But care is taken that the whole tune shall be played. If we were not
kept among surfaces, every thing would be large and universal; now the
excluded attributes burst in on us with the more brightness that they
have been excluded. "Your turn now, my turn next," is the rule of the
game. The universality being hindered in its primary form, comes in
the secondary form of all sides; the points come in succession to the
meridian, and by the speed of rotation a new whole is formed. Nature
keeps herself whole and her representation complete in the experience
of each mind. She suffers no seat to be vacant in her college. It is
the secret of the world that all things subsist and do not die but only
retire a little from sight and afterwards return again. Whatever does
not concern us is concealed from us. As soon as a person is no longer
related to our present well-being, he is concealed, or dies, as we say.
Really, all things and persons are related to us, but according to our
nature they act on us not at once but in succession, and we are made
aware of their presence one at a time. All persons, all things which we
have known, are here present, and many more than we see; the world is
full. As the ancient said, the world is a plenum or solid; and if we saw
all things that really surround us we should be imprisoned and unable to
move. For though nothing is impassable to the soul, but all things are
pervious to it and like highways, yet this is only whilst the soul does
not see them. As soon as the soul sees any object, it stops before that
object. Therefore, the divine Providence which keeps the universe open
in every direction to the soul, conceals all the furniture and all the
persons that do not concern a particular soul, from the senses of that
individual. Through solidest eternal things the man finds his road as if
they did not subsist, and does not once suspect their being. As soon as
he needs a new object, suddenly he beholds it, and no longer attempts
to pass through it, but takes another way. When he has exhausted for
the time the nourishment to be drawn from any one person or thing,
that object is withdrawn from his observation, and though still in his
immediate neighborhood, he does not suspect its presence. Nothing is
dead: men feign themselves dead, and endure mock funerals and mournful
obituaries, and there they stand looking out of the window, sound and
well, in some new and strange disguise. Jesus is not dead; he is very
well alive: nor John, nor Paul, nor Mahomet, nor Aristotle; at times
we believe we have seen them all, and could easily tell the names under
which they go.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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