Part 17 (1/2)
”Every thing in the world is endowed with life; the world itself is alive, and continues only, maintains itself by virtue of its life.
”Man is G.o.d wholly manifested. G.o.d has become man, zero has become + --.
Man is the whole of arithmetic, compacted, however, out of all numbers; he can, therefore, produce numbers out of himself.
”Animals are men who never imagine. They are beings who never attain to consciousness concerning themselves. They are single accounts; man is the whole of mathematics.
”Arithmetic is the truly absolute or divine science. Theology is arithmetic personified.
”For G.o.d to become real, he must appear under the form of the sphere.
There is no other form for G.o.d. G.o.d manifesting is an infinite sphere.
”G.o.d is a rotating globe; the world is G.o.d rotating.
”The whole universe is material, is nothing but matter; for it is the primary act repeating itself eternally in the centre. The universe is a rotating globe of matter.
”There is no dead matter; it is alive through its being, through the Eternal that is in it. Matter has no existence in itself, but it is the Eternal only that exists in it. Every thing is G.o.d that is there, and without G.o.d there is absolutely nothing.
”Every thing that is is material. Now, however, there is nothing that is not; consequently there is every where nothing immaterial.
”Fire is the totality of ether, is G.o.d manifested in his totality.
”Every thing that is has originated out of fire; every thing is only cooled, rigidified fire.
”G.o.d being in himself is gravity; acting, self-emergent light; both together, or returning into himself, heat.
”G.o.d only is monocentral. The world is the bicentral G.o.d, G.o.d the monocentral world, which is the same with the monas and dyas.
Self-consciousness is a living ellipse.
”G.o.d is a threefold trinity; at first the eternal, then the ethereal, and finally the terrestrial, where it is completely divided.
”The symbolical doctrine of the colors is correct according to the philosophy of nature. Red is fire, love--Father. Blue is air, truth, and belief--Son. Green is water, formation, hope--Ghost. These are the three cardinal virtues. Yellow is earth, the immovable, inexorable falsity, the only vice--Satan. There are three virtues, but only one vice. A result obtained by physio-philosophy, whereof pneumato-philosophy as yet augurs nothing.
”The primary mucus, out of which every thing organic has been created, is the sea mucus.
”The whole sea is alive. It is a fluctuating, ever self-elevating, and ever self-depressing organism.
”If the organic fundamental substance consist of infusoria, so must the whole organic world originate from infusoria. Plants and animals can be only metamorphoses of infusoria. No organism has consequently been created of larger size than an infusorial point; whatever is larger has not been created, but developed.
”The mind, just as the body, must be developed out of these animals, (infusoria.) The human body has been formed by an extreme separation of the neuro-protoplasmic or mucous ma.s.s; so must the human mind be a separation, a memberment of infusorial sensation. The highest mind is an anatomized or dismembered mesmerism, each member whereof has been const.i.tuted independent in itself.
”The liver is the soul in a state of sleep, the brain is the soul active and awakening.
”Circ.u.mspection and forethought appear to be the thoughts of the bivalve mollusca, and snails.
”Gazing upon a snail, one believes that he finds the prophesying G.o.ddess sitting upon the tripod. What majesty is in a creeping snail, what reflection, what earnestness, what timidity, and yet at the same time what firm confidence! Surely a snail is an exalted symbol of mind slumbering deeply within itself.”
It is difficult for an Anglo-Saxon mind to believe that a man who could write thus was not out of his senses. Yet Oken is an eminent physiologist, and has made, it is said, important discoveries in respect to the cranial h.o.m.ologies, which have been developed in Professor Owen's work on the h.o.m.ologies of the Vertebrate Skeleton. Nay, Oken declares himself to have written his Physio-philosophy ”in a kind of inspiration”--from what world the religious man might be in doubt.
These extravagant notions show what is the natural tendency of the law hypothesis. Yet it does not necessarily convert a man into an atheist. And if any of its advocates declare themselves Theists, and even Christians, we need not regard them as hypocrites, though we may consider them as in an eminently dangerous position; and that, when they shall act consistently, they will swing off into utter irreligion. But my arguments against the hypothesis will be based on the position that _it is not sustained by facts_; and this is the second position of my lecture.
The nebular hypothesis is a part of the foundation on which the doctrine of creation by law rests. And the high scientific reputation of its author, as well as its apparent coincidence with some of the deductions of geology respecting the earliest condition of the earth, have made philosophers look upon it with considerable favor. Yet very few have been ready to give it implicit credence. And of late the most plausible evidence in its favor seems to be fast vanis.h.i.+ng away. The ablest mechanicians are unable to see how a rotary motion should be produced in nebulous matter by refrigeration; or, if this be a.s.sumed, how the successive portions, detached by superior centrifugal force, should form spherical ma.s.ses. But a still more formidable objection lies in the fact that, as improvements are made in telescopes, one and another of the nebul, on which the hypothesis rests, have been resolved into stars; and the presumption hence arising is very strong that all are resolvable. In the present aspect of the subject, no sagacious philosopher would dare to rest even an hypothesis upon the unresolved nebul. If, however, the nebular hypothesis were shown to be true, it would prove nothing in regard to the production of animals and plants by mere law, without the special agency of the Deity.