the pen was the inevitable outcome of the 
 two, and in it they two were no longer two, but one ; and 
 there the three were one, before our very eyes. 
 
 If you will search creation through, you shall find no thing 
 in which this three does not exist, and just thus exist ; and 
 shall find I have truly said that the three is by necessity in 
 all things, and that in all things it by necessity makes One. 
 Of necessity I have said " is " and " makes," because the 
 Three are One, and above all other qualities, are singular. 
 If I were writing about things imaginary and not real, 
 then I could and would use the plural form. For Substance 
 and Form when not united into something, are imaginary, 
 as imaginary as are Wish and Perception when not projected 
 into Deeds : as visionary as are all the hankerings after the 
 Good and all the glimpses of the True, when not united 
 into an upright life and realized there. 
 
 Now, betwixt God and Matter there is no difference as to 
 quality save that God is alive and Infinite, and Matter is 
 dead and finite ; but from this difference flow differences in- 
 finite. The Living, in its elements, is Wish, Thought, Act. 
 The dead does not wish, and does not think, and does not 
 act from wish and thought. With God, Wish is Substance, 
 or the Underlying. It is what, in themselves, men call 
 Heart, or Liking or Desire. To it, in the ethereal Trinity 
 in the world of Matter, the sun's heat answers ; and when a 
 
219 
 
 man's desires are aroused, he is said to warm up, and to be 
 heated and inflamed. With God, Thought is the Form or 
 Manifestation, the Logos or Wisdom. It is what, in them- 
 selves, men call Brain, or Judgment, or Perception, or Plan. 
 To it answers, in the world of Matter, the light of the sun ; 
 and when a man sees the mode or way in which he may ac- 
 complish his desires, he is said to get light on that subject ; 
 and if not, he is said to be all in the dark. 
 
 With God, the Third Element which is the outcome of 
 His Divine Wish, according to and through His Divine 
 Thoughts or Judgment, is called the Holy Spirit. It is 
 called Spirit from " spiritus" a breath or breathing; and 
 the reason is that breathing is the sign of life, and so is 
 made to stand for life itself. Now life, in the moral sense, 
 means the course of life the whole outward development 
 of Desire and Thought into Act. And whenever in men 
 there are desires from God and thoughts from God, devel- 
 oped into daily life, then the Holy Spirit is said to have 
 effect upon them ; and then in their lives the good Desire 
 and the wise Thought are made into One which is Act ; and 
 in such Act the Three, which are Desire, Thought and Act, 
 are One. This third principle which comes from God may 
 be compared to the third principle in the ether's agitation 
 produced by the solar energy. It is known as Actinism ; 
 and in it the Heat and the Light are united, and from it 
 come all vegetable growth and all fruitage. For heat is at 
 bottom the essential tremor of the ether ; and Light is at 
 bottom the modes and differentiations of its forms of tremor ; 
 but Actinism is the very beating of the ether-waves against 
 those substances which grow ; it is the effect and outcome of 
 the substantial tremor, according to its mode of trembling.* 
 
 * I do not strictly follow the present nomenclature. But the three 
 things of which I speak wave-substance, wave-mode, and wave- 
 impactrespectively underlie all the manifestations of heat, light. 
 
220 
 
 When men are thus acted upon by the Divine Warmth 
 and by the Divine Light, united into an upright Life, they 
 are said to bring forth the fruits of the Spirit : they are 
 called trees of righteousness ; and on them God, as the Sun 
 of Kighteousness, is said to be shining. 
 
 Not only in the moral world exists this third element of 
 God. All things have been made from His Desire, and by 
 His Wisdom ; and His efficient making of them is the working 
 of His Spirit. The things which have been made are not His 
 Spirit ; but the combination of His Desire and Wisdom in 
 the act of making them is His Spirit. This it is which pro- 
 ceeds from the Father and the Son, even as Act does always 
 proceed from Desire and Thought, wherever the Desire is 
 genuine, and the Thought is adequate thereto. 
 
 The doctrine of God's Incarnation also can be illustrated 
 by the analogies of Matter ; but here is not the place for 
 that. It should be observed that though there are three 
 Personce or Hypostases in God, there are not three Persons, 
 as that word is now commonly understood. No scholar, of 
 whatever creed, will render persona by the English " person" 
 in its modern use. The change from the ancient meaning 
 of " person " has been gradual, but latterly is complete. 
 Persona means Mask, and thence Hole, Function or Char- 
 acter. The Masks, Functions or Characters of God are 
 Three. In one of them He acts upon the Heart ; in another 
 on the Head ; in a third on the Life. But the one sole 
 Actor who wears (and is) these Personce, Masks or Charac- 
 
 and actinism ; and these latter names, although at present restricted 
 to phenomena already observed, are capable of being extended to 
 all phenomena to be observed hereafter ; and in their final extension 
 will answer respectively to the substance, the mode, and the impact 
 of the ether-agitation. There is no good reason why the impact of 
 the wave upon a mirror should not be recognized as actinism, as 
 readily as its impact upon a leaf. The results alone differ ; the 
 wave-impact is the same in either case. 
 
221 
 
 ters in ths Divine Drama is One Divine Man, the Incar- 
 nate. 
 
 IL 
 
 I HAVE already shown that in every visible thing there is 
 a certain trinity; and that each member goes to make the 
 thing up, and that no thing could be, unless each member 
 of this trinity were in it. But since the reasoning I used is 
 new to some minds, and therefore by these may not have 
 been well grasped, I outline it here anew. 
 
 I am a builder, and am under contract to put up a house. 
 
 First of all, there is the stuff or material out of which it 
 shall be built. Wood, stone, brick, and some nails and 
 mortar, hauled to that spot, these, or some of them, I must 
 have. 
 
 But these are not enough. Nobody can live there with 
 all these things just thrown down in a heap. That stuff 
 must be put into the right shape ; and this right arranging 
 of it we call building / which means to give it a build or 
 structure. The build, plan or arrangement, by which the 
 material is shaped and ordered into a house, is then a second 
 necessary element. The Greeks called this element logos ; 
 a good old word from the root of our word " lay ; " a 
 root meaning to set, place or arrange, and which in Latin 
 turns out " lex" and in English makes the word " law " as 
 well as " lay," and which bears on its face its true meaning, 
 without need of theological speculation. 
 
 The " law " of anything is that which is laid down con- 
 cerning it by the law giver ; and in the realm of nature this 
 means the plan by which the thing itself is laid down or 
 placed ; the way it lies / the " lay " of it ; its inner and outer 
 structure. This logos, or " lay " of the house materials, is 
 usually indicated by plans or drawings. 
 
 But the plans or drawings alone will not serve for a resi- 
 dence any better than the heap of raw materials would 
 
282 
 
 serve. Neither makes what we call a house ; and I shall 
 not, as builder, get my pay for furnishing either or both. 
 Nor will laying the plans alongside the stuff, however near, 
 make a house. The plan or arrangement must be ulteriorly 
 united with the stuff; must lie in its very bosom, so to 
 speak. The stuff must take on the plan as its very form, 
 and the plan must take in the stuff as its very substance. 
 The house which thus at last comes forth, is other than the 
 stuff, and other than the plan. It is a new thing made up 
 of those two, a real " Proceeding " from them ; a third es- 
 sential. 
 
 I have said that no one can or should be compelled to be- 
 lieve there is a trinity in God. I say so because no one can 
 be compelled to believe God is. But if any one chooses to 
 believe that last, he must believe in a trinity, and in just this 
 trinity in God. Whoever wishes may say he believes in some 
 other kind of trinity also ; but this trinity, at least, he must 
 and shall (if he be sane) admit ; and he cannot, for any other 
 conjecturable trinity than this one, claim that it consists, as 
 doctrine requires, of hypostases,* or in English " funda- 
 mentals" or " substantiate. " 
 
 The reason is that the hypostases or foundations which I 
 have mentioned, exhaust the whole region of the fundamen- 
 tal. And they are fundamental not only to material exist- " 
 
 * From hupo y up from below, and stasis, a standing or a staying. 
 Although histemi (whence stasis) is properly intransitive, its deriva- 
 tive takes also the same transitive sense which the root's English 
 form, "stay," takes with us. The common meaning of hypostasis 
 can be put into the same English roots, and thus be rendered * * up- 
 stay;" that is, " under-prop," basis, foundation, or fundamental. 
 The shortest examination into the common meaning which the word 
 bore when first picked out to stand for the elementary principles of 
 existence, will prove more instructive than years of theological in- 
 vestigation. The men who first used such words in theology, used 
 them to describe what they saw ; afterward men used them from 
 memory. 
 
223 
 
 
 
 ence, but to every imaginable kind of existence. For noth- 
 ing and nobody can exist except from some substance ; nor 
 unless under some form ; nor unless these two, in it or in 
 him, fuse into a third, which is neither one nor the other, 
 but is both. 
 
 Yet because the third hypostasis of matter which I have 
 described, looks very unlike the third Divine hypostasis as 
 it has been described, I shall now show that the third here 
 described, looks different from what it really is ; and that in 
 reality it is perfectly like the third Divine hypostasis. Let 
 us remember (and in order thereunto, let us well learn, if 
 need be, from books of science) this thing : As for all we 
 perceive of the outside world (coming as it does through 
 some of the five senses), by none of the senses has ever man 
 perceived an external object ; but has always and solely per- 
 ceived certain impressions made upon his senses by forces 
 proceeding from the object said to be perceived. I say 
 that the third hypostasis of matter the pen itself, the 
 house itself is, for us, this only, A PROCEEDING FORCE. 
 Force impresses the senses; if the force is weak, the 
 impression is weak ; if strong, then strong ; if wholly lack- 
 ing, then no impression, and for us the thing then is not. 
 The impression which we were deeming to be the impression 
 of an object, is in truth merely the impression of a force pro- 
 ceeding from that object. And thus the third to substance 
 andjforra the third which we call the thing itself is force. 
 And substance, form and force, are one and the same at bot- 
 tom ; just as heat, light, and actinism are one at bottom. 
 
 Force is the outcome of substance and form. Every one 
 may know this if he knows that without substance there can 
 be no form, and without substance no force ; and that 
 active force cannot be developed from any substance, unless 
 a new form be developed ; and that force of resistance can- 
 not be retained except as far as form is retained. In other 
 words, as scientists well know, the production of force 
 requires always a change of form : and change of form 
 
224 
 
 brings always an evolution of force. There is no mystery 
 in these things themselves ; but men who, in thinking, have 
 words and not things in mind, are never out of mystery. 
 
 Force may be relatively aggressive ; or, relatively, it may 
 be only the force of resistance. If it does not strike upon, 
 or is not struck by, a sentient force, no one senses it ; and, 
 for us, it is not, or it is not as yet. But whenever it strikes 
 upon, or is struck by, a sentient surface, it impresses ; and 
 that in it which impresses is substance and form. If there 
 is no substance, there can be no sensing of it. If it has 
 substance, but the substance's form do not hold, it cannot 
 be sensed. Could some substance be made with its forms 
 so yielding that an infinitely small force of impact would 
 destroy those forms, that substance would not be felt. 
 
 In sight, we do not perceive the thing itself ; but what 
 we perceive is a little picture on the retina. This picture is 
 not the nerve-surface there, but is a tremor of it ; and this 
 tremor is the surging of the ether- wave which, starting from 
 the sun or some other light, rebounds afterward from an 
 object into the eye ; and the force which causes it to re- 
 bound is the force of resistance, at the surface of the object, 
 against the surge of the wave ; and the wave rebounds as 
 water-waves rebound from a bluff shore. But if the parti- 
 cles of the object do not resist the undulation, but answer 
 to its swell, and heave with it, the object is said to be 
 transparent ; and in proportion to the transparency it is in- 
 visible. Sight is then the impression of a force ; and what 
 we sense by sight is force only. 
 
 In hearing, the process is the same ; but with air- waves 
 instead of ether-waves ; and the waves are oftener direct 
 than reflected. In feeling, tasting and smelling, there are 
 no waves, but the object, or sundry particles of it, in 
 solid, fluid, or gaseous form, are borne against the sen- 
 tient surface, or the sentient surface is borne against them, 
 as the case may be ; and they impinge upon that surface with 
 a degree of force which may be either aggressive or merely 
 
225 
 
 resistant, but is always according to their form and sub- 
 stance. This impression makes a kind of stamp upon the 
 sentient surface ; and that stamp is all that we sense. With 
 each of the five senses, therefore, what we perceive is not 
 the object itself, but a certain force proceeding from the 
 substance and form of the object, and composed of them, 
 and varying as they vary. 
 
 Just thus is it with God as toward us, and with the work- 
 ings of that third Divine hypostasis, the Holy Ghost. 
 The Divine Substance is Wish or Motive toward Divine act. 
 The Divine Form or Idea (for " idea " means simply " a visi- 
 ble form ") is Thought, or the plan for action. The Divine 
 Force is the activity of the Divine. Now just as material 
 substance and material form cannot be perceived in them- 
 selves; but what is perceived of them is a force from them 
 impressing us ; so the Divine Wish, which is Goodness, and 
 the Divine Thought, which is Wisdom, cannot be perceived 
 in themselves, but are perceived only by a certain force or 
 energy from them proceeding. And this is the old, old 
 doctrine of the church (never clearly seen, but always 
 lodged in upright hearts), that without God's Holy Spirit 
 nothing can be known or felt of Him. 
 
 Whoever will look at only a reed or a rush with care, shall 
 see laid bare before the carnal eye each doctrine over which 
 the church for eighteen centuries nay, since history began 
 has stumbled and stammered : and shall see all as if it lay 
 beneath a microscopic lens. If he does this himself, he shall 
 see them, and better and swifter than one can tell them ; 
 indeed by reading they cannot be really seen. 
 
226 
 THREE PEKSONS IN ONE GOD. 
 
 Every one who believes that Jesus Christ is God in the 
 flesh believes that there are Three Persons in One God. 
 There are also those who believe, or say they believe, in 
 Three Persons, and say that Jesus Christ is God, but still 
 at heart do not believe Him to be God, because really 
 they do not believe in a God ; but they think they believe. I 
 repeat that every one who believes Jesus Christ to be God, 
 believes that God is in Three Persons. I should add that 
 such a man may not say this. He may say just the opposite, 
 and he may suppose that he believes the opposite. 
 
 Now since a very great deal has been written from time 
 to time about the Three Persons, and since all those who 
 have written declare that they do not know anything about 
 the matter, and all those who have read declare that they 
 also do not know anything about it, I shall be wise if, 
 in adding to that which has been written, I add the least by 
 any means possible. For this reason I shall say almost 
 nothing about it ; but instead I shall ask the reader, and 
 shall try to lead him, to put before his mind's eye in visible 
 picture, things which already well he knows and believes, 
 and always has well known and believed, not from reading 
 or from hearing, but from information of his own five wits, 
 gathered in the daily life of bread- winning, but still things 
 which perhaps he never yet with plastic art mental has 
 fashioned forth in imagination. Should he find himself 
 able to set these things before the mental eye, it shall matter 
 very little whether or not he afterwards reproduce them with 
 the tongue. For tongue-productions are verily of small 
 importance ; like parrots men catch them up, and like parrots 
 rattle them off. For ages men have been talking about the 
 Trinity with the same indisputable but unconscious verity 
 wherewith for ages this wise bird has affirmed her desire for 
 .a cracker. 
 
 Skipping over many matters of inducement, it may be 
 
227 
 
 said briefly, that it is in God's image that man is made ; and 
 that God is in Three Persons, just as man every man is 
 in three persons. That every man is in three persons has 
 never perhaps been said, but always it has been known, and 
 known to almost every one. And the reason why it has not 
 much been said, or perhaps never been said, is that pretty 
 Poll never yet caught the phrase. She may or she may not 
 catch the phrase now. A young bird learns well, but this 
 one is some eighteen centuries old. The best-known things, 
 however the deepest, and indeed the fundamental concep- 
 tions, the very hypostases of thought are not spoken, need 
 not be spoken. They are the substantive verbs of thought's 
 own picture language ; they are always implied ; or, as the 
 grammarians say, are understood, like the Hebrew verb of 
 being ; are understood because they are essential to all 
 understanding. 
 
 That we may be done the sooner, I pray the reader to fix 
 upon some human being now at this very moment bodily 
 present and tangible. 
 
 What the reader (if he has fixed on somebody) sees there, 
 is a person. Lay now your hand upon that person. That 
 upon which you lay your hand is not a philosophical or ab- 
 stract entity. What you touch is known as the person. By 
 the "person" here, I do not mean the man's character, I mean 
 his physical person. If you strike that person with a cane 
 or with your fist, he shall have a remedy at the law against 
 you for an injury, not to his soul or his moral principles, but 
 to his person to one hundred and sixty pounds, less or 
 more, of nitrogen, hydrogen, phosphates, etc. 
 
 At this very moment, whilst we are talking about the 
 matter, you are clear enough that the substance you touched 
 or struck, composed of those chemicals, is a person. It may 
 be, however, that in a moment, when we come to speak of 
 something else as a person, you will forget this first-men- 
 tioned and very obvious person, and perhaps will half deny 
 him. Therefore I beg, if you are sure that by general con- 
 
228 
 
 sent the name " person " is applied to the substance you 
 touched or struck, that in the margin of this page, just here 
 abreast, you will put a lead pencil mark, One ; thus, (1) ; and 
 will anchor thus here upon the page your memory of that 
 tangible substance as a person, One person, (1). 
 
 And now we shall take a leap a prodigious leap, I do 
 confess. And if you believe not in personal immortality, 
 and believe not the Bible, do not leap or try to leap, but let 
 us straightway part company. The person whom now I ask 
 you not, indeed to look at, but to imagine yourself as looking 
 at, is quite another person than that substance which you 
 have been touching ; is indeed a person whom as yet you 
 cannot touch or even see. It is the soul. By soul I mean 
 the man himself his live self, his very personality ; not the 
 bodily person, but the personal spirit. Such person, I mean, 
 in distinction from the the bodily frame, as rose before the 
 Endor witch, coming up as an old man covered with a man- 
 tle, and made himself out to be Samuel ; such person as the 
 witch saw, and to Saul described as a person. I mean the 
 soul-person such person as, distinguished from that bodily 
 person which lay buried " in a valley in the land of Moab 
 over against Beth-peor," spoke with our Lord upon the 
 mount of transfiguration, and was called Moses. The 
 inner person, human in shape ; a double-ganger to the body ; 
 such person as the Lord's disciples thought that Ehoda had 
 seen and mistaken for Peter's mortal self. I mean the per- 
 son of whom Paul speaks as caught up to heaven some four- 
 teen years before ; a personal spirit so consciously human 
 that Paul knew not (and thrice in a breath repeats that he 
 knew not) whether that person was body or was spirit. 
 This inner person, I say, the person other than the bodily 
 and buryable person, is what I mean a person Number 
 Two. I pray you, if you believe this last to be indeed a per- 
 son, and not a thing such as is the body when deserted by 
 that inner person, put here abreast in the margin a second 
 mark (2), in order that you may know this person from the 
 
229 
 
 other, and may again anchor here your memory. You will 
 find it hard to keep the two apart. Number One we marked 
 the other ; this one is Number Two ; let us not confound 
 them. 
 
 But be sure he is not the other. The other may die to- 
 morrow, and you will bury him. This inner person will not 
 be buried. This second person is the self, the very he. To 
 this person, within the visible person of the crucified thief, 
 our Lord spoke, saying, " This day " not at the crack of 
 doom "shalt thou (thy soul, not thy body) be with me in 
 paradise." If you have lost wife or mother, ask yourself 
 whether now, just now in the farther land, she is a thing, or 
 is she a person. I do not say this last to you by way of 
 argument. It proves nothing. I do not seek to prove any- 
 thing. I only seek to bring out into consciousness the 
 reader's unconscious thought, if his mind chance to be like 
 my own ; and if not, then well and good. 
 
 In time, I doubt not, science will enable us to embalm the 
 body so cleverly that except for lack of a heaving of the 
 bosom we might take the dead woman to be a living one. 
 We might put it then in a glass case and keep it in the 
 house, and then, with help of our new Leyden-jar Ariel, 
 might cause a smile to pass over its face ; might make it nod 
 in recognition ; might even make it pat your cheek. Ah ! 
 what a mockery ! You would spring back in horror from 
 its touch ; for the soul the woman herself would not be 
 there. 
 
 Suppose, again, that the Spiritists were neither deluders 
 nor deluded ; and suppose a hand, ghostly, but for all the 
 world like hers, could be coaxed out of a dark cabinet, and 
 be made to smooth your forehead. Should you believe it to 
 be her spirit hand, were not that a worse mockery still? 
 Her own true body, her real, familiar self, is not there, and 
 because her body is not there, neither is there the woman 
 whom you loved. A third person she was, a soul in a body 
 and a body in a soul, a blending of the two ; no corpse, no 
 
230 
 
 ghost. Could you get back once, if only for an instant, that 
 third person, would not her touch be a sweet effluence of 
 soul and body combined? Always it brought heaven to 
 you ; it took of her soul and showed it unto you, it took of 
 her body and showed it unto you ; it partook of both ; it was 
 your Comforter. 
 
 When Elisha and his servant were hemmed in by the 
 enemy, the servant was afraid. Elisha told him that those 
 who were with them were more than those who were against 
 them ; and he prayed that the young man's eyes might be 
 opened. And the Lord opened the young man's eyes, and 
 then he saw about Elisha the mountain full of horses and 
 chariots of fire. Now this servant had not been blind. His 
 opened eyes were the eyes of his spirit. The fiery chariots 
 and horses were of the spirit world, into which then for the 
 first time he was seeing. But all the while the prophet's 
 inner eyes had been open ; he was steadily a seer ; they that 
 then were called prophets, were in earlier times called seers ; 
 for they saw with the eye of the spirit, seeing spirits and the 
 spirit world. At this day of disbelief in that world's exist- 
 ence and presence, I confess that to the modern Christian 
 all these stories seem but idle. Our religious teachers, the 
 prophets of to-day, are very Balaams, and see not ; with 
 them, the simple folk who give real credence to that world 
 do pass for superstitious asses, and are chidden and thrice 
 are smitten by the pulpit prophet and the religious editor. 
 
 Yet were these old tales really believed, how easy to be- 
 lieve that every one is made up of three persons'? Only look 
 at a man any man as gross and coarse a man as you can 
 find. 
 
 Most evident to sense is his bodily person. 
 
 Were the eyes of your spirit suddenly opened, and did you 
 then close your natural eyes, you would see, not his body but 
 his spirit ; and this spirit would be his very self, the very 
 person at whom you are looking. 
 
 And if then, with your spirit eyes still open, you opened 
 
231 
 
 also your outer eyes, you would see both body and spirit, the 
 two combined, a man formed by their blending, a third per- 
 son, the very man you deal with in this world, half soul, half 
 body. Only you would be seeing this inner self far more 
 clearly than men mostly suffer it to be seen. You would 
 doubtless be seeing it far more ugly or else far more beauti- 
 ful than ever you had thought possible. 
 
 This third person, not soul, not body, but soul and body 
 combined, a being as different from either of his component 
 elements as the compound called water is different from 
 either oxygen or hydrogen, may be regarded from yet an- 
 other point of view. 
 
 The third element in man we may regard as his activity, 
 his operation, his proceeding energy. The series in him 
 then will be, first, soul, which moves to activity ; second, 
 body, which exercises activity ; third, activity itself, or 
 active operation. 
 
 The mistake we are apt to make with regard to the prin- 
 ciple of human activity or operation, is, that we take for 
 activity or operation the mere subsequent result of that 
 activity or operation. Let me give a homely illustration : 
 Out of a piece of wood let me proceed to whittle a toy, 
 some readily imaginable toy ; a toy-soldier, let us say. Now 
 nine men out of ten will imagine that my activity or oper- 
 ation consists in the passage of the knife about the wood 
 and into the wood ; by which passage the soldier is gradually 
 fashioned forth. And therein, practically, the nine men will 
 be exactly right right, for certain practical purposes ; right 
 for the purpose of the manuf acture of toy-soldiers ; right, for 
 the purpose of selling them ; right, for the purpose of amus- 
 ing children with them. But for the purposes of investigat- 
 ing the nature of me, the whittler, and of resolving me, an 
 entity wholly independent of that toy-soldier, into my com- 
 ponent parts, a wholly different and wholly unpractical 
 business, for this purpose nine men out of ten (yes, all but 
 one in a million of us practical doctors, lawyers, farmers, 
 
232 
 
 trades-people and mechanics) will be exactly and unexcep- 
 tionally wrong. The activity or operation of me lies wholly 
 inside my own individul cuticle, and consists solely in 
 certain changes of form in me, in certain changes 
 of form in my body ; in certain changes of form in my 
 soul ; in the combination of these changes. The body's 
 changes of form are visible and even obvious, and they 
 are also invisible and chemical. The thumb, the fingers, 
 the hand, the wrist, the arm, all change their form visibly, 
 by changing the arrangement of the bones. The muscles 
 change their form visibly by shortening and thickening 
 their figure. This change visible in the muscles is, how- 
 ever, merely the effect of invisible chemical changes in the 
 inner form or constitution of their substance. And this 
 change in the constitution of the muscles is the effect of 
 changes in what (for lack of better name) I may call the 
 " electrical form " of the body, of which changes the nerves 
 are the conduits. And the changes in the electrical form of 
 the body proceed from changes in the form of substances of 
 the brain. And the changes of brain-form proceed from 
 changes in the mind or mental substance, proceed from 
 changes in its form. But all these changes of form, from 
 first to last, from bone up to spirit, are changes of the human 
 form, and within the human form, and are in no case changes 
 within or unto any form other than the human. The compos- 
 ing elements of the force or activity I exert are, first, sub- 
 stance, and second, changing form But both the substance 
 and the form are personal ; hence the force proceeding from 
 them is personal ; it is indeed the person ; the person ; but it is 
 the person in action ; the inner person and the outer person 
 combined in action. The spirit of the departed, since active, 
 doubtless changes its form. The body of the departed is 
 active (surely for some weeks after death, at least), and 
 changes swiftly and visibly its form. But the activity of soul 
 and body combined in lif e, is an activity which differs from 
 that of either soul or body singly. This living activity is not 
 
233 
 
 an abstract entity : it is simply the acting person, the man 
 practical, the man with whom we daily have to deal ; his real, 
 effective, total self. 
 
 And now if, on the whole, it should seem to the reader that 
 what we call human activity is not a mere principle, not an 
 imperceptible will-o'-the-wisp-like Somewhat, and that it does 
 not exist outside of man, or hover about the objects of his ac- 
 tivity, but does in fact lie wholly within him, and is of the 
 man, and is the man himself, as long as the man is active ; 
 not being that mere part of him which is called the soul, and 
 not being that mere part of him which is called the body, but 
 being indeed these two parts fused into one composite active 
 being ; I say, if the thing should so seem to the reader, I ask 
 him to note with a figure 3 in the margin of the page this 
 third person, and I ask him to recognize that person hence- 
 forth as a person as a "person*' in the plain and ordinary 
 sense of the word as the very person with whom in this 
 world one comes in contact, the person of whom one buys or 
 to whom one sells, who employs one or who is employed by 
 one ; who labors in profession, in trade, or in handiwork ; in 
 short, the human being actual and practical. If the reader 
 is satisfied that this person is a procession from the mental 
 person and from the bodily person, and is not the mental 
 person and is not the bodily person, but is a third person 
 made up of those two persons, I pray him to write quickly 
 that numeral on the margin ; else the thing may flit from 
 his mind and to-morrow be gainsaid by him. 
 
 Like the human trinity, thus far, is the Trinity Divine ; in 
 Persons Three, God One. The Soul, or inner invisible Person, 
 is the Father whom no man hath seen at any time and whom 
 no man can see. The Body, or Incarnation, is the Son who 
 declares and reveals the Father, even as man's body declares 
 and reveals the soul. The forth-flowing energy of Soul and 
 Body combined is the Holy Ghost, which proceeds from the 
 Father and the Son. Just as we say that the soul dwells in 
 the body, the Lord says that the Father dwells in Him. Just 
 
234 
 
 as we say that the words and works of the body are done 
 really by the soul and not by the body, so the Lord says that 
 the words He speaks, He does not speak of Himself, but the 
 Father within Him does the works. Just as we see and know 
 a man's soul by his body, and through his body, and as his 
 body, so when Philip asks the Lord to show to the disciples 
 the Father, He answers, " Have I been so long time with you, 
 and yet hast thou not known ME ? He that hath seen ME 
 hath seen the Father ; how sayest thou then, SHOW us the 
 Father f ' Just as we get at a man's soul through his body, 
 so does Paul declare that men now have access by a new and 
 living way, through the veil, that is to say, Christ's flesh. Just 
 as the soul is manifest in the body, so Jesus is God mani- 
 fest in the flesh. Just as in man's living body we possess all 
 in one his soul, his body, and the forth-flowing personal 
 energy of the two combined, so precisely dwells in Jesus 
 Christ ALL the fullness of the Godhead bodily. And just as it 
 behooves us to think of man and to address man, by thinking 
 of his body and by addressing ourselves to his body, so it 
 behooves Christians to think of God and address God by 
 thinking of Jesus Christ and by addressing Jesus Christ in 
 thought. Those who do not thus in thought address the 
 Deity, approach not by the new and living way which is His 
 flesh, but are striving to climb up unto the HOLIEST by some 
 other. Such climbing can never reach. For only the visible 
 human form is inmostly lovable or inmostly thinkable. And 
 only that which is inmostly lovable and thinkable is in- 
 mostly reproducible in men's lives. 
 
 The key to the doctrine of the Trinity is the doctrine of 
 the procession of the Holy Ghost. The Church's original 
 belief is in a double procession ; from the Father and from 
 the Son. The Greek Church modifies this into a single 
 procession, yet in one sense double ; from the Father by the 
 Son. With Trinitarian Protestants the vulgar unworded 
 belief extirpates both the creeds, and makes the Holy Ghost 
 proceed neither from the Son, nor through the Son, but 
 
235 
 
 direct from the Father. This is because the masses do not 
 regard Christ's Body as absolutely Divine, and therefore not 
 as either the necessary source or necessary channel of all 
 Divine dynamic influence proceeding from the Father of 
 Spirits. But precisely as that source and as that channel 
 must His Body be regarded, before the Trinity of Persons 
 and their Unity in the Individual called God, can be perceived. 
 Men forget that hour by hour throughout life they^are reject- 
 ing the physical ; and so they forget that day by day He re- 
 jected the physique like theirs with which He was bom into 
 the world. Day by day they restore from the outer world the 
 place of the rejected elements ; and they remember that 
 He, like themselves, restored these thence. But to the 
 outer world He daily rejected more than from that world He 
 daily restored ; and the difference He restored from His 
 inner world, from the Father-Soul, from that Source of sub- 
 stance from which were shaped forth all the worlds and all 
 the stuffs within the worlds ; and from within He put firm 
 flesh on Him with eating the meat which was made of 
 doing the Father's will and finishing His work. Death 
 at last had no more power over Him, because all 
 along it had exercised the utmost power, and had 
 slain all in Him that was able to die. The body with which 
 He rose was not gathered from the world of matter, but 
 was from the world of Mind, a substance actually Divine, 
 an evolution of Jehovah's substance out of the plane of 
 Spirit into the bodily plane. The Incarnation was a process 
 of forty weeks, it is true, but not of forty weeks alone ; it 
 was a process of three and thirty years. Every one 
 can see that no other process deserves the name of 
 Incarnation, and that no other sort of Incarnation is Divine. 
 For every Divine process is essentially a moral process ; and 
 the mere placing of Deity locally within a frame of clay is 
 no moral process at all. Incarnation is the outworking of 
 Infinite Love and Infinite Wisdom into Infinite Activity. 
 Sons of God are all in whom there is this outworking. 
 
236 
 
 though finite. The Son of God, the Man who, after His 
 resurrection, was seen by His disciples, is infinitely that 
 Incarnation. 
 
 THEEE PERSONS : ONE GOD. 
 
 With that large class of men who encounter difficulty in 
 this fundamental doctrine of the Church, the difficulty for 
 the most part lies in this, that their idea of the nature of 
 these Persons is an idea which militates against the truth 
 that God is One, One only. But as soon as men shall catch 
 the true force of the word " person," which embraces both its 
 original predominating meaning of " character " or " func- 
 tion," and also the resulting meaning of "voluntary, intelli- 
 gent, determining entity, as distinguished from animals and 
 things and from abstract qualities," every obstruction to the 
 perception that the Three Divine Persons are in very truth 
 One sole Being, to be grasped and conceived as One, entirely 
 disappears. 
 
 " Personal power," says a recent Pastoral Letter of an 
 Episcopal Bishop, " lies in the realm of spiritual things, as 
 in institutions and reformations on the earth. Not in any 
 generalities, reactions from a virtual tri-theism, any more than 
 by ancient heresies and half-heresies, can the truth of the 
 tri-unity of God be preached, but only by the clear affirma- 
 tions in the old symbols, setting forth, before both the mind 
 and the heart of man, persons to be loved and adored the 
 Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost." 
 
 Here is struck the key note of Christian theology. None 
 ol the Divine Three is a mere quality or characteristic, 
 but each is a Person, a loveable Person. None is 
 a shapeless mass of Divinity, but each is a think- 
 
237 
 
 able Person. None is an abstract Law, but each is a 
 directing and governing Person. Qualities and character- 
 istics belong to each. The distinguishing characteristic of 
 the Father is His paternal Goodness or Love which devises 
 the way for His children's happiness. The distinguishing 
 characteristic of the Son is His redeeming Wisdom or Truth > 
 than which there is no other way to Godliness. The dis- 
 tinguishing characteristic of the Holy Ghost, in the just 
 language of the Pastoral, is " the perpetual energy of the 
 Divine Life forthgoing into all the generations and peoples 
 of mankind." And these three, the Divine Goodness or 
 Love, the Divine Truth or Wisdom or Logos, and the Divine 
 Energy proceeding from that Love and that Wisdom, are 
 each and all personal. The love of no impersonal God can 
 enter into man, since man can love only as a person. The 
 Truth of no impersonal God can enter into him, since he 
 can think only as a person. The Energy and Activity of no 
 impersonal God can enter into him, since only as a person 
 can he act. For the very purpose that He and every one of 
 His trinal constituent hypostases or elements might be loved, 
 known and obeyed, each as a person, did He become incar- 
 nate. For in Incarnation, His personality could not be for- 
 gotten. That these three Persons still are one being, and 
 ought to be thought and imagined and pictured in the mind 
 as One, should, even in the absence of doctrine, be inferred 
 from this, viz.: that in man himself, the image of God, these 
 three make one. Who is there that does not see that in 
 every man the Love or Wish, the Intellect or Understanding 
 and the life of Energy and Action proceeding from those two, 
 make not three but one, making a spiritual unity ? And who 
 is there that does not know and acknowledge that, as to 
 each of these, man is not a blind drift, not a vague and life- 
 less form, not a dead force, but a very person? 
 
 That the Person of the Father lies within the Person of 
 the Son, the Lord teaches where, to the disciple asking that 
 the Father might be shown to them, He answers, " Have I 
 
238 
 
 been so long a time with you and yet hast thou not known Me, 
 Philip ? He that hath seen Me, hath seen the Father ; how 
 sayest thou then SHOW us the Father ? Believest thou not 
 that I am in the Father and the Father in me 1 The words 
 that I speak unto you I speak not of myself, but the Father 
 that dwelleth in me, he doeth the works." That the Person 
 of the Father lies within the Person of the Son, Paul also 
 teaches where he says that God was in Christ, reconciling 
 the world unto Himself. And this, either in general or 
 in specific terms, is the doctrine of all the Gospels and all 
 the Epistles. If any one asserts that the soul, by itself 
 and without the body, is not a person, he must look upon 
 each departed friend as no longer a person but a thing ; and 
 by him must Moses and Elijah, speaking with the Lord on 
 the mountain of transfiguration, be looked upon, not as indi- 
 viduals, but as mechanisms. It is true that man's body, 
 when separated from his soul, is not a person ; and the rea- 
 son is that then it is dead ; for Wish and Intelligence, and 
 not solely shape of substance, constitute a person. But other 
 than such a body was the Lord's Divine Body. As the 
 Father had life in himself, so had He given to the Son to 
 have life in Himself ; and because this body was in itself 
 alive, death had no power over it, and that very body rose 
 from the grave with flesh and bone more solid than has any 
 spirit. Such a Divine Body is a Person ; it is the outward 
 person, as the Father is the inward Person. And if man's 
 body were a glorious body like the Lord's, then might man's 
 daily action thence proceeding be also rightly called a person, 
 even as the Holy Ghost is called Person ; but because this is 
 not true, we call his life of effort only " personal," and do not 
 call it a person ; although we call his body his person, and 
 although we know that the realest person in him is his 
 soul. Not only in this world, but also in the other does 
 every man exist in three persons. For if in that world 
 which is spiritual, his body is spiritual, as Paul discloses, it 
 yet is truly a body. That these three persons are not to be 
 
239 
 
 confounded, not only the Athanasian Creed, but also reason 
 teaches. Often by the outward person we are deceived as 
 to the character of the inward person, and when we discover 
 that we have been deceived, we say that the person is quite a 
 different person from what we had thought. With men who 
 are true and loyal, these two persons make one man ; with 
 hypocrites they make two men, and the outer man is a sham. 
 Often the best and most useful men are known to us 
 only in the third person, that is, by their works, whether in 
 writing or in action. Their souls we cannot see; their 
 bodies we have not seen ; but their doings, which sound in 
 their own sweet and wise personality, and which each one of 
 them works in a manner characteristic of himself and per- 
 sonal to himself, we do sometimes see world- wide. And so 
 it is with God, the prototype. The Father no man hath 
 seen, or can see. In this world, by most men certainly, the 
 Son is not to be perceived. The Holy Ghost, however, can 
 be known by all that will. The Lord did not leave His dis- 
 ciples comfortless, but He has come to them. He went 
 away, but He has sent them the Comforter who teaches them 
 all things and brings all things to their remembrance. A 
 little while and they should not see the Lord ; but again a 
 little while and they should see Ham ; to them, to the world 
 by no means, would He manifest Himself. And this is the 
 manner, says He, in which He shall manifest Himself, to 
 wit: If a man love the Lord he will keep the Lord's 
 words and the Father will love him, and They twain 
 who yet are One, will come unto him and make their 
 abode with him. Hereby, to wit, in the life of His kept 
 words, will He manifest Himself unto His disciples and not 
 unto the world. This kind of God's presence is the presence 
 of the Holy Spirit, a very Paraclete, a helper-at-call, a Com- 
 forter or Strengthener ; called Strengthener or Comforter 
 (Latin fortis, forceful) because Force is the Third ; whereas 
 Will is the First, and Wisdom is the Middle and Mediate and 
 Mediator. The sense or wit whereby this Third Person 
 
240 
 
 is sensed or perceived lies in the principle of Obedience, 
 in the keeping of His words. Who is there that 
 cannot see that in as far as the Divine Wisdom or Logos is 
 carried, not merely into the understanding, but into the 
 heart and life, both the Divine Wisdom and also the Divine 
 Fatherly Love are received, and that these two then dwell 
 with a man ? Love impelling his acts, and Wisdom guiding 
 his acts ; the effective personal Energy of the Divine thus 
 bringing forth fruit in his daily life. This Third in the 
 Godhead the world does not receive, because it sees him not, 
 neither knows him ; but true disciples know him, for he 
 dwells with them and shall bfc in them. They, however, who 
 will not believe that these Three are absolutely One Lord, 
 One God, and who in thought picture to themselves three 
 individuals, although with the mouth they say " one Lord," 
 are unable to understand how the person of the Holy Ghost 
 "proceeds" from the persons of the Father and the Son. 
 Denying in heart and thought the Unity, though confessing 
 it with the mouth, they say within themselves, How can one 
 person " proceed " steadily from another, or how can one 
 person be " breathed forth " from another, as when the Lord 
 breathed on His Disciples, saying " Eeceive ye the Holy 
 Ghost "? And, if they are thoughtful men, they say to 
 themselves, How can a person exist who is so constituted 
 that he never can " speak of himself/' but only as directed 
 by others 1 
 
 With men like these the doctrine of the Incarnation is 
 doctrine thrown away and useless. Denying in thought, 
 though in mouth confessing, the Unity, they cannot see 
 that the inner invisible person of the Father is as Soul to 
 the outward visible person of the Son ; nor see that the 
 outward visible person is as body and manifestation and 
 incarnation for that soul ; nor see that the perpetual energy 
 of the Divine Life going forth from that Soul's Divine 
 Person and that Body's Divine Person, composes the 
 personal executive energy in the Godhead, which proceeds 
 
241 
 
 from God just as every man's personal life of daily perform- 
 ance proceeds from his invisible soul and his visible body. 
 Thus they remain virtually in ignorance of that God from 
 whom, (1) " all holy desires, (2) all good counsels, and (3) 
 all just works do proceed." The holy desires flow from the 
 Father's Divine Love. The good counsels flow from the Son's 
 Divine Logos or Wisdom. The just works flow from the 
 Holy Spirit's presence in man's spirit. But these three re- 
 main to them a mystery; nor can they perceive that precisely 
 as Desire works by good Counsels and in good Counsels, so 
 does the Father work by and in the Son ; and that precisely 
 as no just work can be produced except from Desire and with 
 Counsel, so only from the Father and the Son can the Holy 
 Ghost proceed. On the other hand, those picture God 
 rightly who picture Him in their minds precisely as He has 
 manifested Himself to the eye, viz., in the Flesh. Looking 
 on the person of the Son visible, they see in it the person of 
 the indwelling Father invisible, just as a man sees another's 
 inner soul written in his outward mien and countenance ; 
 and they see in the visible person of the Son the Person of 
 His Holy Spirit, just as a man can see another's personal 
 activity when he regards the body of another while it is in 
 action. There is, moreover, a higher sense of sight than 
 belongs to the eye of the body or to the eye of the mind. 
 It is the eyesight of the Heart. It is gained through the 
 bodily sight and through the mind's sight ; it exists along 
 with the sight of those two, and within the sight of those 
 two. Supremely witless are they who think to come by this 
 highest wit through mutilation of the wits below. This 
 highest wit of Sight, this Heart-wit, is like the sight where- 
 with the wise old Maker gazed upon His work and " saw " 
 that the same was good; i. e., He " saw " to it that it should 
 be good work; to that end did He "look out " from His 
 glowing eyes ; 'twas thus He did " regard " that work. This 
 sort of sight is practical sight ; this is sight inmost. Does 
 the prisoner " see " good days who through prison bars 
 
242 
 
 daily sees happy children at play ? Is thorough " sight " a 
 thing of the surface of the retina, or is it when the whole 
 body is full of light full of all-pervasive ethereal tremor 1 
 Thorough sight is experience ; experience to the inmost 
 fibre ; it is more than a gawky stare ; it is sight such as that 
 with which the pure in heart see God. But it is not good 
 to talk of this kind of sight ; the witless catch words only, 
 and with their accursed Idealism seek to destroy the two 
 lower wits within which this higher wit must ever be en- 
 cased and held in soundness. 
 
 The Persons are Three, the God is One ; Jesus Christ is 
 that God ; and in Him dwells all the fullness of the Godhead 
 bodily. The man who thinks of the Father except as 
 within the Son, is like a man who strives to think of a living 
 friend's soul as outside of his body. Such a man thinks of 
 that which he has not seen, instead of that which he has 
 seen and which shows forth and manifests that which cannot 
 otherwise be seen. What is worse, when a man thinks of 
 that which he has not seen and cannot see, he thinks of what 
 he has never loved and cannot love. Men who thus picture 
 God as not in the Flesh, brush past the Divine Humanity, 
 which is the only Door and the only Way of approach to the 
 essential Divinity. They strive to come to the Father, not 
 by the Son, but some other way of climbing up into the 
 fold. The very office of the Son, which is Manifestation 
 and Mediation and Intercommunication, they destroy. 
 Not even in imagination can any man come to the 
 Father but by the Son. The reason is that no man has 
 ;seen God at any time. The only begotten Son who is in the 
 bosom of the Father has declared the Father. God was the 
 Word, and the Word was made Flesh. Whosoever denies 
 the Son, the same has not the Father ; but he that acknowl- 
 edges the Son has the Father also. This is the true God 
 and eternal life. Little children keep yourselves from idols. 
 Every mental picture of God, except as the picture of Him 
 who is declared to be the express image of the Father's 
 Person, is an idol. 
 
243 
 
 HOW TO CEASE THINKING MATEEIALLY OF 
 
 GOD. 
 
 A recent editorial on " Divine Personality " calls attention 
 to certain points which seldom get it. Worthy of deepest 
 study is one of its quotations. I may be permitted to trans- 
 late it afresh. The italicising will be mine. 
 
 Every one who thinks about God from His Person alone and not 
 from His inner being, thinks materially ; materially, as well, thinks 
 he who, in thinking about his neighbors, thinks from their shapes 
 alone and not from what kind of folk they are * * * About God 
 my pupils, think from His inner being; and, from that, think 
 about His Person ; do not think from His Person and, from that, 
 about His inner being. For, from the person, to think about the 
 inner being, is to think' materially even about the inner being; but, 
 from the inner being, to think about the person, is to think spiritu- 
 ally even about the person. (Apoc. Rev. n. 611.) 
 
 The propositions in this quotation reach farther than at 
 first sight they seem to reach. Let me restate a few of them. 
 
 (1) It is not said that to think about God's person is to 
 think materially of God. 
 
 (2) It is said that to think materially of Him, is to think 
 of Him from person alone. 
 
 (3) We are to think -from inner being, or (as the transla- 
 tions make it) " essence," and not about inner being or es- 
 sence. We are to think about person, and not from person. 
 'Tis as needful to think about person as to think from essence ; 
 and as harmful to think about essence, except as person, as it 
 is to think from person without thinking of essence. To 
 think about any one from essence, i. e., to think of him 
 from our idea of his love and wisdom, is to feel that he is 
 loving and wise, and to be conscious of the love and wisdom 
 in him. Then, from the feeling, this consciousness passes out 
 into the intellect, and becomes there the thought of a person 
 good and wise. This is right thinking ; this is what Swe- 
 denborg here advises. To think from person is to let one's 
 
244 
 
 judgment of another's character or essence be governed by 
 one's affection for his visible person and outward self, or by- 
 one's repulsion from it, as the case may be ; and this is wrong 
 thinking ; and against this does the teacher, in the passage 
 I have cited, warn his pupils. 
 
 (4) To think of God even from person alone, is not to think 
 of Him " materially," unless by this is really meant that, in- 
 nerly, He is not then thought of from essence also. This pro- 
 viso ought always to be remembered ; because in every true 
 idea of God the idea of " person" must be present; and be- 
 cause that idea ought, of right, to be all-prominent ; and be- 
 cause, when it is all prominent, it may seem to be occupying 
 the whole ground of the mind, whereas in truth it may be 
 occupying only that portion which is nearest to the con- 
 sciousness. 
 
 (5) This passage implies that in thinking of God from per- 
 son alone, one runs no greater risk of thinking " materially," 
 than he runs in thinking of his neighbors from their visible 
 forms alone. No greater risk, I say ; and if well you weigh 
 it, a risk far less. 
 
 Now, as to one's neighbors, the risk or danger lies not in 
 any error of abstract thought, but in an error of the will and 
 of the conduct. No man runs upon such danger but the 
 man who does not shun evils as sins : him, indeed, the 
 danger has already overtaken and head-first swallowed 
 up. Invariably this man works for his friends, his 
 relatives, his helpers; even while they are engaged 
 in dishonest deeds he favors them; he has no look-out 
 for goodness in them or for badness in them ; he regards alto- 
 gether their outer and not their inner " persons." This is 
 what is meant by " thinking of them from their sfiapes or 
 persons" and not "from quality, or from what they are." Do 
 not believe you can cure such a man by teaching him just 
 ideas about " essence " and " form," or even by showing him 
 how to hit the true mean of thought which will hold to the 
 " essence " and not forsake the " form." There is just one 
 
245 
 
 for him to cease to think " materially " of his neighbors, 
 and this it is : Let him steadfastly set his face against them 
 whenever they are doing wrong, even though they are dear 
 to him, if it be his duty then to set his face against them ; 
 and let him favor them when they are in the right, even 
 though they personally are repulsive to him, if it be his 
 duty or his pleasure then to favor them. For example : If 
 he is President of the United States, and if his Secretary of 
 War (beloved by him) steals public money, or lets it be 
 stolen from his charge by those whom he in turn loves ; 
 this President, if he thinks " materially " of the Secre- 
 tary, or "thinks of him from person alone," and not 
 " from quality," will not bring the officer to justice, 
 but will accept a resignation before the officer can 
 be impeached and punished ; and will accept it in order that 
 impeachment and punishment may be avoided ; and he will 
 think it good and praiseworthy to do this ; and, as his reason, 
 he will say that a man ought to be faithful to his friends. 
 Thus such a President will find less a friend hi his country, 
 in his duty, in truth, and in righteousness, than he will find 
 in a mere animated form which is dear to him. Whereas, if 
 this President wills to think of the Secretary according to 
 the Secretary's quality, he quickly will put the Secretary 
 under suspension ; and whatever the executive arm may do 
 in its proper function he will swiftly do, in order to get that 
 officer impeached and punished. 
 
 The way, then, to cease to think "materially" of God, 
 as of all other beings, does not lie in ceasing to think of 
 Him as a Person. The way is this : Cease to wish, cease to 
 plan, cease to do, that which is evil ; continue all the while to 
 think of God as a Person. For every man's god, at the in- 
 most, is that which he obeys. If he obeys truth and good- 
 ness, these or rather this is his God, and this he wor- 
 ships ; as long as he does this he really, even if uncon- 
 sciously to himself, thinks of God from this, or from these, 
 which are God's Essence ; and he ought to think of God 
 
246 
 
 as a Person, and never otherwise than as a Person. For 
 truth and goodness are nothing unless human, and the 
 human is nothing unless a person. Therefore true goodness 
 is itself nothing unless a person. It is human without, and 
 within it is humane. These two, character and person, are 
 not foes, but friends like soul and body. To sunder them 
 in thought is to outlaw one's own soul ; 'tis sheer Christ-kill- 
 ing ; a very murder of religion. The first precept of the 
 Christian faith is, Shun evil sins against God. The second 
 precept is : Think of God as a Person. Those two make up 
 the main teaching of the Apostles, which was (1) Repentance 
 toward God, and (2) Belief in the Lord Jesus Christ. Just 
 those two, and naught besides, are meant by the words 
 repentance and belief. " God " means the Divine Essence ; 
 and " the Lord Jesus Christ " means His visible Person. For 
 those two ends, namely, that men's wills might repent, and 
 that their intellects might conceive Him as a Person, God 
 was manifested in the flesh, and did preach and has been 
 preached. For all His work in overcoming the evil spirit 
 world could have been done on earth quite unproclaimed, 
 and wholly without His becoming known on earth. They 
 who take away from God the form of a Person, do not come 
 by the door into the fold, but they strive to climb up some 
 other way. The reason they are called " thieves " and " rob- 
 bers " is that all which man has, he has from the Being 
 called God, and this " God " is a Person. If, then, man in 
 heart denies God to be a Person, he in heart denies that 
 God is ; because there is then with that man no identifica- 
 tion of God as of One apart from Nature or as apart from 
 the man's own consciousness; such a man has destroyed 
 God's outline, and there is now nothing to mark off in his 
 imagination what belongs to God from what belongs not to 
 God ; thereby the man silently and unconsciously denies that 
 what he has comes from Another ; thus denies that it comes 
 from God ; this is to rob and steal from God ; this is to " kill 
 the heir." But those who come in by the door, that is, those 
 
247 
 
 who, through the Form, reach the Essence, and who receive 
 the Essence through and in the Form, do not steal and rob, 
 and yet they receive or, as it is said, they "find pasture?' 
 Essence is the Good. Form is the person. Pasture is the 
 feeding of the Heart. It is not the Gush of which we find 
 abundance. It is the bread of God of which every man 
 eats who looks to the Man-God, and works sincerely, skil- 
 fully and effectively in his daily business and function in 
 society. 
 
 These things come up steadily in the Word, when the 
 Word is understood. All this is meant when of " the pure 
 in heart" it is said "they shall see God." To be pure in 
 heart is to have repented of evils and to have made them no 
 longer delightful ; such men, and only such, can think about 
 God or man from that real love and real wisdom which are 
 God's Essence. From this their character, it comes that 
 they think of God as a Person; and this is meant by 
 " seeing Him " ; and it is their delight so to think of God; 
 therefore it is said that they are " blessed." Observe the 
 chain of causation; (1) Pureness of heart; (2) Having 
 God in thought as a Person; (3) The reflex blessedness 
 proceeding from such presence of God in the thought, 
 begotten of such presence of Him in the heart. In 
 no other way than this can God be seen in heaven. The 
 thought must be about a Person, and the thought must 
 spring from goodness and truth in the thinker. The same 
 things are meant where it is said that " His servants shall 
 serve Him, and they shall see His face, and his name shall 
 be in their foreheads," " Name " means " quality," wher- 
 ever the name is a fitting name. God's " name " is God's 
 quality ; that is to say, His truth and goodness. The " fore- 
 head " means the interiors, because the interiors are in- 
 scribed upon it, both momentarily and at last with fixedness. 
 To write God's name there, is to make the interiors God- 
 like. Men with such interiors see God in thought as a Per- 
 son ; this last is meant by " seeing His face." 
 
 Xv3^>Nv 
 f f T Ht \ 
 
 lUNIVERSITYl 
 
248 
 
 For myself, I dislike the word " person." By turns, it 
 means anything, everything, nothing. In Webster's dic- 
 tionary I find nine distinct senses of it. Through this word 
 the sins of our fathers, who were arrant literary snobs, are 
 visited upon us their children. The word is not English, 
 and its consonants and vowels do not come forth from a 
 Saxon soul. It was stolen from the French and Latin, and, 
 like many un-English words, was stolen because those who 
 stole it supposed that a word which they understood less 
 thoroughly than the English word, must have in it a reserve 
 of wisdom over and above what the English word had. There 
 is greater strength in the little finger of the English " Man " 
 than in the loins of the broken-down Latin " person." We 
 had best say, :e God is a Man." What a man is, a man 
 knows at least if he is, or has seen, a robust and healthy 
 man. But what a " person " is, nobody knows at least not 
 I, unless it means a "man;" but if so, why not say 
 " Man " at once ? Swedenborg stuck by " Homo" Man, 
 whenever he was describing God ; and he seldom used Per- 
 sona, except when he dealt with the systematic theology 
 which he abhorred. 
 
 There are those who suppose the thought of God as a 
 Man or, if I must use the word, as a Person is narrowing 
 to the understanding and is harbored only by people with 
 small prejudices. They are wholly mistaken. The failure 
 to carry into practice God's love and wisdom is what makes 
 narrowness in theology. The belief that His love and wis- 
 dom are of man-shape does not make such narrowness. The 
 belief in God as a man, a man with a head and a body, with 
 arms and legs, with hands and feet this belief is not in- 
 compatible with a breadth of view which few or none of the 
 worshippers of the Abstract can entertain, or even conceive. 
 This belief is not incompatible with a breadth of rationality 
 which captures alive, and tames, and sets about some busi- 
 ness, each of the little, diverse, warring systems of the 
 Abstract-worshippers, and caging all of them like a 
 
24:9 
 
 veritable Happy Family, turns them all to good, 
 and finds no fault with any of them. A breadth which 
 sees all religions from within, and reads them all from 
 above, from the heaven whence all things are given, 
 and which beholds heaven in all of them, and reads by a 
 mystic noonday light the scrip from heaven let down into a 
 darkened world. A breadth which loves immeasurably the 
 new-born Science which is hated by the religionists ; yet loves 
 all the creeds of the religionists. A breadth which reaches 
 from within outward, and which from within beholds the 
 sun-lit side of every human utterance, and finds no absolute 
 untruth in all the world, but only men that are untrue. A 
 breadth which is widest in this, that it knows itself to be 
 narrow and petty, and knows all knowledge even this 
 knowledge to be petty, and knows that nothing is wide but 
 Conduct, Conduct chiefly silent. This breadth, in a measure, 
 every man can gain who shuns evils as sins and looks to 
 God as a Person as the Incarnate God. No other one can 
 gain that breadth. The rest can imagine they have it ; and 
 I grant the imagining will serve them just as well, for their 
 own purposes. Like one struck dead by lightning, they 
 shall never know the difference. 
 
 Out of thousands (as I think) of Swedenborg's sayings to 
 this same effect, I append a dozen ; chiefly from the " Athana- 
 sian Creed." I ask that these be chewed upon ; not for tooth- 
 breaking, but for the everlasting juice within them : 
 
 It follows that the Word is also to be understood according to 
 the sense of the letter, when it says that God has a face, that He has 
 eyes and ears, and that He has hands and feet. (21). 
 
 The idea of God as a Man, is engrafted from heaven in every 
 nation throughout the whole terrestrial globe ; but, what I lament, 
 it is destroyed in Christendom. (6.) 
 
 The thought alone concerning God as Man . . . opens 
 Heaven ; on the other hand, thought concerning God not as Man, 
 . . . closes Heaven. (6.) 
 
 It is also by permission of Divine Providence that * * persons " are 
 spoken of [in the Athanasian Creed,] for a 'person is a Man, and a 
 
250 
 
 Divine Person is God who is Man. This is revealed at this day for 
 the sake of the New Church which is called the Holy Jerusalem. (16). 
 
 No one is conjoined with heaven and admitted there after death, 
 unless in the idea of his thought he sees God as a Man. (16). 
 
 For God is perfect Man ; in face and body like to Man ; there being 
 no difference as to form, but as to essence. (27.) 
 
 It was said that to think of God as a Man is implanted in every 
 spirit ; and it is evident . . . that this is effected by an influx of 
 the Lord into the interior of the spirit's thoughts. (20.) 
 
 Every one in the spiritual world is known from his human form, 
 which is according to what he derives from the Lord. (22.) 
 
 In fine, he who sees God as a Man, sees God, because he sees the 
 Lord. (22.) 
 
 In a word, all the angels of the three heavens think of God as of 
 a Man, nor can they think otherwise, for if they were disposed to do 
 so, thought would cease, and they would fall from heaven. (20.) 
 
 " Who can but stare at seeing that the mental picture of the 
 God-like Manly of the Lord is utterly gone to ruin in the Christian 
 churches, and first and foremost among men of education in those 
 churches ; and that what of it stays yet, is only among the simple. 
 For the simple think of God as they think of a man, and not, like 
 the educated, as of a ghost without man's (forma) shape. The men 
 of the oldest times and wiser were they than the men of ours 
 had no other mental picture of God than of a Man with beaming 
 rings about His head ; as is shown by the writings of the ancients, 
 and by figures in paintings or in sculptures. And all men of the 
 church, from Adam's time to Abraham, and down to Moses and 
 the prophets, thought of God as they thought of a man ; saw him 
 too in the (forma) shape of a man ; and called him Jehovah. . . . 
 That from the very first the dwellers on this earth had a mental 
 picture of the Man-God, or of God's Manly, is shown by their idols. 
 . . . The reason why man has this mental picture of the Divine, 
 is because that picture is from an inflow out of heaven ; for in 
 heaven not a soul can think of God but in man's (forma) shape ; 
 thought he otherwise, the thought of God would perish in him, and 
 he himself would drop from heaven. . . . And yet, in this 
 world to-day, among educated people, this mental picture of God, 
 of all the thoughts of God the headmost, is rooted up and out, as it 
 were ; so that if one do but say that God is a Man, they cannot 
 take it into their thought. . . . Yet without this mental 
 picture of the Divine, not a man, be he whom you will, can pass 
 into heaven, but is hurled away when he touches the very begin- 
 
251 
 
 ning of the way to heaven. So these are tJie things which first and 
 foremost are to be understood by the words, ' If any man have an ear 
 let him hear. 7 " Apoc. Exp. n. 808. 
 
 Let it well be known that Swedenborg's word " forma " 
 can by no means be interpreted into a pantheistic vagueness, 
 or made to mean other than " build," which is its English 
 etymologic kinsman. Look at passages in which this word 
 forma is found, and judge whether it can mean aught but 
 what includes a human outline. 
 
 " Hence then it is, that in every spirit, and also in every man, 
 when the man is in the idea of his spirit, it is implanted that he 
 think of God as a Man. From this implanting it came that, more 
 than did their after-comers, the most ancient men worshipped God 
 as seeable under the build (forma) of a man. That also they saw 
 God as a man, the Word is witness, ... as of Moses, that he 
 talked with Jehovah face to face; . . . as a man, too, Jehovah 
 was seen by Hagar, was seen by Gideon, was seen by Joshua. . . . 
 That the Lord it was that was seen by them, Himself teaches . . . 
 (John viii. 56, 58 ; xvii. 5, 24). That not the Father but the Son it 
 was that was seen, is because God's Inner Being (Divinum Esse) 
 which is the Father, cannot be seen save by God's Forth-bodying 
 (Dimnum Existere) which is God's Manhood (Dimnum Humanum). 
 . . . Since the Inner Being (Esse) is in its Forth-bodying (Exis- 
 tere), like as soul is in its body, therefore he who sees God's Forth- 
 bodying or the Son, sees moreover God's Inner Being, or the 
 Father." (Id. 20, 21 ; Ap. Ex. 1115, 1116, continuatio). 
 
 How indeed should He stand forth (existet) out from the 
 Invisible, unless in the mind He be seen; and how in the 
 mind can He be seen save in some shape or build ? Is not 
 man's shape the shape of his Maker, and is not this a God- 
 like shape in the eyes of those who know somewhat concern- 
 ing it, and in the eyes of every one who has an eye for the 
 God-like? Whoever will not suffer Him so to body-forth 
 (existere) in the mind, denies thereby His IZxistere or Forth- 
 bodying ; nay, slays in his mind all Existere of God, and 
 
252 
 
 seeks to climb up by some other way to the unseeable I AM 
 the JEsse or invisible Father. 
 
 " To those who are in a life of love," says Swedenborg, " He gives 
 to think of God in the (forma) shape of a man ; and God in the 
 shape of a man is the Lord. Thus think the simple in the Christian 
 world ; thus too those heathen who live in charity according to their 
 cult ; and both these and those are struck dumb at hearing the 
 educated say of God that one is to perceive Him as not in some 
 human (forma) shape ; for then they know that the educated see no 
 God in their thought, and therefore have little belief that there is a God ; 
 for the faith which is the faith of charity wills to comprehend, 
 somehow, that which is believed ; for faith is of thought, and to 
 think the incomprehensible is not to think, but only to be aware of, and 
 thence to be talking without ang picture in mind.'" (Ap. Ex. n. 392). 
 
 Will any one pretend that by " forma," in these and a 
 thousand like passages of Swedenborg, are meant love and 
 wisdom as abstractions I or pretend that the simple of whom 
 Swedenborg speaks meant love and wisdom by " forma"? or 
 pretend that the carver of an idol carves after love and wis- 
 dom, and not after outward shape ? Is there a single pan- 
 theist but allows that his "Power of the World" has some- 
 how a Will and also shows Wisdom ? Is not the Man-shape 
 of God just what the pantheist denies ? is not the Man-shape 
 just what the unruined Christian clings to ? is not this Man- 
 shape just what the Lord taught to Philip (John xiv. 8-11) ? 
 I beseech you, hear this thing which lies on bed-rock : 
 The true thought of God lies in thinking from His Es- 
 sence, and in thinking about His Shape. Thought from His 
 Essence is far other than thought about His Essence ; more- 
 over this last is utterly unthinkable. Thought from His Es- 
 sence lies in thinking from the Good and the True, which 
 thinking consists in thinking to do the Good and the True 
 (John xiv. 22, 23) ; for these are His Essence ; this only is to 
 "remember God." And this thought and this memory are 
 to be climbed toward, not by benevolent aims or by benevo- 
 lent practices, but by the thorny path of repentance ; by a 
 
253 
 
 diligent looking into the life, both inner and outer ; by a dis- 
 covery of the evils therein, and by a shunning of those evils 
 as sins against God. As far as evils are shunned as sins, the 
 inward unconscious affections become purified, and an in- 
 ward genuine love of others takes the place of a previously 
 overpowering yet unconscious love of self. The truth that 
 God desires is truth in the inward parts ; and the wisdom 
 which He gives is in the hidden parts ? from thence it steals 
 out and down into conscious wish and act of goodness ; and 
 this, when it thus has stolen down, is the Righteousness that 
 is of Him, the Lord. The Shape of God about which a man 
 is to think and whereby he is to be conjoined in thought 
 with the Divine, is the Body which Thomas touched and 
 without reproof called Lord and God. How bitterly Chris- 
 tians of education for the most part hate this Shape is told 
 pretty plainly by Swedenborg ; but it is absolutely demon- 
 strated among his supposed followers ; of whom many burn 
 to destroy this thought of God, and weekly buffet it and spit 
 upon it and set about destroying it. More wan at this day 
 than in Swedenborg's day, I think, must be the angels 7 
 hope for the world's perception of the New-Church truths 
 whereof this truth is the head of the corner. 
 
 Men who have no capacity for Art either Divine or human, 
 blot out the idea of Shape when they think of Form. Form 
 is Arrangement, they say, and say truly. But is Form not 
 external as well as internal ? Has a thing no need to be 
 arranged upon its outside as well as through its inside? Ar- 
 rangement of the outside, is it not internal also, if the Arrange- 
 ment of the outside be strictly according to the law and 
 type of the Arrangement that prevails within? But the 
 pantheists will have it that God has no outside ; far from 
 Him, say they, be so degrading a characteristic. They are 
 all for Alpha ; they will have no Omega ; they are all for 
 the Beginning ; they will have no End ; they are all for 
 the First ; they will have no Last ; they can conceive no ending- 
 off of God, unless an impossible spatial ending-off ; nor do they 
 
254 
 
 understand that Quality can take Shape. A fine being, 
 they think, is any man if you will but cut off his feet ; feet 
 are humble and humiliating, earthy, dust-like. A fine 
 being, they think, is any man if you will but take away his 
 skin ; the skin is an external thing, and is by no means 
 vital. Their thoughts are so sensuous that in Shape they 
 can behold nothing spiritual ; nor can they find in Shape 
 anything of Expression or Divine Exist ere. If you take 
 Space and Size away from them, they think Shape has de- 
 parted too. Show them a dozen statues of Venus, varying 
 from life-size to miniature, and ask them whether Shape has 
 anything to do with Space and Size ; and they will only 
 mutter that Shape must still have some space or some size, 
 else it could not be perceived by mortal eye. If they call them- 
 selves Swedenborgians, they will probably quote you a 
 passage from the Arcana Coelestia, n. 5253, as follows: 
 " There are three things in general which perish from the 
 sense of the letter of the Word, whilst the internal sense is 
 coming forth; namely, what is of time, what is of space, 
 and what is of person." But they will quote in their 
 English, which mauls Swedenborg's Latin ; nor can the 
 context or a thousand parallel passages from Swedenborg, 
 suffice to show them that by " persona " Swedenborg here 
 means merely " this person or that person, as distinguished 
 by his one individuality from all other persons." He means 
 what the apostle means when saying that God is no 
 respecter of persons ; and he means nothing more. 
 
255 
 THE THREE BAPTISMS. 
 
 Baptism means essentially a washing or cleansing, and in 
 the literal sense it is of three orders. The two higher are 
 internal, and are not within man's consciousness. The 
 lowest is external, and must be a conscious act. The lowest 
 is a voluntary and deliberate cleansing of the cuticle. The 
 highest is a burning-up of impure and effete particles 
 throughout the whole interior of the body (except in the 
 bones), and is effected by a union of oxygen in the arterial 
 blood with the worn-out carbon against which it washes. 
 Every one burns thus yearly an amount of carbon the 
 purest coal very nearly equal to his weight ; and it is from 
 this inmost baptism of fire that the heat of the body is 
 mostly derived. The less interior, but still internal, bapt- 
 ism is that of the breath ; and it goes on in the lungs, and 
 consists in the process of washing the blood by means of 
 air, just as in the other the body is washed by the blood. 
 The blood in the lungs gives up to the fresh air with which 
 it is washed, its carbon just gathered from the body ; and in 
 exchange the blood takes from the air the air's oxygen. 
 This new supply of oxygen then goes the rounds of the 
 body in the blood ; washes off the carbon as before ; brings 
 it back through the veins to unload it in the lungs ; and 
 thus baptism, or cleansing, goes on through life. This 
 baptism of the breath is called by that name in the Word ; 
 but it is a baptism of the spiritual organization that the 
 Word is speaking of. He shall baptize you with the Holy 
 Breath. Jesus breathed on His disciples and said, Receive 
 ye the Holy Breath. The wind bloweth where it listeth, 
 and thou nearest the sound thereof, but canst not tell 
 whence it cometh nor whither it goeth ; so is every one 
 that is born of the Breath. The Holy Breath came as a 
 rushing mighty wind. 
 
 The inmost baptism, then, is by the blood, and is of fire ; 
 the inner is by the breath, and is in the lungs ; the outer is 
 
256 
 
 by water, and is of the skin. Blood means the affections, 
 and so does fire. Breath answers to the intellect, and so do 
 the lungs. Water answers to the conscious truths of the 
 natural external mind ; and the skin, as being the external 
 of the body, relates to the outward consciousness, to the life 
 of action. The moral baptism of water consists in man's 
 applying to his conscious life (as well of intention and 
 thought, as of act) the truths necessary to purify that life 
 from its evils, through abstinence from those evils according 
 to the inhibitions of those truths. The moral baptism of 
 the Breath is not man's work, but is a work that belongs to 
 the Unconscious, and still beyond belongs to the Not-me, to 
 God. To God likewise belongs that inmost work of fiery 
 washing. It is only the lowest and outermost of the planes 
 of being that lies within our ken ; the spiritual and celestial 
 regions in us are as little within our scope as the internals 
 of the body are under our control. They are healthiest 
 when we are least conscious of their existence. He knows 
 wisdom in the inner parts, whose inner parts are in order. 
 The pure in heart are they that shall see God ; not they 
 that polish bright their images of Him. A good under- 
 standing have all they that keep His commandments ; but 
 not so those who can only expound His ways. 
 
 The exercise of following up these analogies minutely and 
 in a scientific manner, is a healthful one for the ordinary 
 type of the religious mind to-day. The wild freaks of imag- 
 ination which this type of mind is given to, are held strictly 
 in check by the facts of sense and by the logical process, if 
 such minds can bring themselves to submit to its demands ; 
 and their aspirations toward the ideal are at the same time 
 gratified in a sane and orderly way. By all means the aim 
 of religious thought and speculation should be Conduct ; 
 but to most men this is impossible, because they mostly do 
 not have this aim. And until they shall have this aim, it 
 surely is better to theorize and reason with some allegiance to 
 fact than to roam fancy-free. 
 
257 
 THE PEKSONAL DEVIL. 
 
 The New Church doctrines teach with distinctness the 
 personality of the devil. He goes about as a roaring lion, 
 seeking whom he may devour. Sometimes he appears as a 
 serpent, sometimes as a dragon. I recall an old edition of 
 Bunyan's " Pilgrim's Progress," in which there is a truthful 
 picture of him as a vampire or mighty bat. All these things 
 are symbols or correspondences. If I should see the devil, 
 I am sure he would be in red, and have horns, and would 
 sweep his tail about. Luther saw him at the Wartburg, 
 and hurled a bottle of ink at him which hit the wall I my- 
 self have seen the dent and Luther kept on flinging ink at 
 him life-long. In the J)eutsche Mythologies if I remember, 
 Grimm says the devil of a tribe of Australian savages is a 
 goat ; and he wonders why a goat should be pitched upon 
 as a symbol. No adept of Swedenborg's wonders why. He 
 sees that these pictures of the devil are most truthful. To 
 him such a picture says as much as could in words be said 
 in half an hour. He understands it. Others do not under- 
 stand it; but they sometimes feel it better than can be 
 understood. 
 
 These ideas, and first and foremost the idea of the devil 
 as a personal being instead of the mere principle of evil, are 
 thoroughly Swedenborgian ideas. They are the old ideas 
 likewise. The difference between the old system of belief 
 and the Swedenborgian system is this ; In the old system, 
 these ideas are conceived from without ; and one gets only 
 an external and superficial notion, a notion of the outside. 
 In the Swedenborgian system, they are conceived from 
 within, and an idea of the inner contents of the pictures or 
 word paintings, is obtained. The mere picture is the same 
 with each of the two systems. With one, the picture is a 
 picture of a thing in the world of matter; with the other it 
 is at the same time a picture of things innumerable in the 
 world of mind. 
 
258 
 
 To assert that the devil is a personal devil, and not the ab- 
 stract principle of evil, is not distinctively the ancient teach- 
 ing. To deny it is by no means Swedenborgian teaching. 
 There is no such thing as impersonal evil ; and there is no 
 such thing as impersonal goodness. "We might as well speak 
 of sight, considered apart from the eye ; or of hearing, apart 
 from the ear ; or of loving, apart from the delights of the 
 heart. The foundation of the devil and of all deviltry is his 
 up-and-down personality. The devil is a Me, on every oc- 
 casion ; never is he a theory. And therein lies his charm, his 
 overwhelming force against us. 
 
 If a Swedenborgian casts off the notion of Satan as being 
 personal, he will at some time have to pick it up again. In 
 the first place, all the devils are personal ; because there is 
 no devil of all but comes of the human breed, and all men 
 are and always have been personal. Personality consists of 
 Wish good or evil, of Reason or of Cunning, and of Deed 
 fair or foul. In wish, thought and deed, all in the heavens 
 are unanimous or one-spirited, in their way ; and so are all 
 in the hells, in theirs. Either lot of spirits, when taken to- 
 gether, shows as one man ; because all, in each set, are of one 
 spirit ; and the spirit makes the man and is the man ; and 
 unity of spirit, when it is perceived by the seer or the seeing 
 eye, is perceived as unity of manhood, as one man numeric- 
 ally. And in either world this law of vision is the same. 
 Therefore we say of forty million Britons, if they be of one 
 mind, that she is about to go to war ; and of a hundred mil- 
 lion Russians (since the Czar's mind is theirs, and theirs is 
 thus one mind) that she is about to annex a territory. I 
 myself, when I hear this said, think of one human being, 
 and have in my mind the picture of just one : I dare say 
 with all men it is the same. Of the unanimous man, of the 
 man complex on earth, over earth, or under earth no in- 
 dividual member is aught more than a detail, a differentia- 
 tion, an accentuation of some one of the characteristics of the 
 man unanimous, complex. Grand, The good man complex is 
 
259 
 
 one man erect ; his head above, his feet beneath. The evil 
 man complex is equally one man, but upside down and heels 
 over head ; the celestial at foot, the sensual at the top and 
 thoroughly masterful. So stand Hell and Heaven, foot to 
 foot ; like a man and his image in calm water, when they 
 catch the eye of the steady-minded Seer. 
 
 Therefore in heaven and in hell any man visible may turn 
 out to be one man, or he may be many ; only time, that is, 
 some change of state, will show which he is. Michael and 
 Gabriel are not any one person, but Michael is all of a certain 
 type, and Gabriel is all of another type. He is a society. See 
 that society, and see it well, with deep and wide vision, and 
 you see one man, one only ; but he is also a myriad. See 
 one of that myriad, and no less than before, you will see one 
 man, but that one is less a man than the other. Out of this 
 law of vision and this law of being it came that when the 
 Lord drove the devils from the tomb-dweller, He said, not 
 What are your names 1 but " What is thy name ? " And those 
 devils, speaking through the man's mouth, " said My name 
 is Legion, for we are many." And the Lord said to them 
 one and all, " Come out of him, thou unclean spirit " not 
 spirits. And we read that thereupon the devils, not the 
 devil, entered into the swine. 
 
 Now this personal-devil doctrine is not an exceptional 
 phrase. As a rule, there is no reason for the Swedenborgiaii 
 to reject the ancient phrases. Mostly they stand on the lit- 
 eral sense of the Word ; and like that sense, they are the 
 containing vessels of the Spiritual in all its holiness and 
 power. It is not new expressions of theology that consti- 
 tute the New Church in a man, but expressions of a new lif e 
 are what constitute it. The New Church is the new man 
 himself ; the man renewed in his mind ; and Kepentance is 
 the cord by which is let down from God out of heaven the 
 great golden Town. Innerly, the phrases of the Old, with 
 men who are grounded in the good of life, are not falsehoods 
 but are general and indeterminate notions which an innerly 
 
260 
 
 good purpose unconsciously determines into specific truth 
 whenever occasion demands ; and such truth more or less 
 breaks then its way to the mind's surface, like dawn from the 
 sun not yet risen. With those phrases men have been saved, 
 are saved now, and will be saved. They are fading away, how- 
 ever, and with the phrases are fading also away the old sym- 
 bols which only the New Interpretation can uphold and defend. 
 The future role of the New Interpretation will be that of a 
 conservator and apologist. As a strong man guides and 
 steadies with tender solicitude his blind old tottering father, 
 not crossing him but humoring his childishness, will the New 
 Doctrines support and strengthen the old expressions of dog- 
 ma. The New Doctrines, however, will strengthen them 
 from within and not from without ; will put a new spirit into 
 them ; and will cause the dry bones of hoary age to be cov- 
 ered by degrees with flesh and beauty. We shall pass out 
 of Egypt, bearing many vessels borrowed of Egyptians. Not 
 a jot or tittle of the old law shall pass away till all be ful- 
 filled : it was hollow before, and now it shall be filled full. 
 This Doctrine came not to kill and destroy, but that the 
 dead and dying doctrines of Christendom might have life and 
 have it more abundantly It brings peace, not a sword. That 
 the former things might pass away, it comes ; but all things, 
 even the former things, are now made new ; and not other- 
 wise do they pass away than in that they are now made new. 
 The doctrine of actual Repentance is the real Seer, the real 
 Apostle of the New Age. Truth shall spring out of the 
 earth whenever righteousness shall look down from heaven. 
 Into the old formulas, based on the letter of the Word, 
 the new doctrines can find their way, as the thoughts of 
 angels flow into children's simple mental pictures. And 
 just as angels well understand the Word when it is heard by 
 children, who catch only the most^external meaning, so time 
 and time-again it happens that an ancient formula, external 
 as it is, sums up whole pages of New-Church doctrine. 
 Many of the old formulas seem especially contrived to be- 
 
261 
 
 come vessels recipient of the new truths, and to become def- 
 initive of these truths. The insinuation of truths into those 
 formulas does not seem thus far to have engaged attention. 
 The parable of the wheat and the tares deserves here an ap- 
 plication. No man gains anything better in hearing as- 
 saults upon the best he possesses. To root up the ancient 
 phrases is to root up the hearty good with whose roots 
 those phrases are as yet almost inextricably entwined. 
 
 THE EEGENERATION OF SCIENCE 
 
 If we ask a man of science what he understands by its re- 
 generation, he will tell us doubtless that properly the term 
 is applied to the result of a new activity of the scientific mind, 
 which appears in the removal of ancient falsehoods and the 
 substitution of new truths. Such an operation has been ac- 
 complished within the past hundred years. 
 
 There is no person whose religion is aught but blind super- 
 stition, that does not bid this development of science god- 
 speed. As far back as history or tradition reaches, the pro- 
 gress of science may be called in one sense a progress back- 
 ward. Whilst the race was more and more transferring 
 consciousness from the inner regions of the mind, where 
 in its infancy it largely lay, outward to those that bor- 
 der on the senses and the material world, the direction 
 of the movement impressed its characteristics on every 
 mental operation. And minds which were still able to 
 grasp strongly the conception of spirit, because not im- 
 mersed in that of matter, retained a vague, but almost 
 innate idea of the truth that the former is the grand cause, 
 
262 
 
 and the latter its effect and outbirth. Yet these remote an- 
 cestors were in a state which now must seem or be called one 
 of self-absorption at least as compared with us, or more at 
 least than we, who have so determined reflection to the outer 
 world that our consciousness appears constantly, in every sen- 
 sation, as if existing there. And however well-founded was their 
 doctrine, or rather their feeling, that prototypes are spiritual, 
 and that all natural forms are imprints of them in matter, a 
 state of mind in them which perhaps might now be considered 
 one of overweening self -consciousness and of lack of humility 
 towards the supreme laws of nature, produced a virtual per- 
 version of this truth ; and the philosophy which afterward 
 developed itself did practically, if unintentionally, place the 
 general prototype not in an enlightened idea of one infinite 
 spirit, but in the mental quality of the several philosophizers. 
 Had the human mind retained intact the likeness of the 
 Original, these attempts to conform the world without to the 
 world within might have resulted differently. But the 
 spiritual nature was distorted and disfigured ; the untuned 
 chords of the soul found no responsive harmonies in nature ; 
 and science, or what passed for it, either recoiled abruptly 
 from a union with religion, or else was wrenched to an em- 
 brace. For thousands of years, the thinkers, like Mahomet 
 with his mountain, desired to reduce reality to their 
 conceptions of it; and like the most bigoted of the advocates 
 of some popular theology, whenever facts happened to 
 oppose their notions and traditions, were in heart disposed 
 to retort, " So much the worse for the facts." At last the 
 morning began to grow, and still it comes brighter and 
 brighter. The sight of many good souls is dazzled with the 
 sudden change from that long night, and they doubt as yet 
 if we have here the very dawn. There are also certain owls 
 which make great eyes, and twist about with evident em- 
 barrassment. But the old tyranny of preconception grows 
 weaker every day ; and men are becoming more and more 
 willing to take facts as they find them. One result of this 
 
263 
 
 change is, that it is no longer possible for superstition, called 
 religion, to break out into the old extravagances. This is 
 why every rational person rejoices at the recent development 
 of science, and is willing to dignify it with the name of re- 
 generation. 
 
 But regeneration is a name which may be given to a far dif- 
 ferent process. It can be applied far more justly to a process 
 which, in the judgment of nearly every chief of science at the 
 present day, must seem as incomprehensible as formerly to a 
 certain master in Israel who knew not of it. If the regenera- 
 tion of the mental fabric insinuates a certain spiritual affec- 
 tion where before the desires were only natural, and com- 
 municates spiritual forms of thought in place of those (or 
 rather icithin those) which previously related simply to ma- 
 terial objects ; and if it causes those spiritual thoughts and 
 affections to descend into merely natural conceptions and im- 
 pulses, and thus so to clothe themselves that the latter are 
 seen as incarnations and images of the former, and the former 
 are felt as the life and soul of the latter the former being 
 thus materialized and made visible then a like work re- 
 mains to be accomplished in science. As far as regeneration 
 concerns the intellect alone, a work quite similar, or, to be 
 absolutely exact, the very same work. 
 
 The progress of mental development is with every one of 
 us so intimate an experience, that, like something pressed 
 against the eye, it scarcely lies in the focus of objective exam- 
 ination. We have a feeling, however vague, of what we are 
 to-day. We have some information about the cradle state. 
 But the process of change from this to that, through the long 
 years seems exceedingly indistinct. Yet one point is clear. 
 Whatever sublimity of abstract thought a man may at length 
 attain, the time was when a touch, a sight, a sound, were the 
 only revelations. There is no feeling of our nature, no idea 
 within our comprehension, but is based, either immedi- 
 ately or through permutations and combinations, upon 
 the senses. The word " sweetheart 1 ' suggests an idea of the 
 
264 
 
 best and purest that lover has ever felt or poet sung. And 
 to such as are willing to believe that a marriage of thought 
 and affection is possible in the soul, and that every act in 
 daily life is the offspring of that union, it brings to mind, 
 under parable and figure, the highest and holiest that has 
 fallen from the lips of divinity. Was this word, then, coined 
 in heaven, and has it dropped thence to us like the Trojan 
 image 1 No ; you can trace the essence of its force and signifi- 
 cance, of its depth and touchingness, back to the conception 
 of a fleshy organ weighing ten ounces avoirdupois, which 
 pumps the blood through the body notably into the cheeks 
 and lips with a stroke slow or quick, according to the 
 momentary temper ; I say you can trace it back to the first 
 sweets that were put into baby's mouth, and which being 
 duly composed of certain parts of carbon and certain other 
 parts of hydrogen and oxygen, did melt there de- 
 liciously. From thus low the idea rose to heights short 
 of infinity alone ; and in its ascent from matter to spirit, 
 the analogies between spirit and matter accompanied it 
 throughout, and raised it at every step. There is no idea 
 that has not such a basis in nature ; and if a natural idea 
 becomes a spiritual one, it is always this analogy or corres- 
 pondence that effects the change. Correspondence is a very 
 magician ; and like an enchanter, works miracles by means of 
 images. Is it not the Greater Menstruum, the Egyptian's 
 Ked Tincture that turns everything into gold I Is it not 
 also the Lesser Menstruum, of a whitish color, that changes 
 into silver whatever it solves f We have found at last the 
 long-sought philosopher's stone the truth which in the hands 
 of the genuine lover of wisdom, transmutes into noble sub- 
 stances every base substance it touches. Its touch is like 
 that of old Midas gifted by the god of wine. And so far as 
 this mighty thaumaturgist is concerned, there is no differ- 
 ence between the crude and phenomenal conceptions of 
 nature which form the material body of our ordinary 
 thought, and the minutest revelations of accepted science ; 
 
265 
 
 except that in the latter those disturbing influences which an 
 observer's personality always more or less impresses upon 
 the observation, have been more nearly eliminated, and the 
 results been thereby more approximately reduced to correct 
 expressions of the repetition of forms or types of the spir- 
 itual upon the plane of material substance. 
 
 For science too, then, there is a regeneration, a resurrec- 
 tion. Of science, too, we may truthfully say that it is sown 
 a natural body, but shall be raised a spiritual body. That 
 if hitherto it has borne the image of the earthly, it shall also 
 bear the image of the heavenly ; and that though this first 
 science is of the earth, a second will appear in its body no 
 other than a likeness of the divine truth itself. It shall not 
 sleep forever ; but shall be wholly changed ; and its dead 
 substance shall be raised incorruptible. Already the holy 
 waters have begun to issue out from under the threshold of 
 the Lord's house ; and their appointed course is down into 
 the desert and out into the sea ; and when they reach the sea, 
 its waters shall be healed, and every thing that lives and moves 
 whither those waters shall come, shall truly b've ; and there 
 shall be a great multitude of fish because of their coming. 
 In the language of correspondence, the name of " healing 
 waters " is given to the divine truths. The " house " from 
 beneath whose threshold they gush out is the Word. The 
 " desert " they refresh is the natural mind, therebefore a 
 waste and also void of every token of real life. The " sea " 
 is the natural memory, and the " fish " are the matters of 
 science which it contains. They shall all live spiritually, 
 whenever spiritual truth is permitted to enter them. This 
 prophecy is written in the constitution of our being. " For 
 the spiritual man, by means of the rational, sees his spir- 
 itual things in scientifics as a man sees himself in a 
 mirror, and recognizes himself in them, that is, recognizes 
 his own truths and good; and also confirms his spiritual 
 things by knowledges and scientifics, as well by those 
 known from the Word as those known from the world." 
 
266 
 
 The ancient mind caught a glimpse of the truth that 
 the spiritual man, by means of the rational, sees his spiritual 
 things in the sciences as a man sees himself in a mirror, and 
 recognizes himself in them. But unconsciously that mind 
 endeavored to force the outer world into harmony with 
 principles which, so far from belonging to the Creator, and 
 from being thereby omnipresent and all-applicable in nature, 
 were expressive of finite attributes alone. Far other is the 
 path over which a rational and self-evident system of analogy 
 now throws a stream of light. The mind hi which science 
 will now desire to be lifted heavenward will above all things 
 be humble, knowing its vision to be far too short to reach 
 from nature back to God Himself. However clear and ab- 
 solute any conception may at present appear, or how much 
 more so it may become, the workings of the infinite mind 
 will always be referred to a point still beyond. For the 
 first time in all historic ages, it will be perceived and ac- 
 knowledged that order is heaven's first law ; and the mani- 
 fold series of degrees, means, adaptations and combinations, 
 will not be rashly overleaped in attempting to trace back 
 the links of the chain of causation. The new man of the new 
 age will be too thoroughly convinced that the universe shows 
 a projection of the outlines of infinite wisdom into matter, 
 to need that such conviction should be propped up by warp- 
 ing those outlines to suit a hasty conclusion as to parallelism 
 with the Original. Like a wise one, he will be content to 
 take at first the lowest room, and thereby will be able to 
 receive from time to time the glad bidding of the Master, 
 " Go up higher." He will be assured that Nature, were it 
 most comprehensively and unmistakingly examined, would 
 be thoroughly transparent of the divine light ; but also he 
 will know that this light is often decomposed by the media 
 through which it shines, so that it is not always at first 
 recognizable ; and that in descending it is refracted earth- 
 ward, so that the object that transmits it must often be 
 looked at, not directly but aslant. 
 
267 
 
 This new science will never try to force its way upward. 
 It will ascend so far only as it is beckoned to and drawn up 
 by spiritual truth. And as the gates of hell it will shun 
 that blind and fatuous spirit which vainly essays to plunge a 
 scientific scalpel into the depths of our being, with aim to 
 search out matters which transcend both sensible phenomena 
 and sensuous reasoning. As well might a man " endeavor 
 to discover what a man's will is from an examination of the 
 muscles which fulfill the will in action." For material 
 science may always receive and retain what is insinuated 
 from above, but may never create and propagate ; and Paul 
 spoke a truth as broad as thought and existence, when he 
 declared that flesh and blood cannot enter into eternal life. 
 This impossibility of penetrating into spiritual wisdom from 
 scientific reasoning and comprehension is what the Lord 
 compares to a " camel entering the eye of a needle." As 
 far as it applies to the Christian Church, the serpent story 
 in Genesis has the same signification. Though a church 
 or a man is able to eat of the forbidden tree of knowledge in 
 making the attempt to penetrate, and though he may thus 
 precipitate his fall, yet the inner truths which he wills to 
 grasp and everlastingly pervert, are mercifully placed be- 
 yond his reach. The tree of life is guarded by the flaming 
 sword of his own sensuous proclivities, which turns to eveiy 
 quarter, and by restricting him to the things of sense baffles 
 all his efforts. " The southern land of light and heat," said 
 our heathen forefathers, " is so bright and hot that none can 
 dwell there but those born to the soil. " Moreover, " a 
 Swart One stands at its border and waves a flaming sword, 
 that no one may go in." 
 
 The descent of spiritual truth into our knowledge of 
 nature, will be good not only for religion, but for science, 
 which will thus attain, by sympathy and association, a 
 firmer and more inward foothold in the mind, a foothold 
 in a region where it will be an active and not merely a pas- 
 sive principle. There are some scientific truths that seem 
 
268 
 
 exceedingly more familiar than do others. We feel them to 
 be reasonable in themselves, and hence they seem a part of 
 our very nature, interwoven in the fabric of our being. And 
 seeming thus, they are like instruments with whose man- 
 agement habit has rendered us so familiar, and which so 
 readily we work according to our will, that volition alone 
 seems to produce and control their movements ; just as 
 when a man turns suddenly from speaking with labor a lan- 
 guage with which he is but little acquainted, back to the 
 tongue in which he thinks, and then finds the words flowing 
 of their own accord. Thus too, I must believe, with these 
 renewed and living sciences. They will seem almost native 
 to our souls ; and we shall shape them readily to a thousand 
 adaptations, and recognize them under a thousand shapes. 
 
 How the waters will refresh the desert ! As yet, except 
 to those who follow it for ends for the most part either above 
 or below that of the attainment of its own truths, Science 
 seems a thing hard and dry and bare. It holds but 
 little of that which inwardly delights us in our loves and 
 friendships. Cold, harsh and formal, though truth-telling, 
 it returns us no embrace if we caress it. But in the coming 
 times of the New Jerusalem, scientific studies will be the 
 true humaniora, the genuine humanities. Science, without 
 abating a jot of its uncompromising and inexorable blunt 
 truthfulness, will, by virtue of Analogy, gain a certain hu- 
 manness of feeling, and will assume to every one a manhood 
 like his own. The outlines of the Love-goddess are not less 
 lovely for being shaped in hard marble rather than in the putty 
 which religionists mostly think fit stuff for a scientific cast of 
 thought. That inner mind which underlies our outer thought, 
 &nd which is rarely thrown open to our consciousness, has 
 sometimes pictured to itself, and projected outward into 
 natural images according to inborn laws of correspondence, 
 a renovation such as this ; and the gray-haired poets of the 
 nursery and fireside have handed it down to us as legend. 
 The love of science, such as it has been always and such as 
 
269 
 
 it finds itself to-day, heartless, hopeless, waiting to descend 
 with the body to the grave, does it not figure disguised in 
 more than one idle tale I It is the mermaid, woman from, 
 the waist upward, but below the waist a fish. Her face and 
 form are lovely, and her voice is not less ravishing than 
 that of the sirens that well-nigh wrecked Ulysses. She lives 
 in the depths of the ocean, and her term of life is three 
 ages. But when this time has expired, unless meanwhile 
 she become the wife of a veritable man and thereby have 
 acquired an immortal soul, she must perish utterly, dissolv- 
 ing into froth on the surface of the sea. The love of science 
 ought to be wedded to a truly spiritual intelligence, and ac- 
 quire such a quality of taste and affection as is able to out- 
 last the decay of the senses. It is the yellow-haired Neckar, 
 whose glorious harp travellers often hear in the soft summer 
 nights as he sits on the face of a river ; but this water sprite 
 is sad at heart, despairing of eternal life. It is Undine her- 
 self, wave-born, of the race of mermen, beautiful and grace- 
 ful, but withal mischievous and heartless; sent hither to 
 dwell with us fishermen, to the end that the fellowship may 
 gain her at last a human soul. 
 
 There is yet another reason why we should wish to hasten 
 the time of this new phase of natural truth. In these latter 
 days, an eloquent science is going forth to prepare the 
 way before the coming of the divine wisdom. Like the 
 Baptist, it is spreading abroad the gospel of repentance, 
 not indeed from evils of life, but from false doctrines and 
 blind traditions. The voice of natural truth, like the Word's 
 literal sense, according to the figure, is crying even now in 
 the wilderness, feeding as before on locusts and wild honey, 
 on sensuous facts and natural loves, and is clad as before 
 with the camel's hair garment of scientific embodiment. 
 And Jerusalem and Judea and the Jordan people are going 
 out to it, and they begin to confess the crimes their doctrines 
 have perpetrated against truth and justice. And it washes 
 away much outer filth, while all unable to heal the deep- 
 
270 
 
 seated diseases of which Christian doctrine is dying. But 
 alack! does it lie in the self -confident spirit of modern 
 Science to say, of the Word's inner truth, that there is One 
 who comes after Science who is mightier than Science, whose 
 shoe-latchet even it is unworthy to unloose? Does it confess it 
 is not that Light, but sent only to bear witness of the One 
 whom, standing among us, only a few as yet know, but who 
 still is that Light ? Does this present Science, in great part 
 atheistic and zealous chiefly for name and fame, seem in 
 heart to say, " He must increase, but I must decrease ; he 
 that is of the earth is earthy ; He that cometh from heaven 
 is above all?" Not until Science shall thus speak, can it 
 become the Lord's own messenger, sent to prepare His way 
 before Him. Not till then shall it be found a burning and a 
 shining light, a prophet and more than a prophet. Until 
 then Science is but a reed shaken with the wind. 
 
 STEREOSCOPIC VIEWS. 
 
 A thing seen with two eyes does not seem quite twice as 
 bright as when seen with one eye. The principal benefits 
 gained by double vision are not those of increased brilliancy 
 of color and clearness of outline. In order to understand 
 this, shut one eye and use the other to see how near a gas 
 jet you can pass your finger by guess, without getting 
 burned. You will find that however plain the flame is, and 
 however plain your finger, you have no means of estimating 
 by sight alone the distance of these objects from yourself, 
 nor consequently their distance from each other. To the 
 single eye everything is revealed merely as lying somewhere 
 
271 
 
 in a straight line projected from the eye toward the thing. 
 But the doubled eye surveys by triangulation. The distance 
 between the eyes forms the base of the triangle ; the two 
 sides are drawn from each eye to the object looked at ; and 
 the apex is that object. And, given the base and the adja- 
 cent angles, we can estimate readily and unconsciously the 
 perpendicular let fall from the apex upon the base in other 
 words, the distance from the object to the middle of the 
 nose between the eyes. 
 
 In another respect are two eyes better than one. They 
 make a man able to see part way round a thing. Instantly 
 they do what gradually a man effects by moving the head from 
 side to side when he exam hies an object closely. If what one 
 is looking at is large and unwieldy, he is forced to go round 
 it, in order to see it from different points of view. If small, 
 it is made to revolve, and this produces the same effect. In 
 both cases, however, though he certainly has done himself 
 the service of seeing more than one part of it, he has labored 
 under the disadvantage of seeing the several parts not all 
 together, but in succession, and consequently his idea of the 
 relation between those parts cannot be clear and pictorial. 
 And if their relation is not clearly seen, they then exist in 
 the mind, not justly and truly as parts united by their rela- 
 tions, but as fragments approximately independent of each 
 other. Otherwise in double vision. In this we not only re- 
 ceive different views of the same thing without changing 
 either its position or our own, but we receive them at the 
 same instant, and as one composite view. This is the second 
 great advantage of a " span " of eyes, if I may say so, over 
 one eye, or over two eyes not placed abreast. 
 
 And out of this benefit springs a third. Two eyes recog- 
 nize relief. One eye sees only a picture. Therefore two eyes 
 must judge of the solidity or reality of a thing. From the 
 single eye, depth and thickness vanish, and superficies and 
 superficialities only remain. The factor which converts 
 
272 
 
 seeming into being is cancelled ; and appearance and reality 
 are represented as one and the same quantity. 
 
 This principle of double vision has been applied in vari- 
 ous ways, and indeed with great success, to the photo- 
 graphic art. The operator photographs an object from a 
 convenient point, and then moving his instrument to the 
 right or left a distance greater or less according to circum- 
 stances, photographs it again from this second point. The 
 two pictures are then pasted on a card beside each other, 
 and are known as stereoscopic views. When looked at under 
 glasses properly arranged, one view before each eye, the two 
 become a single impression; and in this case, if the object 
 photographed was small and near at hand, the combination 
 gives the same effect that the object itself would give, in the 
 eyes of a person standing near it. And if the object was 
 large and distant, the combination gives the same effect that 
 the very object would give if brought up close to the ob- 
 server, and dwarfed as it approached him. Or, what is the 
 same thing, it gives the very effect that would result if that 
 large and distant object stood fast, and the man who looked 
 at it were made miraculously wide between the eyes say a 
 foot, or five feet, or fifty feet wide. 
 
 This stereoscope is a great invention. I suspect there was 
 right hard work in coming at it. I do not mean hard work for 
 old Battista Porta (who I suppose deserves the credit) in par- 
 ticular, but hard work for the universal scientific mind of hu- 
 manity, which may perhaps long have labored toward this 
 issue, and doubtless did really beget the idea that Porta only 
 conceived and brought forth to the world. For this thought was 
 so simple ; and humanity is so unwilling to be simple. It was 
 so natural ; and humanity does so dislike to be humble 
 and obsequious toward nature. It was so easy to be got at ; 
 and humanity does so love to get at a thing by long round- 
 about ways and with show of incredible labor. It lay 
 so plumb before the scientific nose; and that nose so 
 instinctively upturns itself at everything that approaches 
 
273 
 
 readily and willingly, and that does not obligingly 
 wait in dark corners to be cleverly smelt out with great 
 glory to the smeller's olfactory acuteness. Any one can 
 guess the secret unconscious under-thought of the scientific 
 faculty whilst it brooded over the yet unhatched invention, 
 and most unintelligently trampled upon it as much as dwelt 
 upon it, and out of mere instinct supplied the warmth which 
 finally enabled it to pip the shell. Was not that under- 
 thought surely this f " How abominable is the new heresy 
 
 in optics ! Seeing a thing from one position is enough. See- 
 ing from two points at once is ridiculous. If both pretend to 
 be views of the same thing, and yet differ from each other, 
 is not that a proof that one or both are false views ? Where 
 is the man that dares say this feat is possible ? be off, ye 
 scamp ; or wait for the madhouse, and be damned in every 
 synagogue of science!" 
 
 The mind of man, as well as his body, has eyes. The 
 laws of mental optics are like those of natural vision. In 
 the mental world as in the physical, there are many sights, 
 and some of them are real and some are only superficial. 
 They lie at various distances, and some more nearly than 
 others concern us. There, as here, varnishes have elevation, 
 but only deep things have perspective. Surfaces there 
 have lateral and vertical extension ; but realities alone have 
 thickness as well as length and breadth, and by con- 
 sequence are differently seen from different positions. What 
 natural vision calls a view, that does spiritual vision call a 
 truth ; but the object itself is called the Good, whereof the 
 corresponding truth is but a picture. Happy are the souls 
 whose inner eyes are set wide apart. For they look at 
 things from different standpoints all at once, and acquire 
 not one view alone, but several; and they put them together, 
 and then they see not mere depictions, however ac- 
 curate, but the solid realities called Goods. They also 
 guess well about spiritual distances, and do not make moun- 
 tains out of molehills. Whoever will, may gain this 
 
274 
 
 vision. From birth up, a proud, selfish, heavy, one-eyed 
 Polyphemus oppresses every one. That one eye of Bigotry 
 must be put out wholly, and the man must escape in deep 
 humility from the murky cavern, calling himself Outis, con- 
 fessing himself a mere nobody. Thenceforward he shall 
 walk abroad, at liberty, in the light, two-eyed, unsquinting. 
 In the mental world may stereoscopic views also be taken ; 
 although most theologians and many philosophers would 
 sooner die than take them. But the mental vision which, 
 in one sense, is full of eyes before and behind, is not re- 
 stricted to the double picture. It sees, or may see, from 
 many quarters at once, and can unite into one conclusion 
 innumerable one-sided views of the whole body of truth. 
 The peculiarities of the several Christian denominations are 
 each such partial views. When properly considered, their 
 differences are far other than contradictions. Only let them 
 be really views of the same thing, namely, religion ; and let 
 that thing be to each a real object, a real religion, real union 
 to God. Let each have two eyes ; let their eyes be 
 opened; let them be truly human and not diabolic eyes. 
 And let some little sunlight shine upon the object of their 
 speculation. That sunlight will not annihilate denomina- 
 tions. It will preserve and develop them, and make each 
 denominational banner more distinct and more lofty than 
 before. It will inspire every denominational watchword with 
 a new emphasis, and at the same time with a sweetness 
 hitherto unnoticed. As between the denominations thus 
 renovated, there will be a tender love and a high esteem in- 
 conceivable to those selfish ones who love and worship only 
 themselves or reverence others only as far as others resemble 
 themselves. Differences will then be acceptable to all, for 
 each man may through them be enabled to supplement his 
 own defective being ; and the present stereotyped views of 
 religion will then be exchanged for stereoscopic views. 
 
275 
 VOWEL-SOUNDS AND THEIR SYMBOLISM. 
 
 Swedenborg divides the vowels into two classes, U and O 
 celestial vowels ; and E and I spiritual vowels. In one 
 place lie puts A with the first, and calls it a celestial vowel. 
 In another he puts it with the last, and calls it a spiritual 
 one. Of course the sounds meant are the continental sounds ; 
 the English pronunciation being completely sui generis. 
 Swedenborg wrote in Latin ; and the pronunciation of Latin, 
 everywhere but in England and the United States, is the 
 continental pronunciation. 
 
 The character of a vowel is determined by the form and 
 length of the vocal tube ; if we understand by this tube not 
 only the throat, but also a portion of the mouth, and even, 
 for most vowels, the whole length of the mouth. The 
 characteristics of each vowel must be known before the 
 difference between the vowels, and the difference between 
 their classes, can be known. The explanation may be 
 tedious ; and it will be useless to pay any attention to it, 
 unless the processes indicated are actually performed by the 
 organs of the voice. 
 
 Let us take the continental values of the vowel letters, viz., 
 A sounds like ah : e sounds like ay in pay : i, like ee : o, 
 like o in note : u, like oo in balloon. 
 
 Begin with a (ah\ which is the real centre of the vowel 
 scale. This sound is generated at a certain point in the 
 throat. There is no present need of entering into particu- 
 lars about the trachea and glottis. The vocal walls are now at 
 ease ; the throat is free and uncontracted. The tongue is 
 well away from the roof of the mouth, and gives above itself 
 free passage to the vocal column. The vocal tube reaches 
 in length from where the sound is generated in the throat, 
 out as far as the lips, the lips lying in a natural position. 
 
 Sounding o (o long), and comparing it with a (ah), we feel 
 the throat somewhat expanded: we find the "ring" of the 
 voice proceeding from a little deeper in the throat, and we 
 
276 
 
 see the lips protruding outward, lengthening the mouth. 
 The characteristics of o (oh) are, a wider throat and a longer 
 vocal tube, the tube being lengthened at both ends. 
 
 Sounding u (oo), and comparing it with o (oh), we feel the 
 throat open still wider ; we find the " ring " coming from 
 still deeper in the throat ; and we observe the lips protruding 
 farther outward, so that the mouth is still farther lengthened. 
 The characteristics of u (oo) are, a still wider throat than in 
 the case of o, and a still longer vocal column. The lengthening 
 occurs at both ends, as before, but in greater measure. Some 
 nations make u (oo) very deep. Its depth can be increased 
 by speaking through a trumpet or other tube. If its base 
 in the throat could also be moved downward, we should 
 have another vowel. 
 
 Having reached this extreme, let us return to ah as the cen- 
 tral point ; and let us work backward from that, reversing the 
 mode of operation we have just been following. This will 
 give us the close vowels ; the former were open ones. 
 
 Broad a (ah) dwindles gradually down and closes by de- 
 grees into flat a (sounded as a in can) ; or, if prolonged, 
 like e in there). It reaches this sound through increasing 
 contraction of the throat, through approximation of the 
 tongue toward the roof of the mouth (by which the size of 
 the vocal column is diminished), and through shallowing of 
 the voice. 
 
 Now e (ay) is produced from this flat sound of a by so 
 placing the upper back part of the tongue as that a secondary 
 or smaller vocal column shall be formed, whose front por- 
 tion (as far as effect upon the character of the sound is con- 
 cerned) shall lie near the middle of the tongue, instead of 
 (as before) at the lips. The vocal column is also shortened 
 at its lower or inner end ; moreover the organs near the base 
 become more constricted. The " ring " seems to come from 
 the same point in the throat as in the case of a flat. But this 
 point is certainly less deep than in a broad (ah). This less- 
 ening of depth is what I mean by shallowing the voice. The 
 
277 
 
 characteristics of e (ay) as distinguished from a (ah) are, 
 constriction of the organs and practically a shortening, or 
 quasi shortening, of the vocal tube on both the lower and 
 upper ends. 
 
 Sounding i (ee), and comparing it with e (ay\ we find that 
 the throat has become still more contracted, and the " ring " 
 still higher up in the throat. This last shortens the vocal 
 tube on the lower end. It is also shortened on the upper 
 end ; this is done by jamming the organs together some- 
 what as in pronouncing a consonantal y; consonantal y is in 
 fact merely a still more closely jammed i (ee). In u (oo), the 
 vowel farthest from i (ee\ provision was made for exces- 
 sive length. In i (ee) extra shortness is brought about 
 by placing the back part of the tongue almost close 
 against the roof of the mouth. All the length then, practi- 
 cally, of the vocal tube lies between the point of origin in 
 the throat, and this aperture between the tongue and the 
 roof of the mouth. The characteristics of i (ee), are more 
 complete contraction of the organs ; and a shortening of the 
 vocal tube at both ends. 
 
 We find, therefore, that u (oo) and o (oh) are distinguished 
 from e (ay) and i (ee) by openness of the vocal organs, and by 
 the absence of constriction ; also by great length of the vocal 
 column. It is from these qualities that they are called celes- 
 tial or voluntary vowels. The length of the vocal column en- 
 sures an easy flow of vibration, from which follows a gentle- 
 ness of timbre I know no English word for the idea con- 
 veyed by this expression. And freedom and openness cor- 
 respond in their nature to the will : for the will perishes and 
 becomes no will, as far as it is constrained. On the other 
 hand, in the case of e (ay) and i (ee), we find a limitation and 
 constriction of the vocal organs a setness and unyielding- 
 ness of form ; as also a shortening of the vocal column. This 
 last induces a greater harshness of timbre. And these vowels 
 are called spiritual or intellectual ones, because the charac- 
 
278 
 
 teristic of the intellect is form. Form is limitation ; it must 
 be set and unyielding ; if not, it perishes as far as it yields. 
 Whoever has a good command of the muscles of the voice 
 can begin at one end of the scale, for instance at u (00), and 
 slide slowly and imperceptibly to the other end, which is i 
 (ee\ producing in succession on the way all the intermediate 
 vowel sounds in a single breath, without interruption of the 
 voice, and without making any one point of distinction between 
 two adjacent vowels. It will illustrate what I say about 
 shortening the vocal tube, if I remark that performing the vo- 
 cal scale in this way sounds just as the noise of water when 
 poured into a vessel which is gradually filled up by it to the brim. 
 The deep noise which is first heard answers to the vowel u 
 (00) ; and the high noise produced when the brim is reached, 
 answers to the vowel i (ee). The others lie between these two. 
 Another sound or set of sounds can be heard at the same 
 time ; one set changes as the air-column in the vessel shortens ; 
 the other set changes as the water-column lengthens. We 
 select different points on this scale, and name them as distinct 
 vowels. But different nations do not select precisely the 
 same points, nor do communities, nor individuals even. One 
 who has a nice ear can distinguish a dozen different shades 
 of a single vowel in the voices of as many acquaintances. 
 Few Americans fail to notice the variety of pronunciation of 
 the vowel a before r, in several sections of the country. In 
 the South, the sound becomes very broad, verging toward 
 au / in the Middle States, the Continental sound (ah) is pre- 
 served; in Eastern Massachusetts, the sound is a trifle 
 flatter. I mention these differences in order to explain why 
 Swedenborg in one place call a (ah) a celestial vowel, and in 
 another, a spiritual one. A. ranges in sound all the way from 
 just short of (oh) down to just short of e (ay). When it 
 verges toward (oh), it is very open, and is to be called a 
 celestial vowel on account of its openness. The Danes rep- 
 resent by aa this open sound of a : we call it au. The Swedes, 
 when they put a small circular mark over , pronounce it 
 
279 
 
 intermediate between au and o (oh), thus still more open. 
 But when a is closed into the flat sound (as in can), then, on 
 account of its closeness, it is to be called a spiritual vowel 
 
 The human voice is a wind instrument and a stringed in- 
 strument combined. In the open or celestial vowels, the 
 wind attachment (if I may call it such) seems more in use ; 
 in the close or spiritual ones, the stringed attachment. The 
 music of wind instruments corresponds to the wishes or to 
 the voluntary 7 part, and that of stringed instruments to the 
 thought or intellectual part. 
 
 Swedenborg says the celestial angels cannot sound e (ay) 
 and i (ee), but change them into eu and y. The reason is 
 that e (ay) and i (ee) are intellectual vowels, and the celestial 
 angels do not admit into themselves the intellectual purely 
 such, but convert it into the voluntary. Instead of e (ay) 
 they have a sound eu. This unites the sound of the spiritual 
 vowel e (ay), and the celestial vowel ic (oo). And simi- 
 larly, instead of i (ee) they have y, which unites the sounds 
 of the spiritual vowel i (ee) and the celestial vowel u (oo). 
 Both these composite sounds are wanting in English. They 
 are found in French, and in most Teutonic tongues. Eu is 
 nearly the French eu (as in peu but as sounded by a 
 Frenchman; Anglo-Saxons very rarely acquire it), or the 
 German 6' (as in Ktoiig). Both this sound and that one 
 which Swedenborg means by y, must be learned by the 
 ear. To produce eu, throw the lips out as if pronouncing u 
 (oo) but at the same time produce e (ay) in the throat. Thus 
 we unite in it the open or voluntary vowel u (oo), and the 
 close or intellectual vowel e (ay). It might be called a 
 celestial-spiritual vowel. 
 
 Y in Swedish is pronounced like u in French (as in du) 9 
 or like u with diaeresis in German (as in mttde). To pro- 
 duce it, throw out the lips as if pronouncing u (oo), but at 
 the same time sound i (ee) in the throat. This very sweet 
 sound unites the voluntary and celestial vowels in itself, and 
 may be called, like the other, a celestial-spiritual vowel. In 
 
280 
 
 aerial vibration, or sound, I suppose it may be compared to 
 the purple color in the vibration of ether, which is light, 
 and which blends in one the celestial red and the spiritual 
 blue. The written Yis made up, like its sound, of 7 (or F 
 as anciently shaped) and T, or iota subscript, an /being below 
 the forked V. The sound represents the union of the will and 
 the understanding. This union is the end and purpose of 
 regeneration ; it takes place when the will does what the 
 understanding knows. Then these two are plainly not two 
 but one harmonious as in that sound, but not identical. 
 So the Pythagoreans in their figurative way called this 
 letter "the Symbol of Health." And then they took the 
 character as it stood after composition ; and disregarding 
 the signification of each part, and taking only the meaning 
 of the whole, called it the " Forkway of Life." For the will 
 and understanding, however they differ on earth, are in 
 reality, in the later years of life, steadily converging toward 
 each other, in both the good and the bad ; and in the other 
 world they make one road, both in the heavenly marriage, 
 in which the will ascends to the* understanding and becomes 
 one with it above ; and in the hellish marriage, in which the 
 understanding descends to the will and espouses it below. 
 The formation of the vowels suggests several interesting 
 points, for which there is no room here. The formation, 
 too, of consonants from vowels is extremely interesting. I 
 cannot imagine any picture which should represent more 
 clearly the leading truths of symbolism with relation to the 
 human mind than does the process of consonantal forma- 
 tion ; the three degrees of the mind ; the existence of two 
 parts in each, with their differences and their resemblances ; 
 the ascent from degree to degree, and the change from part 
 to part ; the outlines of regeneration, and the heavenly 
 marriage. It is good to hear these truths with the bodily 
 ear; and to find the senses so often misinterpretable 
 in spiritual matters repeating distinctly the teachings 
 of reason. At some day, the walls of the New Jerusalem 
 
281 
 
 will rest firmly on the earth, and not merely tower in the 
 air. Not, however, before we shall place them there stone 
 by stone. Nor can any stone be placed before there is a 
 desire to place it, and an eftort to place it. 
 
 THE FORMATION OF CONSONANTS. 
 
 (I have thought it better, in treating this subject, to avoid scien- 
 tific nomenclature.) 
 
 In a previous article I endeavored to describe roughly the 
 formation of vowel sounds, and tried to show in outline the 
 process of transition from open vowels to close ones. This 
 analysis, in dividing them into two general classes, took 
 openness and freedom in pronunciation as the principal 
 ground of distinction. The open vowels were represented as 
 properly and naturally expressive of affection or emotion ; 
 the close ones, of thought or reflection ; the middle vowel, of 
 either the latter or the former, according as sounded more 
 open or more close ; and those vowels which were not mediate 
 between the two classes, but united the characteristics of 
 both, as expressive of the combination or union of those two 
 great principles of the mind. I endeavored to show that the 
 primary and leading vowel, in which vocality or sonorous- 
 ness is the purest, is the most open one ; that this open sound 
 is gradually modulated and contracted by the organs of the 
 voice, and is thus formed into derivative vowels, which in 
 succession become closed more and more, until they reach 
 the last degree of closeness which enunciation permits. And 
 this process of forming the close or intellectual vowels from 
 the open or affectional ones, by successive limitations and 
 
282 
 
 adaptations, was represented as analogous to that mental 
 action by which emotions or impulses apply themselves to 
 mental images, and clothe themseves with ideas or forms 
 drawn from the material world, and thus shape themselves 
 into definite and perceptible thoughts. 
 
 In examining the formation of consonants, I shall merely 
 extend this process to its legitimate conclusion ; and in inter- 
 preting these audible sounds into .corresponding mental 
 principles, shall be guided by the same general analogies. 
 
 The formation of the consonants is a subject which, so far 
 as I know, has received but little attention in any quarter.* 
 At all events, it is one which the usual course of liberal edu- 
 cation does not embrace. Consequently, not only is the ear 
 itself the sole authority I can call to my support, but also it 
 is an authority which must vary with every person, in 
 respect to accuracy and nicety of distinction, according to 
 previous cultivation. Let me request the reader, then, to 
 pronounce, examine, and compare these sounds as they come 
 under consideration, however familiar already they may 
 seem. For otherwise, and unless he clearly perceive their 
 minute characteristics, the endeavor to demonstrate a strict 
 analogy and resemblance between them and qualities of the 
 mind, would result at the very best only in inducing a 
 belief in the existence of general and undefined analogy ; 
 and still would fail to render those qualities themselves 
 tangible to the tongue and audible to the ear, as (so to speak) 
 they may become. 
 
 The essential characteristic of the vowels, let me premise, 
 is Sound. And the essential characteristic of the conso- 
 nants is Articulation. 
 
 * Since 1868, when this little essay was written, the study of con- 
 sonantal formation has greatly advanced. I regret the lack of time 
 to adapt these observations to later discoveries. A method, rather 
 than the facts, is what I wish to set before the reader. 
 
283 
 
 The primary is always the essential, and the essential 
 may be defined as that which a thing is in its simplest self. 
 It is that which is naked, and therefore unvaried and unac- 
 commodated. In speech, plainly, the essential and primary 
 is sound. It is in the vowels that sound is most nearly naked. 
 In these, as compared with the consonants, the voice pours 
 itself out most freely, and rushes forth with the least 
 modification. Hence the vowel sounds are the essential and 
 primary ones. And the consonant sounds are their deriva- 
 tions and modifications produced by various dispositions of 
 the organs of the voice. And vowels progress and ultimate 
 in consonants by a regular and all-applicable process. Let 
 me indicate it by such examples as furnish paradigms in 
 which the English tongue is least defective. 
 
 As before with the formation of the closer vowels, so now 
 with that of consonants, let us begin with the most open, 
 and from this let us derive the closer by successive steps ; 
 and on inherent and audible characteristics of the sounds 
 involved, let us base all analogy or correspondence. Here, 
 however, as analogy demands, we shall find a third class 
 unknown to the vowel scale, yet still a completion and result 
 of the process which before was begun and continued. 
 
 Take the vowel U by which I mean not the diphthongal 
 English sound, but the sound this letter represents in most 
 other tongues, and which may be indicated in English by oo. 
 
 In pronouncing this vowel the voice flows out freely. It 
 may seem, indeed, a closer sound than A (ah), because the 
 lips are protruded in producing it, and the external orifice 
 thus becomes smaller. But the protrusion of the lips pro- 
 ceeds from an effort to lengthen the vocal column ; and as 
 for the size of the outer opening, this does not affect the 
 essential and distinctive character of the vowel ; for that 
 character is determined by the form of the lower part of the 
 column, which lies in the throat where the sound originates. 
 What proves this is, that U (oo) can be produced in a 
 recognizable form without protruding the lips ; as may also 
 
284 
 
 A (ah), although the lips be protruded. But in the throat 
 itself the difference is noticeable. In A (ah) the throat is 
 rather open ; but in U (oo) its walls are expanded still 
 wider, and are felt to be expanded. U (oo) is the most open 
 vowel ; and in it the vocal sound, because least modified, 
 exists in what I shall call its " prior " state. 
 
 But now dispose the lips into a more confined and re- 
 strained position than before ; and endeavor to give the vocal 
 stream a more straitened and determinate form. The result 
 is "W. To observe its power, let some other vowel sound 
 follow it immediately ; let us pronounce, for illustration, the 
 word we. This W sound stands second in the order of 
 derivation. Between U (oo) and W, the relative conditions 
 are chiefly those of freedom and restraint, as also of openness 
 and limitation: of freedom and openness in U, and of 
 restraint and limitation in W. W is merely a moulded U. 
 
 If after producing W, we constrain the lips still further, and 
 employ a greater force of utterance, we produce a third sound 
 called Y. In English, however, and in the languages of most 
 nations in whom the lips have little development, this sound 
 is not produced, like W, between the lips, but between the 
 lower lip and the upper teeth. Yet with some practice, V 
 can be obtained between the lips. And one or two remark- 
 able features in Greek and Sanscrit, which I have no room 
 here to notice, are indications that such was anciently the 
 mode of its formation among the populations which spoke 
 those languages. Full-lipped nations still incline to pro- 
 nounce it thus : witness the substitution of B for V in our 
 American negroes : as also the occasional approximation to 
 such pronunciation in white persons with an unusual de- 
 velopment of the lips, this last chiefly in childhood and 
 youth. The Spanish lower lip is uncommonly full ; and in 
 most parts of Spain V is formed between the lips, and is 
 hardly distinguishable from B. It is even said that such is the 
 genuine and ancient Spanish pronunciation ; and that 
 the other sound is an innovation from the French. 
 
285 
 
 And I appeal to the analogy which other orders of 
 consonantal formation, as of MH from U (oo), and of 
 GH and NH from I (ee), (formations which I cannot here 
 stop to explain), as showing that the general rule is to form 
 the consonants with the very organs from which the vowel 
 whence they are derived respectively receives its finishing 
 touch. Nor is there any more difference between V formed 
 between the lips, and formed between the lower lip and 
 upper teeth, than between the English D formed between 
 the tip of the tongue and the roof of the mouth, and the 
 Spanish D, formed, as it is, between the tip of the tongue 
 and the top of the upper teeth. 
 
 Let us now suppress vocality in V: let the organs be still 
 more constrained, and let a little more force of utterance be 
 developed. We produce a fourth sound, F. This may, like 
 V, be produced between the lips. 
 
 In comparing V with F we find, beside the difference with 
 regard to constraint and f orcibleness a difference which ob- 
 tained between U and W as well a third distinction. V is 
 vocal. F is non-vocal. Evidently, however, if we pair them 
 off, U and W must go by themselves, as resembling each 
 other extremely with regard to comparative openness and 
 freedom ; and V and F must go together, as developing in 
 common a distinctive degree of force and of constraint. 
 Hence we shall make a class of U and W, which, because 
 they are both vocal, we shall call the Vowel class. And of 
 V and F, which require a certain strongly perceptible out- 
 breathing, we shall make a second class, to be called the 
 Aspirate. 
 
 We come now to a third class of derivations which are 
 distinguished between themselves by the same marks as 
 were the members of each of the above classes ; but which, 
 as a class, are farther distinguished by entirely new 
 characteristics. 
 
 Constrain the lips still farther, until they are wholly 
 
286 
 
 closed; and into the confined chamber of the mouth and 
 throat admit a vocality which is necessarily smothered. This 
 begins B. Let us observe that if the lips be not immediately 
 opened, this muttering sound is producible for some mo- 
 ments ; but gradually the air in the mouth becomes com- 
 pressed, until either exit is opened through the nostrils, or 
 else vocality is perforce suppressed entirely: this takes 
 place exactly as when a boy tries to speak into a foot-ball, 
 or into a bladder already distended with air, with his lips 
 closely fitted to the only aperture. In order, then, to form 
 this indistinct noise into a genuine articulate sound, it is 
 necessary to open the lips. The explosion which takes 
 place on opening them produces B, which is fifth in order 
 of derivation. 
 
 Now let the partial and smothered vocality which obtains 
 in B be suppressed : let us cause a still further and more 
 determined constriction of the lips ; and let a still greater 
 degree of force be employed in exploding the consonant. 
 We produce an "ultimate" or derivation sixth in order, 
 called P. 
 
 The characteristics which distinguish B and P from all the 
 preceding formations are the utter and entire constraint and 
 even closing of the organs. The removal of that constraint 
 afterwards aids in characterizing them : it is not, however, 
 the ensuing state of liberty and openness that gives them 
 character, but the change from restraint to liberty ; the basis 
 being restraint and fixedness. Since they differ so decidedly 
 from the others, we shall make of them a third class, calling 
 it the consonantal. We shall call them this, because, though 
 three of the four others are consonantal, the two last are 
 especially, thoroughly and purely consonantal. Observe that 
 the relation between its two members, is precisely that 
 which exists between the members of the second or Aspirate 
 class. I refer to the fact that V, the first of the aspirate 
 class, and B, the first of the consonantal class, are both 
 vocal ; i. e., each has either a clear tone (as distinguished 
 
287 
 
 from a whisper), or else a mumbled tone or rumble ; but F, 
 the second of the aspirate class, and P, the second of the 
 consonantal class, have neither of them a tone or rumble. 
 Whatever tone or rumble or vocality whatsoever may precede 
 or follow them, belongs, not to them, but to some vowel pre- 
 ceding them or following them. We can, therefore, allege 
 that this consonantal class repeats the Aspirate class exactly ; 
 "but, so to speak, in a frozen form. V and F flow or run, so 
 to speak ; but B and P must be snapped off; they are shaped 
 as if they were solids. 
 
 We began with U, and found it naked, free, and compara- 
 tively without limitation. We end with P, and find it 
 moulded, clothed, solidified, as it were. And we derived 
 the latter from the former by steps quite regular, and at 
 each step we gained a distinct sound. And since the un- 
 clothed and unmodified is "prior," and clothing and modifica- 
 tion is subsequent, we have recognized the vowel as prior, 
 the succeeding derivations as ultimations, and the last as 
 ultimates. 
 
 A close vowel may be gradually ultimated into consonants 
 by a process precisely analogous. Take the vowel I, that is, 
 the sound which this letter represents in every language but 
 the English, and ^which in English may be represented by 
 EE. It is only necessary to substitute the back of the 
 tongue and the palate in place of the lips. This series illus- 
 trates the rule even more fully than that just given. Only it 
 is necessary to be acquainted with two sounds of which 
 English is destitute. From I (ee) form Y, exactly as W from 
 U ; from Y form GH (a vocal guttural such as is G in the 
 German Wagen, as pronounced in certain dialects), as V 
 (between the lips) was formed from W: from GH form KH 
 (a non- vocal guttural like CH in the German noch, as F was 
 formed from V : from KH form G (hard as in go), like B 
 from F ; and finally from G form K, like P from B. The differ- 
 ences between the members of this series and between those 
 
288 
 
 of the former, are precisely the same : they are divisible into 
 the same classes as before ; and the characteristics of each 
 class are the same. 
 
 These derivations might be confirmed at length by philo- 
 logical illustrations ; but it seems unnecessary. With regard 
 to other sounds, whether in English, or, as far as I have been 
 able to examine, in other languages, they may all be brought 
 into such general series. The only links which appear ob- 
 scure or missing are the first and second of those series 
 whose ultimates are respectively, T, R, and L ; in each of 
 these three series I can find only the four latter derivations. 
 
 If the above formations be carefully and experimentally 
 examined and compared in their variations and relations, they 
 will be found to exhibit most concise and accurate illustra- 
 tions and images and correspondences of several truths relat- 
 ing to man's spiritual nature. 
 
 First. That Sound corresponds to the will or affections, 
 and Articulation to the understanding or thought. 
 
 The first utterances of children are chiefly vowels or un- 
 modified sounds, rather than consonants or articulations. 
 For will or affection of some kind is present with infants, 
 but not understanding or reflection ; moreover, the muscles 
 necessary for the production of the more solid articulations 
 have not yet received training. As yet there is no intellect 
 by whose operations they might devise modes of determin- 
 ing sounds into various articulations intended to express 
 ideas of thought ; nor have they any thoughts to express ; 
 nor do they need to use the voice-muscles employed in the 
 more solid articulations. And with them the knowledge 
 of language insinuated from without is not acquired till 
 afterward. For the same reason the utterances of beasts 
 are sonorous or vowel-like, and are generally like the opener 
 vowels, but are not articulate. An articulating power has 
 not been evolved, because beasts, although they have affec- 
 tions, are destitute of abstract thought. Birds, too, use the 
 
289 
 
 vowels, because they do not think as men do ; yet since the 
 correspondence of their vital principle is with what is intel- 
 lectual rather than with what is voluntary in man, their 
 evolution was such that the sounds they employ belong to 
 the close rather than the open vowels ; that is, to the vowels I 
 (ee), E (ay), and A flat, and not to U, O, and A open. For al- 
 though, the vowels in general, as compared with the con- 
 sonants, relate to the will, yet the open vowels do this more 
 than do the close ones ; and the close ones relate more to the 
 understanding than do the open ones. This is just as 
 with the human sexes, in which the male is characterized 
 by intellect, and the female by affection ; yet still the male 
 is possessed of affection also, and the female is possessed 
 of intellect also. There are some birds that are able to 
 imitate articulate sounds, and thus produce a kind of speech 
 composed of words which are indeed representatives of 
 thought, although with the birds these are only mechan- 
 ical productions; the birds having no knowledge of such 
 representation, nor does any accompanying and corres- 
 ponding mental form or idea exist with them. Hence merely 
 sensuous men, whose minds are stored with images derived 
 from sense and the outer world, but whose inner being is 
 destitute of the spiritual and heavenly things to which 
 earthly objects variously correspond and which they repre- 
 sent, are compared to such birds, and such birds are their 
 correspondences. Several kinds of birds are able to execute 
 this mimicry, but I think no beasts ; for birds correspond to 
 what is intellectual, but beasts to what is voluntary ; and the 
 intellectual is able to separate itself from the essential nature, 
 and apply itself to any point, and receive impressions thence, 
 however foreign to that nature they may be ; but the will is 
 not so able. Ravens, on account of their color, correspond 
 to men who are plunged in fallacies of the senses ; but to 
 such ravens as have had the tongue split, and thus have been 
 enabled to talk, may be compared those men who are carried 
 away by these fallacies, yet still speak piously about the 
 
290 
 
 truths of the church, though in heart they arc wholly ignorant, 
 being hypocrites and double-tongued. These human crows 
 are also fond of gathering up and hoarding away in the mem- 
 ory such expressions of fact as they may find or steal; but with- 
 out a wish to employ them in any useful way. They value a 
 trinket as highly as a serviceable article ; and a bit of tin they 
 consider as good as silver, provided only it be bright and shin- 
 ing, and that it readily attract attention. There are many 
 such rookeries, especially in the theological world ; and they 
 give out much clamor, and display a great deal of vanity, and 
 make a show of being very busy. 
 
 For the above reason, interjections for the most part 
 are vowels ; especially are those which are common to 
 many languages, and whose origin is innate and not artificial ; 
 that is, which are not contracted from artificial language. For 
 interjections mostly express impulse rather than thought ; 
 hence, too, they are generally open vowels. On the same 
 account, vowels abound in the languages of southern countries; 
 thus the harsh names of Gothic invaders were mellowed in 
 Italy, Spain and France ; but northern tongues tend more 
 to consonantal development. Heat in the natural world cor- 
 responds to affection or impulse in the mental or spiritual ; 
 consequently southern nations are more impulsive, while 
 northern ones are more intellectual ; or, as we say, cooler. 
 Not that natural heat produces spiritual warmth ; but since 
 the body corresponds to the mind, the influence of heat upon 
 the former produces a state of recipiency as regards what- 
 ever spiritually corresponds. Exactly as in a windmill, where 
 indeed the motive force is constant and invisible, but where 
 the arms move either in one direction or the opposite, alto- 
 gether dependently upon the direction in which the fans 
 themselves are braced. Since it is constantly observed that 
 natural causes seem to modify or even to produce what in 
 itself is spiritual, it is often believed that the spiritual is de- 
 rived from the natural ; whereas the truth is, that nature 
 operates only upon nature ; but when the natural substance 
 
291 
 
 which is operated upon is living (as we say), that is, is such 
 in form as that what is spiritual is able to be with it and to be 
 united with it, then any change in its form has one of two re- 
 sults : either the new form is such that it is prepared to re- 
 ceive, and thereby does receive, something analogous which 
 is spiritual in which case it continues ali ve ; or else it is now 
 unfit in form for the reception of what is spiritual, in other 
 words, it dies. In every case the origin of life is spiritual, 
 although the mode of its manifestation and effect in matter 
 will always depend upon the quality and arrangement of 
 that matter. 
 
 Second. That the Will is the essence and substance, and 
 the Understanding is the Will's form and development : 
 
 Taking vowels, or sounds more purely vocal, as correspond- 
 ing to the will, and taking consonants or articulations as cor- 
 responding to the understanding, the process of development 
 of affection into thought is illustrated by the gradual deriva- 
 tion of consonants from vowels. That development takes 
 place through the introduction of various affections of the 
 consciousness into different mental forms, that is, into ideas 
 originally copied into the mind from the outer world but 
 subsequently often modified. Such development of the will 
 into the understanding takes place through a delimitation 
 and distinction of those various affections which before were 
 united in an indistinct and general whole ; and the delimita- 
 tion and distinction of the matters belonging to the will 
 are brought about by means of discriminating them ; and 
 this discriminating of them becomes* possible as far as the 
 ideas or mental pictures in which they are now enclosed are 
 discriminate. This process is similar to that in human utter- 
 ance, by which the effluent vocal or vowel takes modifica- 
 tions upon itself, according to the forms into which the 
 organs of the voice receive it. 
 
 Third. That the mind is divided into three regions, 
 called celestial, spiritual, and natural : and that these bear 
 
292 
 
 among themselves the relations of first cause or end, middle 
 cause or means, and effect or act : 
 
 We arranged the whole series into classes ; namely U and 
 W, in the first or vowel class ; V and F, in the second or aspi- 
 rate ; and B and P, in the ultimate or thoroughly consonantal 
 class. We found each class naturally distinct from the others, 
 and possessed of different characteristics. We found also that 
 the essential or primary in the series lay in the first class ; and 
 that the essential or primary resulted at last in the ultimate 
 consonants of the third class. But this took place by de- 
 grees, and intermediately through the second class V and F ; 
 that is, through the aspirates. Moreover, if we enter into a 
 minute examination of B and F, we shall find that the same 
 aspirate quality is present in these consonants, and really 
 accomplishes their formation. This aspiration consists in 
 the rapid motion of the breath through a narrow opening 
 in pronouncing V and F. This same motion occurs in B 
 and P, at the very instant that the lips are released, while 
 yet they are scarcely parted. It is at this instant that they 
 acquire their consonantal character ; not before this, because, 
 till then, pronunciation was impossible ; and not after this, 
 because what follows is simply vocal. In English this pre- 
 cipitate aspiration, equivalent to an explosion, is not very 
 distinctly audible. The French explode the consonants 
 forcibly ; and the more southern Latin tongues explode 
 them into a vocal. 
 
 The aspirate function, then, acts as middle cause or means. 
 
 Fourth. That each of these mental regions is made up 
 of two parts ; one of which relates to the will, and the other 
 to the understanding : 
 
 Beginning with the vowel class, corresponding to the celes- 
 tial region, we find U (oo), which answers to the will in that 
 region, to be characterized by softness, freedom, and openness. 
 But in W, which corresponds to the understanding, we find 
 a degree of moulding or restraint. There is no harshness 
 however, such as exists in the corresponding sounds of the 
 
293 
 
 other classes ; for in the celestial region the gentleness of the 
 will pervades even the understanding. In the second or as- 
 pirate class, corresponding to the spiritual region, we find V, 
 which answers to the will in that region, soft, free and open : 
 not indeed in comparison with the members of the first 
 class, but decidedly so, when compared with F. For this 
 last sound, as corresponding to the intellectual faculty of the 
 same region, is characterized by the opposite qualities ; viz. , 
 hardness, constriction and closeness. In the third or con- 
 sonantal class, we find the same kind of relation between B 
 and P ; the former relating to the will, and the latter to the 
 understanding, of the natural degree. 
 
 Let us in the first class observe particularly that even the 
 derived form (W), answering to the understanding of the ce- 
 lestial mind, partakes of the vocality of the vowel whence it 
 is derived. It is thus with celestial truth ; which can hardly 
 be represented to planes below the celestial, as other than 
 affection itself. Indeed, celestial affection is celestial truth, 
 when such truth is considered as bearing, not inwardly, or 
 towards its origin, but as bearing outwardly, or towards its 
 effect and application. So that if the first great command- 
 ment of love to God is the essence of celestial good, then 
 the second commandment of love to the neighbor is the sub- 
 stance of celestial truth ; and the second is the outward 
 bearing and application of the first. 
 
 But in the second class, corresponding to the spiritual de- 
 gree, vocality or sonorousness exists in only the former of the 
 pan* (V), it being quite extinguished with the latter (F). And 
 so too in the third class, corresponding to the natural region 
 of the mind, B is, to a certain extent, sonorous ; P is not in 
 the least so. There is an analogous difference between the 
 will and the mere understanding, whether spiritual or natu- 
 ral : the understanding in both these degrees is not infilled 
 with love as in the celestial mind, but consists of only form 
 and figure, and also the form and figure are harsher than 
 when love afterwards enters in and softens them. 
 
294 
 
 Observe, too, the kind of sonorousness by which B is char- 
 acterized. It is not clear and open like V, still less like U ; 
 but is half-smothered until the consonant is exploded. Here 
 the correspondence is with merely natural affection or desire, 
 which is blind, limited, dumb as in the brute kingdom which 
 corresponds to that affection. 
 
 Taking vocality and supereminent softness as expressive 
 of the voluntary nature, we find that the first class (U and W) 
 image Love, or the celestial degree. Taking aspiration and 
 mouldedness as correspondences of the intellectual nature, 
 we find the second class (V and F) imaging the intellectual 
 or spiritual degree. And taking solidity, fixedness, weight 
 and power, as correspondences of ultimate act or effect, we 
 find the consonantal class (B and P) representing the ulti- 
 mate or natural degree. 
 
 If we consider the will and understanding of each degree 
 as being married pairs in the mind, and if we pair the corres- 
 ponding sounds, we shall have an image of the ascent from 
 degree to degree, as it takes place in regeneration. Beginning 
 with B, as corresponding to the natural will and its desires, 
 and with P, as corresponding to the natural understanding 
 and its sciences, we open the sound of P by relaxing the 
 organs of speech in order to permit a freer path for the vocal. 
 In opening the sound of P, we produce F. Now admit sonor- 
 ousness into F, and also soften it slightly ; thereby we pro- 
 duce V. Similar to this process is the ascent from the natural 
 to the spiritual degree. The natural thought and reflection are 
 first opened so as to assume spiritual forms, that is, ideas of 
 spiritual truth : this is the primary step, and evolves the spirit- 
 ual understanding. If, afterward, the spiritual ideas or forms 
 of thought receive into themselves, as into moulds and vessels, 
 the spiritual loves of which they are the due and proper shapes 
 and expression ; if, in other words, truth is inspired with good, 
 and faith is insouled with charity, then from the outmost form 
 of the spiritual understanding, from its very shell, from the rib 
 of the man. a bride and wife is formed for it, which new for- 
 
295 
 
 mation, thus vivified by charity, combines in itself both will 
 and understanding, together " with a perception of all the 
 good of love and truth of faith, and the consequent posses- 
 sion of wisdom and intelligence conjoined." If any one will 
 take the trouble carefully to examine the formation of these 
 sounds, he will find these things so clearly, though instantly, 
 expressed in them, that no written language could express 
 them more exactly. He will find them so expressed in the 
 opening of P into F; in the appropriation of the outer 
 form, or, so to speak, the shell of F, as the continent of a 
 new formation ; in the subsequent softening and vocalization 
 of that outer form ; and in the ensuing combination and 
 union of the form of F and the vocal of V ; which union 
 obtains in the latter. Let me try to illustrate this point 
 by an example which may seem a far-fetched one. In 
 French, sage means wise ; but when applied to a child, 
 since children are less able than are grown persons to 
 separate the will and understanding, or, in other words, to 
 know, but to act against knowledge, then it means not 
 barely wise but good. It is wisdom of this quality, but of 
 higher degree, i. e., the wisdom of life, that in this use 
 is properly understood by the word sage. 
 
 The sound of V resembles that of W ; so much that the 
 common people, though more in England than in the United 
 States, employ them interchangeably. Words which in 
 English contain the sound of W, are generally found in 
 German pronounced much as with a V, though spelled with 
 W. With GH and Y, of the other series, the case is 
 much the same. Words beginning with G, which in Hol- 
 land are often pronounced with the GH aspiration, are in 
 some German dialects sounded as Y, though spelled with G. 
 Most words in English, beginning with Y, were spelled in 
 Anglo-Saxon with G, and evidently were pronounced as GH. 
 Like this resemblance between the second of the highest 
 pair and the first of the middle pair, is that which exists be- 
 
296 
 
 tween celestial truth and spiritual good : one essence per- 
 vades both. 
 
 V, the former of the second class, is derived from W, the 
 latter of the first class. But B, the former of the third 
 class, cannot properly be said to come from F, the latter of 
 the second ; because, unlike F, it contains vocality. In other 
 language, spiritual good is essentially derived from celestial 
 tiuth: yet natural good is not so derived from spiritual 
 truth, but from the will-principle of the higher regions, 
 which in it becomes materialized and comparatively obscure. 
 
 The pair U and W which make the vowel class, present 
 in their intimate relations and close resemblance, an image 
 of the celestial marriage in the mind. And doubtless the 
 transition from the aspirate to the vowel class, or from V to 
 W and U, represents perfectly the ascent thither from the 
 spiritual marriage in the mind. In the aspirate class, it is 
 V, the former of the pair, that combines the qualities of 
 both. In other words, the conjugal principle of the spiritual 
 degree lies with the voluntary of that degree ; that is, with 
 the wife ; for in the spiritual marriage the voluntary part 
 is the wife. But in the celestial marriage, properly speaking, 
 the male is the voluntary 7 , and the female the intellectual 
 part. Hence in the vowel pair, we find the latter, that is, 
 W, uniting the qualities of both. It would seem that in the 
 celestial marriage the conjugal still lies with the wife. 
 
 He who is inclined to believe that the formation of conso- 
 nants, as described above, images that of the soul, will by 
 very many persons certainly be considered credulous. And 
 he who supposes that these formations can therein be excep- 
 tions to the course of universal nature, or that other depart- 
 ments of science can be either less or more correspondential, 
 than these hap-hazard selections are more or less seen to be, 
 certainly ought to be considered credulous. In the belief 
 of all thinking beings, Correspondence between Spirit and 
 Matter applies to particulars, and to the minutest particulars, 
 or else does not apply to generals. It exists everywhere, or 
 
297 
 
 it exists nowhere. It ie as unerring as the science of 
 mathematics, or else it is a complete error. Two straight 
 lines are nowhere parallel, unless they are parallel through- 
 out. 
 
 PARSIFAL. 
 
 The science of correspondence, with a thorough study of 
 the plot of this opera and of the legends on which it is 
 based, brings its inner motives into a clear light. Of 
 course in the composition of the plot and of the myths on 
 which it is based, there was no conscious application of the 
 laws of correspondence ; but these laws are innate in every 
 man's inner nature, whence issues each effort toward expres- 
 sion ; and they are indeed the necessary laws of expression. 
 The outer world must furnish materials for constructing the 
 plot ; but that same inner nature (in which the laws of cor- 
 respondence preside) governs the selection and arrangement 
 of those materials. In every creation of fancy correspond- 
 ence may be justly called the architect. But the author of 
 the legend is always more or less unconscious of this law. 
 He works by instinct, though he works according to the laws 
 of correspondence ; or at best he has but a most imperfect 
 sense of the laws by which he works. And thus all true 
 geniuses are more or less like the bees, which build cells in 
 strict conformity with the laws of geometry, and whose opera- 
 tions involve many truths regarding sines, versed sines, 
 tangents, co-tangents, hypothenuses and the like ; but the 
 bees do not reflect upon or know these truths. 
 
 Let us glance at the plot of Parsifal. 
 
 The Holy Grail, the cup whence the wine of the Last 
 Supper was drunk, is every one's mental receptacle of the 
 
298 
 
 Holy ; his capacity for the reception of Divine Truths in the 
 intellect and in practice ; a faculty which, with men (as they 
 run), is comparatively obscure, or even is quite hidden from 
 their every-day external sphere of thought. The unveiling 
 of the Grail in its shrine, from time to time, is the occa- 
 sional dawning of this faculty into consciousness, and then 
 the Grail is said to shine and glow ; and the sight, i. e., 
 the perception, of it inwardly, gives strength and delight ; 
 and thereupon are eaten as it were the bread and wine of 
 the Holy Supper ; that is to say, there is felt the supporting 
 influence of Divine Love in the heart, and of Divine Eeason 
 in the mind. 
 
 Amfortas (anima fortis, dme forte, Bunyan's Greatheart), 
 the ruler of Monsalvat, is that principle in man, from God, 
 which battles with the Evil, and is wounded and worsted at 
 times by the Evil. 
 
 The castle of Monsalvat (mons salvationis, Salvation 
 Mount, or Hill of Spiritual Health), is the high fortress of 
 the soul, a " rock of defence," the stronghold of all that is 
 lofty and heaven-loving. It w r as built by Amfortas' father, 
 to guard the Holy Grail ; and in it, and among its forests, 
 and by its lake, dwell all Knights of the Grail, i. e., all true 
 warriors who fight the Evil which is in themselves ; and there 
 in Monsalvat they guard the holy emblems, and hold the 
 Love-feast in which the Heart feeds on the Good and the 
 Intellect drinks in the True. They sing hymns at the feasts 
 in this Christian Valhalla. The Knights sing standing on 
 the floor, as befits each "ITnecht" who as yet are but serv- 
 ing men ; and who, in much which they deny themselves, 
 are not yet quite willing to deny themselves, and often must 
 work against the grain ; therefore they as yet plod along the 
 base and foundation of the Health-Castle. Their song, the 
 harmonious outworking (and thus expression) of spiritual 
 affections, comes as yet from no lofty plane. A loftier source 
 whence these soul-melodies float downward, is in the mid- 
 height of the Hall where young men are singing. These 
 
299 
 
 young men are the intellectual principles of the True ; they 
 have outgrown the state of blind obedience, and the Truth 
 has come to " call them friends ; " and, serving Truth more 
 than before, because serving it intelligently, they know, as 
 servants cannot know, what it, their Lord, is doing in this 
 their work. But out of the very dome streams the sound of 
 children's voices in the hymn. The height from which they 
 sing is the inmost heaven of the soul, where neither blind 
 obedience governs, nor yet clear-sighted intelligence, but 
 Love itself which produces its own intelligence like instinct, 
 and through that instinct works itself out into visible Con- 
 duct. These lofty angelic principles of Love in the soul are 
 what " always behold the face of the Father ; " they are the 
 same as the " Elves of Light " who dwell in Gimli, the third 
 and highest heaven of our forefathers. 
 
 Klingsor is the external sensuous principle, misplaced; 
 made ruler instead of subject. Once Klingsor thought to be 
 a Knight of the Grail, but the evil in him withheld him. 
 He turned utterly bad ; became the Knights' foe, learned 
 magic, and cozened the Knights. His magic is the bewitching 
 delight of the senses. The life of sensuous gratification, 
 divorced from spirituality, is a mere wilderness, wherein no 
 true manhood (nay, no good thorough unperverted animal-li f e) 
 can be found. But this wilderness is turned into a seem- 
 ing fairy garden by warlock sleights ; Klingsor and they whom 
 Klingsor has enchanted can see nothing there but fairy- 
 land. His magic has peopled it with beautiful maidens, the 
 delights of the five senses, and ever they are seducing the 
 Knights of the Grail. Amfortas himself was vanquished 
 thus, and got thus the spear-wound whereof he lies ill unto 
 death, while he lay in unholy arms. 
 
 Kundry, who does excellent service to the Knights, and 
 yet is now and again spell-bound by Klingsor (and then 
 works them mischief), is the natural unregenerate affection 
 for a Higher. With a hearty love for Monsalvat, she still 
 is driven to evil deeds by Klingsor ; she is unhappy and longs 
 
300 
 
 for rest. At the end, when Klingsor is overcome, she dies. 
 The part she plays is most touching, and indeed sad be- 
 yond expression. But inwardly there is no sadness ; for 
 the death of Kundry in the hour of victory represents a 
 state of quiescence of the merely natural principle, in 
 which state it acts, not from itself, but in entire consonance 
 with, and dependence upon, the spiritual principle ; and 
 this death is not really death, but is resurrection to a true 
 life. 
 
 Parsifal is called a fool. In ignorance he shoots a holy 
 swan in the Monsalvat territory. He had grown up in the 
 woods and he knows next to nothing. They caught him in 
 the act, and brought him into the Hall, and he saw the Holy 
 Grail brought out and uncovered, and he heard the hymn, 
 and saw them feast at the Holy Supper. They now ask him 
 if he understands this which he sees, and he says no. They 
 declare he is an utter fool, and they turn him out at a side- 
 door and send him a-tramping. 
 
 What Parsifal is, it is not so easy to say, as what he is 
 not. Of the principle of self -derived Intelligence he is the 
 very opposite. They call him fool, and like a fool he looks 
 and acts. He stands for a certain rude and simple principle 
 in the mind, which has innocence in it for its essence. This 
 principle at first seems (and indeed is) stupid in all the lofty 
 themes of theology. Parsifal kills the holy swan, in other 
 words brings down in death some rather gross and un- 
 spiritual (yet natural, harmless, and by virtue of associa- 
 tion holy) conception of religious dogma. But, later, Par- 
 sifal's unconscious inner worth grows out. Drawn by a 
 magic swan again, progressing on (and by) a lowly natural 
 plane, he advances against Klingsor's enchanted castle. In 
 Tain does Kundry (spell-bound by Klingsor) strive to bland- 
 ish him. He routs Klingsor's knights ; he overcomes the 
 evil in its outward forms of action. Thereupon also sinks 
 utterly away Klingsor's tower the false in the Intellect is 
 conquered. But now the struggle of the regenerating man 
 
301 
 
 shifts from the intellectual to the voluntary region of the 
 mind. Instead of the watch-tower, Parsifal beholds a beau- 
 tiful garden, and the bewitching maidens. These maidens 
 are frightened at his appearance. In other words, it seems 
 to the sensuous part of the regenerating man as if the com- 
 ing rule of the spiritual were about to destroy all the delights 
 of sense. The maidens beg him not to hurt them. He an- 
 swers kindly; and then they grow merry (how perfect is 
 this symbolism !) ; and they come to him and caress him. 
 He repulses them, gently at first, then more and more 
 roughly. They vanish, and Kundry stands there alone and 
 tempts him. He is about to yield, but all at once he feels 
 in his side a wound like Amf ortas' wound ; and the scene of 
 the Holy Supper in the Hall of Monsalvat comes before his 
 eyes. He throws off Kundry. Klingsor appears and hurls 
 at him the same spear with which the Saviour's side was 
 pierced. But Parsifal grasps it, and makes the sign of the 
 cross ; Klingsor's spell is suddenly broken ; the garden 
 turns into its reality a desert ; and the damsels become 
 withered flowers. 
 
 In the last act, Parsifal re-appears at Monsalvat, and brings 
 back the sacred spear whose loss has caused the misfortunes 
 of Monsalvat. He baptizes Kundry ; he heals Amfortas 
 with the point of the sacred spear ; he is anointed King; he 
 opens once more the shrine of the Holy Grail ; and there- 
 upon Kundry dies. 
 
 How true to life, in the spiritual sense, is all this story ! 
 
302 
 THE BISHOP OF CAELISLE ON EVOLUTION. 
 
 In the Churchman of March 3d, 1883, is a notice of a 
 lecture on Evolution, by the Bishop of Carlisle, delivered at 
 the Bradford Church Institute. In a part of the lecture he 
 is reported as follows : 
 
 " Darwin suggested a way in which it might be conceivable that 
 this evolution came about. The advantage of Darwin's hypothesis 
 was, that although it was confessedly wanting in facts by which it 
 could be fully substantiated, it nevertheless could be said to be 
 suggested by experiment and observation. Remarkable transfor- 
 mations could be put in evidence as having taken place, as, for 
 instance, in the breeds of pigeons ; and when the possibility of 
 change was admitted, there was much in the doctrine of natural 
 selection to recommend it. But the conclusion to which he [the 
 Bishop] had been brought, after long consideration, was that the 
 hypothesis seemed to be entirely inadequate to explain the facts of 
 the case. He did not deny that natural selection might be a fact, 
 and an important fact, or that selection in relation to sex might be 
 another fact, and also an important one ; but, acknowledging such 
 facts as these as important, he could not perceive that they 
 adequately accounted for such results as the existence of man. 
 They seemed to him to be at best what might be called modifying 
 circumstances in the great drama of evolution to which geology 
 bore witness. There was, so far as he could judge, nothing in the 
 hypothesis of natural selection which could be regarded as taking 
 the place of a creating cause, working to a fixed form or a pre- 
 conceived plan." 
 
 Whatever be the reader's drift of thought, he should be 
 gratified in finding such candor and open-mindedness 
 toward a scientific doctrine new to most religionists and 
 essentially obnoxious to the prevailing sensuous views of 
 religion. I think the Bishop's opinion that Darwin's 
 " hypothesis " (if understood as excluding a personal 
 Creator) seems inadequate to account for the whole 
 eventual human product will be shared by that little knot 
 of Christians who maintain the doctrine of evolution 
 on purely religious grounds, as the one invariable 
 
303 
 
 method of creation pursued by Christ the Logos, in the 
 physical as well as in the moral world ; and as indeed the 
 only possible method pursuable by a creative Logos whose 
 very name means Ranging, Order and Law. For man's 
 body, and for his merely natural and ordinarily conscious 
 mind, the Christian evolutionist will not deny an ape-like 
 ancestry. But for the making of the spiritual and immortal 
 element of man, his creed depicts an outflow of life from 
 the Creator essentially different in degree from that purely 
 earthy vitality whose inflow was necessary to convert 
 primeval clusters of inanimate particles bound together 
 only by chemical affinities, into the rudest forms of primitive 
 life. By evolution indeed, according to his belief, the crea- 
 tion of both the spiritual and natural elements in man pro- 
 ceeded, and daily and instantly still proceeds. The respect- 
 ive sources however, whence immediately they are evolved, 
 are always twain, and are utterly uninterchangeable. By no 
 possible arrangement and development of physical particles 
 can conscience and a spiritual faculty be evolved out of 
 physical substance ; however necessary an arrangement and 
 development of inorganic substance may be, -in order to fit 
 that substance to become an organ for the reception of any 
 degree of life whatever. Conscience itself and the man him- 
 self, invisible and spiritual, are evolvable only out of spiritual 
 and invisible substance, by fashionings that are the work of 
 God and God alone. And wherever is found a physical form 
 adapted through countless ages of evolution to be the 
 physical counterpart of this spiritual element, there straight- 
 way, and by virtue of the divine omnipresence and the conse- 
 quent presence of the spiritual, is Man proper created. But 
 just as a house shall be named from the liver in it, and not 
 he from the house, so man proper consists of man 
 spiritual, and does not consist of the natural body which he 
 has in common with the ape, nor even of the natural mind 
 which also he has in common with the ape. The 
 creation of true man is the creation of his spiritual element 
 
304 
 
 alone. The Darwinists, on the other hand, and the sensuous 
 theologians of our day upon the other, have been waning 
 over terms only, to which terms they give different meanings. 
 The Darwinists are speaking of man as physical, and they claim 
 for this man an orderly physical origin. The theologians, 
 in great part, have been thinking of man spiritual, of man 
 invisible, immortal ; of an element of him with which physi- 
 cal science has no concern ; of an element which takes not 
 its substance from nature, and which therefore at dissolution 
 cannot be given back to nature. Few or none of those Dar- 
 winists who in heart believe that this spiritual and invisible and 
 immortal element exists, will assert that it is inherited from 
 the ape. Nor will those Christian believers whose eyes look 
 upward for the origin and destiny of man's spiritual nature, 
 refuse to look downward for the origin and destiny of his 
 mortal part. The trouble is that Christians have little belief 
 in the reality of spiritual substance ; and therefore the notion 
 of a spiritual creation, apart from some natural creation con- 
 ceived by them to have been effected at the same instant, 
 seems as shadowy and improbable as they deem the notion 
 of spiritual existence apart from natural existence. And 
 this, in an age of spiritual blindness, is unavoidable and 
 therefore permissible in the divine economy ; even as a belief 
 in the resurrection of the material body has been unavoidable 
 and therefore permissible. Just as men have not been able 
 to receive the truth that a human soul lasts after death, un- 
 less by being allowed to think of the body as rising too, so 
 likewise now they cannot believe in the creation of a human 
 soul unless a body also were created, not beforehand, but at 
 that very instant. That through numberless thousand-year 
 days Christ should have been creating that body ; that with 
 infinite foresight He should have wrought matter upward 
 toward it, by steps innumerable, with patience inexhaustible, 
 with aim unthwartable, by might inconceivable all this is 
 as naught to them ; it shall not be so, because so they will 
 not have it. The divine parables of Genesis they will reject, 
 
305 
 
 unless they may take them in baldest literalness ; and they 
 will not believe in man's divine origin unless in imagination 
 they can see the Ancient of Days then and there suddenly 
 moulding into human form a mass of real, tangible clay out 
 of which clay if man had not been formed, some bricks could 
 have been manufactured enduring unto this day. 
 
 But just as in the evolutionary process of formation, 
 through merely chemical affinities of substances fitted to re- 
 ceive the lowest primitive forms of life, the Christian evolu- 
 tionist beholds a divine plan of preparation for the outbirth 
 of the earthly degree of life ; so in the evolving and ascend- 
 ing series of vegetable and animal forms, climbing upward 
 through natural selection and culminating in the ape, does he 
 behold a divine plan of preparation of a house for the recep- 
 tion of Man proper, a form of spiritual life, which, looking 
 down on its apish earthly tenement, turns in worship to its 
 Creator, saying, " A body hast thou prepared me." And just 
 as the Christian evolutionist views in the body's ape-like 
 ancestors a mere clod of earth and earthy vitality, put to- 
 gether by steps of orderly selection, into which a spiritual 
 form of life was thereafter to be breathed, and in which an 
 immortal being was thereby to be created, so will he also 
 behold in Christ's whole maternal ancestry, from the primeval 
 moss down to the Virgin, a series of steps in the orderly 
 creation of a human tabernacle into which, not a mere earthy 
 vitality like that of the moss, nor a spiritual life like that of 
 men, but the Father of Spirits himself, the Soul of the uni- 
 verse, was to be born without human fatherhood an out- 
 working into nature of Him who from the dawn of time had 
 sent mosses and fishes and beasts, and at last men, to prepare 
 His way before Him. 
 
 What Christian evolutionists will less approve in the 
 Bishop's observations is the failure to recognize natural 
 selection as itself a method used by the Deity in creating. 
 For the tendency in such observations is the same as in 
 those of the materialists who fail to regard the daily process 
 
306 
 
 of animate nature as pregnant with divine creative efflux, 
 and as being itself the mere tool of the Creator. An un- 
 natural selection (could such be found in the universe) is 
 what both they and the sensuous theologians of this age would 
 hail as an evidence of the presence of Deity. But because 
 only natural selection can be found in nature, and because 
 for each step im advance in species the preparation has been 
 so thorough that no difficulties in making the advance are 
 observable, and therefore no clever man-like make-shifts to 
 obviate them are discoverable, the materialists conclude there 
 cannot be a God, and the theologians conclude that He does 
 not work in the ordinary processes of animated Nature. To 
 the laws of the Divine Wisdom impressed upon, and as it 
 were frozen into, the forms of inanimate Nature, they shut 
 their eyes in the same manner. If John falls from a roof 
 and does not break his neck, the theologians will call this 
 providential ; but in the law of gravitation whereby both 
 roof and house stand fast, and John is steadied on this spin- 
 ning ball, and not whirled off into boundless Boom and by 
 which law also at another fall his neck shall be thoroughly 
 broken in all this some of them see no providence whatever. 
 More Christian -like views than these will be held by Chris- 
 tians, in proportion as, through genuine repentance from evils 
 of life, God shall gain entry into their daily Conduct. Then 
 His hand, exerted in symbolic painting and sculpture, shall 
 be discerned everywhere in Nature. Not of old alone, but 
 now, daily, instantly, shall He be seen creating the forms of 
 animated Nature ; shall be seen creating always from within, 
 and never by force external ; creating always " with the grain/ 1 
 and as if spontaneously ; suffering matter to move by its na- 
 tive forces as softly as He moves men's wishes ; silently creat- fc 
 ing, with a voice so still and small that all who know not of 
 God shall swear the creature created has made itself, so 
 easily and naturally has that creature come about. " We 
 see what we bring eyes to see." Truth shall spring out of 
 the very earth, as soon as righteousness shall look down 
 
307 
 
 from heaven. In that day shall the deaf hear the words of 
 nature's book, and the eyes of the blind shall be opened. 
 God has declared the former things from the beginning, He 
 shewed them, He did them suddenly, and they came to pass. 
 From this time, even from this time, He has shewed us new 
 things, even hidden things, and we did not know them ; they 
 are created NOW, and not from the beginning. 
 
 DAEWIN AND SWEDENBORG. 
 
 Darwin places Swedenborg's reader on a vantage ground 
 whence more clearly than from elsewhere he descries a full 
 and downright meaning in the seer. The latter's sayings, 
 often strange, and even by an adept construable as metaphor 
 alone, get suddenly a sound of sober and literal descriptive- 
 ness, when heard in the atmosphere of Darwin's science. The 
 types and figures which the non-Darwinian reader of Swe- 
 denborg has to be conjuring up in his mental world, in 
 order to carry along and bear up Swedenborg's thought, 
 present themselves before the Darwinian's very eye, so to 
 speak ; and out of a world supposed to be one of type and 
 figure and fancy alone, they drop plump into the world of 
 fact and sensuous experience. 
 
 It is with man's body and with his merely natural mind, 
 and not in the least with his spiritual constitution and its 
 origin, that Darwin has to do. Whatever were Darwin's 
 belief as to the latter, or whatever his non-belief, let us 
 admit that he has given more food for reasonable thought 
 upon the former subjects than any other man, or perhaps 
 than all men beside. If Swedenborg complements Darwin, 
 and fills with an orderly creation the empyrean which to 
 
308 
 
 Darwin was blank and cheerless, not less truly does the 
 naturalist, with his longer-accumulated store of science, sup- 
 ply to Swedenborg's lofty tower a solid and perfectly adapted 
 foundation of sensuous reality, where before was a realm of 
 speculation and expectancy. Of examples which I think 
 innumerable, let me here give one. 
 
 According to the formerly prevailing theory, the great 
 gulf that parts men from beasts is in their physical nature. 
 From the very first, says this theory, the ape had his body, 
 and the man had his ; and when man came, a special cre- 
 ation of his body was the means whereby. By Darwin, 
 man's body and man's natural mind are descended from some 
 ape ; and the Swedenborgian Darwinist holds that between 
 ape and man, the sole essential difference is that the latter 
 carries, within the ape-like body and mind, an inward and 
 here invisible and half -unconscious man who survives the 
 outer ape, and then lives like a man if here he had ruled the 
 ape in him, and like an ape if here the ape had ruled the man. 
 He believes that for body to this inner soul the ape was grad- 
 ually evolved in creation, according to the divine purposes and 
 by divine forces, working in and through Natural Selection ; 
 that into the fittest members of anthropoid tribes, and 
 doubtless into the ovum, the germs of this inner and upper 
 humanity were inserted, as if for a finite and fragmentary 
 incarnation ; that the unknown date of this insertion is the 
 date of man's creation ; that this true humanity makes one 
 with the simian frame which simulates its shape, and that 
 varying by descent like that frame, this true humanity is per- 
 petuated like it from generation to generation. To one who 
 thus believes, how simple and un-overstated seem these words 
 of Swedenborg : " As to man natural, man is like to beast, 
 and life throughout he takes upon him this image. That is 
 why in the world of spirit there are beasts of all sorts seen 
 around men, kind for kind ; and these beasts are correspon- 
 dences ; for looked upon in itself the natural side of man is 
 sheer animal. But because a spiritual has been given him 
 
309 
 
 over and above that animal, he can become a man ; and if with 
 that ability he even does not become one, he yet can ape the 
 man, but still 'tis a talking beast." (Vera Chr. Eel. 566.) 
 
 Betwixt the scientists on one hand and the religionists on 
 the other, Swedenborg stands as yet like Jeremiah's speckled 
 fowl ; the latter peck at him, I ween, because some spots in 
 him are black or scientific, and the former because in spots 
 he is white and spiritual. As yet, few men of science will 
 flock with him, because he worships Christ as Maker, and 
 holds the Word to be divine, and the soul to be undying ; 
 and holds that diligent self-examination and practical re- 
 pentance, and not mere intellectual development, and not an 
 unpurified Benevolence, are the foremost needs of man. The 
 uneducated and always they are the mass of the religion- 
 ists eye him a-skant because he interprets sundry parts of 
 Scripture into only a spiritual meaning, and affirms that his 
 wits open inward on the mental world ; and because they 
 find him siding with the rationalists, and because they find 
 him at one with the Science which has sprung up since his 
 time. 
 
 The outcome who can tell! Will the men that believe in 
 another life be forever denying the realities of this world ? 
 and will the men of science be always shutting their eyes to 
 the light which streams down from above, and which could 
 mingle and make one with their own light flowing in from 
 round about f Are the outer senses doomed to stay never with 
 men who preserve an inner sensibili ty ? and must those who 
 remain in possession of worldly intelligence be ever spiritu- 
 ally deaf, blind, numb and bereft of true taste and scent ? 
 Are the five foolish wits never to journey on friendly with 
 the wiser maidens ? Shall they never be carrying oil to burn 
 beyond the sure-coming midnight? Shall they never be 
 willing to borrow beforehand, whilst the channel of supply 
 still is open from the wiser sisters ? and will they be ever and 
 anon inverting viciously upon the sand those vessels of 
 priceless contents ? Even as a cat might look at a king do I 
 
310 
 
 make bold to gaze upon the mighty men of theology and of 
 science, and even to shout to them from afar in turn, " O 
 Geistliche, ye spiritual folk! walk close beside them that carry 
 for the world the five lamps of the body ; since these also, 
 well-trimmed, shall for some little time help to light up the 
 way ! " " O Scientific Ones ! choose now to borrow oil, whilst 
 Choice is a-making in you, and not later when it is quite 
 made up. For your store of vessels is infinite, and you shall 
 have wherewithal to burn to everlastingness in your own 
 good, huge-wicking lamps ; which lamps otherwise shall after 
 death be flickering as you begin to shake off this world's 
 mind, and then shall go out all at once, with smoke and a 
 sickening smell." 
 
 TARKYING IN JEEUSALEM. 
 
 (A LETTER TO AN EDITOR.) 
 
 After a very appreciative and friendly criticism of a re- 
 cent book by a Swedenborgian minister, the Independent 
 adds this warning : 
 
 The closing phrase of the above extract brings us to that part of 
 the work in which it must be considered most defective. * * * 
 It is in vain to hope for a satisfactory theory of the atonement 
 which does not represent God's method of approaching men by 
 way of sacrifice, and which does not look deeply enough into the 
 cross to find there, in some form, a substitution for the sinner 
 which becomes valid at the tribunal of justice, and efficient as a 
 positive agent for man's redemption. 
 
 I have no complaint against this criticism or against the 
 author criticised. It was probably not that author's aim to 
 
311 
 
 set forth, under the terminology used by the Independent 
 critic, the sublime truths which in all wise hearts underlie 
 it. Rather the Divine footsteps as tracks for men's treading, 
 than the Divine counsels as subjects for dissection, it seems 
 his purpose was to trace. I write only to express the opin- 
 ion that in this book, as in other quarters, are visible sundry 
 tokens that the teachers of the new truths are not forever 
 to " tarry in the city of Jerusalem," but that already they 
 begin to be " endued with power from on high." At the 
 first, and in one sense, Jerusalem the Old shall be a common 
 shelter to both New and Old. Both will cling to Expres- 
 sion, and grapple to their watchwords. The truths that 
 underlie their dogmas the army of the Old have mostly 
 ceased to see, and those same truths the army of the New 
 hardly more than begin to descry. " In Old Jerusalem " a 
 state external as distinguished from a state internal the 
 Lord at first must house them both. Nor in Him is this un- 
 tidy. His times are always ripe, because His steps are slow 
 and because they leap never a fathom. In Jerusalem at first 
 the disciples must tarry, and in the wilderness at first the 
 Woman must be in hiding. Only by degrees can He prepare 
 the pupils of His second or spiritual coming, and by frac- 
 tions of degrees the teachers, and thus make provision for 
 the spreading of the New amongst the many. To tarry 
 intellectually in that city, as I understand it, is to be tied 
 strongly to certain phrasings of doctrine, and to be less able to 
 extend their underlying truths to use and application upon 
 the world-wide varieties of religious feeling and religious 
 expression. In what the endowment of "power from on 
 high " must consist, can readily be known when we remem- 
 ber that, of all on high, the highest quality is that Divine 
 Love which seeks the good of all men, and from within 
 makes entry into all hearts and minds, with each according 
 to its own peculiar liking and intelligence ; and in all souls 
 bends, as far as it can, the evil towards uprightness and the 
 false toward truth. To be endowed or clothed upon with 
 
312 
 
 power from that height, is to be inflamed with Divine affec- 
 tion, and from thence to work upon men's minds and hearts 
 as the Divine itself is wont to work, with the grain always, 
 and against it never, from within outwards and not from out- 
 side inwards, reaching out to them where they are and not 
 where they might, could, would or should be. Certain signs 
 follow those clothed upon from aloft. Whereas they are 
 genuine believers, that is, are believers in very truths and 
 not in expressions alone, and hence can instill truths under 
 varying forms of expression ; they cast out devils in the 
 Lord's name, they speak with new tongues, they take up ser- 
 pents ; if they drink any deadly thing it does not hurt them ; 
 and if they lay hands on the sick, the sick recover. In other 
 words, they teach mainly the expulsion of diabolism from 
 the heart and lif e by the practicing of self-examination and 
 repentance, and by reliance upon the Man-God in the strug- 
 gles of the combat ; they make the old dogmas speak a new 
 language ; they handle freely the sensuous images of truths 
 which are dangerous to be touched by others ; they swallow 
 unharmed the phrases which to others would be destructive 
 of spiritual intelligence ; and under their teaching the 
 dying dogmas of Christendom arise and stand in health. Un- 
 believable as these things may be, the spiritual sense of 
 Scripture points towards their coming about ; the signs of 
 the times point thither also. Men with this power, it seems, 
 shall be had. Such a one shall not strive or cry ; in the 
 inner tabernacle chiefly, far from the strife of tongues, in the 
 homes of hearts, and not in the street-brawls of dogmatic con- 
 troversy, shall his voice be heard. At the heart-strings is his 
 pull ; his hand is on the helm of Choice, where his gentle 
 touch is rnighter than all contortions of the wranglers. 
 How, without this power, shall the glad tidings be preached 
 abroad ? Without it, can the truths of the New Jerusalem 
 be aught to outsiders but the tedious, senseless, fantastic 
 narrations which hitherto so largely they have been ? 
 
 By no means let us scorn to " tarry at Jerusalem." Partly 
 
313 
 
 in there abiding, and through there abiding, comes some 
 fitness to be clothed with that lofty power. In the hard and 
 fast lines of technical theology must be shaped to un- 
 yieldingness the bones of belief, ere rightly they can be 
 covered with the flesh of genuine humanity and the mus- 
 cles of active usefulness. The gospel indeed shall be 
 " preached among all nations ; " yet the " beginning v is ever 
 " at Jerusalem." "All nations" means all creeds and all 
 denominations ; " Jerusalem " means sheer doctrine, clean- 
 cut, scarped in the rock, walled strong and high, barred oft* 
 from all without. Doubtless as yet it is best that some 
 that many tarry there. The Lord be thanked for the noble 
 garrison which makes no sally : of these, as defenders, there 
 shall more and more be need when less and less they shall 
 be making up the full tale of the host. The Lord be 
 thanked yet more for those that long to be forth. Let them 
 only remember that the gospel to be preached is "repent- 
 ance and the remission of sins." Beautiful indeed upon the 
 mountains shall be the feet of the new teachers when 
 first and foremost they shall teach repentance ; repentance 
 not only in purpose and in life, but also in theory and belief. 
 No ancient dogma shall be assaulted by them, but every dog- 
 ma be defended. They will remove the EVIL APPLICATION 
 which makes any dogma false, and they will supply the FACTS 
 which make every dogma true. All doctrines, without change 
 of wording, they will transmute into New-Church doctrines 
 by rightly interpreting them. Then it shall come to be a true 
 word that was spoken by Isaiah: "In that day seven 
 women shall take hold of one man, saying ' We will eat our 
 own bread and wear our own apparel, only let us be called 
 by thy name, to take away our reproach/ In that day shall 
 the branch of the Lord be beautiful and glorious." The 
 seven women are the many varieties of bent and disposition 
 in the several Churches. Their own bread is that on which 
 these diverse religious natures the most gladly feed. To the 
 High Churchman, the Apostolic Succession and the music and 
 
314 
 
 the ritual, are very bread, and without them religion would 
 smack thin and tasteless to him. To the Methodist a certain 
 f ervidity is bread, and without it he would peak and dwindle 
 in soul. Their own apparel the Baptist's immersion, the 
 Presbyterian's justification is a peculiar doctrinal habili- 
 ment of each which are coats to their backs, for whose lack 
 they would be chilled to the heart. All these, their food and 
 raiment, they shall have and keep, and more abundantly. The 
 Man of whom they shall lay hold is a virile intelligence of the 
 New-Church truths ; and the name by which they shall de- 
 sire to be called is the interior quality of that intelligence. 
 To take that name is to receive some intelligence into their 
 respective dogmas, and interpret dogmas into realities of life 
 and no longer into technical theories ; which technical and 
 unpractical interpretations have hitherto been their obvious 
 " reproach." I say that Man's name which they shall 
 take is the interior quality of that intelligence ; is the 
 fit and true name of him ; is the thing which the name 
 merely stands for; is not the name itself, the Lord 
 be thanked, albeit the name itself is what some of us have 
 much been desiring. It is thus, if I mistake not, that the 
 Lord will " purge the blood of Jerusalem by the spirit of 
 judgment and the spirit of burning. " Under his own par- 
 ticular vine and under his own particular fig-tree shall yet 
 sit fearless many a man for whom some of us perhaps would 
 rather have grown some one huge shelter upon our own 
 private acres. For in the New Creation, as in all creation 
 visible, endless variety is the very stamp of God's author- 
 ship ; and each additional religious denomination in which 
 the Lord the Saviour shall be worshiped, and evils be 
 shunned as sins against Him, will be one more jewel in Hi 
 crown. Their various doctrines all shall be true, in men 
 that are true, when converted from imaginative expres- 
 sions into absolute facts, and from technical theory into 
 actual practice. Take, for example, the popular doctrines 
 the Atonement, of Sacrifice, of Substitution ; which last the 
 
315 
 
 able critic of the Independent is saddened to miss in the 
 book I first referred to. All these beeome genuine New- 
 Church truths when infilled with REALITY. The Atonement 
 is indeed the truth of truths. It is an at-one-ment, a uniting 
 of God and Man ; in His Divine Manhood an infinite uniting, 
 and a finite uniting in every one that is linked to Him in 
 soul. In the Lord's Divine Manhood, as far as a man wor- 
 ships it and repents of his sins, is that man's peace ; since 
 in such man here and now just as in Himself of old 
 that Manhood "has made both one, and broken down 
 the wall of partition " between the Divine and the human in 
 him, and in itself "has made of twain one new man, so 
 making peace." In every one that takes hold of this New 
 Manhood made of " twain into one," and by repentance 
 begins that process in which the Lord effects a conjunction 
 in him between the man's human and the Lord's Divine, 
 these two also become " at one ; " they are at-oned as the 
 vine and the branch are at one, according to the Lord's own 
 words. This at-one-ment is not a thing which is to serve 
 to supply a supposed necessity in logic for the completion, 
 of a theoiy of salvation. It is the necessary and normal 
 method for maintaining an actual spiritual vitality. 
 " Without me ye can do nothing," is a fact of spiritual bot- 
 any ; and botany itself, and not the satisfaction of a judicial 
 theory as to the terms on which branches should be permit- 
 ted to live and bear fruit, is what makes the necessity for 
 coupling men to God their Stock. If they would indeed be- 
 lieve that Christ is God the Life-giver, they should find no 
 mystery in At-one-ment. It is in order to satisfy actually 
 and not theoretically the principles of spiritual botany, 
 and the just requirements of God's actual law as to branch- 
 growing, that the vine and the branch must be at one, 
 because otherwise the Divine sap cannot flow in, and the 
 branch must wither and die. The animal kingdom furnishes 
 a like example of the same just law of the Deity ; and the 
 blood of Christ with which the sinner must be washed ere 
 
316 
 
 he can live, is of course the spiritual life-blood, the inward 
 impulsive lif e-current which bathes every atom of his spiritual 
 organization, whereby he lives each moment from Christ the 
 Heart. Make this dogma an organic reality instead of a 
 judicial makeshift, and it becomes a New-Church dogma. In 
 like manner the doctrine of the Sacrifice is the truth of 
 truths. The ancient sacrifices were but dumb shows, in 
 which the animal was consecrated to the man's behoof, and 
 died that the man might eat thereof. The animal did not 
 really change its nature in consecration ; nor was the man's 
 soul prospered by his religious meal. But the true oblation 
 is a doing of God's will, and in doing this the animal nature 
 is more or less sacrificed to the wants of the spiritual nature, 
 and thereby the animal is lifted up and, as it were, appro- 
 priated, towards the substance of the higher and truly human 
 principle. The Divine Manhood of the Lord is the only 
 thorough-going and perfect sacrifice of this real kind. Those 
 accept this sacrifice, in whom by His help a like sacrifice 
 of the lower nature to His implanted spirit is gradually ef- 
 fected ; for they " present their bodies a living sacrifice, 
 holy, acceptable unto God." In like manner Substitution 
 is the truth of truths. In place of earth-and-heaven's inade- 
 quate power to resist the onslaught of evil inclination in the 
 world of Mind, the Lord the Saviour substituted His own 
 Divine power ; and, receiving upon His earthly nature 
 the onset of temptation, did by His own suffering or 
 " stripes " make possible our healing. As the Infinite, He re- 
 duced to order the hell universal, and wrought a general re- 
 demption where, without the substitution of infinite power 
 of resistance, a general captivity of souls must have followed. 
 So likewise man's acceptance of this Substitute lies in re- 
 placing with the Lord's own Self and with His Divine power 
 and influences in the individual soul, the overmatched strug- 
 gles of self-engendered enthusiasm and self -derived intelli- 
 gence ; in laying hold of His strength when striving with 
 temptation, and in using it as if one's own, but always ac- 
 
317 
 
 knowledging in heart that it is purely the Lord's. In all 
 who do this, such substitution effects a particular redemption 
 which to the general redemption is as the unit to the mass, 
 and which brings into order and under domination the indi- 
 vidual hell within, and by degrees removes that hell, and 
 slowly implants a little heaven in the soul. Now this kind of 
 at-one-ment, this kind of washing, this kind of sacrifice, this 
 kind of substitution, are in some small measure known experi- 
 mentally by more than a few. To construe them thus to 
 such persons, is to make simple facts out of doctrines which 
 before were mere theories and were hardly to be known from 
 fancies. The New Truth will do this. It has come in order 
 that it may redeem and save the dogmas of Christendom, 
 and not that it may revile or destroy them. Salvation for 
 them lies in filling with solidity the outsides of dogma, and 
 in filling with substantial FACTS their wording. 
 
 THE DETAILS OF THE PKOCESS OF TRANSITED 
 STANTIATION. 
 
 How greatly those err who do not believe in Transubstan- 
 tiation, and how greatly those err who believe in it, and how 
 greatly those err who neither believe nor disbelieve in it, 
 is known to all who consider the known facts relating 
 to this sacrament. Let me recite them briefly. Mere reci- 
 tation will suffice ; if not, there is no time for proof. 
 
 The ground of union between the soul and the body is ths 
 correspondence of the body with the soul ; and this cor* 
 respondence is the means by which the body lives. The life 
 of the Lord's Supper is also from correspondence. Bread 
 and wine are its body. Love and wisdom from the Lord are 
 
318 
 
 its soul. Love and wisdom cannot exist in the form of 
 bread and wine. Love and wisdom are of human form, and 
 of no other form whatever. A holy supper, body and 
 soul, cannot come into being, except as far as the bread and 
 the wine, which are its body, become of a form which is in 
 correspondence with its soul, that is, become of the human 
 form. They begin to take on this form soon after being 
 received into the stomach, for in a little while they pass into 
 the blood. The wine assumes this form wonderfully quicker 
 than does the bread ; as much quicker, I reckon, as a man 
 learns to express the Truth than he learns to enact the Good. 
 
 When they have passed into the blood, there is a body for 
 the supper or, if you like it better, a supper for the body 
 all ready for the soul of the supper ; or, if you prefer it, for 
 the supper of the soul. For not before this stage of assimi- 
 lation has the body begun to sup. Not whilst one merely 
 chews does he really eat. 
 
 A body of the supper is then ready for the soul of the supper. 
 But there may be no soul, or no holy soul, ready for its 
 body ; in such case there can be no holy supper. If in the 
 soul of him who eats, there are love from the Lord and 
 truth from the Lord, these two become the soul of the food 
 which is thus assimilated, and become its soul just as fast 
 as it is assimilated. It cannot be assimilated, or become 
 homogeneous with the living body, or become a portion of 
 the living body, except as far as life enters into it ; and this 
 life comes wholly from the soul, and not in the least from 
 the body ; and the life in the soul consists of love from the 
 Lord and truth from the Lord. 
 
 No supper is supper until one sups. And no one truly 
 sups until his body interiorly sups. The blood carries the 
 food to every particle in the body. To chew and swallow is 
 only setting the table. But because men did not know this, 
 or did not care to think of it ; and because they did 
 not know that bread and wine correspond to love and 
 wisdom, and did not know that the form of love is the 
 
319 
 
 human form, and that the form of wisdom is the human 
 form, and that no other form is possible for either, it 
 followed of necessity that, if at all they thought the Supper 
 to be holy, they must think that the priest, by a God-given 
 mystical power, magnetizes the bread and the wine, and 
 that out from his hands the holy passes into these elements, 
 and that thenceforth the elements are soaked and tinctured 
 with holiness. If any one who reads this believes thus, I do 
 not wish to shake his belief. Only let him shun evils as sins 
 against God. The Lord stands at the door and knocks. 
 If any man hear His voice and open the door, the Lord will 
 enter in and will sup with him and he with the Lord. To 
 shun evils as sins against God is to open the door. I say that 
 
 repentance in outer and inner Act the shunning of evils 
 
 is the opening of the door toward the fountain of Life. If this 
 door is open, it is the Lord, and not the spirit of Judas, that 
 is in the vitality which enters the assimilating elements 
 and makes them living portions of the body. 
 
 The correspondence which exists between spiritual things 
 and natural ones, lies between them not as to their forms, 
 but as to their analogous uses. Their analogous uses are 
 their correspondence. The essential use of divine love and 
 wisdom for the soul, is to support the soul's life ; and because 
 bread and wine perform that same use for the body, and be- 
 cause the body performs for the Lord's kingdom on earth 
 the same use that the soul performs for His kingdom in 
 heaven, and because the body thus corresponds to the soul, 
 therefore bread and wine correspond to divine love and wis- 
 dom. But the essential use of bread and wine is not devel- 
 oped until they are actually assimilated. And therefore the 
 correspondence of bread and wine with love and wisdom 
 (from which correspondence only comes the holiness of the 
 supper) essentially begins when they are assimilated. There 
 is also a second use of bread and wine which exists only for 
 the sake of the first use, and which in itself is useless. This is 
 the taste of them. For their taste invites a man to eat, and 
 
320 
 
 without eating there is no assimilation. In love and wisdom 
 there is a similar subordinate use. As long as they seem 
 distasteful, they cannot be received and finally assimilated. 
 That view of the Lord's Supper which finds its efficacy and 
 holiness at the moment of chewing and swallowing it, or be- 
 fore the actual incorporation and assimilation of it, cor- 
 responds to the doctrine which makes religion to consist in 
 the mere intellectual reception of its truths, or even in 
 the treasuring of its dogmas. There is a further and 
 indeed a most remote use of bread and wine. It is 
 the appearance of them ; for this presents them before 
 the eye. In love and wisdom there is a similar use. Taking- 
 cognizance of them as matters of fact is precedent to a taste 
 for them. And that view of the Lord's Supper which places its 
 efficacy in the bread and wine themselves, whilst they 
 still remain external to the body, and which places its holi- 
 ness in their having been blessed by the priest, corresponds 
 to the doctrine which makes religion to consist in 
 learning and worshipping its formulas. Men who hold this 
 doctrine are like heathen who mutter mystic spells to drive 
 away the fiend and to gain salvation, or who carry magic 
 amulets to call down rain. Whoever sees that the corre- 
 spondence of everything lies in its use, sees other holiness 
 in the Lord's Supper than the touch of man's hand can 
 bestow. 
 
 I do not propose here to discuss the benefit of the cere- 
 monials with which men have seen fit to gird this sacrament. 
 But I venture to assert that in an age in which the life of 
 the best appears to be more or less profane, it is well if the 
 thought of the Lord's Supper can be defended in some way 
 from this sweeping profanity. If it can be defended only a 
 little, or but for a moment, or only in a most external degree, 
 it is well. Yet whatever solemnities be thrown around the 
 Supper, let it not be forgotten that it is only man's own un- 
 solemnity that requires them. Let it not be forgotten that 
 the Lord's hands invisible do at every meal time, at the 
 
321 
 
 church board or at the family board, without the slightest 
 distinction, touch the bread and the wine within the body 
 just as they touch all other food, and bless them both, and 
 break and pour them out, and with an infinite and divinely 
 tender care distribute them through the blood-vessels to 
 every tiniest portion of the body. That the only magic in 
 the Supper is the divine magic wrought upon all other food ; 
 by which magic the bread and the wine are made alive in 
 the body whilst life and all life inwardly is love and wisdom 
 from the Lord enters them. That since it is only by assimi- 
 lating food that life can be preserved, and since food can 
 be assimilated only as life enters it, and since the life that 
 enters is love and wisdom from the Lord, and since that 
 love and that wisdom are His very flesh and blood, it is 
 true that except a man eat His flesh and drink His blood, 
 there is most literally no life in him. And finally that the 
 bread and the wine, whilst they are becoming alive in the 
 body, become a body for love and wisdom which are from 
 the Lord and are the Lord ; so that the bread and the wine 
 of the Supper do thus become the body and blood of Christ. 
 Since the process of feeding is one that goes on deep 
 within man, and not really in the mouth, and not at all 
 outside of him ; and since of feeding there are two factors, 
 the food and the feeder, and since in the Lord's Supper the 
 food, both earthly and heavenly, is always the same, it fol- 
 lows that the meal will differ altogether as the eaters differ. 
 Possibly there are those whose daily meal is holy, and is 
 therefore the Lord's. Surely there are those whose most 
 religious supper is not holy, and therefore is not the Lord's, 
 and is undoubtedly Iscariot's. Bread and wine of the 
 soul are holy ; bread and wine of the body are not unholy. Holi- 
 ness is lif e holy ; and visible bread and wine become holy when 
 holy life enters them. The touch of succession, Apostolic or 
 unapostolic, cannot convey that holiness. Let a man only 
 cease to muddy the Lord's inflowing life-stream. Let him, 
 with God's help, purge himself from the evil, and the Lord 
 
322 
 
 will sup with him constantly. " To what purpose is the 
 multitude of your sacrifices," He asks us pious church-goers, 
 as He asked the pious Hebrews. " Bring no more vain obla- 
 tions. The calling of assemblies I cannot away with. It is 
 iniquity, even the solemn meeting. Your appointed feasts 
 my soul hateth. They are a trouble unto me, I am weary to 
 bear them. Your hands are full of blood. Wash you. 
 Make you clean. Put away the evil of your doings from be- 
 fore mine eyes. " It is the Lord who makes the supper holy ; 
 but He can do this only in those who remove the unholy, 
 that is, who shun evils as sins against Him. Actual re- 
 pentance hallows His supper; and if a man's repentance 
 were to sweep through every nook and cranny of his being, 
 each daily supper would be the Lord's. 
 
 The material elements of the supper are the bread and the 
 wine, when these are assimilated in the body. Into these 
 flow by correspondence love and wisdom from the Lord as 
 pure as the actual quality of the man's make-up permits 
 him to receive. Does then the taking of the elements change 
 and better his quality ? I do not believe that. But since 
 bread and wine, when assimilated to the human form, corres- 
 pond to love and wisdom, and since the life which enters 
 them whilst they are assimilating is inwardly love and wis- 
 dom ; to partake worthily of the supper draws down into 
 external consciousness the feeling and perception of the 
 Divine refreshing and supporting love and wisdom which 
 before existed only in those internal regions of the mind 
 which lie above the consciousness. Consciousness, whilst we 
 are in the body, is a consciousness of the body and not of the 
 spirit. The bread and the wine become a part of the body, 
 in which body the mind is so immersed and absorbed that to 
 bring the Lord's love and wisdom forcibly to mind, He must 
 bring them to the body. This last, through correspondence, 
 the uses of bread and wine in some measure effect. The 
 Lord's love and wisdom are the Lord Himself. These truths, 
 
323 
 
 with many others, lie wrapped up in the perfectly simple 
 and sufficient words, "Do this in remembrance of me." 
 
 Yet few can see that in the fit partaker of the bread and 
 wine, these creatures do indeed become Christ's Body and 
 Blood. The reason is that few believe that Christ is Jeho- 
 vah, the Lord and Giver of all the life whereby, in man and 
 beast alike, all food is vitalized. The pantheist believes that 
 all assimilated food becomes thereby God's body and blood. 
 As consistently with his own creed as the pantheist with ///.? 
 creed, does he who believes that Christ is God, believe 
 that all assimilated food becomes Christ's Body and Blood 
 by virtue of assimilation. For what turns eaten food into 
 blood and into body, is the life-beat ; and thrft beat is thus 
 to food a soul, and food is to that beat a kind of body ; and 
 that beat is Christ's. 
 
 SPIRITUAL MOTION. 
 
 The New Testament is full of words implying motion, 
 presumably spiritual. Jesus Christ invites men to "come" 
 to Him ; and He speaks of " going " to the Father, and of 
 the " way " to the Father. He promises also to " come " to 
 His disciples, and says the Holy Breath or Spirit will 
 " come " to them, and that He will u send " it, after He has 
 "gone"; and He tells the Jews they cannot "come" t<> 
 where He is "going." And it is said that such or such a 
 person was " moved " to this or to that. Now spiritual 
 coming and going and sending and moving must, if 
 real, be like similar motion in matter, if motion in 
 matter is real. The only difference must be that the sub- 
 stances which change situation are spiritual substances in 
 
324 
 
 one case, and are natural substances in the other. Let us 
 see how material substances move, and thus we shall learn 
 how spiritual substances move. At least we cannot learn in 
 any other way ; for we cannot form an idea of the unseen 
 except from that which we have seen. 
 
 For an example of the common idea of motion, take a 
 cannon ball at the earth's equator and imagine it to be shot 
 due west some seventeen hundred feet per second. That 
 ought to serve as an illustration of motion ; a shot from a 
 fifteen-inch gun goes only two-thirds as fast. But in truth, 
 the ball's motion is absolutely naught. The earth is wheel- 
 ing just as rapidly in a direction precisely opposite. The 
 cannon ball is really at rest. The cannon itself might bet- 
 ter be called the moving body. 
 
 Now shoot the ball some thirty times faster in a certain 
 other direction which for brevity we will call x y ; and let 
 y x equal the resultant direction of the daily and annual 
 circlings of the earth. The ball's seeming motion will 
 be prodigious ; but in truth it remains fixed. The earth, as 
 it rolls on its axis and sweeps round the sun, is the moving 
 body if any there be. The ball has merely ceased to keep 
 up with the earth. 
 
 Now shoot the ball more swiftly perhaps as swiftly as 
 you can imagine in a direction which we shall call x y z ; 
 and let z y x equal the direction which is the resultant and 
 combination of both the terrestrial motions and of one other 
 motion of the solar system as yet undetermined, along the 
 Milky Way for instance. There still is rest, absolute rest, 
 for the ball ; the earth and the sun have only left it behind. 
 
 Or, if you will not be bound to particular directions, point 
 this imaginary gun which way you will, and give the ball 
 either more velocity, or less, or what velocity you choose, or 
 no velocity if you so prefer. You still shall have no real and 
 absolute motion. For that Nothing which we call Space is 
 what the ball must move in, and is what the ball's motion must 
 be measured by. But Space has no centre for the ball to 
 
325 
 
 go from ; no sides for it to travel toward ; no top 
 to approach ; no bottom to near. Motion absolute motion 
 requires for one condition a point absolutely fixed, which 
 changes not, though all things change, and which least of 
 all changes at one's desire ; a point away from which is 
 always "from," and toward which is always "toward." 
 You cannot find any such point in Space, and the reason is 
 that you cannot imagine its existence. Absolute motion 
 needs a " from " and a c< toward." But only a real thing can 
 be gone " from," or gone " toward " ; and Space is not a 
 real thing : it is no thing. Imagine two objects, as far 
 apart as you wish, and with absolutely nothing between 
 them. That nothing is Space ; and whatever more than 
 nothing lies there between, is other than Space. 
 
 Or, if reasoning is tiresome, concede your cannon ball to 
 have real motion. And so that you may have a plenty of 
 motion, put every thing else in motion, and in the same di- 
 rection with the ball, and at an equal speed. What then 
 becomes of your motion ? Everything is now at rest. If 
 you think it is not so, define the motion which you imagine 
 will be then occurring. From what point will you measure 
 it, when all points, real or imaginary, are moving exactly 
 together or, better, are staying together ? 
 
 The truth is, no spatial motion is real. It is only a seem- 
 ing motion. It is only relative. Such motion is predicable 
 only of a body in relation to other bodies : and where the 
 relation between bodies does not change they cannot be 
 said to be respectively in motion. Motion which exists 
 only by virtue of comparison is only imaginary ; because 
 comparison is only imaginative. Comparison has no exist- 
 ence outside the brain. 
 
 But there is a motion in matter which lays a better claim 
 to reality. I say a better claim ; and I leave alone the 
 question as to whether there is absolutely any movement 
 for matter after its creation, and whether after the creative 
 movement any further absolute motion is possible. 
 
326 
 
 The motion in matter which more deserves to be con- 
 sidered real is chemical movement. It is a change in state 
 or condition ; and not essentially a change in space or place. 
 If you will analyse the various methods of effecting mere 
 spatial progression, whether in the animal world or in 
 machinery of man's making, you will find at bottom a 
 change of state, or molecular change, as the cause of spatial 
 progression or change of place. 
 
 Milk " turns," yet neither to the right hand nor the left. 
 Water " passes " into steam ; but the progress is not special. 
 A jar of preserves when hermetically sealed, will " stay '" 
 sweet, though you should carry it round the world. You 
 cannot produce a " movement " in cream by a mere convey- 
 ance of the churn ; the splashing which the dasher makes 
 is not properly motion, either. But there is chemical move- 
 ment when the butter " comes." Yet spatially speaking, 
 the butter has been there all the while ; and as for its " com- 
 ing/' it had before been really moving hither unseen. To ob- 
 serve that it is coming indicates not that it " comes," but only 
 that so much of it has ceased to come, and in fact has quite 
 arrived. Cider " goes " to vinegar under certain conditions ; 
 but it need not be carried about. Burning wood " goes " to 
 ashes, although it is only the ashes that stay behind. In 
 absolute truth nothing " comes," unless it becomes. There 
 is no venire, except a devenire. All genuine movement is 
 molecular and chemical. There is no transit except transi- 
 tion. There is no change of station unless by change of 
 constitution. The real stand and position of everything is 
 in its state only. There is no absolute passage save a 
 ." passing into." Nothing really " goes," until its character- 
 istics are " gone." 
 
 The laws of spiritual science and natural are the same ; it 
 is only the two kinds of substance that differ. The way in 
 which a substance is constituted is its condition, and Con- 
 stitution is law supreme. The laws of movement in those 
 hidden spiritual substances whose manifestations we call 
 
327 
 
 Affection and Thought and Character, are laws of spiritual 
 chemistry. What in matter is called Motion, in the spirit is 
 called E-motion. The spirit can be ' ; moved" as well as the 
 body. There is no local transportation for soul-substance^ 
 but "transport" instead. Feelings drive to this and to 
 that, but never through Space. There is no advance or 
 progress of the heart except in organic betterment. There 
 is no movement backward but in backsliding. There is no 
 high place unless the holy one ; no Heaven but in moral eleva- 
 tion ; no Hell but in degradation ; no " pit " but in the base 
 and the low ; no " west " but in spiritual sinking and de- 
 cline. 
 
 They are " near " us, who are dear to us ; and those are 
 they in whom like principles of practice with our own have 
 been begotten ; who are related to us in character ; whose 
 conduct is the offspring of like motive. Christ's friends are 
 all that do whatsoever He commands ; and to do this is to 
 " draw nigh unto God." " Neighbors " are all that are 
 neighborly ; and God is " far off " from the wicked. To 
 " come to Jesus " is to learn of Him and come into His 
 character ; it is such a coming as is in grape-juice when it 
 " comes " to wine. To go to Hell and the Devil is to go 
 spiritually mad, infernal, devilish. The Holy Breath or 
 Spirit " comes " whenever a man comes to breathe truth and 
 uprightness. Christ's " going " to the Father was chemical 
 a coming into Fatherhood. He " comes " to a disciple, 
 whenever He becomes a second self there. 
 
 If transportation of the soul is no other than transport, it 
 still is not emotionalism nor transport phenomenal. Visible 
 motion is never real ; but visible motion is often the out- 
 come of real motion. Nothing ever broke by falling, but 
 only by ceasing to fall, and being checked in its fall. In the 
 true sense a cannon ball is motionless as long as it is in 
 flight. When it stops is when the real motion begins ; this 
 real motion consists of heat and sundry other movements. 
 All real changes are slow ; by steps : and chiefly they are 
 
328 
 
 underneath. The Kingdom of God is within ; conies not 
 with observation. Effects are outward ; causes are inward. Re- 
 ward maybe open, but petition is in some sense always of the 
 closet. There, in the closet, in inmost cells, with doors shut, 
 beasts and plants pray silently ; all visible growth and 
 fruitage are their reward. 
 
 THE FOUNDATION OF PERMANENT KNOWLEDGE. 
 
 All investigation pursued with the final aim of attaining 
 knowledge leads sooner or later to the discovery that the de- 
 sired knowledge either cannot be got or cannot be kept. Simple 
 and evident are the laws which cause this result ; and were 
 mere demonstration enough, men could easily be deterred 
 from that purpose ; might even be led to seek knowledge 
 not as an End but as a Means. 
 
 In the first place, the faculty of acquiring information be- 
 longs to a region of the mind which knows things only by 
 their boundaries. Defining an object signifies the ascertain- 
 ing of its surface, rim or border. Definition passes for the 
 same as " Meaning," but Meaning is absolutely other than 
 Definition. Meaning is that which a thing is, through 
 and through. Definition is what it is as estimated on its 
 merest outside where in fact it terminates and ceases to be. 
 Definition is like a wine-cask. Meaning is like a cask of 
 wine. The human mind falls easily into the habit of naming 
 objects by their limits or limitations. A "term" of years 
 means, at first and by rights, merely the termination 
 of a quantity of time. Now different quantities of time, if 
 they are co-terminous at their respective beginnings, have 
 necessarily different termini ; and so the name of the future 
 
329 
 
 end or terminus of each suffices to distinguish it ; thus 
 the word " term," at first meaning only a terminus, at List 
 comes to mean not the terminus or cessation of the time, 
 but the solid time itself. A child describes our country 
 by saying that the Atlantic is on the east, Mexico and 
 the Gulf on the south, the Pacific on the west, and s<> 
 on; and declares that such are the United States. The 
 truth is, the United States are not their boundaries, but are 
 all that lie within the boundaries ; the latter being ideal 
 nothings. 
 
 And thus with all our knowledge. The borders of things, 
 their mathematical surfaces, those ideal limits of them 
 where their existence really ceases, these are all we recog- 
 nize. We do well to know thus much ; it is much to say 
 truly that we know about things ; things themselves we can 
 never know. It is useless to criticise human language ; but 
 it is useful to call to mind the confessions which Man involun- 
 tarily makes in his use of language. 
 
 Inevitably such is knowledge derived from investigation ; 
 for, mediately or immediately, all of it is based on impres- 
 sions made upon the senses. The facts of sensation 
 present an unanswerable argument. What we obtain 
 through the senses is not the outer object itself, but a map, 
 picture, model or description of the object, stamped upon a 
 portion of our sentient selves. The objects of vision, for ex- 
 ample, are never apprehended or taken into the organization; 
 but what we do apprehend is an agitation of the retina pro- 
 duced by waves of light rebounding from the object beheld. 
 Vision agitates us as to the retina of the eye ; in vision noth- 
 ing enters us, not even the luminif erous ether ; but its waves 
 simply set the retina in motion ; and judging, as we may do, 
 about the object which reflects the waves of ether, we can 
 judge only about its ideal or mathematical surface ; we can 
 judge only concerning that part of it where its substance 
 ceases ; the rest is matter of inference. Thus, too, with touch. 
 The substance of the object touched is no more transferred to 
 
330 
 
 us than the substance of the seal is transferred to the wax , 
 that is, not at all. Form is all that is transferred ; but form 
 without substance is nothing. The substance necessary to 
 uphold form's existence must be ourselves. And just here 
 lies the possibility of the transition of knowledge out of 
 nothingness into soraethingness. Only he who is what he 
 knows, and of whose substantial self his knowledge is the 
 actual form and correct description, can be said to have 
 knowledge that is a reality. 
 
 Analysis of the sense of smell leads us to the same 
 conclusion ; and so does that of hearing. Indeed the ear 
 never raises claim to actual appropriation of the object 
 heard. The vibration of the ear-drum certainly is not the 
 reverberation of the bell which causes it ; its motion is 
 merely synchronous with that of the bell ; it is an imitation of 
 bell-ringing produced in the substance which is identifiable 
 as the Me. 
 
 The sense of taste, at first examination, seems an excep- 
 tion to this law of sensation. Half a dozen drops of must- 
 ard placed on the tongue, although not swallowed, will soon 
 bring out sweat on the scalp. This looks, at first, as if 
 some substance were absorbed by the taste-nerve. Can it 
 be that here in Taste we have, what by no other sense can 
 be got, a grip of the Thing-Itself ; an apprehension of what 
 is and not of what merely SHOWS ? A deep, unconscious phil- 
 osopher was the Latin savage who first adopted Taste as the 
 name for Knowledge ; whose sapientia was fundamentally 
 " tastingness." The same wisdom of instinct leads the child 
 to examine, not by the eye nor the ear nor by touch nor 
 smell, but by taste. For the absolute Knowledge of a thing- 
 lies in making it a part of yourself. If it cannot be tasted, 
 it is, indeed, insipid ; and little is to be known about it. " O 
 taste and see that the Lord is good," says David. " Butter 
 and honey shall Immanuel eat that he may know to refuse 
 the evil and choose the good." Jonathan's eyes were 
 enlightened because he tasted a little of the honey. 
 
331 
 
 Yet we shall not be deceived by an appearance. Though 
 actual absorption may accompany taste, the absorption is 
 into the clothing of the taste-nerves, not into the nerves 
 themselves ; and only thus is taste dependent on absorp- 
 tion. In order to be tasted, a particle need only be borne 
 against the nerves of taste, and impress its form on the sur- 
 face of those nerves. Further effects form no part of the 
 proper sense of taste. Only the outside of things, their 
 boundaries, can be known ; whether by taste or by any other 
 sense. If we dissect or break them into parts, it still is only 
 the boundaries of those parts that are knowable. The knowl- 
 edge of a boundary is nothing, because a boundary is nothing 
 is a mere geometrical surface. Knowledge becomes some- 
 thing, and remains something, only as far as it becomes Iden- 
 tity. The man who knows must become identified with 
 that which he knows. There is a quaint but ob- 
 solescent use of the English word " know," which implies 
 an intuition of the truth that such knowledge as deserves 
 the name is an interior communion which is in fact com- 
 munity, and is approximate Identity. The essential reason 
 then why knowledge sought merely for its own sake, is 
 not attainable or else not permanent, is, that knowledge 
 borne in upon the senses, and reasoning built on such 
 knowledge, are literally nothing, are mere ideal superficies, 
 the negation and privation of solidity. This is the everlast> 
 ing cause that of making many books there is not in any age 
 an end, and why much study is ever a weariness of the flesh. 
 
 All such knowledge must sooner or later be thrown off. 
 Even in the present world this gradually takes place, unless 
 the forms of thought are re-impressed from time to time by 
 fresh shocks on the sensorium. In the next world the elimi- 
 nation of knowledge thus acquired becomes complete. More- 
 over, such knowledge is the very reverse of true knowledge. 
 The form of a mould is at every point ihe converse of the 
 casting. Knowledge impressed from without is a mould, 
 and it is impressed in order that we may adapt the moral 
 
332 
 
 shape thereto, and acquire from it a permanent 
 form, a form which then for the first time becomes 
 our very own. This latter form however, by the law 
 which governs cast of the mind, as well as all other 
 casting, is the reciprocal of the form which brought it out. 
 "When the stuff has hardened into a solid, the mould must 
 be chipped off. Death does this by removing the compara- 
 tively fixed and unyielding brain-forms which have served to 
 give the pliant mind a durable figure. The good man and 
 the bad has each his own form, acquired from the moulds of 
 the True and the False, respectively. But when these moulds 
 have been chipped away, the truth which belongs to the 
 good man stands out as truth proceeding from within, a 
 form of the good substance within, inseparable therefrom ; 
 a form not maintained by shocks upon the sensorium, nor 
 by any pressure from without. And the false which be- 
 longs to the bad man is then a false that proceeds from with- 
 in, a form of the evil substance within, and not the effect of 
 unfortunate circumstance, or of any beseiging force. An 
 esoteric theory of Cognition is contained in the sacred books, 
 and the rite of initiation consists in actually practicing their 
 contents. " The fear of the Lord is the beginning of Wis- 
 dom. A good understanding have all they that keep His 
 commandments. " Not hoarding, but use and reduplication, 
 secure the talents eventually. If any man do God's will, he 
 shall know of the doctrine. In the Word is Life, and the 
 life is the light of men. Neither sun nor moon nor outer 
 reflected ray, but He who is the inner LIFE, is the Light of 
 every citizen of the Holy City. They who serve Him shall 
 have His name written in their foreheads an inscription 
 effected from within, as indeed all writing on the fore- 
 head is wont to be effected. It is the pure in heart 
 that shall see God. Not he that searches after the 
 hidden manna, but he that overcomes, shall eat of it. 
 Cognition of that most excellent and seemingly inscrutable 
 Ding-an-und-filr-sich, which is Keality, is attainable only as 
 
333 
 
 far as the Me is converted into that Reality. Truth cannot 
 be identified by ascertaining it to be the same with this or 
 with that, but by making identical with Truth the Me. 
 An inexorable law governing the cognition of external exis- 
 tence, or the external cognition of existence, is that what is 
 cognized be outside of us, and that its form become our 
 form, but derived from without. And an inexorable law r in 
 the cognition of internal existence, or in the internal cogni- 
 tion of existence, is that whatever is cognized be within us, and 
 that its form become our form, yet from within. Howsoever 
 knowledge may be attached to a man, or a man be attached to 
 
 knowledge be it by memory, by worldly interest, by social 
 
 affection, ancestral pride and reverence, by force of authority 
 
 or even by intellectual appreciation, all these bonds must 
 
 in this life steadily be dissolving and in the other life be ab- 
 solutely dissolved. With men who do not verily become 
 their knowledge, the House of knowledge is built on sand. 
 With men who obey the commands of knowledge it is 
 built on rock. The reason is that this rock is formed in 
 man by only a real activity with him, and itself is the ulti- 
 mate outcome of activity, a real substance, a secretion preci- 
 pitated out of Will-force into his outer nature. All acquire- 
 ments from without are at bottom mere modifications in the 
 matters of the physical brain. And the ever-battering 
 storm of physical disintegration accompanied by reparation 
 and accession of fresh matters from the world, and at last 
 the hurricane of Death, sweep all these back into the world 
 again. The sole natural and well-nigh material substance 
 that man carries into the other life is the Will -stuff in him 
 which has stiffened and solidified into a stuff as fixed as that 
 of which matter is composed. Whatever types have been 
 formed in this psychological secretion then remain and form 
 the outline of Thought ; no types formed elsewhere remain. 
 Both typically and literally this substance consists of deter- 
 minations of the Will ; is the actual terminus of the Will ; 
 makes skull and ribs and skin as it were ; is his bone ; his 
 
334 
 
 microcosm's primordial rock ; the " horn of strength ; " is 
 an actual phosphate or silicate evolved out of spiritual sub- 
 stance. Will-stuff spiritual, passing over into -and itself 
 becoming an element, however minute, in Nature, is ab- 
 solutely the incarnation or outbirth of Man ; the flesh he 
 gathers from the elements of nature is but the caul ; Man's 
 internal acts form this substance ; it is a book which he is 
 always making, and from which he will be judged because it 
 is from him and is he. In every one that " overcomes," this 
 evolved substance is the Bock on which every lasting House 
 must be based ; is the white Stone, wherein is written a new 
 name knowable by him only that receives it, and by him only 
 because that Stone is a growth and formation, and not a sub- 
 stance foreign or added from without. Be it white or black, 
 nothing is written on it unless written from within. From 
 within, the birds and lilies obtain their colors, nay, their sub- 
 stantial clothing. Seek first the Kingdom of God and His right- 
 eousness ; the raiment of the mind shall be added from with- 
 in ; consider the birds and the lilies. The only use of truth 
 learned from without is that its form may be reproduced 
 from within ; and this reproduction is effected only by the 
 practicing of it. Phylacteries of knowledge are well, excel- 
 lent ; yet the wisest counsel is to buy white raiment in order 
 to be forever clothed. Only combat can purchase that rai- 
 ment ; only they that overcome obtain it. Virtue must be 
 married to Knowledge ; practice to theory. Such wisdom as 
 is one with Deed is the wedding garment, and in this world 
 it must be donned ; else the soul is bound hand and foot by 
 its lusts, and at last is hurled centrifugally into darkness on 
 the outskirts of the world in which Minds dwell. 
 
335 
 SHINING LIGHTS. 
 
 The light of Church members must shine among men. 
 This is commanded. All the Church agrees to this. But 
 how shall it shine I There are two views, broadly divergent. 
 One of them is nearly universal. The other is held by a few 
 outside the Church, and by fewer still within it I mean the 
 Christian Church in general and by nobody is it clearly 
 stated. It is a feeling, or a leaning, rather than an opinion. 
 Eithei view is justified by the wording. Men differ. 
 Nothing means quite the same with any two persons. The 
 light of believers is to shine among men. Seemingly there 
 are several ways of shining. But believers are to shine in 
 one particular way ; men must see (not their light, but) their 
 good works. Having seen not that but these, men shall 
 glorify the Father in heaven. 
 
 According to the prevailing theory, " light " is Christian 
 character. To the world, and especially to those who do not 
 belong to the Church, the piety and charity of Christian 
 men and women are to be made manifest. Then the world, 
 the unbelieving world, will trace these things to Christian 
 character, as to lamps men trace illumination ; and all who 
 have the right thing in them will thereupon believe and 
 worship. Moreover in every upright heart, there springs up 
 a certain thankfulness to God for all works of righteousness ; 
 and this thankfulness, still or outspoken, is itself a glorifica- 
 tion of the Lord. 
 
 I like the prevailing theory. I accept it. I do not praise 
 it, for it is above all praise. The other and rarer way of 
 thinking, or rather, as I said, of feeling, is opposed to it in 
 terms, but not in truth. I like the latter also, and I accept 
 it, but it is lofty above all definition, leastwise for me ; it is 
 Divine. 
 
 The "light" meant in this passage is not Christian 
 character. The best of men, believers or unbelievers, are 
 not bright enough to shine. They have never shone. At 
 
336 
 
 no time, and under no circumstances will they with absolute 
 truth have any sheen. There is none that does good, no not 
 one ; and the angels He charges with folly. The only light 
 is the Divine Man himself, and solely in darkness and 
 without aid of other lights, rival or friendly, does He beam. 
 " Light " is truth divine. That is the true light which en- 
 lightens every man that comes into the world. Not to be 
 stared upon and gaped at, like falling stars by an idiot, does 
 it shine into men's dark minds ; but to the end that they 
 shall the less stumble over rocks and into pitfalls, and that 
 there may be daylight wherein work can be wrought out be- 
 fore the night come. Therefore it is said that this light 
 the kind and measure of it given to Christians is so to 
 shine that not itself, but the good works done by it, may be 
 seen. For unless the Light the ideal, whatever it be, 
 which a man possesses be acted upon and turned into 
 Conduct and practice, his light is darkness. Not otherwise 
 can truth from God make to God's praise. In the bringing 
 forth of fruit it is that the Father is glorified, and the only 
 disciples are performers. To call Lord, Lord, is not surely 
 glorification ; but doing what He says is profound obei- 
 sance. 
 
 In the inner and outer world alike, the Sun of Righteous- 
 ness, shining on trees of righteousness, begets fruits of 
 righteousness. In either the universe of matter or of 
 mind, the true splendor of the light lies not in glitter, but in 
 actinism. The grain and grass glorify their flaming father 
 in the sky with greater glory than do fiery clouds and golden 
 sunsets. The talkers of religion are as talkers like 
 broken bits of looking-glass which you shall often see twink- 
 ling out of heaps of refuse ; bright enough and well-nigh 
 useless. The plant world, without glare, glorifies its father 
 sun with exceeding great glory ; the growth of the plants 
 is itself that glory. 
 
 As for "sight" and "seeing," the true deep meaning of 
 these words is not known to many. Real sight is a solid. 
 
337 
 
 and not a surface ; the nervous system through and through 
 trembles to the quivering ether upon the retina ; and the 
 single eye fills the whole body with light. Shall he that runs 
 from battle and watches it out of a tree-top be said to " see " 
 the wars I Was it in lazy contemplation, or with forceful 
 action, that the old Shaper " saw " His work that it was good ? 
 Who shall " see " the great golden town come down to earth 
 but he who sees that it sink into his own earthly nature ? As 
 the trees and crops see the sun's deeds in summer and at 
 harvest, shall the world " see the good works " brought forth 
 by " light," and glorify the Father. "Seeing " means experi- 
 encing. Other sight is visionary. It is mostly of naught ; and 
 mostly it comes to naught. " Good works " consist for the 
 most part in the square and diligent and thorough discharge 
 of the duties of any honest calling ; consists in such a dis- 
 charge of them from God, with God and to God. There is 
 not much emotion in this life of good works, but there is a 
 great deal of worship. 
 
 WOKKS AND GREATER WORKS. 
 
 " He that believeth on me, the works that I do he too 
 shall do ; and greater than these shall he do, because I am 
 going to the Father " (John xiv: 12). The difficulty some- 
 times found in this passage does not exist in the original. 
 The word " these " does not refer to the works that Jesus 
 Christ was doing, but to the works that the believer in 
 Him was to do. The Greek word means properly " the 
 latter," or " the last-mentioned," that is, the believer's doings. 
 The Christian's achievements shall be of two kinds ; and one 
 
338 
 
 kind will, for the reason given in the text, be greater than 
 the other. The analysis seems clearly to be this : 
 
 1. The believer shall do sundry works. 
 
 2. The believer shall also do greater works. 
 
 3. The believer's first-mentioned works are to be of the 
 same sort as Jesus Christ's had been up to that time. 
 
 4. The fact that Jesus Christ is going to the Father will 
 produce the effect of rendering the believer's last-mentioned 
 works greater than his first. 
 
 It is said that the believer's former works were to be 
 Christ's works. This means, not that the works of the two 
 are identical, but that they are similar in kind. Whatever 
 Jesus Christ's were for Him and in Him, the believer's 
 would be for him and in him. Those of the former were 
 infinite because He is infinite ; those of the latter would be 
 finite because he is finite. 
 
 The reason why " going to the Father " would cause the 
 believer's latter works to be greater than his former ones, is 
 found in the same chapter. If the disciples loved Him they 
 would be rejoiced to know that He was going to the Father, 
 because His Father is greater than He (v. 28). This " going 
 to the Father " was a transition, not in space, but in state, in 
 character, in constitution. The Father is omnipresent, and 
 no one can come nearer Him than before, except he " draw 
 nigh to God. " Jesus Christ was to rise into the Father's 
 condition. This would be a greater or higher condition than 
 He was then in ; and all who loved Him would be glad of 
 the change, because it was for the higher and greater. The 
 means by which this rise to the Highest would render the 
 works of the believer greater than they had been before, are 
 described in the same Gospel. "It is expedient for you 
 that I go away ; for if I go not away, the Comforter will not 
 come unto you; but if I depart I will send him unto you" 
 (xvi: 7). It was the Comforter that should " guide them 
 into all truth " (xvi: 13), and f< teach them all things" (xvi: 
 
339 
 
 26); and before the Comforter could " come," Jesus Christ 
 must " go." 
 
 The works of Jesus Christ before He ascended into Father- 
 hood, in general stand for His dealings with the evils exist- 
 ing in the fallen human nature He had taken upon Him ; and 
 these works consisted in overcoming and expelling those 
 evils. The " greater works than these" (v. 20) which the 
 Father was to show Him works so great that men 
 would marvel are the works He does after attaining to the 
 Father. These last have no concern with any evil in His 
 nature, for all evil had been cast out ; they had only to do 
 with goodness there which had replaced the evil. " Great " 
 works are those that proceed from good ; that is, from gen- 
 uine love, and are themselves good ; the essential of moral 
 greatness in any deed is the goodness in it ; otherwise a 
 thing is hollow and therefore not great. 
 
 These two kinds of works are effected in every believer. 
 The first kind are negative ; are works of abstention from 
 evil. The outline of them is the ' Shalt not " of the Deca- 
 logue. The second works come as soon and as far as Divine 
 truths are fairly " laid to heart " by the believer, become the 
 veiy source of all his actions, and grow into parent principles 
 in him, or in other words, " go to the Father." Thither 
 to the Father Jesus Christ in a finite sense is going in the 
 soul of every believer ; and the transition thither takes 
 place as far as the believer's intellectual conformity to truth 
 passes into an inner and outer practising of it. Before this, 
 his works are not " great," that is, not good ; but after this 
 they are great. And both before and after, his works are 
 the outcome of certain forces within him which proceed con- 
 stantly from the ascended Christ. 
 
 The rule as to these two states and processes is universal 
 and familiar ; and so are the states and processes. No one 
 while he is learning the rudiments of an art be it painting, 
 or sculpture, or music, or even some common trade can do 
 its works as well as after he has learned. At first he must 
 
340 
 
 work by rules implanted in the memory, and with travail 
 and with pain. Not before all his externally acquired lore 
 " ascends to the Father " passes up into the Unconscious in 
 him where rules are converted into instincts and whence 
 only comes inspiration does the Spirit of his art possess 
 him, and teach him all things, bring all things with new 
 meaning to his remembrance, guide him into all truth of 
 his art, and ever show him things yet to come therein. 
 There is no other way to arrive at " great " works, master- 
 pieces. 
 
 And here all Christendom is in error. Men think they 
 can reach the heights of Love, merely by practising deeds 
 of love and without passing through apprenticeship. The 
 one indispensable process, Repentance the searching out 
 and shunning of evils in self as being sins against God the 
 process which makes " great " works possible, is distasteful. 
 Some great thing Naaman would have done swiftly, but 
 washing was not a great thing. Men are willing to come to 
 the heavenly feast if they can sit down first in an upper 
 room. The young ruler asks what good may purchase 
 eternal life, but learns that abstention from evil is chiefly 
 necessary ; and proving himself within two minutes to be in 
 some measure a liar, a thief and a miser, departs in sorrow 
 on being shown a way to gratify benevolent desires. And 
 thus it must be always, until men know for certain that all that 
 is really good must be more than artificial ; must be engen- 
 dered in the Unconscious where God begets it, and thence 
 descend into thought and act ; that the Unconscious must 
 be purified from hatred and evil before love and good can 
 come forth from it ; that unless the Conscious is purified by 
 man's cooperation with God, the Unconscious cannot be made 
 pure by God ; that God cleanses the latter as fast as man 
 cleanses the former, no faster ; and that the first and lesser 
 works of Repentance must be performed before the second 
 and greater works of genuine Love are possible. Always 
 it must be thus, until men know that the heart and not the 
 
341 
 
 intellect is the main-spring ; that the Good is heart-sub- 
 stance, and is not an apparition projected from the intellect ; 
 that, like all substantial things, the Good has not only its 
 interiors in which it is, but also its very outmosts where it 
 ceases to be ; that only through the outmosts where it is not, 
 can Love's inside be really come at ; that the full-containing 
 walls of the New Jerusalem are such by virtue of forbidding 
 and exclusive external salient angles ; that the Love which at 
 last works good to the neighbor from delight, begins with 
 working no ill to the neighbor thus begins with self-restraint 
 and undelight ; and that the heart cannot be filled with 
 what is promised in the two great commands " Thou shalt," 
 except as far as it is emptied of what is forbidden in the 
 ten laws " Thou shalt not." I know it will be denied that 
 nine-tenths of the Decalogue are prohibitory and only pro- 
 hibitory ; and I know it will be denied that in spirit the re- 
 maining tenth is very largely prohibitory and ever grows 
 more prohibitory as riper years advance. This nevertheless 
 is true. And still it is a principle which should be applied 
 toward a furtherance of the Good itself, and not of the True 
 alone. The Word contains commands to acts of benefaction ; 
 and these are interpretable as compulsory edicts ; albeit true 
 charity's whole compulsory force is from within, and is love 
 itself compelling is the love of others which compels, and 
 does not spring in the least from hope of reward or from 
 dread of the penalties of disobedience. The truth is, men 
 know not what manner of spirit they inwardly are of. In 
 some, their outward and conscious intent is the same in char- 
 acter as their spirit within ; and in others it is of an opposite 
 character to the spirit within. There are many who do deeds 
 of benefaction, doing them either under compulsion of com- 
 mand, or from the impulse of promised reward ; not having 
 in their hearts the love-principle which alone constitutes 
 within a deed the quality of goodness. There are many who 
 do deeds of benefaction, and who seem to themselves as act- 
 ing under compulsion, or else for reward, and not as acting 
 
342 
 
 from very love ; but who yet, far back in the unconscious 
 mind, possess a real love of others which prompts those acts, 
 and which for an ally in its struggle against the selfishness 
 of the lower and conscious nature lays hold of the compul- 
 sory command in the lower and conscious memory, and in 
 the lower and conscious mind lays hold also of the promise 
 of reward or of some fear of penalty, and wills to work for its 
 own ends and purposes that memory and that promise and 
 that fear. Between the former class and the latter class 
 (who alike do deeds of benefaction, and who do those deeds 
 from motives wholly alike, so far as their motives come to 
 consciousness or knowledge), there is all the breadth of 
 spiritual gulf that lies between Hell and Heaven. The 
 shunning of evils as sins is what has made an inward uncon- 
 scious heaven in the latter ; and the not shunning of evils 
 as sins is what has kept and has swollen an unconscious 
 hell within the former. Furthermore : of those who have 
 not yet learned to shun evils as sins, some may later in life 
 learn so to shun them ; but in order to this end, and as 
 drawing towards this end, a man's practice of benefactions 
 may be serviceable to him. Many a man would rush in- 
 wardly, though not outwardly, into every evil of spirit and 
 hidden intention, were the disguise of seeming charity 
 plucked from him which has served to hide him from him- 
 self. Of the Divine Foresight it therefore comes that the 
 wheat and the tares are sometimes suffered to grow together 
 in the mind till harvest, lest in rooting up the tares the 
 wheat be rooted up also. The two general orders whereby 
 men are ordered heaven-ward, are, first, Cease to do evil ; 
 second, Learn to do well. If a third order there be, it 
 surely is this, Cease to do evil. The Christian clergy do not 
 understand this matter; and therefore it is the churches 
 themselves that so largely furnish the embezzlers, the de- 
 faulters and all the kinds of trust-breakers. The clergy 
 teach " Thou shalt ;" they mostly give the go-by to " Thou 
 Shalt not ; " this last seems to them half-ascetic and 
 
343 
 
 as unfit food for hearts that bound toward all. Moreover 
 " Thou shalt," brings swift and obvious results ; and most 
 men regard the obvious. Nor do the present reformers of 
 church doctrine, wise as many of them may be, quite under- 
 stand this matter. In the worthier pictures of the Divine 
 character which they are learning to draw, we can find in 
 some sense a veritable second coming of the Lord ; for a 
 nearer knowledge of Him is, in a measure, a bringing of 
 Him nearer. Yet the truth is everlasting, that unless 
 the way be prepared before Him, His coming can 
 only smite with a curse. "Thou shalt not" is the 
 prophet the more than prophet that prepares that 
 way ; for this is he that washes with water unto repentance. 
 Until a man learns to search his conduct, both internal 
 and external, under the light of the ten prohibitory 
 but non-ascetic laws, and in some degree purge his inner 
 and outer life according to these laws, it may be better for 
 him to know God for other than the Being of sheer and 
 boundless Love towards angels and devils alike, which in- 
 deed He cannot but be. Assuredly till then, a man will 
 abuse all just knowledge of God. Therefore God vari- 
 ously vails Himself from age to age, and ever adapts to 
 various beholders His manifestation. It is with the merciful 
 only that without harm-bringing He can show Himseli 
 merciful ; with an upright man only will he show Himseli 
 upright ; with only the pure, pure ; and with the froward 
 He will in mercy and most towardly show Himself froward. 
 It may be good for the wicked that, like church-folk of the 
 past, he should think that God is altogether such a one as 
 himself vain, self-seeking and revengeful. Let the re- 
 formers begin where real reformation must begin, and 
 ripen thus the time ; the Scourer first must come ; for the 
 most it is not yet glad Yule-time ; a full half-year before- 
 hand is John's day, until which all prophets prophesy. 
 
344 
 AN AFTER- WORD. 
 
 Witless of all things a man is born into this world, and 
 witless of most things he stays until he is borne out of it. 
 Yet the things which are in the Maker, and which from Him 
 have come into the men that He has made, are so boundless 
 and so utterly not the same, that it comes about that no two 
 men are evenly witless on the whole, nor witless of even the 
 same things ; but some are more witless of one thing and 
 some of another. Out of this fact, by means of contact, by 
 means of mutual criticism, and through amendment after 
 criticism, comes all progress in society. Hereby comes civil- 
 ization, and hereby all true cooperation. When, if ever, this 
 cooperation shall extend to book-making, truly then shall books 
 become articles of value. Then the here-and-there emptiness 
 of a writer shall here and there be pieced out by fullness on 
 the part of some reader ; errors, and many of them, shall be 
 corrected; and a writer then shall no more hold himself 
 bound to stand by a first edition of his book than by his gal- 
 ley proofs. 
 
 The matters of which I have written are of interest to but 
 few ; and fewer yet will have been willing to read my book 
 thus far. If there be any such, and if any one of them can 
 help me by pointing out any of its surely-existing equivo- 
 ques, dark places, fatal omissions, mistakes and falsehoods, I 
 shall be thankful for such help. If but this wish is idle 
 a considerable number of readers should thus give help, I 
 have little doubt that in a second edition, it might even be- 
 come a book of some small use. Thus far I have thought 
 best to write anonymously, out of respect to4he warning given 
 to shoemakers ; yet now hoping to get help, let me say that 
 communications may be addressed to Don Fulano Tal, at the 
 house indicated on the title page. 
 
345 
 
 " Arise, shine ; for thy light is come, and the glory of the 
 
 Lord is risen upon thee Lift up thine eyes 
 
 round about, and see: all they gather themselves together, 
 they come to thee: thy sons shall come from far, and thy 
 daughter f s shall be nursed at thy side The abund- 
 ance of the sea shall be converted unto thee, the forces of the 
 
 Gentiles shall come unto thee And the sons of 
 
 strangers shall build up thy walls, and their kings shall 
 
 minister unto thee The glory of Lebanon shall 
 
 come unto thee, the fir tree, the pine tree, and the box to- 
 gether, to beautify the place of my sanctuary ; and I will 
 make the place of my feet glorious .... For brass I 
 will bring gold, and for iron I will bring silver ; and for 
 wood brass, and for stones iron : I will also make thy officers 
 peace, and thine exactors righteousness" 
 
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