mysterious does the communion of soul and body become[3] But, at the same time, how natural that it is incomprehensible, inasmuch as our conceptions of external actions are derived from those of matter, and are always connected with the conditions of impact and pressure, which do not exist in this case. For how could an immaterial being be such an obstruction so that matter in its motion could collide with it, a spirit; and how could corporeal things act upon an unknown being which does not oppose them with impenetrability, and which does not hinder them in any way from being at the same time present in the space in which it is itself? It seems that a spiritual essence is inmostly present in matter, and that it does not act upon those forces which determine the mutual relations of elements, but upon the inner principle of their state. For every substance, even a simple element of matter, must have an inner activity
- ↑ 6 (p. 53)—"Love or the will is man's very life. … As all things of the body depend for existence and motion upon the heart, so do all things of the mind depend for existence and life upon the will. It is said, upon the will, but this means upon the love, because the will is the receptacle of love, and love is life itself (see above, n. 1–3), and love, which is life itself, is from the Lord alone.
"And as the human form is made up of all the things there are in man, it follows that love or the will is in a continual conatus and effort to form all these. There is a conatus and effort towards the human form, because God is a Man, and Divine Love and Divine Wisdom is His life, and from His life is everything of life. Any one can sec that unless Life which is very man acted into that which in itself is not life, the formation of anything such as exists in man would be impossible, in whom are thousands of thousands of things that make one thing, and that unanimously aspire to an image of the Life from which they spring, that man may become a receptacle and abode of that Life. From all this it can be seen that love, and out of the love the will, and out of the will the heart, strives unceasingly towards the human form."—D. L. W., 399–400.
- ↑ 7 (p. 53)—"Man from his spirit, and not from his body; and that the corporeal form is added to the spirit according to its form, and not the reverse, for the spirit is clothed with a body according to its own form. For this reason the spirit of man acts into every part, yea, into the minutest particulars of the body, insomuch that the part which is not actuated by the spirit, or in which the spirit is not acting, docs not live. That this is so, may be known to every one from this fact alone, that thought and will actuate each and all things of the body with such entire command that every thing concurs, and whatever does not concur is not a part of the body, and is also cast out as something in which is no life. Thought and will are of the spirit of man, and not of the body. That the spirit does not appear to man in a human form, after it is loosed from the body, nor in another man, is because the body's organ of sight, or its eye, sofar as it sees in the world, is material, and what is material sees what is material only.
"…… A deed or work, therefore, viewed in itself, is only an effect, which derives its soul and life from the will and thought, insomuch that it is will and thought in effect, consequently it is will and thought in an external form. Hence it follows that such as the will and thought are which produce a deed or work, such likewise is the deed and work: if the thought and will be good, then the deeds and works are good; but if the thought and will be evil, then the deeds and works are evil, though in the external form they may appear the same."—H. and H., 453, 472.
"The mind (that is, the will and understanding) impels the body and all its belongings at will. Does not the body do whatever the mind thinks and determines? Does not the mind incite the ear to hear, and direct the eye to see, move the tongue and the lips to speak, impel the hands and fingers to do whatever it pleases, and the feet to walk whither it will? Is the body, then, anything but obedience to its mind: and can the body be this unless the mind is in its derivatives in the body? Is it consistent with reason to think that the body acts from obedience simply because the mind so determines? in which case there would be two, the one above and the other below, one commanding, the other obeying. As this is in no way consistent with reason, it follows that man's life is in its first principles in the brains, and in its derivatives in the body (according to what has been said above, n. 365); also that such as life is in first principles, such it is in the whole and in every part (n. 366); and that by means of these first principles life is in the whole from every part, and in every part from the whole (n. 367); and that all things of the mind have relation to the will and understanding, and that the will and understanding are the receptacles of love and wisdom from the Lord, and that these two make the life of man."—D. L. W., 387.
- ↑ 8 (p. 53).—"Influx is effected by correspondences; it cannot be effected by continuity."—D. L. W., 88.
"Respecting the life which proceeds from the Lord, respecting also the existence of all things in the universe derived from it, every man who is wise in heart may see that nature does not produce anything from itself, but that, for the purpose of producing, it merely ministers to the spiritual principle proceeding from the sun ofheaven, which is the Lord; as the instrumental cause ministers to its principal cause, or a dead force to its living force. From this it is evident how much men are in error, who ascribe to nature the generations of animals and productions of vegetables; for they are like those who ascribe magnificent and splendid works to the tool rather than to the artist, or who worship a sculptured image in preference to God. The fallacies, which are innumerable in all reasoning on spiritual, moral, and civil subjects, originate in this source; for a fallacy is the inversion of order; it is the judgment of the eye, rather than of the mind, the conclusion drawn from the appearance of a thing, rather than from its essence. To reason therefore from fallacies about the world and the existence of the things contained in it is to confirm, as it were, by argument that darkness is light, that that which is dead is alive, and that the body enters by influx into the soul, rather than the contrary. It is, however, an eternal truth that influx is spiritual, and not physical; that is, it is from the soul, which is spiritual, into the body which is natural, and from the spiritual world into the natural; and further that it is the Divine Being proceeding from Himself, and as He created all things by that which proceeds from Himself, so also He sustains all things by it; and lastly, that sustentation is perpetual creation, as subsistence is perpetual existence."—Athan. Cr., 102.
inner capacity to determine one's self by one's own will power.[1] But the essential characteristic of matter is that it fills space by a necessary force which is limited by counteraction from without. Thus the stale of everything that is material is externally dependent and forced. But those entities which are said to contain the cause of life, which act from themselves and from inner power, in short, the intrinsic nature of which is to be able to change themselves at will, can hardly be said to be material. It cannot reasonably be expected that we understand, in their sub-divisions, under their various species, such unknown beings,—the existence of which we know for the most part only by hypothesis. We can see, however, that those immaterial beings which contain the cause of animal life, are different from those which comprise reason in their self-activity, and are called spirits.[2]
