The New-York Weekly Magazine, or Miscellaneous Repository: Forming an Interesting Collection of Original and Select Literary Productions in Prose and Verse
General
The New-York Weekly Magazine, or Miscellaneous Repository: Forming an Interesting Collection of Original and Select Literary Productions in Prose and Verse
American periodicals
“Your question refers to a fact, the answer to it, consequently, belongs
to the practical part of this philosophy. Yet,” added the Irishman after
some reflections, “I can give you a hint upon that head, which will
throw some light upon it: Every substance, consequently the body too,
must possess an internal activity, that is the invisible cause of its
external actions, which are visible in the space. This internal
principle of the body, acts upon the spirit in the same manner in which
the spirit acts upon this principle. Soul and body, consequently, cannot
act upon each other _immediately_, but only by means of this principle.
As all material beings, concretively taken, compose a great totum, which
is called the physical world, so the concrete of all immaterial beings
composes what we call the immaterial world. It follows from the
antecedent, that the order, regularity, and union which are seen in the
former world, are entirely different from the order, regularity, and
union which prevails in the latter world. All material beings are
subject to the sceptre of stern necessity, and kept in order by physical
laws; the rank which these beings maintain towards one another, is
founded either on innate qualities, or such as have been attributed to
them by general agreement; and they are nearer each other, or more
distant from one another, according to their relations constituted by
space and time. How different is this in the material world! rational
beings, endowed with free will, are subject to no other laws but to
those of morality; the prerogatives and degrees which subsist among
them, depend on the different degrees of their wisdom and virtue, and
according to the similarity or difference of their manner of thinking,
and of their sentiments, they are nearer each other, or more distant
from one another; that is, they harmonize, or disharmonize. Man belongs,
by virtue of his body and soul, to both of these worlds, and,
consequently, is connected with the material and immaterial world. It
may therefore happen, that the same person who acts an important part on
earth, in virtue of his physical or political situation, occupies at the
same time the lowest degree among the super-terrestrial beings; that the
soul of a body whose beauty charms every eye here below, is an
indifferent, or a contemptible object in the spiritual world; that the
soul of an inhabitant of Saturn, and that of an inhabitant of the earth,
with regard to their spiritual communion, are oftentimes, nearer
neighbours than the souls of those whose abode is beneath the same
roof.”
“This is very plain!”
(_To be continued._)
* * * * *
_For the +New-York Weekly Magazine+._
* * *
CHARACTER OF A GOOD MAN.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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