pear: that is to say, as I am naturally distinct from and disunited with all existence, so am I also spiritually distinct and disunited and distinct and disunited existences deny unity of origin, deny that one and the same Creator could produce so many divergent creatures."

Thus the naturalist limits the reason by the senses, or allows the phenomenal to dominate the real. Not seeing that Nature is but the inverse of spirit, that natural variety and difference are but the inverse correspondential expression of spiritual unity, he allows the former to dominate the latter, and conceives of the soul as existing only in bodily conditions, the conditions of time and space. Going to the mirror for instruction as well as information, for wisdom as well as knowledge: asking it, not how things appear to what is below themselves, but how they exist to themselves he becomes hopelessly duped, and ends by not knowing his right hand (spiritually) from his left, or his heels from his head. Misled by what Swedenborg calls the sensuous lumen, the mere light of Nature, we invariably immerse spiritual existence in material dimensions, or subject it to time and space. Denying the unity of the soul in God, thus the unity of humanity, we split the spiritual creature up into as many conflicting and independent and selfish souls, as Nature exhibits of bodies. In short, the naturalist, instead of making nature and spirit twin

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aspects of one and the same consciousness, as that consciousness is viewed either subjectively or objectively instead of seeing both the natural and the spiritual universe alike included in the unity of the conscious me, both alike pervaded by the unitary human soul, both alike embraced in humanity, in short: gives them the reciprocal independence and obtuseness of two peas, and so leaves them utterly and eternally destitute of rational accord.

Yours truly,

LETTER XII.

MY DEAR W.,

Paris, Dec. 15th, 1856.

'THE incomparable depth and splendour of Swedenborg's genius are shewn in this, that he alone of men has ever dared to bring creation within the bounds of consciousness-within the grasp of the soul. He alone has dared to give to Nature human unity, to endow it with the proportions of man. This is the fundamental distinction between his genius and that of all our other great writers, that while they, by exteriorating object to subject, Creator to creature, God to man, materialize man's motives, and so construct a grossly sensual Theology, and an utterly selfish Ethics; he in interiorating object to subject, God to man, spiritualizes man's motives, and consequently constructs a Theology which places God exclusively within the soul, and an Ethics whose sanctions lie in the demands of our endless spiritual development, and no longer in the arbitrary pleasure of any foreign power. As it is impossible to comprehend the laws of creation without a clear per

ception of the rational truth on this subject, I shall make no apology for dwelling upon it a while longer. I simply seek to familiarize you with the fundamental truth of Swedenborg's system, which is that God is essential man, and that all creation consequently is in human form, being everywhere pervaded by consciousness more or less perfectly pronounced.

In a former letter I shewed you that the me absorbs the whole realm of the finite, the domain of sensible experience, the outer sphere, so to speak, of consciousness. The not-me equally absorbs the realm of the infinite, the domain of spiritual experience, or the inner sphere of consciousness. Consciousness forms the dividing and yet uniting line between infinite and finite. It is the hyphen which separates yet unites the object and subject, the not-me and the me. Whatsoever is on the hither side of consciousness, whatsoever is sensibly discerned as mineral, vegetable and animal, is finite and falls below the me. The me dominates it. Whatsoever is on the thither side of consciousness, whatsoever is spiritually discerned, as goodness, truth and beauty, in short character, is infinite and falls above the me. The me aspires to this infinitude, cultivates it, worships it. Consciousness, or life, unites this higher and lower realm, giving us the beautiful mineral, the graceful shrub, the gentle animal, the good man. The grammatical adjustment of adjective

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and substantive is only a formula of the copulation which all life or consciousness implies between object and subject, between infinite and finite, between the not-me and the me. This is the invariable meaning of consciousness: the copulation of an interior object with an exterior subject; the marriage of a universal substance with a specific form. Wherever there is organized life or consciousness, there is the coupling or congress of an interior infinite object with an exterior finite subject the marriage of a universal and invisible substance with a specific and visible form: the life or consciousness being high or low, rich or poor, human or inhuman, precisely as this marriage is more or less perfectly pronounced. In short, consciousness or life invariably asserts the union of a universal interior substance with a particular exterior form, the life being more or less perfect, that is human, just as the union in question is more or less complete in the subject, that is to say, just as the individual subject is capable of universalizing himself, of adjusting himself to universal relations.

According to this definition, man is the highest form of consciousness, because in him alone is the individual element proportionate to the universal. Man is the only universal form. He stands related to universal nature, on the one hand, by what he possesses in common with it, and to God on the other, by what he possesses over and above