' I 
 
 ■ 
 
 wa 
 
z 
 
 
 

 
 
 
 
 - v* 
 
 •y 
 
 vX 
 
 
THE 
 
 TEMPLE OF TRUTH, 
 
 SCIENCE OF EVER-PROGRESSIVE KNOWLEDGE 
 
 CONTAINING 
 
 THE FOUNDATION AND ELEMENTS OF A SYSTEM FOE ARRIVING 
 AT ABSOLUTE CERTAINTY IN ALL THINGS; 
 
 A MESSAGE OF NEVER-ENDING JOY, AND THE ABIDING HERALD 
 
 OP BETTER TIMES TO ALL MEN OP A GOOD-WILL, OR 
 
 DESIROUS OP ACQUIRING IT.— Rev. XIV, '6. 
 
 BY 
 
 PETER KAUFMANN 
 
 'Try me."— Bayard, the Knight. 
 
 *Arv.2q 
 
 St- 
 
 CINCINNATI: 
 
 PUBLISHED IN ENGLISH AND GERMAN, BY 
 
 TRUMAN & SPOFFORD, AND EGGERS & WILDE. 
 CANTON, . , 
 
 BY THE AUTHOR. 
 1858 
 
% A* 
 
 ■ ^ ■ :■ 
 
 TO THE PUBLIC 
 
 The author deems it proper, hereby to impart to the public at large the following infor- 
 mation : 
 
 1.) He publishes this work, and will (God permitting), in due time, follow it up with 
 a series of volumes, all designed to benefit, man (the individual), the nation and the race, 
 not only by the facts and truths therein disclosed and inculcated ; but also by applying the 
 net proceeds resulting from the sale thereof entirely to the benefit of man and the relief of 
 suffering humanity. 
 
 2.) Among other suitable means for effecting that object, the establishment of a MODEL 
 institution of education, more comprehensive, liberal and humanitary, than any yet 
 existing, claims a prominent place of the first rank, amid his cherished wishes, to be actual- 
 ized by a co-operating association, as soon as the means are in reach. 
 
 3.) Hence, every person purchasing the book, add furnishing additionally the names of 
 two other persons taking it, thereby secures to himself and family a, perpetual right of mem- 
 bership in such educational association, as likewise an incipient pre-emption claim to an 
 equitable share of the benefits resulting from, and connected with, the practical realization 
 of the all-sided model school, and the beneficent institutions of every description, that 
 form necessary parts of its multiform branches. 
 
 4.) The names of all who purchase the book, will, therefore, be noted upon suitable lists ; 
 so will be also those, who shall take especial pains in promoting the aims of the book, and 
 in expanding and enlarging the cycle of its readers ; all of which lists will be carefully 
 preserved in the archives of the contemplated institution. 
 
 Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1858, by 
 
 PETER KAUFMANN, 
 
 In the Clerk's Office of the District Court for the Southern District of Ohio. 
 
 Stereotyped by Hills, O'Driscoll & Co., 
 141 Main St., Cincinnati 
 
 E. MORGAN & SONS, printers k binders. 
 No. Ill Main St., Cincinnati. 
 
PKEFACE. 
 
 In the within volume, we hereby present to our NUMEROUS friends and the truth' 
 seeking part of the world at large, the condensed result of our most earnest and active re- 
 search after ABSOLUTE TRUTH, prosecuted during a period of thinking existence, and 
 amidst an interior and exterior experience, infinitely copious and multiform in 'variega- 
 tion, in extent, and amount, of nearly half a- century in duration. We feel great 
 gratification in the possession of the immovable conviction, that we have neither lived, 
 suffered, nor labored in vain, but have at last, in their fullness, found the foundation, 
 elements, and skeleton theory of a system of absolute and unassailable truth, 
 requiring now only for its extraneous actualization the noble spirited action, of clear 
 heads and strong hearts. We consider that herein we have furnished not only what 
 Archimedes demanded: the fulcrum whereon to place his lever; but also the lever 
 itself, by the application of which, the mind of the age, panting for an all-sided and 
 enduring progress, may henceforth lift the sluggish state of the world from its hinges 
 of stagnancy, as likewise out of the vicious circle of motion whereinto, as it were, by 
 an infernal magic, its movements seem, until now, to have charmedly been chained, up 
 and upon a higher platform, where, it may forever move and rise " onward and up- 
 ward." In surveying the line of concatenated thought, running from the beginning, 
 to the closing sentence of this volume, the reader will perceive, that analysis forms the 
 leading and most prominent feature in the whole of the mental operations that constitute 
 the work. And, as the process of analysis, wherever duly consummated, is known and 
 acknowledged, by all competent thinkers, to be the very essence and substance of what is 
 called proof 'or demonstration : every idea exhibited in the book, must carry the impress 
 of its irresistible self-evidence along with itself, until shown, that the analysis in its case, 
 was performed defectively. 
 
 In casting our ken upon the past and present destiny of the human race, we discover 
 the same to be, and. always to have been, one of a mixed nature, combined of good and 
 evil ingredients ; but suffering and misery, in frightful shapes, to preponderate vastly, 
 at all times and everywhere, over happiness and true prosperity. Now, as every 
 thing, as an effect, has a cause that constitutes its origin, the intellect is necessitated to 
 endeavor to discover this grand cause of the general mischief. In examining then, as 
 we have done (in Chapter XXII, on Dialectics, etc., and elsewhere), the primary 
 sources and conditions of all human knowledge and existence, we have found the same 
 to be but three in number, namely : Nature, Reason, and Religion. In nature man 
 physically exists, and is surrounded by it on all sides ; by and with reason, or his think- 
 ing intellect, he knows that, which he knows, of nature and himself, whatever the kind 
 or amount of such knowledge may be ; and as nature and the individualized reason of 
 the single man, exist conjointly with all beings extant, in a physical (by space), and 
 an intellectual infinity (by the First Cause's omnipresent and eternal mind): man's rea- 
 son can only know its own, nature's, and all other beings' and things' true being, nature, 
 and condition, when clearly perceiving the absolute relation of each, to all-surround- 
 ing infinity, and the laws that constitute its eternal statutes. This knowledge of 
 infinity or eternity, being the focus or center, where all individual reason and intellect 
 converges, is called Religion, and constitutes the science or philosophy of eternity. 
 
 Having thus proven (on page 181, $8), that nature, reason, and religion, are equally 
 the voice, a revelation of, and an emanation from, God, their common source and origin ; 
 we also proved that their nature and character is one of pure benignity, like absolute 
 
 iii 
 
17 PREFACE. 
 
 goodness, their divine cause, itself. Now, we are forced to further press the inquiry, 
 by asking ourselves the question : in what mode and manner does it happen, and how 
 does man contrive, that from these THREE c?«;m<?&/-BENIGNANT sources, he gathers 
 a crop so immeasurably richer in MISERY and SUFFERINGS, than in true HAP- 
 PINESS and JOY 1 A brief, analytical statement of man's past and present mode of exis- 
 tence, and manner and kind of pursuits, will, if not the full answer to the query itself, at 
 least furnish us the requisite materials for framing it in a satisfactory form. Man, every 
 where, at all times, and in all things, is absolutely dependent on TRUTH, that 
 is, on his knowledge of, or insight into, the same. He brings not one single ray of 
 such knowledge with him, when, as a helpless babe, entering existence. He finds the 
 race he belongs to, split into nations, peoples, tribes, clans, castes, etc., all more or less un- 
 friendly toward one another, not unfrequently destroying each other like ferocious beasts. 
 He finds these nations and peoples again split up into numberless parties, factions, and 
 sects of a political, ecclesiastical, scientific, or mixed nature, with correspondingly 
 organized machineries to preserve and perpetuate their existence, and extend and fortify 
 their power ; warring hardly less fiercely with one another, than nations engaged in 
 hostile conflict. And, finally, this state of split interests and actual antagonism, 
 prevails again, more or less, between all the families and individuals, composing each 
 of these larger sects or parties. Now, as this state of things, is radically and diametri- 
 cally, just as much opposed to pure nature and true reason, as to real religion ; which all 
 teach and preach to man peace, union 9 and harmony with himself and all crea- 
 tion: nations, sects, families, and individuals are thereby actually, more or less, at war, with 
 one, the other, or both, or all three, of these divine (their only), sources of knowledge 
 and existence ; and, as far as they surrender their inmost light to this state of chaotic 
 anarchy, become incapable of perceiving and comprehending the higher light, streaming 
 conjointly from these trinal divine fountains. Hence, neither nations nor even indi- 
 viduals have, until now, understood the infinitely high AIM and purpose of their 
 existence and destination, and have, therefore, as a general rule, each pursued such 
 self chosen ENDS and objects, as temporal interest, desire, whim, and chance threw 
 in their way, or circumstances and unbending necessity forced upon them. As thereby 
 they become necessarily estranged from nature, reason, and living religion, committing 
 sins and transgressions against the laws of each; these infractions of divine and eternal 
 institutions are punished by an amount of misery and suffering corresponding to the 
 turpitude and amount of the criminal action. And thus we can comprehend how man, 
 by an abuse and perversion of things, forces, and institutions originally good and 
 divine, can, from ignorance, imbecility, and frivolity draw poison, pain, and death, where 
 his wisdom finds only honey, joy, and life. 
 
 In Chapter XXIII, we demonstrate apodictically, that the conjoint voices of reason, 
 nature, and religion, unanimously declare: " All-sided PERFECTION," for- 
 evermore ascending * onward and upward,' to be marts and humanity's 
 PARAMOUNT and SUPREME aim, purpose, or end of existence. As soon as he as- 
 pires after this aim, he enters into incipient harmony with reason, nature, and God ; and the 
 evils theretofore pressing upon him, begin to diminish and disappear. But aspiring 
 only singly and by disunited endeavors, the high aim can be reached merely in a subor- 
 dinate degree, as likewise, for want of power, in some/<?w> points and directions only; 
 but not at all in all others. Hence men have left but one of two alternatives : they must 
 either unite and strive with conjointly irresistible POWER after PERFECTION 
 and the hearen flowing from it; or remain in their present SPLIT UP condition, 
 forever zprey to its WEAKNESS, PAINS, SUFFERINGS, and HORRORS, as inev- 
 itable effects of a state, not in HARMONY, and at WAR with, themselves and 
 all things else. THE AT j TH OR. 
 
 Cincinnati, Ohio, July 4th, 1858. 
 
INDEX 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 Page 
 Introduction, 9 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 Preliminary Survey of Materials and Methods, 16 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 Terminology, Definitions, Classification, etc., 28 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 Man, — his Beginning and Awakening, 33 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 Knowledge, after thus Beginning, — what are its Mode of Progress 
 
 and Results ? 38 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 Examination of the Nature and Foundation of Knowledge, and its 
 
 Ultimate Form in the Mind, 47 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 What Basis has Language for its alleged Accumulation of Thought? 54 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 What is the Nature, Constitution, Structure, Contents, and Source 
 of Language ? 68 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 Analysis of the Nature of Man, — Specifying what it shows, 75 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 Observations and Facts Preparatory to the Analysis of Man's Senses, 82 
 
 CHAPTER XI. 
 Analysis of the Impressions upon the Sense of Sight by the Phe- 
 nomena of Nature, 91 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 Analysis of the Impressions from Phenomena upon the sense of 
 
 Hearing, 103 
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 Analysis of the Impressions from Phenomena upon the Sense of 
 Touch, 110 
 
 fv) 
 
VI INDEX. 
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 Analysis of the Impressions made by Phenomena upon the Sense of 
 Smell, 115 
 
 CHAPTER XV. 
 Analysis of the Impressions from Phenomena upon the Sense of 
 Taste, 116 
 
 CHAPTER XVI. 
 Observations and Facts Preparing the Analysis of the Sense of 
 Feeling, 118 
 
 CHAPTER XVII. 
 Analysis of the Phenomena of Feeling, Impressed upon Sensation 
 
 as Originating in the Body, 121 
 
 CHAPTER XVIII. 
 
 The Phenomena Originating in the Sensibility-Sphere of the Soul, 
 
 Constituting the Source of its Joys and Sufferings, 123 
 
 CHAPTER XIX. 
 Facts and Reflections Preliminary to the Analysis of Man's Mind, . . 156 
 
 CHAPTER XX. 
 Special Analysis of the Mind, Showing its Component Forces, 161 
 
 CHAPTER XXI. 
 On Logic, or the Laws Governing the Intellect in Shaping the 
 Forms of Truth, 165 
 
 CHAPTER XXII. 
 On Dialectics, or the Criterion of the Substance and Essence of 
 Truth, 178 
 
 CHAPTER XXIII. 
 Is there an Inherent Aim or End, Creatively Attached to every 
 
 Man Born into Life ; and if so, which and what is it ? 186 
 
 CHAPTER XXIV. 
 What will be the Form and Spirit of the System of Philosophy 
 
 Finally Ruling the Minds of Men ? 204 
 
 CHAPTER XXV. 
 Can Ideas and Ideals be Actualized, or what and which, are the 
 Principles and Boundaries of Realization, and Laws of Human 
 Performing Capacity ? 247 
 
 CHAPTER XXVI. 
 Contributive Materials Appertaining to the Method of Making a 
 People, a Saviour Nation, or Leading them to Perfection, 268 
 
THE 
 
 TEMPLE OF TKUTH 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 introduction. 
 
 Friend Header : — 
 
 You and myself are two. Each one of us, and that third one, — . 
 our collective neighbor, — yclept Everybody, — can do one or more 
 things, — does and has to do, — a great many things. But of all 
 things, — that you, myself and he, are able, and have to do, — there 
 can (no matter however infinite their number, after comparing them 
 all with and among one another), be but one single, solitary thing, 
 among the whole heap, which, in common for us all, is the lest, 
 most important, and most necessary for every one of us possibly to do. 
 
 2. Now, if it so happens that you can do that best thing for us 
 all, — better than myself and our aforenamed neighbor, — it is my, 
 and his interest, to come to you and ask you to kindly show us the 
 mode and manner how to do it ; as likewise it is yours to teach us 
 the same. For, on the one hand, my neighbor and self shall thereby 
 gain a great deal of time, and save much labor, toil and material, 
 uselessly spent in fruitless experiments ; and you, on the other 
 hand, by teaching us to do the thing correctly, will at once gain a 
 help, to multiply the doing of that best thing, surpassing your own 
 individual capacity of execution, beyond all hope and manner of 
 calculation. 
 
 3. If, however, it so happens that not you, or our neighbor, but 
 myself understand the doing of that best thing, better than you 
 and he, it is your, and his interest to come to me, so as to learn that 
 
 (9) 
 
10 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 best mode in the doing thereof correctly ; which, successfully 
 applied, means infallibly; and in the lapse of the least possible 
 time. Is it neither you nor me, but our individualized neighbor, 
 who is in possession of the precious secret in question : — we have 
 to apply to him, and beg him to put us in possession thereof. 
 
 4. If either of us is actually in possession of that greatest of all 
 secrets, which concerns us all alike, it will require but little coaxing 
 for inducing us to impart its mysteries to any one desirous of knowing 
 them ; since, as above asserted, it is the interest of all of us, that 
 its knowledge should be disclosed, and spread far and near, as 
 speedily and extensively as ever possible. For, the sooner and 
 quicker we multiply the doers of the best thing, by furnishing them 
 in the correct knowledge of the sure method, — the infallible tool to 
 effect it, — the sooner and quicker that best thing will be created and 
 produced in increasing quantities, and finally in abundance ; so that 
 the respective share thereof, constituting to each of us our individual 
 dividend, will continue to increase, in proportion as our apprentices 
 multiply and become journeymen and master loorkmen. 
 
 5. Whatever work a man may do, — be it bodily or mental, — the 
 abstract nature of the performance is, in the main, and essentially, 
 alike in all cases, and constitutes an act of production, creation or 
 architecture, subject to certain conditions, rules or laws of action, 
 of which the intellect absolutely must possess the clear insight, to 
 insure success. 
 
 6. For when a man designs erecting a building, he knows before- 
 hand that, first of all, he must possess the means for doing so. 
 These means, upon examination, he will find to be four in number. 
 a.) In the first instance, he must have a place upon which to build ; 
 erecting thereupon what we term the foundation, b.) Next he 
 must have formed a clear conception of the form, size and construc- 
 tion of the building itself, termed a definite plan, draft or design. 
 c.) He must possess the various materials needed for its execution ; 
 and, d,) lastly, have command of the knowledge, skill and force 
 requisite for accomplishing the work. If either of these four re- 
 quirements be absent, the remaining three will do no good, and 
 leave the designed work unaccomplished. 
 
 7. The reflection upon this matter, discloses to man the law gov- 
 erning all human action, according to which a definite number of 
 
INTRODUCTION. 11 
 
 agencies are indispensably required to co-operate in the production 
 of any thing whatever. Hence, by this law, to do a work of any 
 sort, there must be a worker that understands how to do it ; he 
 must have a place where, and the tools wherewith to do it, and must 
 have the materials, by, out of, from, or upon which, he is to do it. 
 
 8. In the next place, every work to be so done prescribes also, 
 by inherent law, the mode of proceeding in its execution ; namely, 
 it can, and must be done only part by part (analytically), and not in 
 one simultaneous act, producing at once (synthetically) the whole. 
 Hence, the various parts of a work are produced seriatim, in a reg- 
 ular line of succession ; or, at any rate, can only thus be practically 
 combined, in their due order, time and place, to and into the con- 
 templated whole, of which they form the constituent parts. 
 
 9. In conformity with this law, man, whenever and whatever he 
 undertakes to build, be it a house of wood, stone or any other ma- 
 terial ; be it a machine combined from the various solid and fluid 
 substances and forces of nature, or an intellectual system of science 
 constructed altogether of abstract fact and pure thought : he is 
 compelled in all cases alike, first to provide that place, locality or 
 condition which he designs using as its base or foundation. For upon 
 such base or foundation alone a superstructure that is real, and not 
 fictitious, can firmly stand and repose. A structure that has no 
 such foundation of its own, corresponding to its nature, is, in truth, 
 a non-reality or non-entity. Where such exist, that existence is 
 only appearance or transitory existence, having for a foundation 
 something that does not at all belong to them but to the neighbors 
 alongside. No sooner does one of these neighbors conclude to 
 build his own house anew, and commence tearing down and remove 
 the old materials, digging deep into the solid ground, for a firm 
 foundation for his new building ; when, all at once, the baseless 
 structure, deprived of its foreign support, that until then held it 
 securely in its place, with a terrible crash, tumbles down, a shapeless 
 heap of useless rubbish. 
 
 10. Assuming our building to be designed for human habitation, 
 its entire safety, durability and comfort will, in the first instance, 
 depend upon the firmness and immobility of the basis underlying 
 the foundation itself; for, as soon as that gives way, the whole su- 
 perstructure, no matter how solid, firm, and perfect in appearance, 
 
12 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 may, in a moment, tumble to the ground and bury its inmates be- 
 neath, its ruins. Next, the security and comfortability of the 
 intended structure will depend upon the degree of perfection 
 inherent in the plan or draft, according to which it is built. For, if 
 that is defective, the best workman, using the best materials for 
 and in its construction, can not remove, but rather indurate, the 
 defects attaching to its immature conception within the mind origin- 
 ating the plan ; and such defects are not mended by any basis, no 
 matter how firm. Thirdly, if the base is firm and solid, and the 
 plan judicious and correct, but the material used in the construction 
 be defective and insufficient in quality and amount, although put 
 together by the best workman in the best manner, the building may 
 have the semblance of comfort, beauty and safety, but its inmates 
 have no conviction thereof, and every storm shakes them with 
 terror for their lives. 
 
 Lastly, if foundation, plan and material are all good, it yet 
 requires that the work should be done by a competent workman, 
 in a masterly style ; for only when these four conditions are all 
 present and combined, the completed edifice can alone be expected 
 to exhibit that degree of perfection wherein security, usefulness, 
 comfort, beauty and durability constitute the leading, conjoint 
 traits, making it a safe, commodious and pleasant home for its in- 
 dwellers, and an attractive and complacent spectacle for the eye of 
 the beholder to rest upon. 
 
 11. We selected the simile of a man purporting building him- 
 self a house, because we all know that every man needs a house for 
 the preservation and comfort of physical life, and for storing away 
 all the various articles indispensable to himself and family. Now, 
 any man of reflection, at an early day, discovers that, in the same 
 way as his outward man needs a house to dwell in, provided with 
 places and shelves to preserve his goods and chattels in proper 
 order, so as to find them when needed for use, in like manner his 
 inner man, the invisible intellect, needs a mental building, where it 
 feels that it may dwell in security, comfort and peace, and where, 
 into proper places and shelves, it may store away, for proper use 
 and application, all the manifold and various thoughts, consisting 
 in facts and truths, that constitute the whole of its knowledge of 
 every sort. 
 
INTRODUCTION. 13 
 
 12. For it needs but little meditation to convince ourselves, be- 
 yond the possible shadow of a doubt, that knowledge of a certain 
 kind, and to a certain amount, is as indispensable to life, its preser- 
 vation and comfort, as the things themselves, absolutely needed for 
 man's wants. For give man all the things in creation, and deprive 
 him of all knowledge of what they are and how to use them, and 
 he will be as helpless and destitute as the new born babe, and must 
 in the midst of affluence, inevitably perish, if not assisted by others 
 that possess the knowledge he lacks. That this is an absolute 
 truth, requires for your enduring conviction, — but a single one of 
 your looks upon one of those unfortunate idiots, who, with the 
 bodily size and physical strength of a grown-up adult, have hardly 
 more knowledge than the crawling infant, and therefore with, and 
 like it, are as utterly incapable of taking care of themselves. 
 
 13. Like a material house is built up of an indefinite number of 
 various parts and substances, differing in inner nature and size, so 
 an intellectual building is constructed of a countless number of 
 facts and thoughts, representing truths of the most variegated kinds, 
 degrees and magnitudes. The knowledge and skill of constructing 
 a physical dwelling, we call architecture ; that of erecting a homestead 
 for the mind, the art and process of true Seasoning. In 
 both cases, the minds of the builders are governed by the same 
 laws ; for the laws of thought are laws of nature, as well, and the 
 conditions for erecting a solid structure, as above already elucidated, 
 apply to each case with equal rigor. 
 
 14. There is, however, one great and notable difference in regard 
 to the nature of the two buildings. The earthly house needs not 
 to be very large ; for the number of its inhabitants, even when 
 increased by transiently visiting guests, is but limited, so that the 
 space needed for any emergency is nearly known beforehand, or 
 may be supplied by some trifling addition when such case arises. 
 At any rate, the building, after once completed, is a stationary 
 structure, neither designed, nor of a nature, to grow and expand. 
 It is likewise only a temporary abode, intended for a shelter to its 
 inmates, during their limited lifetime on earth ; and what may 
 become of it after their departure, will but little concern them when 
 that momentous hour shall arrive. 
 
 15. The building for the thinking mind is of quite a different 
 
14 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 character. The mind knows its power and nature to be different 
 from, and superior to, all things exteriorly around it. While every- 
 thing it perceives out of itself is subject to a perpetual change and 
 fluctuation, while its body changes by growth, increase and decrease, 
 by health or disease, while even its own power accumulates inces- 
 santly by accretion of knowledge from experience and reflection ; 
 it knows its consciousness of identity to be unchanged and immuta- 
 ble, having brought it up, from infancy, to the very latest moment 
 of -its present now, ever and always, during each individual mo- 
 ment, constituting a life-line, never so long, knowing itself to be 
 and remain itself. This innermost perception of an immutable sta- 
 bility, of and within its deepest essence, unaffected and unaffectable, 
 by fact without or thought within, constitutes for man that most 
 tremendous fact, of which all other facts in the universe are but 
 parts, proving to man, beyond reach of doubt or cavil, that, existing 
 on earth, he is not of earth ; surrounded by nature, he is not of 
 nature ; ushered into and through life by time, he is not of time, 
 but is of a substance that has everlasting duration and boundless 
 eternity as an inherent attribute of its being, incapable of being 
 destroyed by itself or any thing else. 
 
 16. Knowing thus its real character to be, an endless life or im- 
 mortality, the mind knows also that all its actions, of every sort, 
 must possess enduring consequences. These consequences, as the 
 fruits of its accumulating labors and works, whether valuable or 
 worthless, it carries along with itself, in its consciousness, from mo- 
 ment to moment forever. For its errors, mistakes and misdeeds, as 
 well as its truths, fortunate hits and correct actions, contribute to 
 make up that experience, disclosing to itself its own nature, its 
 laws and those of the universe and its beings ; the conjoint knowl- 
 edge of which constitutes that science of all sciences, called wisdom. 
 
 17. Hence the intellectual building which the mind of man 
 needs is a temple of truth. As truth has no limits, but forever ex- 
 pands by accretion of knowledge, its temple must, of necessity, 
 have a basis so solid and vast, rendering the foundation so im- 
 movable and firm that the superstructure erected thereon may for- 
 ever be extended, without at any period, or by any event, becoming 
 subjected to the danger of tumbling into a mass of ruins. For, as 
 a real temple of the living truth, it must become the Centre and 
 
INTRODUCTION. 15 
 
 Reservoir of all truths of any sort, which the whole human race 
 upon earth did, does, and shall possess, in the past, present and 
 future days of their existence on this planet. A temple of this 
 description, as soon as successfully constructed upon the smallest 
 scale, will be the common property of mankind ; and all intellects 
 that seek, and yearn after, absolute truth, the absence of which they 
 have so painfully felt and deplored, will flock around and into it, 
 and hail its arrival with unbounded joy. For in it they will dis- 
 cover and recognize that great and universal medium for supplying, 
 first, the intellectual, next, the psychical, and, finally, when practically 
 applied, all other wants of man and humanity, for the arrival of 
 which the noblest men of all ages and races have labored, sighed 
 and prayed, and do so up to this very day. 
 
 18. If, therefore, this Temple of Teuth is to be in reality what 
 its name implies and indicates, it must be a daguerreian imprint of the 
 inmost longing of every true man, such as every one would depict 
 for, and out of himself, were he in possession of the materials and 
 ability requisite for doing so. For every clear-sighted mind knows 
 that acting without knowledge constitutes the fool ; acting against it, 
 the madman, villain or Jcnave ; but abstinence from all action, until 
 possessed of the truth or indubitable knowledge how to act, is the 
 criterion of the truly loise man. The wise is, therefore, he, who 
 desires knowing the truth, in all cases, that concern him ; for only 
 by knowing he can obey, practice, and apply it. 
 
 19. As, from the preceding premises, you, friend reader, are 
 fully warranted in drawing the inference that they themselves are 
 designed as materials, and that the writer, penning them down, 
 intends using them in his present endeavor at constructing so 
 sublime and important an edifice as intimated ; it becomes his duty 
 to, first, as it were, take you by the hand, leading you around, from 
 one place to another, showing you the various materials already 
 collected for the purpose ; explaining, next, under what rules and 
 regulations these materials are to be obtained and applied ; and 
 finally, hereby, most civilly inviting you to honor with your mental, 
 most attentive presence, the whole process of construction, from 
 beginning to end, whereby you will be enabled to decide for your- 
 self, by visible inspection of all the materials used, the mode and 
 labor bestowed upon their preparation, and the modus operandi of 
 
16 THE TEMPLE OP TRUTH. 
 
 their final combination, to the long- wished for whole ; in how far 
 we have succeeded in complying with those laws of construction, 
 as elucidated in the aforegoing introduction, and especially with its 
 paragraphs No.'s 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 13 and 17. 
 
 20. If, after you shall thus watch us and our laborious exercises, 
 until we have placed the cap-stone into the rounded arch of our 
 temple's heaven-touching dome, and then, placing your trembling 
 hand upon a heart palpitating with godlike joy, exclaim : "Great 
 God, I thank Thee, from the bottom of my soul, that Thou hast 
 given a laboring, struggling brother, at last, Thy grace and success 
 in a work that comes up to all my prayers, hopes, and expectations !" 
 we shall visibly see the commencement of that glorious time, pre- 
 dicted by the prophet, when saying : " And they shall teach no 
 more, every man his neighbor, and every man his brother, saying, 
 Know the Lord ! for they shall all know Me, from the least of them 
 unto the greatest of them, saith the Lord : for I will forgive their 
 iniquity, and will remember their sin no more." Jer. xxxi, 34. 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 PRELIMINARY SURVEY OF MATERIALS AND METHODS. 
 
 1. Our friend reader has seen, when, and where, houses were 
 built, the excavation and hauling away of the ground, in digging 
 the cellar and providing a solid basis for the foundation ; the carting 
 of stone, sand, lime, and water for mortar ; the heavy teams bring- 
 ing the ponderous timber, hewed stone, brick, columns of stone or 
 iron, and whatever else of material was needed. He has seen the 
 laying of the foundation, stone by stone, until reaching the level 
 ground. He then beheld the workmen, standing upon that ground, 
 progressing a given number of feet perpendicularly upward ; when 
 no longer able to reach higher, they had to stop working, until com- 
 pleting the now indispensable scaffolding, they were thereby again 
 enabled to recommence and prosecute a regular progress. 
 
 2. We call these various proceedings into view, in order thereby 
 
PRELIMINARY 6URVEY OF MATERIALS, ETC. 17 
 
 to remind our reader that processes mentally analogous to all these, 
 are performed in the construction of an intellectual edifice, beside 
 various others, not often required in the limited operations of the 
 largest material structures. And like the materials used in the 
 case of the earthly mansion, are of a heterogeneous appearance and 
 nature, brought from various directions, upon divers and different 
 vehicles, are worked by tools and processes of their own, to finally 
 fit them for occupying their proper place in the grand completed 
 whole ; so the materials needed for constructing a living temple for 
 the mind of man, are vast in amount, and diversified in kind 
 beyond the ordinary conception of his understanding ; they have, 
 therefore, to be procured from all parts of creation, wherever found, 
 and transported to the use and presence of the intellect by all modes 
 and processes of which it has control. Not until we shall have 
 practically, in outward procession, exposed them all to his won- 
 dering gaze, will the beholder fully comprehend their import, 
 variegation and infinite diversity. 
 
 3. a.) For, remember, our Temple of Truth, in the processes of 
 its construction, has features in common with the rules that govern 
 the erection of the rude log-cabin, the neat fairy cottage, or the 
 gorgeous palatial castle ; nay, our temple, immeasurable as it is, 
 when completed, may even enter cabin, cottage, or castle, when 
 carried thereinto within the heart and mind of a truth-loving man 
 or woman. As long as he or she remains there, it will stay and 
 with them remain within, but not a moment longer ; for, when- 
 ever he or she departs, it has no home either in the one or the other. 
 
 b.) The features it has in common, in construction and use, with 
 these finite structures, are these : — Like them, its erection needs 
 materials. But their amount borders upon the infinite. To pro- 
 cure them, the whole human race, existing from the beginning of 
 time, up to the present moment, have all, consciously or uncon- 
 sciously, by their experience and labor, willingly or not, each con- 
 tributed their share, in some way or other. Like cabin, cottage, or 
 castle, our temple requires space, rooms, and shelving, but infinitely 
 more than they, c.) For though its regular inhabitant may be but 
 one solitary individual man, woman, or family, yet its visitors and 
 guests are hosts without limits and number, coming from all parts 
 
18 THE TEMPLE OF TRUTH. 
 
 of time and space, embracing the whole family of mankind, and 
 not excluding any part of the boundless domain of creation. 
 
 All of these, with the goods, chattels, implements, and utensils 
 needed for their accommodation and entertainment, have a right to 
 solicit and demand a resting-place in the great Temple of Truth. 
 They all are needed, at one time or other, for one of the guests, for 
 one purpose or another ; and, in the shape of a definite thought, rep- 
 resenting a fact, an attribute or being, of this wonderful, mysterious 
 universe, have an inalienable claim to a regular place on a shelf in 
 the great storehouse of being, as, also, a fixed name on its vast 
 catalogue of existences. 
 
 4. Now, friend reader, you, our neighbor and myself, all desire, 
 and need, the truth, need it fully as much as we need our daily 
 bread ; nay, in fact, need it more. For, " knowledge is power " only 
 in so far as it is a knowledge of truth. Now the acquisition of this 
 knowledge depends upon certain laws and conditions, under the 
 operation of which we can alone obtain it. These laws are innate 
 in our intellect and engrafted and interwoven into the constitution 
 of the universe, and can not be evaded, a.) First ; as we, from 
 the moment of our birth, grow older, moment by moment only, 
 one single moment following uninterruptedly upon the heel of 
 another ; so we can, and do, acquire all our knowledge only piece- 
 meal, part- wise, one part or thought after another, that is, in succes- 
 sion or time. For the mind of man can only behold and contem- 
 plate one thought or subject, in one and the same moment of 
 duration, no matter however quick its transition may be upon 
 another, b.) The law compelling the mind thus to behold all 
 things piecemeal and one after another, produces and constitutes 
 that process of minute, separate examination, which is called 
 " analysis," whereby the intellect is forced to decompose and dis- 
 tribute all things, wherever it can, into their rudimental classes of 
 pristine parts, which it terms "elements." 
 
 5. a.) These elements, then, are the primary units out of which 
 things are composed. Thus, for instance, we have the ten signs or 
 figures in arithmetic, 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, out of which all 
 possible numbers imaginable are combined. Next, we have the 
 signs of a, b, c, d, e, f, g, h, i, j, k, 1, m, n, o, p, q, r, s, t, u, v, w, x, 
 
PRELIMINARY SURVEY OF MATERIALS, ETC. 19 
 
 y, z, constituting the twenty-six letters of the English alphabet, 
 from which all the words in the language are formed, b.) Men, 
 to secure existence, need things, the possession of which they call 
 property. Such property has for him, who needs it this very mo- 
 ment, an absolute value, but for him who needs it at another or 
 a later time, or only contingently, merely a relative one. To repre- 
 sent and express that thus unfixed value of property, and facilitate 
 its acquisition and exchange, men, by custom, gradually have intro- 
 duced, and, by tacit consent, generally accepted, the use of a 
 medium, which they term money, and to which, in all countries, 
 they affix different modes of subdivision, estimates, and denominations 
 of parts, c.) In one thing they are, however, all forced to pursue 
 the same course, namely : they must all start from an elementary 
 unit, expressing the smallest or rudimentary part of their monetary 
 valuation, give it a definite name of its own, and make it the fixed 
 and permanent metre of all values, arising from its accumulative 
 combination. The monetary units thus proposed and adopted, by 
 the nations, peoples, and states on earth, differ in name as well as 
 the value thereto attached, from one another, as do likewise the 
 names of the various compound values, introduced by all to pro- 
 mote convenience, d.) The primary money element adopted in 
 our United States, is represented by the well-known coin, termed 
 a cent. From it have been combined the compound values of : 2,) 
 the 3 cent piece ; 3,) the half dime of 5 cts.; 4,) the dime of 10 
 cts.; 5,) the quarter dollar of 25 cts.; 6,) the half dollar of 50 cts.; 
 7,) the dollar of 100 cts.; 8,) the quarter eagle of 250 cts.; 9,) the 
 half eagle of 500 cts.; 10,) the eagle of 1000 cts.; and, 11,) the 
 double eagle of 2000 cts. We might adduce, what are termed 
 elements, from other quarters, but the above will amply suffice 
 clearly to illustrate another law of the intellect, controlling the opera- 
 tion of man's thought and action. 
 
 6. a.) When you go to a printing office^ you may see standing 
 before a set of cases, a man flinging the types of ciphers, letters, 
 and signs that composed the last form of a book or newspaper, as 
 rapidly as your eye can follow, each single piece into a small, sepa- 
 rate compartment, belonging exclusively to its own kind or class. 
 That operation constitutes analysis or decomposition into ele- 
 mentary parts. But, note it well, while it decomposes a whole no 
 2 
 
20 THE TEMPLE OF TEUTH. 
 
 longer useful itself, and so long as thus remaining rendering all its 
 parts equally useless, it does not throw matter into pi, disorder, or 
 chaos, but places all the elements into that natural position and 
 order originally inherent in their design and classification, which 
 alone renders them again available for immediate beneficial use. 
 For, J,) no sooner do you see the man's last handful of matter 
 distributed, when, also, you see him forthwith take hold of his 
 composing stick, placing the manuscript you want him to instantly 
 print for you, before him, and then, with rapid dexterity, take those 
 very types, one by one, precisely in the very order you wrote them 
 in letters upon your paper, and in a very brief time, the whole 
 matter is composed, and shortly thereafter ready for the press, to 
 multiply your manuscript into as many copies as you may desire 
 or order, c.) Your manuscript is a whole, combined from a definite 
 number of parts, constituting its elements. The printers' com- 
 pleted form, composed from single types as its elements, is another 
 whole. Before you sat down to write your manuscript, you had 
 one main object before your mind, which you desired to accomplish, 
 all concentrated in the one main thought or whole. To accomplish 
 your object as a unit or whole, all at once, you knew was impossi- 
 ble ; so you dissected the various parts of which your main thought 
 was composed, by mental analysis, and sitting down, pen in hand, 
 you recorded and depicted that very process of the intellect visibly 
 upon the paper before you. And when you had done so, all the 
 words on your paper, each one representing a part, but their whole 
 number combinedly alone as a whole, represented the whole of the 
 thought, that urged you to write. When you came to the printer, 
 and stated to him what you wanted, you had again to do so part 
 by part. He had hardly learnt all the parts when, instantly, he 
 fully understood your wlwle thought, his mind combining its parts 
 into one whole. That whole he could no more realize at once or as 
 a unit, than yourself had been able ; hence he, like you, had to 
 produce it part by part, d.) This unbending law, thus compelling 
 the mind to construct a whole only in the way of combining its 
 parts, to dissect even the units of original ideas born within the 
 mind, into their component constituents, before they can be clearly 
 understood and externally realized ; this law, and the intellectual op- 
 erations under it, are termed synthesis, combination, joining together 
 
PRELIMINARY SURVEY OF MATERIALS, ETC. 21 
 
 7. It must, however, not be imagined as if analysis and syn- 
 thesis were processes that are, and can be, carried on, entirely apart 
 and separate one from another. Quite the reverse ; there is not a 
 single action of the intellect in which they are not jointly con- 
 cerned, with the only difference of changing positions. For when 
 that printer analytically decomposes the single types of the old 
 form, the last part of the act, placing them each in that place of the 
 system of classification, into company with their like, into the 
 little pigeon-hole box to which they respectively belong, it is clearly 
 an act of synthesis, establishing a well-ordered whole, and that 
 whole being a regularly classified system of primary elements. On 
 the other hand, that finished handbill, so quickly got up by the 
 printer upon the call of our friend, is surely in its present form one 
 whole, and thus an act of synthesis. But, at the same time, it not 
 only still consists of single parts, but its type-setting and the rest 
 of the performances by which it was produced, were clearly done, 
 one part after another, or by the method of analysis. 
 
 8. Hence the very process of my present writing is, analysis and 
 synthesis continually combined, one alternately leading or following 
 the other. The thought attached in my mind to every single word 
 here used, is synthesis ; the writing it down, letter by letter, is 
 analytic. So is the sense, condensed into every period or paragraph, 
 before the mind, synthetic, while the mode of expressing it upon 
 paper, or by speech, word by word, succeeding one another, is 
 necessarily analytic. The ultimate Idea which this book designs to 
 make known and impress upon mankind, is a synthesis in my intel- 
 lect ; that synthesis can only be carried out by exhibiting analyti- 
 cally, in the completed volume itself, all the several parts in 
 succession, in the combination of which its whole consists, b.) The 
 insurveyable, magnificently vast plan, existing prior to its creation, 
 and ever after, in God's mind, of his glorious universe, is an act of 
 synthesis in the Divine intellect ; the realized exhibition of that 
 eternal thought, in all its separate, concrete wonders, to the admir- 
 ing gaze of reasoning intellect, is its analysis by boundless creative 
 power. 
 
 9. It can, therefore, hardly escape the observation of the reflecting, 
 that analysis and synthesis are, in reality, but that dualism of one 
 unitary law, which, as we progress, we shall find to exist and act, 
 
£~± THE TEMPLE OP TRUTH. 
 
 in this form throughout all nature and creation, constituting one of 
 the cardinal, permanent features of being and existence. 
 
 10. Men, in the earliest ages of the race's existence on earth, by 
 coming into close contact with things as yet unknown to them, 
 very soon discovered, by painful experience, like the child in its 
 first touch of fire at this day, the absolute necessity of a thorough, 
 whole or perfect knowledge of things. This, they saw, as we have 
 seen, could only be acquired by examining them closely, part by 
 part. Driven by this impulse, men launched into all the various 
 regions surrounding them, near or far, without or within, according 
 to capacity, inclination, occasion, and opportunity, everywhere 
 endeavoring to discover the primary elements of the forces, which, 
 as causes, produced the effects they saw incessantly arising, some of 
 which they desired to prevent and others to promote. 
 
 11. Hence analysis, in the hand of the surgeon, became anatomy ; 
 in that of the physician and explorer of nature, physiology and 
 chemistry ; with the prier into the inner deep, it became psych- 
 ology and metaphysics ; with the traveler on earth or sky, it turned 
 into geography and astronomy ; and the close investigation of the 
 accurate methods, needed indispensably alike for arriving at indu- 
 bitable certainty in all cases and everywhere, has given us, in 
 arithmetic, geometry, and algebra, the three branches constituting 
 conjointly the vast domain of mathematics, a.) The anatomist 
 has analyzed man's body to that extent, so as now not only to 
 know a vast, say the largest, number of its constituent parts, the 
 mode of their combination, their mechanical structure, construction 
 into a whole, and mode of motion and action, but has given us the 
 proof thereof, in showing us these discovered separate parts, in the 
 shape of bones, cartilage, muscles, fibres, membranes, veins, nerves, 
 marrow, brain, blood, gastric and other juices, organs, and functions, 
 all defined by separate proper names, b.) The anatomist, next 
 turned physiologist, and diving into the dynamics of the invisible 
 forces, producing the variegated phenomena in the living organism, 
 the mechanical construction and combination of which he had 
 learned and now understood by his post mortem dissection, en- 
 deavored to discover the nature, number, and kind of these forces, 
 the laws governing their operation, as well in their normal state of 
 health, as in the abnormal of disease. That he has not labored in 
 
PRELIMINARY SURVEY OP MATERIALS, ETC. 23 
 
 vain, is proved by a vast array of facts, not confined to man's body 
 alone, but scattered over, and culled from, the whole vast realm of 
 organized life. The production, circulation, functions, and action of 
 the blood and living fluids, the brain and nervous system, the laws 
 of generation, nutrition, digestion, and numerous other functions, 
 verified as stable facts, defined by specific terms, belong to the 
 trophies of this important analysis, c.) The chemist, roused by the 
 universal, ever-active laboratory of nature, and its countless wonders, 
 after infinite struggles, eventually succeeded in forcing the hidden 
 door leading to its concealed secrets, by discovering a number of 
 ingredients, resisting his further attempts to analyze or decompose 
 them into other forms or constituents. These he terms gases, 
 acids, alkalies, oxides, imponderable fluids, primary forces, etc., 
 constituting some sixty in number, which he calls, and has a right 
 to call, elementary substances, until further discoveries shall enable 
 him, by successful decomposition of some thereof, to prove them 
 compounds, and thereby, in the end, arrive at the actual number 
 and the knowledge of the essence of the elements as they exist in 
 nature herself, d.) The psychologist and metaphysician have dived 
 into man's invisible inner deep, taking an inventory, as far as able, 
 of the forces, functions, action, and phenomena there perceived, 
 noting the whole down, as well as they could, by affixing a term 
 expressive of every single force or fact, so noticed as a stable, reg- 
 ular, and permanent phenomenon, and depositing said term or word, 
 from the earliest ages up to this day, upon and into the firm, nev- 
 er-shifting super-co-and-sub-ordinated shelf work of classification, 
 inherent in that universal treasury and repertory of power and 
 knowledge, the language of man, to be forever used by all, accord- 
 ing to their best capacity and understanding thereof, e.) The 
 explorers of the earth and sky have given us facts and maps of 
 each, so interesting, useful, and necessary, that we could and would 
 spare the knowledge thereof on no account. The earth is thereby 
 for us, as it was for Plato and the thinking ancients, no longer either 
 a body of unknown shape and dimensions, or one vast plain, of 
 extent and bounds unknown, having a visible opening somewhere 
 in the north-west, as an embouchure or orifice, into their bleak 
 Orcus and terrific Tartarus. But geography shows us its precise 
 form, size, division into water and land, oceans and continents, seas 
 
24 THE TEMPLE OF TRUTH. 
 
 and islands, mountains and plains, and the true locality of the 
 various subdivided parts and places of them all, so accurately 
 and correctly, that a voyage around the globe, and a visitation to 
 all the main parts upon it, a thing never dreamt of in antiquity as 
 a mere possibility, has, in our day, even ceased to be considered as 
 a performance exceedingly extraordinary. /.) Astronomy, after 
 gathering its individual facts, while passing through a long string 
 of unprolific centuries, during which, on the main question, it 
 groped all the while in the dark, at last discovered the true form 
 and mechanism of our own planetary system, and in it the master 
 key to unlock the sublime secrets of the starry deep. Since the 
 happening of that propitious event, it has analyzed the whole visi- 
 ble firmament, all around the globe, mapped and classified all its 
 stars and reachable nebulas into galaxies and constellations, and 
 designated the whole of them, each by separate name and place. 
 
 12. a.) The infallible results of mathematics, when grappling 
 with questions properly belonging to its domain, have disclosed 
 and shown to the mind of man a secret of transcending, inestima- 
 ble value, by proving, that, wherever the intellect can operate by 
 simple elements, like the fixed figures of arithmetic, geometry, and 
 algebra, the regular combinations resulting therefrom remain as 
 reliable, fixed, unchanged, or certain, as those elements themselves. 
 Hence, all that the intellect has to do, to secure equal certainty in 
 every other branch of its knowledge, is to ascertain the simple ele- 
 ments lying at the bottom of each, and then apply and combine 
 them according to the plain and simple methods used in mathe- 
 matics, which are nothing else than a reflex of the dynamic 
 mechanism of the human intellect itself. For a problem of figures, 
 once correctly solved, gives to attempts of resolving it anew, 
 throughout all future eternities, only one and the same unchange- 
 able result, h.) The historian, finally beginning as early as able, has, 
 as far as he could, recorded, in what he deems a concatenated chain, 
 all the events coming to his knowledge, of the past most prominent 
 actions and doings of the human race, broken into fractions styled 
 nations, from remotest antiquity up to our day, making the whole 
 a combined narrative, consisting of numberless analytically detached 
 parts. 
 
 13. a.) In like manner the same process of analysis has been 
 
PRELIMINARY SURVEY OP MATERIALS, ETC. 25 
 
 applied, more or less rigidly, to various other branches of knowl- 
 edge, too numerous here to detail ; and, in proportion as it has 
 been successful in discovering the true elements in any and all, in 
 the same degree it has rendered the processes and results thereof 
 exact, reliable, and certain, b.) The materials thus gathered from 
 countless sources, beginning time out of mind and reaching up to 
 our day, are piecemeal, in smaller or larger fractions, scattered in 
 the intellects of the cultivated portion of mankind of our age, all 
 of which men, making such use and application of certain parts 
 thereof, as their circumstances, abilities, inclination, means and in- 
 sight permit, c.) But the, by far, largest portion of these materials 
 are scattered also piecemeal, one useful portion, wide from another, 
 locked and buried up in the millions of more or less, by name or 
 contents, entirely unknown volumes, that now form the libraries 
 of civilized man. In these volumes there is no doubt much 
 trash and rubbish. There can be no doubt, on the other hand, that 
 in each there is a grain of gold, perhaps nowhere else to be found ; 
 while, if from the whole were sifted out what of useful is to be 
 found in all these books, and digested by competent intellects into 
 one whole, that wmole would surpass in worth and value all the 
 mineral gold found in and upon this globe. There will be a time, 
 when modes and means will be reached to drag this vast, now 
 latent and useless lying treasure, from its mouldy tomb, again into 
 open daylight, to apply it to the advantage and benefit of man. 
 Friend reader, every true and good idea, which you know as such 
 to be practicable, but for which you find as yet no room, space and 
 receptivity prepared in the exterior world, is also one of this living 
 gold grains, desirous of birth into actual life. Only be firm and 
 patient, its birth-moment will surely in due time arrive. 
 
 14. a.) Man is a dualistic being, divided into the two sexes of 
 male and female, each of which forming but one-half of the full 
 human being, both absolutely dependent upon one another, so far 
 as the perpetuation of their species, its happiness, and the reach of 
 the great end of its existence is concerned, b.) The relations in 
 which these sexes stand to one another, and to the mysterious 
 universe within and around them, arise from their qualities, connec- 
 tion, needs, and wants : 1.) As created, limited beings, endowed 
 with reason, knowing themselves liable to the laws of nature, 
 
26 THE TEMPLE OF TKUTH. 
 
 and responsible for their acts to the power that called them into 
 being ; 2.) As members of a family, in the bosom of which, they 
 form, at one time, the offspring receiving its life from the dualistic 
 trunk, and, at another, constitute one-half of that procreative 
 trunk itself; 3.) As members of a political community, called a 
 state, people, or nation ; 4.) As members of the race to which they 
 belong, embracing all the members of the species, now and at 
 any time existing upon the planet, collectively termed mankind. 
 c.) These total relations of man, place and reveal his nature into 
 a fourfold aspect : 1.) As a rational, religious ; 2.) A social, con- 
 nubial, procreative ; 3.) A gregative, political, and, 4,) A cosmo- 
 politan, universal being. 
 
 15. a.) Man, as will appear in the sequel, is an enveloped epitome 
 of indefinite powers, of all which he has not a glimpse of knowl- 
 edge when entering existence. These, his gifts and faculties, the 
 throng of life around him, wherever he be, drives and compels him 
 to apply, whether he understands their right use or not, in the 
 multiform cycles of action, necessarily springing from his four 
 cardinal relations and their various subdivisions, b.) Growing up 
 from ignorant infancy, learning by imitation of examples around, 
 and such instruction as the situation affords, a partial knowledge, 
 use, and practice of the unknown forces and faculties within and 
 without ; he or she, by-and-by, reaches an age of maturity and 
 sober reflection, and in one of those solemn hours, where the intel- 
 lect clearly sees, and the heart equally deeply feels, their enduring 
 relation and duties to an eternal God, to mate, family, country, and 
 mankind, they, in most conscientious earnestness, ask themselves : 
 1.) "Am I, in naked truth, such and what my God designs and 
 wishes me, and my conviction tells me I ought to be, for my God, 
 mate, family, country, and race ? 2.) If not, where and what is the 
 cause ; is it purely and entirely within me, and thus the default and 
 guilt all my own ? Or, 3.) Are not the arrangements of human forces 
 in the world around me equally, and in many points, even more 
 defective than myself ? 4.) Are science, church, family, state, and 
 mankind, with their vast means and powers, actually in the service 
 of God and humanity, and, in reality, the heralds and executive 
 ministers, as by God required and designed to be, of His boundless 
 goodness, mercy, and love, all moving in harmonious union, as 
 
PRELIMINARY SURVEY OF MATERIALS, ETC. 27 
 
 guided by His eternal wisdom ? Or, 5,) Is it fiction or fact that 
 they are all split up into countless fractions, more or less arrayed 
 against one another, each pursuing aims, purposes, and objects of 
 their own, thereby entirely forgetting that God has revealed one 
 only all-embracing purpose, as His object, in creating all men and 
 things ? If, then, this is all true," continues the honest man or 
 woman, " I, as a single individual, possess, of course, no power to 
 change this outward world around me, by my mere wish, or even 
 solitary endeavor, all at once to a better state. Nay, I alone, can 
 not change it at all, unless I first possess the knowledge hoio to do 
 it, then find sincere people ready and willing to help commencing 
 doing it, and next, receive God's authority and commission to ac- 
 tually undertake doing it; for without it and God's blessing and 
 grace, the labor of individual man, in a work so great and infinite, 
 can be of no use and avail. Nevertheless I feel that, in a world 
 such as it noAv is around me, it is exceedingly difficult, if not almost 
 impossible, for the most honestly conscientious man or woman, to 
 do God's will at all times, as duty and true interest both require. 
 For man is a being that needs company and encouragement" from 
 his fellows, and if he has no power to draw them up to his moral 
 hight, they usually drag him, more or less, down to the level of their 
 own. Still, I will not be discouraged, do the best I can under all 
 the circumstances, continue to struggle on, trust in God's mercy 
 and love, and, in regard to my own as well as the short-comings 
 of the world at large, pray to heaven : ' Father forgive us, for we 
 do, in reality, not know what we do /' "* 
 
 16. Seasoning like the above, we occasionally hear expressed, by 
 honest souls here and there. Could we read hearts and minds, 
 we would see such sentiments entertained in a hundred cases, 
 silently, where we now often hardly suspect them. For man wants, 
 desires, needs, the true and the good in their fullest form and 
 measure, can never be fully satisfied with mere shreds and patches, 
 and, therefore, can never cease wishing for the glorious wlwle. But 
 that whole must first be possessed as a mental knowledge, before it 
 can be realized as an outward fact. For neither man individually, 
 nor masses collectively, can do that which they do not understand hoio 
 
 * Mrs. "VV. J. sees here some of her expressed sentiments. 
 
 3 
 
28 THE TEMPLE OF TRUTH. 
 
 to do, no matter what their forces and means may be. Hence we 
 would say to all our brothers and sisters, struggling as above : 
 11 Cheer up, ye braves, there is a better time fast approaching!" 
 
 17. There has undoubtedly progress been achieved, in this our 
 world, of infinite value ; of the main cause and source of which 
 we shall duly speak when reaching that point. But what we never 
 as yet have had, but do absolutely need, is a scientific system 
 OF truths, combining them all into one glorious unity, 
 derived from all sources of knowledge that have existences, erected 
 upon a basis and constructed after a method, which the logic and 
 acumen of neither man, angel, or demon can assail. As soon as 
 we hava it, we have therein the knowledge, the platform, and never- 
 failing insurance of an everlasting progress, moving eternally " on- 
 ward and upward." 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 terminology, definitions, classification, etc. 
 
 To enable the reader to combine the same thought with the 
 words we employ, as we do ourselves, it is proper to give here the 
 definitions of such, which the context wherein occurring, might 
 not at all times render sufficiently definite and clear. 
 
 1. Intellect, Reason, Understanding. — a.) When the term intellect 
 is used, we mean the thinking faculty generally, of which reason 
 and understanding (also termed common sense) are the two dual- 
 istic poles, like male and female, constitute but one full man or 
 human being, b.) When we say reason, we denote the intellect as 
 exercising that higher function of thinking, wherein the objects of 
 contemplation are ideas, or abstract thoughts, and not mere concep- 
 tions representing impressions from sensations, c.) When we em- 
 ploy understanding (or common sense), we designate that function 
 of the intellect, which we elsewhere term the nether pole of rea- 
 son, and whose function it is to superintend, with its attention, the 
 
TERMINOLOGY, DEFINITIONS, CLASSIFICATION, ETC. 29 
 
 operation of the senses, while impressed by phenomena of nature, 
 and translating such phenomenal impression into a thought, termed 
 conception, report the same to reason, to be used in its higher court 
 as a fixed fact of its kind, d.) Hence it will be perceived that 
 reason performs the synthetical or combinatory, and understanding the 
 analytical or dissevering functions in the operations of thought. 
 
 2. Thought, Idea, Conception. — a.) Thought denotes all objects 
 of reflection, whether before the reason or understanding; hence 
 ideas and conceptions are equally thoughts, as this is the general or 
 class-name of all intellectual objects, b.) An idea is an abstract 
 thought, beheld before the forum of reason ; while, c,) a conception 
 is a thought evolved by the process of the understanding in trans- 
 lating phenomenal impressions, or in analyzing ideas, of which 
 conceptions form the parts or constituents. There are, however, 
 grand ideas, of which the conceptions, although parts or con- 
 stituents of such ideas in that connection, are ideas themselves, 
 when separately examined, and may again be analyzed into 
 conceptions. 
 
 3. Sensation. — A term which has often been used by writers on 
 metaphysical subjects, and seldom clearly and accurately defined, 
 we employ to denote the collective phenomenal impressions upon 
 the lower pole of the sense of feeling, which we term the " sphere 
 of sensation " of the soul. 
 
 4. Boundary of Knoiuledge. — Knowledge, looked upon in the figure 
 of bulk or mass, may forever increase, and has, in that sense, no 
 definable limits. Knowledge, however, as a definite something, 
 existing in the individual mind of man, has two boundaries which 
 it never can overstep. On the one hand, all knowledge consisting 
 of thoughts, all of which arise from corresponding primary elements, 
 the intellect can not dive below or reach behind these elements, as 
 they form the pristine, rudimentary material, as to form and sub- 
 stance, of all real thought, in any wise possible. Next, all knowl- 
 edge exists with the mind, in or within the consciousness of man, 
 the extent of which consciousness, in every individual, is duly, but 
 undefiningly, known to such individual alone. But be such con- 
 sciousness ever so extensive, every man's knowledge exists only 
 within, and not outside of, its bounds ; hence no man's knowledge 
 can overstep these bounds of consciousness, but remain forever 
 
30 THE TEMPLE OF TRUTH. 
 
 inclosed therein. But as the nature of consciousness is expansive- 
 ness itself, it will forever expand, with the expansion of the 
 knowledge inducted into it. 
 
 5. If we shall employ elsewhere terms requiring explanation, 
 we shall duly define such in their proper place and time. 
 
 6. Knowledge, Science, System. — a.) Knowledge is the pos- 
 session, in the mind, of a certain portion or number of correct or 
 true thoughts, having such a complete coherent connection between 
 themselves, like the links of a chain of a certain extent, whereby 
 that chain, being a combined unit, becomes as such, useful and 
 applicable for certain practical purposes, as far as it extends. 
 Knowledge is, therefore, one and the same thing with true insight 
 into, or the correct understanding of, a thing, b.) Science. If this 
 chain of knowledge is long enough to circumscribe the bounds of 
 the entire sphere to which it belongs, as likewise of the several 
 parts of its respective contents, it is termed a science, c.) System. — 
 The presence of such science in the mind, perceived in the thoughts 
 constituting it by the sight of the intellect, is called its theory ; the 
 practical skill, and executed application of the theory, to human 
 purposes and use, is termed its practice. Theory and practice com- 
 bined, constitute the consummated system. 
 
 7. Consciousness, Fancy, Imagination. — a.) The conscious- 
 ness of man is a dualistic unit, having, as it were, two extremes or 
 poles. In the nether or finite pole, man perceives, feels, and knows 
 himself as a limited being, encased in an organized body, with cir- 
 cumscribed form, machinery, forces, and bounds, b.) In the upper 
 or spiritual pole, man perceives and knows all the phenomena of 
 thought, intellect, and identity in a sphere, having, as it were, 
 neither actual nor conceivable bounds. Through the senses of the 
 body, man outwardly learns to know an infinity of concrete forms, as 
 well as images, devoid of all definite form. Within the upper 
 sphere of consciousness he perceives a still larger number of mental 
 phenomena, which, as "clearly defined thoughts, have an equally 
 definite form, or which, as crude thoughts, or images of the im- 
 agination (or more correctly of the fancy, as Ave presently shall 
 show), have all possible forms, or are vague notions, devoid of all 
 form whatever. To illustrate the point before us somewhat more 
 comprehendably, let us use the sensual simile of our earth, as 
 
TERMINOLOGY, DEFINITIONS, CLASSIFICATION, ETC. 31 
 
 inclosed by the atmosphere and boundless ether filling the universe 
 around it. The earth and immediate atmosphere surrounding it, 
 contain and present the shape and essence of all concrete and defi- 
 nite forms upon it ; the upper, more rarified strata of the atmos- 
 phere, running into the gas ocean of ether, contain the essence of 
 all possible forms, in a shape devoid of all perceptible form what- 
 ever. Now let us apply this image to fancy and imagination : a.) 
 Fancy and Imagination are a dualistic, polaric unit, like intellectual 
 and sensual consciousness, like reason and understanding, like male 
 and female ; being the living vessel or space inclosing, as well as 
 the substance itself, of which all forms are made, known and know- 
 able to man, as likewise the forms known to him themselves. 
 Fancy then is the upper or higher pole, containing all the substance 
 and forms appertaining to the intellect and its operations. For the 
 clear thought of the keen thinker, the sublime image of the in- 
 spired, enchanting poet or artist, with the ravishing vision of the 
 extatic enthusiast, are all composed into their respective shapes, 
 from that highest of all substances of which pure thoughts are 
 made, and of which divine material fancy is the repository, and 
 mentally filled with it as the universe with the ocean of ether. 
 Hence the intellect itself appears to its own perception as a living 
 stationary machinery, posted and acting within the fancy, getting 
 not only its materials from it, but using it, as it were, like a reflect- 
 ing mirror, to behold the thoughts in, that stand objectively, before 
 its meditating vision, while engaged in adjudicating their nature, 
 size, and value. While the intellect perceives itself thus as a fixed 
 force, it can discover no bounds whatever to fancy, and must regard 
 its form as infinite as that of boundless space itself, b.) Imagina- 
 tion is thus the nether pole of fancy, being, like the earth and 
 proximate atmosphere in our simile, the repository of all concrete 
 forms and their elements, as arising from, and connected with, the 
 limited sphere of experienced sensation. Thus, then, we may say 
 fancy is the imagination of intellect or reason, and imagination is 
 the fancy of understanding or common sense. And, in order to 
 reduce and thereby simplify somewhat, and thus bring that much 
 nearer to a unity, the perplexing nomenclature, until now prevailing 
 in the science of anthropology, we may state that fancy and imagi- 
 nation not only perform the same office and report the same facts, 
 
32 THE TEMPLE OF TRUTH. 
 
 ascribed to the two poles of consciousness, and are hence identical 
 therewith ; hut, also, that what we call recollection and memory are 
 functions belonging to this dualistic arsenal of all possible forms, 
 and materials ; recollection thus appertaining to fancy, while memory 
 attaches to imagination. 
 
 8. a.) In all ages of the world, up to our day, reflecting men 
 have quickly discovered that one single thought, one solitary truth, 
 one detached portion of knowledge, can do but little good. Heuce, 
 at all times, their endeavor to form knowledge into science, by 
 arranging its various parts together. These attempts have, how- 
 ever, from want of material or ability, not always been successful. 
 b.~) But as that which deeply concerns all men, arouses at all times 
 the attention of the thoughtful, they have, by observation and 
 reflection, collected a vast amount of knowledge of every descrip- 
 tion, which, in our day, has accumulated to an extent never before 
 known. This huge amount of material is heaped up and accu- 
 mulated wherever men turn their eye. Being, however, nowhere 
 strung together, but subsisting merely in the shape of detached 
 parts, it can not be used ; and, instead of doing men any good, 
 it is a hinderance and stumbling-block in their way. It will remain 
 thus useless until combined together, and thereby become available 
 for the purposes of practical life, c.) The old shelf-work, intro- 
 duced as so called systems, in the gray past, answering their pur- 
 poses as well as they could, for their time, and awhile thereafter, 
 have partly decayed, and partly become too small ; hence useless 
 and obsolete, and, therefore, no longer able and fit to accommodate, 
 for storing away in proper order and for daily use, the immense new 
 material. Hence the want of the age is, and one of its loudest 
 spokesmen, Thomas Carlyle, speaks it out, calling for an entire re- 
 classification of all things, being " a new theory of the universe." 
 
HIS BEGINNING AND AWAKENING. 33 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 MAN HIS BEGINNING AND AWAKENING. 
 
 1. All men know, not from absolute personal recollection, but 
 from observing the universal fact around them, never infringed, 
 in the experience of the race, that they have been born in a 
 state of unconsciousness, weak, feeble, helpless, needing the vigilant 
 care of others for a longer period of time than any other being 
 within their knowledge. 
 
 2. The first portion of every man's life, no one knows by actual 
 knowledge ; for as there is no reminiscence of identity, no recollec- 
 tion of incidents, feelings, and perceptions of individual conditions 
 and impressions can consciously become possible. The rare mem- 
 ory of some few may dimly dive down to single incidents, trans- 
 piring near the close of their childhood's second year ; but the 
 distinct remembrance of all, dates from a much later period. 
 
 3. But there is a certain, distinct moment in the life of each 
 normal child of man, when, for the first time, it discovers, as it 
 were, its own self, by perceiving the image of its being, in a thought- 
 flash, illuming its inner deep, as separate and different from, and to 
 an unknown degree independent of, the whole world around and 
 all the beings therein contained. That thought-flash of the mind, 
 being a thought, sensation, and vision combined, revealing that as two, 
 where before there was but one (as the flickering flame of life in 
 the child dimly took itself to be one and the same thing with all 
 wherein it existed), is man's first real awakening into being. That 
 awakening, constituting the birth of clear and distinct sight of 
 self, as being and existing, is the beginning of that infinite fact, 
 embracing and ever encycling all other facts, which we denote by 
 the term : the consciousness of man. 
 
 4. Consciousness then, is the beginning wherewith man as " a 
 selecting principle," now starts really into life ; entering a tour that 
 is, in its henceforth endless line, all things that may be named, such 
 
34 THE TEMPLE OF TRUTH. 
 
 as a journey, a struggle, campaign, battle, drama, comedy, tragedy, 
 at one point or other of its chain ; and according to the nature of 
 its grand result, is either a knowledge of defeat or of victory at its 
 final settlement. 
 
 5. a.) Consciousness, even before its full birth, while reposing in 
 embryonic, dreamlike slumber, guides the child, by imitation of 
 those around it, to use its limbs and forces, quit crawling on the 
 floor, learn walking upright, and make other movements like them. 
 Nature, also, incites it constantly, in one way or other, to the di- 
 versified use of its various senses, until it masters their operation 
 and can rely on their action. When consciousness awakes, it dis- 
 covers itself as a living vessel, whereinto all the materials, crys- 
 tallized from repeated impressions into accepted fact, have been 
 collected. For hunger, thirst, or pain, taught it to call loudly for 
 help. Its loving, ever-watchful mother, understanding the inar- 
 ticulate speech of crying, of her darling, was instantly at its side, 
 and tried to discover and appease its wants. It continued its cry- 
 ing speech, until the untiring mother had discovered the real cause ; 
 and the pacified silence of the child, was its tacit answer that it had 
 been understood, b.) Thus, then, already at the very door of life, 
 there was a beginning and a way for the child to make itself under- 
 stood. By-and-by, when eye and ear became observant, it perceived 
 motions of the lips, glances of the eye, and the sounds of speech 
 exchanged by the larger human figures around it ; saw all these 
 things followed by facts and actions, which forced it to think of the 
 transaction, its meaning and cause, thereby became aware of its 
 own thinking as a new discovered fact, found that it could make 
 its thought and feeling only known by crying, or attracting and 
 repelling signs of some sort, and finally clearly discovered that the 
 speakers around it were in possession of a more ample means to 
 interchange their respective thought, and^hat this medium was 
 the speech they used. 
 
 6. From this moment the child became all eye and ear. By 
 incessant attention of sight and hearing, it soon learned to combine 
 the word and the thing it discovered to denote, as inseparably con- 
 nected in its memory ; and, in a brief time, began to use speech 
 practically itself. With every progress in its use, it acquired new 
 means and new power more rapidly to enlarge its portion already 
 
MAN — HIS BEGINNING AND AWAKENING. 35 
 
 possessed thereof. Its own thoughts not only thereby became de- 
 veloped into clear shapes, but by specific questions, to those near, 
 it was enabled to obtain and appropriate their knowledge, to a con- 
 siderable degree, upon the subjects of its inquiries. 
 
 7. Before the child knew speech, its thought was an isolated 
 hermit, or an untaught deaf mute, chained into a prison, without 
 egress or ingress, being separated from all its like by a chasm im- 
 possible to traverse. In that dreary solitude thought had no means 
 either of growing, or of ascertaining its own nature, extent, and 
 size, not being able to say of itself whether it was a single phe- 
 nomenon confined in its individual cell, or belonging to a universal 
 class, alike, or modifiedly distinct from, similar phenomena, pos- 
 sibly existing, or not existing, in the consciousness or cells, of the 
 beings around, to all appearance by form similarly constructed to 
 its own. 
 
 8. At last thought discovered, to its inexpressible joy, that there 
 existed a miraculous bridge, termed language, whereon the impris- 
 oning gulf of dreary isolation could by thought be crossed, at option, 
 at any time, and pay visits to, and associate with, its fellow thought, 
 residing within the cell of consciousness, inhabiting forms not its 
 special own. Finding thus the happy means of liberation out 
 of its dismal dungeon, thought instantly found out, also, by this 
 visit and interchange of thought, first : that the nature of all 
 thought, in all the individual cells, was intrinsically in essence 
 alike ; next, by trading or exchanging thought, that both parties 
 were equally the winners, and each thereby doubling their indi- 
 vidual power ; and, finally, that, since every new thought melted 
 itself with the previous stock, growing with it into one homoge- 
 neous mass, the process, if continued indefinitely, must be an ever 
 increasing accretion in thought ; hence, in knowledge and power. 
 
 9. This process of reasoning we do not allege to transpire ex- 
 actly in the above form, within the juvenile mind of the tender 
 child. But the essence thereof, in one shape and at one time or 
 other, can never escape the reflection of man's intellect, be it earlier 
 or later, when its attention is drawn to this paramount subject. 
 Convinced of the main fact therein contained, the child hastens to 
 master language as speedily as able, and appropriate the thoughts 
 and knowledge attached to its words and contents, as well as it 
 
db THE TEMPLE OF TKITTH. 
 
 can. Active, playful, volatile, and restless, as its nimble limbs and 
 fluids stamp its age and years, it yet submits, with wonderful pa- 
 tience to the dry and wearisome toil, in school or at home, indis- 
 pensable to the acquisition of the first elements of regular tuition 
 and instruction, as it is more or less clearly conscious of their infi- 
 nite importance to its fate and career. 
 
 10. Thus the child grows up into the boy or girl, and they ; in 
 their time, become the youth and the maiden. At home, at school, 
 and by the condition of things and people in their surrounding 
 vicinity, they receive, from early years up, till they arrive at the 
 age of mature reflection, instruction and impressions, which con- 
 jointly have contributed to fill their minds with such a certain set 
 of thoughts, as they, at such time, find in the shape of accepted 
 facts, or not doubted truths, exercising a controlling influence over 
 the bias of their will and mind, so as to determine the same to 
 incline decisively toward one specific direction, and as diametrically 
 opposed to its contrary. 
 
 11. If home, school, and neighborhood, have each been in truth, 
 what their words imply, then the form of character impressed by 
 their conjoint tuition and example, upon our two human beings, the 
 one now a vigorous young man, and the other a blooming young 
 woman, must, in the main, present the following traits, quali- 
 ties, and aims, derived from, and developed by, the several sources 
 and causes we shall specify and name : a.) Our young couple do 
 each, not only enjoy the possession of a strong bodily constitution 
 and vigorous health, but having been duly disciplined by labor, use- 
 ful gymnastic exercises, joined to the proper instruction; they possess 
 the hnovjledge and have acquired the habits indispensable to pre- 
 serving health, b.) In the favorable influences reigning around 
 them, their intellects not only have collected knowledge and 
 thought, coined and combined into truth and wisdom of the highest 
 kind, and, also, the practical skill to apply it to the actual purposes 
 of life ; but, from tender intercourse with virtuous parents and 
 affectionate association with loving and beloved brothers, sisters, 
 friends, and neighbors, their hearts practically know the heavenly 
 joys of true religion, the concealed bliss of sincere friendship, and 
 the never failing peace flowing from good-will to oil men. c.) Feel- 
 ing for one another that mutual true love, springing from the 
 
 3 
 
MAN — HIS BEGINNING AND AWAKENING. 37 
 
 esteem of each other's qualities and traits of character, our young 
 man and woman agree to enter the state of wedlock, and as man 
 and wife, to pilgrim the journey of life together, resolving to pur- 
 sue conjointly one mutual highest aim embracing the following 
 points : — 
 
 12.) a.) To " love their God, as maximum bonum, above all things," 
 learn to know and practice His truth, for His glory and the benefit 
 of man, as much as ever in their power, in conformity with his 
 revealed religion, as taught and practiced by Christ Jesus himself. 
 Hence, b,) To " love their neighbor (the race of man), as themselves," 
 convinced that, in the simple practice of these two principles, are 
 enfolded all individual and family happiness, the true love of 
 country or patriotism, and that philanthropy which, if duly prac- 
 ticed, would render the whole human race as happy as the angels in 
 heaven. 
 
 13. Our young people until now have lived in a small retired 
 community, leading a comparatively contented rural life, and 
 knowing but little of the evils and sufferings in the world at large. 
 Feeling strong in the possession of all kinds of human gifts, forces, 
 and acquirements, and deeming a larger cycle of action requisite 
 for their beneficent aspirations than their contracted home can offer, 
 they conclude to remove into the most crowded vortex of human 
 action, a large city, as it would be most likely to give constant em- 
 ployment to all their practiced faculties, in the pursuit of their 
 high aims, for the cause of truth and the benefit of man. 
 
 14. Until now, our young couple have, as yet, never had occa 
 sion to doubt the correctness of those thoughts within their mind, 
 upon which they looked as unquestionable facts, or unassailable truths. 
 For the people around them were all honest and simple-hearted, using 
 the words of language in their true meaning, combining the object and 
 thought with the use of each word, in their minds, as in all cases 
 language designs and intends ; and, hence, there was always friendly 
 discussion and mutual communion of thought among them ; but 
 occasion for sophistical cavil and dishonest controversy, consisting 
 altogether in " sound and fury," at no time. 
 
 15. Before removing from their old home into their designed 
 new sphere of action, our young couple, possessing a high degree of 
 intellectual and ethical culture, and understanding language and its 
 
38 THE TEMPLE OP TRUTH. 
 
 words in their precise meaning and exact import, take an invoice of 
 their actual stock of knowledge, embracing its nature, contents, 
 diversity, and amount, thereby asking themselves, finally : a.) 
 Where does all our knowledge exist? b.) From what quarters does it 
 all come f And, c,) in what does it consist ? Which questions they 
 answer to themselves briefly, all at once, by the following defini- 
 tions embracing that of consciousness : " Consciousness, drawing 
 upon nature, reason, and God, as sources of its facts, encycles man's 
 entire knowledge, a,) of God, b,) of himself and all his forces, and, 
 c,) of all nature and its action upon him ; consisting, so well ex- 
 pressed in Emerson's concise definition, in ' a sliding scale, identi- 
 fying itself at arte moment with the supreme cause, and the very next 
 with the senses of the body.' " 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 KNOWLEDGE, AFTER THUS BEGINNING WHAT ARE ITS MODE 
 
 OF PROGRESS AMD RESULTS ? 
 
 Knowing, in consciousness, that they know, our young thinkers 
 are not satisfied with merely stating to themselves this unassailable 
 fact, but feel anxious to verify as clearly, by detailed examination, 
 its entire main contents, so as to make themselves equally certain 
 of the truth of the parts, as they are of the whole ; and to reach 
 this purpose find it necessary to ransack and roam through a vast 
 field of research. 
 
 1. They have ascertained the primary fact, that knowledge could 
 only originate from the combination, accretion, or synthesis of the 
 thoughts of one or more men with those of another. The great 
 means of effecting this accumulation of thought they discovered to 
 be language. And, now, our young friends are casting around to 
 see what application and use men have made of this great medium 
 for creating knowledge, and with what success and result. Let us 
 ourself follow the range these young ramblers would pursue. 
 
 2. The infinity of objects around man, arouses his curiosity. 
 
KNOWLEDGE, AFTER THUS BEGINNING, ETC. 39 
 
 His constant intercourse with these objects, his needs and wants 
 constantly impelling him to their use in one way or another, and 
 not always knowing how to do this correctly, he uses speech and 
 asks his neighbor if he possesses the knowledge thus needed ? If 
 the first man can not answer, he inquires of the second, third, 
 fourth, and so on, until he finds the satisfactory answer ; or finding 
 no one capable of answering within his reach, gives up asking for the 
 present, postponing it to better opportunities. This process of 
 asking and answering being incessantly carried on, a.) within the 
 minds of men themselves, b.) between man and the mass of men 
 around him, and, c.) between all the individuals composing the 
 mass, there is forever a mass of thought evolved and accumu- 
 lated, the particles of which, as elicited by all the various answers, 
 after standing the probing test of experience by application, con- 
 solidate themselves into the mass of knowledge admitted in theory 
 and practice by all knowing the same, as unquestionable fact. That 
 knowledge, thus accumulating in detached particles of simple fact, 
 can only become truly useful and available to man, after being, by 
 competent minds, digested and compounded into one homogeneous, 
 cohesive mass or system,. 
 
 3. Knowing that his own life had a beginning, that he has not 
 made himself; seeing that the world he perceives around him, and 
 all things it contains, are in a continual state of change and mo- 
 tion, wherein new things and beings spring up, and others dissolve 
 and disappear ; man soon becomes conscious of the existence of 
 one great, mighty law, governing all these never-ending mutations. 
 He perceives that every change so effected is a production of some- 
 thing else, differing from the thing or state produced. The pro- 
 duced thing or changed condition, he calls effect; the known or 
 unknown force which produced it, he names cause ; and the insep- 
 arable relation, forever and everywhere subsisting between this cause 
 and effect, he terms causation or law of causality, and is forced to 
 acknowledge it as one universal, all- ruling law, as his, and the 
 unbroken experience of all mankind, are conscious of not one single 
 inner or outer fact, contravening its despotic sway. After knowing 
 a thing itself, man wants to know its cause or origin. Next he 
 wants to know the cause of that cause ; then, again, the cause of 
 the cause's cause, until he reaches an ultimate cause, at which the 
 
40 
 
 THE TEMPLE OF TRUTH. 
 
 law of his intellect forces him to abide as the " Ultima Tliule " of 
 research, beyond which none may travel. 
 
 4. Travels, geography, history, and daily observation, inform 
 man that there subsists a huge difference between the individuals 
 and nations of his race ; a large portion of the latter, on every con- 
 tinent of the globe and many of its islands, living in a state of 
 barbarism, bordering in its features on the life of the brute. History 
 informs us that all nations, past or present, did exist, in their early 
 ages, in a condition more or less savage ; and, in casting his eye 
 upon the individuals of which the so-called civilized communities 
 are composed, the observer discovers differences in their degree of 
 culture and usefulness, that disdain all measure of comparison. 
 
 5. Eeason wants to know the cause thereof ; and, in hunting it 
 up, feels necessitated to behold it in the absence or presence of real 
 knowledge or its opposite, and, therefore, expose to fuller view, the 
 one as well as the other, with their immediate fruits and effects, 
 upon man and men. For the absence no less than the presence of 
 a thing discloses its importance and value, only doing it in a different 
 way. The pain we experience from hunger and thirst, teaches us 
 the value of bread and water, no less efficiently than the pleasant 
 sensations derived from eating and drinking. 
 
 6. The child of man, all over the globe, in all ages and climes, 
 enters this world entirely naked. By the mere act of birth then, the 
 child in civilized life has no advantage furnished by nature over 
 the child of the savage; for, during infanc} T , both are equally 
 helpless. But let them grow up to adult manhood, and then note 
 the mighty difference in their capacities of performance and their 
 application. The savage will be content to dwell in a miserable 
 mud liut, a frail tent, or even a cave under ground or in a rock, to 
 serve him as transient shelter ; while the skins and pelts of wild 
 beasts form his immediate protection against the inclemencies of 
 the atmosphere and weather upon the nude body. Living chiefly 
 by the chase, partly by fishing, and neither knowing nor loving 
 agriculture as a system, he requires a large range of territory for 
 providing him the scanty, often uncertain, and frequently entirely 
 inadequate, supply of the necessaries of life. 
 
 7. Hence his mode of life is favorable neither to the development 
 of the higher faculties of man, nor to the increase of population, — 
 
KNOWLEDGE, AFTER THUS BEGINNING, ETC. 41 
 
 for mental development requires time and measurable freedom from 
 the harassing care of bodily wants ; while increasing population 
 peremptorily demands increase of food, and visits its absence with 
 destructive misery and sweeping starvation. As long as the sav- 
 age remains in this mode of life, there is no progress of intellect 
 found in his community, from one generation to another ; while 
 his physical constitution sometimes, from various causes, deterio- 
 rates in a degree becoming not only weak and powerless, but also 
 so defective in organism, that whole tribes have finally dwindled 
 into idiotic imbecility. At other times, unpossessed of the proper 
 means of knowledge and medical treatment, simple diseases, turning 
 into destructive epidemics, have swept entire tribes out of existence, 
 not leaving a soul behind to tell the sad tale. Separate and apart 
 from his hunting and fishing qualifications, and the gymnastical 
 training of his limbs and senses, consequent on his practice in these 
 pursuits, and the kindred one of his eternal state of war with some 
 one or other of his neighboring tribes, — the savage man, although 
 a demon of cruelty and terror to his foes, is at bottom a very helpless 
 being. And the only shield which he can spread over his helpless- 
 ness, consists in the heroic, apathetic stoicism by which, uncom- 
 plainingly, he manfully suffers in silent endurance the many evils, 
 which he neither has knowledge to foresee, forecast to prevent, or 
 power to ward off. 
 
 8. The external face of nature in vain courts the savage to 
 mollify its stern, majestic profile with one smile of embellishment 
 and grace. Born in the dismal wilderness of the primeval forest, 
 or the monotonous ocean of the boundless prairie, one generation 
 of these savages passes away after another, in the same condition of 
 lifeless stagnation as its predecessors. And, after the lapse of a long 
 string of centuries, the features of both nature and man remain as 
 rude, lonely uninviting, awfully portentous, as on the day when 
 they first beheld each other's face. 
 
 9. From these simple facts it is self-evident, that the rude, un- 
 cultured man, has but little knowledge, a,) of nature and its 
 hidden forces ; b,) of his own mysterious being ; and, c,) no con- 
 trol over the vast ocean of thought that flits unappreciated and 
 unappropriated, before the gaze of his best intellects. He is hence, 
 of necessity, a creature of very limited powers, and far more 
 
42 THE TEMPLE OF TKUTH. 
 
 subject instinctively to be impelled by the unknown forces in and 
 around him, than capable of exercising a conscious control over their 
 operations. 
 
 10. Now let us take a look at the picture on the other side, and 
 see what the progressive man has become, he who originally also 
 born naked, and roaming as a savage hunter, perhaps for ages, 
 through impenetrable forests, or paddling his rough canoe, through 
 the water of rivers and sea shores, in his fishing excursions ; or 
 advancing one small step, in mending mere physical existence, by 
 bestowing his nomadic attention and care, on lonely steppes, upon 
 his droves and flocks, of domesticated animals ; let us look at this 
 man, after some fortunate incident commenced to set on fire his inner 
 torch, by the light of which he awoke from his brute stupor, rubbing 
 his eyes to ascertain and assure himself whether he had been 
 dreaming before, or was dreaming now, when discovering within 
 himself that, by which alone man is man, a creatively thinking 
 being, capable of changing and controlling every thing around him, 
 at all times, by the application of knowledge and tJwught, constituted 
 as insight, if not in one moment, then in such accumulation of mo- 
 ments as may be required to effect the object. 
 
 11. The lonely, miserable mud hut, and fragile tent of the sav- 
 age have disappeared, and in their place you see the blooming village, 
 the stately town, the magnificent city, composed of solid and splendid 
 edifices, swarming like a beehive with thousands of ever-active in- 
 habitants, all deriving the means of support in a locality hardly 
 large enough, in the wild state, to furnish subsistence for the inhabi- 
 tants of a single wigwam. Out of those cities you see, wide as 
 your eye can reach, the ancient wilderness transformed into one 
 vast feitile garden, where the waving fields, richly laden with the 
 golden grain, alternating with the life-green carpet of beautiful 
 meadows, interspersed with grazing animals, all point your eye to 
 the comfortable farm-houses, surrounded by barns, stables, sheds, as 
 the centres of the controlling forces, whose action preserves the 
 beauty of the picture before you from one year to another. 
 
 12. In all directions you see the country checkered by roads and 
 highways, often canals and iron tracks, connecting neighborhood 
 with neighborhood, city with city, and the most distant parts with 
 all the rest. On these yoy behold teams, boats, and long rows- of 
 

 KNOWLEDGE, AFTER THUS BEGINNING, ETC. 43 
 
 huge carriages, transporting men by thousands, and the various pro- 
 ductions of all sorts, from near and far, interchangingly, from one 
 part to another, so that at every part you may find a variety, 
 coming from all other parts. You see a large population, scattered over 
 a vast extent of country, in possession of means, which they call 
 Press, Telegraph, Locomotive, whereby they possess the power to 
 inform the whole country, in the shortest possible time, of every 
 thing needed, or worth knowing, transpiring in any locality. You 
 see them in possession of a handful of a whitish material, which 
 they term paper, all dotted over with an infinitude of little black 
 marks or figures ; and, after gazing in mute, intense silence for a 
 shorter or longer period, upon these little black figures, they are 
 able to tell you, as the case happens to be, not only of things as 
 they exist or have transpired, in any part of the world, thousands 
 of miles off. where the relator never in person has been, but inform 
 you of things which, personally, he and you never could see, as 
 they took place hundreds and thousands of years before you were 
 born. Nay, they have even fixed, as by a magic charm of the 
 same sorcery, upon various and numerous sheets of such paper, 
 bound up in forms they call looks, all the most remarkable events 
 not only happening knowingly anywhere on earth, since men did 
 commence to regularly note these things, as likewise the names and 
 doings of the men most conspicuous therein, but have even con- 
 trived to preserve the very thoughts of these men, invisible as they 
 were, by thus tying them to the outward visible signs of their great 
 miraculous medium — language. 
 
 13. In place of the little canoe, formed by painful toil, long, 
 tedious labor, by a stone hatchet, from the trunk of a big tree, 
 barely safe enough for crossing a small stream in calm weather, 
 you see these men in possession of huge wooden or iron palaces, 
 rushing, with violent haste, through the stormy billows of old 
 ocean in all its climes, propelled by fire or wind, and knowing, upon 
 its boundless waste of waters, the path to their most distant 
 aim, as unerringly as if it were but a walk to their neighbor's house 
 in sight. Well, we might continue swelling the invoice to the size 
 of vast volumes, if we should specify merely the main items of 
 progressive man's countless achievements. Has he not lurkingly 
 espied the silent actual motions of the starry heavens, partly to use 
 4 
 
44 THE TEMPLE OF TRUTH. 
 
 them in his chronology, and partly as finger-boards, on his daring 
 nights across the trackless, briny deep ? Has he not dived into the 
 bowels of the earth, and to the bottom of the sea, and compelled 
 them to surrender, as a triumphal trophy, to his positive knowl- 
 edge, what his sensual eye can actually never reach ? You ask, 
 how all this was accomplished, — in what manner did man conquer 
 this wonderful control over nature and its vast terrific forces ? Let 
 us find the true answer to this highly important query, as in it 
 there lies a guide-board, hidden for our own path, pointing out the 
 unerring way. 
 
 14. There are at all times, and have been, in all ages, men, who 
 know and see that what they perceive to be true, consists in their 
 thoughts thereof. These men, when perceiving thus a new idea or 
 thought, in their minds, of a new tool, machine, art, or other useful 
 as yet unknown process of better and speedier performance in human 
 pursuits, than the old clumsy mode in use till then, set to work, 
 sometimes for long weary years, to give their thought, by dint of 
 countless trials and indefatigable experiments, outwardly the shape 
 and body, werein it can dwell and work. The successful result in 
 such endeavors, if consisting in mechanical forms, is called an 
 invention, otherwise it is termed a discovery. 
 
 15. Now, when this sort of men, seeing their constant dependence 
 on nature and its forces all around them, became aware of their 
 power of thought residing within, they at once proceeded to its 
 proper use. Seeing the bodily strength of many animals so much 
 superior to their own, superadded to other qualities of manifold use 
 and value, they set to work subduing, taming, and domesticating 
 these brutes, by dauntless, patient perseverance, to that degree, 
 until they could control their huge forces as they pleased, and 
 derive from them food and raiment to supply their wants. To 
 reap the full advantage derivable from the strength and qualities 
 of these brutes, thought found the need of many tools and imple- 
 ments. In some way or other its observing eye had discovered the 
 metal of iron, and its malleable and valuable properties. A smooth 
 stone and rock had to serve it as hammer* and anvil, to make the 
 first rude iron hammer. 
 
 *In the Semi-weekly (New York) Tribune, of October 27, 1857, a Mr. B. V. Prince, 
 under the caption of " The Indians of the Great £asin" reporting his experience 
 
KNOWLEDGE, AFTER THUS BEGINNING, ETC. 45 
 
 16. a.) Thought creates thought ; like begets like ; invention 
 facilitates invention. After the first iron hammer existed, thought 
 and it soon became the parents of a numerous progeny, which now 
 we behold multiplied into infinitude all around us. The knife, 
 hatchet, axe, spade, shovel, hoe ; the plane, chisel, mallet, bench, saw ; 
 the wheel, yarn, reel, shuttle, loom; the plow, harrow, flail, wagon, 
 harness : the needle, pin, nail, button, scissors ; the awl., last, thread, 
 pinchers, leather, and the^e, vice, tongs, anvil, bellows, with a variety 
 of other near relatives, were among the early-begotten children of the 
 ever-prolific parents, b.) With the help of these the wilderness 
 was transformed into field and garden : the hut and tent were made 
 a substantial house and barn ; the canoe grew into a boat-like ves- 
 sel, and nature, on earth and sea, began to acknowledge man as 
 " one of the powers that be." By-and-by ever- planning thought 
 began to make combinations, from various numbers of its former 
 discoveries and inventions ; and. succeeding therein, it compounded 
 these combinations again, into new units. Thus came the alphabet, 
 written language, and book ; the mill, clock, and watch ; the marine 
 compass, gunpowder, and man-d'-war ; the type, press, and printed 
 volume ; the engine, factory, and snorting propeller ; the balloon, iron 
 rail, and locwnotive ; the ocean steamer, and telegraph on land and at 
 the bottom of lakes ; and last, but not least, its mammoth submarine 
 cable, sure, in the end, to be successfully laid, — conquering old 
 Ocean, annihilating its, until now, world-dividing power of time and 
 space, and soon to encircle the globe with a scientific achievement, 
 surpassing, in true grandeur and universal effects, all other enter- 
 prises heretofore accomplished by men or nations. 
 
 17. Now all these things, — with the countless myriads of others 
 that exist, as wholes or parts, in the wide sphere of civilized indus- 
 trial activity, scattered as tools, machinery, and implements of the 
 most diversified kind and uses, all over the earth, — have not always 
 been in existence. Each single piece thereof has had a time of 
 beginning. None of them has sprung up from the soil of the earth, 
 like a plant. None of them fell down from the sky, ready formed, 
 
 among the tribes, and describing their condition, says of the Shoshonees : — " Consid- 
 ering that they have nothing but stone hammers and Jlint knives, it is truly wonderful 
 to see the exquisite neatness and finish of their implements of war and hunting." 
 
46 . THE TEMPLE OF TRUTH. 
 
 like rain, hail, or snow. Each one, and all of them, before they 
 had visible existence, arose and existed as a thought, an idea, in the 
 intellect of a thinking man. Convinced of its great usefulness, if 
 brought into practical application, the seeing, knowing mind, urged 
 the skillful, industrious hand to ceaseless trial and effort, until in 
 the realized tool, machine, or system, it had created an organized 
 body for its thought. 
 
 18. In like manner, other thinking minds took the simple ele- 
 ments of thought, as they found them deposited in the words of 
 language, combining them into one with a new idea of their own, 
 gave it an appropriate term and definition, and thus enriched man's 
 knowledge, and lexicon of language, with a new treasure forever 
 to be used. Thus we see how thought accumulated to thought, 
 by the medium of language, became knowledge, insight, discovery, 
 and invention, — all of which, in turn, deposited their results into 
 language, in the form of words, denoting accepted, unquestioned 
 general laws, or facts, — increasing man's stock of means to fur- 
 ther progress in knowledge and power, with every new accom- 
 plished step, 
 
 19. But, before we quit this subject, it must be particularly 
 noted, that every idea, conception, and definition ; every tool, term, 
 and method ; every material, figure, and form, to be found in life, 
 nature, science, and art, — hence every word in language, — had its 
 first discoverer, or inventor, embodying the thing into the thought 
 of the intellect, by clear knowledge, or insight. Before he came, no 
 one understood the doing of the thing. After he showed it, it was 
 easily understood by all who had the sense. Had he, or his like, 
 never arrived, the thing would have remained unknown forever. 
 
NATURE AND FOUNDATION OF KNOWLEDGE. 47 
 
 \ 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 EXAMINATION OF THE NATURE AND FOUNDATION OF KNOWLEDGE, 
 AND ITS ULTIMATE FORM IN THE MIND. 
 
 1. Man, casting his eye into the vast expanse of nature, — though 
 he, by a single glance over the whole, perceives its parts to exist 
 cotemporaneously, one along-side of another, that is, in space, — he 
 yet can not, as we have shown (Chap. II, { 4, and elsewhere), accu- 
 rately see, or contemplate its countless objects, all at once, and at 
 the same moment ; but can do so, only by looking at one after 
 another, — that is, in succession or time. 
 
 2. The process of impression of the qualities, or phenomena of 
 things, upon the nerves of the senses, or by thoughts upon the 
 intellect, is dependent upon the same laws governing the action 
 of light in the Daguerrian and plwtographic operations. Where 
 there is no perfect calmness of sense or mind, the picture impressed 
 on either, by the action becomes slurred, — is thus an untrue copy of 
 the original, and hence elementally an error. 
 
 3. Thought being inherently volatile by intrinsic nature, requires, 
 therefore, in order to Jiold still, to impress its true shape and image 
 upon the intellect, to be chained to a fixing medium. And as knowl- 
 edge has been shown to be an accumulation of thought, which be- 
 came possible, only by discovering a process to gather the thoughts 
 of many men together ; as the thoughts of man are sensually inac- 
 cessible to his neighbor, and his neighbor's to him ; as, further, the 
 thoughts that pass through a man's mind, and the objects impress- 
 ing his senses, during a series of years, are so numberless, that he 
 could not, at any time he needs or chooses, control his recollecting 
 them at pleasure, be his memory ever so good ; and as, finally, 
 if there was no enduring sign, by which man could securely mark, 
 to properly distinguish the various things and thoughts from one 
 another, as they pass, seriatim and analytically, before his mind, 
 and hence could have no knowledge of their various qualities 
 (which alone enables him to make use thereof in reasoning): tfte 
 
48 THE TEMPLE OF TRUTH. 
 
 absolute necessity, from these and other considerations, of such a 
 fixing medium, as we have already discovered, in language and its 
 words, to exist, becomes self-evident beyond the possibility of a 
 doubt. 
 
 4. Without this ability of interchanging thoughts with his fellow- 
 man, and fixing them to signs for mutual permanent use, there can 
 be no possibility of progress for man. For, the savage, as we have 
 seen, though possessed of some limited form of oral speech, but 
 destitute of and lacking the machinery to permanently fix the float- 
 ing thought, barely contrives to secure a stagnant mode of life. 
 "Were he deprived even of this imperfect mode of mental inter- 
 change, no rational conception can well be framed, how he could 
 continue to exist at all. 
 
 5. Language, then, — the divine, first-born immortal child of 
 mankind 's Reason, — is thus a gift to man, of value beyond price. 
 As figures, as will be seen hereafter, form but one of the specific 
 word-classes inherent in the nature of language, of whose peculiar 
 office one part is, to denote to man the infinity of things existing 
 in mind within, or nature around him, — so the words of language, 
 and its plastic flexibility in description, denote these things them- 
 selves, and their inherent nature, as far as ascertained. For, each 
 word in language, duly understood, in its inherent sense, may be 
 said to represent the conjoint incorporated judgment of men living 
 from the beginning of time, up to this day, upon the thought con- 
 tained in the Avord. Hence, words are signs for thoughts and ob- 
 jects as fixed, definite and unerring, for him who understands their 
 import, as the figures 1, 2, 3, 4, etc., or of a triangle, square, circle, 
 or any other, — as these are nothing else than words, belonging to 
 particular classes of the language. 
 
 6. As the object of language is the fixation, interchange, and con- 
 sequent accumulation of thought, that object is defeated the very 
 moment when the process is consummated defectively. Hence, 
 as thought can not be seen or touched, it becomes not only inter- 
 esting, to examine the mode by which men originally assured them- 
 selves that they combined the same thought with the same word and 
 object ; but the perception of that process may also become of the 
 utmost value to us, for learning how we may arrive at under- 
 standing each other's thoughts and words unerringly. 
 
NATURE AND FOUNDATION OF KNOWLEDGE. 49 
 
 7. When thus, for instance, the name of sun was first given to 
 the glorious luminary of day, men soon became aware that that 
 name represented a threefold-different modification of one and the 
 same thing before their mind : 1.) it denoted the word, as the term 
 in language, by which the luminary was designated by man ; 2.) it 
 denoted the luminary itself, as it stood, brilliant and glorious above 
 every thing else in nature, in the azure sky ; and, 3.) it denoted 
 the idea, thought, or mental image of the sun, present in man's intel- 
 lect, as a distinct entity, from either the word sun, or the real sun 
 itself. The same process led to a like equal understanding of the 
 meaning and sense attached to all other words, which possess a 
 homestead pre-emption in the domain of language, amongst minds 
 capable of grasping the thought in its disembodied form. As we 
 design to recur to this subject in another place and form, the above 
 may suffice for the present. 
 
 8. It must now begin to become clear to mature reflection, that 
 the elements of all thought, — sufficing for all possible combinations 
 of reasoning and knowledge, — are actually deposited in language, 
 in the unpretending form in which simple, honest custom and general 
 usage, of those that understand it, has brought it through its long 
 passage of many centuries, up to our time and day. All that is 
 needed on our side, is a correct understanding and use of the 
 sense, as thought, as it is firmly affixed to every word. So long as 
 we attend to this simple rule, we are understood by, and can un- 
 derstand, all others, — observing it ; in as far as the elements of the 
 matters treated of are lenown and familiar to the understanding of 
 both the parties. 
 
 9. As such is the unmistakable character of language and its 
 words, it imposes upon us the peremptory rule : a.) To master 
 and discipline pur thoughts, until we become able to give them an 
 expression in words, as definite, unequivocal and concise, as if they 
 denoted a geometrical proposition, h.) Next, to understand the 
 words used by others, first in their true and exact meaning, and if 
 that denotes more, less, or something different from what they 
 design expressing, then to ascertain by interchange of thought what 
 they really aim at, until their real sentiments are understood 
 precisely. 
 
 10. a.) Thoughts thus fixed to their proper words, become clear 
 
5U THE TEMPLE OF TRUTH. 
 
 and explicit to the intellect, are easily retained in the memory, 
 without confounding them with others, and may be recalled for 
 actual use whenever opportunity arises to need them. 6.) Thoughts 
 not thus fixed to words as signs, can not be easily secured in the 
 memory, nor be mastered sufficiently for ever-ready practical use ; 
 and, least of all, correctly communicated from one mind to another. 
 
 11. Men have been more or less careless in their proper attention 
 to the laws of language, from a want of insight and appreciation 
 of its true nature and real character. Language, from its fewest 
 simple words, to its combination into a passage, conversation, speech, 
 or the most ponderous volume, is nothing else than a series of ex- 
 pressed judgments, repeated and accumulated by their author, like 
 the links of a chain, all designed by him to show : that the truth, 
 laid down in the first link of his proposition, in traveling in modi- 
 fied shapes, through all the rest of the links, till it reaches the last, 
 which is his main object or aim, is and remains essentially and 
 equally true at each stage of its progress, or in every separate link. 
 If the reasoner is able to show that he has done so, he has performed 
 what logic would call a demonstration ; which simply means, that 
 he has exhibited, to the intellect of his neighbor, a string of con- 
 clusions, upon undeniable premises, from which said neighbor has no 
 power to withhold his assent, just as if he had told him 2X2=4 ; 
 2X4=8; 2X8=16; 2X16=32; 2X32=64, and so on to any 
 other number. 
 
 12.) A judgment thus arrived at by premises and links that can 
 not by cand.or and fairness be denied, is as true and solid as any 
 truth that exists. For the process of reasoning is alike, no matter 
 what are the signs employed for expressing the thoughts and values 
 concerned in the operation. Thus the equations in algebra, conclu- 
 sions in geometry, solutions in arithmetic, are no more nor any thing 
 else than judgments from premises by the same intellect which uses 
 words as values of thought in other processes of reasoning. And 
 if words, thoughts, and conclusions are correct, the result is as true 
 and certain as an}^ other truth in the universe. For let it be clearly 
 understood, once for all, that truth has no degrees ; so that one truth 
 could be more or less true than another. Truth is the simple 
 element of eternity, in whatever shape and garb it exists. The sim- 
 ple sentences : " The sun shines ; I am doing this writing,''' are as 
 
NATUKfi AND FOUNDATION OF KNOWLEDGE. 51 
 
 true as twice two is four; and as, there is a God ubiquitous in all 
 heaven and infinity. 
 
 13. a.) Men have fancied and fallen into this error, as if truth 
 had degrees of more or less in regard to essence, because they 
 perceived, on the one hand, that there was a vast difference in the 
 importance, size, and values of separate parts of truth, as com- 
 pared with one another ; and, on the other hand, confounded 
 their own knowledge, correct or defective, with truth itself. 
 Hence the}' divided truth, like their knowledge thereof, into 
 relative and absolute, b.) A little mature reflection may suffice to 
 cure them of this two-fold error. By recurring to chapter II, § 5, 
 a-d, they will find an analysis of several elements as also of the 
 legal elements and values of money, as the medium of exchange 
 in our intercourse in trade and commerce. One glance upon the 
 same, will convince them of the truth of the following facts : 1.) 
 That the figure 1 is as absolutely a cipher as if you call that 1 a 
 million or any other number ; 2.) That the letter a is as absolutely 
 a letter, as all the rest of the whole alphabet, or as all the letters 
 in a volume, or the libraries of the world ; and, 3,) that 1 single 
 cent is money as absolutely as the 2000 cents of the double eagle, 
 a million of dollars, or all the money upon the globe. Hence the 
 apparently least important truth is, in its nature, no less as abso- 
 lutely a truth as the greatest one that may be grasped by the intellect 
 of man, angel, or God. Wherefrom it must become clear that the 
 nature of all truth is never relative, but, to all eternity, absolute, as 
 all its separate parts form but one coherent everlasting whole. c.~) 
 There exists, however, in the grand system of truth a Divine 
 order, whereby each truth, according to its size, nature, and value, 
 has its place and function, of sub-co or super-location and ordina- 
 tion, assigned to it, belonging properly to it, and to no other ; from 
 Which fixation of place and function, each truth stands in a 
 permanent relation to all other truths. The perception, by man's 
 intellect, of any truth, in its true relation to this grand system of 
 all truth, is absolute truth, and constitutes absolute "knowledge or im- 
 movable certainty, d.) And as this grand system of truth exists 
 in an undeveloped state, innately in the machinery and reasoning 
 apparatus of every human intellect, and its perfect or imperfect 
 development, forming the tremendous issue of man's destinv now 
 5 
 
52 THE TEMPLE OF TKUTH. 
 
 and eternally ; the mind, as Plato already clearly saw, " must 
 desire and yearn after truth" in its absolute, unconditional form, 
 separate from all incertitude and error, e.) But as men live in a 
 -world filled with men, their arrangements and relations, driving, 
 enticing, and forcing one another to perpetual action, without 
 allowing but little chance for bodily and mental rest, for ascertaining 
 how (to secure their best and permanent interests), their said action 
 of all sort, should be constituted and carried out : their minds remain 
 bewildered and confused by the turmoil and chaos of life ; the 
 knowledge they gather, by reflection and interchange of thought, 
 is seldom a vigorous mental judgment composed of elemental com- 
 bination ; but far more often and generally a hybrid compound of 
 truth and error, fact and fiction, based upon, and colored by, those 
 self-made notions of ignorance and interest, which they themselves, 
 in the shape of the ruling opinions of the day, have created and 
 set afloat, from the silly conceit that God's providence, .stood in 
 need thereof, to preserve a proper degree of public order, in the 
 social relations of His human beings. /.) Hence there is no cause 
 for marvel, that even the clearest intellects, dwelling amidst an ocean 
 of such influences, should more or less be dragged into, and affected 
 by, its whirls. For man is a social being, ruled by example, affec- 
 tion, and love, and therefore infinitely more apt to accommodate 
 himself to the sentiments of numbers, than sternly and lonely abide 
 in proud majesty by the truth of his own thoughts. As thus the 
 things and conditions in a life so constituted, are all relative, un- 
 stable, insecure, and uncertain, the knowledge springing therefrom, 
 can necessarily possess no other character ; and, as a whole, be 
 nothing else than mere relative knowledge ; true so far only as its 
 elements of judgments are correct or pure; false, wherever its 
 premises are ill-founded. But thinkers ought to understand and 
 see that human knowledge, even if it is absolute knowledge of a 
 truth, is merely their perception, and not a making, of such truth ; 
 for that truth existed before they saw it from all eternity, and will 
 so exist forever, and hence as entirely independent of men's seeing 
 or not seeing it, — all truth, in its nature and being, is absolute, not 
 relative. 
 
 14. As there is an infinite abundance of firm, fixed elemental 
 truth in this world, existing all around man, sufficient for all the 
 
NATURE AND FOUNDATION OF KNOWLEDGE. 53 
 
 reeds and purposes of his dualistic or compound life, — all that is 
 required of him, only is, that he have the eye to see, and the will, 
 courage, and manhood, to use it. He has, hence, therein all the 
 materials needed for making all his knowledge absolute, and thus 
 possess himself of absolute truth. To do so, he has only to reject, 
 as elements or premises of reasoning, all propositions which, as far 
 as he can see, do for him as yet, not belong to the class of absolute 
 truths. The judgments or conclusions, then, derived from such 
 simple and pure elements, are, in their nature, equally simple and 
 pure compounds (or syntheses), as their elements themselves ; and 
 can be applied, as new premises, with the same infallible process 
 wherewith, after saying, twice 2=4, he continues to say, twice 
 4=8, and so on, ad infinitum, the last link of the chain being never 
 less absolutely true, than the first. 
 
 15. But, in order to find the inexhaustible placers of the hidden 
 wealth of rich truth within and without him, man must have some 
 truth in himself. As long as he has not any, he can not see it else- 
 where. For then he is in the condition which Christ denotes 
 (Matth. vi, 23), namely : his inner luminary, instead of being a real 
 light, is, in its own nature, nothing but actual darkness itself. Men 
 of this sort look upon the ruling opinions in vogue, in the world 
 around them, as their real truth ; and, vice versa, they regard real 
 truth a.s mere individual and fancied opinion. 
 
 16. There is a point in the life-chain of each man, toward which 
 he is constantly advancing as he increases in years, at which a gen- 
 eral court assumes its sessions w r ithin the forum of his own intel- 
 lect, for the purpose of ascertaining, by the weights, meters and 
 measures ruling the universe, what the real value of the man and 
 the stock he has accumulated, actually is worth in the ever-par 
 coin of eternity, — absolute truth, a.) for his God, b.) himself, c.) the 
 human race, and d.) the whole universe. Plato's keen eagle ken, 
 has discovered something of this awfull} r -august process, and per- 
 ceived that no man's case was an entirely lost one, as long as, amidst 
 the vast rubbish and dross of worthless, imaginary opinions imbibed 
 from the godless state around him, he remained in possession of 
 one single, real truth. 
 
 17. In concluding our chapter, and recurring to its caption, we 
 may then say : a.) The nature and foundation of knowledge, 
 
54 THE TEMPLE OF TEUTH. 
 
 consist in the presence of true thoughts or mental facts before the 
 intellect, derived either from the upper (mental), or lower (sensual) 
 pole of consciousness, joined to the fixed conviction co-existing in 
 the mind, of possessing therein the power to verify, by outward 
 proof the truthfulness and correctness of such knowledge in exter- 
 nal realizations, whenever the opportunity and necessary means are 
 furnished, b.) The form in which this knowledge exists in the 
 mind, is a cliain or series of judgments of the intellect, composed of 
 various links, all hanging together, wherein the truth contained 
 in the first member, travels through all the other links, to reach and 
 abide in its aim, the last, — being and remaining equally true in all 
 the links. 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 WHAT BASIS HAS LANGUAGE FOR ITS ALLEGED ACCUMULATION 
 OF THOUGHT. 
 
 1. We are informed that good ancient Pyrrlio, the primary 
 father of honest skeptics, after being sadly baffled, vexed and con- 
 founded, by the dextrous dialectics of the sophists of his day, — 
 gave up his hope of ever discovering truth, altogether ; and resolv- 
 ing to lead a quiet life of practical virtue, — never again ventured 
 on discussing mooted questions. He would attentively listen to 
 what both parties had to say, respectively, on their side. And, 
 after hearing them, would, to all and always, give the invariable 
 answer : " What you say may be true, or not — I shall not decide." Let 
 it be noted, that the man whose character is reported to have much 
 resembled that of Socrates, does not assert: u There is no truth!" 
 but merely, "I will not decide, upon the merits of your debate." For, 
 in practicing virtue, he had, every day, to decide, in his own intel- 
 lect, in what thoughts and actions that virtue, or its opposite, was to 
 consist, — in every case in which he had to act. 
 
 2. We find that shrewd David Hume, the champion of modern 
 philosophical skepticism, in his " Essay on Human Understanding," 
 concentrates his main force in assailing the universal validity of 
 
BASIS OF LANGUAGE AND ACCUMULATED THOUGHT. 55 
 
 the great law of causality, into his famous, but whimsical assertion, 
 that the mind was unable to discover " the copula between cause 
 and effect," when one billiard ball, set in motion, striking another, 
 imparts that motion to the second ball. By "copula," Hume can, 
 of course, mean nothing else, than the "connecting force or activity 
 subsisting between the cause and the effect." Now, if he can not 
 see that connecting force in the case he states, he must either be 
 very dull, very blind or willfully perverse, to state a fact he can 
 not well help knowing, — in language so irregular, as to mislead his 
 readers into the suspicion, that he merely wants to try how far they 
 may permit him to institute a frivolous play with their good humor 
 or credulity, a.) When Hume went to the billiard table, he was 
 conscious in his intellect, that by a thought he determined to do so; 
 that thought, the first moving cause within, moved his body exter- 
 nally on, till he found himself standing at the table. Here, then, 
 is the first link in the proceeding, easily understood by himself and 
 others. He next moved his hand, and took hold of the staff, with 
 which to play. That was the second part or link in the movement ; 
 and finally, placing one ball before himself, and sighting by aiming 
 at another, struck the first ball with his stick. That was the third 
 link in the chain of performance consummating the transaction. 
 h.) The ball was no sooner struck, when it moved ; and if it hap- 
 pened to strike the other ball, before its moving force, received 
 out of the hand of the player, was spent, it imparted motion to 
 that ball. If, however, the second ball missed striking, it did, of 
 course, not move at all. If it was struck or merely touched by the 
 first ball, after this had spent its entire motive force, the touch pro- 
 duced merely a little vibration, but no actual locomotion, c.) Now 
 when with that wooden cue in his hand, friend Hume strikes the 
 first ball, making it move, — loliy is it, that he does omit calling our 
 attention to the "copula" of tins first part or link of the phenomenon, 
 where motion is truly actually first imparted from his mind to his 
 will, from that will to the hand, from the hand to the wood stick, and 
 from this wood to the first ball, — and prefers to concentre our un- 
 divided attention upon the detached relation of the two balls, being 
 the last link in the whole chain of the process ? The answer is pal- 
 pable and simple ; because, if he had done so, the marvelous, ap- 
 parent depth of the thought, in the making of so tremendous a 
 
56 THE TEMPLE OF TRUTH. 
 
 discovery as seems to be implied therein, would at once and sud- 
 denly shrivel back into the nothingness of the pretense ; for each 
 intellect, casting its glance upon every link of the chain forming 
 the whole transaction, would instantly clearly understand their in- 
 separable connection, and perceiving that all these links make but one 
 whole ; that each part thereof can only be correctly understood, in its 
 connection with the whole ; but never when detached from the same, 
 as Hume attempts making us do, in the case before us, by placing 
 it before our eye piecemeal, hind-end foremost, — or, of the whole, — 
 only the cut-off last part, d.) Let us clear up the pretended mys- 
 tery, by looking at that which connects all its parts into one whole. 
 If Hume never had thought of the billiard case on hand, he never 
 would have initiated its trial to use a fraction of its whole fact, as 
 the matter constituting his pretended argument; since only iliat 
 object alone, — and nothing else, exists for the mind, for the time-being, 
 upon which, each moment, its tJwught is fixed, e.) Of all forces known 
 to man, ilwught is that power, ruling all the rest. It, therefore, is 
 the primary power imparting movement to the will. For there 
 can be no act of volition, which is not accompanied by conscious 
 thought. All other phenomena of motion observed in man, not 
 proceeding from thought, are either instinctive, morbid, or automatal, 
 that is, involuntary. /.) All beings and things in existence, are 
 bundles of forces, tied into one by one main force. These forces 
 act, and are forced to act, by acting and reacting upon each other, 
 as also driven by the great motion outside, impelling them to move 
 on with the whole, in which all things exist. Like the bodies of 
 these things form bundles or lumps, — so their actions form chains or 
 lines, longer or shorter, consisting of links as constituents, points 
 or parts. The process of all action for all things, consists, there- 
 fore, in their transition from the first link, point or station of the 
 chain or line, into the second, and from it through all the rest, until 
 reaching the last. The performance of this transition through a 
 line of action, is termed motion; and the cause producing it, is 
 named force, g.) Thus, the life of man is one unbrokenly-connected 
 line, or whole, from the moment of his birth, to that of his death, 
 consisting of a given number of days ; each forming a link or point, 
 in the longer or shorter extended line of this life-chain. The acting- 
 out of this line is performed by each man's inherent life-force, by 
 
BASIS OF LANGUAGE AND ACCUMULATED THOUGHT. 57 
 
 its entrance, on his birth-day into being, or the first link ; and from 
 it, proceeding in connected succession, into each individual link, or 
 single day, until it reaches the last, h.) Hence it will be seen, that 
 life is one entire act or line, consisting of many parts, impossible 
 to separate from its first link. For if man had not been born, as 
 the first link, all the rest of the line could palpably never exist. 
 The drawing of this line, is an unbroken act of motion, from its first 
 moment of time to its last. The proximate cause producing that 
 motion, is the life-force inherent in the vitality of man. The mode 
 of its action consists in transplanting its whole self in succession from 
 the first link, to every next, until reaching the last, — always carry- 
 ing its whole accretioning accumulation into every succeeding 
 station. If, now, the reader recurs to the last paragraph in our 
 preceding chapter, where we define the form of knowledge as sub- 
 sisting in the mind, — he will perceive the perfect analogy extant, 
 between the abstract form of knowledge, action and life, each con- 
 sisting of a line or chain, combined of various links, which all 
 movingly are traveled through, from the first to the last link, 1.) 
 in the chain of knowledge by truth ; 2.) in the chain of action by 
 motion; and 3.) in the line-chain of life, by vital force. 
 
 3. «.) That which binds the parts of a w T hole together, by thus 
 running with abiding identity, into and through all its links, — con- 
 stitutes that whole's main force or essence, making it the some- 
 thing it is. As such, it is, itself, the main cause of all the effects 
 it produces ; since its effects are absolutely nothing else than its 
 egress from one link, as ingress into the other. Hence itself consti- 
 tutes the true copula, between itself as the cause, and its action as 
 the effect. Thus, man himself is the copula that binds all the sep- 
 arate day-links of life into the one solitary chain, as he passes with 
 his whole being, from one into the other, up to the last. When 
 that last link shall come for the individual, depends, as a general 
 rule, on the intensity and amount of the life-force imparted to him 
 by creative power, when placing him into the first link at birth. 
 The less the amount of that force, the sooner its motive-power will 
 be exhausted, b.) Now, then, we will be able to disentangle the 
 confused web of thought incased in Hume's billiard-ball simile. 
 What he terms the copula between cause and effect, in this case, is 
 clearly nothing else than the perception of the necessary connection 
 
58 THE TEMPLE OF TRUTH. 
 
 of the motion between the two balls, and its transfer from the one 
 to the oilier. Now, if Hume had seen one billiard-ball commence 
 moving, by or from itself, without any perceptible outside cause pro- 
 ducing that motion, then run against another ball, and, by its 
 striking or contact, impart its motion to the second ball, — then his 
 question for the copula, or connecting necessity in the phenomena, 
 would have been highly sensible and pertinent; inasmuch as the 
 intellect of no man could have suggested any. c.) But his assumed 
 case has no such extraordinary feature. It only becomes puzzling, 
 because he makes it so, by obstinately looking only at one single 
 (and that the last) link in the chain, self-evidently composed of a 
 distinct number of several links, — of which, the very first one, at 
 once removes and explains the whole difficulty which he imagines 
 to see. For, one moment of sane reflection will suffice to show 
 him, or any thinking mind, that the copula binding all the phe- 
 nomena of the case, as effects.; to the cause that produces them, is 
 the motion itself, — created by the thought of the mind, and sent 
 on its errand of execution, through the various stages of its links, 
 in one undisrupted line of movement, until its force reaches its aim 
 in the last link. 
 
 4. Some people have indulged the belief that Hume neyer was 
 truly in earnest in advancing this singular argument, but merely 
 designed it as a philosophical hoax, to ascertain whether any of his 
 cotemporaries had acumen enough to detect its fallacy. This 
 opinion gains considerable force from his life and the rest of his 
 writings, all of which evince a practical faith in the indissoluble 
 connection of cause and effect, not surpassed by the most orthodox 
 dogmatist. In selecting this famous argument for analysis and 
 refutation, it was less our object to show its fallacy, than to estab- 
 lish in the process, the various propositions thereby elicited, as we 
 shall need them for further use. Yet, it can do at the same time 
 no harm, to show the unfoundedness of the false conclusions of cele- 
 brated thinkers, as they generally cause greater mischief to large 
 numbers of minds less gifted, than to their authors personally them- 
 selves. There are other thoughts suggested by Hume's disproven 
 assertion, which deserve, and shall receive, due attention elsewhere, 
 in their due time and place. Hume, like Pyrrho, has nowhere 
 and at no time asserted : " There is no truth," but onlv refused to 
 
BASIS OP LANGUAGE AND ACCUMULATED THOUGHT. 50 
 
 acknowledge various things as true, believed to be so by many other 
 people. 
 
 5. Pyrrlio and Hume, the patriarch and pontifex of the world- 
 famous church of doubters, are then, after all, as we find, no such 
 terrible skeptics as one might have supposed from the renown of 
 their names. For none of them ever dream of assailing conscious- 
 ness itself as the fact of facts ; nay, they even in theory as well as 
 practice admit the existence of truth, and their individual perception 
 of certain portions thereof. 
 
 6. There is, however, a story told as a fact, not much known, of 
 one poor skeptic, showing that in certain cruel circumstances, pri- 
 vates and subalterns may be more reckless and daring than the 
 chieftains commanding the army themselves ; and, at the same 
 time, instituting an example of paying dearly for transgressing the 
 very bounds respected by the chiefs. «.) Our story runs, namely : 
 " That, upon a certain occasion, a skeptic had a desperate debate 
 with an expert opponent ; who, in the heat of the fight, pressed 
 him closely with the fact of his existence. Whereupon the skeptic, 
 to nullify its force, boldly replied : ' That, in reality, he did not 
 exist, but only appeared to exist !' The opponent, a man of strong, 
 shrewd sense, suddenly dropped not only the argument altogether, 
 but did not continue to speak another word to the desperate asserter, 
 on that occasion, showing thereby that he treated the assertion in 
 good faith; looking upon the skeptic, as what he had declared him- 
 self to be, namely : a mere phenomenon, semblance, or apparition ; 
 that had in itself no being, and wherewith, of course, no mental 
 interchange could be carried on. b.) Moreover, he also wanted to 
 convince himself as speedily as possible, by ocular perception of 
 fact, how far the skeptic practically believed the desperate assertion 
 he had so rashly and confidently made. Presently the skeptic 
 departed for going home. The opponent knew, that before reach- 
 ing home, the doubter had to pass a spot where an ugly dog some- 
 times molested the by-passers. Knowing a short cross cut to come 
 near the place in question, where, unseen, he might observe what 
 would turn up, the opponent quickly grasped his strong walking 
 cane, suspecting the possible contingency of its use, and hurried to 
 the spot where the other had to pass. In a few moments the 
 skeptic hove in sight. But hardly had he done so when a loud 
 
60 THE TEMPLE OF TRUTH. 
 
 scream of terror, mixed with a dog's howl, announced the fact that 
 the angry brute was attacking him. c.) Quick as lightoing the 
 hidden observer was on the ground of battle, and with a few well- 
 aimed and telling strokes of the massive cane drove off the furious 
 beast, from the yet unharmed but terribly frightened skeptic. 
 "When, looking into the paled face of the frightened, trembling 
 man, his rescuer, feigning unbounded astonishment in his recogni- 
 tion, with a good-humored, but most sarcastic laugh, exclaimed : 
 ' Wliat ! my good friend, is that actually yourself who hallooed thus 
 lustily for Jielp, or was it somebody else, who really is and not 
 merely appears to he V The poor skeptic, though much ashamed, 
 yet partly from real gratitude to his generous deliverer, and partly 
 from fear of becoming the general laughing-stock, in case the story 
 should obtain immediate publicity, acknowledged, with flushed 
 cheeks, the wrong he had done in resorting to an assertion dis- 
 proving itself in its very making, begged his friend to keep the 
 matter to himself, and promised a perfectly candid behavior and 
 course in all further controversies." That was the only, the first, 
 and the last time ever heard of, that the grand fact of consciousness 
 was attempted to be assailed. 
 
 7. Here, then, we have in consciousness an immovable basis, ac- 
 knowledged as one unassailable, universal fact, by each and all 
 parties. But were one-half to affirm, and the other half fool- 
 hardy enough, with our last friend of dog-biting memory, to deny 
 it, their very denial would be as much and as strong a demonstra- 
 tion of the great fact itself, as if, with Descartes, they had said : 
 " Cog/to ergo sum," — ("I think, hence I am.") Thus we have 
 found and reached the " Ultima TJiule" of the power of doubt, 
 constituting the boundaries beyond which its restless waves may 
 never surge. 
 
 8. In accepting consciousness as their common pristine fact, as the 
 element of all elements : all the sects of thinkers who really are 
 such, have to agree, no matter whether they are Idealists or 
 Realists, Dogmatists or Skeptics. But no sooner have they agreed 
 on this grand fact, when they at once again separate, by taking 
 their stand antagonistically to one another, in the two poles of the 
 primary truth. The Idealists, posting themselves into the sky-fort 
 of thought, and the Realists upon the inviting pleasure-grounds of 
 
BASIS OP LANGUAGE AND ACCUMULATED THOUGHT. 61 
 
 sensation, disdaining all familiar intercourse, and without ever 
 accurately inspecting each other's position, descry each, of course, 
 without correctly knowing it, respectively the position of the other, 
 not dreaming that thereby they harm and damage their own in such 
 a measure as to deprive it of its best charms and greatest benefits. 
 a.) With Emerson, the former says, coupling great truth with im- 
 portant mistakes: "Matter is a phenomenon, not a substance." 
 " Idealism acquaints us with the total disparity between the evidence 
 of our own being and the evidence of the world's being. The one 
 is -perfect; the other incapable of any assurance ;"* and, again, "In 
 my utter impotence to test the autlienticity of the report of my 
 senses, to know whether the impressions they make on me corre- 
 spond with outlying objects, etc." * * (*' * lb. p. 45.) Thus it wall 
 be seen that the idealist is a skeptic in his position and relation to 
 nature, as well as to his opponents, whereby he must suspect that the 
 great power who forms nature as it is, designedly purposes to mis- 
 lead Mm; for such must necessarily be the case, if it has withheld 
 the means and ways to ascertain tlie truth, b.) On the other hand, 
 materializing, grasping, ambitious sensualism, disturbed in the 
 feasting saturnalia of its perpetual " now," or the insatiate accumu- 
 lation of matter upon matter, for power or wealth, is much dis- 
 concerted when, beholding the stern majesty of superior truth in 
 the loftily calm countenance of Idealism, though " sicklied o'er with 
 the pale cast of thought," can only ward off or neutralize the un- 
 pleasant impression, made thereby upon its rosy dream, by replying 
 to it with Faust : " Gray, dearest friend, is all thy theorizing but 
 evergreen life's golden tree I" And when chided for its presumptuous, 
 ignorant assurance in matters of momentous import, it replies, 
 with unmoved countenance, quoting the same high authority : 
 " Have never bethought me of thinking !" 
 
 9. These two parties now divide life and the world between one 
 another; but the division and the parties are very unequal, one 
 counting the few, the other a large number ; for every man, no mat- 
 ter whatever be his professing theory, belongs, practically, to one 
 camp or the other. That each side has truth, of a certain sort, on 
 its side, there can be no question. That such truth is accompanied, 
 
 * Emerson's Nature, Addresses, and Lectures. Art. Spirit, p. 60. 
 
62 THE TEMPLE OF TRUTH. 
 
 in both camps, with, error and short-sightedness, and in the latter 
 with a far larger amount of ignorance and error than itself, so as to 
 more than neutralize the good of the truth there is, the terrible 
 fruits of life as it is, leave no room to doubt. To remedy the evil 
 both parties must be forced, forced by the stern power of necessity, 
 inherent in the nature of truth, to do justice to each other's truth, 
 look it candidly and closely in the face, and then say, if they can, 
 that it is not essentially one and the same with their own. No 
 sooner will they thereby be convinced tlmt all tJieir separated truth 
 is in reality but one grand unity of eternal truth ; when intellectual 
 peace, the primary source of all other peace, will commence to be 
 established upon earth, and from it, by steady steps, all other peace 
 among men will inevitably flow. 
 
 10. To reach this unity of truth, it is necessary to show that it 
 already exists in the primary conformation of language, demanding 
 only a calm investigation to understand it, and the mode how it 
 was arrived at correctly ; as likewise to point out the absolute ne- 
 cessity, in man, of needing precisely such a reliable language, for 
 supplying the wants and needs inherent in his being, a.) Based 
 upon the indubitable certainty of dualistic consciousness, men, in 
 earliest ages, being always found, everywhere, in possession of the 
 first rudiments of a language, enriched such language continually, 
 by framing the new observations, discoveries, and experiences made, 
 from day to day, into conceptions and ideas expressed by new words. 
 After these words had accumulated to considerable of a stock, the 
 thought must strike an acute thinker to ascertain, if it could be 
 done : whether all ivho made use of the like ivords, combined also the 
 same tlwughts ivith these words ? The mooting of this question led to 
 the investigation of the still deeper one, tying at its bottom ; lohether 
 ?nen's thoughts are really alike, ami, if so, upon what such identity is 
 founded? This preliminary question they answered themselves 
 as follows : b.) No matter what the accidental difference in the 
 conformation of men's limbs and separate parts in each individual 
 be, the normal formation of all men, at all times, and in all things, 
 is primarily alike in all essential features. For, 1,) the body of all 
 men is formed after one and the same identical pattern ; 2.) The 
 form of that body is endowed with the like number, and general 
 structure, of limbs and parts ; 3.) Its vital force is provided with 
 
BASIS OF LANGUAGE AND ACCUMULATED THOUGHT. 63 
 
 the same identical senses, forming in sight, hearing, touch, smell, taste, 
 and feeling, six in number, constituting its exclusive, only channels 
 of connection with, nature and the exterior universe ; 4.) Man, 
 everywhere, enters life, as a branch of the great trunk of the race, 
 by the same laws of generation, formed out of the same substance, 
 and nourished by the same ingredients, that constitute the essence 
 of his fellows ; 5.) Man, thus alike sprung from one source, gifted 
 with the like parts, formed of the same elements, provided with 
 the same susceptibilities, exists in every individual, surrounded by the 
 same totality of the universe, operating upon his aforenamed senses, 
 in a like manner, by the like forces, governed in their action of im- 
 pression upon him by the same all-ruling laws : hence, as the same 
 impressing causes are here acting upon beings formed so essentially 
 alike, they must impress upon all, essentially, the like effect. Hence, 
 further, the thoughts of men upon these impressions can differ no 
 further from one another, than these impressions themselves. 
 
 11. This course of reasoning very soon found ample opportuni- 
 ties to probe for itself, by actual experience, whether it spoke fact 
 or hypothesis. This probation could in no other way be instituted 
 than by the use of language. For, to ascertain Avhether the im- 
 pressions as well as the thoughts of men were actually alike, the 
 former had first, in all men, to be translated into thoughts, and then 
 both pure thoughts, arising in the mind from observing itself or 
 thought, as well as thoughts combined from outer impressions, had 
 to be fixed to, and embodied into, a ivorcl, denoting each individual 
 thought. Such word then became the permanent sign of the 
 thought, the thought of the thing, and the attributes, qualities, and 
 relations attached to them, within the vision of the mind. Thus, 
 furnished with the material and machinery of interchanging thought, 
 it remained now to be seen how the machine practically did work ; 
 and, if found that it worked reliably in a number of instances, 
 then to learn its use to such degree, as to render it reliable in all 
 cases. The experiments necessary to ascertain these facts are not 
 difficult to imagine, as they can only be similar to our own situa- 
 tion, now-a-days, when learning a foreign language, and before we 
 reliably know the thoughts connected with the words thereof. 
 The following was, no doubt, the mode pursued in a number 
 of instances : 
 
64 THE TEMPLE OF TRUTH. 
 
 12. a.) After agreeing upon a number of words to denote things 
 and thoughts, they would continue to observe the difference in 
 outer and inner phenomena, and give each new one an appropriate 
 term ; seeing, for instance, of the object they had named, a tree. — 
 one tree, and its difference from a whole forest of trees ; they would 
 say of the single tree : It is one (1) tree ; adding another, they Avould 
 call both conjointly two (2) trees, and so on with 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 
 etc. Next, they would perceive the difference in size between a 
 young and an old tree ; would call the first small and the latter 
 large. Then one tree they saw rising erect, in a perfectly per- 
 pendicular attitude and shape, toward the sky, whereas another grew 
 up, in shape and direction, composed of irregular lines and curved 
 parts ; the first they would call straight and the latter crooked. 
 Next, they perceived that the surface of objects, when visible, 
 affected their sight variously, in proportion as it reflected a hue 
 approaching more or less toward light, or, its opposite, darkness. 
 Naming these general impressions by the class-name, color, they 
 called its various and most marked degrees, white, yellow, red, blue, 
 black, etc., etc. b.) The same process they pursued with all things 
 and their relations, as well as those observed as external phe- 
 nomena of the senses, or the varied state of inner sensations, and 
 even the vast range of objects peopling their hidden world of 
 thought. Now, after thus possessing, in language as it were, an 
 invoice or inventory of all the thoughts, things, and attributes, de- 
 posited, year after year, by the work of all single minds, into this 
 treasury of the common intellect ; the fact was to be ascertained, 
 Avhether and in how far, where the parties knew the meaning at- 
 tached to words of the language correctly, the thoughts each com- 
 bined therewith, in their mind, were the same and alike in all 
 minds ? c.) That matter was easily tested, in ordinary cases, 
 whereas others required longer time and different methods. Thus, 
 to test a man, how far he understood the words of language in 
 every day use, the following simple experiments would suffice, 
 and prove his thoughts connected with such words to be absolutely 
 identical with those of the querist and all others understanding 
 them. Thus A would say to B : "Show me your ten fingers !" 
 whereupon the other would instantly stretch out, and hold into tho 
 querist's sight, both his hands with expanded digits, proving therein 
 
BASIS OF LANGUAGE AND ACCUMULATED THOUGHT. C5 
 
 that he knew the terms, " show, ten, fingers," and whose fingers 
 were meant, exacts like the querist. Next, he would send him, 
 out of doors where, in a named corner, a number of poles, of 
 various shapes and sizes are standing, among which there is one of 
 a particular formation, which the querist wants him to fetch in, 
 calling it "that large crooked stick." In a moment the identical 
 piece of wood, demanded by the querist, is brought in as infallibly 
 as if he had been there in person, pointing it out to the other, with 
 his own finger, as the selected piece. Once more he would say : 
 " Go to yon blooming meadow and bring me 1 white, 2 yellow, 3 red, 
 and 4 blue flowers, and tie them together with a black string.' 1 ' 1 Pres- 
 ently the required nosegay is brought in and laid upon the table. 
 But the examiner says : "Hold on, my friend, a moment longer, 
 we are not through yet, and I must probe you a little more. Take 
 up these flowers, untie the string, and do as I say. Well, you 
 have loosed the string ; now take one yellow and one blue flower, 
 and place them on the centre of the table ; next, take one red and 
 one blue one, and put them on the near right corner ; then take a 
 yellow and a red, and put them on the far right corner ; now take 
 the white and a blue and place them on the far left corner ; and, 
 lastly, tie that black string again around the upper end of the stems 
 of the remaining red and blue flowers, and put them on the near 
 left corner of the table." All this is instantly performed as uner- 
 ringly as clockwork. 
 
 13. a.) There are men in this world of profound and powerful 
 intellects, connected with hearts swelled by the noblest aspirations, 
 who almost have despaired of mankind, by having imbibed the 
 idea, because seeing so little inclination among men to correctly un- 
 derstand one another, that there actually exists no capacity in the 
 human intellect, to understand any other intellect or human mind, 
 fully and wholly : and hence they give up all hope and attempt to 
 make themselves so understood by others, and to understand others, 
 and enable others to understand them ; as likewise, from this cause, 
 despond of ever seeing a perfect understanding brought about among 
 the individuals of the race, b.) Now, to such men, we submit for 
 close and calm inspection, the grand law of intellect underlying the 
 simple operations above detailed, — whereby it becomes self-evident 
 that men, in all cases where the developed capacity exists, by having 
 
€6 THE TEMPLE OF TRUTH. 
 
 merely the will, taking the trouble and exercising the requisite 
 patience, — they can make known to one another, by the exact 
 use of the words of language, each other's thoughts, sentiments and 
 ideas, as accurately and infallibly, as any possible process of mathe- 
 matical or other science is ever able to effect. Even now, men gen- 
 erally understand each other's thoughts well enough, where their 
 interest lends them the inclination to do so. If such was not 
 truly the fact, the vast business operations now carried on in the 
 world, depending altogether on mutual concert of vast numbers, each 
 party understanding their place, function and necessity of action to 
 the whole, would be an absolute impossibility. In like manner, 
 all the achievements of the past, whatever they may amount to, 
 and in so far as they really are such, have, all and singly, been only 
 accomplished by men understanding each other's thoughts. 
 
 14. Now, let us yet show, that man absolutely needs a lan- 
 guage thus constructed, to furnish him reliable knowledge ; as 
 otherwise he could not exist as a rational being, a.) The single 
 man is, and can be, present only in one spot or locality of space, at 
 one and the same moment of time ; and can, therefore, observe 
 only what transpires in the small circle immediately around him ; 
 whilst of the infinity of events passing all over the globe at the 
 same moment, he is personally entirely ignorant. Man's individ- 
 ual life is likewise limited to a certain number of years, which, if 
 every moment thereof would be employed for the purpose of ob- 
 serving nature, the world and himself, — this would yet not form a 
 drop in the bucket, of the vast material requisite, if he had, by such 
 personal observation alone, to gather all the elementary thoughts 
 and facts, out of which a system of knowledge was to be framed, 
 that could in the least degree suffice for his absolute physical and 
 intellectual necessities, b.) Furthermore, the lifetime of man, if it 
 amounts to threescore and ten, or even more, affords him the op- 
 portunity of observing personally, the limited number of phe- 
 nomena and events transpiring in his presence, during his life, in 
 the age wherein he exists : whereas, of the infinity of things taking 
 place in the thousands of years passing before his time, he person- 
 ally knows no more than before he was born. Thus the amplest 
 observations and most extensive experience of individual man, 
 could never collect simple materials, in facts and thoughts, suffi- 
 
BASIS OP LANGUAGE AND- ACCUMULATED THOUGHT. 67 
 
 cient for framing the most rudimental system of knowledge and 
 language, embracing a cognition of merely those simple universal 
 laws of nature and himself, indispensable to his perpetual needs. 
 c.) Even in the case, hardly a possible one, that an individual mind 
 had been in possession of all these elements of knowledge, for 
 framing a needed system, it would have required the creative ability 
 of an extraordinary intellect to digest these elemental materials and 
 form them into a harmonious whole. Such a process becomes, 
 however, a possible one only, even for an intellect divinely endowed, 
 when a language is already present, sufficiently copious and devel- 
 oped, to lend material, method, and shelf-work, for giving birth, shape 
 and configuration to the grand ideas deposited in the fertile pro- 
 fundity of creative genius, d.) And if individual man, and he more 
 than ordinarily a thinker, were placed in possession of a language, 
 before all the processes thereof heretofore discussed, had been suc- 
 cessfully gone through with, his lifetime, forces and opportunities 
 would be insufficient for ascertaining how far the invisible thoughts, 
 in the minds of other men, and the impressions they all individu- 
 ally receive from the forces of nature, were, or were not, in all 
 essentials precisely like his own. 
 
 15. This transcendent fact he now knows, by the use and as the 
 result of language, as certainly as he knows his own thought ; and 
 thereby knows also, with equal reliability, that whatever is a truth 
 or a law of nature for himself, is, and must be, one for every other 
 human being, no matter whether they have acquired a conscious 
 knowledge thereof or not. And now, we feel enabled to answer 
 the query heading our chapter, as follows : a.) The basis of 
 language, to enable it being an infallible means for accumulating 
 thought, reposes upon the following unassailable facts and results : 
 1.) all men, springing as children one from another, like the limbs 
 of a tree, belong to one unitary race, — are formed, more or less 
 normally perfect, after one identical pattern ; their intellect, deriv- 
 ing its elements of thoughts and impressions, from the same causes 
 and sources, proves by understood interchange of thought, its identity 
 of essence, as well as its rule by the same code of law ; their dualistic 
 nature showing in essentials, all the same faculties and wants, driving 
 them in the main to pursue the same ends, aiming at the same pur- 
 poses ; and for the reaching of which, there is but one and the same 
 6 
 
68 THE TEMPLE OF TRUTH. 
 
 way for all, wherein they absolutely need each other's help. 2.) Placed 
 thus primarily by creative power, in a condition of unavoidably 
 needing one another for receiving life, preserving its existence, and 
 securing its ends : the very possibility of their beginning and con- 
 tinuing to exist at all, depended a priori, upon the possession of a 
 medium, whereby infallibly to impart, understand, and exchange 
 their invisible thought. 3.) Hence humanity's existence and its 
 endurance on earth for thousands of years, is itself simply the 
 effect and proof of the presence of such medium, — which, as the great 
 cause of every thing helpful, worthy and valuable to man, pro- 
 claims its never-ceasing ubiquity, with such million-tongued echoes 
 from all quarters whereon man's eye may fall, that insanity and 
 idiocy alone, are deaf to hear their world-filling sound, b.-l.) As 
 the universe of things around, and their impressions upon man are 
 infinitely diversified and heterogeneous, and the intellect dealing 
 in nothing but thought : Eeason, by giving man language, and 
 forcing him to its use, therein also compelled him to translate the 
 whole heterogeneous mass of things and impressions, into the homo- 
 geneous essence of thought, and to tie each individual particle or lump 
 thereof to an appropriate body, termed a word, and then deposit 
 it in the storehousing repertory termed language. 2.) Hence, the 
 whole language of man, is nothing else than one vast magazine of 
 thought, each thought therein being like a living spirit, tied to its 
 own word, as its outward body. 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 WHAT IS THE NATUEE, CONSTITUTION, STRUCTURE, CONTENTS AND 
 SOURCE OF LANGUAGE ? 
 
 It has somewhere been asserted by some modern Masorethic 
 curiosity-hunter, that the five languages most prominent on earth, 
 contain, each, the following number of original words, viz : 1.) The 
 French, 32,000 ; 2.) the English, 45,000 ; 3.) the Latin, 56,000 ; 
 4.) the Greek, 65,000 ; and, 5.) the German, 150,000. Whether 
 this assertion is founded upon actual fact or fiction only, is imma- 
 terial to our present proximate purpose, which herein was, and is, 
 
NATURE, CONSTITUTION, ETC., OP LANGUAGE. 69 
 
 to remind the reader of that main fact, that every language consists 
 of a definite number of words, which is steadily increasing, as new 
 ideas and things arise. The science and discipline selecting lan- 
 guage as its special object of attention, is termed Grammar. Every 
 language has its natural, or general, and next, its artificial or proper 
 Grammar. As language is an emanation from the intelligence of 
 man's Reason, its natural or general Grammar consists in that logical 
 construction inherent in all languages, by which all the words it 
 contains belong, of necessity, to one or the other of the few classes 
 that form the unchangeable skeleton underlying the body of every 
 human language. The artificial or proper Grammar, is that pecu- 
 liar conformation, construction, and rule of usage, whereby and 
 wherein all concrete languages differ one from another. Hence we 
 find in all languages, dead or living, that are in anywise developed 
 to deserve the name, — ten classes of words, and neither more nor 
 less, — which, like the ten primary figures of arithmetic (from 
 0-1 — to 9), constitute for language its pristine elements of combina- 
 tion. These classes are : 1.) The substantive noun, representing a 
 being, thing, object or thought, capable of either acting, or being 
 merely passively acted upon, or possessing both capacities con- 
 jointly, or expressive of an idea, or thought, describing the condi- 
 tion or state of another thing ; such as : man, mountain, justice, 
 health. The changing relations of active-and-passiveness, in which 
 the noun is alternately placed, are clearly indicated by the cases 
 constituting its well-known scale of declension. 
 
 2. As man, split into the sexual halves of male and female, dis- 
 covers this dualism to exist in all animated nature, — yet, there 
 existing in language and nature, a vast class of things manifesting 
 no outward sign of sex, and, therefore, forming a third indefinite 
 or neuter species, — language denotes this sexual difference in 
 beings, and the neuter gender of things not belonging to either 
 sex, either by a special class of words called the "sex-word," or 
 Article, like the Greek 6, tj, to, — the German fcer, fcte, b(J3, — the 
 Frence le, la, — the English the, — or like the Latin, it expresses 
 this threefold gender of nouns, by the termination of their end- 
 syllables (as, for example, vir, femina, lignum, man, woman, wood). 
 Here the peculiarities will be perceived, that the French language 
 has no neuter gender at all, not even its pronouns ; is hence ruled 
 
70 THE TEMPLE OF TRUTH. 
 
 by an absolute dualism, — every noun in the language being either 
 masculine or feminine ; while the English, by its Article the, has 
 that other singular, indefinite peculiarity of denoting no gender 
 at all, but applying it indiscriminately to the nouns of all genders 
 alike, and ignoring, by outward sign, gender altogether. Yet the 
 language has and acknowledges all the three genders fully in its 
 pronouns and universal usage. Hence, it not seldom happens, that 
 the English speaker or writer, in cases where gender has to be 
 defined, and language has not done it, like in ram and ewe, boar 
 and sow, bull and cow, — he must, to overcome the dilemma, em- 
 ploy the sexual pronoun, and say " a he or a sfte-goat," as the case 
 happens to be. 
 
 3. The noun being thus inherently always either a he, she, or it, 
 or gender one of its permanent attributes, it may additionally pos- 
 sess various other properties, more closely defining and describing 
 its nature and quality. This description is performed by the third 
 class of words termed adjectives. For, when we say : the man, the 
 woman, the child, we only know classes and genders of these nouns, 
 but nothing more of their possible other qualities. No sooner do 
 we add an adjective, and say : the strong man, the lovely woman, 
 the beautiful child, when our conceptions become thus much more 
 definite and clear, respecting the classes to which they really belong. 
 If we add one more adjective, and say : the strong heroic man, the 
 lovely tender woman, the beautiful angelic child, — we have placed them 
 into classes, whereby our knowledge of these beings is not only 
 enlarged, but has become also of that nature, which excites our 
 interest, in more than an ordinary degree. From this, it becomes 
 evident, that, as soon as we clearly know all the adjectives of right 
 pertaining to the original of every noun, we, therein, knowing all its 
 qualities, know the thing as it is in itself. Adjectives, as indicative 
 of qualities, are subject to increase or decrease, as indicated in the 
 three grades of the sliding-scale of comparison ; the positive, com- 
 parative, and superlative. Additionally their force is qualified by 
 the attachment of an adverb (see below), which, in that case, may 
 be said to become the adjective of the adjective. 
 
 4. Nouns, representing beings and things capable of acting and 
 being acted upon, such positive and negative action is represented 
 in the fourth class of words, called time-word or. verb. All such 
 
NATURE, CONSTITUTION, ETC., OF LANGUAGE. 71 
 
 various action occurs in succession or time, is performed or suffered, 
 as well by individual as by aggregated beings and forces, is hence 
 subject to the several modalities of being, defined by terms, as : the 
 possible, contingent, actual, necessary, or inevitably subsisting, — all of 
 which are expressed in the conjugations which variegate the form 
 of the verb, so as to indicate time in its past, present and future 
 tenses, show individual or collective action or sufferance by the 
 singular or plural forms, and denote the modality of action and 
 being, by its conjunctive, conditioned, indicative, imperative, and 
 infinitive modes. 
 
 5. Language being designed to enable the speaker to convey the 
 full shape of his fact or thought with its various colors and shades 
 to his fellow-man, with mathematical accuracy and precision : 
 Reason, when giving birth to language, saw that the noun, when- 
 ever becoming active in the verb, might be speaker, actor, or nar- 
 rator of the fact, or both, — might be one being speaking of itself to 
 its neighbor, or to its neighbor of that neighbor, or of a third party 
 or thing, or parties or things ; or the being, acting jointly with 
 others, might speak of itself to them, to one, more, or all ; it might 
 speak to them in their joint name, or, in that capacity, address one 
 or more of them or others, — speaking now of a single, and next of a 
 collective third party or thing, — in all of which different cases, like- 
 wise, the genders of subjects and objects might be concerned and 
 alternately changing. If the expression of all this was to be per- 
 formed by repeating, in every instance where occurring and con- 
 cerned, the full name of the nouns themselves, — language would 
 inevitably not merely become a fatiguing conglomeration of sounds 
 or terms, understood only with increasing difficulty, but would also 
 be deprived of the euphonic, laconic and logical beauty, that now 
 adorn its proper use. To meet all these various contingencies, the 
 fifth class of words, representing the noun in its diverse attitudes, 
 called pronoun, was introduced. And by its main species, the per- 
 sonal pronoun, in its singular and plural forms, we are enabled to 
 specify actors and acts, in all cases arising, with the precision of the 
 daguerreotype. For, when we say : J, thou, he, she, it, we, you, they, 
 and affix to them the verb to be used in the shape demanded by 
 the case, we know and exhibit it in its clearest light. 
 
 6.) The action of the verb, like the quality of the noun, denote4 
 
72 THE TEMPLE OP TRUTH. 
 
 by the adjective, is capable of an increase or decrease of intensity 
 to express which, we have the sixth class of words, called the ad- 
 verb; being equally, as occasion may require, an adjective to the 
 verb, or an adjective to the adjective. Some of these adverbs, the 
 qualitative, are offsprings of the adjective, and are, like these, muta- 
 tive from one to the other, in the three grades of the sliding scale. 
 Others are expressive of some circumstance, attached to the verb, 
 thereby qualifying, enhancing, or restricting its action. Let us give 
 an example of each sort. When you say : " Virtue, I love thee!" 
 you denote no particular degree of the act. If you, however, say : 
 " Virtue Hove thee ardently ; — my best friend loves thee more ardently ; 
 but I desire, with him, to love tJiee most ardently ;" you describe all 
 the qualities in the action which it manifests, in passing in its egress 
 from its incipient into its highest degree. By the adverbs, ex- 
 pressive of negative or indefinite quantity, you, also, may qualify 
 the verb's intensity of action. For, if you say : " i" love" you 
 indicate no degree ; if you add the adverb much, saying : "Hove 
 much," you define its degree more proximately. By now adding 
 the negative adverb not, saying : " I love not much," you have 
 subtracted the prior increase, leaving the real sense of the para- 
 graph, " that you love, but love not much." In like manner, by 
 affixing an adverb to an adjective, you can indicate the indefinite 
 quantity in the noun's qualities much nearer, as, for instance : the 
 strong man ; the uncommonly strong man. 
 
 7. The three first classes of words, noun, article, and adjective, 
 show us beings, things, and forces, with their gender and qualities 
 capable of acting or resisting action ; the three next : verb, pronoun, 
 and adverb, show us the practical performance with the precise 
 amount and nature of this action, keeping rigidly in view, the 
 character of the actor, as exhibited by the three first classes, and 
 therein show us, who acts, and of what kind the action is. Now, the 
 questions arise : wliere, when, and how do these actions occur ? As 
 by the absolute constitution of nature, all finite things exist in 
 space, or alongside of one another, and their action taking place in 
 their respective localities, which often may change every moment, 
 there must be words to designate these their relative positions, fixing 
 the relations thereof to the permanent features of the visible uni- 
 verse, and man's own mode of physical existence therein, such as : 
 
NATURE, CONSTITUTION, ETC., OF LANGUAGE. 73 
 
 east and ivest, north and south, zenith and nadir, up and down, above 
 and below, fore and aft, before and behind, right and left, here and there, 
 etc., etc. Next, all individual action can occur only in succession or 
 time; but all the forces existing cotemporaneously, may be, and 
 actually are, more or less active, in one and the same moment of 
 time. Hence the need of words, expressing this various modifi- 
 cation in the state of time, such as : then, now, hereafter ; a while 
 ago, at present, soon ; since, ever, cdway ; yesterday, to-day, to-mor- 
 row ; before, lohilst, during, after, etc., etc. Furthermore, the exe- 
 cution of all actions is subject to a certain order, resulting from the 
 laws inherent in motion, forces, and circumstances controlling the 
 individual case at the time, whereby the actors engaged continually 
 change position and relation ; all of which changes, denoting the 
 liow f of the action, are expressed by such terms as : to and fro ; by 
 and of ; on and of ; near and far ; in and out ; upon and under ; 
 with and ivitliout ; for and against ; within and without ; among and 
 out-of; amid and between; through and about, etc., etc. The class 
 of words thus describing the relative location in space, or the where ; 
 the relative point in time, or the when, and the ever- varying posi- 
 tion of the condition and relation, in forces and acts, or the haw, 
 of actors and actions, giving therein the most minute history of 
 every individual transaction, constitutes our seventh class of words, 
 called preposition. 
 
 8. The forces engaged, and the act performed, in a given case, 
 may be one only, or any other possible number. Forces and acts 
 also differ in their nature, size, value, and importance ; belong, 
 hence, eo ipso, inherently, a priori, to different classes. Language 
 being, strictly speaking, a digested, encyclopaidial, universal history 
 of the all-ruling law of cause and effect ; ruling/with boundless sway, 
 all the vast forces merely indexed in the preceding seven numbers, 
 or word-classes, urging and demanding pi~ecision in expressing fact and 
 thought in every other particular, could not omit and avoid re- 
 quiring that most important matter, of explicitly specifying the 
 number and meter of actors and acts, so as to clearly show the 
 amount and quality of force employed, and the amount and value of 
 effect produced. Hence, she furnished man the eighth class of 
 words, called number ; whereby, he not only can introduce the most 
 perfect classification, which constitutes the soul of order, into all he 
 
74 THE TEMPLE OF TRUTH. 
 
 knows, wills, and does in nature and thought; but, by the mystic 
 virtue inherent in the relation of number to all its parts, constitu- 
 ting it an actual branch language, sui generis, he possesses likewise 
 an infallible meter for eventually deciphering, by direct or indirect 
 methods, the precise neat value of all things that in anywise 
 concern man. 
 
 9. In the preceding we have all the forces of action of the uni- 
 verse, deposited in language, either in an open or an enveloped 
 shape. The action of each force, taking place in time, is only 
 performed, if consisting of a chain of acts, one link of the series 
 after another. The history of that chain of action, if narrated by 
 speech of voice or words of writing, can be described in the like 
 manner only, by adding word to word, one after another. Such 
 chain of action, if long, may, like the life of some men, consist of 
 many and various parts, all of which, however, belong to that, one, 
 unbroken line, running from the moment of his first, to that of his 
 last breath. These various parts of the chain, before the mind can 
 form a correct judgment, either of parts or the whole, must be 
 strung together, and, in that connected shape, pass the surveying 
 review of the mind. The strings or words by which these narra- 
 ting parts are tied to one another, owing to the different nature of 
 the links, are not in every particular alike, hence forming various 
 species, but all equally belonging to one main class. This class of 
 words, constituting the ninth, by which the various links of speech, 
 narrating action, stating fact or thought, are cemented part to part, 
 and all parts to a final whole, is called conjunction. 
 
 10. Now, when reviewing the infinity of combinations that 
 have resulted, do, will, and must result, in the flow of time, from 
 the endless elements of action in the preceding nine classes of 
 words, we find that the final totality of the whole result comes 
 home eventually and inevitably to man, the chief actor, and most 
 prominent and interested figure in the portentously sublime cosmic 
 drama before us ; and, in the shape of weal or woe, happiness or 
 misery, expands or depresses, with intensest emotions of joy or 
 grief, hope or despair, peace or remorse, delight or pain, affection or 
 aversion, surprise or horror, etc., his feeling bosom to such a de- 
 gree, that, overwhelmed by the amount or suddenness, or unex- 
 pectedness of the shock, or all combined, he is, for a longer or 
 
ANALYSIS OF THE NATURE OF MAN, ETC. 75 
 
 shorter time, entirely unable to govern or describe the excited state 
 of his feelings, but only can indicate its nature by simple sounds or 
 words, forcing themselves instinctively out of his breast, such as : 
 Oh ! ah ! ho ! alas ! woe ! fie ! dear ! Lord ! great God ! 
 which, with other words belonging to the class, all expressive of a 
 more or less deep state of astonishment, affection, or interest of a 
 positive or negative nature, are called inteijedion. 
 
 11. Emanating, as language self-evidently did and does, from the 
 Reason of the human mind, it contains and reveals, beside the ele- 
 ments and materials of all knowledge, science, truth, in ready of, and 
 needed by man ; the whole code, shelf work, and machinery of the 
 intellect's laws, by which to arrange, classify, use, and apply all 
 thoughts and things. Hence, after duly understood, it proves 
 itself as the natural skeleton, of the grandest, all-comprehending, 
 ever-expanding, infallible System of Logic, legitimately sprung, 
 through the mind of combined humanity, from the Eternal Reason 
 of the Almighty himself. Its correct use has never yet been duly 
 understood, as it contains elements of power that surpass all estimates. 
 Its correct use will lead man to divine wisdom; show him how to 
 reach his greatest goal, and thereby realize the great and glorious 
 purpose God had in view when creating man. And, in the above, 
 we consider the query of our chapter fully answered. 
 
 • CHAPTER IX. 
 
 ANALYSIS OF THE NATURE OF MAN, SPECIFYING WHAT IT SHOWS. 
 
 1. To analyze a thing means and signifies to examine closely, 
 and scrutinize minutely, its several constituent parts, one after 
 another. We have done this in the preceding chapter, with the 
 language of man : and will now have to do it with the constituent 
 forces of his compound being, as we have already found them an- 
 nounced in consciousness, as consisting in a unity of a number of 
 forces differing from one another among themselves. Our analysis, 
 then, will have to show, in what and Jwiv many, these sundry 
 forces separately viewed, consist. 
 7 
 
76 THE TEMPLE OF TRUTH. 
 
 2. The object and proper office of language actually is the con- 
 veyance of truth, residing in fact and thought, in an unmistakable 
 form from mind to mind, so that eventually all minds may know, 
 so far as capable of compassing, the highest, and best truths seen by 
 the intellects most gifted; and, in return, every individual mind, 
 adjusted to its capacities, may become possessed of the quintessence 
 of the whole knowledge of mankind. 
 
 3. This object can only be reached when the words of language 
 are used, as heretofore already indicated, like our figures of num- 
 bers, that is, when fixing the thoughts attached to the words, as 
 definitely, as the thoughts or conceptions connected with the signs 
 of 1, 2, 3, etc., or those attached to a point, straight, broken, or 
 curved line, triangle, square, circle, or any other geometrical or 
 definite figure. For, upon close examination into the true meaning 
 of words, it Avill be discovered that all the words of language, that 
 have a domiciliary right in a correct lexicon, are of this very class, 
 having as definite a thought and value (being the soul of their body,) 
 attached to them, as the thought and value which the calculating 
 mathematician affixes to the figures, signs and letters, used in his 
 algebraic equations. 
 
 4. Hence the reason that language is not already now used in 
 this its only legitimate mode, lies not in language itself; but 
 meu themselves are at fault, willingly, where they have the knowl- 
 edge of its correct use, involuntarily, where they are ignorant 
 thereof. Words being thus, not by any means, an arbitrary com- 
 pilation of undefined signs or vascillating forms or sounds, without 
 fixed sense or meaning, but the exact contrary, a fixed, external 
 vessel, of definite make, form, size, and shape, each containing a 
 quantity of thought, of an equally definable nature, quality, and 
 amount. Hence, to understand the thoughts of others, and to make 
 them understand ours correctly, demands unconditionally a correct 
 understanding and use of the words of language. And, as the 
 progress of the mind in the collection of knowledge and truth 
 hinges upon this pivot, at all events, as far as correct intellectual 
 perception is concerned, every man's paramount interest urges him 
 to overcome, as speedily as able, whatever defect he may discover 
 to attach to his case. 
 
 5. As soon as that difficulty is overcome, every man who loves 
 
ANALYSIS OF THE NATURE OF MAN, ETC. 77 
 
 the truth will find no further obstacle to disclose the thoughts of 
 his intellect, in their actual nature and form, by simply faithfully 
 announcing his -phenomena of consciousness, in the shape they present 
 themselves therein. 
 
 6. Whatever the actual number of the separate uncountable 
 phenomena, consciously occurring within the consciousness of each 
 normal man and woman of the whole human race, past and 
 present, may amount to ; the digestion of all this vast diversified 
 material, by the strongest intellects of all times and ages, has re- 
 sulted in its division and distribution into three main or cardinal 
 classes; which, although their various attributes, at times, run 
 blendingly into one another, and thus, for the moment, defy dis- 
 crimination, nevertheless admit of an easy, natural, and, upon the 
 whole, permanently reliable classification of all the single phenomena 
 known to human consciousness, and doing no violence to its form, 
 as existing in any single individual. 
 
 7. As, however, the thoughts and facts that are here to be grasped 
 and grouped into one, have, at sundry times and by various 
 thinkers, been attached to different terms and definitions, it places 
 us in the necessity (in order to make each main idea we design 
 to specify, if possible, unmistakably clear to every intellect), to 
 endeavor doing so, by occasionally using in the framing of our 
 definitions more descriptive words and convertible terms than we 
 should otherwise prefer employing. These main constituents of 
 man (above indicated) are as follows : 
 
 I. THE MIND ; II. THE SOUL J III. THE BODY. 
 
 I. The mind, intellect or thinking power, manifesting its form as 
 a dualism, consisting of the two poles of reason and understanding, 
 (termed also common sense) ; the first, reason, being the converse of 
 intellect with thought in its own, inherent essence, or infinite relations ; 
 the latter, understanding, being the perception of its phenomenal parts, 
 or finite relations. The first communing with being or essence, the 
 other with existence, as being's herald and essence's manifestation. 
 The sphere of mind thus embraces the whole vast laboratory of the 
 intellectual operations, beginning with the incipient operation where 
 the primary impression of the transient sensual phenomenon, is 
 translated by the understanding into a permanent conception of 
 
78 THE TEMPLE OF TRUTH. 
 
 thought, and closing with that highest of Keason's processes, 
 wherein, in the all-melting furnace of supreme synthesis, the most 
 refractory and heterogeneous materials are fused into one homo- 
 geneous, all-embracing generalization. 
 
 II. Tlie Soul, — will, volition, disposition, — or desiring, wishing, 
 willing, or enjoying-power, — discloses its form as a dualism, con- 
 sisting of the two poles of psychical and physical sensation. In the 
 upper pole, — that of psychical sensation, — which may be termed 
 the sphere of sensibility, it converses with the object and objects of 
 its highest aspirations, deriving from their presence or absence, hap- 
 piness or misery ; the first, enhancing joy to the degree of extasy 
 and beatitude, — and the latter, sinking sadness, to hopeless grief 
 and despondency. Hence, all those superior sensations, affections 
 and emotions of man, with their opposites which, we term, and are, 
 passions as well as feelings, and the mixed nature of which alter- 
 nately discloses the moral, ethical, religious, or opposite preponder- 
 ance of the soul's nature and qualities, — belong, with their primary 
 effects, all to this sphere : such as love and hatred, friendship and 
 enmity, good-will and misanthropy, joy and grief, hope and fear, tran- 
 quillity and trouble, gladness and sorrow, courage and cowardice, faith- 
 fulness and treachery, constancy and fickleness, etc., etc. The lower 
 pole constituting the cycle of physical sensation, mainly seated in 
 the sense of feeling, — yet claiming more or less jurisdiction over 
 the operation of all the senses, reports its state, alternately, as one 
 of pleasure or pain, caused, a.) by forces of external nature, such as 
 heat and cold, dry and wet, etc.; b.) by states of the body, as, health 
 or sickness, strength or weakness, vigor or exhaustion, etc.; and, c.) from 
 ability or disability of supplying these, and the calls of other wants, 
 such as, hunger, thirst, fatigue, sexual impulse, need of sleep, etc. 
 The detail of these impressions belongs to the analysis of the senses, 
 where, in its proper place, it may be looked for. 
 
 III. The body of man, as the dynamically organized common 
 instrument of mind as well as soul, — is a dualism composed as ex- 
 pressive of strength and beauty, force and sensibility, creative dona- 
 tive, and creative receptive power, visibly split by nature into two 
 distinct external poles, of which that of donative strength and force 
 is deposited in the male, and that of receptive sensibility and beauty, 
 is deposited in the female sex ; each thus forming one-half of the 
 
ANALYSIS OF THE NATURE OF MAN, ETC. 79 
 
 full nature of man, and each absolutely needing the other, to consti- 
 tute an entire whole. 
 
 8. In Chap. Ill, \ 7, we have given a definition of fancy and 
 imagination. But we there designedly omitted to name and define 
 the main and principal feature distinguishing this magic power, 
 from all other forces in man, — because the explanation we speak 
 of, belongs to this, our present place, and to no other, a.) Fancy, 
 with imagination, its finite pole, constitutes the real creative force 
 in every individual ; for, the poet, inventor, genius, is only he or she 
 who is gifted with it in a superior degree. Now, in like manner, 
 as the procreative power of human nature has neither been depos- 
 ited in the male nor female, but only one-half thereof distributed 
 into each single sex, forcing them to a union, — it alone making 
 possible its conjoint use : so creative fancy, the generative force of 
 the single individual, can not be considered as either a mere 
 appendant to the intellect or the soul, — but each one of them as 
 depending thereon, one as much as the other. For, intellect in its 
 thoughts, and the soul in its affections, are influenced by, and depend- 
 ent upon, its co-operation, in an equal degree. And as the wtuole of 
 man, and all his functions need fancy's dualistic offices as indispen- 
 sably as do thought and volition, either of which could indeed not exist 
 without it ; it will be found, on close inspection, that our converting 
 consciousness and fancy into one identical entity, as stated in Chap. 
 Ill, bids very fair of proving itself a real discovery in the actual 
 mental geography of man, and of an importance not easily to be 
 duly estimated at this moment ; but surely to be properly appre- 
 ciated, as soon as clearly understood, b.) For, one of the greatest 
 causes of men's misery, and their lack of mutual understanding 
 and unity in aim and action, is the ignorance until now prevailing 
 in the highest sphere of human intellect upon the true construction 
 of man's mysterious being; the absence of clear perception of the 
 number of its forces, their precedence or relative subordination, the 
 appropriate sphere and function of each, and the mode of their 
 mutual co-operation. Let us, therefore, only once Jcnoiv man, as 
 he really is, as conformed by creative power when coming out of its 
 all-loving hand ; and it will not take long to understand what he 
 really needs, to prepare for him the letter fate, after which he so 
 ardently, so deeply and perpetually sighs, strives and longs. 
 
80 THE TEMPLE OP TEUTH. 
 
 9. Mind, soul, and body, have each, innately, its own specific needs 
 and wants, each differing from those of both the others ; requiring for 
 the development of their forces, and the gratification of their ne- 
 cessities, each a special education and mode af discipline. For, as they 
 conjointly form but one being, they need one another incessantly. 
 If, therefore, one or the other is exclusively attended to, to the 
 neglect of the others, such favor-showing neglect, will very soon, 
 in its painful effects, fall with equal weight upon the whole man, 
 and convince him, by facts, that in a partnership-firm of forces, so 
 closely and rigidly allied as his, the loss or profit, strength or weak- 
 ness, pleasure or pain of each one, are equally those of the 
 other two. 
 
 10. The wants and necessities of mind, soul, and body, as indica- 
 ting the source and object of their several special aspirations, may be 
 expressed in their following demands and wishes : a.) TJie body 
 hates weakness, disease, and impotence, desiring health, strength, and 
 developed capacity, b.) The soul loathes fear, trouble, grief, enmity 
 and hate, and yearns after security, peace, joy, friendship and love. 
 c.) The mind hates ignorance, error, falsehood, and their illusions, and 
 demands knowledge, science, and truth in their form of absolute cer- 
 tainty, d.) Fancy, as representing the whole man, inclosing all 
 his forces, as known in consciousness, demands all that is called 
 for by a, b, c, to be conjoined to beauty, as the proper form, garb, 
 or body, to inclose everything that is lovely, true, and good. If these 
 innate aspirations of man's forces are harmoniously gratified as they 
 arise, turn by turn, so that the intellect is filled with science and 
 wisdom, the soul with virtue and goodness, and the body with 
 healthy vigor, engrafted upon disciplined forces ; collectively aspiring 
 after ideals, comprising fancy's highest aims, of beauty, wisdom, vir- 
 tue, and beatitude : man will be a glorious being, smiled upon by 
 heaven, nature, and mankind; and, he himself, be happy, help-md- 
 use-fid, wherever you place him. 
 
 11. a.) Man is sometimes defined as being composed of only 
 two forces, namely, of spirit and body. When that form of ex- 
 pression is used, which is in itself neither incorrect or untrue, let it 
 be kept in mind, that it does not contradict, or militate with, our 
 division of man, into mind, soul and body ; but only combines 
 mind and soul, as really belonging to one another, into one spiritual, 
 
ANALYSIS OF THE NATURE OF MAN, ETC. 81 
 
 invisible being, giving if, in contradistinction to the visibly tangible 
 booty, the name of spirit. But, in order to truly learn what things 
 are, no matter whether mental or external, we must all examine 
 them p art by part, or analyze them, b.) For no man can tell or guess, 
 when going into a store, filled from top to bottom with the most 
 diversified stock of goods, what the precise amount and value 
 thereof may be, until he has taken an actual and careful invoice. 
 But that done, and he knows, for himself as well as others, with 
 absolute certainty, what the amount and value are, and is no longer 
 in danger of deceiving himself by a random guess at the aggregate 
 contents of the bulk, nor being deceived by the interested persua- 
 sion of others. 
 
 12. We shall, in due time and place, come to speak of the long- 
 contested difference between body and spirit, and are actually now 
 preparing our way for doing it in a manner, so sufficiently and 
 effectually, that when the labor shall have been performed, it shall 
 remain performed for good and all, and never again need a 
 doing over. 
 
 13. We have now progressed a considerable way, using therein 
 constantly a vast number of materials, derived by the intellect, not 
 from its own invisible chamber of thought, but originally all coming 
 from nature outside of itself ; being, as it were, the speech to man, 
 of that, in one moment, veiled enchanting Isis ; and, in the next, 
 of the terrible, riddle-proposing, inexorable-destructive Sphinx. 
 Before we can progress any further, it becomes now our duty to 
 examine: 1.) How or in what manner nature thus speaks; 2.) 
 What its polyglot speaks, through each one of its individual mouths 
 or tongues ; and, 3.) What its whole speech by all its voices in the 
 end amounts to, purports and DESiGNs/or man and his uses ? These 
 mouths or inlets, by which nature speaks to man, and he in return 
 converses with it, are his senses, whose speech is termed : sight, 
 hearing, touch, smell, taste, and feeling, and whose action and help 
 are needed by all and each of the individualized forces of man, 
 which we have termed, mind, soul, and body, no less than the 
 whole itself, incased into fancy and imagination, as an all-covering 
 mantle. 
 
 14. Before closing this chapter let us recur to the caption heading 
 it, by our following definition : a.) As we have found consciousness 
 
82 THE TEMPLE OF TRUTH. 
 
 to divide its perception of its main constituent forces easily and 
 naturally into mind, soul, and body, the separate forces and disci- 
 pline of which we shall have further to show and analyze as we 
 progress ; as we have moreover alleged that consciousness, in its 
 two poles, presents no other, but only the same phenomena, with 
 the two poles of fancy (the ideal and the sensual), and that hence 
 both must be identical ; it remains yet to be stated : b.) That fancy 
 and imagination, appearing actually to constitute the upper and 
 nether consciousness of man, thus inclosing and surrounding all 
 the forces of his being ; are by no means that dreaming, merely 
 visionary, shadowy unrealness and negative something or nothing 
 which, in the opinion and treatment of men and by books, they 
 have, until now, been supposed or imagined to be ; but, on the con- 
 trary, are the arsenal, the storehouse, the essence, and substance, 
 nay proximate source itself, from which mind, soul, and the body of 
 man, derive and draw all their main forces, means, modes, helps, 
 incitements, aims, and purposes to their conjoint or individual 
 action, inasmuch as neither of them can move a peg, do or attempt 
 the least thing, wherein this quasi amnipresent spirit-being, is not 
 an indispensable partner, not only furnishing the main material of 
 the whole act and action ; but surrounding with and inclosing act 
 and actor within, as it were, a mantle woven of mental substance and 
 life-essence, the limits of which are perceptible and definable nowhere. 
 
 CHAPTER X 
 
 OBSERVATIONS AND FACTS PREPARATORY TO THE ANALYSIS OF 
 
 MAN'S SENSES. 
 
 1. Man, a reasoning, sentient living being, incased in a body 
 " wonderfully and fearfully made," exists, according to the report of 
 all his senses thereupon, as far as it goes, in a finite physical form, 
 as an individual creature. The surface of this body seems, by its 
 skin, hair, and nails, to be the dividing partition between him and 
 an endless ocean of existence, thickly studded with countless u things 
 of life," and without, "wonderful to behold," of all which, as of him- 
 
ANALYSIS OF MAN'S SENSES. 83 
 
 self, he brings not one single ray of knowledge with him, when 
 entering the world an unconscious newly-born babe. 
 
 2. If, unfortunately, the little babe should happen to be born not 
 only a deaf mute, without hearing, but also additionally, like poor 
 Laura Bridgman* either without eyesight, or lose it when a babe, — 
 how will you know whether it does think? And,, in case, if: how 
 will you be able to effect an interchange between its imprisoned 
 thought and your own ? You can impart no thought from man to 
 man, by the senses of smell, taste, and feeling, but only through sight, 
 hearing, and touch or tact. 
 
 3. Fortunately for little Laura, her fingers were formed normally, 
 and hence the organ of touch in a proper condition. More fortu- 
 nately for herself, as well as of infinite importance to mankind and 
 science, was the circumstance that she fell into the hands of Doctor 
 Howe, a Pestalozzian thinker, who, for her sake, his own, and 
 science' sake, by most patient efforts and persevering experiments, 
 made with and by her sense of touch, finally most gloriously suc- 
 ceeded to establish between her and himself, a limited bridge of 
 thought, sufficient for giving her mind some educational instruc- 
 tion, and enabling it to commune, by receiving and imparting 
 thought to a certain extent, — but all-sufficient for settling forever 
 an oft and much mooted question, by incontestably proving the 
 inherent existence of thought in man 's being, prior to, and independent 
 of, any and all instruction from the three higher senses, ivhich alone 
 convey thought from mind to mind. 
 
 <£. Now, if little Laura had, by some defect or malformation in 
 her fingers, also been destitute of the sense of touch (for, in a case 
 like hers, the touch residing less perfectly in the toes, could hardly 
 have served the purpose), or if her good fortune had not brought 
 her in contact with such a thoughtful humane teacher, — the thought 
 within her would have remained a most lonesome prisoner, while 
 
 * Laura Bridgman was born in Hanover, N. H., on Dec. 21, 1829. Before she was 
 two years old, she lost, by disease, not only her eyes, entirely, but so also her sense of 
 hearing and smell, and her taste became much blunted, — so that the sense of touch and 
 feeling were alone left. On the 4th of October, 1837, Doctor Howe, President of the 
 Perkins Institution and Massachusetts Asylum of the Blind, at Boston, took her under 
 his charge ; and by all-conquering perseverance, effected her education to a degree, so as 
 to attract the admiration of the whole thinking world. [For further particulars, see — 
 Chambers' 1 Miscellany, vol. iii, Edinb. W. & R. Chambers, 1854 ; Art. L. Bridgman. 
 
84 THE TEMPLE OF TRUTH. 
 
 the spark of life did glow ; and tuition, instruction, or progress, 
 would have been an absolute impossibility. Hence, deprivation 
 by birth or accident in childhood, of the three superior senses, leav- 
 ing man only those of smell, taste, and feeling, — inevitably renders 
 him, as long as miserable existence endures, a mass of breathing, 
 imbecile idiocy, beyond all hope and power of redemption. For, 
 in this state, isolated from all nature, its forces, all mind and 
 thought around and outside of its own, — the divine spark of the 
 individual intellect, is incarcerated in a dungeon with walls so im- 
 penetrable and thick, leaving no crevice whatever, as a possible 
 passage for the smallest igniting ray that might kindle the latent 
 ethereal spark into conscious self-illuming blaze. 
 
 5. This, then, will suffice to show us the necessity of the senses ; 
 not only because, without their assistance, we remain helpless and 
 imbecile, and their action making us acquainted with nature, its 
 forces, their qualities and mode of action : but convinces us, like- 
 wise, that the mind can only become acquainted with its own 
 nature, after it has been taught in the school of nature, to learn what 
 knowledge, fact, and thought in reality are, and by what process they 
 are translated into the form of truth. 
 
 6. The analysis of the senses, and the real contents thereof, is 
 therefore, in itself, a procedure of no ordinary importance. But it 
 becomes immeasurably more so, from the astounding, almost in- 
 credible fact, that, actually, after the existence of soi-disant phi- 
 losophy, upon this globe, of some three or four thousand years, it is 
 still quite "a new thing under the sun," as the necessity of its per- 
 formance seems never before to have struck a philosophical intel- 
 lect of adequate abilities, in a light sufficiently clear, so as to induce 
 it making the attempt. 
 
 7. From this neglect of man's intellect, in subduing to its perfect 
 knowledge and control the only channels of converse and com- 
 merce, whereby, alone, nature can be approached and truly become 
 hwwn, as it is, and not as dreamed to he, — have resulted those dire 
 effects, forever, and everywhere, inseparable from a state of anarchy 
 and chaos, in any realm of existence. For, as all human action, in 
 all its inferior spheres, proceeds from intellect, as the highest of all, 
 there can not possibly exist unity and harmony in the lower planes, 
 as long as feud and discord rule in the uppermost. Hence, the state 
 
OBSERVATIONS, ETC., RELATIVE TO MAN'S SENSES. 85 
 
 of uncertainty and skepticism, ruling, until now, in the empire of 
 mind, could manifest itself in that of the soul, in no other shape 
 than as dominion of unruly passion and discomfort, producing as a 
 prolific source, in its turn, pain and misery without end, upon the 
 body of suffering humanity. 
 
 8. a.) Hence it came that idealism, knowing its position as supe- 
 rior and true, but not knowing the true language of nature and its 
 great main ultimate fact, lost the strength and advantage of its 
 truth, for, and its effect upon, itself, and therein the victorious power, 
 existing in the combination of the two, to secure its final ever- 
 enduring triumph in the utter annihilation of the anarchical forces 
 of its chaotic adversary. b.) But, ignorant of nature, and thereby 
 only half, and but dreamingly, knowing itself, Idealism was fool 
 enough to misconceive the vast value of nature and its glorious 
 field to such a degree, so as not only to resign and disclaim its in- 
 nate, indefeasible right of possession to the inexhaustible treasure, 
 but actually turning it over to an ignorant, insignificant quack pre- 
 tender, yclept materialism, — " a fellow marked by the hand of nature," 
 and destitute of real intellect and primary force, — but becoming 
 formidable by being thus put in possession of another party's prop- 
 erty, by that party's deluded hallucination. The empyric, being 
 thus raised by sheer accident, from a real nothing to an apparent 
 something, by being made the possessor of strong, formidable powers, 
 took great airs on himself, — deriding the madness of the silly one 
 that had made him rich, purchased troops of friends by his vast 
 illegitimately-gotten wealth ; and whilst, all the time, conscious 
 of possessing what does not belong to him, — continues to humbug the 
 world, by din, buzz, clamor, noise, and show, to divert its searching 
 eye from looking at the moonshine foundation of his usurped title 
 and power. 
 
 9. Depriving itself thus madly of wealth, resources and nourish- 
 ment, Idealism became lean, lank, mean, visionary, and spectre- 
 like, and assuming a haughty, misanthropic, and hostile attitude 
 to nature and man, — was shunned by both, as an unearthly appari- 
 tion, — a ghost, belonging to super-mundane regions. Not dreaming 
 of the infinite value of the testimony of the senses, for regaining, 
 in a final court of justice, its foolishly alienated rights, Idealism 
 went on, stimulated by its centralized feeling and need of unity, 
 
86 THE TEMPLE OF TRUTH. 
 
 arrogantly and presumptuously assuming and supposing that multi- 
 plicity could not co-exist primarily in, and with unity, to invalidate 
 the credibility of the senses, combat, assail, and even slander and 
 defame their report as false, unreliable and untrue, and thus injure 
 their character, and destroy their reputation, for rectitude and vera- 
 city, wherever, and as much, as it could. 
 
 10. The senses being thus by Idealism descried as liars and 
 cheats, and "vi et armis" driven over to the camp of its foe, — the 
 latter had no hard work to avenge them, for his own specific benefit 
 and use, in making the world at large believe, that a force throwing 
 first away its inherited patrimony, and then driving away the friends 
 of its household, and forcing them against their consent and will, to 
 range themselves on the side of its enemy : could be no less than 
 mad and insane, but nevertheless altogether harmless and visionary, 
 because thereby depriving itself of all means and weapons, to do any, 
 and the least, injury to those whom it proclaimed as its opponents 
 and foes. 
 
 11. The importance of the senses, and their indispensable neces- 
 sity to man, — is so palpable and glaring, that no man of sane mind 
 can, for one single moment, remain in doubt thereof. If misfor- 
 tune by birth or infancy, as we above have shown, (§ 4), had de- 
 prived the future idealist of his three superior senses, his idealism 
 would surely have undisturbedly slumbered, as long as his life had 
 lasted on this earth. If, moreover, he had obtained through his 
 senses no reliable impressions of any sort, he never could have 
 existed long enough to become acquainted with the great truth and 
 glorious ideas, residing within the centre of his intellect. 
 
 12. Hence, if you look at the two helpless little babes, each now 
 lying slumbering in a mother's tender lap, each one appearing to 
 all eyes as the most insignificant thing, when compared with the 
 boundless Universe around them : yet there is a something within 
 these little ones, that, if not deprived of the use of the channels 
 binding it to outside existence, will, one day, flare up into a power 
 of majestic grandeur, — in the presence of which, the majesty and 
 magnitude of this very Universe itself, will shrink, bow, and do 
 homage to the superior majesty in that little man. While the un- 
 fortunate little one, whose channels continue or become choked 
 or closed, remains your helpless object of pity, even more than now. 
 
OBSERVATIONS, ETC., RELATIVE TO MAX'S SENSES. 87 
 
 13. That feeble small body you see before you, now a dark 
 dwelling, with no perceptible light in it of any sort, lacking at pres- 
 ent even the openings to let light in, — has, nevertheless, six won- 
 derful windows, each one being an eye to disclose a world of miracles, 
 primarily so essentially different from all the rest, as to constitute 
 the object thereof, when closely beheld, — a real universe with sep- 
 arate laws of action in itself. These six windows are that tender 
 child's senses, by-and-by opening, to let in their streams of light, 
 as, by growth, it gathers force beneficially to use it. 
 
 14. Long before it could comprehend the mode of their opera- 
 tion, nature by inherent necessity, forces the child to develop these 
 senses, by their constant and incessant use. The lessons it receives 
 by their instruction, constitute those of an enduring primary school, 
 which, if its tuition is duly attended to and heeded, will lead to a 
 higher, wherein it may consummate its science of wisdom, being the 
 science of indubitable certainty or absolute truth, to which nature by 
 the senses, shows the way, and furnishes most of the indispensable 
 material. A long while after youthful man has been schooled by 
 the phenomena of the senses, and not until the developed intellect 
 has already become strong and expert enough to duly and clearly 
 discriminate phenomena, impression, fact, thought, and truth, all 
 from one another, and the whole thereof from the beholding intel- 
 lect itself, — is the mind enabled and disposed to prosecute inquiries 
 like the one now on our hands, with any reasonable prospect 
 of success. 
 
 15. The senses of man, never before yet receiving his full ana- 
 lyzing attention, have, from that reason, since time immemorial, 
 until recently, been considered by all the world as being hut five in 
 number, not perceiving that touch and feeling are entirely distinct and 
 different from one another. All these different senses, each revealing 
 to man an aspect, composition, and construction, in and of its 
 special department of nature, totally differing in its mode and kind 
 of impression upon him, from all the rest, possess this main feature 
 in common, that they each act, and are acted upon by and through 
 their own proper and exclusive organ, consisting in a peculiar con- 
 struction of highly sensitive nerves. 
 
 16. When, by the excitation of these nerves, they are so acted 
 upon by the sundry forces of nature, we call the sensation ex- 
 
88 THE TEMPLE OF TRUTH. 
 
 perienced in the organ of each sense, an impression, and the proxi- 
 mate external cause producing such impression, we term a phe- 
 nomenon; meaning an apparition. The senses thus acted upon are, 
 during that very operation, superintended by that pole of the mind, 
 termed understanding. For, when this attention of the understand- 
 ing is entirely absent, by being, while a phenomenon impresses a 
 sense, elsewhere, absorbed ly engaged, the impression amounts to 
 nothing ; as the mind has taken no notice thereof, and only that ob- 
 ject existing for the mind, for the time being, which it is looking at, and 
 nothing else. 
 
 17. As soon, however, as such impression has duly been made, 
 upon any sense, the understanding, as far as able, translates it into 
 a tJwught, representing its nature and value, termed a conception ; 
 and in that shape of thought, reports it with all the circumstances 
 constituting the fact of its occurrence, to the higher tribunal of the 
 mind, termed reason, to be there dealt with as deemed proper. The 
 countless number of impressions thus made by the permanent ope- 
 rations of e ver- acting phenomena upon the regular machinery of the 
 ever-recipient senses, have, by the ^^-classifying operations of 
 man's understanding, been reduced to a moderate, even small, 
 number of classes of permanent impressions, embodying the sum 
 total of the fixed features of nature ; therein showing, what nature 
 is for man, and what and how much, he can know thereby and therein, 
 with certainty, of their mutual and permanent relations to one 
 another. 
 
 18. These classes of permanent impressions upon man's senses, 
 constitute the elements of all his knowledge of nature, and the 
 various combinations thereof, termed science : forming thus the sub- 
 stratum underlying the order and stability prevailing in nature 
 throughout the universe ; their closest examination becomes of para- 
 mount importance ; for the mind can never expect to truly learn, 
 fully to know, and understand itself, until it can define what nature 
 is, as well in its thought thereof, as in its exterior subsistence. 
 
 19. Before proceeding to their special examination, let it be noted, 
 that the senses all operate upon man, as it were, by or upon a 
 sliding scale of increasing or lessening distance ; beginning at the 
 centre and progressing from it toward the circumference ; or vice 
 versa, when commencing at the periphery, approaching by measured 
 
OBSERVATIONS, ETC., RELATIVE TO MAN'S SENSES. 89 
 
 steps toward the centre, that centre being the sense of feeling. 
 Thus, a,) the sense of feeling is present in the whole body, where 
 ever the least branch of a nerve is found ramifying out from the 
 great nervous trunk, and feels pain or pleasure, when touched by 
 the exciting object, as it were, in its very vitals of real self, b.) The 
 sense of taste, one, the first step further, or off, from the centre, is 
 experienced properly only in its organs in the mouth; hence, as it 
 were, in the very door by which things enter into physical man, to 
 be there prepared for a more proximate union impending, c.) The 
 sense of smell is touched only as a step further from the centre, 
 not by the body of things themselves, but as it were, by the gaseous 
 spirits thereof, emanating as effluvia into the surrounding atmos- 
 phere, which, inhaled by breathing, gives the objects of smell an 
 involuntary ingress into the nostrils, denoting to man the nature of the 
 air he is inhaling, d.) The sense of touch, tact, or form, the fourth 
 from the centre, residing mainly in the tips of the fingers, and par- 
 tially in those of the toes, conversing with the surface of things by 
 actual contact only, operates, as it were, upon the boundary line, 
 where man's and the body of things really meet, e.) The sense 
 of hearing, as the fifth offward from the centre, being the percep- 
 tion of forces in motion, by medium of agitated air, striking the 
 nerves of the ear, takes cognizance of the operating actors in the 
 case as all outside of man, more or less distant. But this distance 
 has its law and its fixed limits in the nature of the atmosphere 
 itself ; prescribing to sound, also, the velocity in the measure of its 
 motion. For neither the roar of battle-fields, nor the claps of the 
 most terrific thunder, can reach beyond the limits, corresponding to 
 their force. The average velocity of sound is a progress of about 
 one thousand feet in a second of time. /.) Sight, finally, man's 
 sixth, highest and noblest sense, reports to him the converse with 
 objects at a distance almost surpassing his conception. For the eye 
 can. from a high elevation, on a mountain, or in a balloon, in a clear 
 atmosphere, not only at a glance, take in a panoramic picture of the 
 whole aspect of the earth, as far as its natural power of vision, and 
 the spherical form of the surface admits ; but also cast its eagle 
 ken, in a bright night, into that unmeasured deep, above its head, 
 where countless flaming worlds, glorify forever, that ineffable power 
 in whom they and the eye co-exist. The velocity of light is nine 
 
90 THE TEMPLE OF TRUTH. 
 
 hundred and seventy-five thousand times greater than that of 
 sound, as it travels forty-four thousand geographical miles in a 
 single second of time. 
 
 20. The senses divide themselves naturally into two classes, to 
 each of which a separate and specific function has been assigned, 
 differing from that of the other, a.) Sight, hearing, and touch, 
 furnishing all those definite and specific impressions, from near and 
 far, upon which man's conception of nature, its things, the universe 
 and its laws are mainly based ; may be considered as the superior 
 senses ; as all clear knowledge, science, and wisdom, depend 
 primarily on the elements they contribute. Their office unmis- 
 takably is to be man's tutor and sentinel, first, to make known to 
 him the form, shape, constitution and laws of things and the uni- 
 verse, so that he may know and use the same, in accordance with 
 his own inherent nature ; and, next, be forewarned neither to trans- 
 gress these laws from ignorance or frivolity, nor, from the same 
 cause, fall a victim to the terrific forces that individualized are found 
 to exist in nature's vast, ever-agitated domain, b.) The senses of 
 smell, taste, and feeling, are pre-eminently sentinels to man of pro- 
 tection and self-preservation, against those subtle hostile forces, 
 threatening him with pain and death, whose form and nature is of 
 a kind as to escape sight and hearing as well as touch. But these 
 senses constitute, at the same time, the medium of enjoyment and 
 perception of individual happiness or misery. For if, by disease 
 or weakness, man is zprey to torture, pain and debility, and thereby 
 disabled from participating in rejoicings with his like ; he could, as 
 long as such state endures, not be happy if he were surrounded by 
 the beatitude of heaven itself; as the organs whereby to enjoy it 
 are already combatingly preoccupied with opposite impressions and 
 feelings. Hence these three senses will find it highly their ad- 
 vantage, if they allow themselves to be taught and instructed by 
 their larger brethren, called sight, touch, and hearing, as thereby 
 they may avoid a great deal of needless pain, and secure a vast 
 amount of joy and happiness, that surpasses all their contracted 
 apprehension, c.) For sight indicates to man, already from the 
 form, appearance, and motion of things, often when merely per- 
 ceived at a great distance, such as inspire him with fear and terror, 
 what he may expect to experience therefrom, for his feelings, when 
 
 
ANALYSIS OF THE PHENOMENA OF SIGHT. 91 
 
 coming with them into close quarters. Such, for instance, as 
 approaching tornadoes, conflagrations threatening to encircle, wild 
 beasts to attack, him, etc., etc. Hearing discloses the nature of the 
 actors already in closer proximity ; and, as it hears their inmost 
 speech in the tune, tone, or sound of the tempered, tranquil, or 
 angry- wild action ; it discloses therein the friendly or hostile essence 
 of the actors toward itself, and gives due notice thereof to the rest 
 of the senses. Touch, finally, whose action, by actual contact, as- 
 certains the texture, woof, density, consistence, temperature, and 
 surfacial essence of things, at once informs all the senses, of the 
 nature of its report in the case. And, as all the senses combinedly 
 have very good reasons for believing that brother touch is an uner- 
 ring witness, as long as directed by a clear head ; they are all very 
 alert in heeding its suggestions, as well they may, whenever made. 
 
 CHAPTER XI. 
 
 ANALYSIS OF THE IMPRESSIONS UPON THE SENSE OF SIGHT BY 
 THE PHENOMENA OF NATURE. 
 
 THE EYE. 
 Know ye, on tend'rest ground, the picture, 
 
 Whose brightness, light, are gifts its own ; 
 In every hour it is another, 
 
 Yet fresh and whole is ever shown: 
 Executed in space most narrow, 
 
 The smallest frame does it inclose, 
 Yet all the greatness which man touches 
 
 He only by this picture knows I 
 
 And can you name to me the crystal 
 
 Whose worth does every gem surpass! 
 It shines forever, without burning, 
 
 Absorbs the world within its glass: 
 Yea, heaven itself is painted even 
 
 Within its ring, most wonderful ; 
 That beaming from it, than that given, 
 Is often much more beautiful. 
 
 [Schiller's Turandot. 
 1. The inestimable value of real treasures is often forgotten to 
 be duly appreciated by man, as long as he remains in the routine 
 8 
 
92 THE TEMPLE OF TRUTH. 
 
 of their undisturbed enjoyment and possession ; while those, born 
 without the same, know their value, a priori, by the evils attending 
 their deprivation. And when, eventually, good-fortune sometimes 
 restores to these latter possession of a great gift of nature never 
 before enjoyed, the estimate they then place thereupon, indicates 
 its true value for all men. 
 
 2. Hence, it is recorded that an intelligent youth, being born 
 blind, but receiving as good an education while blind, as was pos- 
 sible to give in that state, was successfully operated upon, when 
 near the age of maturity, by a highly skillful oculist. The 
 operator, when and immediately after thus fortunately restoring to 
 the blind his sight, and wishing to know what were the first im- 
 pressions made upon a rational being, by" the gift of sight, at 
 such an age, after having lived always in absolute darkness, without 
 the remotest conception of light and its object, asking him, just at 
 the moment when sight was for the first time exercised : " What 
 is it you see, my son f" The extatic reply of the youth (im- 
 pressed from the never-before imagined magnificence of creation), 
 was : "I see the glory of God !" 
 
 3. Each of the five exterior, senses (for feeling resides in the 
 interior of man), like every thing else, must have a medium or 
 tool by, and an object upon, which to act. The medium, as the 
 only known one, by which sight acts, is that effulgent, bright, 
 brilliant, dazzling force of nature, known to us by the name of 
 light. The objects of sight are the visible universe, and the things 
 it contains. The first act of sight, in casting its glance upon crea- 
 tion, is in its nature a synthesis, compressing the whole of what it 
 sees, into one unitary picture. The very next act thereafter, is an 
 analysis of that whole, by a closer and more special examination 
 of those parts thereof, which, from some cause or other, attract its 
 attention more than the rest. This action of combining, or be- 
 holding things synthetically, and next, again, looking analytically 
 upon their separate parts, alternates incessantly throughout man's 
 whole life. 
 
 4. Sight is informed (by the after light of experience and science), 
 that the eye, by which it acts, is an organ constructed upon the 
 principle of optics, receiving its impressions of the rays of light and 
 the images of things, upon the supremely sensitive retina of the 
 
ANALYSIS OF THE PHENOMENA OF SIGHT. 93 
 
 pupilla, and reflecting them like a doubly operating mirror. The 
 impression of strength or intensity, or the presence and absence of 
 a more or less in the force of light itself, facilitating vision, or the 
 contrary, sight denotes by brilliant, clear, dim, or obscure light 
 
 5. A.) Space. Sight, by one synthetical, all-combining impres- 
 sion discovers that light, its modified degrees, termed colors, and 
 all things to which they attach, which it terms bodies, — exist with 
 itself, in common, within one large, immeasurable expansion, cavity, 
 hollow, or indefinable vessel, which is present everywhere, filling 
 itself and all things, being around all things, and in all things, hav- 
 ing its centre everywhere, and discoverable circumference nowhere, 
 which it terms Space, a.) Unity number. — Looking thus upon space 
 and all its contents conjointly, as one consolidated whole, and next 
 upon space and its contents as separated and distinct from each 
 other, sight sees therein : One and many, unity and multitude, whole 
 and parts, or the impression of oneness and number, b.) Size and 
 magnitude, mass and quantity : As sight perceives the whole to be 
 different from all its separate parts, and these parts again to differ 
 among themselves, — it terms the perception of this primary differ- 
 ence, size and magnitude, mass and quantity. Size, it terms the im- 
 pression resulting from the perception, that the whole of a thing 
 fills more space than any of its parts ; and one thing or part more 
 than another. Magnitude, — Sight calls the impression from the 
 comparison of one size with another, terming one large, the other 
 small. Mass it names the impression from one coherent bulk, — 
 and quantity, a mass of assembled parts. The measure of mass, 
 sight finds to be in size, that of quantity residing in number. 
 
 B. Division of Space. Length, b-eadth, hight, depth. — As the 
 seeing eye resides in a fixed locality of a body, having likewise its 
 fixed relations to the spot it occupies on earth, and with the earth 
 to its constellation in nature, the universe, and space : and seeing 
 the location of all things, in the various portions of space they 
 occupy, differ variously and materially from its own, and as no less 
 of all of them among themselves : sight is led to discover, that 
 absolute space and the universe in it, is inherently partitioned off 
 by three great eternal lines of indefinite extent, into various com- 
 partments, — two of which lines running horizontally, and cutting 
 each other at right angles, form a regular cross; while the third, 
 
94: THE TEMPLE OF TRUTH, 
 
 descending perpendicularly from on high, piercing their point of 
 contact rectangularly, proceeds into boundless infinity. From 
 these lines and the figure they form, though themselves invisible to 
 the eye, sight perceives the various divisions of space, underlying 
 all vision, thereby permanently and forever made, in relation to the 
 position or location occupied by any thing, at any moment of time, 
 defining those lines by the name of length and breadth, and hight 
 or depth. 
 
 a.) Locality, — home, — their fixation. The spot 'perceived by 
 Sight, as occupied in space by any thing, at any time, it calls place, 
 location, locality, — and defines its fixation, or position, by com- 
 parison and reference to stationary points in the solar system, and 
 the locality of sight when impressed by the phenomena. 
 
 1). ) That locality of sight, when reporting its own relations or those 
 of other things, is always, for it or them, their momentary home, being 
 the point or centre, where the lines of length, breadth, and hight 
 (or depth), avss and pierce one another ; and viewed from that fixed 
 realistic-ideal standpoint or home, permanently filled by each thing 
 or being, for itself, as well as others, as far as use is concerned, the 
 relative location and position of all other things, is measured and 
 defined. That central point or spot is its never-changing, unitary 
 liome or here, in the moment ruling the case ; every thing out of 
 its centre is an ever-foreign, many-headed there or yonder, for- 
 ever renewing the question, where ? 
 
 c.) Proximity, distance, — their figure. Seated in its own, or 
 the local centre or home of other things, — sight answers that ques- 
 tion as often as needful, making for itself meters of fixed or com- 
 parative lines of space, — and by them, as things come within, 
 approach to, or recede from, its own sphere or home, it terms the 
 impression of the relation, proximity or distance, calling the same, 
 in and out, near and far, and its modifying figure and form: before 
 and behind, right and left, up and down, above and below, within and 
 ivitlwut, inside and alongside, over and under, high and low, long and 
 short, broad and contracted, wide and narrow, and terms of similar 
 import, already noticed in Chap, viii, \ 7, in analyzing the preposi- 
 tions of language. 
 
 C.) Shape, figure, form, and their elements. — As a leading 
 difference noted by sight in the impression of things upon it, it 
 
ANALYSIS OF THE PHENOMENA OF SIGHT. 95 
 
 observes in the absence or presence of definite outlines circum- 
 scribing their bulk. The first class, it terms shapeless, and the 
 second it calls shaped, and discovers some things to be more defi- 
 nitely so than others, a.) Any thing, possessing the slightest surfacial 
 image, enabling its external appearance of producing a special impres- 
 sion as a whole, Sight terms shape, b.) Where to shape is added, per- 
 ceptibly definite outlines, sight denotes such shape as figure, c.) 
 Where the figure is composed of parts regularly combined, vision 
 terms it form, d.) Sight further perceives the elements from the 
 various combinations of an adequate variety and number whereof, 
 all the concrete or possible shapes and forms in the universe are 
 combined. These it terms, 1.) The single point; 2.) the regular 
 combination of a number of points, forming the straight line ; 3.) the 
 broken line, forming with the former, the triangle, — and by doubling 
 itself, the square ; 4.) the regularly bent or curved line, forming, 
 by its completion, the circle, — and by its irregular and arbitrary ex- 
 tension and deviation, any shape, figure, or form, the imagination 
 may suggest. 
 
 D.) Kest, Motion, Inertness, Force. — Sight perceives its objects 
 and their condition in two diametrically opposite states, either fixed 
 to a place or locality, or at times, in the act of changing the same 
 for another. The first of these states it calls rest, the second mo- 
 tion. Some things sight always perceives occupying the same 
 place, in the same manner, and devoid of all inlierent capacity and 
 proclivity to change either, until violently forced therefrom by 
 exterior causes, and driven to occupy another, but returning to their 
 first state instantly, when the cause ceases to act. The inherent 
 sluggishness and absence of capacity and inclination in things to 
 motion, visible to sight only by its effect, enduring rest, it terms 
 inertness, gravity, or passive resistance. The unknown cause, over- 
 coming this resisting inertness, visibly active in the motion of 
 things, sight terms force. This invisible cause or force, thus pro- 
 ducing this alternation between the states of rest and motion in 
 things, sight can not itself perceive, but takes cognizance of the 
 forms through which, and while, it acts. These are : 
 
 E.) Force, Power, Strength, — Vegetation; Chemical and Phys- 
 cial power ; Vitality, a.) Sight perceives things and forms, fixed to 
 one spot, springing up imperceptibly, but steadily increasing and 
 
96 THE TEMPLE OF TRUTH. 
 
 enlarging their form ; and, after a longer or shorter time, either 
 gradually again decay and disappear, or become changed or de- 
 composed by exterior forces. Perceiving thus, by steady change, 
 the presence of an inherent force controlling the accretion of cumu- 
 lating parts ; sight terms this whole class of phenomena, vegetation, 
 and considers its formative force or configurating principle, as un- 
 conscious life, or unvitalized organism, b.) Sight perceives by con- 
 stant changes proceeding all around, forces active everywhere, on the 
 smallest as well as on the most stupendous scale. Here the death- 
 like, inert mass is corroded and oxydized, or molten and burned to 
 cinders. Yonder, huge bulks are decomposed by silent rot ; next, 
 all nature is regularly forced to change her face, aspect, and robes ; 
 now freezing the liquids into solids ; then thawing them again into 
 liquids, and again volatilizing them into floating, gaseous invisi- 
 bility. Then there are often awfully-terrificly sublime manifesta- 
 tions of boundless force. Here, lightning demolishing most durable 
 things in an instant ; there, conflagration defying all resistance until 
 all food is consumed ; yonder, the horrifying fire-vomiting volcano, 
 in unutterable well-founded pride, deriding man as beneath its no- 
 tice ; here, the yawning earthquake engulfing, and there the de- 
 vastating tornado sweeps all before it. These natural forces, 
 denomnated chemical and physical, may fitly be named lifeless, unor- 
 ganized, unconscious 'power. Sight does not see the same, but per- 
 ceives its action by the motion of the smallest to the most tre- 
 mendous masses, impelled by its force, or the reduction or 
 annihilation of complicated forms and compositions into their 
 rudimentary elements. 
 
 c.) Finally, sight perceives forms or things, alternately in each of 
 the two states, now at rest, then again in motion, absolutely im- 
 pelled by no visible exterior cause, showing an inherent capacity to 
 go from one into the other at pleasure, or endowed with the power 
 of locomotion. Sight, Jcnowing itself as the active exercise of such a 
 principle within, consisting in spontaneous, living, voluntary force, 
 calls it life organized, or power of vitality, and its application to any 
 given objector purpose, sight denotes, in its effects, by the name of 
 strength. 
 
 d.) Thus sight is conversant with four different classes of forces, 
 all engaged in their way and place in controlling the inertia inherent 
 
ANALYSIS OF THE PHENOMENA OF SIGHT. 9? 
 
 in inanimate bulk. 1.) The various elementary chemical forces 
 concerned in the composition or decomposition of that bulk itself; 
 2.) The formative configurating force constituting the domain of 
 vegetation ; 3.) The unorganized forces, or physical powers con- 
 trolling the vast operations of nature, and, 4,) The force of vitality 
 constituting the strength of living beings. Sight, when perceiving 
 large masses of lifeless inert bulk, disturbed in their deathlike 
 repose, and whirled, slowly or rapidly, from one place to another, 
 to a greater or smaller distance, or perceiving vast mechanical com- 
 binations, of many ponderous parts, constructed by man's hand, 
 and kept in motion by wind, water, fire, or other motors found in 
 nature ; or perceiving animated bodies, of larger or smaller size, 
 move through space at various grades of velocity, producing sundry 
 actions controlling their own body, and other bodies, with or 
 without life, at the same time ; sight, distinguishing the effect from 
 the cause, and the place where each resides, calls the invisible 
 cause, producing the motion visibly seen by its eye, force, yower, 
 strength. By force it denotes the powers acting in nature ; by 
 power, generally, nature's forces, controlled by man ; and by 
 strength it designates the force inherent in a living body or being. 
 
 F. Sight perceives all the things and forces around it, engaged in 
 a state of perpetual action and reaction upon one another, pro- 
 ducing an infinity of effects, of the most diversified kinds. All 
 these actions and effects, sight perceives connected with, and condi- 
 tioned by, states, inherent in the shapes and forms of things and 
 forces, resulting from the elementary combination of rudimental 
 materials. These states it terms composition, construction, quality. 
 
 a.) Composition, sight perceives as existing in all things, whether 
 inorganized or organized, dead or living, and terms its elements : 
 solid, liquid, fluid, aeriform, gaseous, fiery, and corroding, existing 
 pure or in various mixtures, checking and balancing one another. 
 
 b.) Construction, — Sight perceives, superadded to composition, 
 in organized and living forces, in the order whereby the various 
 parts of their inner structure and exterior form are conjoined 
 and combined. 
 
 c.) Quality, — Sight perceives as inherent in all things, as insep- 
 arable from the elements of composition, and the nature of con- 
 struction and form. Its perception of tne modifications thereof, it 
 
98 THE TEMPLE OF TRUTH. 
 
 terms : a.) dead or alive ; h.) hard or soft ; c.) rigid or elastic ; 
 d.) brittle or tough. ; e.) rough or smooth ; /.) sharp or dull ; g.) 
 straight or crooked ; h.) round or cornery ; i.) even or uneven ; 
 &.) adhesive or slippery ; I.) wet or dry ; m.) strong or weak ; n.) 
 light or heavy ; o.) fluid, liquid, or solid ; etc., etc.; most of which 
 we will meet again, when speaking of the sense of touch. For, let 
 it here be noted, that there are a considerable number of impres- 
 sions, common to all the senses, each denoting its impression from 
 the causing phenomenon by the same name, though its special feel- 
 ing therein experienced is specific, and altogether its own. 
 
 6. Color. — As in the total absence of all light, the eye can not 
 see, — but all individual things are swallowed up into an awful 
 ocean of hideous and terrific darkness, wherein all colors indiscrim- 
 inately disappear : this single fact proves that light is alike the 
 main cause and source of colors, as it is of the perception of the shape 
 and form of things. 
 
 a.) Light, diffusing itself over the surface of all things, capable of 
 being objects of sight, each of which, having, from its combination, 
 form and qualities, a surrounding atmosphere of its own, resulting 
 from the vapors of its chemical forces, whereby it specifically ab- 
 sorbs, modifies, and reflects the light falling upon it, by an action 
 analogous to echo, or the reverberation of sound, — differing not 
 only as more or less, but also effecting a change in the nature of 
 the forces thus combining, producing a new kind. 
 
 V.) Hence, the light so reflected, shows various grades of dis- 
 tance from its origin and source. These grades we conjointly range 
 under the class-name of color. Five of these colors emanate from 
 light, in a regular progress from more to less, as follows ; a.) white 
 b.) yellow ; c.) red ; d.) blue ; e.) black. 1.) Pure white, may be 
 considered as light incorporated, — like its opposite, the last extreme, 
 deepest black, represents darlcness materialized, 2.) Yellow, is a 
 white, saturated with opaque particles ; as the white-washed kitchen 
 turns yellowish by saturation from fumes and smoke. 3.) Bed, is a 
 deepened yellow, as the yelk of the egg is gradually changed by 
 the brooding of the fowl, into the red color of blood. 4.) Blue, is a 
 downward progress from the red, — by absence of caloric and kin- 
 dred forces, toward the black. For, when you take a blue bar 
 of steel, heating it in a strong fire, it becomes red, when very hot. 
 
ANALYSIS OF THE PHENOMENA OP SIGHT. 99 
 
 When, letting it cool down, it first becomes violet, and then again 
 turns into blue. 5.) Black, is the final consummation of blue, — for 
 blue in its deepest saturation borders so closely upon the black, that 
 the naked vision can discover no line of demarkation. These five 
 colors, which may be considered as primary, — produce, by regular 
 combination, the following compounds, appropriately termed second- 
 ary, in which light is increased or decreased, respecting approxima- 
 tion toward it, in proportion to its presence or absence in the 
 mixing ingredients. 6.) Gray; produced by mixing white and 
 black, the two primary extremes. 7.) Green; from the combination 
 of yellow and black or yellow and blue, you obtain the green. 8.) 
 Brown; from the combination of the centre with the last extreme, 
 that is, from red and black you obtain brown. 9.) Pink ; from the 
 combination of that same centre with the first extreme, that is, red 
 and white, you get the pink. 10.) Violet; the centre red, and its 
 sable neighbor blue, produce, in their transition from one into the 
 other (as we have already seen, in No. 4, with the bar of steel), the 
 violet. 11.) Orange; the centre red, mixed with its forerunner yel- 
 low, produces the orange. 12.) Mud; the mixture of the preceding 
 eleven colors, produces an unpleasant compound, of the hue 
 of mud. 
 
 c.) As white and black represent light and darkness corporeal- 
 ized, and serve only to increase or decrease the one or the other, 
 in the colors to which they are admixed, competent authorities 
 have often suggested that they really are no colors themselves, and 
 should, therefore, not be considered as strictly belonging to the list. 
 The same holds good of No. 12, the mud color, as not being really 
 a distinct color of and in itself, but rather an ingredient, whose 
 admixture serves to soil and vitiate the brilliancy and purity of 
 other colors. 
 
 d.) If, then, white, mud, and black, are not really colors, they are, 
 at least, negative colors, standing in the same relation toward colors, 
 in which zero (0) the negative in figures or ciphers, stands toward 
 all the rest of numbers, to be used as occasion may require. Sub- 
 tracting, then, white, mud, and black, from the proper category of 
 colors, and calling them zeros of a threefold kind, we would, in 
 numbers 2, 3, 4, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, and 11, have nine real colors left, 
 corresponding preciselv, when vou add a zero in every composition, 
 9 
 
100 THE TEMPLE OF TRUTH. 
 
 with the ten elements in arithmetic, and the ten classes of words 
 in language, — in which latter, the class of interjections corresponds, 
 in its office and nature, with a zero, as it never has weight and sig- 
 nificance of its own, but derives it solely from the parts it is com- 
 bined with. From these elements of color, assisted by the forces 
 of nature, especially caloric, electricity, magnetism, and light itself, 
 all the varieties of colors are combined, ever beheld by the eye 
 of man. 
 
 e.) Colors have, at all times, been considered by the mind of 
 mankind, as corresponding to certain moral qualities. Hence, the 
 innocent and ignorant mind of childhood, is likened to a white, un- 
 written sheet of paper, white being considered as the emblem of 
 spotless innocence. An atrocious action, is defined as the blackest 
 crime, or a deed of the darkest dye. There can be no doubt that a 
 time is approaching, when the analogies existing in color, and other 
 branches of nature, will enable us to arrive at the same scientific 
 certainty in morals, ethics, psychology, and pneumatology, which 
 we have already in geometry and numbers. 
 
 ft) Fullness, vacuity, — opacity, translucency, — are conceptions de- 
 rived from impressions of sight, neither belonging to color nor form, 
 but to woof or texture, — and their presence or absence, in their rela- 
 tion to light, arises as follows : As space, illumed by light,- presents 
 to sight some of its parts, 1.) as occupied perceptibly by things, or 
 bodies, and, 2,) others as not ; and some of these things, 3.) as 
 permitting vision, and others, 4.) as intercepting it : it terms the 
 two first of these impressions, fullness and vacuity, and the two 
 latter, opacity and translucency. 
 
 7. Sight further perceives the realization of ideas, and existence 
 of natural laws, indicated in the visible combination of things, 
 forms, and their operations. 
 
 a.) Regularity, order, — symmetry, beauty. Sight discovers in 
 nature and life, in their things, forces, and beings, animate and 
 inanimate, in their forms and motions, — a difference of arrangement 
 and alternation of parts, — whereby it is impressed pleasantly or un- 
 pleasantly ; which impression it terms, 1,) regularity and order, 2.) 
 symmetry and beauty. The subsistence of arrangement in the 
 formation, features, or motions of any thing, disclosing a degree of 
 order,— vision perceives and terms regularity. If all the several 
 
ANALYSIS OF THE PHENOMENA OF SIGHT. 101 
 
 parts disclose their position in the arrangement, as harmonizing 
 with the whole, and every one of the parts, — the regularity has 
 matured into order. Order, exemplified in the construction of 
 buildings, the motions of machinery and other works of man, — or 
 the movements of living beings, — is perceived by sight as symmetry. 
 If to symmetry is added the embellishment of grace and expression, 
 it becomes, upon sight, the fascinating impression, termed beauty. 
 
 1>.) The beauty of the human countenance or whole form, — the 
 angelic innocence painted on the child's face, — the captivating charms 
 displayed by eyes, forehead, cheeks, mouth, lips, and teeth, singly 
 or as a "tout-ensemble" of a virtuous, healthy, lovely, and beautiful 
 maiden or youth, woman or man, — form impressions upon human 
 vision, received nowhere else, and are not merely combinations 
 framed from elementary parts. For, be it remembered, the im- 
 pression produced by the whole of a picture as a unity, is as fully 
 an elementary one of its kind, as the impression from every single 
 one of the parts ; inasmuch as parts, when minutely examined, are 
 themselves wholes again composed of parts, to the extent percepti- 
 ble to the limits of sight. 
 
 c« Generation, Causality. "When sight, perceiving the perform- 
 ance of the act of copulation, between the two sexes, that consti- 
 tute the dualistic creative unity throughout animated nature, notes, 
 after the lapse of a specific period of time, the act of parturition, 
 whereby the fecundated feminine gives existence to a new being, 
 of the same species to which the progenitors belong: — Sight fur- 
 nishes, in these two facts, the two leading elements, constituting as 
 cause and effect, the law of generation and causality ; the first being 
 the latter, ruling in the procreation of animated nature ; and the 
 latter being the first, in its absolute character of riding all things. 
 
 d. Grandeur, Loftiness, Sublimity, Aw fulness, Majesty. — When 
 sight, from a favorable point of vision, looks upon detached parts and 
 operations of nature, such as a beautiful landscape, a high mountain, 
 the vast ocean in uproar, a mighty waterfall, an all-sweeping ava- 
 lanche, a resistless torrent or conflagration, the rising and setting of 
 sun and moon, under enhancing circumstances, and casts, in a fine 
 serene night, its wondering glance up into the starry heavens ; see- 
 ing its glittering gems forming golden galaxies of suns and worlds, 
 beyond number and count, or perceiving upon the countenance 
 
102 THE TEMPLE OF TRUTH. 
 
 of some noble man or woman, a reflection of the great strength or 
 worthiness and value of the character residing within ; sight noticing 
 this different configuration of things, all calculated to make more 
 than an ordinary impression upon it and man, has named them, as 
 the case may happen to he, grand, lofty, sublime, awful, majestic. 
 e. Teleology, Design, Purpose, End. — In whatever direction sight 
 sends its glance, whether into the boundless area of the universe, 
 the vast fields of nature, or the smallest and most minute parts of 
 its great and wonderful domain, it perceives, near and far, around 
 and within, everywhere, in the forms, modes, and actions of things, 
 one grand necessitating connection, running from the lowest end of 
 the scale up to the highest, whereby all things are means to ends 
 for others ; and, in turn again, the whole has to serve as the main 
 mean, to the end of every separate part. Sight does not discover 
 this teleology itself, but it perceives the universal fitness and forma- 
 tion, in the shape and necessitating action of all things, which, 
 undisguisedly, all point to, and work for, such a unitary grand pur- 
 pose, everywhere. For sight, clearly sees, that lifeless bulk serves 
 as a firm foundation and food to the unsentient life of vegetation ; 
 that it sustains in turn the vitality of the animated realm ; that 
 the forces of nature administer to the support of both, and that all 
 of them combined are needed and used by man, and subordinated 
 to his benefit. Further, sight undisguisedly perceives in the con- 
 struction and form of vitalized bodies, in the parts and limbs com- 
 posing them, the fitness of one part to another, and its whole, the 
 adaptation of each part to a specific function, yet serving many other 
 uses ; the dualism perceived and displayed in the organized mutual 
 conformation of the sexes ; the separate qualities attached to each, 
 acting by resistless attraction to secure the enduring continuance of 
 the species ; and, finally, perceiving in man the climax, and more 
 than it, of all things valuable and useful found below him, con- 
 joined and condensed into one smallest and possible whole ; sight 
 can not help but perceiving, in nature, a display of power without 
 metes and bounds, under the control of luisest and beneficent laws ; 
 and, in man, a production of wisest skill and ineffable art, impreg- 
 nating its work with specific ends, which unitedly all point to one 
 highest, as the design and purpose aimed at conjointly by all that 
 sight can any-and-everywhere see, discover, and perceive. 
 
ANALYSIS OF THE PHENOMENA OP HEAKING. 103 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 ANALYSIS OF THE IMPRESSIONS FROM PHENOMENA UPON THE 
 SENSE OF HEARING. 
 
 1. a.) The sense of hearing is located within the organ called 
 the ear. The objects of its impressions are the sounds produced by 
 the action of the various forces in nature when in motion. Sound 
 being air in motion, inclosed within a specific form, the atmosphere 
 surrounding man, as an elastic fluid, is the main and ordinary me- 
 dium to convey sound to the ear ; yet other bodies, liquid as well 
 as solid, are known as capable of conducting sound, analogous to 
 the wire-conducting electricity, b.) The ear is shaped in the form 
 and upon the principle of a funnel, whereby it is enabled to con- 
 centrate the mass of sound striking its outer surface into its smallest 
 shape, and thus lead it to the seat of hearing within the interior of 
 the ear. c.) This seat of hearing resides in the tympanum, being 
 an expansion of the nerve of hearing into a thin, skinny, highly- 
 sensitive membrane, stretched out within the ear like the slcin upon 
 a drum. The striking of sound, in its various forms, upon this 
 skin, constitutes the phenomenon, the perception of which we term 
 hearing. 
 
 2. a.) As the forces in nature capable of producing sounds are 
 countless in number, endlessly diversified in capacity and form, the 
 sounds produced from such diversity of causes, must necessarily 
 present an equally multiform diversity in phenomenal effects ; and, 
 hence, of impressions upon the hearing organ. This multiplicity 
 of phenomena are all embraced under the one class-name of sound ; 
 but varieties thereof are often denoted by the name of tone, tune, 
 ring, crack, noise, roar, howl, bustle, rustling, clap, crash, clangor, 
 etc., etc.; from all of which the infinitely divers impressions nev- 
 ertheless reduce themselves into four main classes, as follows : b.) 
 Sounds differ as to — I, Mass and Magnitude ; II, Shape and 
 Form ; III, Essence and Quality ; and, IV, Force and Intensity. 
 
 3. a.) "Respecting mass and magnitude, sounds differ spacially in 
 circumference and in volume of bulk ; and, timely, by length or 
 
104 THE TEMPLE OP TRUTH. 
 
 brevity in duration, consisting in a more or less of moved mass of 
 air, presenting in action a lesser or greater number of vibrations, for 
 a shorter or longer time, b.) In shape and form sounds are regular 
 or irregular, always corresponding to the mould, by which they were 
 formed, be that the mouth of a human being, a cannon, wild beast, 
 the roaring ocean, the howling tempest, or a musical instrument ; 
 hence, assuming and presenting all imaginable shapes and forms 
 whatever, c.) In essence and quality sounds differ, like the causes 
 or forces of their origin. As some of these are innocent and harm- 
 less, others aggressive and destructive, and others conservative and 
 protective in their inherent nature : they infuse and impress as 
 effecting causes, a floating image of their own essence and quality, 
 into that of the sound they create, premonitory, as it were, of their 
 intent and design, whereby the listening ear is, in general, easily 
 enabled to determine whether their origin belongs to the force-class 
 of the indifferent, the hostile, or the friendly to it. d.) In force and 
 intensity sounds differ, thereby announcing, not only the more or 
 less rapid velocity whereby they permeate space, within a given 
 amount of time, but also indicate how much of impulse and ur- 
 gency is deposited within them, by the force producing them. By 
 virtue of this their force of intensity, they occupy a lower or higher 
 key in the scale, natural to the class to which they respectively 
 belong. 
 
 [Note.— It remains barely to be noted here, "en passant,'''' that the 
 history as well as the detailing of the mode and manner by and in which 
 music, as an art, gradually discovered, singled, and picked out, from the 
 ocean of their infinity, a number of specific sounds, of divers sorts, forming 
 them into those genus-classes of tones, such as it terms the enharmonic, 
 chromatic, and diatonic scales, in the theory of the science, do not belong to 
 the scope and sphere of our present investigation, and must hence ,be left 
 to its proper own.] 
 
 4. The various attributes of sounds, derived from their belong- 
 ing cotemporaneously to several or all of the above main classes, 
 distribute their whole possible number into the following element- 
 ary categories, — whereby, in size, form, quality, and nature, they 
 are either : 1.) loud or hissing (whispering); 2.) full or vacant 
 (vowels or consonants); 3.) high or low (appertaining to different 
 keys and scales or octaves); 4.) strong or weak, (denoting presence 
 or absence of ability or volition, that is, intensity, in the producing 
 
ANALYSIS OP THE PHENOMENA OF HEARING. 103 
 
 force); 5.) clear or dull (denoting presence or absence of precision 
 or capacity in form or force in action); 6.) hard or soft (indicating 
 rigidity or plasticity in the producing cause); 7.) long or short (de- 
 noting persistence or brevity in the producing action); 8.) harsh or 
 mild (indicating the presence of discord or concord within the acting 
 force); 9.) piercing or tender (indicating the affinity for opposite 
 states of the affections); 10.) shrill or soothing (correlated with No. 9). 
 
 5. The capacity existing in the organized apparatus of the human 
 mouth and voice for variegating its configurations as forms to model 
 sounds, — surpasses, in its possible combinations, all and every cal- 
 culation. Nevertheless, all the sounds ever possible to be thereby 
 formed, no matter how countless, have their common elementary 
 source or origin in the limited number of primary sounds, attached to 
 the five vowels, — a, e, i, o, and o, and a few diphthongs of the alphabet. 
 
 Q.-a.) The action of the ear or hearing, is primarily analytic, 
 meaning, that it perceives sounds that are single, and not collective, 
 one after another, that is, in succession, or time. It, however, also 
 acts by implication, synthetically, in receiving and giving the simul- 
 taneous impression of forces as coexisting cotemporaneously with, 
 or alongside of, one another, that is, in space, — when it perceives 
 multiform sounds in the same moment, coming, as it were, from 
 the plural forces of some operating orchestra. Hence, its impres- 
 sion of number is as definite, as that by the eye, — differing in this, 
 that the eye shows the image of the actor, while sound only shows 
 to hearing the atmospheric image of the actor's action, occurring at 
 that moment. 
 
 6. b.) But, although hearing can embrace, synthetically, a number 
 of combimed sounds, impressing it at the moment as one conjoint 
 whole : its synthetical privilege in the operation extends no further 
 than this : that it can receive and entertain such conjoint impres- 
 sion as matter of mere sound only, be that sound music, song, or 
 noise, made by many ; but as the same being ever and always dis- 
 connected with distinct perceptions, it cannot use it for the trans- 
 missory interchange of clear thought by the intellect. For, when 
 sound, as in oral speech, is to convey thought from intellect to 
 intellect, it can only be done analytically, word after word, the 
 speaker as well as the listener, concentrating his attention upon 
 every word, as it is littered. A man may listen, when twelve 
 
106 THE TEMPLE OF TRUTH. 
 
 speakers around him hold forth, all perhaps explaining one iden- 
 tical subject ; but, unless he concentrates his whole attention upon 
 listening to the whole speech of a single one, — he may, at the end, not 
 understand much of the matter ; because mind and ear can enter- 
 tain one mental subject only at one and the same moment of time. 
 
 7. The office of sound is to effect and subserve for man, three 
 main objects or purposes, — each one being most intimately blended 
 with the other. These are : 1.) self-preserving protection ; 2.) cul- 
 ture and progress ; and, 3.) happiness and enjoyment. 
 
 8. Self -preserving protection. The forces of nature, before brought 
 under his control, are formidable to man, and even not fully de- 
 void of all mischief when totally subdued, they solicit his unceas- 
 ing vigilance ever after. Hence, supreme creating power, being 
 necessitated, for the purpose of giving man its darling, superior 
 rule in nature, had to surround him with forces, whose inner 
 nature is, and always remains, more or less wild, savage, and at 
 times ferocious. But creative power, at the same time so arranged 
 the mechanism of all things, that none of man's foes can move, 
 without giving some alarm to man's sentinel in the ear, announcing 
 what and who is coming, and how far or near they may be at the time. 
 Hence the wild beast and the thunder, at a distance, roar ; the 
 hurricane and tempest liowl ; the avalanche, sliding mountain, and 
 tumbling building crash ; and every thing in its way, large or small, 
 announces its motion to the human ear, so that it may provide the 
 means of defense and protection, 
 
 9. Culture and progress. Man had the language of oral speech 
 in use, long before he ever dreamt of that of signs for the eye, by 
 figures, hieroglyphics or writing. And even since he has succeeded 
 in extending, by medium of his written language, the domain of 
 his knowledge, — passing, in some directions, all the former limits 
 of hope and landmarks of expectation : he still uses, and ever will 
 use, for spreading and applying the knowledge he thus accumu- 
 lates, — in his house, the market and world, — chiefly by the speech 
 of sound. That speech rules in his barn-yard and bed-chamber, in 
 his kitchen and parlor, in his shop and counting-house, in school 
 and church, in court and capitol. Thereby the great ideas collected, 
 in the silent glare of the midnight lamp, in the student's lonely 
 chamber, by the brooding mind from its own unfathomed depths, 
 
ANALYSIS OF THE PHENOMENA OF HEARING. 107 
 
 or the neglected book of some great thinker, are measurably rescued 
 from oblivion, and obtain more or less currency in the public mind. 
 The number and amount of true thoughts and ideas thus penetrating 
 into the peoples' mind, — understood by all, or the most, sufficiently 
 clear, to serve as principles and cynosures for practical application 
 and use, — constitute the amount and average measure of a nation's 
 culture; contain the real weapons, for defense and protection 
 against, and rule of, the forces of nature ; and evince and indicate 
 the actual degree of the people's fitness for the enjoyment of that 
 happiness, subsisting alone within the sensibility-sphere of their 
 soul ; and consisting in the active presence of universal good-will 
 to all, tender friendship to some men, and highest, most passionate 
 love toward the one ineffable being, encyclmg all power, beauty, 
 truth, wisdom, and beatitude, in his boundless ocean of absolute 
 goodness ; for which the heart forevermore yearns, until found, — 
 and excluding all its opposites from its precincts. 
 
 10. a.) Happiness and enjoyment. Among all man's senses, the 
 eye, pre-eminently, is that of the intellect. So is the written, or 
 language of the eye, principally, yet not exclusively, the organ of 
 the thinking power. On the other hand, the ear may be termed 
 the proper sense, — and vocal speech the main, yet likewise not ex- 
 clusive, vehicle of the soul, and pre-eminently for conveying senti- 
 ment, thought, and emotion, to the upper pole, which we have 
 termed its sphere of sensibility, — and in which every man's happi- 
 ness or misery has its actual location. The heaven which man 
 ever longs after, exists in this very spot, in every man ; but rarely 
 unharmed as it was when yet an innocent child, — but in a dam- 
 aged, and too often, in an entirely changed and subverted condition. 
 The majority of man's best enjoyments and joys upon earth, he 
 derives from man ; for, if they are of the real kind, they blend 
 with those experienced in converse with the source of being. 
 Ninety-nine hundredths of all the great evils and pains on earth, 
 man, and man alone, prepares and concocts for man. Nature has 
 no stings, no poisons, no tearing teeth, that can, nay its very death, 
 can not, even from afar, compare to the crushing, boundless woe 
 of the broken heart, the dismal gloom of black despair, the pangs 
 of broken friendship, the searing flames of faithlessly betrayed love, 
 the ceaseless rankling of burning envy, malice, and hate, and the 
 
108 THE TEMPLE OF TRUTH. 
 
 torturing rack, and hellfire of the conscience, — willfully loaded 
 with guilt and crime, b.) As man is, so he acts, so he speaks. 
 Man or woman, if kind, affectionate, tender, generous, magnani- 
 mous, brave, — the sound of their speech will be poetry and music 
 to every ear around them. For, the voice streams out the essence 
 of its soul into other souls, through the ear as its peculiar channel, 
 which acts, wherever deposited, in accordance with its nature, 
 either like the honey of heaven, or the venom of death. Man, if 
 he only knew it, is so rich in affections, that he could afford to 
 squander caresses, endearments, friendship, and love, all around 
 him, in such lavish, prodigal extravagance, as to change every 
 spot into a paradise, wherever his feet happen to stand,— and at 
 the end, instead of diminution, his wealth of love would be more 
 Crcesus-like than ever before. From sheerest ignorance of his own 
 nature, he willfully prefers to remain a starving beggar and nig- 
 gardly miser at the table of which he is the proper owner, but 
 afraid to satiate his gnawing appetite by the wholesomest delicacies 
 spread thereon, in boundless profusion, c.) Sound, by oral speech, 
 is the quickest conductor of thought and sentiment from mind to 
 mind, and soul to soul. It is the telegraph between the off-parti- 
 tioned supernatural forces residing in man and his fellows. By 
 friendly dialectics, — argument, debate, conversation, recitation of 
 beautiful poetry, enhanced by the magic charms of true, heartfelt 
 social intercourse, it contains an educational discipline of the human 
 forces, developing them into true, general, and harmonious culture, 
 whose full power has never been fully known, because never but 
 merely partially tried and applied. When once fully developed, 
 it will work miracles in man and his surroundings, that will astound 
 a world with a whirlwind of bewildering joy, — in showing that the 
 heaven, only dreamt of as far off, beyond present reach, existing in 
 distant spheres, and skies, — is within the grasp of its hand, and in its 
 fullest possession, as soon as it earnestly wills it. Beside the charms 
 inherent in eloquent speech, euphoneous rhythmic poetry, majestic 
 breast-heaving oration, all derived from soul-moving sound: the 
 power of burning thought becomes actually electrifyingly inspiring 
 in its celestial marriage with song. And its alternation with the 
 ocean of unknown power, residing in the inarticulate speech of the 
 instrumental Iwrmanies of sound, — all as yet but partially known 
 
ANALYSIS OF THE PHENOMENA OF HEARING. 109 
 
 only, under the appellation of music, will, in due time, arise as a 
 hell-subduing, heaven-engendering force. 
 
 11. As song is the speech of joy and happiness in youth, and as 
 the sounds of words, expressing angry or loving passion, may tear 
 the heart of those with grief, or lift it up to extasy, to whose ear 
 they are addressed ; it is clear, that here is the front door to human 
 happiness or misery, heaven or hell, so far as prepared by man for 
 man. Hence, all the opposite emotions, alternately ruling man's 
 heart, of sadness and delight, fear and hope, despair and ex- 
 pectancy, grief and hilarity, dejection and serenity, terror and joy, 
 etc., may, in quick succession, be called forth in his bosom, by the 
 changing sound from nature's forces, or the soothing or terrifying 
 intonations resounding from man's impassioned voice. 
 
 12. Although hearing gives no such perception of space like 
 sight, yet it knows that sound is a something existing, with its 
 cause, outside of its ear, consequently, alongside of other things, 
 which is, and means, in space. As its action is perpetually from 
 analysis to synthesis, noting all its phenomena, simple or compound, 
 in single-file succession, one by one, each after the other, as they 
 dive up in the moving endless chain of duration's ever-flowing 
 moments ; it is emphatically the sense of time, or floating and 
 fleeting duration, that is, eternity, in motion. Hence, from the 
 preceding, it is clear, that the volume and form of the phenom- 
 ena, the intervals between their action, the diversity of direction 
 in their approach, give hearing, in its sum total, as clear and dis- 
 tinct, although a differently modified, perception of the primary 
 conditions and forms, underlying all existence, as they are furnished 
 by sight, including extension, length, breadth, hight, and depth, full- 
 ness, vacuity, size, locality, shape, form, rest, motion, force, gravity, 
 vitality, organism, composition, construction, Quality, regularity, order, 
 symmetry, and beauty, perceiving the latter in its highest perfection, 
 in a series of multiform motion and action, whose whole and parts 
 move in consummate union, which it terms Harmony. 
 
110 THE TEMPLE OF TETTTH. 
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 ANALYSIS OF THE IMPRESSIONS FROM PHENOMENA UPON THE 
 SENSE OF TOUCH. 
 
 1. The sense of touch, tact, or form, so far as the nature of its 
 perceptions, in general, is concerned, is diffused all over man's skin, 
 for wherever any thing comes in contact with his skin, at any part 
 of the body, he experiences, more or less distinct, one or the other, 
 or several of the impressions, detailed below, in §6 and 7. But 
 this sense is concentrated, as it were, into a specific organ, perform- 
 ing functions in reach of no other sense, and absolutely needed by 
 all the senses, to consummate and bind their separate action into a 
 perfect whole. The object of touch is the form, texture, woof, 
 consistence, and quality of things, as expressed upon their surface. 
 Touch is, hence, the meeting of two bodies, man's with some other, 
 and the sundry phenomena resulting from that event, constitute 
 the impressions we are here to count up. These impressions, in 
 general, are made upon every part of the skin, since the great nervous 
 tree is found to be present in some one of its innumerable twiglets 
 upon the whole surface. 
 
 2. The main seat of touch has, however, its headquarters in the 
 tips of the fingers of the human hand, and a second dwelling and 
 machinery, less perfect than the first, in the toes of the feet. It 
 there resides in a number of small, round, tender, little warts, in- 
 visible to the naked eye, ramified out, as diminutive branchlets of 
 itself, by the principal nerve of touch. Whenever objects are 
 touched by the fingers, these little warts erect themselves, in an 
 active attitude, and thereby enable touch to perform its functions, 
 by a scrutinizing examination, in a reliable manner. 
 
 3. The medium whereby touch operates, is the caloric or temper- 
 ature of warmth pervading and surrounding its organ at the time of 
 action. For, when the skin is chilled and stiff from cold, and 
 hand and fingers are benumbed with icy-freezing, the sense of 
 touch performs either no action at all, or none that results in relia- 
 ble impressions. Touch differs from the senses of sight and hear- 
 
ANALYSIS OF THE PHENOMENA OF TOUCH. Ill 
 
 ing, in one highly important particular. What the eye sees and 
 the ear hears, are all forces or their acts, out of man, more or less 
 distant, which may, or may not, come into his actual immediate 
 presence. But no sooner does man touch a thing, than he is 
 " face to face " with that, which may be his greatest friend or most 
 deadly foe ; and, the very next instant, may feel himself encircled 
 by the arms of a loving heart, or in the grasp of a crushing mon- 
 ster, opening the very jaws of death. 
 
 4. Touch forms, as it were, a bodily eye, for the sense of feeling, 
 in order to inform feeling, at some distance, of the external form 
 which things have for it. On the other hand, touch forms for 
 sight and the intellect a second or microscopic eye, reporting such 
 phenomena of things, whereby thought is brought with their 
 properties and nature, "face to face." Touch, thus springing from, 
 and acting conjointly in the name of, and for intellect and soul, 
 mind and body, vitality and organism, the infinite and finite in 
 man, at one and the same time, has, at all times, instinctively been 
 regarded by the common consciousness of mankind, as the most 
 reliable of the exterior senses, and as not liable to be imposed upon 
 by chronic or normal idiosyncrasies, occasionally attaching to indi- 
 vidual sight or hearing, or produced by some fanciful lusus natures, 
 affecting the same like actual realities. Hence the disinclination 
 of Thomas, the apostle, to rely upon the statement of his friends ; 
 based, as he supposed, upon their senses of sight and hearing alone, 
 and his reluctance to credit the fact as such, surely desired by him- 
 self as much to be true as any of his colleagues ; yet, not willing 
 to accept it as such, until corroborated by touch, as that sense 
 whose report even skepticism personified has not the hardihood, in 
 good earnest, to draw in question, or doubt its testimony, 
 
 5. Touch is subject to the same main laws of perception that 
 govern sight and hearing. Like the former, it perceives its objects 
 to exist in space, alongside of one another ; and, like both, it can 
 act upon them only analytically, that is, examine them and their 
 properties only one after another, or in time. Hence the classifi- 
 cations or categories, as resulting from sight and hearing, underly, 
 as laws of apperception, the action of touch, as they do the former. 
 Hence it knows space and time, expansion, and duration, whole and 
 parts, with their dividing meters ; knows plenitude and emptiness, 
 
112 THE TEMPLE OF TEUTH. 
 
 size and locality, shape and form, rest and motion, force and gravity, 
 vitality and organism, composition and construction, inlierence and 
 quality, regularity and order, symmetry and beauty, and lias even, at 
 times, some faint surmise of diversity from color. 
 
 6. All these various conceptions touch derives from a small num- 
 ber of primary impressions, forming the elements resulting from its 
 contact with nature and its things and forces. These are called : 
 1.) Compact and loose ; 2.) stationary and moving ; 3.) solid and 
 fluid ; 4.) hard and soft; 5.) rigid and elastic; 6.) stiff and flexible; 
 7.) brittle and tough; 8.) rcw<?/i and smooth, also tender ; 9.) evm 
 and uneven; 10.) adhesive and slippery; 11.) #wc& and £/m?; 12.) 
 yme and coarse, and not only the elements of all form, as noted in 
 Chapter X, § 3, c, consisting of the single point and its versatile- 
 combinations, but, likewise, the forms again resulting by combining 
 these with the above-named elementary phenomena, whereby touch 
 obtains the impressions of : sharp and dull, round and cornery, 
 straight and crooked, with similar items, all appertaining to form and 
 its qualities resulting therefrom. 
 
 7. a.) As feeling is the central sense of organism, and the organs 
 of each sense are, as such, parts thereof, there are several of the 
 impressions inherently belonging to feeling, experienced also in all 
 the senses, and some of them in one or more. Thus pain or its 
 absence is experienced in all the senses when in a morbid or healthy 
 state. Thus, likewise, the impressions of heat and cold, dry and 
 ivet, strong and weak, light and heavy, are experienced by touch and 
 feeling in common. &.) And so is the sense of touch, as diffused in 
 the skin and whole surface of the body, more or less impressed by 
 all the phenomena we have counted up, in the preceding paragraph, 
 when touched by objects upon any of its parts ; but these im- 
 pressions can nowhere be defined and determined with the clear- 
 ness and precision, given to them, when resulting from contact with 
 the main seat of the organ in the points of the fingers. 
 
 8. a.) The impression of compact and loose, resulting, the first 
 from the combination of fullness and solidity, and the latter of 
 fullness and vacuity, become the parent of most of the other im- 
 pressions, as they are only properties or qualities of the conception 
 body, which is, in this primary impression, reported as existing, or 
 present to touch, b.) The next quality in the compact or loose, 
 
ANALYSIS OF THE PHENOMENA OF TOUCH. 113 
 
 ascertained by touch, is stationary and moving. Stationary, touch 
 calls the object passively submitting to examination ; moving, that 
 which, self-acting, obstructs or prevents the same. From these two 
 qualities, touch derives the impressions of motion and rest, force 
 and gravit}', cause and effect, c.) Solid, is for touch, that whose 
 particles adhering, resist it, and do not part by forcible contact 
 with its organ ; fluid or liquid, it terms, what unresistingly admits 
 the organ's immersion into its body, so as to occupy, at option, 
 any spot of its locality ; d.) hard, touch terms the solid upon the 
 surface of which it can effect no perceptible sign of, and by, its 
 organ's pressure ; soft, it terms what admits that same ; e.) rigid, 
 touch calls the hard which, does not bend; elastic, that, which 
 yielding to force, resumes its attitude when force ceases to act ; /.) 
 stiff, is the solid that bends to more, flexible, that which bends to 
 less, force ; g.) brittle, is the rigid, which, attempting to bend it, is 
 breaking ; tough or tenacious, the hard, refusing to break or part to 
 repeated tendings ; h.) rough, is a surface irregularly uneven ; 
 smooth, one of equal particles so closely conjoined as if polished ; 
 i.) even, is the plane, all whose lines of surface run horizontal ; 
 uneven, that deviating from it ; 7c.) adhesive, is named, by touch, 
 the sticky quality of the soft tenaciously clinging to other bodies ; 
 slippery, the opposite, refusing so to adhere ; I.) thick or thin, is an 
 impression received by touch from solids as well as fluids, denoting 
 the form of volume in the first, and the various degrees of 
 liquidity in the consistency of the latter ; m.) sharp and dull, and 
 similar impressions of hard, when conjoined with form, denoting 
 presence or absence of pointed and keen edge, announces to feeling 
 the necessity of care and caution, in its intercourse with things 
 around it, proclaiming, from outside of its door, that they can 
 cause pain by stings, cuts, and bruises. 
 
 9. a.) By dint of much practice the sense of touch may become 
 so expert and refined, as to become enabled to discover and detect 
 qualities in things, which the sight of the keenest eye is, often, 
 unable immediately to perceive. Tellers in banks are known, 
 while so rapidly counting as your eye can follow, to fling out, as 
 soon as touching with their fingers, a piece of counterfeit coin, 
 without so much as ever looking at it. b.) Blind mendicants know 
 .he value of an alms, and what metal it is, as soon as it touches 
 
114: THE TEMPLE OF TRUTH. 
 
 their hand, although it may, to sight, resemhle half a dozen other 
 coins in size, shape, and make so closely, that the seeing man does 
 not know their difference in the dark, c.) It is even reported, 
 on good authority, that a man born blind was enabled to detect 
 the existence of difference to his touch, in surfaces of different 
 colors. To these differences he could, of course, attach no im- 
 pressions similar to those derived from sight. But he described 
 the mode and kind of these impressions upon his touch, by analogy 
 to sound impressing his hearing. Thus, he stated, that the im- 
 pression upon him from the color of scarlet, had a resemblance to 
 that from the glaring sounds of the trumpet. 
 
 10. Regularity, order, symmetry, and beauty, are no strangers to 
 the sense of touch. It is known that new visitors, who came to 
 pay their respects to Pfeffel, the blind, highly-gifted German poet, 
 had to accord to him the privilege of examining their countenances, 
 by touching its parts with his fingers, like phrenologists examine 
 peoples' skulls ; whereby he gathered his notion of its expression, 
 by parts as well as whole. Among the guests thus visiting was 
 also, at one time, Gibbon, the celebrated English historian ; and at 
 another, the woman, no less celebrated as an author, Madame De 
 Stael, — both of which renowned personages are known to have been 
 possessed of rather homely faces. Pfeffel, who knew their works 
 and literary fame long before their visit, is reported as becoming 
 unusually surprised by discovering through his examination, the 
 great discrepancy between the actual form of their physiognomy, 
 and the rather beautiful one he had expected to find them pos- 
 sessed of. 
 
ANALYSIS OF TIIE PHENOMENA OF SMELL. 115 
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 ANALYSIS OF THE IMPRESSIONS MADE BY PHENOMENA UPON THE 
 SENSE OF SMELL. 
 
 The sense of smell is located in the olfactory nerve, descending 
 from the brain, and expanding itself in the form of a tenderly sensi- 
 tive skin, within the cavities of the nose, called the nostrils. As in 
 hearing, the medium of this sense is the surrounding atmosphere. 
 
 2. As the earth is surrounded by the atmosphere, so every 
 body and thing upon it, has a special atmosphere around it, of its 
 own, formed by the exhalation and exudation of the action of its 
 component and chemical parts. The effluvia from this smaller 
 atmosphere of things, absorbed by, and mixing with, the air we 
 inhale in breathing, form the objects of smell, — and the perception 
 of their impressing phenomena upon the olfactory nerves, consti- 
 tutes the act of smelling. 
 
 3. Of all the senses, smelling is that which, thus far, has given 
 us, as yet, the smallest number of accurately defined impressions ; 
 although its field embraces an indefinite number. For the whole 
 of that number, we have merely two general classes ; and even for 
 these, we have only names, expressing that the one class attracts, and 
 the other repels us, — which we term odoriferous or fragrant, and 
 stinking or fetid. The names, aroma, perfume, and stench denote, the 
 two first only causes of pleasant sensations upon smell, — and the 
 latter, a cause as well as an extreme state of opposite impres- 
 sions. The terms, sweet-scented, odorous, odorate, and pungent, are 
 not more definite, as denoting a fixedly-figured phenomena, than 
 the preceding. 
 
 4. The action of this sense, consists in a pleasant or disagreeable 
 tickling of the smelling nerves, caused by the fine vapors and fumes 
 of things, mixed with the inhaling air ; thus showing the composi- 
 tion, not only of the circumfloating atmosphere itself, but indicating, 
 more or less clearly, the cause of its attractive or repulsive character. 
 Smell is known to affect nervous persons, to the degree of fainting 
 and swoon. There are, also, facts known, showing the subsistence 
 
 10 
 
116 THE TEMPLE OF TRUTH. 
 
 of some, as yet unexplained, connection between certain phenomena 
 of this sense, and the faculty of memory and reminiscence. 
 
 5. The main point and fact which we have to record of this 
 sense, is, that nature has made and posted it as a special sentinel, 
 permanently appointed to watch over and protect man's health and 
 life, — forcing him to avoid, reject, and flee from, that which, either 
 as foul and poisoned air, and destructive gases entering his lungs, 
 becomes pernicious for his blood and vital forces, or capable of de- 
 priving him of life, often instantly, or as food approaching the 
 mouth in a state of putrescent decomposition, or as unfitted by 
 nature to constitute nutrimental substance : When, at' once, smell 
 discovering their noxious nature, warns man of the danger impend- 
 ing, and forcibly impels him, by nausea and loathing, aversion and 
 disgust, to separate, as quickly as may be, all connection and con- 
 tact with the repulsive and pains- threatening atmosphere or object. 
 
 CHAPTER XV. 
 
 ANALYSIS OF THE IMPRESSIONS FROM PHENOMENA UPON THE 
 SENSE OF TASTE. 
 
 1. The sense of taste, residing in the mouth, has its seat upon 
 the upper part and the two side-edges of the tongue. Like in 
 touch, its organ consists in a number of small, excitable, nervous 
 warts, by the acting of which, the tasting nerve performs its func- 
 tions. The object of its action, is the impression derived from 
 close and intimate contact with the elmentary chemical particles, in- 
 herent in the composition of things introduced into the mouth. 
 
 2. The medium of its action, is the saliva, contained in the 
 glandules of the tongue and mouth, which, called forth by the 
 process of mastication, mixing with and dissolving the salts con- 
 tained in the masticated solids, or present in a dissolved state 
 within the imbibing liquids, inducted into the mouth, pierce into 
 the nervous little warts, causing therein the sensation we term 
 tasting. 
 
ANALYSIS OF THE PHENOMENA OF TASTE. 117 
 
 3. The object of tasting, is to ascertain and identify, as it were, 
 by a preliminary probing process, the properties and qualities in- 
 herently residing in the nature and essence of the things, and 
 whether premonitorily friendly or opposite, — which, by the act of 
 eating and drinking, we are about to introduce into, and incorporate 
 with, our inmost physical self. Hence, taste is placed as a second 
 and more inexorable sentinel than smell, at the very door of man's 
 life, — between his concupiscent appetites, and the external attrac- 
 tions of things thereupon, to guard him against the noxious and 
 dangerous qualities hiddenly therewith combined. For, if it hap- 
 pens that some substance, as yet unknown by taste and quality, 
 but inviting man by pleasant odor and aspect, to try using it as 
 food ; if its taste proves nauseous or uncommonly acrid and irritat- 
 ing to the organ, — the mouth at once, of its own accord, by instinc- 
 tive mechanism, will spit and spew it out, as knowing the future 
 fact beforehand, that its induction into the stomach, and thence by 
 digestion into the blood and inmost system, would have its un- 
 avoidable consequences, consisting surely in pain, perhaps in disease 
 and prostration, and possibly, even in death and dissolution itself. 
 
 4. The impressions made upon taste, by the manifold articles 
 used as food and drink, are countless in number and kind ; yet, 
 as in smell, we have only a few classes which possess a definite, 
 fixed and positive character, which we call, sweet, sour, hitter, salt. 
 There are impressions obtained by taste from various things, ap- 
 pearing in a character not quite so well defined. These we name 
 pungent, acrid, pricking, sharp, harsh, mild, etc.; and some, as found 
 in pepper and other spices, we denote as burning. Heat or cold, in 
 drinks and eatables, modify their impression upon taste materially, 
 in proportion to the degree thereof present. 
 
 5. Again, like in smell, taste has but few words, to denote, with 
 specific accuracy, the difference between the numberless tastings 
 impressing themselves, from the various objects, upon its organ. 
 The whole variety of taste, which we like and relish, or dislike 
 and repel, — we synthesize into one class for each, calling it either 
 good or bad ; and what we like or dislike in a higher degree, we 
 denote as of a delicious, delicate, rare, dainty, nice flavor, or call its 
 taste, nauseous, loathsome, disgusting, abominable. 
 
 6. Smell first disclosed to man the presence of different states 
 
118 THE TEMPLE OF TRUTH. 
 
 inherent in things, not accessible to sight, hearing, or touch. Taste 
 next came, disclosing in sweet, sour, bitter, salt, etc., the actual 
 presence of divers indwelling qualities therein. Thereby, spurred 
 from the vast impulses to avoid pain, cure disease, secure longevity 
 and wealth, the inquisitive mind was first led into, and for a 
 good while kept wandering in, the labyrinthic mazes of imaginary 
 alchemy ; but from it, by good luck and common sense combined, 
 gradually discovered and found the genuine track of real chem- 
 istry, and in it the key, promising, by-and-by, to reduce its ele- 
 ments, until man shall find their actual number, as it lies at the 
 bottom of nature and the foundation of all things in creation. 
 
 CHAPTER XYI. 
 
 OBSERVATIONS AND FACTS PREPARING THE ANALYSIS OF THE 
 SENSE OF FEELING. 
 
 1. As we found the sense of touch to be diffused, in a general 
 shape, all over man's exterior surface upon every spot of the bare 
 skin : so now we find the sense of feeling, as ubiquitous or omni- 
 present within that skin, throughout the whole system, — yet, in 
 some localities more concentrated, and differently modified, than 
 in others. 
 
 2. The organs of all the other senses, which we have examined 
 hitherto, are all located in certain parts or portions of man's nervous 
 system, — even not excepting touch, spread over the outside sur- 
 face, as a part merely, of the wondrous whole. The nervous sys- 
 tem, in consonance with the rest of nature and man, thus far seen, 
 presents a dualistic whole, of which the upper pole, charged with the 
 functions combined with thought and spontaneity or voluntary motion, 
 consists in a trinity of combined organs, embracing, 1.) the cerebrum 
 or large brain ; 2.) the cerebellum or small brain ; and, 3.) the spinal 
 marrow, — as an elongation of the same. The nether pole of the 
 nervous web. constituting the superintendent and active agent in 
 the reproductive and preserving, — hence, vegetative or involuntary 
 
OBSERVATIONS, ETC., RELATIVE TO FEELING. 119 
 
 operations appertaining to the economy of the organism, has its 
 seat and centre in the so called ganglionic system, located in the rear 
 of the stomach, near the pit of the heart. 
 
 3. Although each of these two poles, has thus its separate organ- 
 ization, and a sphere of action independent of the other, — there yet 
 subsists an organized connection between the two, effected by the 
 great sympathetic nerve, — combining, with nerves issuing from the 
 cerebral, vertebral, and ganglionic systems, into one. 
 
 4. The organ of the sense of feeling, is, therefore, no longer a 
 separate nerve or part of the system, — but the whole double appa- 
 ratus above described, is its machinery, combined into one unitary 
 whole. The force which acts by and through this machinery, is 
 vitality, or that living essence, which constitutes the life of man 
 itself. Its objects are the perceptions of the various states of its 
 own condition, as they announce themselves, more or less dis- 
 tinctly, from time to time. These perceptions are obtained where 
 ever that force is present, — which, active through, by, and in, the 
 nerves, has been denominated the nervous fluid, — but nowhere, 
 where it is absent. Hence it is, with good reason, regarded as 
 identical with vitality or physical life itself; and thereby, no longer 
 needing a foreign or exterior medium of action, is the very force 
 acted upon itself, in perceiving, by feelings, how far the various 
 parts and particles, admitted and received within its inner sphere, 
 are, and have become one and homogeneous with it in action and 
 nature, assisting in producing and upholding well-being, or creating 
 pain and fomenting discord, show themselves still more or less for- 
 eign and antagonistic thereto. 
 
 5. In Chap, ix, \ 7, part ii, we have called the desiring, willing, 
 and enjoying force of man, soul, — shown it as a dualism of two 
 poles, the upper one of which, we have termed the sphere of 
 sensibility, and the lower one that of sensation. Now, the sense 
 of feeling, — of which we are at present speaking, is alike the 
 medium for the two named spheres, and the phenomena respec- 
 tively occurring in each. Hence, its action is twofold ; first, on 
 the one hand, presenting, in its lower sphere of sensation, all the 
 phenomena strictly appertaining to physical pain or pleasure, — and 
 secondly, on the other hand, all the phenomena, which, as psychical 
 facts, under the names of passions, affections, emotions, joyous or 
 
120 THE TEMPLE OF TKUTH. 
 
 grieving, — are experienced as states of the soul, in the (upper or) 
 sphere of sensibility. 
 
 6. In Chap, xi, § 6, b. etc., we have shown that the primary 
 colors run upon a sliding-scale, whereby, through addition or sub- 
 traction of more or less of the positive or the negative ingredient, 
 they are made to run one into the other, forward or backward ; as 
 likewise that by the various combinations of their elements, — all 
 the multiform varieties of their shades are produced. Now, the 
 sense of feeling is exactly such a sliding-scale, whereby the impres- 
 sions perceived in the two halves composing it, they being com- 
 bined in the middle, run constantly one into the other, and call up 
 by sympathetic action, that state in the passive part of the spheres, 
 which corresponds to the state prevailing in the one that is active. 
 
 7. As the soul is the 'binding ligament between the mind and 
 the body, exists hence with and in the mind, as well as with and 
 in tbe body, — hence, as it were, midway between the infinite aspira- 
 tions of spiritual nature, and the earthly wants of the body, — per- 
 petually calling for supply ; its state is necessarily influenced by 
 the conviction, that its interest demands earnest attendance to both. 
 In order to get a clear insight into the action of each of the two 
 spheres, into which our sense of feeling has thus split itself, we 
 will have to examine them separately, one after another, thereby 
 making two parts of the investigation : 1.) analyzing the painful 
 or pleasant phenomena of feeling impressed upon sensation, as ap- 
 pertaining primarily to the feelings of the body ; and, 2.) the phe- 
 nomena originating within the sensibility-sphere of the soul itself, 
 consisting in its joys or sufferings. 
 
ANALYSIS, ETC., OF BODILY FEELING. 121 
 
 CHAPTER XVII. 
 
 ANALYSIS OF THE PHENOMENA OF FEELING, IMPRESSED UPON 
 SENSATION AS ORIGINATING IN THE BODY. 
 
 The pains or pleasures experienced in the body, are derived from 
 seven sources, as follows : 
 
 1. From hunger and thirst, — trie cravings of which, when urgent, 
 causing the painful sensations denoted by their name, we also de- 
 rive those pleasant ones, experienced when, by eating and drink- 
 ing, driving away the unpleasant feelings, we likewise satiate a 
 good appetite, and with zest do justice to the good delectable 
 things of the table. All these sensations of relish and gusto are to 
 be clearly discriminated from those specifically experienced by 
 the sense of taste, as belonging to its sphere alone, during the 
 same process. 
 
 2. From heat and cold. Extreme states of temperature in the 
 atmosphere surrounding man, or the natural action of the force 
 called fire, — acting upon him, when no longer under his control, 
 produce two opposite states of highly unpleasant and painful feel- 
 ings upon his body ; the one, by impressing his normal warmth 
 with a superior and even destructive degree of heat, which he 
 terms sultry, hot, oppressive, burning ; the other, cold, by absorbing- 
 man's normal quantity of caloric faster than the action of the sys- 
 tem is able to reproduce it, — thereby causing the impressions which 
 he calls cold, chilling, freezing. 
 
 3. From other forces and conditions of nature. Wet and dry, 
 pleasant and unpleasant weather, affect man's bodily feeling, bracing 
 or depressing it. The solid mass will stun or crush him, when 
 falling upon him, or he on it ; its sharp and other forms, when 
 coming in sudden contact therewith, will wound him by cuts, 
 stings, or bruises. The liquid, when falling into it, will drown or 
 suffocate him ; which latter, some conditions of the solid, as like- 
 wise the fluid air will do, if devoid of life- sustaining ingredients. 
 
 4. From health or disease. Health is the normal condition of 
 the body, when its natural functions progress, as it were, in silent 
 
122 THE TEMPLE OP TRUTH. 
 
 order, — giving to feeling a kind of buoyant, joyous freedom, coupled 
 with the consciousness of the presence of a certain quantity of 
 inherent force or strength, and devoid of the perception of pain 
 within from interior causes. Disease, being the opposite or abnor- 
 mal state, is usually a series, as well as an assortment, of many 
 kinds of ills, strung together into one fertile source of bodily pain, 
 weakness, and prostration ; and hence, ordinarily, calculated to pro- 
 duce a corresponding state of dejection within the soul. 
 
 5. From activity and repose. Health, and the order of nature, 
 alike require of man a proper exercise of his forces, by alternation 
 between motion and rest, waking and sleep. It is by feeling, as 
 the sense, through which man obtains the true sensation impressing 
 him as strength or weakness ; in proportion as he feels the gravity 
 of his own body as a foreign burden, or feeling it little, or not at all, 
 is conscious of spare force for moving exterior bodies, in addition 
 to his own, — terming their impression, objectively, light and heavy; 
 and, subjectively, easy or hard. The rational application of strength, 
 when in health, gives feeling no pain, as long as within bounds ; 
 but rather a sensation of physical well-being, conjoined with one 
 of psychical satisfaction within the soul. But when these bounds 
 are transgressed beyond all reason, by excessive exercise, protracted 
 toil, or privation of sleep, — nature demurs by impressing the un- 
 answerably valid plea of painful fatigue, languid exhaustion, and 
 fainting prostration, and compels man to surrender to repose and 
 sleep, as the healing remedy. As long as the proper bounds are 
 observed by man, between labor and repose, — their change causes 
 pleasure ; for the gratification of sleep to the weary, is a real enjoy- 
 ment, as long as drowsy, half-conscious slumber, retains a dumb 
 knowledge of the delicious restorative. And, after enjoyed rest, 
 attractive labor, is a real pleasure to renovated strength. 
 
 6. From sexual connection. Man, by nature's order, split into 
 two dualistic sexual halves, receives individual existence only by 
 their union into one procreative whole. To secure the duration 
 of the race, nature's author has deposited into each sex separate 
 forces and qualities, which, differing like parts belonging to one 
 whole, attract, and need, one another. When reaching the age of 
 puberty, this attraction, by inherent creative impulse of love, 
 matures into a mutual want, — to the gratification of which, nature's 
 
PHENOMENA OF THE SPHERE OF SENSIBILITY. 123 
 
 ruler has attached a unique state of highly excited physical feel- 
 ing, partaking of the nature of a gratifying sensation, denoted by 
 language, with the term voluptuous. And on the other hand, he has, 
 fastened to the premature use, as well as to the abuse at any time, 
 of this procreative capacity, not only a prostration of health and 
 strength, but also a string of diseases, so variously painful, horrible, 
 and loathsome, that their proper knowledge, if duly understood 
 beforehand by the victims of lust, might go far in warning them of, 
 and protecting them against, a terrible, inevitably impending fate. 
 7. Finally, as the perceptions of the senses are translated into 
 thoughts, by the action of the understanding, termed conceptions ; 
 in like manner, all physical pains and pleasures, are translated by 
 sensation into feelings within the soul, felt in its sphere of sensi- 
 bility, as joy and sadness, hope or fear, on account of health, life, or 
 death. And, vice versa, have all the sensations of the soul likewise 
 their proper organs in the body, whereupon they act, making them- 
 selves felt as physical impressions. Thus, violent passions, and 
 sudden excitations of extreme love, hate, anger, or terror, — not only 
 are seen to prostrate the system, produce spasms, hysterics, and 
 fainting, — nay, are known to have caused apoplexy, and even death 
 itself. Additionally, it may be noted down here, that tickling and 
 itching, form two kinds of sensual feelings, strictly belonging to 
 bodily feeling. 
 
 CHAPTER XVIII 
 
 THE PHENOMENA ORIGINATING IN THE SENSIBILITY-SPHERE OF THE 
 SOUL, CONSTITUTING THE SOURCES OF ITS JOYS AND SUFFERINGS. 
 
 1. The joys or sufferings, as the pleasurable or painful phe- 
 nomena experienced within the upper pole of the soul must be 
 named, consist in two opposite states of excitation more or less per- 
 manent or transient, whereby the ordinary state of its composure 
 is pleasantly or painfully interrupted, and forced, for a longer or 
 shorter period, to give place to another of a different character. 
 The elements of these states, as we have found in those of colors, 
 perceived bv sight, are made up of two opposites, running often 
 11 
 
124 THE TEMPLE OF TRUTH. 
 
 one id to another, and, by blending, produce various degrees of ad- 
 mixture. One of these states, that of joy and enjoyment, the soul 
 is forever desiring and yearning after; and the opposite, that of 
 sadness and deprivation, it forever makes exertions to avoid and flee. 
 
 2. In Chap, ix, \ 10, let. b, — we define the soul's aspirations as : 
 " Loathing fear, trouble, grief, enmity and hate; and yearning after 
 security, peace, joy, friendship, and love." It is, hence, clear, that all 
 things and forces within the universe, can belong for the soul, to 
 one or the other of the two respective classes only, as above denned, 
 in proportion as they are instrumental in promoting its main aim, — 
 joy and its enjoyment ; and contribute to remove or ward-off all 
 opponents, harming, or threatening harm, from the opposite quarter. 
 
 3. By the name of soul, we denote the executive power of man's 
 being ; constituting equally the highly irritable force that enjoys, 
 sensates, and resolves, which, hitherto, known by the various names 
 of : will, volition, heart, temperament, disposition, etc., will be found 
 to exhibit and perform all the various functions ascribed to any one 
 wud all of these. For, all phenomena in man, which are neither 
 thought nor sensual feelings or external perceptions, do hence 
 belong neither to the intellect, nor to the physical life of the body, 
 such as, passions, affections, emotions, resolutions, etc., whether fixed 
 or transient ; but must be ascribed to this third force, wherein mind 
 and body, becoming blended into one, are therein equally repre- 
 sented and interested, — as forming within it, one unitary, desiring, 
 willing, and acting human being. 
 
 4. As hence the soul is, per se, neither a thinking (for its intellect 
 thinks for it), nor a perceptive (for the senses perceive for it), nor a 
 formative power (for fancy and imagination furnish all its forms), — 
 it is the centre of all these ; and embracing, with never-doubting 
 faith and ardor, what these three sources report to it, as : beautiful, 
 true, and good (no matter whether correctly or not), it fixes there- 
 upon the focus of its affections, its reverse, upon their opposites, — 
 and thereby makes itself one boundless passion of assorted love, with 
 a corresponding shadow of assorted hate ; hating the very necessity 
 of being forced to harbor hate at all. 
 
 5. The soul finds itself, at all times, in the presence of six 
 objects, acting upon it, — now as positive, and at another time as 
 negative forces, — furnishing it all the various material, upon which 
 
PHENOMENA OF THE SPHERE OF SENSIBILITY. 125 
 
 to exercise its love and the attractions and repulsions thereof, as neg- 
 ative or positive action urges. Finding itself existing amidst these 
 by necessity, and bound thus to continue existing, aspiring, and act- 
 ing with, and among them, — they constitute the causes and sources 
 of its joys and griefs, all resulting from its relations to the same. 
 These are : a.) The soul knows that it began to be and exist, at a 
 specific point in time, — knows, hence, that a superior power had 
 being and existence before its birth, and is the cause thereof ; that, 
 therefore, that power always was, and ever will be, while the soul 
 knows that its career on earth is bounded by limits of time. It is 
 taught by its intellect, that this supreme power is absolute, and named 
 God, — meaning, a being infinitely powerful, perfect, and good. 
 Intellect informs the soul, that this being, alone, as its primary 
 source, is worthy of its boundless affection, and alone capable of sup- 
 plying its infinite wishes and wants, b.) The soul feels married to 
 the mind, — whose needs for knowledge, science and truth, become 
 hence its own. c.) It feels married no less to the body, — must, 
 therefore, partake of all its feelings of pleasure or pain, of whatever 
 sort, from any of the causes precedingly analyzed, and hence share 
 its condition as long as life endures. For this body, it must have 
 a local liome ; and for its and the whole man's wants, a sphere of 
 action furnishing the means of supply, cl.) The soul finds itself 
 incased and circumfloated by nature, whose tones teach it the actual 
 existence of one grand harmony prevailing throughout its vast 
 fields. That harmony the soul yearns to behold established within 
 and between itself and all things and their primary source, e.) The 
 soul sees itself surrounded by a world full of other souls, all resem- 
 bling it in every main feature, and all intent and forced, like itself 
 by necessity, to aspire and strive for realizing their inner life, what- 
 ever that be, into outside actuality. With all these, and their ex- 
 terior arrangements, the soul desires peace and good neighborship, 
 if it can have them without surrendering the innate inheritance of 
 rights and obligations it knows itself possessed of and charged with, 
 from its eternal source. /.) The soul, finally, knows itself to be of 
 one or the other sex, of its dualistic species ; and, as male or 
 female, longs for its mate, to make its moiety of being one entire 
 whole. Hence, it needs a spouse, to be its husband or wife, — into 
 whose affectionate bosom to stream over the magic effluvia of its 
 
126 THE TEMPLE OF TRUTH. 
 
 own, and gratify the yearnings of procreative love, within those 
 sacred bounds consecrated alike by God, nature, necessity and cJioice. 
 
 6. Born into the world as a child, in a condition utterly igno- 
 rant and powerless, — man, starting from this zero-point of knowl- 
 edge, grows up amidst life's institutions, generally existing, ready- 
 made, before his arrival. Unable to judge and duly survey the true 
 degree of their inherent use and value during his earlier years, he 
 gradually reaches the period of mature reflection, — and the soul, 
 step by step, becoming conscious, of its nature, wants, needs, and 
 high destiny, and the means required to reach it, — begins, for the 
 first time, from this higher stand-point, with its own eyes, and for 
 its own purposes, closely to examine the things and relations around 
 itself, in order to ascertain, to a certainty, how far their condition 
 answers its purposes, or opposes them. 
 
 7. It soon discovers, that the men living before it, must, in the 
 main, have felt the same wants and necessities with itself, and for 
 the purpose of supplying the same, went to work establishing 
 various institutions, believed by them, in their time, to promote or 
 secure the objects in view. Thus, it finds, a.) the school in its 
 various grades as a medium to fill the vacant mind by regular 
 instruction with fact, and lead the intellect into possession of knowl- 
 edge, science, and truth h.) It sees what is termed religion, and the 
 church, intended to preserve man in a true relation with his God 
 and neighbor, and thereby with himself, and thus secure to him 
 a heaven, c.) It sees men, more or less, provided with a home, tem- 
 porary or permanent in tenure, their industrial capacity divided into 
 a variety of pursuits, trades, and callings, offering a more or less 
 favorable opportunity to gift and inclination, in choosing a sphere 
 of action whereby to supply the means, more or less reliably, to 
 man's various wants and ends, d.) Though not discovering that 
 harmonious order in the arrangements of man, which it beholds in 
 the action of nature, the soul still perceives order to some degree, 
 and of a certain kind to subsist therein, — making it to its hope, still 
 a possibility to exist and act therein, in a manner to preserve its 
 own life, health, vigor and strength, and thereby remain individually 
 in harmony with nature, e.) The soul finds the existence of state 
 and government, as an institution originally devised to secure equal 
 justice and protection to all the souls under its panoply, — meant to 
 
PHENOMENA OF THE SPHERE OP SENSIBILITY. 127 
 
 be efficacious alike against aggression from within or witlwut, and 
 intended to employ and apply the vast power of the aggregated 
 whole for the greatest benefit of all its individual parts. /.) It, 
 finally, finds marriage and family as an established institution, de- 
 signed to confine the gratification of the sexual procreative prin- 
 ciple within the self-chosen bounds of mutual affection, thereby 
 securing the health and highest bliss of the enjoyers ; securing a 
 regard to unexpressed, pre-emptional rights, of generations unborn, 
 to a sound, vigorous constitution, upon the generators giving them 
 existence ; securing affectionate parents, and a home to the tender 
 new comer, pervaded with an atmosphere of loving solicitude and 
 vigilant care, anxious from kindness, and throw the mantle of do- 
 mestic felicity over all the denizens, which are parts of this pri- 
 mary element and smallest miniature of state as well as heaven, thus 
 making love, within this centralized polytechnic school, the first 
 practical teacher to all its inmates of primarily-living religion, 
 ethics, science, art, trade, exchange of labor, love, and thought, 
 state, government, true order and genuine politics. 
 
 8. Man, on entering existence, is, by nature's hand, constructed 
 and compounded of seven elementary or cardinal impelling princi- 
 ples, being either inherent, as positively existing forces, or being, 
 partly the result of working forces present in him, which, as he 
 grows up into man or woman, develop and form, in connection 
 with the various forces composing the six objects around the soul, 
 named in § 5, letters a, b, c, d, e, and f, what is termed the indi- 
 vidual's character. From the framing of this character, and its 
 harmonious or discordant conformation, will depend the individual's 
 real woi-th and value, for himself, his God, and fellow-man. These 
 principles or separate elements of character, in each human being, 
 by presence or absence of opportunity, by will and inclination, and 
 hence by use and habit, are formed into qualities and properties, of 
 his entire nature and being, assuming either a normal or morbid 
 state, and which state is capable of a shifting from the lowest to 
 the highest extreme of intensity, upon its own inherent sliding 
 scale. The morbid state is the cause and source of the negative 
 and defective action which is called vice, sin, and crime ; and the 
 normal state is the source of that positive condition in man, which 
 constitutes morality, piety, and virtue. 
 
128 THE TEMPLE OF TRUTH. 
 
 9. From the presence of the former the consciousness of man 
 realizes, at every moment within the soul, the amount of disappro- 
 bation and condemnation pronounced upon his being and state by 
 his conscience, his God, and fellow-beings ; and, from the latter, 
 the verdict of commendation awarded to the purity of his motives, 
 sentiments, and action, by his central self, his God, and the human 
 race. Hereby man, at all times, knows his actual locality upon the 
 grand sliding scale of eternity's ethics, and whether his spot is in its 
 sunny half, forever ascending " onward and upward " to brighter 
 light and lovelier zones, or is on the opposite half of shade and 
 frigidity, ending downward in depths so terrible and dismal that, 
 exclaiming with the Diver of Schiller : " But tJiere below it's horri- 
 ble!" the eye shudders to cast its glance thereon. By this, man, 
 at all times, knows whether he is his own true friend or foe, the 
 friend or foe of God and the universe, and therein also unerringly 
 sees his real worth and value, or unworth or non- value, for either 
 thereof. The perception of this greatest and most important of all 
 facts for the soul, constitutes the main cause and source of all its 
 joys or griefs, its happiness or misery, and is hence a real heaven 
 or hell, within the sensibility-sphere of its domain, inasmuch as all 
 relations of man, of whatever sort, constitute only parts or rays, all 
 running directly toward this grand focal centre. 
 
 10. The seven elementary principles composing man, acting from 
 their nature with fatal necessity, are : 1.) Self-love or esteem. — As 
 an individualized being, created by Almighty power, man feels 
 himself made "in God's image,'" as well as in that of the universe ; 
 feels, hence, impressed into him, by God himself, his high value, 
 in God's eye, his great dignity and destiny, and the inalienable 
 rights innate and attached to his personal identity or selfhood, and 
 that the same are primarily as luell-founded as those of every other 
 man. Hence, man can truly not form too high an idea or estimate 
 of himself, as long as he derives the meter of its valuation from the 
 proper, his own, source. 2.) Love of Iwme and means to ends. — 
 Existing by necessity, man is forced to protect and prolong that 
 existence ; must, hence, wish to exist as a Jiuman being in a home, 
 such as is indispensably necessary, and must strive after the means 
 to secure life, render it bearable, if not comfortable, and reach its 
 high ends and aims. 3.) Love of sex and family. — When, in a 
 
PHENOMENA OF THE SPHES? OF SENSIBILITY. 129 
 
 normal or healthy state, and arrived at the age of maturity, man, 
 as male or female, is impelled by innate inherent impulse to desire 
 its mate, to melt self-love with outside love, in the fulfillment of 
 the primary law, " to multiply," and thus increase love in and out- 
 side of himself, and the number of the loving. 4.) Love of neigh- 
 lory or its opposite. — Man belonging to, and existing among, man- 
 kind, is impelled to intercourse with men around him, by the 
 double motive of necessity and choice, to exchange labor and 
 thought with them, as they need his peculiar products and thoughts, 
 more or less necessary, like as he needs theirs, as both belong to the 
 grand totality of the universe's action, which would be incomplete 
 in the absence of either, and hence the soul of the infant has an 
 inborn feeling of attachment to the race. This embryonic germ is, by 
 such intercourse, gradually developed or distorted into a fixed form 
 and shape, whose character is either a predominating general good- 
 will or ill-will, well- wish or envy, benevolence or malignity, pre- 
 disposing the inclination, and forming a standing impulse and 
 motive of action, in concrete cases, as they occur. 5.) Love of 
 aliment. — The exterior of man is no perpetual motion, for its flame 
 of life requires air, water, and solid food, as fuel to keep it a- 
 burning. Pain and pleasure combine to force man thus to secure 
 and prolong his existence. The pleasurable feelings attached to 
 the gratification of these natural wants, invite man to overstep their 
 proper bounds, thereby forming habits, making him a slave to his 
 appetites, and seating themselves as fixed passions within the soul, 
 and the mechanism of the organism, urging immoderate and mul- 
 tiplied gratification. The harmonious control of these, and kindred 
 impulses, constitutes that strength of the soul termed self-control, 
 virtue, moderation, sobriety, temperance ; its absence or opposite, 
 the vice of intemperance, inebriety, gluttony, and gormandizing. 6.) 
 Self-love militant. — There exists in man, as in all animated beings, 
 a desire and motive to be left unmolested in the exercise and enjoy- 
 ment of his forces and rights, accompanied with a capacity to resist 
 intrusion and aggression. This principle is needful for self-defense, 
 but may, also, become aggressively belligerent. In it is inherent 
 what is termed combativeness : which, at bottom, is anger or ire, 
 present in a more or less excitable degree of inflammability in all 
 men, and roused whenever their rights, or any thing they value, are 
 
130 THE TEMPLE OF TRUTH. 
 
 touched. The indignation felt by all men against wrong and 
 outrage, is an indication of the presence of anger in the breast of 
 the most peaceable. When extant in the soul, in an unusual 
 measure and degree, this element constitutes its proclivity to sud- 
 den outbursts of irascibility, rising, at times, to morbid uncon- 
 trollableness. 7.) Love of motion or rest — To lie still is death, to 
 always move produces it. Man needs, by nature, an alternation of 
 both ; hence it was made a necessity that he should labor for his 
 bread ; and, forced by fatigue and drowsiness, to seek sleep and 
 rest when exhausted. Thus forced to alternation in labor and 
 repose, enjoyment and relaxation, action and recreation, nature and 
 necessity have assigned certain bounds to both, which he can not 
 overstep with impunity. Possessed of a body, that body has 
 gravity, hence inclining naturally to rest ; forced however to action, 
 its organism, formed of, and always possessing only, a given quan- 
 t'ty of forces, refuses to act, when the same is exhausted. Never- 
 theless, the sweets of repose, with native sluggishness, or the 
 allurements of enticing prospects, may stimulate to extravagance 
 in rest or action, and hence engender a passion for, and fixed habits 
 of, idleness, laziness, indolence, and sloth, or immoderate action, 
 hurry, and over-exertion. 
 
 11. With the living germs of these elementary ingredients of 
 character, man enters the world, unconscious of what, slumberingly 
 within him, composes his being. His surroundings, from infancy 
 to maturity, rouse up and develop these sleeping, into active, forces, 
 variously shaded and mixed, forming a certain number thereof, into 
 habitudes of desire, volition, and action, preponderating more or 
 less, as permanent states in the soul, of which fact, consciousness 
 and self-observation furnish the man a more or less accurate 
 knowledge. The absence or presence of living religion, or converse 
 of the soul with its God, from youth up to the age of puberty, 
 determines whether the soul is to rule its passions, or is to be 
 ruled by them ; as, likewise, whether the malignant or the benig- 
 nant shall incipiently predominate in its developing aspirations. 
 The ground thus laid may either be changed, or finally confirmed, 
 when the individual, as husband or wife, becoming a parent of a 
 family, and an active participating member of community, comes 
 now into the closest and most intimate contact with human nature 
 
PHENOMENA OF THE SPHERE OF SENSIBILITY. 131 
 
 in other beings, and thereby rousing and provoking in a thousand- 
 fold manner, all the latently slumbering, or already partially 
 developed faculties of its own, into actual and practical forces. 
 Every such force, as circumstances happen, may become a perma- 
 nent ruling power or passion ; depressing the harmonio s action of 
 all the rest, as well by forming itself into a known vice, or suppos- 
 ing itself to be a virtue. Every force or passion within the soul 
 is, when self-acting, or acted upon by exterior or interior impres- 
 sions, connected with a corresponding sensation, belonging either to 
 the nature of joy or the opposite; except in cases where the soul 
 discovers the subsistence of no connection whatever of its own 
 interest therewith, when its relation thereto remains one of pure 
 indifference. 
 
 12. Now, when man or woman reaches the age of puberty, expe- 
 rience and reflection have made them acquainted with the presence 
 of the seven elemental ingredients of character within them, as 
 detailed in § 10. They also possess some knowledge of. God, and 
 know that He is present in them, if not as a lover and friend, then 
 as a warner and monitor. Knowing themselves as His highly-favored 
 creatures, they have confidence in Him, although they may have 
 erred, and believe Him disposed to help, assist, and direct them in 
 the building up of that temple of happiness, upon which they look 
 as their paradise or heaven here below ; and, which to raise and 
 construct, they consider themselves authorized and commissioned 
 by the forces and aspirations, they find themselves placed in pos- 
 session of ; and believe such to be the object of their life, and the 
 purpose for which they have been created, feeling a most intense 
 desire and longing thereafter. 
 
 13. Knowing themselves created for one another, man and wo- 
 man enter the state of wedlock, considering it as the primary con- 
 dition of their happiness, and as the one offering the opportunity 
 and occasions to develop their character to completeness and 
 maturity. Thus they launch their bark of partnership into the 
 great ocean of the world, and begin to sail conjointly upon its 
 agitated waters. But they soon begin to discover and observe that 
 the aforenamed ingredients of formative character, are influenced 
 materially by various conditions outside of man, whereby their 
 growth becomes checked or promoted, or even entirely distorted 
 
132 THE TEMPLE OF TRUTH. 
 
 from its original into an opposite form. The leading foreign force 
 thus influencing the configuration of the elements of human char- 
 acter, is discovered to be excess in the absence or presence of means, 
 called property, or extreme poverty and extreme wealth. 
 
 14. a.) Thus selfhood, which, as a proper degree of self-love and 
 esteem, is the pivot of virtue, and the shrine of man's dignity, as 
 a god-made being, if corrupted by poverty or wealth, becomes 
 abject, debasing dependence, and humiliating servility ; or super- 
 cilious pride, haughty insolence, and overbearing arrogance, con- 
 joined with vanity and ambition, in worthless aspirations after 
 renown, fame, honor, or power, b.) The love of home and 
 property as necessary means to rational ends and aims, is controlled 
 by wisdom within proper bounds. But, ruling as a passion, becomes 
 debasing penury, stinginess, and grasping covetousness and avarice. 
 Its absence, conjoined to wealthy folly, becomes senseless dissipa- 
 tion, squandering prodigality, running fast toward beggary, c.) 
 The sexual impulse, designed to be gratified within the sacred 
 boundaries of chaste and virtuous love, and therein becoming the 
 means of reaching to man the cup of highest earthly bliss of which 
 his nature is capable, adding thereunto the divine joys of the en- 
 nobling and humanizing attributes of tenderly-caring parentage ; 
 degenerates into terrible green-eyed jealousy, or into the lascivious, 
 self-destroying licentiousness of nauseating, brutal lust : sacrificing, 
 with cruel heartlessness, the health, happiness, and life of any 
 number of innocent victims, of the opposite sex, to its unholy 
 animal desires, without remorse or hesitation ; poisoning the morals 
 of community, and giving existence to joyless orphaned beings, 
 who curse their progenitors, are a burden to themselves and the 
 world, wherein doomed to a life of misery. This vice, being a sin 
 as well as a crime, curses itself and others with disease, debility, 
 disgust, torture, and endless remorse, d.) The sweet disposition 
 of the soul, which in the child is, and ought to remain, good-will 
 toward all men, and which, in the affectionate soul of the virtuous 
 adult, expands into an active principle of wide-reaching patriotism 
 and cosmopolitan philanthropy; shrinks, in its negative opposite into 
 narrow-hearted ill-will, bitter envy, sour misanthropy, jaundiced 
 malice, and ferocious malignity, having in its motley company all 
 the spirits of the dismal deep ; such as cold derision, merciless 
 
PHENOMENA OF THE SPHERE OP SENSIBILITY. 133 
 
 spite, cruel mockery, pitiless scoff, haughty scorn, proud contempt, 
 unfeeling disdain, base treachery, black ingratitude, fiendish grudge, 
 and a total disbelief in the existence of any thing noble and gener- 
 ous in the nature of man. e.) The joys of the table, intended as 
 an attractive means for securing man's life and health, while adding 
 to his happiness and enjoyments, — are ever used in view of this 
 end, in wise moderation by virtuous self-control ; while inordinate 
 appetite becoming passion, and depriving reason of its sway, sinks 
 man below the level of the brute, — making him, by despotic intem- 
 perance, a headless inebriate, and a swinish glutton. Disability, 
 disease, pain, self-contempt, and a premature death, is the sure 
 doom to follow, — accompanied by the disgust, contempt, and un- 
 pitied aversion of other men. /.) The principle of anger or ire, as 
 indicative of latent force, and destined as a weapon for defense and 
 self-protection, in cases of necessity, which, in the virtuous adult, 
 is to sustain his manhood with the firm courage, necessary to de- 
 cided action in the execution of high resolves, — shielding consist- 
 ency with perseverance against the fickleness of vascillation and 
 irresolution, when confronting difficulty and danger : if absent, or 
 not sufficiently present, may cause hesitation, timidity, fear, pusil- 
 lanimity, faint-heartedness, abjection, timorousness, fright, terror, 
 cowardice, and desponding discouragement ; while its overflowing 
 and uncontrolled presence, causes defiance, reckless daring, disdain, 
 malignity, vengeance, headstrong persistence, stubborn obstinacy, 
 deadly enmity, cruel hostility, and unforgiving ill-will, g.) Life 
 being given to man, without having asked for it, as a gift of liberty 
 incased into a machinery of necessity, — requires, and enforces, his 
 constant attention to keep its wheels in proper motion. From 
 disease, natural indolence, levity, absence of sense and energy, or 
 from repeated ill-success, — man may become tired of fighting life's 
 battle, and, with indifference and unconcern, idle his time away 
 in laziness and sloth, as if it was all his own, and no account 
 thereof due to anybody. Or, he may precipitate himself into the 
 opposite extreme of ever-toiling exertion, without any adequate 
 aim worthy thereof, and exhaust himself, without rest, relaxation, 
 recreation, and enjoyment, in pursuit of objects, that, to the wise, 
 are not worth the having. 
 
 15. The majority of souls, from choice, example, or compulsion, 
 
134 THE TEMPLE OF TRUTH. 
 
 when reaching the forks of life's highway, decide for active fight 
 in life's battle. Arrived at this point, the soul has now a knowl- 
 edge, such as it is, of its own forces, wants, needs, and the means 
 required to reach its objects and aims. It has, likewise, a similar 
 knowledge of a certain portion of the nearest circumstances around 
 it, and in how far they are favorable or unfavorable to its purposes. 
 Necessity compels it to action of some sort, — and, by this action, 
 constituting a continuation of life's chain, — it forges, also, the links 
 of its clcain of destiny, mixedly composed as links of golden joy, 
 silvery wisdom, coppery poison, and unbending iron necessity. 
 Eelying upon the correctness and accuracy of its knowledge, and 
 the worth and value of the objects, which, led by affection, desire, 
 and need, it has fixed upon as purposes and aims of pursuit : the 
 soul arms itself with firm and fixed resolves, — to strive, thereafter, 
 with all the power at its command, until reaching and securing 
 their possession. As, however, it can not always reach the objects 
 of its wishes, in a direct line, — but perceives the need of previously 
 possessing certain other things, which form the means to the desired 
 end, — it patiently sets to work for reaching these necessary means ; 
 whereby it not seldom happens, that the acquisition of these means 
 either requires so much labor, toil, and time, or that the soul when 
 reaching these means, becomes so enamored thereof, — that it loses 
 sight of its original aims altogether, and thus forgetting its original 
 aims, — turns the very means to ends, into ends themselves. 
 
 16. Thus, furnished with a slender capital of knowledge, a lim- 
 ited amount of forces, — the soul, thirsting for happiness, yet de- 
 sirous of remaining in harmony with itself, at peace with God, 
 nature, mankind, and the institutions of community around it, — 
 launches hopefully into life's whirl, of which, already, it knows 
 enough to consider its action and chances by no means safe and 
 reliable, — since that life's form stands ready to enforce its edicts 
 and laws, whether wise or foolish, with the iron arm of condign 
 penalties and punishment. Such soul, therefore, can not foresee 
 for a certainty, how it will act, in all the various complexities that 
 may arise around it, inclosing it in pressing contact on all sides, — 
 for want of self-knowledge, and foreknowledge of circumstances, 
 no matter however fixed and firm its resolves, determinations and 
 principles may happen to be. 
 
PHENOMENA OF THE SPHERE OF SENSIBILITY. 135 
 
 17. Hardly fairly entered through the door into the new arena 
 of its chosen, or forced upon, sphere of action, — the first welcome 
 it usually meets with, from those engaged in the same line of call- 
 ing, is a disheartening, hostile competition, so as, if possible, thereby 
 to crush it out thereof, in the very beginning. Hard as this seems, 
 it is overcome by great exertions, voluntary privations, and sacri- 
 ficing struggles. Thereby, a firmer platform and means for stronger 
 and more extended action are secured ; and things in the future 
 begin to loom up more prosperously and promisingly. Meanwhile 
 a family is raised, — a religious community has been joined, or, if 
 joined before, the interest of its members has become active in sup- 
 port of the rising member ; various friendly connections and inti- 
 mate liaisons are formed, and there is a flattering prospect that, ere- 
 long, as the phrase goes, "we are well-to-do in the world" nay, 
 really appear to be now on the level high-road to wealth and 
 affluence ; for, means accumulate, and patronage and credit in- 
 crease visibly. 
 
 18. But, things are changeable, and fortune is fickle. While in 
 the high tide of material progress, and elated more by its prospects 
 and flattering promises, than by attention to the everlasting sources 
 of joy within the soul 's depth, — from converse with Ood and things 
 eternal : here, all at once, and entirely unexpected, a supposed reli- 
 giously reliable friend, who was bailed for, or intrusted with, con- 
 siderable funds, by our man, treacherously cheats and robs him of 
 his sour sweat, in a manner not reachable by law. After a while, 
 when this wound is beginning to scar, another trusted visitant at 
 the family hearth, more heartless still, poisons, with deadly venom, 
 the sanctuary of the domicile, by seducing the mother or daughter 
 thereof. There, also, a promising son is ruined, in body and soul, 
 by falling into pernicious company. Beloved children are snatched 
 away by the hand of death. The calumnious tongue of envy is 
 working secretly to undermine and destroy the man's hard-earned 
 reputation. By-and-by, heavily-indebted customers fail and em- 
 barrass the creditor. And, finally, the strong soul, threatened by 
 privation of needs or comforts, hardened into needs by habit, to save 
 and protect itself and those under its care, against the evils thus 
 believed approaching, — bends, and in turn acts as treacherously 
 toward the friends who trusted and confided in its honesty and 
 
136 THE TEMPLE OF TRUTH. 
 
 honor, as those had done, who, originally robbing him, have now 
 induced him to despoil others. 
 
 19. "Whatever the remaining balance of that soul's career, through 
 the rest of its life, to its final termination, may happen to be, — and 
 whether it ends by dying surrounded with the splendor of wealth in 
 a palatial mansion, — its stiff corpse laid out upon a gorgeous couch 
 of honor, still praised, though no longer envied, by hosts of men ; 
 or departs, unwept by any, in the lonely corner, amidst the squalor 
 of poverty; or breathes its last as an outcast in the solitary cell of 
 the public prison, detested by all and pitied by few ; or surrender- 
 ing, more terribly still, its life on the scaffold, for capital crime, to 
 the hand of the public executioner, abhorred and shuddered at, by 
 the love-heart of humanity itself : the soul, in each of these, as in 
 all other cases, toward the approach of the moment of its final 
 departure, is forced to take a retrospect of that concatenated line, 
 leading in one unbroken whole, of a fixed number of days, from 
 its present or latest now, to the other end of its past juvenile then, 
 and peruse the inventory of the various items, as they lie, strewed 
 in the imperishable living record within, upon the locality of each 
 individual day, hour, and moment of the soul's life. 
 
 20. a.) The souls of men, taking such review of their lives' in- 
 voice, can all belong to but three main classes, in the scale of absolute 
 ethics, or in their relation to God, nature, and man, — being either, 
 a.) divine heroes, martyrs, or saints ; b.) sinners, or men deploring 
 their conscious imperfections ; or, c.) criminals, or heroes of the 
 dismal deep, hardened by habitude, struggling with all might 
 to doubt and disbelieve the truth and endurance of their own 
 thought ; which three degrees, and the subdivisions appertaining 
 thereto, are, however, not those arbitrary ones, as made under these 
 names, by men " clad with a little brief authority' 1 '' of any sort, here 
 below ; but as the necessitating division, distributing them thus into 
 their appropriate classes, according to the intrinsic worth and value, 
 subsisting in every soul in the universe, as seen and determined by 
 God's all-seeing eye itself, b.) Hence, the long string of profitable 
 or unprofitable facts, connected with pleasurable and joyous, or 
 painful and grieving sensations, which these souls have experienced 
 during their life's struggle, and are now reviewing, as it were, in a 
 departing retrospect, — will make a quite different impression upon 
 
PHENOMENA OF THE SPHERE OF SENSIBILITY. 137 
 
 these souls, as they happen to belong to one or the other of these 
 classes, in God's own scale, c.) For the consciousness of the first 
 class, with sensations of satisfaction and peace within the soul, be- 
 yond any power of language to express, assures them, that the issue 
 of their battle is a victory, a triumph so glorious, which gains and 
 secures to them the everlastingly-increasing possession of that heaven 
 of absolute beauty, truth and goodness, — for which they have suffered 
 every thing with patience, and sacrificed and staked not only their 
 outer all, but also their inmost self. The souls of the second class, 
 in proportion to their proximity to either of the two other classes, 
 will feel more or less hope of a final victory, though the same is 
 by no means positive and joyful, as the many tokens before their 
 eyes, of battles lost in the days of the past, makes them tremble 
 for their weakness in the future, unless they learn the wisdom of 
 employing aids and helps in a warfare, the strategy of which, they 
 do as yet, not fully understand, d.) The last class feel their case as 
 one of a defeat so terrible, that they have, look into what quarter 
 they may, not one ray of positive hope left by the clinging to 
 which, with their own unaided exertions, they could in any degree, 
 even be encouraged entertaining the thought of a serious attempt 
 of bettering their conditions. For habituated to disbelieve and dis- 
 obey their own thought, when counseling the true and the good, and 
 always using its light for accomplishing the false, the wicked, and 
 the evil : they have now, in that offended thought, a living enemy 
 within them, whose majestic, terrific countenance appals them, 
 when it strikes them, that now, after all, that very thought proves 
 itself as the ultimate true reality of eternally living essence ; and that, 
 presently, they are approaching a state of being, where its confronta- 
 tion can no longer be evaded or avoided. Hence, hope or joy in 
 any degree, arc strangers to the souls of this class, at that moment ; 
 and as their occupation has been, for a long time, the habituated 
 one, of u solving the storm:" they are now beginning, more than at 
 any period before, of realizing the "reaping of the whirlwind," as its 
 legitimate fruit. 
 
 21. The catalogue of sensations, experienced from infancy until 
 the hour of death, by any single soul, of these classes and their 
 various subdivisions, is, so long as it remains in such class, and 
 does not rise into a higher, or sink into a lower, notwithstanding 
 
138 THE TEMPLE OF TRUTH. 
 
 the infinite diversity of all souls from one another, in all the main 
 features so exactly alike, that the life or history of one such soul, 
 of the same class, may be said to be the life and history of every 
 other, — precisely like the infinitely diversified variations of resem- 
 bling melodies, all founded upon one and the same original text 
 of tune. 
 
 22. There is order, of some sort, in every patch of the great 
 domain of existence ; if not that of divine beauty from spontaneous 
 choice, then that of infernal anarchy from chaotic necessity, or the 
 everchanging despotism of alternately ascendant forces. In the first, 
 the whole rules all the parts, for and to the equal benefit of each 
 individual part ; in the second, detached parts endeavor to rule the 
 whole, for the special benefit of some, and without reference to the 
 rights, or benefits, of all the rest of the parts. One or the other of 
 these two states, becomes eventually the permanent one between all 
 the forces of man, and hence, that of every soul. In the class of 
 souls defined in § 20, in let. a, the first state prevails, as the ruling 
 order ; in that of b, the struggle between the two states alternates 
 in results, and is undecided ; in the class c, disorder and anarchy 
 have become the established rule ; by the soul's attaching its pas- 
 sionate affection to certain conditions of such state. 
 
 23. There are five main classes, or sources, of joys or enjoyments 
 for man, — each one of which, the soul, from choice and preference, 
 may, by inclination, be induced to select as its centre, transiently or 
 permanently ; making, as far as practicable, all the remaining four, 
 optionally, at times, contributive to the centre thus selected. These 
 classes, or sources, are : a.) the religious, divine, or absolute ; h.) the 
 ethical or moral ; c.) the intellectual or aesthetic; d.) the physical or 
 mundane; and, e.) the purely individual or selfish; all of which 
 slide into, combine with, and occupy relatively the same positions 
 and relations to one another, and to the primary origin of them all, 
 as do the primary five colors of white, yellow, red, blue, and black, 
 among themselves, and toward the solar light and heat from which 
 they originate. The sufferings and pains of the soul, do hence, 
 likewise, assume their origin and coloring from one or the other, or 
 several combined, of these classes and sources, and their various 
 compounding and mixing. 
 
 24. The soul, no matter whatever its actual standpoint or 
 
PHENOMENA OF THE SPHERE OF SENSIBILITY. 139 
 
 locality, upon the eternal scale of ethics may be, has, by the light 
 of consciousness, never fully extinguished, even in the blackest 
 depths of lowest criminality, some perception and insight into the 
 great laws ruling the universe, and the fatally necessary results 
 flowing, in accordance therewith, from its own choice and actions. 
 Hence it knows also, more or less clearly or dimly, that in the 
 values it attaches to things or objects, it may deceive itself in their 
 estimates, by the employment of false meters, assumed for their 
 measurement, derived only from its solitary self, and without any 
 regard to exterior or superior law ; yet, even while enchanted by 
 such fictitious and imagined value of things, it can not make itself 
 forget the gradation eternally inherent in things ; whereby, as 
 sources of joy and enjoyments, greater or smaller in intensity, 
 altitude, dimension, and wealth of variety, they stand forever upon 
 an immutable scale of intrinsic order, all grades duly connected, 
 yet one having absolute precedence before the other, which can 
 only be overlooked by a vision naturally unwilling to see it. 
 Hence, a,) as the whole is forever greater in power and efficacy 
 than any portion of its parts ; as there is no light and heat within 
 reach of man, that can benefit, animate, exhilarate, and rejoice him 
 like that of the glorious sun of day ; so there are no sensations of 
 joy and happiness to be compared to those, which the soul ex- 
 periences when in intercourse with God, it is lovingly brought into 
 contact with the infinite ocean of that, which constitutes its own 
 essence, source, and origin. A"s long, therefore, as the soul knows 
 that it loves God, and therein feels God's love within, toward 
 itself, the whole universe is illuminated for it, with the rainbow 
 harmonies of celestial light and peace, and all objects therein 
 radiate security, felicity, joy, and beatitude, into its fibres with 
 streaks of electrical delight ; and, on the other side, there are no 
 griefs, no sadness, so joy-and-ray-less, as those, arising from the 
 soul's estrangement from its God and creator. Its whole action, in 
 that unnatural state, is a perpetual flight, as it were, from its own 
 self, in order, by a never ceasing movement from one object, thing, 
 enjoyment, dissipation to another, to drown the recollection of God, 
 itself, and the past and future, if possible, in one unbroken state of 
 willful, deluded forgetfulness. b.) Next in value, and inseparably 
 connected with those experienced in the preceding, and receiving 
 12 
 
140 THE TEMPLE OF TRUTH. 
 
 their worth, value, and strength from them, are the sensations of 
 joy, derived from virtue's triumphs over the soul's centripetal 
 force of self, whereby its central gravity is prevented from becoming 
 an unduly contracted, secretly or openly rebellious state, within the 
 great confederation of God's ineffably grand union government in 
 His whole creation. Thereby man making himself, by deeds of 
 heroism and divine virtue to his fellow-man, the visible repre- 
 sentative of God's goodness, wisdom, and love, rouses in his own, 
 and the souls of his fellow-men, those sweet sensations of benfac- 
 tion and gratitude, of veneration and magnanimity, of friendship 
 and affectionate esteem, which are the inevitable effects- of virtue's 
 struggles, to act at all times, in sight of God's love, and, upon all 
 occasions, for the benefit and high destiny of men and the race, as 
 God's love prompts. Beside, such examples of true virtue, may set 
 an entire nation into a heavenly blaze of divine aspirations after all 
 things great and good, c.) Thirdly, the pursuit of science and art, 
 being the theory and practice of the true and beautiful, underlying 
 the phenomenal apparition of nature and the concrete world, no- 
 bilitate and expand man's soul, increase his power, and are hence a 
 source of gratification and joy, as they multiply and increase his 
 means and capacity for enlarging his sphere of utility and benefi- 
 cence, and therefrom realize a greater harvest of pure, humanely- 
 divine joys, d.) Next, the sphere of any of the various practical 
 callings, of labor, exchange, and intercourse between man and 
 man, so far as its intrinsic nature is truly necessary and beneficent, 
 and not, per se, hurtful and injurious to himself and his fellows, 
 can give him sensations of joy and delight, while it furnishes 
 necessary and indispensable means to man's various ends, and the 
 enlargement of useful and beneficent action. But in this, as well 
 as in the preceding and succeeding sphere, the soul may become 
 entangled in the means, so that it fastens its affections thereupon, 
 as if they were the ends. Thus, things become men's gods ; for a 
 man's highest treasure is to him tlie God he adores, worships, and 
 proffers his supreme love to. c.) Finally, not only the physical sen- 
 sations of pleasure attached to the gratification of the necessary 
 bodily wants, but also the higher pleasures derived from sources, 
 b, c, and d, with them, may, without even running the enjojmient 
 of physical joys into vicious excess, all become the object of pas- 
 
PHENOMENA OF THE SPHERE OF SENSIBILITY. 141 
 
 sional, egotistic, and selfish use, so as to be loved by man as if they, 
 or any one or more of them, were the actual and highest object of 
 his creation and final destiny, and hence attach a false and fictitious 
 value thereto ; whereby, as long as it prevails, he can never have 
 any access to God's own joys, experienced only in the sphere above 
 described in a. 
 
 25. Now, then, we have two main classes of souls, with one 
 standing between them, playing alternately into the sphere of the 
 first, and next into that of the second. To one or the other of 
 these classes, every soul on earth must belong at any given mo- 
 ment of its existence ; for each human soul is either at peace and 
 in friendship, or at discord and in enmity with God, in a higher or 
 lower degree. From this main source of sensation of joy or grief, 
 the impressions from all other sources take their hue and tint, as 
 all colors show their presence, real nature, and existence only, by 
 the appearance of solar light, and vanish alike and entirely as soon 
 as it totally disappears. 
 
 26. But like he, who is in health, is subject to be impressed by 
 pains, as well as he whose health is defective ; yet, as a general 
 rule, less often and painfully ; so the soul, at peace with God, does 
 not cease to be impressed pleasantly or painfully, by either changes 
 of its condition perceived from within, or sensations impressed 
 upon it by occurrences of its surroundings. For every soul, by the 
 destiny that has ruled the formation of its organism and character, 
 locality and total surroundings, is thereby placed in a condition, 
 either more or less isolated, or into company or proximity with 
 other souls, that are either alike or unlike to it, in the main point ; 
 and hence, by their intercourse, influence its sensations of joy or 
 grief, and are enhancing or diminishing its effect positively or nega- 
 tively. The position of every soul is hence, in respect to the grade 
 of influence, impressed by sensations upon it, at all times condi- 
 tioned, by the amount of power which it is able to exercise over 
 the threefold machinery, ever engaged and concerned, in every 
 single sensation experienced, namely : a.) The machinery constitut- 
 ing the encasement of its own wonderful being ; b.) the machinery 
 of exterior native surrounding it on all hands ; and, c.) the ma- 
 chinery of the concrete state of the world prevailing in the time and 
 locality, where the soul's lot is cast ; all of which are so interwoven 
 
142 THE TEMPLE OP TKUTH. 
 
 with one another, that the soul can not experience a single sensa- 
 tion in which all of them are not equally concerned, at one time, 
 as the leading, at another as the co-or subordinate subject. 
 
 27. The diversity of these sensations is multiplied further into 
 infinity of variety and modality, by sex, age, relation, and inner 
 and outer states of the soul ; such as health and disease, wealth or 
 poverty, ignorance or knowledge, weakness or power, employment 
 or idleness, youth or mature or old age, boyhood or girlhood, 
 adolescence or maidenhood, marriage or singleness, parentage and 
 maternity, or barrenness ; and, by being in such states, the child, 
 son, daughter, sister, brother, bride, bridegroom, wife, husband, 
 father, mother, grandfather, grandmother, grandchild, relative, com- 
 panion, acquaintance and friend, or stranger to, or enemy of, the 
 soul, upon, or by, whom, the impressed sensation of joy or grief is 
 made, and the relation of the parties concerned to morality, piety, 
 and virtue, or vice, sin and crime, and their immediate or pros- 
 pective results. 
 
 28. It will hence be perceived, inasmuch as joy and grief axe the 
 leading forces that rule the soul in the formation and development 
 of its character, that the conjoint elements of time and eternity, 
 of the physical and spiritual universe, amid and in all which, the 
 soul cotemporaneously exists, are all, in turn, concerned in the 
 production of the infinity of impressed sensations, which are found 
 linked to the history of every soul, or forming, in reality, the main 
 part of that history itself. Hence, by being diversely impressed, 
 from all other souls, in regard to admixture of elements, every 
 single soul, by incorporating fixed qualities and habits of desire and 
 aspiration into its character, makes its state a concrete one, composed 
 of different distinct states of loves and hates ; affected differently, 
 by things and events, from every other soul, and singling out, of 
 the boundless ocean of existence, only a small number of objects, 
 upon which, for the present, it directs its sail of aspiration, leaving 
 all the balance, from ignorance or indifference, entirely unnoticed. 
 Hence, speaking of the countless sensations experienced, as a 
 general rule, by every soul, we thereby mean to denote a certain 
 modified definite quantity, of all kinds and sorts of sensations, 
 found in degrees, shades, and mixtures, present, by parts, at one 
 t'.me or other, in every single soul, but the mighty whole of which, 
 
PHENOMENA OF THE SPHERE OF SENSIBILITY. 143 
 
 consisting in its concretely distributed parts, being only experienced 
 by the aggregated soul of the whole human race. 
 
 29. Before a clear insight into the nature of the various sensa- 
 tions of the soul is obtainable, a few facts, appertaining to the laws 
 that govern the soul's action, must be stated : a.) In the first 
 instance, let it be kept in mind, that all the sensations of the soul, 
 so far as their inmost nature is concerned, like the thoughts of the 
 mind, are invisible to the eye, and intangible to the rest of the 
 senses, excepting the impression they effect, upon the sense of 
 feeling of the party concerned. For, although the eye, counte- 
 nance, and often the whole bodily frame, announce in general, by 
 outward signs, when the soul is violently agitated, by hope, ex- 
 pectancy, fear, fright, love, joy, passion, grief, or exciting emotions 
 of any kind, yet the soul may acquire more or less control over its 
 sensations, and thereby prevent them, more or less, from showing 
 their presence and inner force by exterior manifestation, b.) Next, 
 there is never a sensation experienced within the soul, which is not 
 accompanied by a thought of the intellect; and whenever that thought 
 is entirely removed and the attention of the intellect is absorbedly 
 fixed upon another thought, the soul is compelled to co-operate with 
 the intellect in beholding and examining the new object or thought, 
 and thereby to forget its afore-had sensation. For, as the soul and 
 intellect, with fancy and imagination, form but one mind, or uni- 
 tary spiritual being, capable of beholding only one single object, at one 
 and the same moment of time, the soul has no power to contra- 
 vene this law, but must obey it whenever the conditipns thereto 
 arise, c.) Like there are in nature, sundry things operating by 
 inherent essence, as sweet, sour, bitter, salt, etc., upon the sense of 
 taste, and as cutting, burning, and corroding, upon bodily feeling ; 
 so there are those which, by inherent nature, are pleasant or painful 
 to the soul, inasmuch as their nature operates for or against that of 
 the soul, or against its innate and inborn aspirations, or those long- 
 ings which are the legitimate results of its innermost character. 
 
 30. a.) From this, and its unity with mind and body, it follows 
 that all things, which please or displease, the mind and body, and 
 their nature and habit, will, in the degree of value affixed to the 
 objects of such pleasure or displeasure, produce a corresponding 
 jovful or contrary sensation upon the soul, more or less deep, great 
 
144: THE TEMPLE OP TEUTH. 
 
 and lasting, or surfacial and transient, as the case happens to be. 
 b.) Hence an ocean of joyful or grieving sensations, results from 
 the soul's friendly or unfriendly relation to the Supreme Being, as 
 no source of sensation can exist, affecting the soul, like the source 
 of its own life, wherein it is, subsists, lives, swims, breathes, moves, 
 and has its being, c.) Next in degree, it is pleased or displeased, 
 with its own and the moral or immoral qualities of the human 
 beings with whom it comes into more or less close connection. 
 For, beauty, truth, and goodness, challenge the soul's love and admi- 
 ration, as hideousness, untruth, and malignity, arouse its aversion and 
 abhorrence. Hence, when seeing the former livingly exemplified 
 and active, in-honest, virtuous and conscientious men and women, 
 or in its own bosom, and perceiving the latter acted out by people 
 given to dishonesty, vice, and wickedness, or acting thus itself, the 
 soul must approve in the former, and condemn in the latter, its 
 own individual with the general case, d.) The incidental attributes 
 appertaining to men, such as natural gifts, abilities, acquirements in 
 science, skill, property, etc., form only accidents in the soul's valua- 
 tion of ethical character, whose value changes in proportion as their 
 possession and use are properly applied, and made subservient to, 
 great moral aims or the contrary, e.) Things and forces acting from 
 necessity, can never affect the sensation of the soul like the actions 
 coming from man, as it, from its own inmost perception, must 
 assume man, to be free and spontaneously acting, at least so far, as 
 the selection and decision of choice between a benign and malevolent 
 motive is concerned. Hence, the accidental injuries inflicted by 
 nature's forces, are seldom calculated to inflict sensations of great 
 grief upon the soul, as there is no poison of malignity infused into 
 the wounds which they occasionally strike to man. 
 
 31. a.) Now, let it be remembered, that every human soul has, 
 during its progress from youth to more advanced age, formed for 
 itself from the elements specified in § 10, first an incipient, and 
 afterward a more or less confirmed character ; which may be more 
 or less strong and harmonious, or weak and defective ; whereby 
 certain modes and impulses have become fixed by habit, nursing 
 and petting, urging the soul to wish, long for, and aspire after cer- 
 tain objects with great ardor, and desire the absence of their con- 
 traries no less decisively. J.) Next, let it be kept in mind, that the 
 
PHENOMENA OF THE SPHERE OP SENSIBILITY. Ho 
 
 soul, every human soul, ever aspiring after unity in and out of 
 itself, — has at all times one object or other in view, which, tran- 
 siently or permanently is paramount to all its others. Such object, 
 is that of the soul's adoration and worship for the time being. This 
 object, upon which the soul concentrates its passionate love and 
 affection, may thus, in nature and quality, be a more or less transient 
 or permanent, worthless and unworthy, or valuable and worthy one. 
 It consists in things, persons or ideas ; such as wealth, honor, 
 science, art, pleasure, power, ambition, or virtue, love, friendship, 
 and religion, c.) With the object the soul thus singles out as its 
 highest, it becomes married in its innermost recess. That object, 
 whatever be its nature, noble or ignoble, imparts the same to th.e 
 soul, and the soul, embracing the same as its highest aim, thereby 
 becomes as large or small, but also as strong or weak, as this its 
 inmost, longed-for, aim. Hence it becomes clear, that there can be 
 no force and power comparable to the access and assistance which 
 the soul acquires to its forces, if the object of its supreme affection is 
 the Being of beings, and Cause of causes. For, in this case, the soul, 
 for an absolute certainty knows, that the object of its love and ad- 
 miration, concentrates within itself, all beauty, truth, goodness, all 
 beatitude, wisdom, and 'power, and is, hence, forever and eternally 
 lovable beyond all measure and limits, d.) The soul thus centering 
 and fixing its supreme affection upon that, which ever exists and is 
 ever present, becomes entirely dependent thereon for all its main 
 joys or griefs ; and in the same ratio independent of the influence 
 of natural forces as secondary causes upon its sensation, inasmuch 
 as by its relation to deity, it acquires a control over them all, obtain- 
 ing therein, as it were, an all-ruling balance-wheel, easily regulating 
 all the rest of its machinery. 
 
 32. a.) If, thus, God, or a virtuous and lovable human being, 
 has become the supreme object of the soul's affection, — it will 
 always endeavor to place and keep the forces of its being, com- 
 posed as elements into its character, in a position of harmony and 
 concord, and preserve this their order by presence of mind and 
 self-control. Hence neither selfhood, love of property, the sexual 
 impulse, the social principle, combative self-defense, alimentiveness, 
 or energy of action, or the want of it, — can, at any time, overcome 
 the soul's prudence. Because it knows that its adored object only 
 
146 THE TEMPLE OF TRUTH. 
 
 smiles witli grace and approbation upon it, when its self-esteem is 
 moderated by the humbling remembrance of known defects ; the 
 love of means by prudent liberality ; the sexual impulse guided by 
 fruitive chastity ; envy kept down by noble good-will ; alimentive- 
 ness regulated by sobriety, temperance and moderation ; anger 
 restricted by meekness and mildness of temper ; and love of rest 
 and action ruled by prescriptions of wisdom and virtue, and sub- 
 ordinated to the achievement of the objects of its highest aspira- 
 tion, b.) Such soul now, by its total attachment to one highest 
 object, introduces thereby a unitary system of aspiring and acting 
 into itself, whereby it and others may at all times know before- 
 hand, how it will act under a given state of the case. Its affections 
 and aversions, its joys and griefs, its hopes and fears, its virtues 
 and weaknesses, — all range themselves now, with every thing in 
 the universe, on one or the other of two opposing sides. On the 
 one is its safety, welfare, prosperity, fortune, comfort, pleasure, joy, 
 bliss, delight, extasy, felicity, and beatitude, the securing and enjoy- 
 ing of which, constitutes its heaven and supreme aspiration. On 
 the other side are its insecurity, ill-fare, adversity, misfortune, sorrow, 
 sadness, grief, dejection, melancholy, misery, unhappiness, and un- 
 blessedness, the suffering of all which, with its causes, constituting 
 its hell, out of the reach of which the soul endeavors to flee. 
 Hence, that soul will regard and treat with distrust and jealousy, 
 whatever tends to mislead, and with decided animosity, hostility, 
 and enmity, — whatever actually opposes, while embracing with 
 amity, friendliness and fraternization, every thing and being that 
 favors, its march and progress to its grand goal. 
 
 33. a.) To please, delight, and gratify its beloved love, has now 
 become the soul's highest and fixed impulse. For this reason its 
 desires, wishes, longings, aspirings, endeavors, exertions and strivings 
 are all directed to the acquisition of those virtuous qualities, by the 
 presence of which its love is pleased ; and to discard and avoid the 
 harboring of vicious propensities and habits, which it knows as 
 repugnant to its beloved, and which would lessen its esteem, affec- 
 tion, and good- will. Hence, this soul, which theretofore was subject 
 to changing moods, at one time of superficial levity, animation, 
 lightheartedness, mirth, merriment, jollity, sport, joviality jocun- 
 dity, and bantering, easily changing into passionate pets of ill- 
 
PHENOMENA OF THE SPHERE OF SENSIBILITY. 147 
 
 temper : and at another time ruled by clouds of dejection, spleen, 
 ennui, trouble, vexation, depression, anger, defiant sauciness, and 
 ill- willed arrogance ; has now, with firmest, most earnest resolve, 
 concentrated its unremitting attention all the time, to avoiding the 
 shady side^ of all these states in the soul, and introduce in their 
 stead a stable constancy, unshaking perseverance and firm stability 
 of willing and doing, wishing and acting into its own character ; 
 knowing, that alone by such course, it can furnish tangible proof 
 of increasing sincerity, honesty, faith, attachment, affection, friend- 
 ship, gratitude, devotion and fidelity to its beloved; and in return 
 thereby gain the increasing trust, confidence, regard, esteem, conside- 
 ration, and favor of the same, b.) Having thus taken its final stand, 
 the soul hastens with alacrity to arm itself with firmness, resolution, 
 courage, boldness, daring, and audacity, to a formidable defense and 
 battling against every thing opposing its progress to its great aim. 
 Knowing its beloved, wherever applicable, to favor toleration, con- 
 cession, forbearance, forgiveness, generosity, magnanimity, compassion, 
 mercy, sympathy, charity, clemency, benignity ; it rules its inclination 
 or disinclination, whenever provokingly stimulated by heaving 
 indignation toward ire, rage and' fury, by causes of shuddering 
 abomination and detestable abhorrence, by the iron arm of self- 
 control, and thereby overcomes the sensations of nausea, aversion, 
 displeasure, disgust, sorrow, anguish, and horror, thus preventing 
 hostility, animosity, enmity, and vindictiveness, from breaking out 
 into acts of sudden manifestation of passion, when offended justice 
 almost appears to cry aloud for immediate vengeance and revenge, 
 against the doings of disJwnesty, baseness, meanness, knavery, vil- 
 lainy, wickedness, treachery, maliciousness, insolence, arrogance, haugh- 
 tiness, frivolity, and heaHless arbitrariness. 
 
 34. a.) For the soul knows and sees by this time clearly, that 
 all action, even the resistance to evil, must be controlled by calm 
 wisdom, otherwise it never can do any good. It is, therefore, also 
 aware, that, misled by the mass of experienced unkind treatment 
 from one another, the adult portion of mankind in general, and the 
 portion active thereof in exterior life in particular, entertain a latent 
 sentiment of distrust and hostility, more or less developed, toward 
 one another, whereby their condition is not only a permanent state 
 of "armed neutrality^ and unsleeping vigilance, forever on its guard 
 13 
 
148 THE TEMPLE OF TRUTH. 
 
 against suspected surprise, and attack, but which, hy its very nature 
 of unsubdued irritability, is breaking out into acts of unfeeling self- 
 ishness as soon and whenever a sufficient incentive, of a positive or 
 negative kind, presents to leaning and propensity the incitive, 
 enticement, allurement, irritation, temptation, or seduction. And 
 that, when thus brought into a state of passionate excitation of a 
 high degree, the souls of men forget, and burst asunder all restric- 
 tions of fear from ulterior consequences, even when known as in- 
 evitable, be they shame, dislwnor, remorse, disease, or often death 
 itself. For the extreme pressure of indigence, poverty, destitu- 
 tion, the sting of pain, hunger, and starvation, the harassing of 
 care, anger, envy, anguish, jealousy, vindictiveness, and despair, 
 the ruling habits of lewdness, avarice, ambition, and the wantonness 
 of conscious power and opulence, become, when roused, in a man- 
 ner, involuntary brute forces, like those of the maniac and beastly 
 inebriate, laughing to scorn the pale warnings of wisdom, and leap- 
 ing, with the ferocious spring of the tiger, upon their victim, per- 
 form, in the deed of crushing, an act of fatal, irresistible necessity. 
 &.) The soul thus perceives, that the smiles upon the countenance 
 of the human social state are commingled with grim distortions, and 
 serve but as a thin gauzy veil, poorly covering the boiling caldron 
 of volcanic seething passions of every description and degree, 
 furiously fomenting beneath. It perceives in that huge kettle, 
 "spirits black, blue and gray," mixed up with those of white, yellow, 
 and reel ; the motives and impulses to honesty, piety and virtue, 
 with those to vice, sin, and crime, commingling in one motley 
 chaos. The soul sees, by history, that this anarchic moral state of 
 man, is not new ; but, beginning in the gray annals of the remotest 
 past, has, with trifling exceptions on a small scale, as the general 
 ubiquitously operating rule, come up to its present, latest day. 
 Hence, it sees in that state nothing else, than an exemplification of 
 the great absolute law of causality, whereby, as soon as the causes 
 of things are given and brought forth : their effects must forever 
 follow with fatal, mechanical, inevitable necessity. Seeing the 
 presence of such an all-powerful machinery, existing around and 
 within the reach of man, now used by himself for his own deterio- 
 ration, torment, rack, and the infliction of excruciating agonies : the 
 soul sees therein, also, the infallible instrument of salvation, as soon 
 
PHENOMENA OF THE SPHERE OF SENSIBILITY. 149 
 
 as the huge machine, now working his destruction, because under 
 no rational guidance, shall be brought under the control of reason, 
 intellect, and ivisdom. 
 
 35. The soul foresees this eventual result, as the necessary effect 
 of the machinery itself, because it perceives that its dire tuition by 
 pain, want, care, trouble, toil, vexation, affliction, sorrow, anxiety, anx- 
 iousness, anguish, fear, terror, despair, despondency, horror, and 
 enormity, with all other infernal ingredients of the calendar of 
 crime, misery and suffering ; although terribly distorting the ce- 
 lestial form of beauty, innate in the souls of the victims ; does, yet, 
 thank God, not annihilate one single life-principle, in the soul of 
 humanity itself. For, it cannot be denied, that the race, at least 
 a sufficient portion thereof, amid all the unfavorable conditions 
 attached to its career, has, though irregularly, and as it were, by 
 single fits and solitary starts, yet nevertheless, actually progressed 
 from a worse to a better state. Hence it perceives, with gladness, 
 that notwithstanding the vast amount of the indecency, impropriety, 
 incontinence, licentiousness, revelry, dissipation, debauchery, and like- 
 wise the manifestations of the various grades of malevolence and 
 abuse of means and power, into which no small portion of souls, by 
 opportunity, pernicious example, and powerful temptations, are 
 seduced and inducted ; the public sentiment, whenever speaking out, 
 is compelled to disapprove of them all, in terms of decided con- 
 demnation. By this, the existence of conscientiousness, veneration, 
 and reverence, in the public bosom, is in a negative method, as 
 clearly shown, as by the positive tribute of involuntary admiration 
 and spontaneous affection, which, as an act of justice, it cheerfully 
 yields, to the true dignity, of established merit and acknowledged 
 excellence. 
 
 36. Hence that soul looks upon the world with great hope, and 
 is prepared, at all times, to do and contribute the utmost that lies 
 in its power, to assist in effecting that world's final redemption and 
 salvation, out of its hellish condition of preponderating practical 
 hate, into one, wherein the principles of divine love, virtue, and 
 goodness, are prevailing. Henceforward, it lets no opportunity slip 
 by, through which it may come, were it but one step, nearer to this 
 great and glorious point. Seeing thousands of souls, who from 
 ignorance, example, or perversion, worshiping in blind idolatry one 
 
150 THE TEMPLE OF TRUTH. 
 
 or the other of the selfish-perishable idols of the transient hour, 
 sneer with ridiculing coldness, or imaginary contempt, at the sim- 
 plicity, self-denial, and unassuming meekness of souls with a 
 character which cares less about the praise or censure of others, than 
 its own inmost self-approbation ; this soul finds its comfort, satisfac- 
 tion, content, peace, hilarity, solace, and consolation, in constant 
 obedience to the calls of high duty ; paying no attention whatever 
 to criticisms of ignorant stupidity, or malicious dullness, upon its 
 " onward and upward " course. 
 
 37. Therefore this soul now is gradually becoming rich and 
 opulent in the possession of all the virtues, and the high hopes and 
 promises they engender in its own bosom, by which its insatiate 
 desire is led to making the attempt to grasp and appropriate the 
 whole of them, by medium of ever-renewing, never-yielding en- 
 deavors. Beginning by courting amity, friendliness, kindness, 
 courtesy, amiability, and loveliness, humility, modesty, simplicity, 
 attentiveness, complacency, assiduity, it conquers them, and next 
 pays its attention to composure, equanimity, fearlessness, equity, 
 justice, generosity, acknowledgment, thankfulness, devotedness, 
 peaceableness, truthfulness, faithfulness, cleanliness, purity, chastity, 
 activity, industry, love of order, and finishes its primary victories 
 by engrafting temperance, moderation, continence, economy, fru- 
 gality, contentedness, vigilance, foresight, prudence earnestness, 
 sincerity, decisiveness, circumspection, discretion, taciturnity, with 
 patience, firmness, and never-yielding constancy, into the wreath 
 adorning a hero-soul's brow. For a hero-soul unfalteringly relies 
 upon the promise : " That the pure in heart shall be blessed by be- 
 holding God;" since in it is heaven's highest reward, and the only 
 sanctity and holiness acknowledged as valid and genuine before the 
 tribunal of reason and in the courts of life eternal. 
 
 38. a.) Enlightened thus, by wisdom from on high, that soul 
 now clearly sees and understands the working of the machinery of 
 its own sensations, and therein that of other souls. It plainly per- 
 ceives that the presence of every virtue or vice, of every attribute 
 of strength or weakness, of every habit or ruling passion, is felt in 
 the soul of the possessor, as well as in the souls upon whom they 
 act, as a special sensation, differing from all others ; and that all 
 things and forces in the universe, when producing impressions in 
 
PHENOMENA OF THE SPHERE OF SENSIBILITY. 151 
 
 the soul, differ in the sensations so produced, as do their forms, 
 essence, and being. Hence, as every thought of the intellect can 
 produce such sensation within the soul, these sensations are as 
 various, multiform, and many, as there are thoughts in the mind to 
 which each soul is married, b.) As every soul is more or less con- 
 scious of the subsistence of an eternal brother-and-sister-hood, 
 between all souls past, present, and to come ; hence of a solidarity 
 of the whole human race, which binds the single destiny of every 
 individual limb forever to the final destiny of the grand trunk ; 
 each single soul hates to be forced, and experience compulsion and 
 harshness from other souls, but desires to be led by lenity, kind- 
 ness, tenderness, and love ; or, if to be driven at all, to be so only 
 by the mighty forces of truth, necessity, and destiny ; which all 
 the soul acknowledges as legitimate powers, entitled to enforce 
 obedience to their edicts, by direct mandates to intellect and voli- 
 tion themselves, c.) To minor forces the soul often opposes 
 indifference, option, indolence or obstinacy, not seldom rising into 
 passive or active resistance to their menace or threat. Want, 
 indigence, weakness, humbles, and abundance, opulence, and plenty, 
 will materially enhance the soul in its native or developed bellig- 
 erence and pride, and hence predispose it differently, for the recep- 
 tion and mode of feeling certain classes of sensations. This rule 
 applies to all moral qualities, or their absence and opposites. For 
 improvidence and neglect, will, by their effects, in due time, pro- 
 duce agitation, self-condemnation, and remorse or repentance ; 
 whereas sagacity and foresight, providing security, safety, and 
 peace, are ever sure of self-approval and approbation. And, 
 finally, are unfaithfulness and breach of trust as certain to find a 
 reward corresponding to the degree of their enormity, as benignity, 
 benevolence, and beneficence will, in the end, smiling-admiring-and- 
 lovingly be approved of by high heaven above, and all men here 
 below, not even excepting the miserable and wretched victims of, or 
 to, wickedness themselves. 
 
 39. a.) We have now, in a condensed manner, concentrated all 
 the positive or negative material, active in producing the infinity 
 of sensations, to which man's soul is susceptible, and subject at one 
 time or other. Thereby every single soul is clearly perceived to 
 be an actual universe within itself ; differing, so far as modes of 
 
152 THE TEMPLE OF TRUTH. 
 
 combination in the elements of its construction and composition of 
 character are concerned, from every other soul ; yet, at the same 
 time, subject alike with all other souls, to the supreme rule, not 
 only, at all times, of the great law of causation, but likewise gifted, 
 in the main, with the same general forces and principles, that con- 
 stitute the essence of all souls, and compel and necessitate each 
 one to aspire and strive after one and the same universal aim ; 
 embracing all the special aims deposited in each soul, by the destiny 
 that ruled its primary formation and posterior development, b.) 
 Man has not created himself. As a child, and for a great while after- 
 ward, he does not know what lies slumberingly within him. As 
 long as his forces thus lie latent, they can do neither good nor harm 
 to himself or others, as during infancy the mantle of innocence 
 wraps them up alike in its ample folds. But when his forces 
 develop, as powerful ruling passions, into virtues or vices, scattering 
 joy or " damnation round the land," the case is bravely altered for 
 himself and all others. It then appears that vice is not the mere 
 absence of virtue, and acting only as a simple negative, but that it 
 contains, like fire or extreme frigidity, a quality of positive de- 
 structiveness, victimizing the health and happiness of its possessor 
 and that of many others, c.) Now, then, no man is ever sure of 
 his happiness here, or wherever else he may exist, until he obtains 
 that virtuous control over all his forces, which reason, conscience, 
 and nature alike tell him, that he ought to have and exercise. To 
 acquire this self-control to the full degree needed, without the help 
 of the great God that created him, and in whom he lives and 
 moves, man will find, eventually, to be an attempt virtually alike 
 to that as if his eye, ear, nose, arm, leg, or other limb, after torn 
 off and severed from the body, would try to live by themselves, or 
 he, the man himself, imagine to continue living without inhaling 
 the atmosphere that surrounds him. Hence, in proportion as man 
 learns to hww God, not in mere theory, but in living practice, he will 
 acquire the knowledge and power to control the various sensations 
 and passions of his soul. As soon as he has acquired this power, 
 he has therein made the greatest conquest ever possible to be made 
 in this universe, in all time and eternity, containing the " treasure 
 beyond cdl price." 
 
 40. a.) The intellect of any man, who has paid any attention to 
 
PHENOMENA OF THE SPHERE OF SENSIBILITY. 153 
 
 the sensations experienced by himself ; or has, in others, observed 
 the flashing eye, the flushed or pale cheek, the quivering and com- 
 pressed lip, the dilating or oppressedly heaving bosom, the rousing 
 or sinking nerves, the bracing, shaking, or trembling limbs and 
 frame, accompanied by the firmly and higher, or unstable and 
 lower-beating, palpitating heart, while under a positive or negative 
 state of high excitation : can no longer entertain a shadow of a doubt 
 of the existence of a perfectly organized machinery, whereby all the 
 sensations of the soul announce their presence and action upon 
 specific organs within the body of man. b.) To discover and spe- 
 cify the construction and various parts of that machinery, is the 
 province and problem of psychology, physiology, and comparative 
 anatomy combined, and forms no part of our present investigation, 
 in which we have only to do with the various facts connected with 
 the soul's sensations, and their general bearing upon man's misery, 
 Jiappiness, and final destiny. But from a survey of the array of 
 unassailable facts, which we have compressed into this lengthy and 
 highly important chapter, men of thought will hardly fail perceiving 
 that henceforward psyclwlogy is rendered possible as a concrete 
 science; so that, by application of the proper methods and means, 
 the knowledge of the individual soul of man, may, by degrees, 
 become as definite, certain, and reliable as that of any other sphere, 
 conquered by the patient perseverance of his indomitable intellect, 
 up to our present time, c.) In what these methods and means to 
 arrive at such consummate knowledge of the soul consist, we shall 
 indicate in its due time and place, as soon as a prospect shall pre- 
 sent itself to bring them to the " experimentum crucis "-test of 
 practicable application, for human use and benefit. For the 
 present, let it suffice, that we have, by analysis, clearly shown the 
 primary elements of soul and character, as resulting by necessity, 
 from the principles and needs composing man's being. And, as 
 all other sciences, were only possible to be made, what they now 
 are, after their primary elements had been discovered, ascertained, 
 and defined ; so the science of the soul, consisting until now, in 
 mere abstruse, uncertain, intangible, unreliable, opinions and specu- 
 lations of individual thinkers, interspersed here and there by a few 
 valuable facts and observations, may now, after thus brought within 
 
154 THE TEMPLE OF TRUTH. 
 
 reach of every competent intellect, take a fresh start, and soon 
 assume the highly important station in the vast system of mental 
 sight, to which by eternal destination it is entitled, and which here- 
 tofore, by reason of its unfathomed depth and never unraveled 
 complication, it was impossible for it to assume. 
 
 41. a.) When, now recapitulating in substance what we have 
 laid down in this chapter, remembering that the dualistic aspiration 
 of the soul is the avoidance of "fear, trouble, grief, enmity, and 
 hate" and the securing of " safety, peace, joy, friendship, and love," 
 it will become palpably clear that these two opposite conditions are 
 only each a legitimate reflex of the state and character, which the 
 soul of every man, by choice and habit, has made the prevailing 
 and permanent one within itself, b.) For if, and as long as, the 
 soul is weak, ignorant, passionate, vicious, and wicked : it is ruled 
 by the pain and impetuosity of its sensations, always more or less 
 akin and affiliated to the qualities that are vicious and ultra-selfish, 
 and hence ever and always leaning and calculated toward producing 
 new causes for mischief and grief, and enhancing cause and effect 
 of those that are present. Thereby one vicious sentiment springs 
 up, takes root, and becomes a ruling sensation within it, after 
 another, until becoming confirmed, its constant state is as dissimilar 
 to, and hence as distant from, the nature of absolute goodness, as dark- 
 ness and polar frigidity, are from daylight and summer's genialty. 
 Thereby gradually hardened, in a more or less degree, into the state 
 of sin, vice, and crime, the soul knows that thus it is at enmity with 
 God, itself, mankind, and the universe, and hence its condition is one 
 of utter joylessness, approaching in suffering to perpetual terror, 
 hate, and despair, c.) But if, by God's grace and its own sincere co- 
 operation, the soul has been so fortunate as to make its state and 
 character strong, enlightened, composed, virtuous, and good, it rules by 
 wisdom all the sensations occurring within it, thereby leaning 
 toward all those qualities belonging to the divine principle of vir- 
 tue, whereby the causes for mischief and grief are overcome and 
 transformed and changed into sources of joy and good. Thereby 
 the soul appropriates one virtuous quality, with its effects and 
 abiding consequences after another, until confirmed by their perma- 
 nent use and unremitting practice, it finally becomes a passive, 
 
PHENOMENA OF THE SPHERE OF SENSIBILITY. 155 
 
 implicitly-obedient instrument in the hand of absolute omnipotent 
 Goodness, devoid of all selfish aspirations and sensations ; while, 
 within its centre, as humble and unassuming, as innocent, guileless, 
 and happy as the spotless, uncorrupted child. 
 
 42. a.) The language of man is rich in descriptive terms of an 
 infinite variety of sensations, both of intense joy and crushing 
 grief. But, with all its wealth of tint, it can not paint the heaven 
 of a soul, perfectly at peace and in friendship with God, itself, 
 humanity, and creation. It may depict the blissful happiness of 
 the virtuous male and female, whose hearts, in faithful, chaste, 
 passionate affection, have melted into one ; it may portray the en- 
 chantment of the happy mother, who, in the healthful, blooming, 
 vigorous, angelically-smiling babe, fondling upon her bosom or lap, 
 has the visible reward of true virtuous love, and wise affection, and 
 the living pledge of their endurance ; it may draft the unclouded 
 felicity of that spotless, innocent, little angel itself ; drinking, yet 
 unmixed with a world's poison, the honey of pure love, out of a 
 true mother's infinitely tender breast ; and, in undivided con- 
 sciousness, sucking the unbroken stream of God's own superior 
 beatitude ; it may paint the paradise of ever-gushing joys, spouting 
 from the perpetual spring of true friendship ; it may essay to 
 delineate the toils and labors, the griefs and sufferings, the hopes 
 and disappointments, and final successes and triumphs of divine 
 genius and heroism, struggling against self and destiny, for virtue 
 and humanity ; but conjoining all these into one glorious whole, it 
 will yet, combinedly, not by far, reach up to that ineffable state of 
 blessedness, destined for the soul already here on earth, which from 
 love to its God, by God's help, conquers itself and all things else — 
 Kev. xxi, 7. For, though adorned by the possession of all the virtues, 
 as a nuptial gift from its Beloved, the soul forgets them all in the 
 glorious presence of the Everliving-Neverchanging. In its intimate 
 intercourse with absolute Goodness, the essence of which being an 
 infinite ocean of love, joy, affection, tenderest emotion, loveliest 
 wisdom, and benign power, the soul, by raptures and extasies of 
 termless delight, is swallowed up into its divine source and perme- 
 ated by its eternal essence of primeval beauty, life, and highest reality. 
 Mixing its own thought, in streams of intellectual electricity, with 
 
156 THE TEMPLE OF TRUTH. 
 
 the source of all thought, it receives as answers such fondling sen- 
 sations of a love so intense, that human language has, as yet, no 
 terms for the same, since they constitute the bridechamber's se- 
 crets between every faithful soul and its eternal, infinitely loving 
 Bridegroom. 
 
 CHAPTER XIX. 
 
 FACTS AND REFLECTIONS PRELIMINARY TO THE ANALYSIS OF 
 MAN'S MIND. 
 
 1.) In Chapters xi, xii, xiii, xiv, xv, xvi, and xvii, we have now 
 analyzed the senses of sight, hearing, touch, smell, taste, and bodily 
 feeling. Each one of these senses, places man in a direct connec- 
 tion with a specific department of nature, — so that, when deprived 
 of sight, be is deprived of the canal connecting him with all the phe- 
 nomena of the visible universe • by deprivation of hearing he loses all 
 the phenomena of sound with their vastly extended consequences ; 
 devoid of touch he remains a stranger to the impressions derived 
 by that sense ; the absence of smell would leave him unprotected 
 against a vitiated, putrid atmosphere ; the loss of taste would deprive 
 him of all the impressions obtained by it ; and the absence of bodily 
 feeling would deprive him at once of both the painful and the 
 pleasurable feelings and sensations, which now, at times, make him 
 crazy and drunk like a demigod with delight, or mad and wrathful 
 like a demon from pain. 
 
 2. Hence, if man were deprived of these senses altogether, he no 
 longer could exist as a being belonging to the class called man; as 
 he must be devoid of all the leading attributes constituting the 
 nature of the human species. But, let it be distinctly kept in mind, 
 what elsewhere (Chap, x, \ 16), has already transiently been stated, 
 that even where these senses are all present in a sound and active 
 condition, their action, does for its efficiency, not at all depend upon 
 themselves, but entirely and totally upon the presence and attention 
 of the understanding while the impression is performed upon them 
 by phenomena. 
 
FACTS, ETC., RELATING TO THE ANALYSIS OF MIND. 157 
 
 3. For when tlie observant attention of the understanding is not 
 present, while a phenomenon impresses the eye, ear, touch, smell, 
 taste, or feeling, there is no seeing, hearing, touching, smelling, 
 tasting, or feeling at all performed ; but no sooner is the under- 
 standing present with its attention, while any one of the senses is 
 impressed, than these impressions, at once, become vivid, clear, 
 distinct, and definite in proportion to the degree of interest taken 
 in the special transaction and the inherent abilit} r of the under- 
 standing for close and acute observation. But, whether the observa- 
 tion be close and acute, or negligent and unobserving, there can be 
 no question, that, if entirely absent, there is no impression possible ; 
 for that impression only becomes an impression at the very moment 
 when the understanding's attention translates it into a thought called 
 a conception, reporting the same to reason as the result of the impres- 
 sion made, — and by this process calling the whole mind's attention 
 to the matter, and making the entire man conscious and cognizant 
 of the transaction. 
 
 4. It becomes, hence, clear that whatever of life or impressi- 
 bility there is in the senses, or in any one thereof, at any time, it 
 only is there, or acts for mental purposes, when brought there, or 
 called up by the understanding itself, and never otherwise. But 
 as soon as thus actually called up into action, is that action no 
 sooner accomplished, in the shape of a definable impression, when 
 the understanding so defines it by changing it into a clear thought, 
 and in that shape, being a form already beyond reach of the senses, 
 sends it up to the intellect, to be used for higher and ulterior 
 purposes. 
 
 5. Next, one great, tremendous fact, long known dimly, or rather 
 conjectured, as such, but never duly appreciated and applied, is to be 
 placed into the clear, unequivocal light and position that, by in- 
 herent right, belong to its infinite tearing, importance and value. 
 And as the due appreciation of this powerful fact, will exert an 
 influence, not only upon the destiny of the human race, but by 
 medium of it upon that of the universe itself : it is but fair that, 
 when a matter of such transcendent import is announced, it ought 
 to be done openly, in the presence, as it were, not only of the 
 whole race of man, past, present, and to come, but in the sight and 
 hearing of all beings whatever, capable of thought and thinking, be 
 
158 THE TEMPLE OP TRUTH. 
 
 they angels inhabiting mansions of bliss and light, or demons 
 doomed to dwell in misery and darkness ; challenging, in a manner, 
 thereby, that mightily grand host, to contradict, if able, the great 
 fact and truth thus proclaimed and enunciated, in a shape as clear 
 and incontrovertible, as any single position whatever, in the whole 
 field of man's science. That truth is : That man's invisible, think- 
 ing mind, the very being which resides and presides in the body, 
 giving it all the motive force and life therein found, is & force hidden 
 to every thing below it, and knowing itself only by its own thought 
 and mental action III 
 
 6. For, as, «.) the eye of man does not see and comprehend ; 
 b.) the ear not hear and understand ; c.) the tact not touch and 
 ascertain ; d.) smell not flavor ; e.) taste not savor ; and, /.) the 
 sense of bodily feeling not, in the remotest degree, perceive or even 
 faintly surmise the existence and nature of thought and thinking : it is 
 clear and incontrovertible, that, as these are all the channels of ex- 
 terior knowledge, the sensual part of man has no knowledge of any 
 soH of the nature of mind and intellect, but is only controlled there- 
 by ; and that, therefore, the mind knows, and can know, its own 
 existence and nature only by thought and intellectual action and con- 
 sciousness, and its own forces alone by medium of development and 
 action, and in no other manner whatsoever. 
 
 7. Hence man even at present, namely that, which really is 
 man, the thinking mind with its whole invisible apparatus (where- 
 by it controls its body and through it the things in outer exist- 
 ence), exists actually as a spiritual being, which knows nothing of 
 its own nature but what it learns thereof by the development of its 
 own intellect. 
 
 8. For all knowledge whatever consists in thought, and thought 
 can only be seen, entertained, appreciated and understood by the 
 mind or intellect which thinkingly beholds it. Hence all men are 
 governed by a force more or less unknown to them ; for every man, 
 whether ignorant or wise, virtuous or wicked, is governed by the 
 mind within him, and that mind can know itself only in the same 
 way in which it knows all other things, namely, — it must, in its 
 intellect, perceive by, and in, thoughts, that is, conceptions, the parts 
 or forces of which it is composed. To obtain this knowledge, the 
 intellect is compelled to analyze the mind's constituent forces in the 
 
FACTS, ETC., RELATING TO THE ANALYSIS OF MIND. 159 
 
 same way, in which it must analyze other things, that is, examine 
 them one by one, — one after another. 
 
 9. The mind, then, having no other knowledge of any thing, 
 except by the way of thought, it follows that all things coming 
 before the mind can come there only in the shape of a thought. 
 Hence, man can see either the individual forces, composing his 
 mind or whole being, or that whole being itself, only by a thought 
 representing each separate pari, or by one grand idea, combining all 
 the separate parts into a unitary whole. Thus, then, all things that 
 exist or may exist, must become spirits, that is, tJioughts, if they are 
 to enter the arena of man's mind, to be looked at by his intellect 
 Nay, in thus entering there, the size and shape of their bodies or 
 beings is even democratized or equalized to one another to such 
 extent, that the thought of the boundless universe, is not, so far 
 as form and essence are concerned, one bit more of a thought, than 
 that of the smallest pebble or atom ; the only difference being, that 
 when the intellect proceeds to analyze their properties or attributes, 
 it may accomplish that labor in one case, perhaps in a number of 
 minutes or hours, whereas in the other, it may require half, the 
 whole, or more than, man's lifetime. 
 
 10. Yet the great fact does not even stop here but proceeds 
 higher up. For even Deity itself, who made man as he is, made 
 him thus, that God is beheld by man's intellect in no other way than 
 in that of an idea ; and to know God : the intellect must analyze 
 that idea into its constituent parts, and those parts are God's 
 attributes or properties. For a being of whom man knows no 
 attributes or properties, has no practical or real existence for him 
 whatever. That God may be known as He is, and not merely 
 believed to be, is the emphatic doctrine of the New Testament. 
 For a.) in John xvii, 3, Christ himself ascribes to such true 
 knowledge of the true God, connected with the knowledge of 
 Christ's relation to God, the highest reward possible to be attached 
 to any thing, not even in the shape of a reward, but as a real at- 
 tribute inherent in that knowledge itself, for He unequivocally 
 declares : " That such knowledge is eternal life itself." b.) In 1 Cor. 
 ii, 10, Paul says : " TJie Spirit searcheth all things, yea, the deep things 
 of God." Searching by spirits is one and the same thing with 
 
160 THE TEMPLE OF TRUTH. 
 
 •prying into, investigating, and. getting to know and understand a tiling, 
 by looking at its component forces, by thought and intellect, c.) 
 When John, the revelator, was lifted up by a celestial trance into 
 a state of divine clairvoyance, his intellect saw the Divinity as it 
 is, and in his Eev. chap, iv, verses 2 and 3, he describes it in the 
 figurative language used throughout in that prophetic vision, as 
 " One who sat on the throne, looking like a jasper and sardine stone, 
 surrounded by a rainbow like an emerald." 
 
 11. He who, by employing the proper meilwds, learns to know 
 the nature, constituents, combination, and form of his own mental 
 structure, will find no great difficulty in understanding the figures 
 employed by the Apostle, as they correspond precisely with what 
 we have heretofore stated of man's innermost construction. The 
 " One " whom John saw on the throne, is the force corresponding 
 to the whole unitary spiritual being of man, where intellect and 
 soul form one mind ; the two looking like a jasper and sardine 
 stone, are the mind split, or looked upon as split, into intellect and 
 soul ; the rainbow surrounding both, of the hue of the emerald, 
 is man's fancy, as we have stated, Chap, ix, $ 14, b. Finally, what 
 John saw as, and calls, the throne, is in man his physical nature, 
 which is the temple wherein man's spirit dwells, or the throne upon 
 which it sits. The throne of God, upon which his infinite Spirit 
 sits and dwells in a similar way, is the entire universe or visible 
 creation, surrounded by the life-rainbow, and evergreen-emerald 
 mantle of boundless space. 
 
 12. To those who inquire of us, by what authority we thus use 
 man's being to define that of God ? We, for the present, simply, 
 first, refer them to Genesis, Chap, i, v. 27, where they may read : 
 " So God created man in His own image;" from which it follows, 
 with fatal necessity, that ; if man is the image of God, then God is 
 the original of man, and tlie image must, on a measured scale, possess 
 all the qualities and attributes of the original ; and the original, in turn, 
 possess, in an unlimited degree, all the properties and attributes of its 
 image. Next, we tell them, that reason knows of no higher 
 essence, than the one constituting the nature of intellect, thereby 
 proving it to belong, by its owd nature, to the substance of God, 
 or the Supreme Being ; whereby God, and all other things, become 
 
SPECIAL ANALYSIS OF THE MIND, ETC. 161 
 
 hwwable to the mind ; for intellect alone, and no force beneath it, 
 can have knowledge of a thing, which having of " knowledge," means 
 to understand "by thought" the mode and manner of its "being 
 and existing." 
 
 CHAPTER XX. 
 
 SPECIAL ANALYSIS OF THE MIND, SHOWING ITS COMPONENT FORCES. 
 
 1. It being now clearly enough, to the comprehension of even 
 the dullest intellect, established, that thought is beyond the reach 
 of the senses ; that it is the invisible mind in which all knowledge 
 resides, which man may have of any thing whatever, and that 
 hence that mind can have no other knowledge of itself and its 
 component forces, than by thought and intellectual perception in con- 
 sciousness. Now, the query presents itself to the mind, " How does 
 it perceive its own forces — how distinguish them from, and- how define 
 them, so as to recognize tJiem at all times, one from the other f" 
 
 2. We answer for it : a.) When consciousness is called upon 
 to express man's being within the smallest compass, so that the 
 formula used truly covers all the phenomena of any sort, found 
 connected with man, it simply says ; "lam." That, first grand, com- 
 pound, all-embracing fact, we will, to distinctly specify it from all 
 the others that are, as evolutions or emanations to follow out of it, 
 denote with the letter i. b.) The query then proceeds: "How 
 am I?" To which, as a true, only one answer can be returned, 
 namely : " I am dualistic ; I have interior being, and exterior ex- 
 istence." This latter exterior existence we will denote by B. In 
 AB conjoined, we have thus the whole being of man combined 
 into one unitary whole, as perceived in man's simple consciousness ; 
 in A we have its upper, and in B its nether, pole. As we have, in 
 Chap, iii and ix, laid it down as our conviction, that this double 
 consciousness of man, is one and the same thing with fancy and 
 imagination, as by us defined, since both conjoined inclose every 
 force and perception within his being, into one grand, all-embracing 
 synthesis : we hereby call the attention of all thinkers, capable of 
 
162 THE TEMPLE OF TRUTH. 
 
 grappling with, the subject, and will thank them to use their test 
 means and exertions to probe our position to its very bottom. For, 
 if we see this matter aright, as we firmly think we do, man's invisi- 
 ble mind, heretofore so long unknown and misunderstood, becomes 
 at once as clear to itself and its own thought, as any other object of 
 which it has any clear and reliable knowledge. For, if fancy is 
 identical with mental consciousness and its perception of being, and 
 imagination one and the same thing with sensual consciousness of 
 exterior or finite existence, in which cases also, the heretofore un- 
 located faculties of reminiscence, remembrance and memory, become at 
 once blended with fancy and imagination : thereby six different 
 forces, or what has been until now supposed, and by separate 
 terms, denoted as such, will at once be melted into the single dualism 
 of fancy and imagination. The latter inclosing man with all the 
 concrete forms and things known to him, into a finite, and the 
 former enfolding that finite cycle, together with the infinite empire 
 of thought within its own vast compass, knowing no limits and 
 bounds, except those from intellect and knowledge. 
 
 3. After spiritual selfhood has thus, in consciousness, ascertained, 
 a.) that it is ; b.) now it is; it then, c.) asks : "what am If" To 
 this query, the answer returned, as the echo of the operation of all 
 the forces within man, can be no other than : " I am an active be- 
 ing. But which, kind of action is it (continues the query), that 
 represents and embraces all the rest, and what is its most con- 
 centratedly expressive formula f" To this query there is again but 
 one true answer possible, to wit : " I think !" What does this 
 formula include? It includes : " I meditate and I reason, I reflect 
 and I observe, and hence I know ;" that I do this by a dualism in my 
 thinking force, which, in its interior sphere, is termed reason, which 
 we will denote with the letter C ; and, in its exterior domain, is 
 named understanding (or common sense), which we will mark 
 with the letter D, so that now our two letters, CD, when standing 
 combined, represent the entire intellect in its two dualistic poles con- 
 joined, while each letter separate represents, the first, its synthe- 
 sizing reason, and the latter its analyzing understanding. 
 
 4t. Having now got the intellect distinctly within our cycle, we 
 may, instead of, as we until now have done, using it in our opera- 
 tions, as it were, from behind the curtain, without explicitly giving 
 
SPECIAL ANALYSIS OF THE MIND, ETC. 1G3 
 
 it the credit due for the proceeds ; now use it openly, and ask it to 
 tell us how, and in what manner, the mind can be able to see and 
 analyze itself, and all other things, as thus far we have, or rather it 
 for us has, done ? To these queries the intellect replies : " Like 
 there exist out of man, in nature, two objects, inseparably con- 
 nected together, which, by being through their action the most useful 
 and indispensable to man, of all else, as also by their influence upon 
 his senses, overpower all others, and under the name of sun and 
 moon, attract his attention more, and deservedly so, than any thing 
 in nature ; so there are in man forces that differ from one another ; 
 and I myself, man's intellect, may fitly, in my double capacity, be 
 compared to sun and moon ; for, as reason, I am the solar light that 
 illumes his boundless interior world ; while, as understanding, I 
 am the moonlight, derived from the inner sun, by which he perceives 
 the form, shape, and nature of the things composing nature and 
 the finite existence that surrounds him ; whereby the light of clay 
 and the light of night is all solar light; only, that the light by the 
 moon, is the sun's light reflected from it as from a mirror ; so 
 the light of the understanding, is reason's light, applied to the sepa- 
 rate things in nature, as well as to the separate component parts or 
 forces of all objects of knowledge whatever. And, as light is 
 " sight," the light of sun and moon, if it were conscious of itself, 
 would see the very objects and things, upon which it shines, by the 
 very act of falling tliereupon ; so does my, the intellect's light, on 
 whatever objects it falls, disclose to myself, to the living intellect, 
 the exterior shape and inner nature and essence of all the things and 
 objects upon which it legitimately alights ; no matter whether the 
 originals of the objects of my vision or meditation are things out 
 of myself, or are parts and portions of my own forces." 
 
 5. As this answer of the intellect is satisfactory, inasmuch as it 
 corresponds with the facts known to every reflecting mind, namely, 
 that all truths and understood facts are seen by the mind, not only 
 translucently through and through, but also clearly and distinctly as 
 to their shape, size, form, and circumference ; we may now pro- 
 ceed, and ask of the intellect : "What other leading forces, in addi- 
 tion to those above denoted by the signs of AB and CD, it yet 
 perceives in man, that remain to be named and defined ?" To 
 which query the intellect replies : " That one more dualistic 
 14 
 
164 THE TEMPLE OF TRUTH. 
 
 force is to be named, already heretofore introduced by the name of 
 soul, whose upper pole, termed in Chap, ix, and elsewhere, the 
 sphere of sensibility, as the seat of man's highest joys, sufferings, 
 enjoyments, and resolves, may be designated with the letter E, and 
 whose nether pole, named the sphere of sensation, embracing all of 
 man's impressions of pain and pleasure from things strictly apper- 
 taining to the sensually accessible part of nature, may be denoted 
 by the letter F, so that the two letters EF, when taken conjointly, 
 represent the whole soul ; whereas, each letter singly, represents, as 
 stated, E the upper, and F the nether pole of the soul." As both of 
 these poles or spheres of the soul have, as far as elementary func- 
 tions are concerned, been extensively analyzed and discussed, in 
 Chapters xvi, xvii, and xviii, there is no need to further enlarge 
 upon them in this present spot, but we will meet them again 
 further on. 
 
 6. Now, as the intellect maintains : that the three preceding 
 dualistic forces, which it denoted by the letters AB, CD, and EF, 
 represent all things, forces, and performances, found in man, using 
 the organized body, as a machinery and dwelling-place, in common, 
 for all their various operations : it remains to be seen, by the test 
 of practical application, — whether the analysis performed by the in- 
 tellect, is complete, consummate, and, as far as it pretends to extend, 
 exhaustive. This test can easily be made. For, to analyze a liv- 
 ing force, is almost the same operation as the taking apart of a 
 complicated piece of machinery, putting the separated pieces 
 thereof, within a given area of space, each into a separate spot, so 
 as to give spectators the opportunity, to see the vast number and 
 variety of parts, and learn the difference in form, shape, size, func- 
 tion and performance of each, from all the rest. If the engineer or 
 meclmnician, who, in the presence of beholders, performed the job of 
 taking the machine apart, after he has gratified their curiosity, pro- 
 ceeds under their eye, to re-compose the machine with equal ease, as 
 he took it asunder, and at the end leaving not a piece behind, for 
 which he could not discover its proper place, and then sets the 
 instrument again into working order, as it was before commencing 
 its analysis ; if the spectators see all this, they depart with the con- 
 viction, that the work they have seen performing was done wholly, 
 in a workman-like manner, and left no room for amendment. 
 
ON LOGIC, OR THE LAWS OF THE MIND. 165 
 
 7. Well, let us see, how far application of the rule, will bring our 
 case to a corresponding result, a.) In AB, we have being and exist- 
 ence, with all things thereunto, as also especially appertaining to 
 fancy and imagination, embracing all form and creative capacity, in 
 every field of poetry, art, and performance belonging to either utility 
 or the field of pure beauty and ideality, b.) In CD, we have all the 
 forces of the intellect, with every machinery thereunto belonging, 
 so that every operation and. object in anywise connected with 
 thought and thinking, in the shape of mental processes, knowledge, 
 science, ideas, conceptions, or thought in any form, either as ma- 
 terial, or operative force, is therein embraced ; and including like- 
 wise the whole machinery of the senses, to its very verge, where 
 nature, by phenomena, and it, meet and touch, c.) In EF, finally 
 we have all the psychical as well as physical phenomena which, 
 in the shape of superior or inferior sensations and feelings, man ex- 
 periences as joys or sufferings, pleasures or pains, as it were, within 
 the very centre and vitals of his being, which we have termed soul, 
 and denoted it as the real home of man's character and inherent 
 qualities, residing therein in the shape of fixed habits of virtue or 
 vice ; whereby the impulses, habits, motives, emotions, passions, 
 resolves, and sensations of heaven as well as hell, may therein pre- 
 vail, thus making man, when connecting with all the rest of his 
 vast forces, an angel of heaven and messenger of delight, to his re- 
 joicing, or a demon of the dismal deep and a dispenser of terror and 
 woe to his terrified, fellow-man. 
 
 CHAPTER XXI. 
 
 ON LOGIC, OR THE LAWS GOVERNING THE INTELLECT IN SHAPING 
 THE FORMS OF TRUTH. 
 
 I. The mind knows its being in upper or interior, and its exist- 
 ence in nether or exterior consciousness* in so absolute a manner 
 
 * Although we have assumed, upon what we consider amply convincing reasons, that 
 consciousness, in its two poles, is identical with fancy and imagination, we still con- 
 tinue using the term consciousness, as more definitely expressing the mental actions 
 here concerned, than any other term. 
 
166 THE TEMPLE OF TEUTH. 
 
 that nothing of the sort, which is termed in the schools "a demon- 
 stration," can either increase or decrease the amount of conviction, 
 which man feels of the reality and truth of both. For, if the whole 
 world around him would cry : " You imagine me merely to be, and 
 see a universe with glittering stars, a glorious sun and a grand beauti- 
 ful nature all around : but it is all a sliam, a deception like yourself, 
 and neither of you, lias as much existence and reality, as a momen- 
 tary dream." 
 
 2. The man thus addressed, even if u solitary and alone," on his 
 side, and the whole balance of his race, opposing him on the other, 
 would, as we imagine him, neither lose his good humor, nor be 
 anywise disconcerted. But would, with a smiling countenance, 
 and " calm as a summer's morning," look into the face of the vast 
 host, and simply reply to them somewhat in the following manner : 
 "My friends, — when you speak to me of that which transpires 
 within yourselves, and relates to your own state and mode of being, — 
 I will respectfully listen to you : but on attempting to speak to me 
 of myself, and that which is within me, I would beg leave kindly to 
 remind you, that inasmuch, as not you are, but myself only am within 
 myself : you seem to have entirely forgotten what Paul says, 
 1 Cor., ii, 11, "For what man Jcnoiceth the things of man, save the 
 spirit of 'man which is in him ?" as likewise, your own knowledge, 
 that this is a matter of which you have no knowledge whatever, arid 
 never will have any, until I shall myself see fit, to let you know 
 something about it." 
 
 3. This answer, being unanswerable, has the good effect to bring 
 the parties to a rational discussion of, and search after, the law gov- 
 erning the differences prevailing in the various views which human 
 intellects form often of one and the same case, resulting in their 
 agreement upon the two following propositions : a.) For that 
 which man's mind knows by consciousness of itself, its forces and 
 thoughts, or of nature from immediate impressions upon its own 
 senses : it needs no assistance of exterior logic or foreign dialectics 
 to corroborate or authenticate the grand facts in the case, as they 
 are evidence for themselves of a sort, that looks upon all other 
 evidence, volunteered to their aid, as a supernumerary intrusion, 
 if not an impertinence, b.) Bat when the human mind, feeling the 
 necessity of order, method, and system in its pursuit of knowledge, 
 
ON LOGIC, OR THE LAWS OP THE MIND. 167 
 
 enters regularly into the process of accumulating thought, that is, 
 collect the various facts and thoughts of individual consciousness, 
 with its various observations of nature, and attempts to collate and 
 harmonize them with its own and among one anotJier, for individual 
 as well as the general benefit : then arises the need of having some 
 medium whereby to reconcile or decide differences in conflicting 
 cases. Such medium, acting as an umpire, to be of any true use 
 and value, should be of an absolute nature, so that all men, willing 
 or not, will have to acknowledge its rule and the validity of 
 its decisions. 
 
 4. From reflections like these, it becomes clear, that thinking 
 minds, at an early age, must come to perceive, that the thing they 
 needed and were in search of, was : a knowledge of the law con- 
 trolling not only thought, thinking, and the mind's perception of 
 the exterior phenomena of nature, but containing and expressing 
 the very conditions underlying all being, thought, intellectual 
 action and perception whatever, and showing the cause of the per- 
 manency of endurance as well in the mode of being and existing, 
 as in that of operating and acting, and the last accessible reasons 
 why it ivas all thus, and not otherwise. 
 
 5. That was the thing the mind saw the want of. The gratifi- 
 cation of this want, to its full extent, would have been a consum- 
 mate system of logic and dialectics, of which, the former relates to 
 the form and modes of using, and the latter to the nature and essence 
 of fact, l-nowledge, and truth. That language itself was the two- 
 fold medium thus sought, was not known, at the time ; and, if 
 known, would not have helped the case any, for in the same man- 
 ner in which language is the product not of one individual human 
 intellect, but of mankind's conjoint reason, so also will it require a 
 co-operation of truth-loving intellects to fully develop language 
 into that practically all-embracing logic and all-probing dialectics, 
 which in theory are fully contained within it. 
 
 6. To help themselves as well as they could and understand 
 how, men of uncommon minds went early to work to frame such 
 systems themselves. Thus Zeno, of Elea, in ancient Greece, 
 already five hundred years before our era, is termed, " The Father 
 of Logic and Dialectics." But Aristotle, about one hundred and 
 sixteen years afterward, was the first who made the successful 
 
168 THE TEMPLE OP TRUTH. 
 
 attempt to form logic by itself into something like a scientific 
 shape. 
 
 7. The system of Aristotle, considerably amended, is still much 
 in use in the higher schools. But systems of that kind, being too 
 abstruse and recondite, are not calculated to be used in every-day 
 practical life, For, not only do we find that the vast majority of 
 all men, educated at colleges, and there hearing lectures upon logic, 
 no sooner leave the high scfwol for entering practical life, than they 
 at once abandon all book logic, and rely, like the great mass of man- 
 kind, upon the laws innate with reason and judgment ; but even 
 gifted men, in all nations, eminent as thinkers and authors, openly 
 repudiate logic as a separate science ; and some, like Hegel, under 
 the name of logic, give us a treatise embracing the whole field of 
 so-called metaphysics. This shows, not that such men see no need 
 of logic, but merely, that they consider it present in language, in a 
 mode resembling, in some degree, that in which we consider it. 
 
 8. But, although thus not calculated for general use and appli- 
 cation, such systems of logic, containing some of the deepest 
 thoughts found in language, picked out and framed together into 
 a more or less systematic shape, by several of the clearest and 
 profoundest thinkers that ornament the race of man, have not 
 been without some very good uses, namely : compelling men to 
 deeper thought and reflection. For they who want to use them 
 beneficially, must dive deep enough with their thought, until they 
 fully understand them ; which constitutes a discipline for the intel- 
 lect pre-eminently strengthening ; whereas those, who discard their 
 rules altogether, are bound to penetrate to a depth in their own 
 intellects, to veins of knowledge and perceptions, which entitles and 
 induces them to look upon all foreign or exterior help in the 
 premises, as superfluous and needless. 
 
 9. Since the days of Zeno and Aristotle, the labors of various 
 strong intellects, such as Bacon, Condillac, Lambert, Kant, 
 and others, have contributed much to bring the shelfwork of logic 
 nearer to a state of completion. The essence of that, what logic 
 thereby has become, and can be regarded as to be, at the present time, 
 may be considered as condensedly represented in the two following 
 tables ; of which the first, marked A, exhibits the table of cate- 
 gories, or general heads, or"suMMA genera,'' as forming the 
 
ON LOGIC, OR THE LAWS OP THE MIND. 
 
 169 
 
 absolute shelfwork, into the various localities of which, as a classi- 
 fying apparatus, every object of thought is to be ranged and placed, 
 according to its nature and qualities. The second, noted B, is a 
 similar table of categories, embracing the various forms or kinds of 
 judgment, based upon the first table, in one or other of which, the 
 intellect of man is necessitated, to express its decisions, upon any- 
 thing whatever, whenever exercising that function : 
 
 A.) TABLE OF CATEGORIES. 
 
 I.) OF QUANTITY. 
 
 II.) OF QUALITY. 
 
 III.) OF RELATION. 
 
 IV.) OF MODALITY. 
 
 a.) Unity. 
 
 a.) Reality. 
 
 a.) Of Inherence 
 and Subsistence, 
 {substantia et ac- 
 cidens.) 
 
 b.) Of Causality and 
 Dependence, 
 (cause and effect.) 
 
 c.) Of Community, 
 (alternation of ac- 
 tion and reaction 
 between the forces 
 concerned.) 
 
 a.) Possibility, Im- 
 possibility. 
 
 b.) Plurality, 
 c.) Totality. 
 
 b.) Negation. 
 c.) Limitation. 
 
 b.) Existence, Non- 
 entity. 
 
 e.) Necessity, Casu- 
 alty, Accidentally. 
 
 B.) TABLE OF JUDGMENTS. 
 
 a.) Universal. 
 b.) Particular, 
 c.) Singular. 
 
 II.) OF QUALITY. 
 
 a.) Affirmative. 
 b.) Negative, 
 c.) Indefinite. 
 
 III.) OF RELATION. 
 
 a.) Categorical. 
 b.) Hypothetical, 
 c.) Disjunctive. 
 
 IV.) OF MODALITY. 
 
 a.) Problematical. 
 b.) Assertorial. 
 c.) Apodictical. 
 
 10. In Chap, viii, on Language, we conclude its closing paragraph 
 with affirming and repeating it in various places, that, language is 
 not only a medium of communicating thought, but also, at the 
 same time , the grandest system of logic devised by the intellect of 
 eternal reason itself, whereby thought may be communicated uner- 
 ringly, from mind to mind, if its laws are duly heeded and ob- 
 served. In looking at the above tables, it will at once strike any 
 reflecting mind, that they contain a positive demonstration of the 
 truth of our assertion, that language is or contains a perfect system 
 of logic ; for, not only the captions or headnames of every category 
 in both the tables, but likewise all the words and the ideas they 
 represent, contained in any one of the twenty-four subdivisions of 
 the doubled four categories above, belong, in the first instance, to 
 language, and are familiar to it ; in the next we have met with 
 all OF them, in our Analysis of the Senses, particularly in that 
 
170 THE TEMPLE OP TRUTH. 
 
 of Sight, with the most of them in an expressed, and with the 
 remaining few, in an implied shape ; and, lastly, this mental shelf- 
 work is made use of every day, hour, and moment, in practical 
 life, by all men who never studied logic at the school, in one way or 
 other, whenever they interchange thoughts with one another. And 
 thousands of them do use this intellectual machinery as correctly, 
 who never heard of, or cared about, the construction of a syllogism, 
 as some of those whose occupation it is to teach logic as a science 
 to others. For wherever and whenever a man succeeds to commu- 
 nicate his own thought, in the precise shape and form in which he 
 has got it in his own, to the mind of any other man, he has per- 
 formed a feat beyond which no logic can go, as there is no need for 
 any thing beyond this, so far as mere transfer of thought is con- 
 cerned. Whoever is thus capable to make himself understood, by 
 all people that have sense, upon any matter not entirely foreign to 
 their sphere of knowledge, may be counted an accomplished logician, 
 no matter whether he ever paid any attention to the study of logic 
 or not. 
 
 11. What we, therefore, want to see, and which has been per- 
 ceptibly enough, the drift of all we have said and done in the 
 j)receding pages, is not the abandonment of the study of logic, but 
 to draw it out from its student's secluded corners, into the broad 
 glare of daylight and every-day life, teaching men practically the 
 application of its closely searching methods ; its patient, all-examin- 
 ing care, upon all their private and public concerns, and thereby 
 enabling them everywhere to discover what is true or false, good or 
 evil, in all cases, and thus capacitate them to see and pursue that 
 better path that leads to ever-increasing good. Thereby men be- 
 come possessed of correct knowledge and truth, in which consist the 
 materiel of wisdom. If to this they add the disposition to employ 
 both in the service and to the ends of goodness : they therein have 
 the material of virtue, whereby it, as well as wisdom, becomes the 
 active, conjoint ruling force within the man. Now, if you place 
 two men thus disposed together, you may rely that all the lan- 
 guage which they employ for interchanging their thoughts between 
 each other, is strictly logical in its scope and effect, even if at times, 
 it might for a moment, be defective in form ; for they will, in every 
 instance, not fail to convey the precise spirit of their thought 
 
ON LOGIC, OR THE LAWS OF THE MIND. 171 
 
 mutually to one another, as it exists in their own intellects. That is 
 the office and object of language as well as logic, and thus, again, 
 their common aim proves them both to be in essence — one. 
 
 12. As there may be some of our readers, who might be unable, 
 to understand the meaning and use of these tables, it is proper to 
 give the following brief explanation. To do sounderstandingly, we 
 must begin with category No. iv, termed Modality, in the first table 
 marked A. 
 
 a.) " To be, or not to he," is everywhere the first and grand ques- 
 tion. The category labeled modality, based upon and expressive of 
 the highest laws of the intellect, informs us that being has three 
 grades, which it names : " Possibility, existence, necessity," terming 
 their opposites, " Impossibility, non-entity, casualty." Hence there 
 must be objects known to, or coming before, man, of which he is 
 forced to say, that their being or existence, belongs in degree of 
 certainty, to one or the other of these classes. Thus he may say : 
 Space is, or exists, by necessity, for no man can remove it, even in 
 thought. Nature has existence, as all the senses of all men attest, 
 and no voice speaks to the contrary. That the planets and stars 
 may be inhabited, analogously to our earth, is, at least, & possibility. 
 The removal of space may be termed an impossibility, or a thing 
 that never can become actual. Non-entity, being the absence of 
 existence, applies to things or beings that are not yet, but pos- 
 sibly may, in the future, enter existence or being. Casualty or 
 accidentally is that state of which neither causes nor effects are 
 foreknown, or the causes of certain effects which are not understood 
 and perceived. 
 
 b.) By the preceding category, we now know, that there is being 
 and existence of sundry grades. Now the query arises : WJio and 
 ivhat is and exists thus, and to which grade does his, her, or its being 
 or existence belong ? This question is answered, one way or other, 
 by every passage spoken by man ; for every one such passage con- 
 tains, as its leading subject, the one of quantity, marked category i ; 
 for he speaks either of one man or thing, or of several, or more, or 
 of all, which is meant by unity, plurality, or totality, the terms used 
 in the category. 
 
 c.) Having thus got being from the category of modality, and its 
 individual or compound form from the category of quantity ; each 
 15 
 
172 THE TEMPLE OF TEUTH. 
 
 such form of being has, in a positive or negative manner, something 
 or other attached to it, belonging as a quality of being or existence 
 to category ii, indicating also its place upon the positive or negative 
 side in category iv. 
 
 d.) Next, each subject thus brought on the platform of being, has 
 a threefold manner of connection with all other things, which is 
 expressed under the caption of relation, in category iii. For, in the 
 first instance, every being or thing under discussion, has inherent 
 qualities and forces, which form a part of itself. Next, it may have 
 other qualities, which it can part with, without any change in its 
 real being. Thus, any faculty required in a man's sound mind, 
 must be said to constitute an inherent quality of his full humanity ; 
 while the circumstance that he is either learned or unlearned, large 
 or small, strong or weak, healthy or sickly, can be present or absent 
 without producing any essential change in the man's nature as a 
 human being. This is what is meant by inherent or subsistent rela- 
 tion, in a, category iii. Next, all things and beings are connected 
 with others by the law of causality, being the cause or effect, the 
 source or stream, the principal or agent, the parent or child, of one 
 thing or being, or another, as denoted in let. b, category iii. Finally, 
 as the forces and things that are and exist, have a constant com- 
 merce and intercourse more or less with one another, on a scale 
 more Or less extensive Or limited : the alternation in their action 
 with and upon One another is expressed in this category by the 
 term community. 
 
 13. After the first table,' A, has thils furnished the primary forms 
 and conditions of be'ing and existence^ with beings, existences, 
 their qualities, forces and relations as implied in its categories : 
 then comes the intellect through spoken speech or written language 
 of man, and narrates in the various fOrrils of judgment, as exhibited 
 in table B, the variegated modes of action Of these forces,- in such 
 shape as they come under its notice. 
 
 a.) Here, then, we have again, as before, twelve different forms, 
 in one of which any proposition whatever, which the mind can 
 form upon any thing, must be expressed. Corrimencing as before 
 with category iv, modality, its last subdivisions, marked c, are termed 
 apodictical, or incontrovertible, which means a proposition affirming 
 or denying upon reasons resting upon logical necessity, b.) When 
 
ON LOGIC, OB THE LAWS OF THE MIND. 173 
 
 based upon logical reality, such proposition is called assertorial. a.) 
 When based upon logical possibility, is termed problematical 
 
 b.) Now let it be kept in mind, that all propositions whatever, 
 either in a positive or negative form, always belong to one or the 
 other of the preceding three classes, and take, in turn, one feature 
 or other, from each one of the remaining three categories. Thus 
 in categ. i, of quantity, the proposition in a, called universal, is one, 
 which affirms or denies the predicate of the whole of the subject ; 
 b, particular or partial, it is, when affirming or denying the same of 
 only a portion or part thereof ; and c, singular, it is called, when its 
 affirmation or denial of the predicate is restricted to an individual 
 or single part of the whole. 
 
 c.) The second category, labeled quality, terms a proposition 
 a.) affirmative, when asserting the agreement of the predicate with 
 the subject ; it calls it, b.) negative, when denying the same ; and 
 terms it, c.) indefinite, when their affirmation or denial is expressly 
 or impliedly restrictive. 
 
 A.) In the third, the category of relation, a proposition is called 
 a.) categorical, when absolutely affirming or denying a predicate of a 
 subject ; b.) hypothetical, it is termed, when asserting or denying, 
 not absolutely, but under an hypothesis, implying connection with a 
 specified conjunction, c.) Disjunctive finally, is a proposition, con- 
 sisting of two or more categoricals, stated in such form, as to em- 
 brace the alternative, that one or the other thereof, must be true. 
 
 14. Pure or intellectual logic, in conformity with the modes of 
 being and action inherent in the mind, furnishes the forms neces- 
 sary for discovering formal truth, and therewith, also, the three 
 highest laws of thinking, from which it educes and evolves the 
 whole process of forming conceptions, judgments, and syllogisms, 
 with the forms connected with their practical application, partly 
 adduced and explained in the preceding paragraphs of this chapter. 
 These three highest laws of thinking, containing the meter for all 
 formal truth, are indicated in categ. iv, table a, and are termed : 
 
 a.) The law of logical possibility. Logically possible, that is, 
 thinkable, is that, which admits of being united within the same 
 consciousness, whereby, the object of thought thus entertained, 
 shows the possession of criteria harmonizing with the primary law 
 of the intellect. Expressed negatively, it states : That which can 
 
174 THE TEMPLE OF TRUTH. 
 
 not be conjoined within one consciousness, and is hence repugnant 
 to the original form of the mind, is not thinkable. For this reasoD, 
 this proposition, on account of its negative validity, is termed by the 
 schools : the proposition of contradiction (principium contradictionis). 
 For example : what is eternal is perishable, is logically not think- 
 able, inasmuch as the contradictory predicates, eternal and perishable, 
 can not be reconciled within one consciousness. But the whole 
 world of poetry, is logically thinkable, hence possible. 
 
 1).) The law of logical reality. The thoughts, which we accept as 
 true, must have a subjective foundation within the original form 
 of our intellectual being, as a sufficient reason for us thus to accept 
 them. Logically real is therefore that object, the reason of which, 
 why it is thought, is to be found in the relation of the thinking 
 mind, to that object of thought. Thus the ideas of free-agency, 
 morality, immortality, etc., possess logical reality for man. Under 
 this head belongs the proposition : Every effect must have its cause, 
 etc. This law of thinking, which first was lifted into general valid- 
 ity, by Leibnitz, was called by the schools, the proposition of a suffi- 
 cient cause (principium rationis sufficientis), and placed by them, 
 before Kant, at the door of so called metaphysics. Kant, with 
 good reasons, turned it over into the field of logic ; for logical reality 
 and real or material actuality, differ ; as the latter is "an accordance 
 of ihouglit with the objects thereof" 
 
 c.) The law of logical necessity. Logically necessary, is that, which, 
 in accordance with the original laws of thinking, must be ascribed 
 exclusively to the thought before the mind, that is, to the exclusion 
 of every thing contrary. (For example : twice two are four.) To 
 this law appertains all mathematical certainty. This law of think- 
 ing has been added to the two former, by the adherents of the 
 "critical school of philosophy." They call it, in the schools : "the 
 proposition excluding a third ;" (principium exclusi tertii), from the 
 formula : " To every thought entertained by the mind, must, of two 
 contradictory criteria, of necessity, belong one tliereof." 
 
 15. Based upon these three cardinal laws of thought, practical 
 logic has, beside what has already been stated, settled upon the 
 following, as, of the remaining, its most material points and defini- 
 tions : a.) Whenever the intellect of man is actively engaged with 
 any object, it is more or less clearly conscious of a certain process 
 
ON LOGIC, OR THE LAWS OF THE MIND. 175 
 
 taking place within it, which, is the inner act of reasoning. This 
 process is in all main features essentially alike, no matter whatever 
 the subject (as already stated in Chap, vi, § 12, and elsewhere), 
 whether belonging to every-day life, nature, mind, science, or any 
 thing else. Logic, hence, wants to show the way, how reasoning 
 in exterior forms is to be conducted, b.) under its guidance, reason- 
 ing proceeds, through what it calls, forming an argument, which 
 consists of three distinct propositions, of which it terms the first : 
 the major ; the second : the minor ; and the third : the conclusion. 
 If thus stating an argument regularly in its full shape : it is termed 
 a syllogism, c.) Of these three propositions of a syllogism, each 
 proposition, being "a judgment expressed in words," consists of two 
 terms ; the one which is spoken of, is named the subject ; the 
 matter so spoken thereof, is called the predicate. Thus, subject and 
 predicate are called the terms or extremes, since they are joined in 
 the middle by the copula, indicating the act of judgment, — because 
 by it the predicate asserted of the subject, is affirmed or denied. 
 The form of the copula can only be : is or is not ; which terms 
 denote either simple affirmation or denial of the subject's predicate. 
 The auxiliary verb "to be," termed by logic, u ihe substantive verb," 
 is the only verb properly recognized or used by logic, — as all other 
 verbs are only modifications of it. 
 
 16. The operations or states of the mind, concerned in an argu- 
 ment are three : apprehension, judgment, and reasoning or discourse. 
 
 a.) Apprehension , every notion or conception is called formed 
 from sensual or mental impressions by the understanding. 
 
 b.) Judgment, is the comparing of two notions, conceptions, 
 thoughts, or ideas in the mind, which constitute objects of appre- 
 hension, whether simple or compound, — and deciding that they 
 agree or disagree with each other, — which means, that one thereof 
 does or does not belong to the other, resulting from the first main 
 law ($ 14, let. a). Judgment, hence, is either affirmative or negative. 
 
 c.) Reasoning or discoursing, is the act of educing from certain 
 judgments, termed premises, — another founded thereon, or, as the 
 conclusion, or joint result of both, contained therein. In an argument 
 which is properly constructed in matter and form, any one who 
 admits its premises, is forced to admit the conclusion. 
 
 17. And as there can be no reasoning between the parties, unless 
 
176 THE TEMPLE OP TKTTTH. 
 
 they understand each other perfectly, which can only be, when 
 they combine one and the same thought with the terms used, the 
 propositions made, and the arguments stated : in which case, also, 
 terms are prevented from being indistinct, propositions from being 
 false, and arguments inconclusive : it is the proper office and function 
 of logic to attend to all this, by forcing the parties to a strict use of 
 language. In this capacity, logic may be said: "to he the art of 
 properly employing language in the processes of reasoning, and of de- 
 tecting the true argument from the counterfeited imitations thereof." 
 For, sound reasoning, when duly expressed, denotes already by 
 outward form, its inherent correctness. 
 
 18. a.) Every act of reasoning is classification, whereby the subject 
 adjudicated is distributed, either into one of the classes already com- 
 monly known, or creating a new class for it. b.) Classes are formed 
 by generalization, which consists in abstracting that notion or attri- 
 bute from all the separate individuals having resemblances, in which 
 they all agree, making it the criterion of the class. 
 
 19. In regard to classes, there prevails a fixed degree of order, 
 based upon the principles of sub-, co-, and super-ordination ; where- 
 by we are enabled either to ascend from a lower to a higher, or 
 descend from the latter to a lower class, a.) the highest of all classes 
 is called " the highest genus " (genus summum), embracing all others 
 below, or within it, and its individual objects are termed : u thing, 
 something" (ens), which is the most comprehensive class "thinkable," 
 to which the great, good, and sainted, mystic Taulerus, in a fit of 
 devout admiration, even referred Deity itself, when saying, in his 
 treatise on " Spiritual Poverty :" "the most wonderful and curious 
 of all tilings is God !" b.) Next come the classes contained in this 
 highest, of which there are, by the name of genus, a large number, 
 co-existing as genera alongside of one auother, and often divided 
 into proximate and remote genera, c.) The smaller classes existing 
 within the compass of a genus, are termed species or hind, and these 
 often divide themselves again into smaller cycles, called : varieties, 
 or sorts, made up of single individuals. Hence, assembled individ- 
 uals form the variety : the various varieties constitute the species ; 
 the various species make up the genus, and the whole of the genera 
 constitute the "genus summum." 
 
 20. a.) Thus it will be perceived that every word in language, 
 
ON LOGIC, OR THE LAWS OF THE MIND. 177 
 
 denotes the existence of this universal classification, as it belongs at 
 one and the same time to a certain variety of a species ; then with 
 the species to the genus, and with its to the highest genus. And 
 this is, therefore, the case with all things, b.) Hence it is the office 
 and object of logic to assist us in finding the true class to which a 
 thing, under the contingency of its occurrence, really belongs. If 
 reasoning is capable of accomplishing this, its main object, it realizes 
 its full purpose ; which, however, under the circumstances as yet 
 generally prevailing in the world, is accomplished only in the smallest 
 number of cases, from absence of reliable knowledge. 
 
 21. As a syllogism is an argument, presented in a regular logical 
 form, it should be " An argument so expressed, that the conclusiveness of 
 it is manifest from tJie mere form of expression," without looking at 
 the meaning of the terms. For example : " Every A is Z ; B is J, 
 hence it is also Z." Whatever signs or terms are employed in an 
 argument like this, which may serve as the pattern of a shape to 
 which all arguments can be reduced, the consequences are inevitable. 
 By a close examination, all arguments will be found to be syllogistic, 
 no matter how irregular the form may be in which they appear. 
 
 22. When generalization has formed a class, be it one of facts, 
 truths, things, or beings, the rule and law thereof is, that, whatever 
 may, by affirmation or denial, be predicated of such class, applies 
 to any thing or being therein comprehended. (This is the famous 
 proposition generalized already by Aristotle, under the title, " de 
 omni et nullo," being valid of all or none.) 
 
 23. The preceding will suffice for what is necessary to be said 
 about logic for the present time ; inasmuch as we shall have to 
 recur to the subject at some future day, in another place. Before, 
 however, we leave the subject, we have, a.) First, to note down 
 one exceedingly curious fact connected with its history, which, 
 after a while, people will hardly be able to believe. This is, 
 namely, the remarkable fact that, for a long time, the following 
 position was in reality one of the laws or rules, in all the systems 
 of logic taught, not partially but generally, at the high schools in 
 the various countries of Christendom ; and is, perhaps, in some of 
 them retained yet to this very day, to wit : " There are tilings that 
 are true in the abstract but not in the concrete ;" or, in plain language, 
 there are things which are true when beheld as tlwugU, by tJie mind, but 
 
178 THE TEMPLE QP TRUTH. 
 
 proving themselves untrue, as soon as tried to be applied in exterior 
 practice. The famous original of this remarkable so-called logical 
 axiom, reads : " quidquid est verum in abstracto, sed non verum in con- 
 creto. ,i b.) Next, we must show the difference between logic and 
 dialectics, as both have been and still very often are confounded 
 with one another ; thus their difference is this : Logic is superin- 
 tendent and lawgiver over the forms in which truth is to appear ; 
 whereas Dialectics perform the same office toward the matter or sub- 
 stance of truth itself ; acting, as it were, like a touchstone, by which 
 the real gold of truth is unerringly discriminated from all spurious 
 imitations thereof. 
 
 CHAPTER XXII. 
 
 ON DIALECTICS, OR THE CRITERION OF THE SUBSTANCE AND 
 ESSENCE OP TRUTH. 
 
 1. Hitherto there never yet has existed any thing like a system 
 of reliable dialectics in this world. For such system becomes only a 
 realizable possibility ; where and after, all the main sources of human 
 knowledge have become distinctly known and recognized in number 
 and substance, and their relation to one another clearly ascertained 
 and understood ; which, as presently will be shown, never heretofore 
 has been the case. For, if there had ever been such a criterion on 
 earth, the so-called world of learning and science, could not have 
 been led into adopting the monstrous absurdity into their systems 
 of logic, as a law of thought ; which we have just mentioned above, 
 that " certain things could be true in tliought, but untrue when attempted 
 to be put into practice.^ 
 
 2. The condition of human affairs, as shown us by history, 
 geography, and daily observation, if calmly surveyed, presents, 
 however, not only the causes of such and the like absurdities, but 
 therein, also, in a considerable measure, the apologies for the same. 
 For, whatever is done, thought, perceived or executed, by the whole 
 race of man ; every single part thereof is, after all, only in reality 
 performed in each case, by one single human mind, who is charged 
 
ON DIALECTICS, THE TOUCHSTONE, ETC., OF TRUTH. 179 
 
 for the time with the thinking required for its actualization. Such an 
 individual mind, it therefore also was, which, from causes which we 
 shall discuss in a coming chapter, found himself induced, to intro- 
 duce the above position into logic, to help himself and those for 
 whom he spoke, out of a pinching dilemma, from which they per- 
 ceived no other outlet. 
 
 3. For, a.) when seeing the human world split into innumerable 
 political and religious divisions, and perceiving even the men ex- 
 clusively devoting themselves to science, and the ostensible search 
 after truth, no less split into a number of antagonistic schools or phi- 
 losophical sects, all of which combat one another, not seldom with 
 acrimonious vehemence : the mind not deep enough to see to the 
 bottom of the quarrel, must come to the sudden and wholesale con- 
 clusion, that, inasmuch as these various parties oppose each other's 
 entire system, they thereby also prove that there is no truth upon 
 which all of them agree, b.) Next, when the young, vigorous, 
 in corrupted youth, starts : "With a thousand masts of hope, into life's 
 unmeasured ocean, returning, silently and alone, with hoary head, in 
 the saved skiff into port,"* he discovers that the cause of his blighted 
 ideals and disappointed hopes, was not alone in his own weakness, 
 ignorance, or inconsistency, but that the fickleness, dishonesty, 
 hypocrisy and treachery, of many men, with whom he came into 
 contact, and had to act, was fully as much the cause of his painful 
 failures, as any neglect or omission on his own side. Hence, the 
 pain under which he smarts, induces him to become distrustful of 
 all men, although he well enough knows, that there are men whose 
 conduct he himself can approve of, laud, praise, and, in a few 
 cases, even admire to the degree of worship, c.) The disunion 
 thus discovered in human knowledge, and the absence of reliability 
 upon the words, motives, and actions of the larger number of men, 
 produce a highly unpleasant and painful impression upon the mind 
 of man, whereby he not seldom forgets, that although thus often 
 deceived by his fellow-man, there is yet all around him an un- 
 speakably grand universe, a beautiful glorious nature, who never 
 deceive, and are as reliable, or even more so, than his well-proved 
 timepiece, as long as it is in a working condition to obey na- 
 ture's laws. 
 
 * Schiller. 
 
180 THE TEMPLE OF TRUTH. 
 
 4. a.) In this condition of mind, man is unfit to discover the error 
 in his own reasoning. For, if he were able to see what men can 
 and must know, and wJiat not, and thereby to sift the true convictions 
 of men who, by their outward attitude, appear almost at sword's 
 point, he would find that the points, upon which all these very 
 men, notwithstanding their apparent disagreements, substantially 
 agree, are more than ten times as numerous, as tliose upon which 
 they disagree; and that these latter are, in fact, not matters of 
 knowledge but of mere opinion, not yet matured into the form of 
 accepted scientific knowledge, b.) But this true state of the case 
 not being known, a riding opinion, more or less general, obtains cur- 
 rency among a large number of thinking men, akin to that sad state 
 of bottomless doubting, which, eighteen hundred and some years 
 ago, induced Pilate, John xviii, 38, hurriedly to ask Jesus the 
 question : " What is truth f" without expecting or awaiting an 
 answer, that in anywise should be capable of curing his mental 
 malady. In a similar manner, many of these men of our day, 
 say : " There is no exterior or objective truth, valid for all men, but 
 only individual conviction, depending upon tlie private judgment of 
 every single man." 
 
 5. Well, this assertion is merely that very individual judgment 
 of theirs, upon this general case ; hence, by their own dictum, they 
 have no authority to make any such, if even it had a foundation in 
 fact. But, such not being the case, the assertion is only founded 
 in ignorance, and pronounced with inconsiderate rashness and igno- 
 rant presumption. For no man who takes the trouble of examining 
 the primary foundations, lying at the bottom of all human knowl- 
 edge, of every kind, and upon which every child of man is forever 
 alike dependent, as we have done in the preceding pages, can 
 henceforth, for a moment, again doubt the absolute existence of 
 objective truth all around man, no matter whether properly under- 
 stood and acknowledged or not. 
 
 6. a.) But, separate and apart from the men of the above sort, 
 whose bodies, souls, and intellects have all, more or less, been 
 wounded in life's battle; there always have been, almost every- 
 where, a few favored individuals, gifted with profound thought and 
 acute observation ; living a sort of retired life, in a happy solitude, 
 where, designedly and exclusively pursuing the study of science 
 
ON DIALECTICS, TIIE TOUCHSTONE, ETC., OF TRUTH. 181 
 
 and truth, the philosophical equanimity of their temper, and the 
 clearness of their judgment's vision, could not be disturbed by the 
 surges of life's ocean, as these could not penetrate into their well- 
 sheltered cove. &.) Now, the wonder is, that whenever the asser- 
 tion above noted, respecting elective truth, together with the thought 
 of the diversity of human views in general, reached the ear or intel- 
 lect of such profound thinkers, it never struck their minds to enter 
 into a close examination of such questions as the following : 1.) 
 What is it, that mankind agree upon, differ about, and in common 
 really do, and can, know ? Or, 2.) What and which are the sources, 
 from which all, that men really know, and may know, has been 
 derived, and on what, and why, do they differ f 
 
 7. If these, which surely are, questions of the highest importance, 
 to all men, have occurred to reflecting minds ; it is at least certain 
 that they never have been satisfactorily answered. For, if once 
 thus answered, the consequences of such categorical answer, must 
 be unutterably glorious, for the bettering of man's destiny on earth ; 
 for the correct answer to these queries contains the quintessence of 
 the system of dialectics of which we stand in need ; as it forms the 
 touchstone for probing the inner nature and truth in all things. We 
 will, therefore, furnish the necessary answer to these important 
 queries, and therein lay the foundation and groundwork of the 
 dialectics so urgently needed. 
 
 8. The ineffable being which ubiquitously fills every point in 
 infinite space, having no beginning and ending, and sustaining the 
 existence of the grand order visibly prevailing throughout the 
 universe : has spoken, and is speaking to man, in and through three 
 distinct cardinal voices, none more nor less, each one of which being 
 actually a revelation, or manifestation, of God to man, and the three 
 constituting conjointly, the only, exclusive, and all-embracing sources 
 of knowledge which man ever had, can, and ever will have : These 
 sources or revelations of God's truth to man, are called : a,) Na- 
 ture, b.) Keason, and c.) Religion, forming a trinal disclosure of 
 the being and attributes of the infinite author. of all things, and 
 man's relation to God, nature, and his neighbor. 
 
 9. a.) Nature, God's throne and footstool, is the revelation of 
 God's boundless power and wealth, and a perpetual continuation and 
 exhibition, before man's open eyes, of his unlimited creative capacity. 
 
182 THE TEMPLE OP TRUTH. 
 
 b.) Reason, : compelled by the laws of intellect to think and aspire in 
 all main things, alike in all men, from him that first trod the earth 
 to the last : is a revelation of God's wisdom, — designed to rule, gov- 
 ern and use the vast powers of nature, according to the eternal de- 
 sign creatively impregnated into both nature and intellect c.) Re- 
 ligion, is the revelation of God's aim, object, purpose and design, to 
 and for which nature was created, and reason given to man to rule 
 and control it. 
 
 10. Now, it devolves upon us to define the nature of each one 
 of these threefold revelations, so that there is no confounding of each 
 other's domain : a.) To nature belongs the whole of that mighty 
 universe, which, surrounding man on all sides, is revealed to him 
 by the action of his six senses, as we have seen in their preceding 
 analyzation. Hence, the body of man itself is a portion of this 
 very nature, b.) The revelation of Reason is not merely what the 
 Reason of one man perceives by thought as present in itself, in 
 nature, in other men, and in the first cause ; but what the assembled 
 reason of the countless human beings, from the first to the last man 
 born on earth (if ever there is a last), has thus far discovered in all 
 the past, and shall yet therein perceive in all the coming future. 
 c.) The revelation of Religion, being a relation of the zohole race 
 and all its separate members to that ineffable Cause, which to every 
 one is the tender parent and nearest friend : must find its represent- 
 ing center in a paramount religious truth, that is acJcnoivledged at one 
 and the same time, as such by all manlcind, all nature, and all rea- 
 son. What, where, and which this particular paramount truth is, 
 we shall in the next chapter distinctly point out and specify. 
 
 11. a.) All the knowledge found in the possession of man, and all 
 he will ever be able to acquire, did, does, and will flow from one or 
 the other or all of this trinal revelation of Qod to man. That knowl- 
 edge flows or flowed either from a, or b, or c, separately, from a 
 and b, or a and c, or b and c, combined, or conjointly from a, b, and 
 c, united. As each branch of this threefold Revelation, emanates 
 equally from the same God : each must necessarily, if divinely 
 understood (that is, interpreted and understood, as its giver wishes 
 it to be), give to man nothing but truth. For, since God found it 
 expedient to give man this revelation in such threefold form, the 
 giving in the form of this precise number, must have appeared 
 
ON DIALECTICS, THE TOUCHSTONE, ETC., OF TRUTH. 183 
 
 to God's understanding as indispensably necessary, as the condition 
 of man made it necessary to receive it in this threefold shape and no 
 oilier, b.) That such a necessity existed, still exists, and will forever 
 continue to exist, a single glance at the mutual and permanent rela- 
 tion of these three branches of revelation to and among each other, 
 will suffice to show. For remove, for instance, nature, as the bot- 
 tom upon which man stands and exists : Iww and where could he 
 make use of, and apply reason or, revealed religion ? Or let nature 
 stand, and take away reason : of what, and for whose use is and 
 remain revealed religion, and nature ? Or, let nature and reason stand, 
 and take away revealed religion, leaving reason groping in the dark 
 to understand itself and the sphinx of nature : where will nature 
 and reason be ? c.) They will be precisely in the horrifying state of 
 cliaos, and blood-curdling terrors, in which, with the shortliving 
 exceptions of brief, locally-confined periods of single bright spots in 
 human history, they always have been, and still are, in all the main 
 points of practice up to the present day. d.) For, the time is at 
 hand, when, it will be clearly understood, that revealed religion, up to 
 this hour, has, in this world, never yet had fair play ; that it has 
 been unjustly dealt with, by its own pretended friends, as well as by 
 its ill-informed, so-called, avowed opponents ; that, in place oHtself its 
 mere shadow was permitted to have some theoretical influence among 
 men. For, paramount as the religious principle is, in all men, when 
 duly reached : had mankind known the heaven extant in revealed 
 religion, all human suffering, and every thing hellish, would long 
 have disappeared from the face of the earth, and a blooming paradise 
 of universal happiness, virtue and goodness would now with solar 
 brightness fill its dismal place. 
 
 12. The main reason and essential cause why nature, reason, and 
 revealed religion, have been unable to yield man all the great bless- 
 ings, which each of them conceal in their unfathomed bosom, is sim- 
 ply because man has, until now, not found out the great secret how duly 
 to use them. Instead of using them at all times, and upon all occa- 
 sions, conjointly to obtain their unanimous verdict upon one and the 
 same question, as God wants and enjoins him to do : he separates 
 and pits them one against the other, so as to place them into actual 
 antagonism. Now, to understand these three eternal voices un- 
 erringly, it requires, in all cases of any import, their conjoint 
 
184 THE TEMPLE OF TRUTH. 
 
 co-operation, a.) Nature can never be understood, without the light 
 of reason and religion; of reason : how to comprehend and control it ; 
 and of religion : to show the aim and end of such control, b.) To 
 understand and use the wisdom and light of reason : it requires 
 the co-operation of nature and religion ; nature must furnish reason 
 the ground to stand upon, the field to work in, and the power and 
 tools to work with ; while religion must enlighten reason to find what 
 it really needs and never yet has been able to discover by its own 
 unaided light, c.) Religion, finally, needs nature and reason no less, 
 than they each need it, to duly understand its mystic speech, dis- 
 cover its boundless treasures of infinite value, and enable it to make 
 the whole of them available for the use and benefit of man. 
 
 13. Now, instead of applying themselves to acquiring a full 
 knowledge of the truth, in each one of these equally eternal sources 
 of divine knowledge, for the purpose of using them conjointly and 
 harmoniously to mutual interpretation and application ; one set of 
 men apply themselves one-sidedly and exclusively to a superficial 
 investigation of the surface of nature ; and, without knowing any 
 thing thereof, look upon reason as a mere appendage to nature, and 
 upon religion as not much more than a dreamed nonentity. Others, 
 look upon reason as self-sufficient for its and all of man's purposes, 
 making themselves merely surfacially acquainted with the light of 
 their reason, as also inspecting but a few small patches of nature's 
 vast domain ; and confounding revealed religion with sectarian abuse 
 thereof, imagine themselves to have a sufficiency of truth, by reason's 
 light within them ; and, therefore, maintain that nature gives but 
 little and a dim, and religion only an obscure and dubious, light. 
 And, finally, come the great host of larger and smaller religious 
 sects and churches, many of whom look upon nature with a shy 
 and squinting eye, as if it did not really come from God, but from 
 some other undefined, ungodly source ; while they distrust, yet use, 
 reason, but only so far as to confirm themselves in the creed, as their 
 ancestors, some hundreds of years ago, laid it down as their under- 
 standing of what religion is, or they thought it to be, at that time ; 
 each sect, however, stopping somewhere midway to copy after some 
 pattern ; but none going up to the church of the primitive Chris- 
 tians, to take its copy from it, as the fountain head. 
 
 14. a.) These three main parties, with their various subdivisions 
 
ON DIALECTICS, THE TOUCHSTONE, ETC., OF TRUTH 185 
 
 and varieties, are now, and have been, since many long, long years, 
 engaged in open and secret feuds with one another, whereby all of 
 them villify, abase, slander, and alternately fight against, either 
 nature and reason, nature and religion, or religion and reason, just as 
 they happen to be blind and unthinking worshipers of eyeless 
 fanaticism, imagining self-deluding reason, or the outer shell of 
 crude nature, b.) Now, none of these three parties can know 
 either nature, reason, or religion, as they in reality are ; because 
 each one of these, as above shown, can only be properly understood, 
 by the assistance and co-operation of the other two. Hence these 
 men do not know the love and peace of their God, as they harbor 
 hate and ill-will, and practice persecution toward one another, c.) 
 And here lies the secret of the world's whole trouble. For the 
 heroic soul of the great Plato, in its divine love of truth, without 
 the assistance of that superior religious light, which our churches 
 and times possess, without duly using it, already from the innate 
 honesty of a true heart, declared, that : " Man should follow truth 
 wherever it leads I"* But the men attached to sectarian views of 
 nature, reason, or religion, do not know what real truth is ; and, 
 taking their error for truth, or what even is worse, some knowing its 
 nature, yet for the sake of selfish gain and advantage, use it 
 hypocritically to deceive others, and both endeavor to catch as 
 many new proselytes for their creed, as they possibly can. d.) As 
 this same policy is pursued by all alike, the real friends of God's 
 whole truth, find no place where to attach themselves, but must 
 be content to have silent intercourse with God alone, and here and 
 there with the honest soul of a god-loving friend. Hence there is 
 neither peace nor progress found in these antagonizing sects, but a 
 constant wrangling, combating, and fighting, whereby men inflict 
 mutually upon one another, all the suffering and misery they can. 
 It is but a poor consolation for the kind heart of the beholder's 
 mind, to know, that by the laws of God's economy, all the mis- 
 chief thus caused, will eventually, with compound interest, fall 
 crushingly upon the devoted heads of the ringleaders, and con- 
 coctors, in all these schemes of evil and wrong. 
 
 *" but wherever our Reason, windlike carries us, there must we go." Re- 
 public, page 75, Taylor's translation. 
 
186 THE TEMPLE OF TKUTH. 
 
 15. Nature, reason, and religion, each alone and for itself, may 
 give man impressions of isolated and detached truths ; but these 
 impressions are still subject to the possibility of being also errors. 
 But as there are no other sources from which man can draw 
 any kind of information whatever, but only these three, em- 
 bracing all things contained in boundless infinity, it follows with 
 inevitable certainty : 1.) That every proposition in which nature, 
 reason, and religion agree, is thereby stamped as an absolute truth. 2.) 
 If all; the truths are compiled together, in which these three eternal 
 revelations of God thus agree ; man therein has the clear and uner- 
 ring revelation of God's own supreme will, intellect, wisdom, and code 
 of law, in a form that never will, nor can, change throughout all 
 coming eternity. 
 
 16. And in the preceding we presume we have laid the founda- 
 tion for a system of dialectics ; which, as it will be developed in 
 the remaining chapters, will lead the truth-loving mind into all 
 truth ; and, shall form a touchstone, whereby the true worth and 
 value of all things for man, may be ascertained to an atom. 
 
 CHAPTER XXIII. 
 
 IS THERE AN INHERENT AIM OR END, CREATIVELY ATTACHED 
 TO EVER7 MAN BORN INTO LIFE ; AND, IF SO, WHICH AND 
 WHAT IS IT ? 
 
 1. Nations, peoples, cities, communities and men, in consideration 
 that their leaders have no aims and purposes at Jieart, and in view, 
 worthy of man and the age, have, of late years, by great and nobly 
 aspiring intellects,* justly and severely been stigmatized as : "Aim- 
 less nations, and cities," and, men, with purposes so dead as to deserve 
 coffins." As the large majority of men in nations and cities are 
 always more or less in a condition, that impels them to follow the 
 same direction, which the controlling current of events leads the 
 
 * Emerson and Carlyle. 
 
THE AIM AND END INNATE IN MAN. 187 
 
 whole mass to pursue ; it must be evident that chaos and confu- 
 sion must ensue and prevail, where there are no great ennobling 
 common aims, binding the vast masses together. 
 
 2. It would, however, be unjust to accuse our own times and 
 communities alone, with a charge which, in the main point, falls 
 with equal justice upon all times and nations of the present and the 
 past ; if ignorance of man's true aim and the end for which he was 
 created, is a matter that mankind are chargeable with, in case the 
 accusation is sustained by fact. For the right and correct definition 
 of an important idea, is, in human pursuits, precisely the same 
 thing, that the distinct discovery of an important new star is in 
 astronomy. Such star may, by keen eyes or instruments, have 
 been dimly seen before amid a mass of nebulas, but perhaps never 
 have been dreamt to be the sun of suns. 
 
 3. There have been great and good men in all ages, such as 
 Hermes Trismegist, various individuals called Zertusht (Zoroaster), 
 Moses, Confucius, Pythagoras, Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, various 
 great prophets in Israel, and various other sages in Greece and other 
 nations, all before the time of Cheist. All these men taught and 
 practiced wisdom and virtue, as well as they understood and knew 
 how. No one among them did, however, at any time clearly un- 
 derstand man's destiny on earth. For, if they had understood it, 
 they, or any one of them, would have attempted to frame a defini- 
 tion that would have made the query heading this chapter need- 
 less. That they could not foreknow the mode in which, long after 
 their time, Christ solved this great riddle, by a scientific definition as 
 clear and definite as any one in Euclid or elsewhere ; can, of course, 
 in nowise redound to their discredit ; and this, infinitely less so, 
 after the astounding fact shall be looked at for one moment only, 
 which we now presently shall disclose further below. 
 
 4. Christ often has been looked upon with less veneration, by 
 some men, because unauthorized and unqualified system-builders, 
 men unfit and unable to form a valid judgment in the premises, 
 have asserted that there was neither systematic arrangement in 
 what Christ taught, nor was there material enough in the four, so- 
 called, Gospels, to frame his system into the full form of a consum- 
 mate science. Now, if these talkers really knew any thing at all 
 about what a system is and means, they (like Cuvier, and similar 
 
 16 
 
188 THE TEMPLE OF TKUTH. 
 
 men, on being shown the mere tooth or other parts of an extinct 
 species of fossil, at once were capable of describing by it the whole 
 size, figure, and construction of the lost animal) ; as soon as they 
 could see one leading text, in Christ's tuition, should be able to re- 
 construct the whole balance of the system belonging to such text, 
 if they had nothing else beside that single text. 
 
 5. a.) But even the brawling ignorance of quacks of this sort 
 shrinks into paltry insignificance, when viewed alongside, of the 
 strange misconception and oversight, with which Christ's greatest 
 truth, enunciated with scientific accuracy, has been treated by his 
 best friends, from the beginning up to this very hour. For, it is 
 now upward of eighteen hundred years since Christ thus taught. 
 The great definition, of which we here speak, and shall after a 
 while show, has since that time, during a course of more than 
 eighteen centuries, been read and seen by hundreds of millions of 
 eyes. Among them have been many highly-gifted men, of piety, 
 virtue, wisdom, and great learning ; not only among the early so- 
 called Fathers of the Church ; such as Origen, St. Augustine, St. 
 Bernard, and many like them ; but here are the great giants of 
 thought : a Bacon, Descartes, Pascal, Spinoza,* Locke, Marle- 
 branche, Leibnitz, Berkeley, Kant, Herder, Lambert, Fichte, Schell- 
 ing, Hegel, with thousands of other names throughout Christendom 
 bordering in celebrity closely upon these. Well, all these men, 
 great thinkers by nature, and philosophers by profession, have, all 
 of them, surely read the New Testament, and hence seen every 
 expression of Christ therein contained. b.) Now, what is the 
 reason, that all of them have overlooked that very proposition of 
 which we are here speaking, and which contains Christ's entire sys- 
 tem compressed into a smaller compass than a nutshell t Surely we 
 have no reason for wondering that the heathen sages of antiquity, 
 did not of themselves discover the proper formula for defining 
 man's destination and end of existence upon earth ; when, after 
 Christ has brought and published the definition of that very idea, 
 in a shape so consummate that it defies the possibility of all amend- 
 ment; and yet, the great thinkers of nearly two thousand years, 
 with the rest of civilized mankind, in their company, read, see, 
 
 * Spinoza was of Jewish extraction, but acknowledged the validity of Christian ethics. 
 
THE AIM AND END INNATE IN MAN. 189 
 
 and hear that text expounded and preached upon ; and not one of 
 the whole of the countless multitude, ever dreaming of its true 
 and clear meaning and sense, and that all heaven, and its infinite 
 eternal beatitude, lies here, within their grasp, before their very feet ! 
 Who can explain this mighty mystery, that so many millions of 
 people, with their greatest thinkers among them, were prevented 
 from seeing and understanding an infinite truth, in itself as plain 
 and dear as that 2 X 2=4 ? 
 
 6. We will give one kind of answer to this question, which will 
 at least settle, by a stubborn matter-of-fact, a point which has often 
 been mooted in various quarters, as connected with this question. 
 That point is this : Many men have asserted, and some do yet at 
 this day : " That there was no need of any other revelation than 
 the two of nature and reason ; that these two contain all the light 
 that man may need, and that hence a special religious revelation 
 was superfluous." Now, to stop the vacant verbiage of soft- 
 brained ignorance like this ; and, at the same time, set at rest the 
 doubts upon the matter, in minds more able and competent of 
 judging : we have here the above tremendous, in its true nature 
 inexpressible, fact, that, after having seen the main point that must 
 concern every man, more than any other, for a period of more than 
 eighteen hundred years, stated in language so plain that he " Who ' 
 runs may read ;" neither churches, nor clergy, neither the governing, 
 nor governed, neither the people, nor the thinkers and philosophers 
 of all Christendom, have ever taken the least publicly known no- 
 tice of an ethical axiom of- Christ, which compresses the whole of 
 his system, the whole essence of the Bible and nature, and the wis- 
 dom of time and eternity, in a definition of man's end and purpose 
 of existence upon earth, in a simple sentence of twelve words ! ! ! 
 
 7. But this is by no means the whole of the wonder. For we 
 shall presently show, that nature and reason, by their practical 
 operation, have each done all they could, to call the attention of 
 mankind's collective best intellect to this very point, so that they 
 almost should stumble, as it were, with their eyes shut, upon the 
 great, all-embracing truth, alone capable of harmoniously solving 
 the hitherto dismal sphinx riddle of human destiny upon earth 
 and beyond. Here then is the proof of the absolute necessity of 
 a third, or religious revelation, if even not needed on other accounts, 
 
190 THE TEMPLE OF TRUTH. 
 
 because men, with nature around and reason within, and religion 
 trying to thump their noses upon the great point, have yet failed, up 
 to this very day, to duly understand the end of their existence upon 
 earth, and to give a scientific or any other definition thereof, capable 
 of convincing all reflecting minds that the same was true and cor- 
 rect. However, let us now adduce the clear proof of the main 
 point, of which we have spoken thus much, without, as yet, point- 
 ing it out, by specific definition. 
 
 8. a.) Now, as there are, as we have seen in the preceding 
 chapter, only three sources extant, and none others possible, from 
 which man can draw any knowledge whatever (inasmuch as all 
 those that are thinkable, are included in one or the other of these 
 three), we have now to learn, what each one of these divine reve- 
 lations has to say, to the query heading our chapter. Nature, as 
 we have already seen in chap, xi, § 7, e, when analyzing sight, is 
 a whole tissue of means to ends, so that every part has to serve as 
 a means to some particular end of the whole ; and the whole, in its 
 turn, becomes the main means to secure to every separate part its 
 own and appropriate aim. b.) In looking upon the vast hive of 
 human beings, moving as busily as bees, or rather ants, upon the 
 molehill spot each respectively occupies, all in hot pursuit of some 
 petty individual aim, differing in some traits, and resembling in 
 others, to the object hunted after by every other one of his neigh- 
 bors and fellows ; the query of our chapter, still more closely 
 specified as follows, must occur to every reflecting mind, namely : 
 " Whetlier there is not one grand aim, embracing all others, for which 
 to reach, all men alike, have received their life and existence ; and if so, 
 which and wliat is it ?" 
 
 9. Now, let us call our three divine witnesses seriatim to the 
 stand, and learn their august answers to our all-important, world- 
 adjudging query. First, sublime Reason, erst-begotten daughter of 
 uncreated intellect, inborn light of the race of man, please give us 
 thine answer to thin, the most weighty query, of all that are possi- 
 ble for man. " Reason. In accordance with the laws of my being, 
 my action consists in a perpetual series of judgments upon the size, 
 form, contents and value of every thing brought before me ; dis- 
 tributing all things into their respective classes, classifying these 
 very classes again into a smaller number, repeating the same process 
 
THE AIM AND END INNATE IN MAN. 191 
 
 with the latter and their followers, until I reach one ultimate unity, 
 beyond which my functions do not reach, as unity is oneness with 
 myself.* Here, then, I rest my theorizing, and step outside into the 
 actual, to realize my highest thought, by a series of actions, corres- 
 ponding to the series of thoughts preceding and producing it. In 
 conformity with these premises, there is, among all the countless 
 number of aims which man and men may pursue, but one single 
 greatest and supreme one, embracing all the rest, and its name is : 
 PERFECTION. All-sided perfection of all the powers, and faculties of 
 man, men, nations, and the whole human race liarmoniously developed, 
 concordially acting in friendly unison to achieve and realize perfec- 
 tion in all things : is the highest and ultimate ideal aim, which my, 
 and any, thought, can reach. At and in it, I must thinkingly rest, 
 and am constrained practically to strive after its realization. Even 
 now, and at all times heretofore, before my present definite decision 
 could be known anywhere, I have acted, and do act, in my func- 
 tion called common sense, with all men, at all times, on all occasions, 
 and under all circumstances, where I act at all, upon the grand 
 principle above enunciated; whereby the silent mind of every man 
 as well in its solitary chamber of thought, as on the market or high- 
 way of noisy life, is consciously or unconsciously constrained to 
 adjudge (subject, of course, always, to the extent and degree of the 
 individual's knowledge), every thing by this great standard, and 
 call men and things, words and actions, works and labors, good or 
 bad, useful or hurtful, valuable or worthless, interesting or indiffer- 
 ent, etc., etc., in proportion as the same approximate or recede from 
 the idea of perfection, as they entertain it in the particular case be- 
 fore them. Hence, they patronize the best mechanic, artist, physi- 
 cian, jurist, etc., etc., in preference to the bungler, because they 
 know that the works of these men will be the best they can get 
 
 * Let us adduce the following as a sample of the process : If a man would ask me . 
 "Where are you?" My answer would be: "In my room." He then would ask: 
 "Where is your room?" Ans. " In my house." "But where is your house ?" Ans. 
 " In the town." So he would continue asking, until the last answer would tell him that 
 the town was in the township, it in the county, the county in the State, the State in the 
 Union, the Union on the continent, the continent on the globe, the globe in the solar sys- 
 tem, and it in the universe, and that in absolute space. Here, then, is the end of the in- 
 quiry, where reason must stop and forever abide ; and similarly in all other cases 
 when reaching the, clima? in each. 
 
192 THE TEMPLE OP TRUTH. 
 
 of the kind ; or, in other words, come nearer to the standard of 
 perfection, than the works of inferior men, could ever do. That 's 
 mine answer." 
 
 10. Now, u thou venerable, silently-mute, all-powerful, terribly- 
 majestic, beautiful, ever-young, sphinx- veiled, sternly-kind, all- 
 mother Nature, please alight, for a few moments, amidst thy 
 children, to give us thine answer to our weighty query. And as thy 
 language, dearest mother, is not like ours, often only articulated 
 ' sound and fury signifying nothing,'' but consists all in acts and deeds 
 that have no double meaning : we will endeavor briefly to trans- 
 late from them, thy response to our interrogation into our own 
 articulated tongue, and at the end, a joyous electric flash from thy 
 brilliant eye, shall be our token that we have duly and truly under- 
 stood, and correctly and faithfully rendered thy matter-of-fact 
 answer into our own speech. 'Nature. I, whom you men, in 
 your tongue, call Nature, am as you correctly assume, the work, 
 and thereby a revelation of God. In me, the power and might of 
 the Creator stands, sensually realized, revealed before man, in the 
 form of supreme majesty and completion. Power and capacity inex- 
 haustible, the source of my never- tiring operations, are in me, 
 everywhere subjected, to rule and law, impregnated into me by 
 Supreme Wisdom, thereby producing order, beautiful and sublime in 
 my vast fields. As thou, man ! art an imitative being, God has 
 placed me before thy senses, as a visible and tangible pattern, con- 
 summate as a whole, and perfect in all its parts, in order thereby 
 to incite thee to thine own proper task. That tasJc which, not I, but 
 thou alone canst perform, is the embracing and pursuit of thy 
 highest and greatest aim, which also I, in consonance with eternal 
 sister Season, pronounce to be : all-sided Perfection ! For, behold : 
 in my never-resting activity to definite ends, thou hast the most 
 perfect pattern, of perfect action in pursuit of an adequately perfect 
 aim. Moreover, it is thy and my destiny, decreed by God's eternal 
 will, or the fate impregnated in our mutual being, that we can 
 stand toward one another in two distinct and diametrically opposite 
 relations only, namely : thou must be either my master or my slave, 
 and I myself, vice versa, can be only either thy slave or thy master. 
 Our God has destined thee to be my master ; hence it is my own 
 desire, that thou shouldst be so. For then we are in our divinely 
 
THE AIM AND END INNATE IN MAN. 193 
 
 ordained relation to one another. But mark ! Thy persevering and 
 consistent striving after the perfection which thine own creative power 
 is to realize, in and out of thyself is the only and inevitable condition 
 in and under which thou canst be my master. In proportion as thou 
 aspirest after and reachest this divinity, in the abstract and the con- 
 crete, in the same degree, am I, by divine impulse constrained to love 
 thee ; to disclose to thee my secrets ; pour into thy lap my boundless 
 treasures ; and, as it were, to serve, and be subject to, thee, at all 
 times, as ^familiar spirit, with all the powers I possess. While, on 
 the contrary, in the same degree as, by an improper and immod- 
 erate use, or rather abuse, of my gifts, thou deviatest and declinest 
 from the grand path to thy gloriously destining aim, thereby making 
 thyself thy own foe, an enemy to God and thy race : I also shall 
 become thy most terrible, bitter, and irreconcilable enemy ; lashing 
 thy first transgressions leniently, to drive thee back into the path of 
 duty and glory ; but if that, and its increase, not heeding : I shall 
 let loose upon thee, the fettered awful furies, latently, peaceably, 
 and harmlessly slumbering in my vast lap ; which, in the shape of 
 corroding poisons, and consuming many-figured fires, shall, by weak- 
 ness and pain, disease and remorse, and a painful and premature 
 death, with a bosom destitute of hope, wipe thee out of the ranks of 
 visible existence ! This, man ! is my solemn answer." " Great 
 Mother, thy glittering eye assures us that we understand each 
 other !" 
 
 11. Now, fairest among the fair, — loveliest of all things in the 
 infinite universe, — beautiful, heaven-born, sweet Lady Lily Siona* 
 religion of Christ Jesus, we entreat thy celestial presence for a few 
 moments, to learn from thine own divine lips again thy great an- 
 swer to our paramount query, as thou didst reveal it to us over 
 eighteen hundred years ago. "Lily Siona. Here, dearest man, 
 darling of my heart, here I am, ready at all times to help and 
 serve thee ; for no mother can love the child of her womb with an 
 ardor more intense than I love thine entire race. Hence let me 
 give thee, with mine answer, also an explanation why thou abso- 
 lutely needest me. To all action there are three parties. The 
 syllogism consists of three propositions. The geometrician must 
 
 * Kloppstock, Goethe, and Stilling may be considered the parents of this euphonic 
 name. 
 
194: THE TEMPLE OP TRUTH. 
 
 have a triangle before he is able to ascertain the contents of any 
 surface. To perform any kind of work, there must be a worker, 
 he must have tools and materials. When the intellect thinks, there 
 is an object, and its thought upon that object, in all cases, before 
 it, making, with the intellect, three things engaged in the opera- 
 tion. All these, and a vast number of similar facts, have their 
 foundation in the primary conformation and constitution of original 
 being, which also assumes the same triform shape ; for there is first : 
 space, inclosing all things ; its never-commenced or ending duration 
 is eternity, in both of which creation or the universe exists, making 
 again three. In man, mind, soul, and body, announce their dis- 
 tinction in his consciousness. Father, mother, and child, are the 
 three necessary ingredients that constitute a family. Now, there 
 are certain performances in life and nature, where two forces caii 
 not act at all harmoniously, or productively, but absolutely require 
 a third to co-operate. Thus the mechanic, having the tools, must 
 likewise have the material, otherwise mechanic and tools remain 
 idle and unproductive. Thus, also, water and oily or greasy sub- 
 stance, may be boiled in a seething caldron, until every particle 
 thereof is evaporated or consumed, before they will ever show any dis- 
 position to unite or combine. But, no sooner do you introduce the 
 peacemaking alkali or lye between them, for which both of them 
 have an affinity or friendship, than they will, at once, all three, 
 embrace each other with loving affection, and melt themselves to- 
 gether into the one highly useful substance called soap. Now, my 
 dear man, before I came, the Eternal had revealed himself, and 
 thine end and aim, to thee in the twofold manner of reason and 
 nature already heard. And their voices received assistance, by the 
 remnant of true worship, flowing up from earlier ages with the 
 course of time, and were likewise strengthened by those religious 
 experiences, by which good, wise, and truly pious men, so far as 
 they were fit instruments, did at all times, and among all nations, 
 in some degree or other, learn to know portions of God's attributes 
 and essence, more impressively than by mere abstract thought alone. 
 In nature God revealed to thee his power, and in reason his wisdom. 
 In all individual reason, there is innate a ray of my own light.* which, 
 
 * John i, 4. 
 
THE AIM AND END INNATE IN MAN. 195 
 
 by being fostered, may so enlarge, that God himself can therein 
 dwell with his entire being, and. thus make man his tabernacle and 
 permanent dwelling-place, which is his wish to accomplish in all 
 men.* But, before my arrival, thou didst fully understand, neither 
 the voice of reason, nor of nature ; hence the incessant conflicts of 
 the two. Nature did not acknowledge human reason, in the small 
 and partial'- » -^pment, wherein it even appeared in the most 
 gifted human m jd ua i s before my time, as its superior and master, 
 and hence yi e ^ an unwilling obedience only in the small de- 
 gree, and the . caseSj w here that unenlightened reason, had still 
 power enoug & to com p e j jt • reason, in its immature state, could 
 not master nature, as it felt it ought : because it did not yet 
 clearly understand the way to enlarge its light and increase its 
 waning force, by new supplies drawn from the infinite ocean of 
 light and 'power, that is its source and origin. Hence, neither indi- 
 vidual men, nor communities, nor entire nations, f knew the real end 
 and aim of their existence upon earth, and pursued each in their 
 places, such objects and purposes as passion, imagined interest, power, 
 whim, and necessity for the moment dictated. Hence war, conquest, 
 and ruthless oppression of the weak and the vanquished, were the in- 
 dividual and general rule and practice among men and nations, be- 
 fore I came. When arriving, I found no nation, no organized com- 
 munity, not even the educated and instructed class thereof, ready to 
 receive my light and tuition. Only here and there a truth-seeking 
 Nicodemus, a noble-hearted Joseph of Arimathea, saw, felt, and 
 appreciated the greatness and necessity of the truth I proclaimed. 
 The rest of the men of gifts, talents, means, standing, and influ- 
 ence, I found pre-engaged, engrossed, and wedded to their own 
 petty schemes of transient self-interest, dead to living truth and 
 the transcending interests of suffering, bleeding humanity ; nay, 
 most earnestly engaged in assisting to crush it everywhere in their 
 respective spheres. Thus I had to apply myself to the unlettered, 
 uneducated man, who, standing nearer to rude, rough, vigorous 
 nature, was neither enervated in body and heart, nor refinedly 
 spoiled in his natural straitness of common sense and sympathy for 
 his race, by the sordid, casuistic, sophistical dialectics of the selfish, 
 
 * Apocal. xxi, 3. t Isaiah liii, 6. 
 
 17 
 
196 THE TEMPLE OF TRUTH. 
 
 rushing hour. Into his heart and ear I poured the great secrets I 
 brought from God's own throne. I showed him, that God himself, 
 was living! y present in every human being ; that, therefore, all the 
 wrong and all the good men do unto one another, they do to, and 
 inflict upon, their own Ood (Matt, xxxv, 40, 45). I made him un- 
 derstand, that God is eternal peace within himself, and that his ever 
 harmonious forces can never war and wrangle among one s»*6fegeH. 
 That, hence, men should never quarrel with l aelr Dre thren, and 
 even suffer the wrong, inflicted by passion or igno ance u pon them, 
 with immovable patience, because thereby alone e ^ car > expect 
 to enlighten the blind, and gain them to the great 2 8/llse °f eternal 
 truth. Such gaining of a man to truth, I showed as the greatest 
 work that a man could perform, worthy to be done by a God (Matt, 
 xviii, 12 ; Luke xv, 4, — xix, 10). I showed and made him feel 
 that the inexpressible happiness of a godlike heaven was his, the 
 very moment that he was joined together with true men, in the 
 bonds of genuine friendship, true love, and pure affection. I made 
 him see, that a community consisting altogether of men thus living 
 in and for one another, aspiring conjointly to one highest aim, was a 
 state of brothers, a commonwealth of friends and lovers, and a nation 
 of pure men, without one single beast of prey, in human form, in 
 their midst. Such a congregation of men I told them was the 
 realized ' kingdom or government of God on earth? wherein God 
 himself dwells and rules in the hearts of men. For its arrival I 
 taught them to work, suffer, labor, and enjoined them to pray to the 
 Lord : ' Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done on earth as it is done 
 in Jieaven!' I showed them by my example that beings in human 
 shape, could do the will of God on earth as fully, as any angels 
 could do the same before God's throne. For there is no higher 
 action possible for man, or angel, than to act like God himself. 
 And here, I finally come to the great point, that compresses my 
 whole doctrine into a single sentence, which also is the greatest and 
 shortest answer to man's greatest query. For, after depicting to 
 man, in the sermon of the iftount, all the various virtues required 
 to complete a human character pleasing to God and man, and show- 
 ing the natural effects thereof; I show them that the whole 
 structure must rest upon a foundation of such unlimited goodness, 
 as to do good, like God himself, to all human beings, whether 
 
THE AIM AND END INNATE IN MAN. 197 
 
 they are virtuous or the contrary; whether they are friendly or 
 hostile, and placing absolute goodness, as their everlasting pattern 
 before their eyes, I tell them : ' Therefore, yon should be PERFECT, 
 like your Father in heaven is PERFECT.'* Matt, v, 48. 
 
 12. " In order to make my doctrine strong, invincible, its glorious 
 Author practiced every maxim He taught, to its fullest extent by 
 His own action, and crowned His godlike life, by a love-prayer for 
 His murderers worthy of a God ; exclaiming amid His torture : 
 1 Father, forgive them ; for they know not what they do /' Luke xxiii, 
 34. The doctrine so humane and heavenly, sustained by a life so 
 divine and a death so godlike, f found incipiently a small number 
 of true hearts to embrace and cling to it. And when, after their 
 beloved Master's departure, the promised spirit of truth, joy, and 
 power, descended upon them on the day of Pentecost, A. D. ' 34,' 
 they melted into a society of men, who were all, in truth and 
 reality, brothers and sisters, friends and lovers, so much so, that 
 like the uncorrupted child of youth, their love to living men became 
 again greater than their attachment to dead things. For, in Acts, 
 chap, ii, 44, 45, we read that : l All that believed were together, and had 
 all things in common ;' ' and sold their possessions and goods, and 
 parted them to all men, as every man had need.' Their number now 
 increased rapidly ; for, in chap, iv, 4, the number of believing men 
 (not counting women and children), is stated at five thousand. 
 They continued still increasing ; nevertheless the spirit of brotherly 
 unity remained; for, verse 32, same chapter, states: 'And the 
 multitude of them that believed were of one heart and of one 
 soul ;' and, verse 35, l Distribution was made unto every man ac- 
 cording as he had need.' Here, then, for once was a com- 
 munity without any paupers and sufferers, inasmuch as every mem- 
 ber thereof loved, and honored in every other one, a divine being 
 destined like himself to an ever increasing perfection, and each 
 emulating to excel the other in goodness, virtue, and love, thereby 
 promoting his own and the perfection of all the rest. Such were 
 the men, selected and prepared to spread the doctrine of heaven and 
 nness, through a world filled with ferocious barbarism, and ruled, 
 
 * This is Luther's version of the text, that in the English Testament differs some in 
 words, but not in sense, from it. 
 t J. J. Rousseau. 
 
198 THE TEMPLE OF TRUTH. 
 
 at the time, by the iron arm of the Roman all-crushing military 
 despotism. The commission, by which these men were author- 
 ized and empowered to lead a world, swamped in the morass of 
 darkness, out of its dismal gloom upon the solid ground, in the 
 bright daylight of joyful truth, contains internal evidence that the 
 same was issued at the ' headquarters ' of this universe. For, 
 there is no longer a pet 'preference perceptible of one people to be 
 more acceptable than another, — no sectarian nationality taints the 
 invitation to return to the fold of Him who is truly 'the Father 
 of all ;' but, embracing the whole race of man, they are charged : 
 ' To go into all the world (Mark xvi, 15), and teach all nations (and, 
 if willing to come into the universal brotherhood, to admit them 
 thereinto by the formulary of), baptizing them in the name of the 
 Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost ; teaching them to ob- 
 serve all things whatsoever, which they liad been commanded.' Matt, 
 xxviii, 19, 20. Into that wild, savage world, these men, void of 
 all worldly power and means, fearlessly went, joyfully sacrificing 
 life and limb upon the altar of God's truth and man's great cause; 
 and infusing their lamb-like spirit of peace into the world's vio- 
 lently beating heart, they gradually tamed its ferocity in every part 
 wherever they came. It did not take a great many years, until 
 the fervid affection, which everywhere undisguisedly, they man- 
 ifested for one another, and mankind in general, attracted the 
 public attention of the reflecting Pagans among whom they lived ; 
 for these, full of admiration, would often point with their fingers 
 at them, saying unto each other : 'Behold ! how these people do love 
 one another /' A great poet, considered by many also, as a great 
 sage, has, within the last half century, proclaimed that : 'Happy 
 alone is the soul that does love /' * True love is founded on esteem. 
 Esteem springs from the loftiness of the aim, which a man pur- 
 sues, as it stamps its own value upon every quality in the man's 
 character. No sooner, therefore, was God's own perfection, de- 
 clared as the true aim and end of man's aspirations ; when each of 
 the men, thus aspiring, became the perpetually increasing object of 
 higher admiration and deeper love for one another, as they progressed 
 in the more perfect practice of all the divine virtues. And thereby, 
 
 * Goethe. 
 
THE AIM AND END INNATE IN MAN. 199 
 
 as love is declared happiness, the increase of happiness must forever 
 keep pace with the increase of love. Hence, as the pursuit of god- 
 like perfection, is an aim, that gives man employment, forever and 
 ever, it thereby also continues increasing his beatitude to all eternity. 
 
 13. "Although there was not a single intellect in all Christen- 
 dom, from Pentecost, ' 34,' up to our own time, who compassed 
 Christ's infinite plan, design and doctrine with scientific accuracy, 
 as is proven by the simple fact above adduced, that not one, even, 
 of the profound thinkers of the Christian era, did ever discover 
 man's destination as proclaimed by Christ, in Matth. v, 48 ; yet the 
 spirit of vital progress, contained in the whole and every part of the 
 grand system of truth and love, operated incessantly upon the mil- 
 lions of minds that had embraced it. It first sapped the iron sol- 
 dier-despotism of all-ruling Eome, and finally broke it all into pieces, 
 which it remodeled as circumstances would permit. Then, it in- 
 fused itself into the vast host of the mighty Teutonic tribes ; and 
 rousing their unmeasured power of action and thought for its grand 
 purposes, consummated the great fermentation among all of them, 
 causing their irruption into, and subjugation of, Southern Europe, 
 Asia Minor, and Northern Africa , whereby the groundwork of the 
 political geography of those, and in part of other countries of the 
 globe, was laid as it subsists at this very moment. After the great 
 national upheavings subsided, the surface of the human Ocean 
 became measurably settled and quiet. The greatness of the new 
 truth I brought, swelled the hearts and souls of men, and they felt 
 that it was I who harmonized nature and reason. The mighty 
 conflicts this truth had to pass through, to make good its foothold 
 in the world, made men serious and pensive.* They had already 
 before, driven by persecution, sought shelter in the solitude of 
 the wilderness ; and finding an enjoyment unknown to the world 
 in the contemplation of great truths, f unmolested by exterior dis- 
 turbance : it laid the foundation of that spirit of calm study and 
 diligent research, which gradually hunted up the books and knowl- 
 edge of all times and nations, and ransacking the fields of nature 
 
 * "ttrtb ber 5D?ettf<$ griff benf enb in fetne Sruft !"— Schiller's SMtafter. 
 
 tll-y-a-dans la meditation des pensees honnetes une sorte de bien-etre que lea 
 mechans n'ont jamais connues. — Jean Jac. Rousseau. 
 
200 THE TEMPLE OF TRUTH. 
 
 wherever accessible throughout the universe, has finally resulted in 
 that so-called state of civilization, as now you have it around you, 
 in the second half of the nineteenth century. That the motley 
 structure of this state is interwoven with a vast amount of evil, the 
 extent of which being utterly unknown to men, is absolutely true. 
 That, however, the same has also furnished to man an amount of 
 light and knowledge, of means and forces, never in the possession of 
 mankind, at any time heretofore, and sufficing, if duly applied, to 
 lead man gradually out of the evils he is suffering, is not less true. 
 Now, all that is yet required, is, that men should open their eyes 
 and learn to understand God's voice within, and all around them. 
 They wish a heaven. God has placed the same within their reach, 
 and it being such an one containing greater glories and beatitudes 
 than they have ever seen in dream or fiction. That heaven is theirs, 
 the moment they learn to know and understand that, separately and 
 alone, not one single man can reach the great end and aim of existence 
 for which all are created : but no sooner do they, as God wills it, com- 
 bine to pursue the grand goal in common, when, at once, no one can 
 any longer miss it, though he were but a fool, unless he chooses to do so 
 by design. — Isaiah, xxxv, 8. The world has long known the secret 
 to deprive death and devastation of its terrors, by producing and 
 executing them on the largest scale, by hundreds of thousands on 
 the bloody field of battle. But men have never yet learned to aj)ply 
 the magic and mysterious power connected with numbers, to their 
 own benefit, and securing their highest good. There are, however, 
 now signs indicating the time to be at hand, when they will learn 
 it ! With this, I close mine answer." 
 
 14. a.) Now, good luck to us ! our road has, at last, emerged 
 entirely out of the woods, and we find ourselves upon a grand, graded 
 highway, running upon a sublime, elevated level, ascending " on- 
 ward and upward," rising higher and higher, as we progress, so 
 that our vision embraces a larger cycle in proportion as the things 
 increase, at which we are looking, that we have left "below and 
 behind" us. That highway is, for the reason, an "unerring one,"* 
 because the three witnessing guides who conjointly point it out, 
 represent every voice found in creation or the universe, — so that, 
 
 * Isaiah, xxxv, 8. 
 
TIIE AIM AND END INNATE IN MAN. 201 
 
 outside of them, there is no other source whatever, either for truth or 
 error, b.) Man, until now, found himself on earth, feeling that he 
 had to journey to some place or other, but not knowing "where, 
 which, and what 1 ' that place was. He, therefore, has boxed the 
 known compass by traveling in all possible directions, and yet 
 never has succeeded in learning the topograghy of his " paradise 
 lost," and seeking, so that he could have been able of giving his 
 son, daughter, or friend, such a direction to that all-wished- for spot, 
 whereby it might unerringly be found by every attentive seeker. 
 That deficiency is now forever provided for. The aim of man 
 thus therein pointed out, contains likewise inherent proof, that it is 
 the only one worthy of God and man ; and is thus not only worthy 
 of being in this manner pointed out by the three eternal and only 
 sources of all knowledge : but it is also the highest aim possible, 
 that language can name, and that the intellect of either man or God 
 can entertain. The simple fact that Jesus Christ defined this tran- 
 scendent truth, with the precision, of a geometrical axiom over eighteen 
 centuries ago, will show and indicate to the logical thinker who and 
 what this Christ was, — namely : all and every thing which he 
 claimed to he. c.) Plato, a noble and great thinker, in several parts 
 of his writings, makes, here and there, use of the word perfect and 
 perfection ; but he does so only in the limited sense of these terms, 
 to denote the best thing of its kind, in which same way they were 
 used, by many others at, and since, his time. But, to look upon the 
 infinite idea in the light it is placed in by Christ as a divine and 
 universal pattern, before all minds, to copy and aspire after : never 
 entered Plato's mind to be a practical possibility even in a dream. 
 For the degradation of the great masses of his time, around him, 
 he ascribed correctly to their various degrees of folly, craziness, and 
 madness. And he considered their condition incurable, because he 
 erroneously thought they had really not the higher mental capacity 
 whereby they could be made wise and virtuous. For he distinctly 
 declares : '* Intellect only the gods possess, and a few mortals favored 
 by tliem. u * That error, to become convinced to be such, no mind 
 would have embraced the correcting instruction with greater readi- 
 ness and delight, than the loving soul of Plato, d.) That Plato, by 
 
 * Timaeus, p. 358 (Taylor's translation). 
 
202 THE TEMPLE OF TRUTH. 
 
 the light of the love that was within him, did, however, cast pro- 
 found glances into the depths of human nature, and understood 
 much of the process by which alone man can be lifted out of his 
 degradation, is clearly perceptible by many of his expressions. 
 Thus, he says, in the Banquet, page 516, " The wlwle of our race 
 would he happy, if we worked out love perfectly." On page 489 of the 
 same, he says : " There is not a man so much of a coward, as that love 
 would not divinely inspire him to deeds of valor, and make him equal 
 to the very best by birth.'''' Here he clearly sees into the grand secret, 
 how man's redemption might be accomplished, if such a love, 
 mighty enough to inspire all, could be found and made available 
 for the same. But such love, Plato, in his day, found only within 
 his own bosom, and here and there in that of one or another noble 
 man and woman, like his beloved Socrates and the divine Diotima. 
 That a love so, and even incalculably more, powerful, should become 
 an exterior fact, about four centuries afterward, on the day of Pen- 
 tecost, Plato could not foreknow. If he had foreknown its coming, 
 it would have made him happy beforehand, beyond metes and bounds. 
 15. a.) If man reaches the great aim for which he was created, 
 he has gained every thing that is necessary. If he gains every 
 other thing, and misses this mighty aim, he has lost every thing, — 
 (Matt, xvi, 26 ; Mark, viii, 37). Hence, this aim, is man's meter and 
 touchstone for every thing existing in creation. It is, therefore, the 
 very soul and essence of the dialectics which we have been in search 
 of. b.) Henceforward, things will all receive their own proper 
 name, by the relation in which they stand to this great aim of man. 
 The grand axiom: "by their fruits ye shall Tcnoio them" (Matt, 
 vii, 16), will become applied to all men and things, within reach 
 of man, on a scale so extensive as never before known. For, the 
 time is at hand, when men will begin clearly to foresee the effect in 
 the cause, and in return adjudge the cause by the effect. Hence, he 
 will call all things bad, evil, and wrong, which oppose him in reach- 
 ing his grand aim ; and, on the other hand, whatever shall aid and 
 assist him, in facilitating his progress toward the great point of his 
 destination, — he will call wholesome, right, and good, c.) Nothing 
 that oppresses and deteriorates man, will, any longer, be considered as 
 valuable and worthy of preservation. And the longest spun sophistry 
 for whitewashing and embellishing antiquated wrong and hoary- 
 
THE AIM AND END INNATE IN MAN. 203 
 
 headed error, will, in the twinkling of an eye, be dissolved into 
 nothingness, by the short-cutting axioms : All is false and untrue 
 that is not good ! and which inversely will read : Whatever is good 
 must of necessity be true ! For, goodness is the nature, being, essence, 
 and substance of God himself, — and hence, whatever is good, par- 
 takes of his eternal nature ; and, in proportion that every thing thus 
 approaches to, or recedes from, God, so is it in itself good, useful, and 
 beneficial, or bad, hurtful, and injurious to man and his aim. d.) All 
 the evil which man suffers, flows from the false aims he pursues. 
 Christ, in showing him the only true aim, which is. valid now and 
 forever, for one man and for all men, has therein shown him the 
 road to heaven on earth, devoid of all misery whatsoever. For, as 
 soon as men will duly aspire after perfection, poverty, ignorance, 
 disease, and debility will depart from them, and plenty, wisdom, 
 health, and vigor, enter as their permanent portion, with every 
 thing good thereunto appertaining. For, the striving after perfec- 
 tion, is "the seeking of the kingdom of God andhis righteousness," and 
 to those thus striving, "all things shall be added unto them."— Matt. 
 vi, 33. e.) Thus, it turns out in the end, that the Dialectics which we 
 have been seeking, and have now finally and decisively found, as a 
 touchstone for probing the nature of all things, — and what kind and 
 degree of truth there is in them, — is one and the same thing with 
 the Ethics of Eternity, or the code of morals and motives as ap- 
 proved of by God himself. Until now, almost universally, man 
 uses and treats man, more or less, everywhere, as a thing and 
 chattel, which he values in proportion to the petty, paltry, con- 
 temptible advantage he can draw out of him for his individual 
 selfish benefit ; but does not at all reflect on the awful divine, eternal 
 nature, present in all men, and that all of them will have a voice 
 in the making up of that final destiny of man's race, wherein every 
 human being is equally concerned. Hence, men have acquired the 
 habitude to look upon earth as an everlasting vale of tears, and as 
 the real and necessarily permanent homestead of every thing bad 
 and evil. For, it is a very common thing to hear men express their 
 doubts upon the reports of some good news, for the reason, that : 
 " it is almost too good to be true !" Man will yet learn, that the very best 
 is true. The moment approaches when many dead things, customs, 
 and usages, that, until now, have had man's sanction, veneration, 
 
204. THE TEMPLE OP TEUTH. 
 
 support, or connivance, will receive, after a most searching investi- 
 gation, that true award at his hands, which their inherent nature and 
 tendency merit and deserve. /.) The singular maxim, which, in 
 Chap, xxi, 5 23, let. a and b, we adduced, as forming a portion of 
 the systems of logic, for a long time ruling the schools upon earth, 
 we shall discuss, in a subsequent chapter, as a more appropriate 
 place for said discussion, than this present spot. 
 
 CHAPTER XXIV. 
 
 WHAT WILL BE THE FORM AND SPIRIT OF THE SYSTEM OF PHILO- 
 SOPHY FINALLY RULING THE MINDS OF MEN ? 
 
 1. After man has ascertained the great end of his existence, 
 and determined to pursue it as the supreme aim of his perpetual 
 efforts, he has therein gained a firm foothold, an immovably fixed 
 standpoint, from which, as an ark of safety, he can look com- 
 posedly upon ail things in the universe, and ascertain and deter- 
 mine his and their several relations toward one another. The 
 correct knowledge and true perception of these manifold various 
 relations, and their proper practical application, constitute that 
 degree of intelligence in man, which is designated by the name of 
 wisdom. That wisdom may, like raanj other things, be aptly 
 compared to a sliding-scale, which has a lowermost point, by which 
 it borders upon un-reason, irrationality, folly, craziness, and insanity, 
 in their variegated shapes and modes, and ascending from that 
 finite point, it rises upward in an infinite line, without boundary or 
 end, forever increasing in extent and intensity. 
 
 2. Such wisdom is never based, in any portion of its knowledge, 
 upon hypothesis, suppositious assumption, or mere hearsay opinion, 
 but upon those fundamental perceptions of intellect and sense, 
 which, constituting the basis of all exact science, will stand the test 
 of the universal reason of mankind, and the scrutiny of the con- 
 joint experience of ages. The mind, enlightened by such wisdom, and 
 the intellect of that other man, in whom such light is absent, occupy 
 two different and diametrically opposite positions or standpoints. 
 
FORM AND SPIRIT OF THE FINALLY RULING PHILOSOPHY. 205 
 
 The first stands, as it were, upon the summit of a high mountain, 
 from which it has an unobstructed vision over the entire landscape, 
 into the deep valleys below, and into every direction of the hori- 
 zon all around, and upward into the unmeasured depth of the azure 
 sky, whereby it can take a sweeping survey, not only of that grand 
 sight, as one entire whole, but also clearly perceive position, shape, 
 figure, and relation of its constituent parts. The man without such 
 wisdom, is posted in a deep, obscure, nay, actually more or less, 
 really dark valley, surrounded on all sides by hills, elevations, and 
 mountains, that confine his vision of earth, horizon, sky, and even 
 light, within certain contracted limits, so that all things, which lie 
 beyond these limits, are to him unknown ; and as long as he re- 
 mains where he is, will remain to him inaccessible ; and he can 
 hence only possess such partial knowledge, as the few elements 
 thereof, inclosed in his circumscribed situation, will afford. 
 
 3. As the end and purpose of human existence, as now we have 
 shown and defined the same, have, heretofore, never been per- 
 ceived and viewed in that precise and definite light ; the efforts of 
 mankind to progress onward in any given direction, have mainly 
 consisted in the detached exertions of separated individuals, never 
 yet connected with one another by a conjoint clearly understood 
 purpose, and a mutually agreed upon, well-defined mode of opera- 
 tion to achieve it. Hence, we find everywhere, in all branches of 
 knowledge, from the highest to the lowest, that not as yet have 
 crystallized into solid science, only onesided and partisan-colored 
 exhibitions of a portion of its facts ; while, for the other part, we 
 must look in an opposite quarter. A system of science, however, 
 that is to be the main instrument in the hands of wisdom and vir- 
 tue for leading progressive man unceasingly "onward and upward" 
 to his glorious aim, allsided perfection ; must, from the very be- 
 ginning embrace the total elements of the whole universe, as they 
 reflect themselves in man's intellect, and place each portion thereof, 
 in such position and relation, to all the rest belonging thereto, as 
 the nature, office, and function of each, demand and require. 
 
 4. Such system must therefore literally contain the germs of all- 
 sided universality ; must, hence, embrace that, which reason ac- 
 knowledges as its own in all systems of thought by whatever name 
 thev go. From idealism it embraces the whole of what it has as a 
 
206 THE TEMPLE OF TRUTH. 
 
 positive possession ; namely, the absolute and unassailable certainty 
 of intellectual consciousness as a basis of all knowledge and science ; 
 and, in return therefore, it will lift idealism out of its negative into 
 a positive position towards nature, by restoring to its possession, 
 those just claims, of which it heretofore (as mentioned in Chap, x, 
 §§ 8 and 9), in a fit of silly self-denying abnegation, deprived itself 
 by a surrender of the same to that shallow pretender, yclept "ma- 
 terialism;" whom it will force to relinquish and restore the fraudu- 
 lently acquired booty to its rightful owner, and then compel him 
 to assume, under his proper true name, the subordinate post that 
 reason and nature assign to him, and never again permit him to 
 depart from it. From dogmatism it will accept the maxim, to con- 
 sider the truth of which it is in possession, not a whit the less true 
 and certain, because it is possible that there may yet be other and 
 surpassingly important truths, whereof, as yet, it may possess not 
 even the faintest surmise. For a solitary bird in the hand, has, for 
 its possessor, a positive value, which is not diminished by the fact, 
 that hundreds of birds may fly around him in the air, over which, 
 however, he can exercise no control. Lastly, Argus-eyed Skepticism 
 must be appointed as a sentinel Cerberus at the portals of our 
 Temple of Truth, for he will surely permit nothing to pass into 
 the precincts of the sanctuary that is not the pure and unalloyed 
 truth ; for we, also, want nothing there to enter but it. Any other 
 system, that under one name or other, different from either of tho 
 above, may have got currency anywhere, at any time, in the world, 
 need not be adduced here, as all of them are only variously modi- 
 fied compounds, from parts of the above-named four. 
 
 5. a.) All systems of thought, no matter by what name they 
 are called, are compelled to assume the same positions as true for 
 themselves, in which consist the primary strength of idealism, and 
 are then equally obliged to erect their intended superstructure 
 thereupon, under the operation of the same laws of thought that 
 govern the thinking of all intellects, b.) Every man wishes and 
 desires intelligence, since he knows that only by it he is enabled to 
 protect himself against, and ward off, life's ills ; and procure and 
 enjoy its goods. Upon this point, then, all men are of one unani- 
 mous voice ; and as philosophy is only a name given to that all- 
 embracing science, which endeavors to give man, first : a correct 
 
FOEM AND SPIRIT OF THE FINALLY RULING PHILOSOPHY. 207 
 
 knowledge of all the known things in existence ; and, next, inform 
 him what these things individually are and can he for him ; every man 
 will hasten to acquire such a science, as soon as he shall become 
 aware that it can furnish him the elements of the intelligence he 
 needs and seeks, and that his mind is capable of grasping its leading 
 principles, c.) Hence, when man thus aspires after intelligence, 
 of which correct knowledge and true science are the indispensable 
 materials, he is what is called a thinker. The grand and the first 
 object and aim of the thinker is : To understand himself and the 
 universe a.s both in reality are, and not merely imagined to be ; and 
 thereby place himself beyond the peradventure of self-deceit and 
 being deceived by others. 
 
 6. a.) We have, heretofore (Chap, i and ii and elsewhere), stated 
 that the process of thinking consists in two opposite operations, 
 called analysis (decomposition), and synthesis (composition) ; but 
 there is still a third one, of which, as yet we have not spoken, 
 called analogy, being auxiliary to these two ; consisting in the 
 mind's looking upon some otlier object, to see how analysis or syn- 
 thesis was or is performed in its case ; and, from it ascertain, by 
 comparing tlie resemblances subsisting between the two, how far the 
 same process, may fitly be applied, with suitable modification, to the 
 case the mind has under consideration, b.) There are many cases 
 where such resemblance is almost perfect ; and the law is, that, so 
 far and in the degree, as such resemblance really exists, the applica- 
 tion of analogy is perfectly legitimate, by the assent both of logic and 
 dialectics, as it is based upon the ascertained fact, that nature and 
 reason both, everywhere, proceed, in their operations, upon the same 
 simple, main principles. Hence, beside furnishing to thought, in 
 many cases, the cue or first hint, how to commence its treatment 
 of a subject, analogy, if happily used, furnishes a degree in clear- 
 ness of illustration, that brings the subject within the cycle of lucid 
 comprehension of many, who otherwise could liardly grasp it. 
 
 7. a.) To reach his aim, the thinker is obliged to investigate 
 all things coming within his reach, and probe them to their 
 very bottom. He scrutinizes the floating opinions of the public 
 mind, and whatever of substance they contain, if any, is crystallized 
 in his mental crucible into an element of solid knowledge. That 
 knowledge he pushes on and makes it grow, until he is able to 
 
208 THE TEMPLE OF TRUTH. 
 
 impress thereon the seal and stamp of true science; that being the 
 form to carry it into exterior practice, and make it conversant and 
 familiar to a multitude of other minds. He, finally, after grasping 
 the gist and essence of all, as yet only detachedly existing branches 
 of science, is pressed, by mental necessity (Chap, xxiii, \ 9), to 
 arrange them, as far as able, into one, all-embracing, liarmoniziny, 
 system, so that his intellect, with one glance, may not only survey 
 the same as a unity ; but also know the place, position, nature, 
 office, and function of every individual part of the grand whole, 
 and at any moment be able to find it, when needed for a particular 
 purpose, b.) The outward form of such system, is a grand classi- 
 fication of all things ; whose details consist in the realization of that 
 simple, yet nevertheless wonderful shelfwork (or categories), innately 
 but undevelopedly inherent in the human mind, whereby all men 
 of normal parts, are enabled, by a proper course of culture, to be- 
 come knowing, wise, and useful for themselves and oiliers. c.) As 
 the things and objects with which the various shelves of this classifi- 
 cation, from the largest or highest super- to their minutest or lowest 
 subdivision, are to be filled, arranged, and distributed upon the princi- 
 ple of sameness and difference, the knowledge of these shelves, carries 
 along with it, or contains within itself, a knowledge of the attributes, 
 properties, or qualities of the things to be therein placed, which is a 
 knowledge of things as they are ; and, if complete, of what their 
 essence consists in for man. d.) Now, in order to make this, our 
 subject (being of and in itself one of paramount importance), as 
 plain as possible, let us use the help of the analogy, of which 
 above we have spoken. There is a man very active in human 
 society, whose position and pursuit present many striking resem- 
 blances to that of the progressive thinker, and that man is the thriving 
 mercliant. The first is insatiable in his thirst after knowledge and 
 truth ; the latter equally so in his desire for property and ivealth. 
 The former uses his facts and truths to fill up the shelfwork of his 
 system of science ; the latter his goods and wares, to fill the shelves 
 of his storehouses. And, as all the visible proceedings of the merchant, 
 are nothing else but the sensual reflex of the ideas of his mind, it 
 is well worth our while to take a closer look at him and his work, 
 as we may therein discover traits of analogy to our case, of a char- 
 acter highly and essentially useful. 
 
FdEM AND SPIRIT OF THE FINALLY EULING PHILOSOPHY. 209 
 
 8. a.) Well, as we may need to buy some trifle or other, let us 
 walk up to, and take a look at, the universal store of A. Z.; who, 
 being a retailer and wholesaler, a jobber and importer, has got his 
 own numerous vessels at sea, bringing him the wares and mer- 
 chandise of every kind, from all quarters of the globe. Just now 
 the one tremendous building, covering acres of ground, containing 
 his stores and warehouses,, in partitioned, well-arranged apartments, 
 all under one roof, looms into vision. Here we enter its door, and 
 are now within. The first impression that strikes you, is the im- 
 mense amount of the most variegated stock, arranged in the most 
 orderly manner, wherever your eye alights ; and the next, the ad- 
 mirable and ingenious arrangement of counters, shelves, scales, 
 balances, and meters, and useful instruments of all sorts, whereby 
 business is facilitated, and dispatched with a noiseless and speedy 
 tact, as regularly as clockwork, b.) In casting your eye about, you 
 find the vast concern divided into various large classes or depart- 
 ments, each one containing only articles duly and by nature belonging 
 really to such class. Thus, you see, dry-goods, delf-ware, sta- 
 tionery, hardware, groceries, and a vast number of other goods, all 
 forming separate classes for themselves. All the things you see, 
 although every article has its own proper name, yet the whole of 
 them as a class, go by one general name, being called wares ; every 
 separate piece of which has a definite price or value affixed, and a 
 certain locality allotted to it, where you may be sure always to find 
 it. Well, having seen our sights, let us call at the hardware de- 
 partment, where all hands seem engaged in unpacking and opening 
 boxes, packages, etc., and get the few articles we want to buy, and 
 then return home : " Well, friend Manager, we want some pocket- 
 and pen-knives, needles, etc., can you show us some ?" 
 
 c.) Manager. — " Gentlemen, I am exceedingly sorry that it is 
 out of my power to accommodate you just at this moment. We 
 are, as you see, unpacking and opening a fresh stock of goods. 
 The very articles you call for, as we know by the invoice, are in 
 number and profusion, packed up somewhere, amidst these goods. 
 As yet, we have not found any of them, in the packages opened 
 thus far. We may find them in the next box, and we may not 
 until opening the last. If you can wait, until we find the articles, 
 we will be glad to accommodate you ; if not, you must seek else- 
 
210 THE TEMPLE OF TRUTH. 
 
 where, as we even ourselves were compelled to do to-day, with 
 some articles we needed." 
 
 We. — " We can not wait ; for some of the things v/e absolutely 
 need forthwith as an urgent necessity ; and if we do not get them, 
 the time of their use will be past, and we may thereby be sub- 
 jected to a loss or damage, a tlwiisand times their value, or even 
 more. But, friend Manager, before we part, can you point out to 
 us, among the great number of people visibly engaged in this vast 
 establishment, the person of A. Z., the owner and chief ruler 
 thereof?" 
 
 d.) Manager. — " What is the reason you desire to see the per- 
 son of A. Z.P> 
 
 We. — " One reason is, because from the work before our eyes, 
 whose origination and continuance being ascribed to him, we must 
 consider him a man of extraordinary abilities. The other is. a 
 curious report in the mouth of a few singular people, who say, that 
 they, and many of their acquaintance, have often been at this store, 
 but that no one of them, at any time, did ever get to see the per- 
 son of its owner ; and, hence, they say, this is sufficient ground for 
 a suspicion that the story of A. Z. may be altogether a fiction, and 
 no such person in existence at all." 
 
 Manager. — " Your first reason is very natural and even laudable, 
 as all men, feel a desire to behold the person of men, endowed with 
 uncommon abilities ; and, therefore, if A. Z. was within the prem- 
 ises just now, I would cheerfully introduce you to his personal 
 acquaintance. But your second reason, or rather its basis, the 
 report, I am convinced, you yourself, consider as one that can 
 only originate with uncommonly silly people. For all that you 
 and others see and admire in this establishment, has neither sprung 
 up from itself, nor could it preserve itself and its order. Hence, 
 there was a human intellect its founder, and there must be now one 
 its leader and preserver. If his name is A. Z. or B. ¥., would make 
 no difference in the case with men of sense, and ought to make 
 none to those without sense. For, if they see the person of a man 
 of surpassing abilities, they do only see no more than the mere 
 shell of that which is great and extraordinary in the man, as the real 
 man resides in the thinking intellect, and is forever invisible. But 
 the report of these people is ridiculous and absurd for another 
 
FOEM AND SPIRIT OP THE FINALLY RULING PHILOSOPHY. 211 
 
 reason. Of the twenty-five millions of inhabitants of the United 
 States, the smallest number have seen their President. The same 
 may be asserted of the population of Great Britain, France, Kussia, 
 and every other large nation on earth, with respect to its rulers. 
 But, although, the by-far largest portion of the people of all these 
 countries have never seen the person of James Buchanan, Queen 
 Victoria, Louis Napoleon, Alexander II, etc., is there anywhere, in 
 any of these countries, a sane intellect who, in real earnest, doubts 
 that the above-named individuals are at the head of public affairs 
 of their respective nations ? What is true for and of a nation, is, 
 under proper restrictions, likewise true of a large private estab- 
 lishment, partaking of a public character, like this one of A. Z.; 
 hence, the absurd report of the silly people about him, will not 
 gain any proselytes among people of sense." 
 
 We. — " We perfectly agree with you, friend Manager, and bid 
 you farewell." 
 
 9. Beturned from our excursion to the mammoth store, let us 
 now count up the facts it contains for us, which, by analogy, may 
 become of use to us in the construction and development, as well 
 as application, of the mighty classification that is to encycle into 
 one grand whole, all the things in the universe, in such manner, that 
 every sane human intellect shall, at one and the same time, be 
 both induced and compelled to acknowledge and accept the same 
 as its proper own. a.) Before we got into the store, we discovered 
 the building wherein it is contained, from a considerable distance, 
 by its tremendous size, and unique but unitary construction. Z>.) 
 In the arrangements within, of the shelf- work, as well as of other 
 stationary fixtures, as also of the scales, balances, and meters of all 
 sorts and uses, we discovered a display of extraordinary ingenuity 
 both of design and execution, simplifying the operations and facili- 
 tating the objects of the establishment, in a wonderful degree ; and, 
 as they all, are the result of human thought, they solicit our closest 
 attention, as it may disclose to us therein the display of traits of, 
 and truths in, man's intellect, that heretofore have, as yet, never 
 been distinctly mapped down, c.) The singular and simple fact, 
 that we, just at the moment we needed them, could not get, in this 
 immense store, the few articles we wanted, needed, and called for, 
 has for man a significance, and proclaims the same with a voice, 
 18 
 
212 THE TEMPLE OF TEUTH. 
 
 that may be, and is, heard, at the four corners of the planet. For, 
 stentorian-tongued it shouts into our ears : 1.) That if we possess 
 all the world's goods, or all the tJwughts, facts, and truths of science 
 and wisdom, but for want of order, arrangement, or classification, can 
 not find what we hunt for in the moment of pressing need ; the absence 
 thereby caused of an article seemingly so trifling as a needle or pin, 
 or of a ilwught of no extraordinary nature, may, under specific con- 
 tingencies, subject us to great exterior losses, and even cause the loss of 
 human life. For many a victim of either physical wounds and ills, 
 or of despair and despondency, might have been saved, if, at a suita- 
 ble moment, before the fatal catastrophe, that scattered its reason or 
 life, one certain medical remedy, or a hriglit and hopeful idea had 
 been applied,, or exhibited, to its suffering body or mental hen, capable 
 of dispelling the pain, or dismal gloom, that engulfed it into its vortex. 
 2.) Hence the absolute need of order, classification, and indexation 
 of all our physical as well as mental means, that is, wares and truths, 
 so that we are always able to find, each separate article when re- 
 quired. For he, who possesses all creation, but can not find, at the 
 moment he needs it, a certain small article, is not one whit better 
 off at that moment, than the most indigent of his neighbors ; for, all the 
 diamonds of the Brazils and gold of the world, have in themselves 
 no power to remove a simple but painful toothache, or remove a 
 burning tJwught driving the mind to madness. cZ.) The reply of the 
 Manager to our inquiry after the person of A. Z., being a model of 
 close and acute reasoning, has lifted into prominent relief, some of 
 the most important facts and laws connected with the operations of 
 the intellect. Among them are : 1.) The presence of an effect, is 
 absolute proof of the existence of its cause. 2.) The quality of the 
 effect is indicative of a corresponding Quality in the cause. 3.) Mind, 
 being ever invisible and inaccessible to the senses, the greatness and 
 power, as well as wisdom and goodness, of the human intellect and 
 heart, can only be proved, to, and displayed before, the eyes of his 
 fellow-men, by the individual'' s practical deeds and performances. 4.) 
 Of a countless number of facts, the laws of time and space, make it 
 partly impossible, and partly difficult, for men, to obtain sensual testi- 
 mony. No man living after the age of another, can sensually ever 
 know any thing of those dying before he was; and only the very 
 smallest number of people in any age, do ever get to see the person 
 
FORM AND SPIRIT OF THE FINALLY RULING PHILOSOPHY. 213 
 
 of those men, whose name, fame, and exploits may be as familiar 
 to every tongue of such time, as every day household words. 
 
 10. a.) Now, before we begin attempting to sketch the outlines 
 and main features of the grand system of classification, which is to 
 supply an absolute want, for all time to come, ever felt by all sane 
 and sound thinkers, but never yet heretofore supplied in a scientific 
 form, — not because this our sketch is already now, in itself, con- 
 summately perfect, — but simply because its structure contains the 
 germ and aptitude of never-ceasing, ever-improving ■perfectibility, 
 without causing any derangement of the parts, and in the construc- 
 tion as originally composed : it will be necessary for us, to bring, 
 by an all- con verting, universal generalization, all things real and 
 possible under one uniform denomination, so that, like the merchant 
 calling all things within his store by the name of ivares : so we 
 must find some appropriate name, that may fitly apply to every indi- 
 vidual or collective thing in creation, that, in anywise, and manner, 
 may ever claim & place, anywhere within the shelves of our knowl- 
 edge, b.) The query before us, therefore, is : if commencing with 
 the smallest atom, and progressing upward, we place all things 
 existing or thinkable around us, into one all-compassing cycle, — so 
 that the ideas of all, with their intermediates, from the atom to 
 islands, continents, globes, satellites, suns, solar systems, to the en- 
 tire universe, — and from the infusorial animalcule, mite, elephant, 
 whale, man, nature, mind, matter, creation, up to Deity itself, shall, 
 with all and every thing, be embraced within our cycle : what name 
 is there to be found in language, fit and proper to be alike applied to 
 all these subjects of thought or existence, indiscriminately, so that, 
 such name, doing justice to all, and injustice to none, — be as expres- 
 sive of the main feature in all of them, from the atom to tliought and 
 intellect, and from the infusoria or mite to the glorious Supreme 
 Cause itself ? 
 
 c.) Answer : All things and ideas existing, or possible to exist, 
 from the atom up to all others above-named, or indicated as present 
 in our supposed all-embracing cycle, — have one general feature in 
 common with one another, and that is : that all of them are capa- 
 ble of either positive or negative action ; for, even the most minute 
 atom is capable of inert resistance, the capacity inherent in the 
 lowest form of matter ; while all living beings, thought, mind, and 
 
214 THE TEMPLE OF TRUTH. 
 
 the glorious Creator himself, are ever engaged in 'positive action. 
 Now, all sort of action, no matter whether negative or positive, is 
 as an effect produced by a cause ; and every such cause capable of 
 producing any effect at all, proves itself thereby to be a force or 
 power, as alone in it subsists the capacity of production of any thing 
 whatsoever. Hence, wherever there is no force or power of any 
 sort, there is neither action, production, or existence; for, existence 
 and subsistence in any degree, is force of one sort and degree or 
 another. And, therefore, the name of force or power is a suitable and 
 proper name for all things, from the atom to the universe, and from 
 the mite to God himself ; and the difference in their variety, extent, 
 intensity, and degree, will furnish to intellect the meter and indi- 
 dicator to what place in, or upon, the grand shelf- work (or catego- 
 ries), of absolute classification, every one thereof is, per se, entitled. 
 11. a.) In every process of thought upon any subject, there are 
 various ways and methods of finally reaching the end in view ; but 
 among all the modes possible, there can be but one, which is. the best 
 of the whole ; and if we are so fortunate to hit upon it, right at our 
 start, we shall save labor, time, and headwork, inasmuch as such 
 best method is nothing else, nor less, than a straight, and hence the 
 sliortest, line to the point aimed at. Having, by our last generaliza- 
 tion, now reduced all and the most heterogeneous things, from the 
 finite atom to infinity itself, to one endless series of perfectly homo- 
 geneous objects, termed forces, presenting the most multiform differ- 
 ence in Jcind, degree, and extent, — the first thing we now need, may 
 be named the form that is to inclose the shelf-work of our projected 
 classification. For, at a closer inspection, it will be discovered, that 
 that, which is named the form of a thing, is the very tiling which, 
 inclosing an indefinite multiplicity of parts within itself, combines 
 them all, by and through itself, into absolute oneness, or a unitary whole. 
 Thus, the form of a human person, incloses into one individual 
 unity, all the countless individual parts, forces, and abilities, physical, 
 psychical, and intellectual, that are, in anywise and manner, apper- 
 taining to the man ; thus, the store-building of the merchant, A Z, 
 is the form inclosing the fixtures, shelf- work and contents of his 
 vast and admirable establishment into one ; and thus, we finally 
 have, in Chap, xi, \ 5, >-, in our analysis of sight, found that abso- 
 lute or boundless space, is the form, inclosing the somewhat larger, 
 
FORM AND SPIRIT OF THE FINALLY RULING PHILOSOPHY. 215 
 
 and more wonderful establishment of this entire universe to one 
 ever-combined whole, b.) Now, one might suppose, that absolute 
 space having no bounds, and being the inclosing form of the sen- 
 sually perceptible universe, might likewise answer as the inclosing 
 form for the radical system of classification, now under considera- 
 tion. To this suggestion, we have to reply : Space, though bound- 
 less, being absolutely immovable, and hence, entirely passive, is, 
 before the intellect only an idea, and on account of its entire passive- 
 ness merely a negative force; whence it follows, that the active, 
 thinking mind, even of the single individual man, is a force superior 
 to this space, as it is not active only, but actually producingly crea- 
 tive. Hence space, the proven inferior, can not serve as the inclos- 
 ing form, of a whole, — wherein man, its demonstrated superior, 
 is to constitute an integral part, c.) Further, a thing can not serve 
 as an inclosure or form of another, wherewith it presents no resem- 
 blance or affinity whatever. Space has none with joy or grief, love 
 or hatred, virtue or crime, wisdom or madness, heaven or hell, — as 
 it remains entirely indifferent to, and totally unaffected by, either. 
 Space, further, is a stranger to the origination of things, even of those 
 it incloses. The mind of man is conscious that it did not make 
 itself; it knows, with a like certainty, that it has not produced 
 nature; it is no less sure, that nature has neither produced the 
 human being, nor given existence to itself ; hence, man's intellect, 
 both in its own and nature's name, until duly solved, incessantly 
 reiterates the query : " Where do we come from ? who, and what, is 
 the cause, of which we both are the effect ?" d.) Now that, whereby 
 individual man is superior to space, whereby he controls nature, and 
 has, like a creative divinity, and vice-regent of supreme power, 
 continued its creative process on earth, embellishing nature, and 
 ennobling the aspect of the globe, all over its vast surface, — is his 
 thinking, super-sensual, and hence, super-natural intellect, — before 
 whose majestic forum, boundless space and powerful nature appear 
 each in the compressed shape of one thought or idea, e.) Man, exist- 
 ing on earth, in a specific number of individuals, probably, at this 
 moment, in the neighborhood of a thousand millions, nearly equally 
 divided between the two jointly procreative sexes, which number 
 are the children of a smaller number of parents, the grandchildren of 
 a still smaller number of grandparents,T=-and thus diminisJung the 
 
216 THE TEMPLE OF TRUTH. 
 
 number of their ancestors, as you trace them backward into the dim 
 ages of the hoary past, the whole number (regardless of occasional 
 interruptions to the regularity of the process from easily conceiva- 
 ble causes), must eventually, by inevitable, mathematical necessity, 
 come down, and terminate, in one single pair of male and female 
 human beings. /.) Geology, a branch of human science, born so 
 recently, that it may almost fitly be called the babe of man's intel- 
 lectual children, — has, nevertheless, in some of its proportions, 
 grown up so rapidly, and, as it were, precociously, — that it is 
 already able to render us some essential service, on the present 
 occasion, by its decisive and highly intelligent testimony upon the 
 following important point. Geology, by a string of collective 
 facts, too numerous here to detail, is able to demonstrate, beyond 
 the possibility of successful denial : 1.) That this our globe has 
 been the subject of a series of violently subverting elemental revo- 
 lutions, by each one of which, the pre-existing aspect of its surface 
 was not only, more or less, entirely changed, but its flora (vegeta- 
 tion), and fauna (animal domain), totally destroyed. 2.) That, after 
 each such perceptible revolution was fully consummated, vegeta- 
 tion and life in forms more perfect than those preceding, took their 
 place. 3.) That the conditions absolutely requisite for man to exist, 
 were not present on this globe, until after the subsidence of the last of 
 these revolutions, which left its surface and the conditions thereon, 
 rudimentally, what they are at present. 4.) That hence, as man's 
 species could not exist, on earth, anterior to its last revolution, the 
 certainty that he did not exist, before it, is proven by the additional 
 fact, — that his remains, whenever found in a fossil state, at no time 
 have yet presented any determinate criteria, that he ever did exist 
 in any other than this last or present still enduring period. But 
 this last fact is by no means absolutely necessary to our forthcom- 
 ing argument ; for, although there is no rational probability that 
 man ever did exist in any of the earlier periods, it would make no 
 difference under heaven, if he had existed any given number of 
 thousands of years earlier, than now supposed, — because the time 
 of his first appearance on earth, has, at all events, certain fixed 
 limits, that can not be overstepped. For, there are facts, to prove, 
 that at a certain period, the earth was in a condition, wherein the 
 existence of man upon it, was an absolute impossibility, g.) And here, 
 
FORM AND SPIRIT OF THE FINALLY RULING PHILOSOPHY. 217 
 
 we have landed at the point for which we steered. For, as in the 
 sub-paragraph preceding the last (in e), we find the race of man 
 reduced to one primitive pair, we have now, in /, above, come to 
 a time, when and where, there was no spot on earth Jit for man to 
 stand upon and live. Now, then, that was the time, when, uncon- 
 ditionally the race of man had no existence yet. Nature knows 
 nothing of purely creative power or its processes. The law and 
 mode it obeys, to preserve the individual species of beings existing 
 within it, is that of propagation in the various methods of generation. 
 This law, nature obeys blindfold, without knowing any thing of the 
 secrets concealed in its miraculous operations. Hence, the conjoint 
 experience of the human race, since its existence on earth, has 
 never seen nature produce any new thing or species, but only continue 
 the existing genera in the generative mode. This statement will 
 remain an unimpaired universal fact, if even the much contested 
 result of Sir Andrew Cross's famous galvano-electrical experiment, 
 claiming the production of a species of insect, not fully alike to any 
 now known to Entomology, should prove true. For, if a fact, it is 
 one in which the human intellect had a greater agency than nature 
 itself, — by using its own, to combine the forces in nature in new 
 modes.* If nature had ever possessed and exercised creative power, it 
 never could have lost it, and would possess and exercise the same yet 
 to this very hour. 
 
 12. a.) Now, that, which is to inclose, as the greatest of all objects 
 possible, our projected system of universal classification, as its ever- 
 living form, must hence, also, in the whole series of our forces, be 
 a power, not only greater than any single one among them, but, 
 analogous to all-embracing space, be greater than the whole aggregate 
 of the entire series together. It must, hence, not only be a being of 
 life, but its life must also be that of the highest hind, discoverable 
 anywhere in the series ; and as all the less is contained in the more, 
 the inferior in the superior, the finite in the infinite, it must cotem- 
 poraneously contain and inclose, eo ipso, the entire series, with all 
 its appurtenances within itself, and be thus seat, source, and cause 
 of their existence, b.) The creative power, as now practically 
 known to man, exists in the thinking intellect, dwelling in the two 
 
 * These interesting experiments are reported in " Vestiges of Creation" and elsewhere. 
 
218 THE TEMPLE OF TEUTH. 
 
 entirely differently organized sexes of man, the male and female. 
 In the first, it shows itself connected with a strength of desire and 
 thirst after knowledge, truth, and wisdom, that shun no obstacle to 
 reach the goal ; in the latter, it manifests itself coupled with a ten- 
 derness and affection, truly divine, reaching and displaying in the 
 climax of a mother's undying, godlike love, a degree of heroism, 
 of which all male heroes need not be ashamed to take lessons. 
 The invisible intellect of man and of woman, does each know its 
 own self, next, one the other, and finally, all other things whatso- 
 ever, by thought or idea only, and in no other way ; as all real knowl- 
 edge is seeing or beholding things in thoughts of the mind. For, no 
 exterior thing enters the mind, but only the thought thereof. For, 
 as soon as by sleep, or forgetting or abstraction of attention, you 
 remove the thought of a thing out of the intellect's presence and 
 sight, the thing itself also, is, for the time being, entirely gone. 
 Hence, ideas or thoughts are not only living forces, but they are the 
 very eyes, by and through which the mind looks into the heart of 
 things. Ideas are, therefore, the forces that cause man to dance 
 from exuberance of joy, or rave from madness by pain and grief, — in 
 short, they can set the world in a blaze, have done so more than 
 once ; and will, beyond all doubt, do it again, c.) Every finite form 
 on earth carries upon itself some lasting evidence of its origin, sym- 
 bolical of a higher significance. Thus, the human child (like all 
 the mammalia), when born, is yet fastened to its mother by the 
 umbilical cord, which, after cut, leaves still forever its irremovable 
 mark in the navel. A similar spot, if not removed by filing, grind- 
 ing, or polishing, may be seen in every piece of casting of iron or 
 other metal, denoting the point at which the molten mineral was 
 poured into the mould. Corresponding to the umbilical cord, there 
 is a something mentally similar to it existing in the consciousness of 
 every human being, assuring man of his connection with the cause of 
 which he knows himself to be the effect, not only, but still also to a 
 great extent, the subservient instrument. As long as the native 
 innocence of heart, and the honest simplicity of the intellect, have not 
 been violently damaged and injured in man, his conviction of the 
 existence of that cause, and his knowledge of its nature, springing 
 from his said connection therewith, are not less sure and clear, 
 than those he entertains of his own self. He may injure and 
 
FORM AND SPIRIT OP THE FINALLY RULING PHILOSOPHY. 219 
 
 damage both, to a degree, as to render him disinclined as well as 
 unable to reason and judge correctly, in these transcendingly impor- 
 tant premises. 
 
 13. a.) The unknown myriads of millions of normal beings, ex- 
 isting upon earth from the first solitary pair, up to the one thousand 
 millions of the present hour, were all alike conscious and certain, of 
 having been produced by an adequate cause, the same not being they 
 themselves. And perceiving themselves in all main features essen- 
 tially alike, but yet seeing in every single individual some peculiar 
 gift, wherein, if properly developed, he or she would excel all others : 
 they saw that the common cause of all, being the source and centre 
 of all the perfect and different gifts, evidently thus present, piece- 
 wise, in each single individual of this countless number of men, 
 would, in itself, regardless of all other considerations, thereby neces- 
 sarily appear as a being of such surpassing attributes of all-sided 
 perfection, as to rivet the attention and admiration of all intellects 
 upon itself, as soon as they should have obtained one single clear 
 sight thereof, b.) In Chap, v, § 13-17, and Chap, xxv, § 2, a-d, 
 we have shown that every progress of man, thus far accomplished, 
 was effected by realizing the ideas of inventors and discoverers. This 
 proves that ideas are creative, since no other sort of creativeness has 
 taken place upon earth since man's existence thereon. Now, then, 
 as all human intellects see all things which they see, in no other way 
 than in their ideas thereof, as, hence, one intellect may inclose within 
 itself an indefinite, and does inclose a certain number of such ideas, 
 all of which, being like the mind itself, living forces, among which 
 there is one greatest, necessarily encompassing all the rest ; and with 
 them, that of its own self ; we have herein come to that being or 
 force, which, like space, inclosing all nature and its bodies, en cycles 
 all intellects, forces, spirits, beings and things whatsoever, and thus 
 existing in the very pinnacle of every individual human consciousness, is 
 that supreme, absolute, universal spiritual soil, in which all intellects 
 cotemporaneously have their common mental root, c.) Perceiving 
 this ubiquitous living thought * thus present in all minds, as well as 
 things, inclosing as a greater, and boundlessly active power, all nature 
 and all space : men have called it the all-surrounding, omnipresent 
 
 * Schiller calls God "the living, highest Thought." 
 
 19 
 
220 THE TEMPLE OF TRUTH. 
 
 God. Hence Paul, the Apostle (Acts, xvii, 28), says : " In him 
 we live, and move, and have our being." Hence, Marlebrancbe based 
 his system on the formula : " We see all things in God." Hence, 
 convinced that their own existence was not more a proof of itself, 
 than of the being of such a God, — the nations of all times and 
 zones, have, in one mode or another, worshiped a supreme being. 
 Hence, even a Voltaire, the scoffer and reviler of all revealed reli- 
 gion, is compelled to exclaim : 
 
 " Tout annonce d'un dieu l'eternelle existence, 
 On ne peut le voir, on ne peut l'ignorer, 
 La voix de l'univers nous preche sa puissance, 
 Et la voix de nos cceurs nous dit qu'il faut l'adorer."* 
 
 [ TRANSLATION. ] 
 
 "All things a God's eternal existence teach; 
 One can not see, nor him ignore ; 
 All worlds' great voice his power does preach, 
 And our hearts' own voice bids us adore." 
 
 d.) And hence, lastly, but by no means leastly, a man whose name 
 sounds far more terrible, than even that of the great high-priest of 
 modem unbelief, namely, no less a personage than that of the 
 bloody-handed Robespierre, had openly to give his testimony in 
 favor of the existence of a supreme being. For, after the revolu- 
 tionary leaders of France, for several years past, intoxicated by 
 fanatical and bloody Atheism, had openly avowed themselves un- 
 believers in a supreme cause and the immortality of tlie human soul : 
 the original impetus of which torrent, Kobespierre felt either no 
 inclination, but more probably, had then yet no sufficient power 
 to stem, but concluded to abide his own time. That time, he sup- 
 posed, had come in the early part of 1794, when he concluded to 
 restore some sort of public worship in France. In his opening 
 speech upon the subject, before the French Convention, he made 
 the memorable declaration : that the idea of a God, was a thought 
 of so happy and. fruitive a nature, " that if not already existing, 
 it ought to be invented." f e.) And to cap the climax, James 
 the Apostle, asserts bluntly, that even the convicts of heaven's 
 penitentiary, are sharers in men's universal belief ; for he says, in 
 
 * flenriade. t " S'il n'existait, il faudrait l'inventer." 
 
FORM AND SPIRIT OF THE FINALLY RULING PHILOSOPHY. 221 
 
 his Epistle, chapter ii, 19, positively : " Thou believest that there 
 is one God ; thou doest well : the devils also believe, and — 
 tremble." 
 
 14. a.) Since the above, and our mode of proving God's ex- 
 istence, as summed up in sub-§ h of \ 13, was written down, we 
 find, to our delight, that DesCartes, the great restorer of modern 
 philosophy, has discovered and applied in his own individual case, 
 the very argument to prove God's existence, which we deduced 
 from the conscious intellects of all sane men. For this great and 
 mighty thinker says : " We necessarily conclude from this alone, that 
 because I exist and have the idea of a most perfect being, tliat is to 
 say, of God, (lie existence of God is most evidently demonstrated.* 
 Now, as this is the voice of all sound and unperverted intellects, 
 who, as long as in that natural state, are as certain of God's ex- 
 istence and being, as the happy child is of that of his parents and 
 his own ; we have therein actually the unanimous, universally co- 
 inciding testimony of the whole human race, in the shape of these 
 many demonstrations, each convincing its individual, and thereby 
 increasing the strength of conviction in the whole mass, through 
 that mighty and best portion thereof, who have preserved their 
 qualification to be competent witnesses in the case ; excluding only 
 the villain and criminal, who by disinclination and false volition, 
 and the imbecile and idiot who by mental defect and incapacity, 
 are disqualified, being either unwilling or unable, clearly to per- 
 ceive and honestly to state the most important of all truths. b.~) 
 As truth is universal, absolute, boundless, all-ruling, and error sec- 
 tional, relative, contracted, and schismatic, it is not the office of 
 truth to propagate its own empire by separately attacking every indi- 
 vidual system of error, that in one way or other has obtained foot- 
 hold and currency in the world ; but rather, like the glorious orb 
 of day, to pour its copious, all-illuming billows of light simulta- 
 neously into the entire womb of darkness, and thus producing, at 
 once, an omnipresent daylight, penetrating by its own nature into 
 every gloomy cellar, nook, and corner, wherever there exists any 
 aperture for it to enter, c.) There is one exception to this rule, 
 namely : when the entire essence, force, and power of error and 
 
 * Meditation iii, sur l'existence de Dieu, p. 69. 
 
222 THE TEMPLE OF TRUTH. 
 
 darkness in existence, coupled with insanity or brute force, have 
 become jointly concentrated into some corporealized system or 
 body, which the mere diffused rays of scattered daylight are only 
 able to show and make visible in its true dismal hideousness and 
 deformed nature to all eyes, but can neither melt, dissolve, or cause 
 to evaporate, since that can only be effected by concentrating the 
 whole force of the light's living rays into the focal centre, as it were, 
 of some burning mirror ; which, when duly directed upon the in- 
 durated opaque object, will decompose and volatilize it into the 
 form of gaseous nonentity, were it as hard as adamant, the crystal- 
 lized black carbon itself. As a case of that nature, concentrating in 
 a manner, all things opposed to light, truth, and the welfare and 
 great end and aim of mankind into a nutshell ; but inclosing all 
 and as many, nay more and greater, evils for man, as ever did Pan- 
 dora's famous box of old, presses itself, while contemplating our 
 present subject, within the cycle of our vision, it becomes our duty 
 to direct the whole focus of solar truth, upon the gory monster, and 
 let the mirror's consuming central flash strike its hydra head, until 
 burned up into harmless cinders. 
 
 15. a.) As now we have proved that God exists as a living idea 
 in all men, whose original normal nature has not been cruelly per- 
 verted and corrupted ; having shown that he is the greatest of all 
 actual and possible forces, possessing in himself collectively, in a 
 consummate degree, whatever of any perfect trait is found singly, in 
 each individual being ; we have in him, as Kant calls him, " ens 
 realissimum," the supremest reality, or most perfect, most real and 
 actual among all beings. b.~) Hence, it follows, that, in proportion 
 as this divine idea in man, being God's manifestation in each indi- 
 vidual self, bears sway and rule in the man over the rest of his 
 forces, in the same degree such man is godlike, perfect, and thinks 
 and acts divinely, so that it may be said of him, as one of old : 
 " BeJwld an Israelite indeed, in whom is no guile.'''' John i, 47. Or, 
 also, as more recently he has been defined : " An honest man's the 
 noblest work of God."* c.) If the honest man, in whom God dwells 
 and rules, is God's noblest, most perfect work, its opposite, the 
 man in whom the idea of God has no longer any influence ; whose 
 
 * Pope's Essay on Man. 
 
FORM AND SPIRIT OF THE FINALLY RULING PHILOSOPHY. 223 
 
 being has become the seat of falsehood and deception, must, of 
 necessity, be : " the meanest, vilest of mankind," * and his ends and 
 aims, and modes and habits of action, be of a most godless, and 
 hence horrific nature. d.~) For such man is intellectually in the 
 same condition, with that of the blind man, who loses his eyesight. 
 The latter has no longer any outward sun to illume creation, and 
 enable him correctly to perceive its objects and their relations ; 
 and the former is in the more terrible condition, that the central 
 light within him, alone, capable of showing and guiding him in the 
 correct use of all his forces, has set, leaving him in utter darkness ; 
 while his forces, uncontrolled by any superior-unitary power, are, by 
 the wildest, most terrific anarchy, continually whirled into a more 
 fearful state of chaos. In Chap, xviii, § 20, a, and elsewhere, we have 
 stated, that there are three main classes of men, there named, 
 saints, sinners, and criminals, which terms signify also wise men, 
 fools, and raving maniacs.^ Man can not sanctify himself ; but as 
 far as he suffers and indulges God to rule him, in that degree God 
 purifies and sanctifies him, which is one and the same thing with 
 making him a sage, a saint, or divinely acting being. The sinner 
 may be termed a fool, being such, as attempting to carry water on 
 both shoulders ; trying one moment to enlist in the service of 
 heaven, and the very next joining the ranks of hell. The criminal 
 is a raving maniac, in whom brute appetency and force ruling as 
 a beast of prey, and controlling the intellect to carry out the in- 
 tensely selfish desires, which, when fully excited, make him a 
 fiend incarnate, hardly less dangerous and cruel, than any disem- 
 bodied devil could be, whence Ooethe, perceiving modern unbeliev- 
 ing, self-imagined illuminism, chuckle at its having exploded, as it 
 thinks, the old idea of an opposing principle, takes occasion, with 
 the most destructive sarcasm, to spoil its rosy dream by reminding 
 it : " Den Bozsen sind sie los, die Bodsen sind geblieben. ,} l d.) Saint, 
 sinner, and criminal, co-existing on earth, in human society, as 
 beings in human shape, with, and acting and reacting upon, one 
 another, attempt each to proselyte the other, or drawing him into 
 his own cycle. For man is a social being, needs company, and 
 when finding such as he can join with a will, he desires to make 
 
 * Ibid. t Corresponding in idea, with Plato's classification of men. 
 
 X " The eoU one they got rid of, the evil ones remain."— Faust. 
 
224 THE TEMPLE OF TEUTH. 
 
 it as large, numerous, and strong, as if he were that association 
 himself. A society of men, of whom each one meditates the 
 destruction of all the rest, could not exist long, as their earnest joint 
 desire, would soon realize the same, by leaving only one, perhaps 
 even not one, individual, to tell the bloody tale. Hence an endur- 
 ing state or society of murderers is an impossibility, as suicidally 
 it destroys itself, e.) God is creator and preserver of what he pro- 
 duces ; the destroying murderer is his exact opposing counterpart. 
 The murderer, when an innocent child, was a divine being, "whose 
 angel or spirit saw God's face in heaven" (Matt, xviii, 10), as long 
 as he remained in that guiltless condition. What is it that has 
 flung him out of it ? "We find an easy, simple, and natural answer 
 to this query in John viii, 44, where it is stated that : " The first 
 or original liar was the first murderer" Well, if the liar was a 
 murderer at that time, he must bear that mark upon him still ; let 
 us take a closer look at him. Man absolutely knows that he has 
 not made himself, and is constantly, in a miraculous, to him incom- 
 prehensible manner, preserved in existence, by the wonderful being 
 that created him, who continues to heap blessing after blessing upon 
 him. Man knows that being to be his legitimate sovereign ; knows 
 himself to owe him implicit allegiance and fidelity ; as he actually 
 is God-'s bona fide property, in the most comprehensive sense of the 
 term. In an unfortunate moment, misled by interior or exterior 
 temptation, or both conjoined, he permits himself to be seduced 
 into the commission of some act, which he knows to be wrong, and 
 opposed to God's sovereign rights and holy law. That deed then, 
 so far as it goes, is : 1.) An incipient rebellion against the proprietor 
 of the universe ; 2.) An assertion and usurpation of rights on the 
 part of the creature, as opposed to the sovereign privileges of the 
 creating riglvtf id owner, utterly unfounded ; and, 3.) A poisoned, sui- 
 cidal stab, leading, if not speedily counteracted, by powerful reme- 
 dial agencies, in a very brief time, to the total moi'al death and utter 
 annihilation of the creature's innocence. 
 
 16. a.) Here then we have in that one single act, three distinct 
 principles of transgression compressed into one solitary deed ; the 
 real commencing of which is when man begins to believe the lie of 
 the tempter, that the commission of sin contains a concealed happi- 
 ness, whereby men get to be like gods. (Gen. iii, 5). Embracing 
 
FORM AND SPIRIT OF THE FINALLY RULING PHILOSOPHY. 225 
 
 and believing that lie, and thus becoming one with it, man thereby 
 makes himself a liar ; and feeling himself endowed with the priv- 
 ilege of choice between right and wrong, he cheats himself by the 
 lying hope, that he may commit such sin, with impunity, and having 
 no penalty to pay, in the shape of ulterior consequences, from the 
 laws of nature, reason, and God. Thus making himself a complete 
 liar in theory, he now goes boldly to commit the act in practice, 
 which, toward God, as it robs him of his rights of ownership and 
 assails his sovereign immunities at one and the same time, is an act 
 of highway robbery and insurrectionary rebellion ; while toward him- 
 self it is moral suicide, which, before God's law, is murder of inno- 
 cency. Thus, then, we see that the liar is a robber, rebel, suicide, 
 and murderer in his primary criminal deed, b.) Gerhard Ter 
 Steegen, a man so much and really after Christ's own heart (that 
 Prof. H. Young Stilling (Goethe's bosom friend), with truth, says 
 of him : " That since the days of tlie Apostles all Christendom can 
 show no man, who has done as much for the restoration of true and 
 pure religion as G. Ter Steegen"); writes, in a letter to a pious lady : 
 " Dear Sister, do not become frightened at what I tell you, for it is the 
 simple truth, God is so intimately conjoined with man, that when 
 you commit sin, you force God to commit sin with you." Is it a won- 
 der, therefore, that sin, vice, and crime, are things, so unutterably 
 terrible, and inseparably connected with consequences of a nature 
 equally appalling ?" Man, however, seldom commits sin alone, as 
 usually he has not only more or less human company engaged 
 therein with him, but always entangles also a smaller or larger 
 number as the designed victims thereof. Among these latter are 
 often youthful people as yet in complete possession of their native, 
 childlike innocence. The entrapping and seduction of such inno- 
 cents to the commission of sin and crime, is an act more heinous, so 
 far as the injury to the victim is concerned, than physical murder 
 of the bodily life itself. Hence, to every one of such seducers of 
 innocence, by bad example, or actual infernal design, it is, Matt. 
 xviii, 6, proclaimed : " It were better for him that a millstone were 
 hanged about his neck, and that he were drowned in the depth of the sea." 
 c.) As there is nowhere absolute rest or standing still in the domain 
 of existence, the transgressor must either repent and reform, ox progress 
 
226 THE TEMPLE OF TRUTH. 
 
 onward and sink deeper in the awful labyrinth of criminality. 
 While in the tide of success and prosperity, the voice of offended 
 conscience is drowned by the intoxication of sensual enjoyment, 
 and dissipation, or the noisy clamor of action ; and any stray beam 
 of a thought, monitory of " retributive justice," is set off, and 
 rendered inoperative by another, of an atheistical nature, since " the 
 wish is father to the tiiought." But there is a time in the destiny of 
 all men, when the measure of their own action, be it good or evil, 
 has reached, as it were, an ultimate, where a new part or act of the 
 thrilling drama is to begin, which has been noticed by the eye of 
 genius of all ages. That time has come when the offended God 
 within man, no longer permits the sinning criminal to look with 
 his inner eye at any thing else, than upon the horrifying turpitude 
 of his past life, and is thereby appalled, as if it were, the head of 
 some terrifying Medusa. When that awful moment has arrived, 
 the outer eye is no longer delighted by looking at h'ngly power and 
 a crown purchased, as now perceived, at a price infinitely too dear. 
 Hence Macbeth, when no one is outwardly present to accuse him, 
 of the bloody deed, performed in a dark night, unknown to all the 
 world, through the hands of hired assassins, seeing inly, engrafted 
 on his prior guilt, the gory head of the murdered Banquo, and him- 
 self as the real murderer, is forced to say, as if seeing the slain 
 victim with his outer eye: "Thou canst not say I did it V So, 
 Lady Macbeth, his terrible spouse, before the murder of King 
 Duncan (mainly instigated by her boundless ambition), hard as 
 flint, has no eye now any longer for the power and regal splendor, 
 thus bought by murder. The only thing she now can see, any- 
 where, in the wide universe, keeping her eye chained like the 
 charming glance of the fabled basilisk, is that single spot of blood upon 
 her hand, got when she wiped up the murdered King's gore from 
 the floor, long washed off outwardly, but being indelible inwardly, 
 she always perceives yet on the hand, where no soap and water can 
 remove it ; whence her reiterated exclamation : " Out damned 
 spot /" That is the point and the time when the pangs and tor- 
 tures of the hell within have brought the polluted wretch to the 
 brink of insanity, or the despair of self-destruction, each forcing, 
 with an energy, irresistible as destiny, upon him or her, the over- 
 
FORM AND 8PIRIT OF THE FINALLY RULING PHILOSOPHY. 227 
 
 powering conviction : " Das Leben ist der Queter Hoeclistes nicht ; der 
 Uebel Qroestes aber ist die Schuld !" * Thus showing the beginning 
 of the final doom, to which the lie, with its twin-brothers robbery 
 and murder, eventually and inevitably lead their victims individu- 
 ally ; corresponding as, ere-long, will be seen, with that, to which 
 they drag them collectively. 
 
 17. a.) All the wrongs committed by man in any shape and de- 
 gree, against man, his brother, or God, his creator, sovereign, and 
 father, are thus practical and actualized lies, differing only by 
 variety and modification, as to the degree of deadliness, in the venom 
 of their essence, the ugly monstrosity of their form, and the size 
 and extent, to which the cycle of their hugely embracing destruc- 
 tiveness expands, b.) All of them are practical atheism, denying, 
 by deed, the existence, and defying by fact the autJwrity of, and 
 using in the performance, the goods, chattels, means, faculties, and 
 forces created by, and eternally belonging to, God, for acting therewith 
 repugnantly to His very, threefoldly declared holy nature and will, 
 and thus forcing God, as defined by Ter Steegen, to commit sin and 
 wrong with the raving sinner, c.) The men making, by deed and 
 action thus liars of themselves, may fitly be said to form three 
 distinct classes : 1.) Timid and weak sinners, who believe in, and 
 acknowledge, God's existence and authority, and deplore their de- 
 linquent acts. 2.) Hypocrites, who to deceive and decoy their 
 victims, feign and pretend, to a belief in God, and in secret, act as 
 if there were none. 3.) Open atheists, with more than ordinary 
 intellectual daring and infatuated licentiousness, who, upon the pre- 
 tense, of what they call their knowledge of nature and things, boldly 
 deny God's existence, as an intelligent supreme cause, and assert all 
 things to be composed, of the one tiling they call matter, all the 
 aggregate of which they term nature, the same, they say, being ruled 
 by a blind necessity. 
 
 18. a.) As the seeing man needs no foreign demonstration of the 
 existence of the glowing sun, so the mind and heart wherein God 
 is present, need no exterior testimony from other men to prove the 
 same, or just as little as to prove his own being and existence. (See 
 
 * " Of boons, the highest is not life ; but of evils all, guilt is the greatest." Schiller, 
 Bride of Messina 
 
228 THE TEMPLE OF TRUTH. 
 
 Chap, xxi, §§ 1 and 2). Basing ourselves, in § 13, upon this ever- 
 lastingly, immovable rock, we deemed it superfluous to adduce any 
 additional light from the countless glittering stars, surrounding us 
 on all sides, as the glorious daylight from the one all-sliining sun, 
 could thereby not be increased in its transcending lustre. Hence, as 
 the most vehement denial, of the poor blind man, losing his eye- 
 sight in early infancy, so that he has no recollection and knowledge 
 of the nature of daylight, and his violent protestations that, be- 
 cause he can not see it, there is no sun, and its existence for him 
 incredible and impossible, can only excite the pity, and if persisted in, 
 hardly more than rouse the smiling contempt of the seeing man : 
 so the refusal of the materialist and atheist to believe in, and their 
 denial of, the existence of a supreme intelligent cause, can only be 
 regarded in the same light and degree, by those, who know God 
 within themselves, b.) As their unwillingness renders materialist 
 and atheist incompetent, so their want of experience and actual 
 knowledge in the premises, contained in their very assertions, makes 
 them unfit and unable to give any testimony whatsoever, in relation to 
 the great question, which, thus frivolously, they assume the temerity, 
 to decide in the negative, in the face of nearly all mankind, nature, 
 and reason, not mentioning religion, as they refuse to acknowl- 
 edge its voice, c.) If, therefore, we shall now step aside, as it 
 were, from our own strait-forward course, and by a few main strokes, 
 demolish the airy building, which, for a long time past, these 
 maniacs have inhabited, making all the world, somehow or other, 
 believe, that it was an impregnable fort, bomb-and-shell-proof as 
 well as inaccessible to storming, sapping and mining ; it is not done 
 from the consideration that its existence and continuance, as the 
 diametrical negative, of our own absolutely established positive, 
 could exert upon the latter, the least possible harming influence, 
 which it never can ; but merely because in several places, we have 
 indicated to idealism, that we shall give it redress and restore to it 
 the rights wrongfully possessed by a robber usurper ; next, because 
 that same evil-doer is guilty of crimes, not yet duly, and generally 
 enough, known to the world at large ; and, thirdly, because if left 
 to himself, he may, the very next moment, begin to deluge a whole 
 world with a flood of human gore, as heretofore he has, at various 
 times, done with certain places, localities and countries. 
 
FORM AND SPIRIT OP THE FINALLY RULING PHILOSOPHY. 229 
 
 19. a.) The first main stroke, by which we shall, with one single 
 blow, demolish the entire hydra-head of the famous theory of this 
 braggadocio-bully, materialistic Atheism and atheistic Materialism, 
 will consist in showing, with mathematical clearness to an astound- 
 ing world : 1.) That a thing, material, or substance, such as the ma- 
 terialists imagine, represent and claim that, which they term : mat- 
 ter to be : is a something that has not only no existence anywhere, 
 not even in their own brains, but its very idea is an impossibility, 
 because excluded, as a thought, from the human intellect, by the 
 three highest (and therein by all the) laws of the human mind. 
 2.) That the very supposition of the possibility of such a pretended 
 matter, proves the absence of reasoning and reflection in the intel- 
 lect entertaining an idea so crude, to a degree, bordering so closely 
 upon insanity, as to cover the boundary-line, or evincing the capa- 
 city of discrimination in such low grade, whereof Homer some- 
 where, and Goethe after him, have said : " Mit cler Dummheit 
 richten seTbsi dei Qoztter nichts aus ;" indicating, that with the stub- 
 bornness of stupidity, even the gods fight in vain. And, 3.) we 
 shall mate good the above, beside our own conclusive arguments 
 thereon, by the explicit and unequivocal testimony forced from 
 their own mouth, b.) If that matter, as those men claim it, exists 
 anywhere, and is the unitary and sole cause and source of all 
 things existing, it is their business to point it out, where it is, and 
 define the thought connected with the word, with scientific exact- 
 ness, therein showing : what it is. Thus far, they have used and 
 have smuggled this word through the world, without ever showing 
 the idea purporting to correspond with the same. Now, we charge, 
 charge boldly, and shall show, that this very word of matter, is like 
 a counterfeit bank bill, of which there is nowhere the coin, it fraud- 
 ulently purports to represent ; that is to say, there is no idea any- 
 where in the mind of man, never was, and never can be, correspond- 
 ing to the meaning imaginarily attached to the term matter, as 
 designed by the materialists. It is, hence, one of that class of words, 
 with which, men, not over-burdened with ideas, as Goethe felici- 
 tously observes : " Wo die Qedanken fehlen stellt of zu redder Zeit ein 
 Wort sich ein," when sorely pressed by an adversary, and the stock 
 of thoughts is exhausted, help themselves out of the dilemma for 
 the moment, by a word of doubtful or no import, that opportunely 
 
230 THE TEMPLE OF TRUTH. 
 
 presents itself, c.) For these men tell us, that all the knowledge man 
 has got and can get, is obtained through the senses, which, en pas- 
 sant, is not the fact, but is true so far as the testimony, relating to 
 their pretended matter, is concerned. Now we have in the preced- 
 ing pages of this volume, analyzed these senses, and shown the im- 
 pressions derived by the various phenomena acting thereon, in a 
 manner as extensive and exhaustive as never has been done, here- 
 tofore, by any set of men, and least of all, by writers advocating ma- 
 terialism and atheism, — who, instead of a close analysis of nature as 
 it is, prefer to indulge in declamatory " glittering generalities," merely 
 founded in their imaginations, which, upon a little nearer inspec- 
 tion, turn all out to be sheer tinsel, without one grain of gold. 
 Now, we defy all materialists and atheists that were, are, and ever 
 will be, to only point out, either the single or collective impression, 
 from one, or more, or all of man's senses, indicating anywhere, and 
 in any manner, the presence of such a Proteus shaped material, as 
 they claim their imaginary matter to be. For, mark it well, the 
 senses, and especially those of touch, smell, taste, and sensual feel- 
 ing, disclose phenomena, making us acquainted with a material or 
 force that may be termed matter, which, however, is an actual con- 
 crete something, capable of being scientifically exactly defined, in its 
 attributes, and differing, hence, from the pretended matter of the 
 wandering materialist, like an existing entity from an imaginary 
 nothing d.) We have said, in sub-§ b, that to the word matter, in 
 the sense used by the materialist or atheist, there was no corres- 
 ponding thought or idea attached in the intellect; and now, we shall 
 show there never can be. And, after having done so, and therein 
 demolished and annihilated the very foundation upon which the 
 imaginary fort or citadel of Materialism and Atheism rests, — 
 others may collect the scattering materials appertaining to the down- 
 tumbling ruins, bereft of their only foothold. "When the atheistic 
 materialist says : " All that exists is matter, there is nothing else any- 
 where but matter :" he tells the world, in his way, that : "thought 
 and soil, light and darkness, heat and cold, fire and water, earth 
 and sky, land and sea, space and nature, infinity and the finite, life 
 and death, power and impotence, thinking and gravity, intelligence 
 and insanity, intellect and the atom, with all other things, no matter 
 how opposite, contrary and contradictory to one another in qualities 
 
FORM AND SPIRIT OF THE FINALLY RULING PHILOSOPHY, 231 
 
 and nature, that language can name, or being and existence any- 
 where show up, — consist, one and all, of one identical essence, have, 
 therefore, all one common source, from which they spring as their 
 common cause, belong, hence, all to one single universal class of 
 things, denoting one main leading criterion, by which, of necessity, 
 they all alike belong to this one and only class, and are its effects, and 
 of its substance : and that essence, source, class and cause of all things 
 he terms matter, defining it as all that, — which man can perceive- 
 by his senses." e.) Whereupon, in the name of human reason, we 
 reply to him : You, to all appearance, are a human being, make 
 use of the common faculties of man, employ his language and its 
 words, to denote and express your tlwughts, and hence it is your 
 duty to conform to use language, according to the laivs of reason, 
 like rational men. Hence you ought to know, that all the senses, 
 by prima facie evidence, inform you, that your assertion most cruelly 
 belies them, — that instead of one thing, they show you an infinity 
 of things, all of which, instead of being alike are absolutely differing 
 and varying from one another, nay, that it is this very principle of 
 difference, upon which all their divers and clearly definable percep- 
 tions are founded, as they neither know nor perceive anywhere 
 absolute identity, but only heterogeneousness in all things, compared 
 to one another. Next, it should have been your business to know 
 the laws by which man's common intellect is immutably governed 
 in all sane operations of thinking. Had you known, these laws of 
 thought, the very first one (see Chap, xxi, § 14, a, b, and c), that 
 of logical possibility, would have informed you, that the mind can 
 not combine two contradictory attributes in any idea entertained in 
 its consciousness, as nothing can be one thing, and the exact con- 
 trary thereof, in the same moment of time. Now, in the monstrous 
 synthesis and classification, which is implied in your assertion, " that 
 all things are matter," you attempt to bind all the contradictory attri- 
 butes known to, and thinkable of, by the mind of man, which, by 
 mere presence mutually annihilate one another, together into one 
 class, and under one common name to transmutate them into one 
 solitary substance ; but it turns out, as we, before this, asserted, that 
 the name you give to your classification, has no idea whatever, 
 neither clear nor unclear, attached to it, since any generalization 
 based upon all the phenomena of the senses, can, per se, embrace no 
 
232 THE TEMPLE OF TRUTH. 
 
 forces superior to those senses themselves. Hence, your classifica- 
 tion of mutually destroying contraries, is the same one which the 
 crazy man makes, after he has lost his reason ; whereby, no longer 
 able to see the difference in things, and understanding their attri- 
 butes, all things swim for him, pell-mell, into one chaotic mass, 
 drowning his judgment and intelligence, so that, no longer a rational 
 being, he is henceforth of no further use to himself and others. 
 That your mental act just performed, is insanity, is proven by 
 your placing reason, the very light by which you formed your 
 attempt at classification, however monstrous it is, not only in one 
 and the same class with things infinitely inferior to it, but also assert 
 it to originate from a cause as an effect, which, by the very perception 
 of the senses themselves, proves itself as absolutely destitute of 
 possessing, even in the remotest possibility, the power of thinking ; 
 which fact alone suffices to make good your claim to a berth in 
 some lunatic asylum, where you may amusingly entertain the in- 
 mates with your profound and brilliant thoughts, as they are the 
 only hind of thinkers capable of doing them full justice, offsetting 
 them with their likes, and thus paying you in your own coin. /.) 
 Thus, in asserting, that reason and intellect, the highest force known, 
 to man, by consciousness and fact, sensually perceived as ruling all 
 else in existence around man, to be produced by & force sensually 
 perceptible, which soon we shall show, to be at the lowermost bot- 
 tom in the scale of forces : proves the materialist, by itself, to be 
 insane, as by it, he not only denies suicidically the superiority of 
 reason over all other things known, but actually shows, that in him, 
 reason is no longer superior, sane and sound, but submits to, and 
 asserts itself to be the production of, a something, which is the very 
 essence of inaction, inertness, and death itself ; having of all things 
 and forces known and imaginable, the very least resemblance to rea- 
 son, thinking, and intelligence. In this action, wherein the denial 
 of God's existence is included, the materialist or atheist, proves 
 himself : 1.) as insane, or destitute of sound reasoning powers ; 
 2.) as a willful liar, denying the existence of a God, by whom he 
 was created, and through whose will and power alone he continues 
 to live and exist ; 3.) as a fiendish, murderous ingrate, and infernal 
 parricide, who, so far as theory and desire are concerned, has, by his 
 denial, deprived his God and Creator, already, of existence, life and 
 
FORM AND SPIRIT OF THE FINALLY RULING PHILOSOPHY. 233 
 
 power, and would hence, were an opportunity possible and pre- 
 senting, consummate the safanic act, with the same practical readiness, 
 as Absalom the degenerate attempted against his father, David of old. 
 20. a.) As we have, by our grand generalization, transmutated all 
 abstract and concrete things, into one class termed forces, at the 
 head or upper extreme or pole of which we placed the unitary idea of 
 God, there is, in descending downward in the series, of necessity, 
 a lowermost extreme or pole, representing, so far as force or power is 
 concerned, the very opposite of God's all-potent capacity. That 
 force we define, as sound thinkers in all ages have defined it, as 
 inert, dead, lifeless matter. Even the thinkers who shaped the 
 national mind of old Greece, and most nations of antiquity, knew 
 it by that designation, as the lowest of all conceivable forces ; for 
 they also perceived the forces extant in nature and its organized 
 beings ascending from it upward towards intellect and deity, which 
 forces their exuberant imagination endowed with life, and individu- 
 alized by personification, considering them as sub-deities, calling them 
 demigods, demons, gods of earth, forest, water, etc., etc. b.) This 
 inert matter is that material which, as the lowest of all possible 
 forces, is used by all of them for building their habitations or bodies. 
 For it is only through and by the form and qualities of these 
 bodies, that these forces can appear to, and become active and re- 
 active upon, one another. It is hence only by the medium of this 
 matter that these forces can provide for themselves " a local habita- 
 tion^ and a home. For it is not the thinking mind of man alone 
 whose nature is invisi ble and intangible to the senses, but all the forces 
 in nature whatsoever, are equally themselves supersensual, and their 
 presence and qualities can only become known from their actions and 
 effects. All the senses of man perceive of these forces, is the 
 form of their bodies or habitations, and the mode and manner their 
 action impresses these several senses ; and from these impressions, 
 translated into conceptions, the intellect by thought, beholds the 
 inner nature and essence of these forces, and becomes enabled to 
 assign to each its proper place in its universal classification. There 
 are strong reasons, indicating that, like water is composed only of 
 the two elementary forces of hydrogen and oxygen, so all forms of 
 inert matter are composed of a few elementary ingredients, display- 
 ing only two original and permanent attributes, in general belonging 
 
234 THE TEMPLE OF TRUTH. 
 
 to all the forms, being extent and gravity, which are considered as the 
 effect of attraction and repulsion, or the dualism of the general law 
 of gravitation. 
 
 21. a.) In \ 19, a, we state that we shall convict the materialist 
 and atheist of what we assert of them, by testimony forced out of 
 their own mouth. They who assail, or want to prove, any thing 
 concerning revealed religion, resort to the Scriptures, called the 
 Bible, considered, by friend or foe, as the authentic document, rela- 
 tive to the premises. The same holds good of the Koran, con- 
 cerning matters relative to Islamism or the religion of the Turk. 
 Noav, it so happens that God-denying materialism can boast of a 
 book, of which Lord Henry Brougham, in his " Discourse of Natu- 
 ral Theology," has declared : " There is no booh of an atheistical 
 description, which has ever made a greater impression, than the famous 
 Systeme de la Nature." This book appeared first, anonymously, 
 in Paris, somewhere about the year 1770, and public rumor, for a 
 while, ascribed its paternity to Mirabaud. Its true author, some 
 time afterward, was however ascertained to be a Grerman, Baron von 
 Holbach.* The worshipers of atheism and matter, look upon this 
 book as the aUest presentation of their creed ever made ; take pains 
 and pride in spreading Brougham's above cited declaration thereof, 
 and let people know, that it is also their own. Hence we shall use 
 it, to furnish us the testimony, of which we spoke in § 19 ; as 
 the voice of neither friend nor foe will contest its authenticity, or its 
 being the authority of its party, b.) Although Holbach is unques- 
 tionably the ablest writer who ever espoused, and acted the cham- 
 pion for, the miserable, wretched, and terrible cause, for which he 
 pleads, and although evidently a man of erudition, and extensive 
 and versatile reading ; he is not only no genius, whose piercing 
 intellect at once penetrates to the core of the things he undertakes 
 to handle, but he defends the main points of his own creed so 
 bunglingly and awkwardly, that his own party would have hissed 
 him from the stage, if they had possessed the brains, on the one 
 hand, to really understand what he says ; and if, on the other, he 
 did not abstract their, as also the general reader's attention, away, 
 
 * Under the title : " The System of Nature, by Baron d'Holbach," an English transla- 
 tion, 2 vols, in one, was published in New York, by G. W. & A. J. Matsell. 1835. 
 
FORM AND SPIRIT OF THE FINALLY RULING PHILOSOPHY. 235 
 
 from his own weak spots, and fix it upon the really dextrous man- 
 ner, in which, discovering and assailing their vulnerable points, he 
 carries on, apparently not unsuccessfully, a general guerilla mode 
 of warfare, with all the old systems, and the manifold practical 
 abuses therewith connected, in vogue and power at the time he 
 wrote. By quoting what he says, upon the several main points at 
 issue, we shall show that he also, their very leader, proves himself 
 by acts and facts no less insane than his inferior subalterns, and, 
 what, wonderful to tell, the world surely does not expect to hear, 
 contradicts himself so flatly, in the most essential point of the con- 
 troversy, that hardly any adversary could do it more pointedly, c.) 
 Holbach pretends to possess reason, for, on page 65 of his book, he 
 correctly says : " Without reason man is only a blind creature who 
 conducts himself by chance." Now, let us see whom that shoe will 
 fit. The title of his book he modestly names : 1.) " The System of 
 Nature, or Laws of the Moral and Physical World." A system 
 being the exact and scientific knowledge of a thing, Holbach, ac- 
 cording to the title of his book will now surely destroy that mys- 
 terious and threatening sphinx-form of nature, which gazes so 
 sternly, often frighteningly, into man's face ; lift its covering vail, and 
 permit us, with open eyes, to behold its wonderful secrets. Does the 
 title of his book not encourage us to expect, at least, that much ? 
 Now, what does the great wizard give us, when discovering, his 
 falling short of fulfilling the expectations thus raised ? Well, with 
 unblushing bluntness, he now confesses his utter ignorance, by de- 
 claring , page 28 ; " Let us then be content with an honest avowal that 
 nature contains resources of which we are ignorant." And, on page 
 223, he again acknowledges his ignorance, by confessing : " We are 
 ignorant of the mode in which plants vegetate." 2.) Eepeating the 
 promise held out, by the second part of the title, of showing us the 
 " Laws of the Moral and Physical World," we fare no better. But, 
 in lieu thereof, we get, on page 43, the following fat morceau, of 
 course in the all-sufficing form, of a mere dictum, because the as- 
 sertions of a man so exalted, must blindly be swallowed, without 
 any proof. "It is (says H). from thence (man's ignorance of himself, 
 that), his notions of spirituality, immateriality, immortality, have 
 successively sprung ; in short, all those vague unmeaning- words he 
 has invented by degrees, to subtilize and designate the attributes 
 20 
 
236 THE TEMPLE OF TRUTH. 
 
 of the unknown power he believes he contains within himself; and 
 which he conjectures to be the concealed principle of all his visible 
 
 actions .... Thus man became double the functions of 
 
 the one (the body), he denominated physical, corporeal, material; the 
 functions of the other (soul or spirit), he styled spiritual, intellectual. 
 Man, considered relatively to the first, was termed the physical 
 man ; viewed with relation to the last, he was designated the moral 
 man." The whole passage of which the above sentences form the 
 gist, is a sj3ecimen of the " glittering generalities " to which we 
 alluded in § 19, c, for this one impliedly asserts the insane falsehood, 
 that the operations of thinking, and the processes and phenomena of 
 the senses, display no difference, are of the same nature, may be 
 ranged into one class, and need no distinction from one another, by 
 proper and specific terms ! And yet, on page 49, this very man 
 claims to belong to the class of " thinking beings," and whines about 
 the rhapsodies, which some theological metaphysicians would have 
 men believe ! All these, with a number of such sly insinuations, 
 aiming at the same direction, are to prepare us for the more bold and 
 final charge. We find it, — 3.) on page 43, as follows: "Thus, 
 when it shall be inquired, wliat is man? We say, he is a material 
 
 being Nature points out, that in man himself, as well as in all 
 
 tJiose objects which act upon him, tJiere is nothing more tlian matter "... 
 d.) Now, gentle reader, we warn you in time, to be somewhat on 
 your guard, so that, if something excessively amusing should un- 
 expectedly happen, you keep the reins of your risibles a little 
 tight, otherwise we will not be responsible for what may occur to 
 your vulnerable sides. Now, follow us attentively, for we design 
 leading you to a sight, you may consider worth beholding for its 
 rarity. On page 33, he invokes the toleration of the deist, telling 
 him : " The deist can have no just cause of enmity against the atheist 
 for his want of faith," and, exemplifying, how an imp of darkness 
 can approvingly quote Scripture, he reminds him of " that great 
 moral axiom," which is strictly conformable to nature, containing 
 the nucleus of man's happiness : "Do not unto another, tJiat ichich 
 you do not wish another should do unto you." On page 22, he says : 
 li To fonn the universe, Des Cartes* asked but ' matter and motion.' . . . 
 
 * We suspect that Holbach either misconceives, or misconstrues Des Cartes, in what 
 here, apparently, he ascribes to him, by quotation, as an assertion ; having been una- 
 
FORM AND SPIRIT OF THE FINALLY RULING PHILOSOPHY. 237 
 
 The existence of matter, he, Holbach, claims as a fact; the ex- 
 istence of motion he adduces as another fact Motion, he says, is 
 a manner of being, which matter derives from its peculiar existence." 
 
 At this stage of the proceedings, we suppose ourselves as a 
 stranger, opportunely meeting the famous Baron, and addressing 
 the great man, somewhat after this facetious style: "We are 
 learned Baron, we guess, at least, in some points, by half your 
 proselyte. For, already, two hundred years before you, the eru- 
 dite Joseph Scaliger has told the world, and told it correctly, in 
 our estimation : ' That all human quarrels, arise merely from men 
 misunderstanding the words they mutually employ.' Now, we have 
 heard you say ; that all things existing are indiscriminately and 
 exclusively composed of, and originate from, one single material, 
 which you term matter, thereby reducing the essence of all things to 
 one stuff. That, in one respect, suits our taste exactly, for we want 
 union and harmony, and hate division and discord. But, now, let 
 us not follow the wicked footsteps of the old superstitious world, 
 professing by theory one thing, and carrying out by practice entirely 
 another ; but let us come square up to the rack, 'fodder or no fod- 
 der.' For here is your bright burning sun, in that azure sky, — 
 there, all around, in that horizontal cavity, is the dark blue ether, 
 filling boundless space, — yonder is the black, solid earth, with its 
 hills, mountains, and valleys, and its huge, dark-green briny deep. 
 All these, the infinite and the finite, and all other things, being 
 alike and only the same one thing called matter; where's the use to 
 call them by different names, and bother our brains by a distracting 
 multiplicity, when and where we can have unity and uniformity so 
 cheap and easy ? Therefore let us throw that whole vocabulary of 
 words, invented by men to befuddle themselves and confound one 
 another, to the four winds, and call all things indiscriminately by 
 your one, great, all-embracing word, matter. Have we, profoundly 
 learned Baron, got the right handle of your system, reasoning, and 
 their tendency ; or has your science other definitions, of which we 
 are as yet ignorant ?" 
 
 Holbach. — "You have, polite stranger, understood me one-sidedly, 
 no doubt, from want of knowing all the essential 1 have said on the 
 
 bla to discover any passage in the great thinker's writings justifying the statement of 
 Holbach. 
 
238 THE TEMPLE OP TRUTH. 
 
 subject. Let me correct and complete your impressions "by quoting 
 my requisite definitions. On page 24, I say : ' A satisfactory defi- 
 nition of matter has not yet been given. ' " 
 
 Stranger. — "A definition of matter, embracing under it, all you 
 design, neither we nor the world, have ever seen or heard of ; hence 
 we are all on tiptoe to learn how it is framed ; therefore proceed." 
 
 Holbach. — Page 24. " We know nothing of the elements of bodies, 
 but we know some of their properties or qualities ; and we desig- 
 nate their various matter by the effect or change produced on 
 our senses." 
 
 Stranger. — K Why do you employ the term various matter, for, as 
 the word matter is an aggregative singular and not a plural : how 
 can that which is all one and alike itself, be various f" 
 
 Holbach. — " Well, you have not yet heard what my book says 
 on this head, hence listen : P. 24, ' Man, deceived and led astray 
 by his prejudices, formed but vague, superficial and imperfect 
 notions of it (that is, of matter). He looked upon it as a unique 
 being, gross and passive, incapable of either moving itself, of form- 
 ing combinations, or, of producing any thing by its energies ; while 
 he ought to have contemplated it as a genus of beings, of which the 
 individuals, although they might possess some common properties, 
 such as extent, divisibility, figure, etc., should not, however, be all 
 ranked in the same class, nor Comprised under the same General De- 
 nomination.' P. 22 : ' Indeed, it is an error, to believe that matter 
 is a homogeneous body, of which the parts differ from each other 
 only by their various modifications.' " 
 
 Stranger. — "That's enough, my learned Doctor, for now and for- 
 ever. I only wanted to draw you fully out from your hiding-place, 
 and here, then, I have got j^ou at last in open, solar daylight. Tor 
 your definitions, I do truly tell you: " I thank thee, Jew, for that 
 word." For, in them, as we presently shall see, your own tongue 
 performs the twofold great service, first, openly to undeceive your 
 own blindfolded followers, and next to acknowledge to an astound- 
 ing world, that you and your clique have been cheating them all the 
 while by a mere humbug, and have done it knowingly, as you show 
 yourself (as was charged in \ 19, b, and elsewhere, and proved in 
 d, e, f of same §), that you use the word matter as a basis for your 
 reasoning, and building your structure upon it, without combining 
 
FORM AND SPIRIT OF THE FINALLY RULING PHILOSOFHY. 239 
 
 any idea or clear thought whatever with the word. Nay, in the 
 above definitions, you impliedly declare, that no thought can be 
 found, capable of comprising, as a class-thought (which is the same 
 thing as a general denomination), all the attributes of existence which 
 you have attempted to compress into the term matter. For, you 
 distinctly and expressly confess : that the motley mass of things, 
 which you attempt to embrace under the name of matter, form not 
 "a homogeneous body ;" nay, you perceive them as a collection of 
 beings so contradictorily heterogeneous : that they " cannot be 
 ranked into one (or the same) class, nor comprised under the same 
 general denomination." And yet, after you see, and say, that the 
 thing (as opposed to the law of logical possibility, \ 19, e), can not, 
 and should, not, be done, you do the very thing itself, by calling 
 matter a genus of beings, which name of genus is nothing but the 
 name of a class or general denomination, and have done it all 
 the time, by using the word matter itself, in the same sense, as 
 if expressive of a simple general denomination I And. after you 
 have now, by your own words (not even mentioning your express 
 admission of your utter ignorance of the elements of things, p. 24), 
 proved yourself an ass, as well as crazy and insane, as a cracked 
 intellect, incapable of perceiving the most glaring contradictions 
 in its own processes of reasoning, we throw the henceforth life- 
 less shadow of your brainless theories, thus bereft of all and any 
 foundation in man's intellect and the nature of things, to the four 
 winds, as a thing that claimed being, but never had any. 
 
 22. a.) And to the true champions of Idealism, after we, as here- 
 tofore promised, have now reinstated them into their original rights, 
 not merely by annihilating the usurper that kept them out of pos- 
 session, or by raising their truth into higher relief, that tliought is the 
 highest reality, but by making, by new, all-sweeping generalizations, 
 their domain boundless and real as the intellect itself, changing all 
 things into thoughts, consisting in ideas, and their constituents, con- 
 ceptions : thus placing its great idea into that unbounded freedom 
 which Marquis Posa had in his mental eye, when enthusiastically 
 urging Philip II, of Spain : " Sire, give liberty to thought, and the 
 world will be created anew,"* we now saj" : " Lay hold of that world 
 
 * Schiller.— Don Carlos. 
 
240 THE TEMPLE 0J? TRUTH. 
 
 in good earnest, and it will gladly submit, and help to become changed 
 into the realized great ideas of beauty, truth, and goodness, after which 
 all sound intellects aspire, and all noble hearts sigh and yearn." b.) In 
 sub- J c, of § 16, we alluded to the doom, to which the lie, with its 
 twin brothers, robbery and murder, would finally, exemplified by 
 history, lead men collectively. At the time when Holbach's book 
 appeared in France, morality at court, and among the leading classes 
 of that people, is reported to have been at such frightful ebb, that "sin 
 had lost all its deformity." Dissipation, debauchery, and unbridled 
 indulgence of brutish sensuality, being the order of the day, the 
 means for their gratification could no longer be procured by fair 
 ways and means, — hence, villainy, oppression, and cruel extortion, 
 were resorted to. When rulers and leaders of nations thus become 
 the robbers and devourers of their own flock, they thereby teach their 
 victims a terrible game, which the hand of retributive justice, in a 
 brief time, may reverse, by changing the position of the parties, 
 making the former victim the judge of his quondam oppressor. 
 Although sin may lose its deformity, nature's law takes care that 
 it never loses its venom or sting, nor will the unbending law of ethics 
 ever permit conscience to make friends with it. Hence, those 
 " damning, paining, torturing spots," that will not obey, to go out 
 and be forgotten, make those of their victims, who, unwilling to 
 reform, and bent on continuing sinning, sigh for some remedy, of an 
 atheistical tendency. Hence, when Holbach's book came out, openly 
 preaching atheism, based upon materialistic sophistries, but set forth 
 with a versatile dexterity of erudite, verbose, and flourishing polemics, 
 captivating, and more than a match for the shallow- culture, and 
 superficial mode of thought of that people at that day : it was, all 
 at once, by large and increasing numbers, embraced as the welcome, 
 healing gospel of the hour, since sinners and criminals, bent on per- 
 sisting to ruin their fellow-men, can find no consolation in the 
 thought of immortality, but may imagine some relief in the illu- 
 sion "that death is eternal sleep." The book was hence read at court 
 and in saloon, in paloce and parlor. But, by embracing the mad 
 tenets of the dread book, the men in power and leaders of society 
 set their own house on fire, and were speedily consumed in its awful 
 conflagration. When oppression ceased to be endurable, the people, 
 driven to madness, rose upon their tormmtors. The leaders of the 
 
FORM AND SPIRIT OF THE FINALLY RULING PHILOSOPHY. 241 
 
 rampant revolution, soon discovered that the merciless nature of 
 atheistic principles, was just as handy and convenient for destroying 
 the instruments charged as guilty of the people's suffering, in collec- 
 tive masses, by incessant guillotining, assisted by Noyading* and 
 8eptembrizing,\ as it had been to the oppressors, to commit, while in 
 power, without sting of conscience, their skinning depredations upon 
 a starving, tortured people. Within a few years, king, court, clergy, 
 with the aristocracy of every degree and description, had alike, to 
 walk the bloody plank to their gory doom ; while myriads of their 
 kin, only saved naked life, by a clandestine flight into foreign 
 lands. The bloodiest of the revolutionists, after killing, mercilessly, 
 guilty and innocent victims, indiscriminately, by the legion, thus 
 provoking " measure for measure," got their pay at the guillotine, at 
 the hands of their own colleagues. And after Holbach's book, 
 being legitimately the system of cut- throats, assassins, and human 
 beasts of prey, had thus fulfilled the tragic destiny of its mission in 
 France, it was even there regarded with general horror, and, in a 
 short time, consigned to general oblivion. In Germany, the book 
 never obtained any foothold. The true Teutonic intellect, said 
 "to think for Europe "\ penetrates the baseless pretensions of mate- 
 rialism, a priori, by an intuitive perception, of its non-entity, with- 
 out going into the extensive analyses of its sophistries, as we have 
 done. Hence, German thinkers treated Holbach's book, with such 
 scornful contempt, — not even deigning to mention it by name. The 
 reason why we did it the honor to give it the "coup de grace," was 
 partly a matter of duty toward " Idealism," as also to clear the road 
 of all manner of mental and moral rubbish, which, in the least may 
 impede the entrance and onward and triumphant march of the 
 philosophy, alluded to in the heading of this chapter. 
 
 23. Having now in the positive, living idea of Deity (proven 
 present in all incorrupt men), as the upper extreme of our science, 
 obtained, a.) its inclosing, infinite form ; b.) a force, greater than 
 all other forces existing combined, and therein the meter, scale, gauge, 
 for measuring all other forces, and thus determining their value for, 
 and relation to, God and man, and hence the place belonging to each 
 
 * Wholesale massacres, by drowning. t General butcheries in the prisons, 
 
 t Emerson,— ''English Traits,' 1 ' 1 p. 253. 
 
242 THE TEMPLE OF TRUTH. 
 
 in the grand system of classification ; we now have to see to the 
 other extreme, that is, see, which one in our series of forces, is at the 
 lowest bottom, to which man's thought, and the range of existence, 
 descends. 
 
 24. That lowest "bottom, which may be considered as the zero 
 point of all actual and possible forces, is the force which, in \ 20, a 
 and b, we have defined as inert matter. Between it and intellect, 
 nature with its phenomena, resulting from the most versatile play 
 with this matter by the countless forces ascending upward from it, 
 fills, in regular gradations, this wide gap. Various lines, thus run- 
 ing upward from matter toward man, are seen passing through inter- 
 mediates, into vegetation and vitality, and when reaching man, 
 converge in him into one. Thus life, as existing in the corals and 
 conchlice, appears bordering closely upon matter, or the mineral 
 domain ; as immense quantities of these insects appear perpetually 
 engaged, as God's creative laborers, to lay the foundation of new 
 islands and continents in the vast ocean. Next, matter, in the 
 asbestos, a mineral, growing like a configurating plant, passes through 
 the lichens and mosses, fairly into the empire of vegetation. Vege- 
 tation, a sleeping, unconscious life, approaches vitality ; first, in the 
 mimosa sensitiva, evincing something akin to living feeling, by shrink- 
 ing back from foreign touch ; and, then, in the zoophytes, especially 
 the polypus, fairly interlinks hands, with the domain of animation. 
 Finally, as the human child primarily develops its faculties by 
 imitating the adults around it, since man's most distinctive exterior 
 trait is his propensity of imitation; we find that the monkey, by form 
 and imitative propensity, most unequivocally, leads the connecting 
 line of the lower forces by these two features upward toward man. 
 In the first instance it approacJies man in the Pongo, Orang Outang, 
 Chimpanzee, and Gibbon- Golok, in various modes, so nearly inform 
 as a caricature to the original ; and next, it displays, in these 
 creatures, a most wonderful propensity and capacity of imitation, 
 whereof Wilbrand very correctly says : " The monkey shows no 
 trace of reason, but in many species a great approximation toward it.* 
 
 25. a.) In chap, xxii, we demonstrated that there are three only 
 sources of knowledge for man : nature, reason, and revealed religion, 
 
 * Wilbrand, Naturgeschichte, Giessen, 1829. 
 
FORM AND SPIRIT OF THE FINALLY RULING PHILOSOPHY. 243 
 
 each being equally the voice and emanation of one and the same 
 God. In reasoning with the innocent child, unspoiled youth, or 
 uncorrupted man, we can use all these three sources from the very 
 start, when desirous of instructing them in any truth. In laying, 
 however, a scientific foundation for the idea of the Supreme Being, 
 as we needed it for our system, it became our duty to show, by and 
 through reason alone, that its sanity is inseparable from the percep- 
 tion and acknowledgment of an intelligent first cause, since all men, 
 believers, doubters, and deniers alike, have to bow to the all-ruling 
 majesty of the intellect. After reason is thus convinced, that it only 
 is and acts through God, or the great All-Reason, dwelling, cotempo- 
 raneously, in all intellects, and could impossibly be, if God was not ; 
 it then can use nature and revealed religion, as two additional reve- 
 lations of God, for learning to know itself, nature, and God, and 
 make such knowledge superlatively useful, by its wisest application. 
 b.) Until now, neither man, nor the human intellect have ever yet 
 been securely placed in any position, to reap the infinite benefits pro- 
 fusely offered to him by God's threefold revelation. For, in all mat- 
 ters relating to good, truth, and wisdom, men until now work and 
 aspire dividedly and individually, and thus can, comparatively ac- 
 complish only small things ; and what thus accomplishing, they often 
 tear down, one for the other. Whereas, in things to produce harm 
 and mischief upon the largest scale, like war and mutual destruction, 
 men have discovered system and method, and by a perpetual practice, 
 since time immemorial, have rendered the same infernally perfect. 
 Now, as the great system of God's conjoined truth, proclaimed by na- 
 ture, reason, and religion, as with one voice, can never he realized, not 
 even as a consummated theory of science, by the individual mind of 
 any man, since no single intellect, not even that of an admirable 
 Crichton, can be found, possessing the countless details, in all branches 
 of science, thereto indispensably required ; but absolutely demands 
 an indefinite number of men, of all the various gifts, qualifications, 
 and acquirements, acting in love of truth and the joyous good- will of 
 genuine friendship harmoniously together to secure the great grand 
 aim of all ; the glorious goal can only be reached, when God's 
 providence shall bring about such a union among men. c.) For the 
 arrival of that union, all good men sigh and pray ; for they know 
 that the same has been promised and prophesied, in various modes 
 21 
 
244 THE TEMPLE OF TRUTH. 
 
 and places, eventually to become fulfilled. First, every upgrowing 
 young man or woman, as long as God's work in their bosom re- 
 mains unspoiled, can constantly there hear the clear words of 
 promise and prophecy, that man, by acting with God, can produce 
 for man, on earth, a happiness, with joys and beatitudes as bound- 
 less as heaven itself, so that its very thought makes the heart leap 
 with delight and extasy. 'Next, the wish present in all good men, 
 that this " good time" might come soon, secures their most alert 
 and energetic co-action, whenever they discover the unmistakable 
 "sign," that the grand era is approaching. Then, in Matt, vi, 10, 
 Christ teaches his followers to pray : " Thy kingdom come. Thy 
 will he done in earth as it is in heaven." The kingdom of God, is 
 heaven, an ocean of boundless joy, and benignant power. God's 
 will, as there done, is all the purest love and tenderest kindness. 
 Christ knowing the destiny, the world and man eventually would 
 reach, in conformity with God's glorious plan, saw the ultimate 
 advent of God's heaven upon earth, as an absolute certainty. 
 Hence he taught men to pray for it, as thereby its spirit and life 
 enter the heart of the sincerely praying, whereby he receives the 
 assurance that Christ's words will exteriorly be made as true in due 
 time, by " heaven's arrival," as he now feels its truth within ; and 
 thus experiences : " There's nothing true hut heaven."* 
 
 26. a.) The form of the system of philosophy, which, as a 
 demonstrated science, will ultimately prevail among men ; will, on 
 the one hand, be encyclopozdial or all-embracing ; and, on the other, 
 consisting altogether, of facts and truths indubitably certain, be 
 entirely & positive without any negative. Thus proving all it asserts 
 by practice, embracing nothing finally as part of itself, until the 
 same has proven its clear title to admission ; the form of the sys- 
 tem itself will, of necessity, exclude every thing doubtful and un- 
 reliable, thereby making, eo ipso, every thing it includes, inevitably, 
 infallibly certain. Containing thus the germ of perpetual growth, 
 or infinite perfectibility, such system may commence as a small speck, 
 like the stone which Daniel (chap, ii, 34, 35), saw cut out, smiting 
 Nebuchadnezzar's image, and like this little rock, grow on, until fill- 
 ing, as one vast mountain, the whole earth, b.) The spirit ruling this 
 great system of humanly-divine science, will be that of boundless 
 
 * Moore. 
 
FORM AND SPIRIT OF THE FINALLY RULING PHILOSOPHY. 245 
 
 goodness and love, aiming at the redemption of the whole race of 
 man, and of making them all virtuous, wise, good, and happy. 
 Isaiah, the God-and-man-loving prophet ; the man who, among all 
 men of antiquity, resembled Christ most, in boundless all-embrac- 
 ing love, foresaw and foretold man's eventual possession of a sys- 
 tem of absolute truth, excluding all error and falsehood, and including 
 the unerring knowledge to carry it into infallible practice. For, in 
 chap, xxxv, 8, he says : " And a highway shall be there, and a way, 
 and it shall be called the way of Iwliness ; the unclean shall not pass 
 over it ; but it shall be for those : the ivayfaring men, though fools, 
 shall not err therein." In verse 9, he says, that : " No (human) 
 beasts of prey, but only the redeemed shall be found to walk there." 
 And, in verse 10, he says : " The ransomed of the Lord shall re- 
 turn and come to Zion with songs and everlasting joy upon theif 
 heads : they shall obtain joy and gladness, and sorrow and sighing 
 shall flee away." c.) Jeremiah, the disciple of Isaiah, did likewise 
 clearly foresee that ultimate and most glorious possession of man, 
 for, in chapter xxxi, verse 34, he distinctly says : "For they shall 
 all Jcnow me, from the least of them unto the greatest of them, saith the 
 Lord." Now remember, that the knowledge of God here spoken of 
 is not a vague and indefinite opining, but a divinely scientific insight 
 into God's ineffable being, such as superior beings, called angels, 
 possess, and of which realistic knowledge of the infinite, Christ 
 himself, John xvii, 3, says : "It is life eternal." The most among 
 the rest of the prophets have also foreseen and foretold the happy 
 time in explicit terms. 
 
 27. «.) Christ came on earth to redeem man from the hell of 
 evils, engendered by the path of error, wrong, and sin he pursues, 
 and place him in the heaven of boundless joy, inevitably resulting 
 from the pursuit of God-like perfection, as his only true aim. This 
 aspiration to every thing great, noble, exalted, and divine, was the 
 godlike fire which he had come to kindle in men's hearts upon 
 earth, and which, Luke xii, 49, he so ardently wishes : " That it 
 were burning already." b.) True to their Master's instruction and 
 example, and obedient to the tuition infused into their hearts, on 
 the day of Pentecost, by the Holy Ghost of love and truth, the prim- 
 itive Christians, saw to it, that there were no longer any victims of 
 any sort, to be found in their midst; and, so far as their means 
 
246 THE TEMPLE OF TRUTH. 
 
 extended, they saved those, who desired, that had fell a prey to the 
 disordered social arrangements around them. For they felt, that 
 the fratricidal query of cold unconcern : " Am I my brother's Jceeperf" 
 would never stand God's light for a moment, and that any man, 
 seeing his fellow-being suffer, while help was in his power, could 
 only do so, at his own, most imminent peril. Luke xvi, 19, 25. c.) 
 Now, as the first Christians, were enabled by wisdom and love from 
 on high, to solve every social query harmoniously, without any 
 difficulty whatsoever : so it will again be when God's love, and 
 Christ's spirit, re-descend on earth, to teach men the wisdom of 
 eternity. For they, whom heavenly affection will bind together, 
 in the earnest and conjoint pursuit of their eternal aim, " divine per- 
 fection," have in that love discovered the mightiest mystery, that 
 solves all queries and difficulties. In it lies a wisdom, instinctively 
 detecting all needed hidden truth, being " a true bee-line to heaven, 
 and from one heaven into a higher;" hence an ever- moving line, 
 perpetually ascending " onward and upward." 
 
 28. a.) Isaiah speaks of this grand ultimate in God's design, also 
 in chap, ii, verse 2, calling it "the mountain of the Lord's house 
 and that it shall be established in the top of the mountains ; and 
 shall be exalted above the hills ; and all nations shall flock unto it," 
 indicating a wisdom so exalted, that ordinary science, compared to 
 it, shall appear like a hill to a mountain ; and repeating, that all na- 
 tions shall embface it, being the same thing with Daniel's stone 
 growing until filling all earth, b.) And, finally, in Apoc. chap, xxi, 
 verse 2, St. John sees the consummation of all these prophecies in 
 the New Jerusalem, or the divine form of human society, prepared 
 as a bride adorned for her husband, descending from God out of 
 lieaven, upon earth ; whose participants, regenerated and fashioned by 
 God's truth, are all divine lovers, friends, sisters, and brothers, c.) 
 At verses, 3, 4, John hears a great voice out of heaven, saying : 
 " Behold, the tabernacle of God is with men, and he will dwell with 
 them, and they shall be his people, and God himself shall be with them, 
 and be their God." " And God shall wipe away all tears from their 
 eyes ; and there shall be no more death (that is, hate and malice) ; 
 neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain ; 
 for the former things are passed away." Then " philosophy the re- 
 ligion of thought, and religion, the philosophy of eternity," 
 
REALIZATION OF IDEAS AND IDEALS. 247 
 
 will so intimately Mend, that the form of all things will be science ; 
 the essence of science, in the service of mankind and God, will be 
 holy, and science with art, will be the journeyman of the gee at mas- 
 ter of the Universe, helping Him to build up a temple of love, 
 beatitude and glory, so transcending, that its never-ending joys shall 
 surpass all expectations and even the highest hopes of men. 
 
 CHAPTER XXV. 
 
 CAN IDEAS AND IDEALS BE ACTUALIZED, OR WHAT AND WHICH, 
 ARE THE PRINCIPLES AND BOUNDARIES OP REALIZATION, AND 
 LAWS OF HUMAN PERFORMING CAPACITY ? 
 
 1. Having in Chap, xxiii, ascertained the great end and purpose, 
 for which man has been created, it remains now to be seen, in what 
 mode and manner the grand aim is to be achieved. For success in 
 all enterprises depends primarily upon the correctly understood 
 modus operandi of their respective processes, and the clear compre- 
 hension of the end, to which every portion thereof is to lead, a.) 
 To the humiliation of man's exuberant pretensions, we have found 
 that the soi disant wisdom of his book philosophers, never discovered 
 man's true aim, and even after the same had been clearly disclosed 
 by Christ, miraculously failed to stumble into perceiving the fact, 
 during a lapse of nearly nineteen centuries. This singular fact 
 contains for us, the meter of size and value, of all systems hitherto 
 ushered into the world, as likewise of the men themselves, who 
 were their authors. The godlike perfection raised by Christ, as the 
 standard of man's aim, was too boundless an idea, for the clouded 
 intellects and contracted hearts, of all of them ; and even the very 
 best among them only looked up, with bewildering, adoring amaze- 
 ment, to a, to them incomprehensible process, which lifted the seem- 
 ingly insignificant creature man, up to an altitude as infinitely high, as 
 God's own eternal throne. As soon as we shall clearly understand 
 the idea which Christ combined with the proposition : " Man, to be 
 perfect as his Father in heaven is perfect :" we will also understand 
 the mystery, why many a man, praised for his vast learning ; is, 
 
248 THE TEMPLE OF TEUTH. 
 
 nevertheless, at heart, so much of a fool, as not to understand Christ 
 at all b.) To get at this precise idea, as entertained by Christ's own 
 intellect, we have to look somewhat closer at the spirit and aspira- 
 tion, that animated him, in order therefrom to learn, what, before 
 and above all things, lie had most anxiously at heart. To any man 
 who has the mental eye to see (and the blind who has not, has no 
 voice in the case), it is clear a priori, that Christ loves all men more 
 profoundly, intensely, ardently, than the best of mothers is able to 
 love her own children. This simple, but as yet scientifically in- 
 comprehended, and unexplained fact, hints at the subsistence of a 
 relation between Christ and the soul of every man, more close, in- 
 timate, tender, thrilling, than man's present state and degree of science 
 are able to apprehend and appreciate. Hence, only he can truly learn 
 to know and understand Christ, and his ideas, who enters into his 
 spirit of love to mankind, and makes the wishes and the longing, the 
 desires and the aspiration of Jesus, his own. Then he will clearly 
 understand, what he designed to express in Luke xii, 49 ; Matt, vi, 
 10, and kindred passages ; and comprehend, in what manner, his, as 
 yet unfulfilled last commission, Matt, xxviii, 19, 20, and Mark 
 xvi, 15, are to be carried into full force and effect. To such seeing 
 eye, the ineffable tenderness of Christ's love, surpassing the softest 
 vibrations of even the truest maternal heart, is brightly visible in the 
 expressive local figure, Matt, xxiii, 37, and Luke xiii, 34, indicating 
 in that limited image, the boundlessness of his divine affection. From 
 all this, it becomes clear, beyond any cavil, that the power or fac- 
 ulty in man, required by Christ to be perfect before all others (as 
 the perfection of every other depends tliereon, and receives its value 
 therefrom), is that of his heart, soul, or volition ; for it must bum 
 with love to God and man ; otherwise there is nothing in common 
 between such man and Christ. That love in active blast, consti- 
 tutes man's consummated regeneration, John iii, 1, 8 ; 1 John iv, 
 16. c.) It is this love alone, that connects man with the spirit, aim, 
 aspiration, nay, the very destiny of Cueist and his relation to 
 mankind and the universe ; and provides him with those mighty, 
 never-slacking motives to unceasing action, whereby he conquers all 
 possible obstacles that obstruct his path to the grand, all-gloiious 
 aim. Without such love man has no part and interest in Christ, if 
 even his gifts and endowments were equal to those of supermundane 
 
IDEALIZATION OF IDEAS AND IDEALS. 24:9 
 
 intellects, 1 Cor. xiii, 1. As lovers understand one another, so the 
 man who truly loves Christ, with utmost ease, in childlike simplicity, 
 comprehends the whole scope, drift, and tendency of his beautiful, 
 all-loving system. To gratify the yearnings and mighty impulses 
 of the divine love thus aroused in the soul, penetratingly inspired 
 by Christ's godly truths : man, as we have seen (in Chaps, xxii and 
 xxiii), fs also directed to nature and reason, as two additional 
 sources and revelations, emanating equally from God ; since the 
 first is to furnish him location and material, and the latter, insigH 
 and wisdom, wherewith to realize an all-sided humanly-divine per- 
 fection, into the exterior actuality of existence, d.) The system of 
 Christ, regarded from this stand-point and aspect, is hence an in- 
 finite, divinely-celestial ideal of ideals, which has proposed to itself 
 the solution of the problem, of realizing, alongside with itself, all 
 the logically, possible ideals in nature, reason, and humanity ; inas- 
 much as all they, so far as consistent with, form only part of, itself; 
 and thus belong to its own proper being. 
 
 2. The method capable of realizing such grand actualization, is 
 one, not dependent on unknown chances or casualties, but reposing 
 upon fixed laws, whose action the enlightened understanding can 
 clearly comprehend, and moreover perceive, that even until now, 
 all performance thus far realized in the world, is the unmistakable 
 result of their operation. Thus : a.) Of all things of human 
 origin whatsoever, which now exteriorly surround man in any 
 shape, or are in anywise subservient to his intellectual or various 
 other operations, from the pin and needle to the wheelbarrow ; 
 from the cart and coach to the locomotive, railroad, and ocean 
 steamer Leviathan ; from the alphabet and primer, to the Coperni- 
 can or any other system of theory or practice, together with the 
 countless tools, of all kinds, and the practical dexterity to duly 
 apply them, which man's mode of existence now possesses, and 
 can show the use of ; there is, among this countless number of ob- 
 jects, not a single one, which has, as it were, fallen from the sJcy, or 
 sprouted out of the ground, or been revealed to man by supermun- 
 dane spirits ; but every single piece thereof, was, at first, at one time 
 or other, as a mere thought or invisible idea, in the mind or head of 
 some thinking, inventive man. &.) Then the intellect (as shown 
 already in Chap, v.), spurred and urged the cunning hand to countless 
 
250 THE TEMPLE OF TRUTH. 
 
 experiments, until it, at last, succeeded in producing a proper cor- 
 poreal form, for the thought existing in the mind. After this was 
 accomplished, it was improved, until reaching that degree of perfection, 
 which was deemed sufficient for use. Thus, pin, needle, thimble; 
 pen, ink, paper, printing p-ess; steamer, railroad, telegraph, etc., etc., 
 originated, c.) All unrealized thoughts in the intellect of man, no 
 matter whether relating to smaller or larger bulks of material shape, 
 or to moral and intellectual ideas or conditions of man, are in the 
 strictest sense of the term, ideals. Thus the pin and needle as long 
 as existing as a mere thought, in some human head, were not a 
 whit less an ideal, than the first thought of the railroad, locomotive, 
 steamer, etc, etc.; and, the difference between all these objects, as 
 long as existing alike as mere logical possibilities, in, or before, 
 man's intellect, consists originally merely in this : that the smaller 
 ones of these thoughts or ideals, may be realized (that is, their 
 thou glit or spirit receiving a proper form or body), through the crea- 
 tively productive power of, from 1, 2, 3 to 10 men, whereas 
 other and larger thoughts or ideals, require the power 20, 100, 
 1000, a million or more men, to realize for their spirit an actualiz- 
 ing body, d.) From this stand-point it is evident, and experience 
 supports and emphasizes the assumption, that reason knows no 
 unrealizable ideals, since all thoughts or ideas (see Chap, xxi, \ 14), 
 which the laws of the intellect permit to be entertained, within one 
 and the same consciousness, are realizable for the conjoint power of 
 the human race. 
 
 3. In Chap, xxi, § 23, we adduced the singularly extraordinary 
 proposition, that for so long a time held a place as a law in logic, 
 asserting that : " Certain things are true in the abstract, but not true in 
 the concrete.^ Now, the manner in which this glaring falsehood 
 succeeded in getting a foothold in a code of logic, can, even in an 
 age ever so dark, only have been occasioned by one, or two, or 
 all, of the following three cases : a.) First, the man introducing 
 the said proposition into logic, may have entertained, based upon 
 knowledge mixed with error, a certain abstract proposition within 
 his mind, believed by him true, but which, upon trial, to put it 
 into practice, was contradicted by the laws of exterior nature ; 
 whereupon, the cause of the discrepancy not being perceived, it 
 was deemed sufficient authority, for adopting the strange contra- 
 
REALIZATION OF IDEAS AND IDEALS. 251 
 
 dictoiy law into logic, the mind thereby declaring its belief, that 
 even, what } at that time, it considered its own laws, were not to be relied 
 upon, b.) Next, a mind pregnant with the thought of some new 
 invention, may have had such clear perception of the idea, as to 
 feel sure as fate of its feasibility. . But yet by an oversight of a 
 trifling matter, or the absence of correct knowledge relating to a part 
 not deemed essential, the successful realization of the idea was 
 frustrated ; or if not frustrated in precisely that way, its accomplish- 
 ment was prevented, because all the means necessary to its execution, 
 could not be commanded. And such cases occurring often, a dis- 
 crepancy was supposed to exist between intellect and nature, and 
 got its expression by this singular law. c.) Finally, man in youth, 
 in all ages, is full of bright ideas, which form themselves into 
 " glittering ideals." Nay, nature, intellect, and religion force these 
 very ideals upon him. Keligion obliges him to pray for the coming 
 of " God's kingdom," or a lieaven on earth. It makes it his duty 
 " to become perfect even as his father in heaven is perfect." As long as 
 his head and heart are incorrupted, he can even see how such heaven, 
 and divine perfection, and various other bright ideas, can be brought 
 about as realized ideals upon earth, if the power and means inherent 
 in the masses of men, were wisely used and honestly applied, to these 
 paramount purposes. That not being the case, and the men of 
 human society being constantly kept engaged with the small but 
 indispensable matters of bodily necessity, and the grand ideas in the 
 minds of all, never being attempted to be realized, as all know their 
 separate individual power to be totally inadequate thereto, and yet 
 all feeling some sort and share of responsibility, because commands 
 so great and categorical are left unfulfilled ; there remained but one, 
 and that a desperate way, to propitiate and reconcile man's intellect 
 somewhat with itself. But desperate as it was, that way was boldly 
 and decisively taken by those, who took it to be their interest to 
 make people believe it. Man was therefore unblushingly told to 
 his face that his intellect was a consummate fool, that the glorious ideas 
 of virtue, goodness, heaven, happiness, and human perfection on earth, 
 were all exaggerations, impracticable ideals, which, however true they 
 might appear to him in thought, would show themselves unfeasible 
 and imaginary, as soon as attempted to be put in p-actice. In this 
 manner the very best thoughts of the intellect had to contribute 
 
252 THE TEMPLE OP TRUTH. 
 
 most to make man disbelieve his own thoughts, and consider him- 
 self as from the start created a ninny. 
 
 4. a.) This theory of general disbelief in the practicability of 
 ideals of all kinds, and hence also of the highest ideas in reach of 
 man's intellect, pressing like a smothering incubus, during a course 
 of long centuries, upon the panting bosom of vexed humanity, was at 
 last, in the main, exploded by the irruption of the two grand polit- 
 ical volcanoes of modern history, the American and French Revolu- 
 tions and their results. The first, by establishing, through the 
 co-operation of some fifty representatives, chosen by a, until then, 
 disjointed constituency, the actual groundwork of a new nation, 
 rising out of elements, like no other people ever before, realized in that 
 mighty fact, before the open eyes of a gaping world, the grandest and 
 most imposing political ideal, ever attempted under the sun. The 
 other, by scattering within a few years, all the mighty, wearisome 
 labors of political and diplomatic feudalism of nearly fifteen cen- 
 turies, like chaff before the wind, made crafty statesmen and haughty 
 crowned heads, for the first time, tremblingly believe, that there was 
 something of an actualizing capacity, even in the despised and down- 
 trodden proletary. b.) Napoleon, by destiny, the child, and finally 
 sole 7^e^V-at-law, of the French Revolution, no sooner perceived its 
 first outbreak, than the eagle-glance of his genius at once defined 
 its true nature and character as : " La carriere ouverte au talent," or 
 " the path opened to talent and capacity." A man of performance 
 like few in history, he showed the world in our days, besides innu- 
 merable other things, that what Brennus and Hannibal had done 
 some thousands of years before, and had never since been repeated 
 on a large scale, he could do as well, and even better, than they. 
 Like Socrates, who meeting Xenophon, to him a stranger, in the 
 streets of Athens, for the first time, and discovering in the interest- 
 ing countenance of the youth, the future historian's and com- 
 mander's latent gifts, calling them out by addressing the invisible 
 mind with : " Speak, my son, that I may see thee !" so the great 
 Corsican chief pre-eminently possessed not only the keen ken, to 
 discover the least traces of intellect and genius, but also the con- 
 summate tact for calling them out. Hence his prodigious celerity of 
 action and performance, compared with the habitual routine of the 
 old snail-course. Knowing " his Pappenlieimers " almost at first 
 
REALIZATION OP IDEAS AND IDEALS. 253 
 
 sight, he took care to furnish " the tools to him that could handle them;" 
 and assisted and supported by forces of such nature, he was almost 
 justified in his proud mode of chiding a timid subaltern, for using, 
 in describing the execution of an exceedingly " difficult job," the 
 term impossible, by telling him : " To let him not again hear that 
 imbecile word, as it had no place in his vocabulary." Of the aims, 
 pursuits, impulses, and motives, of this mighty man, and their true 
 moral value, we may speak upon another occasion, c.) But it was 
 not in the fields of politics, diplomacy, and camps alone, wherein 
 the famous, ever-memorable year of " '76," inaugurated such a 
 mighty change ; for science and art, by numberless inventions and 
 discoveries have, since then, also displayed an entirely new life, 
 increasing man's producibility and capacity of performance to an 
 extent never Jcnown before ; and expanding by steam on land and 
 ocean, by railroad and telegraph, his factory system, his trade, com- 
 merce, and intercourse, in and through the world, on a truly 
 stupendous and gigantic scale. All these realizations were the 
 "funeral dirge" of "old fogy" unbelieving imbecility, and con- 
 stitute the tangible prophecy of what man shall be able to perform 
 by conjoint power, having already, by split and frittered forces, 
 actualized the really wonderful. 
 
 5. Since, in Chap, xxiii, it was ascertained and proven beyond 
 the possibility of contradiction, that the end of man's existence is 
 godlike perfection, it is necessary, in ascertaining how to reach the 
 grand aim, to define what portion of the performances thereunto 
 appertaining, man is capable of executing individually, by and 
 through his personal powers alone, from those, which he can not 
 realize single-handed, but must, indispensably, have mere or less 
 extraneous help, a.) To this class belongs, a priori, the obedience 
 to the great law of human affection, commanding : " TJwu shalt 
 love thy neighbor as thyself I" For this law signifies quite another 
 thing, from that cold, indifferent feeling, which thinks it has 
 obeyed the mandate, when abstaining from doing its fellow-man any 
 positive harm. But this love of neighbor required, in Matt, xxii, 
 39, to be equal to our own love of self, is that true friendship, 
 whereby man is faithful to man unto death, which Jonathan felt 
 for and showed to David, and John, the disciple, to Jesus, by 
 standing beneath the cross, when all the rest of the disciples had 
 
254 THE TEMPLE OF TRUTH. 
 
 fled. Without such friendship, there exists no neighbor-Zove in the 
 sense of Christ, hence no fusion of hearts and souls into one an- 
 other, whereby alone the sting of egotism is blunted and rendered 
 harmless. Without such friendship, man's soul has no real knowl- 
 edge of its own noblest sensations, and can therefore hardly love 
 God with that transcending ardor of which it is susceptible ; and 
 this is the reason why, Matt, xxii, 39, these two highest laws, 
 are pronounced to be equal to one anotlier ; because they are both 
 equally indispensable to the formation of human perfection. Now, 
 as long as man does not find a second man, ready, capable, and will- 
 ing, to be his friend, in this sense of Christ, it is arithmetically out 
 of his power, to fulfill this heavenly law, and experience its blissful 
 joys and benefits. b.~) The same conditions hold good, in another 
 case, closely related with the foregoing. In Matt, xviii, 20, we are 
 informed, that it requires " two or three to gatlier together in Christ's 
 name, in order for Him to be in the midst of them." Why must it 
 be no less than two f Why does Christ not say : " If the individual 
 man takes up my whole doctrine with his entire heart : I will give 
 him all the truth and power I possess ? Why, further, does he not 
 say, Matt, v, 48 : " Thou (individual man) shalt," but " you (a 
 plural) should be perfect, etc?" The answer to this, flowing from 
 the principle of the preceding paragraph, is : 1.) Because one indi- 
 vidual man, without a second man out of and alongside of himself, 
 unable alone to call the sensation into action, can never hnow or ex- 
 perience what friendship, or love of neighbor, in Christ's sense, signi- 
 fies. 2.) Because the spirit of Christ, can only reveal itself in its 
 expansive force to a number no less than two, who have, by jointly 
 embracing Christ's purpose and aim, gathered themselves together, 
 in His name, and thus therein become one. And, in this their 
 unity, they are the primary and prolific element of a bride, church, 
 community, tabernacle or temple of Christ, wherein he loves to 
 dwell, to fructify, and fecundate their souls and spirits with His 
 joys, virtues, and powers, so that they are able to expand, and 
 embrace any number into their blessed god-loving cycle, who sincerely 
 desire to enter. 
 
 6. There are ideals which, appertaining somewhat in the nature 
 of attributes or qualities to, or effects of, individual character, do 
 not depend on numbers for developing progress or application, but 
 
REALIZATION OF IDEAS AND IDEALS. 255 
 
 chiefly on the gifts, insight, knowledge, skill, energy, and exertion 
 of the individual. To this class belong : a.) New inventions. J.) 
 The progress of individual man in the practice of virtue, and the 
 acquisition of science and wisdom ; and, c.) pre-eminently man's 
 practical, individual, or experimental knowledge of, or acquaintance 
 with, God ; an acquaintance so surpassingly interesting %&& attractive 
 for him who once obtains the merest glimpse thereof, that nothing in 
 creation can exercise a similar charm, drawing him toward itself with 
 equal might. 
 
 7. a.) Man, before he can do any work whatever, must have an 
 intellectual sight of the shape of the work to be performed. Hence 
 he must have a pattern or ideal or plan of the same in his mind. 
 The more perfect that pattern, ideal, or plan is, the more perfect the 
 performed work must become, if coming near or up to it. The same 
 holds good pre-eminently, of a more or less perfect pattern of a 
 human character, for copying its main traits. Now, as that human 
 character must come nearest to perfection, which, in its modes and 
 habits of action, comes nearest to the exalted motives and impulses 
 that actuate God himself : that individual in human shape, must con- 
 stitute such pattern or ideal of character, for all men, who, by the 
 unanimous testimony of all competent witnesses, possesses the afore- 
 named divine traits in the highest degree. No being, in human 
 shape, can do more, as self-forgettingly, placing his own individual 
 self-hood so entirely into the background, and devoting himself so 
 totally to the whole human race, their paramount interest and welfare, 
 than Jesus Christ has done. Hence Schiller, in his " Hymn to 
 Joy," calls Him : " A friend given unto us, proved by death /" Hence, 
 even a Jean Jacques Rousseau, overwhelmed by the divine 
 grandeur and exaltedness of Christ's character, exclaims with 
 boundless admiration : " If the life and death of the son of So- 
 phronisbe (Socrates), was the life and death of a wise man, the life 
 and the death of the Son of Mary (Jesus), was the life and death of a 
 God." * &.) Some things are exceedingly rare in this world. There 
 is but one individual, whom the overwhelming majority of all the 
 rest of men, are willing to call and acknowledge, a Saviour or Re- 
 deemer. That Saviour was produced by one nation, — the Hebrew ; 
 
 * Rousseau ;— Emile, ou sur l'Education. 
 
256 THE TEMPLE OF TRUTH. 
 
 and, as until now, He has had no help in the business, and had to do 
 all the saving alone, which hitherto has been done in the world ; 
 His most anxious endeavor, from the beginning, through life and 
 death, up to this hour, has been, and is, to multiply Himself in the 
 liearts and minds of other men, until, as it took a whole human 
 race to produce one Hebrew nation, and the whole Hebrew nation, 
 to produce one Saviour ; He, the one Saviour, in His turn, shall 
 succeed in producing an entire saviour nation, c.) Until now, 
 no matter in how checkered a mode of movement, the course of des- 
 tiny, during the eighteen centuries and upward, now passed through, 
 has unmistakably been on the side of the Nazarene. That was 
 more piercingly felt, than the Parthian's killing arrow, irresistibly 
 boring itself into his bosom, by Julian, the Apostate, when expir- 
 ingly sinking from his horse, he surrenderingly exclaimed : " Thou 
 hast conquered, Galilean /" The crafty modern conspiracy against 
 Him by the philosopher king, * Yoltaire, d'Alembert, Diderot, Con- 
 dorcet " et id, etc.," carrying on a formal and systematic war under 
 the covert watchword : " Ecrasez Vinfame !" f has finally passed 
 away, without leaving any more perceptible traces of effects behind, 
 than the ardent but ineffectual hostility of the unfortunate Julian. 
 d.) Meanwhile there have recently, within the memory of some 
 men still living, been performed some such grave and significant 
 moves on the chessboard of history, which utter, in their own, une- 
 quivocal manner, in what direction "the manifest destiny" of the 
 world at large, and of one certain nation in particular, is most evi- 
 dently running. For it would appear, that, after the old nations 
 of the world had in vain been invited to the grandest of all possible 
 wedding feasts, Matt, xxii, 1, 14, for upwards of seventeen full 
 centuries, and all, under the flimsiest pretexts, declining acceptance 
 of the proffered eternal distinction, in a national capacity; there 
 came at last the youngest of all nations, " born in one day ;" as, dif- 
 fering in mode of origination, from all peoples on the globe, it was 
 created "ideally," and in the very moment of its birth, pronounced 
 aloud to all the world its acceptance of the great wedding invitation. 
 The ideal mode of this nation's spiritual birth, was this : " The 
 parts of its body had grown up upon perfectly historical soil, all 
 
 * Frederick II, of Prussia. t " Crush the wretch !" 
 
REALIZATION OF IDEAS AND IDEALS. 257 
 
 reposing on a concrete legitimate basis, but were connected together 
 neither by any outward definite ligament, nor by any expressed bond 
 of a spiritual nature, when suddenly, one great danger arose, threat- 
 ening woe and perdition, to all alike. Then these threatened parts 
 selected each a certain number of men, to convene, confer, and 
 counsel, what was to be done in the common emergency, e.) These 
 men, " fifty-six " in number, after convening and considering the 
 grievances of their mutual constituency, while counting them up by 
 specific name, were led on by an overruliug, all-pervading spirit that 
 did not stop there. But looking at the bottom, cause and source of 
 all human wrong and evil in the world, they discarded all princi- 
 ples of mere historical justice or law, and pronouncing for those 
 inalienable rights innate in man by the Creator's act, they therein, 
 making the cause of mankind's rights and wrongs their own, made 
 the principles of Christ, as laid down on every page of the New 
 Testament, for the first time in the world's history, politically active, 
 and in that aspect the declaration of their doings was and is : a polit- 
 ical gospel to all nations on earth. /.) Neither did they 
 stop there. For, after having first, with an emphasis as earnest 
 as death itself, declared and pronounced the primitive indefeasible 
 rights bestowed by God upon the nature of man ; they, secondly, 
 created themselves ideally a nation, and a saviour nation, for 
 one another, at that, by pledging the whole new-born nation, to 
 every single member, and every single member to the whole nation, to 
 stand with life and limb, " one for all and all for one," to see the 
 principles thus declared carried into fullest force and effect. That 
 bailing pledge, constituting simultaneously, the ideal melting of 
 many parts, " E pluribus TJnum," into one nation thereby born ; 
 as also the acceptance of the Lord's wedding invitation, to be 
 present a ift wedding garments" at the nuptials of "time and eter- 
 nity" Apo. x, 6, 7, will, so far, and as long, as unredeemed, stand 
 out, and open, as an unpaid national debt, until discharged to 
 the last farthing. Never was there a nation thus born, as it were, 
 in a single moment, of a specific day ; never, a nation who by its 
 very birth, contracted a national debt, so infinite in amount ; never 
 will the paying off, of any liabilities, cause rejoicings and festivities 
 comparable to those, which all earth and all heaven will celebrate, — 
 when the people of this American " Union " shall fulfill unto 
 
258 THE TEMPLE OP TRUTH. 
 
 themselves, and "the rest of mankind" what they promised to man, 
 before God and the world, by their immortal first National Congress, 
 of July 4, 1776. 
 
 8. a.) In Chaps, ix and xx, we have found, that man (who exists 
 in this world as a being of necessity, who had no voice, when, hoio, 
 and where, he should be placed, being hence, in the most eminent 
 sense a stranger upon earth, and) is a being composed in every indi- 
 vidual, of three main forces, which we defined as body, soul, and 
 mind, each one of which, having its own needs, wants, and desires, 
 differing from those of the other. In looking at the individual 
 men and women, which compose the present generation of man, 
 it can be read in their countenances, and when directly questioned 
 upon the point, nearly all will unhesitatingly answer, that these 
 wants of the triple force of their being are but deficiently, and 
 hardly ever harmoniously, gratified. From this, it is clear, that 
 neither the body, the soul, nor the mind of man have reason to be 
 fully satisfied, with the exterior form and figure of life, as it now is. 
 The expression upon the faces of all, seems with Schiller, to ex- 
 claim : " With a thousand masts of hope we have sailed into life's 
 ocean;" but, one by one, our masts perish, and we are flung upon 
 the merciless wave, as a helpless, joyless, desolate wreck, b.) When 
 the limited faculties of the individual man are closely examined, and 
 the circumstances taken into view which still further and increas- 
 ingly cripple his force by keeping him in ignorance, indigence, 
 poverty, and often in life-long dependence, we surely will no longer 
 wonder, at finding him little pleased with a destiny thus gloomy. 
 For, it is evident and clear, that thus conditioned, he is neither in 
 the situation naturally demanded by the forces of his being, to exer- 
 cise their various functions healthily and joyfully, for striving after 
 the grand aim of his existence ; nor is he in such a position as 
 Christ desires him to be in, so as to enable him, to make himself 
 constantly more and more perfect, " even as his Father in heaven is per- 
 fect." c.) Hence the unwritten amount of unexpressed misery of all 
 sorts, silently endured, by men and families, everywhere ; the inse- 
 curity of health, life, property, and happiness, under present cir- 
 cumstances ; the terrible increase of crime from year to year ; the 
 fearful number of victims, as felons, suicides, slain, inmates of peni- 
 tentiaries, lunatic and other asylums, hospitals, poorhouses, not to 
 
REALIZATION OF IDEAS AND IDEALS. 259 
 
 mention the terrible state of things, subsisting within an unknown 
 number of unhappy families ; all conjointly and with one irresisti- 
 ble voice proclaim : there is somewhere something radically wrong in 
 our mode of existence. 
 
 9. a.) The preceding considerations have, in our days, forced 
 almost generally, upon all reflecting intellects, the abiding convic- 
 tion : 1.) That the unaided individual man, single-handed and 
 unconnected with any of his fellow-beings, can not possibly reach 
 that aim and end of his existence, which nature, reason, and religion 
 combinedly, reveal to him, as God's supreme pleasure and para- 
 mount will. 2.) That, hence, men conscientiously desirous of doing 
 God's will, and finding themselves surrounded by conditions, 
 making it next to, if not quite, impossible, for themselves and fami- 
 lies, to do so, in the most essential particulars, are enjoined by their 
 highest temporal and eternal interest to cast about for discovering 
 an efficient remedy against these fearful evils. For life is short, but 
 eternity has no end ; and he who jeopardizes the infinite for securing 
 the poor enjoyment of the transitory moment, strikes &fooVs bar- 
 gain. Matt, xvi, 26. b.) Since all men have equally been created 
 for one and the same chief aim, and nations are only aggregations 
 of individual men ; nations and their governments are bound to 
 respect and obey the will of God as mucli as the single man. Hence 
 it is their duty as it is to their highest interest and advantage, to 
 shape their course and public measures in such a manner, that every 
 member in community, is thereby assisted in perpetually progressing 
 nearer and nearer towards perfection, — the everlasting aim of every 
 one's existence, c.) Such, and such alone, is the only legitimate 
 object of all true government. If a majority of people, or a pre- 
 ponderating body of men, in any nation, by the possession of means, 
 or a control of public opinion, are capable of influencing the course of 
 their government, and also thus do induce it to employ its mighty 
 forces less benignly and promotive of the supreme and universal 
 welfare of the whole ; every participant in the unrighteous trans- 
 action will be held as responsible, before the all-weighing tribunal of 
 this universe, for the precise amount of his individual share therein, 
 as for every other one of his private deeds. 
 
 10. a.) God is not only the creator, but also everlastingly the 
 owner and proprietor^ of this universe and all beings and things in 
 
 22 
 
260 THE TEMPLE OF TRUTH. 
 
 it. His method of governing and managing His vast estate, is in 
 part based upon the principle of copartnership, and joint-stock inter- 
 est. For, whilst every individual thing and being, in its place and 
 sphere, is, upon the whole, ruled and governed, in all essential mat- 
 ters, by its relations to the universe and its particular forces ; so in 
 turn, every particular force, in its spot and cycle, helps and assists to 
 influence, determine and rule a certain number of parts, and in, with 
 and through them, the mighty whole, of which they form con- 
 stituent elements, b.) But, in this joint method of governing and 
 managing things, every force, is inclosed within a specific cycle, the 
 boundaries of which its operations can not transcend ; whilst, at the 
 same time, all the separate actions of each individual force, must 
 necessarily react upon itself, and thereby chiefly contribute to shape 
 its individual condition or destiny. That grand infinite cycle of ac- 
 tion, inclosing all the bounded cycles of the separate forces within 
 itself, God has reserved for His own separate share, and the forces 
 of the finite cycles have no influence thereinto, or only such as God 
 admits, for His own transcending specific purposes, c.) These con- 
 siderations are to help us to duly apprehend, what is to be under- 
 stood by the term of a saviour nation ; what particular function, 
 branch, or part of the business of salvation, or soul-healing, is to be 
 assigned to the same, as its proper and appropriate office, and what 
 part Christ, as the Saviour in chief, has forever reserved for him- 
 self. In the first instance then, let it be most deeply impressed, 
 upon the mind of every man : 1.) That it is God who creates every 
 man into, and with, a body; 2.) That only by and through that 
 body, the minds of men exist, approachably for one another; 3.) 
 That the body of one man is the woi'k of God, precisely as much as 
 that of another ; 4.) That hence he, who dishonors the human body, 
 in himself or another, dishonors God's own handiwork, and therein 
 directly dishonors the infinite Creator himself. Does any one doubt 
 this ? If so, come along, and we will next, show you, what kind of 
 actions, God promises to recompense with eternal rewards, and 
 threatens their omission, or the commission of opposites, with ever- 
 lasting punishment. In Luke xvi, 19, 30, you find the parable of 
 Dives and poor Lazarus. What positive injury did the. rich man, 
 by actual deed of his, inflict upon the poor sick man lying at his 
 gate, to be thus terribly punished ? Why, none at all in that way ; 
 
REALIZATION OF IDEAS AND IDEALS. 261 
 
 but he let his suffering body perish by neglect, in taking, in haughty, 
 heartless indifference, no notice of him whatever, using the wealth, in 
 his possession, being forever God's property, only loaned to man for 
 temporary need and use, as if it were absolutely his own, and in the 
 cruel treatment of the poor man, showed his base ingratitude to God 
 for all the gifts received of him ; and, whereupon, God in turn 
 showed him, that the good he omitted to do the body of poor Laza- 
 rus, who being God's representative, God regarded and treated as if 
 done to His own ineffable self. And, in order to convince man that 
 this is the version of God's retributive law, let us turn to Matt, xxv, 
 31, 46, and see what kind and sort of actions and deeds those are, 
 which, at the day of th.e great judgment are rewarded by the inherit- 
 ance of heaven's boundless joys, and what constitutes the cause of 
 total exclusion from the same. Listen : verse 35. " For I was 
 hungered, and ye gave me meat : I was thirsty, and ye gave me drink : 
 I ivas a stranger, and ye took me in : 36. Naked, and ye clothed me : 
 I was sick, and ye visited me : I was in prison, and ye came unto me : 
 40. Verily, I say unto you, inasmuch as ye have done it unto one 
 
 OF THE LEAST of these MY BRETHREN, JQ have DONE IT UNTO ME." 
 
 And, on the other hand, verse 45, His answer to the inhuman and 
 unmerciful is : " Inasmuch as ye did it not to one of the least 
 of these, ye did it not to Me." 
 
 11. a.) Now, if men should imagine, that the endless penalty 
 here threatened to be attached to apparently a mere temporary and. 
 transiently brief action, was disproportionate, we reply, first : Man 
 has no voice in the making of the laws of the universe, and he is 
 too young and ignorant to be able to criticise and pass judgment 
 thereon. Secondly : If a man perishes by starvation, thirst, want 
 of shelter, nakedness, freezing, disease, and gloomy despair in 
 prison, because of my neglect : I am as actually his murderer as 
 if killing him outright. Hence the action, instead of being 
 transient and brief, is in its effects actually endless, and can never, 
 not even by Omnipotence itself, be revocable. Now, if God, as 
 Christ declares, considers all actions done by man to man, as if 
 done by man to Himself; and, as a shudder of horror is piercing 
 every naturally-feeling human heart, at the mere thought of & par- 
 ricide : what kind of punishment would even a jury of twelve 
 human beings, composed of the most tender-hearted men and 
 
262 THE TEMPLE OF TRUTH. 
 
 women, devise for the creature monster, that attempted to murder his 
 creator, in the person of his proxy f Logically inevitable as these 
 sequences follow from their premises, we hope to see the era soon 
 break in upon us, when and ivliere men shall no longer need the fear 
 of punishment to deter them from the peipetration of evil, nor even 
 the imitation of reward to induce them to the performance of 
 goodness and virtue ; but act always from living love to God and man. 
 b.) Here then, we have five specific items, all of bodily necessity, to 
 which it is made obligatory for man to attend for one another, under 
 the highest injunctions, whenever needed. These may be ranged 
 under the heads of: 1.) Food ; 2.) Shelter or a home; 3.) Raiment ; 
 4.) Health and comfort ; and 5.) Freedom of motion and action. 
 As soon as any one of these five indispensables is absent, man is no 
 longer a full-conditioned human being, and must, of necessity, more or 
 less, pine and suffer. Any man relieving another, when suffering in 
 one or the other of these particulars, is saving him out of that 
 harm, and is, to that extent, his saviour ; and, as all men, without 
 exception, are enjoined, under the highest considerations, to save 
 cne another unconditionally, when pressed down by any one of these 
 privations, that, which thus is made the duty of all 'men, is most 
 emphatically the duty of the nation, as the representative of them 
 all, and the repository of their cmijoint power. Hence it is the 
 bounden duty of the nation, enjoined by nature, reason, equity, and 
 God's law, to be the saviour of all its members, out of evils they may 
 suffer by absence of any of the above necessities, c.) Any nation 
 which discharges these, its duties, toward all its children and mem- 
 bers, honestly and faithfully may, in full justice, lay claim to the 
 noble and divine title of a saviour nation. And, wherever there 
 is thus a visible power, to take proper care of the body of man, it 
 will be easy for Christ and our heavenly Father, to attend to the 
 rest of the process of salvation, so that with the body, the soul and 
 spirit also, and thus the whole man is saved. As long, however, 
 as in but a very small minority of a people, this saviour spirit has 
 become actively awake in the heart, and they living far apart from, 
 and without knowing, one another ; and hence entirely without all 
 and any system of mutual co-operation ; it will be absolutely impos- 
 sible for them, particularly in times of public suffering like the pres- 
 ent (the winter of 1857-8), to stem the torrent of general misery, 
 
REALIZATION OF IDEAS AND IDEALS. 263 
 
 rnshing with billows of ieart-rending bitterness, through the width 
 and breadth of the land, d.) It is, however, in the school of ad- 
 versity, where men collectively have usually to learn their best 
 lessons of wisdom. And, if the present Utter one is duly made use 
 of, it may result in a national gain, of an enduring value, beyond 
 all calculation. On the one hand, it will open people's eyes to the 
 necessity of stronger and more efficient help in cases of need, than 
 the individual good-will of generous hearts is able to render. It 
 will teach men to cast about, in order to learn in what manner the 
 mighty arm of the nation can be made to perform that part of God's 
 will, which to fulfill, the individual man lacks power. Now, all 
 that the people of a nation need, to make them in truth and 
 reality a saviour nation for all its members, is the possession of 
 that mutual good-will toward one another, which resides in the 
 Spirit of Christ toward all men. Where there is such will t there 
 is a way seen for the accomplishment of every thing useful, gener- 
 ous, and good, 
 
 12. Before concluding this chapter, it appears proper that we 
 should analyze and define the terms ideal and power, somewhat 
 more clearly and definitely, so that the reader may be enabled to 
 grasp the whole of the thought connected with their use, wherever 
 hereafter by us employed, a.) The term ideal, which, in lieu of 
 the French term beau-ideal, we use as a substantive noun, of which, 
 in several places, we have heretofore given some defining explana- 
 tions, denotes a thought or an idea, inclosed or framed within some 
 specific mental picture, form, or body, by which embodiment and 
 machinery, such ideals may (as those that are realized, have been 
 already), visibly and palpably be actualized into exterior esistence, to 
 the perception of man's senses. Hence, from this, it becomes evi- 
 dent that by ideals, generally, realizations of ilwught are designed to 
 be denoted, superior and more perfect, than those already existing. 
 Ideals, therefore, may briefly be defined, as mental pictures of per- 
 fection of the class of objects, to which they respectively belong. 
 I.) Now, as in the prevailing condition of human affairs, man finds 
 ample occasion and opportunity of perceiving and suggesting the 
 applicability of improvement almost anywhere, wherever he casts his 
 eye ; and, as by new inventions and discoveries, he, from time to 
 time, constantly introduces, things and their uses, entirely unknown 
 
264 THE TEMPLE OF TBOTH. 
 
 to the past ; the introduction of every such really new improvement 
 is the realization of an ideal, and this process is destined to con- 
 tinue, until the perfect ideal, as the very best thing of its kind, has 
 been successfully accomplished, and by its all-surpassing superiority 
 forced itself into ultimate, universal use and sway. 
 
 13. The force by which any thought, hence any ideal is ex- 
 ternally realized, or brought into actual existence, is called power, 
 ability, being a capacity of action, production, creation, performance. 
 All power, to be intelligently applicable in the execution of purpose 
 and design, must be incased within a regularly organized machinery. 
 The most proximate, and most perfect of all known machineries, man 
 has got from God and nature, in his own bodily organization itself ; 
 and he, the man, is, with all the forces known to him within him- 
 self, the primary^ower and motor of the miraculous instrument, to 
 the infinity of uses, for which it is, alike wonderfully adapted. The 
 customary phrase, which calls man, " the lord of creation," is, there- 
 fore, neither incorrect, untrue, or merely self-adulatory, but expres- 
 sive of the actual simple fact, that of all forces perceptibly active in 
 nature, man, even as a single individual, is a primary power, that 
 surpasses them all, beyond comparison and computation. Man is, 
 therefore, for himself, as well, as for his fellow-beings, the pri- 
 mary element of all lands of power. But man is power only in 
 proportion as he is a unit in physical, moral, and mental health, and 
 as his domestic, social, political, and cosmical relations are of a 
 wlwlesome and unitary character. For man, when his body is pros- 
 trated by disease, his will powerlessly flung about by raging and 
 conflicting passions, and his mind dethroned by idiocy, deliriousness, 
 or insanity, or his presence gives no joy in his Jiome, in the society 
 of the wise and good, to his country, to the world, and the universe i 
 can no longer be regarded as an actual, but rather as a fettered, 
 imprisoned power, the capacity for action of which, has either been 
 injured or destroyed, or is neutralized, by opposing and antagonistic 
 forces. Hence, it is clear, that the capacity of man, to be and con- 
 stitute a power, depends primarily, from the degree of perfection, in 
 natural powers and gifts, originally bestowed and implanted by 
 God and nature into his physical and mental organization. For 
 thereupon depend the various possible degrees of : a.) The perfect 
 human individual ; 1.) as a child or adult ; 2.) as boy or girl ; 3.) 
 
REALIZATION OF IDEAS AND IDEALS. 265 
 
 as youth or maiden ; and, 4.) as man or woman. Upon the con- 
 ditions of these elements depend next : b.) The perfect family, and 
 its relations, resulting from the qualities of its various members : 
 1.) As husband or wife ; 2.) father or mother ; 3.) parent or child ; 
 4.) brother or sister ; and, 5.) relative or friend. From perfectly 
 created and organized individuals, acquiring, by perfectly-formed 
 domestic relations in families, a perfect incipient development of 
 true social qualities and habits, emanate : c.) The perfect society, 
 community, people, nation, or state. For the man who, as a hus- 
 band and father, is that same truly, by ardent love and passionate 
 friendship, will, with these same qualities, as well when acting in 
 the capacity of a ruling magistrate and official functionary, as when 
 in the position of a private citizen, denizen, or inhabitant, be 
 equally a public-spirited patriot and philanthropist, active, useful, 
 virtuous, and self-sacrificing wherever and whenever duty calls 
 him to action. From the perfection of man, in all the preceding 
 and collateral relations, results finally : d.) The perfect church, or 
 man's perfect friendship and union with God, nature, mankind, 
 and the whole realm of Deity's boundless domain. This union 
 makes man not only merciful, kind, benign, and bounteous, toward 
 all sentient beings, but by disclosing to him the wonderful mys- 
 teries of being and existence, in God, nature, and man, teaches him 
 how God is perfect, in absolute, unutterable goodness, and how 
 man, by true love to God, and divine love to man, becomes perfect, 
 as his Father in heaven is perfect, and by anc^ through that Father, 
 forever progresses "onward and upward" upon the endless path of 
 that perfection. 
 
 14. In Chapters ix and xx, in analyzing the nature of man, we 
 have found him composed of body, soul, and mind. Hence, the 
 perfection and power of the individual man, depends originally, 
 altogether, first, on the amount of innate force and capacity, be- 
 stowed by the Creator's act, in the primary instance upon each of 
 these component integral vital forces of man's being, and next upon 
 their more or less consummate development to a perfect harmony 
 and unity, to and among one another, effected by the discipline of 
 education, training, and habit, so that the body is healthy, vigorous, 
 and strong, the soul virtuous, joyous, and happy, and the intellect 
 enlightened, well-informed, and wise. When thus conditioned, the 
 
266 THE TEMPLE OF TKUTH. 
 
 human individual may be regarded as the true representative, as 
 well of the universe as of God ; for it exhibits the attributes of 
 beauty, loveliness, or order; of truth, reality, or wisdom; of goodness, 
 creative capacity, or power, all acting, controlled by the felicity, beati- 
 tude, and divine impulse of supreme love, and aspiring, in perfect 
 harmony and concert, to one grand godlike end and aim. Now, in 
 proportion as this harmony of forces and qualities, has been 
 developed and accomplished in the human individual, as man or 
 woman, they each therein present a specimen of perfection, ena- 
 bling them of being, and acting out perfectly, what any and all the 
 domestic and public relations, of any sort, whereinto they may be 
 placed and called, shall in any mode or manner, demand of them. 
 Tor, the same virtuous qualities and habits, which produce the 
 loving and blending unity among the forces of body, soul, and 
 spirit, in the single individual, are those which mutually attract, 
 admire, esteem, and love one another in the youth and maiden, which 
 constitute the real ardor of all affection, between husband and wife, 
 parent and child, sister and brother, relative and friend, man and 
 neighbor, and man and God. For, it is from these whence germinate 
 the true felicity of the domestic fireside ; the untold sweetness in 
 the relation of genuine friendship; the ennobling enjoyment of 
 lieartfelt social intercourse; the exalting, soul- enlarging joys of true 
 patriotism and philanthropy, pressing world and universe to their 
 glowing bosom ; and finally those divinest traits in human character, 
 resulting from man's \ intimate intercourse with God, blending the 
 force of masadine virtue, with the tenderest sensitiveness of the 
 noblest, most ardent feminine affection, whereof Christ is the realized 
 exemplification in consummate perfection. 
 
 15. Thus it is perceived that unity and concord among the sepa- 
 rate forces of the human individual, constitute the strength or 
 power of the single man or ivoman ; that unanimity, and concert in 
 feeling, sentiment and aspiration, among the members of the 
 domestic circle, constitute the vigor and power, of the family, it 
 being the element as well as miniature picture of society, state, and 
 church, in their smallest compass ; and, finally, as communities, 
 peoples, nations, conjointly organized as a state or church, are only 
 compounds from individuals and families : their strength and 
 power depend primarily upon the degree of perfection, present and 
 
REALIZATION OF IDEAS AND IDEALS. 267 
 
 actual in their union. For, if such union is consummate, such com- 
 monwealth will exhibit the beautiful picture of one happy family, 
 upon a scale stupendously enlarged ; wherein each man is animated 
 with the purpose of the whole, and the whole, in its turn, is ever 
 using its vast force, for promoting all-sided perfection, as the ever- 
 lasting aim, end, and purpose pursued by every single one. a.) As 
 soon as any human community shall post itself upon those eternal 
 principles, which, in Chapters xxii and xxiii, we have found unani- 
 mously expressed, by nature, reason, and reliyion, as the triune voice 
 and revelation of God's will and man's destination : that simple 
 fact will also be the real commencement for fulfilling that divine 
 destination ; inasmuch, as it will be identical with the " coming down 
 from God, out of heaven, of the New Jerusalem," Rev. xxi, 2, being 
 " the holy city," that is, such a perfect and beautiful organization of 
 human society, consummated by divine wisdom itself, that the 
 eternal Lord defines the same as his " adorned bride." b.) That 
 social "bride" of the all-peaceable " divine Lamb," possessing "the 
 gun, not needing another gun," * will be " God's realized kingdom on 
 earth," consisting of "the people" of the true " saints of the Most 
 High," Dan. vii, 27, who shall inherit " all dominion " and power, 
 since the old "Dragon" of human hostility and discord, shall en- 
 tirely be " bound " amidst them. Rev. xx, 2. Hence, as there is 
 neither hostile drawback, antagonism, or reaction, among these peo- 
 ple, their power is pure, unfettered, and sufficient for realizing, in an 
 uninterrupted series, all the grand, personal as well as national, ideals, 
 which heavenly wisdom will show and disclose. Thus, then, the 
 great consummation of all things, the final gloriously grand develop- 
 ment of mankind's transcending destiny, predicted by the Lord's 
 true prophets in many beautiful passages, will, eventually, lead to 
 God's own presence among His people. For, it is written : " Be- 
 hold, the tabernacle of God is with men, and He will dwell with 
 them, and they shall be His people, and God himself shall be with 
 them, and be their God." " And God shall wipe away all tears from 
 their eyes ; and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor 
 crying ; neither shall there be any more pain : for the former things 
 are passed away." Rev. xxi, 3, 4. 
 
 ♦Emerson,— ''''English Traits. 
 23 
 
268 THE TEMPLE OF TRUTH. 
 
 CHAPTER XXVI. 
 
 CONTEIBUTIVE MATERIALS APPERTAINING TO THE METHOD OF 
 MAKING A PEOPLE, A SAVIOUR NATION, OR LEADING THEM TO 
 PERFECTION. 
 
 1. In Chaps, iv and v, we have described a young couple, grown 
 up and educated under influences, favorable to progress in virtue 
 and perfection. Having, for reasons stated, formed the design of 
 removing to a large metropolis, they did carry that intention into 
 effect, and have by this time, become acquainted and familiar, by 
 actual experience, with city life, and human nature, as it develops 
 itself under the motely circumstances, of its infinitely variegated 
 conditions. In a confidential letter to an intimate friend, they in- 
 form him, by a sort of report, of the progress they have made, 
 and the success they have met with, in their proceedings thus far. 
 In that letter they say : 
 
 2. "You remember, how buoyant were our hearts and how 
 exultant and expectant our hopes, when removing to this city, in 
 view of the grand and glorious harvest, which we calculated to 
 reap, from the fruition of the great, noble principles, that with 
 supermundane joy, expanded our bosoms. We designed, namely, 
 as you know, if opportunity should in anywise favor us, making 
 the attempt of ' laying down the 'practical groundwork, for the eventual 
 redemption of (he whole human race out of all misery, and of finally 
 leading all its members to perfection and happiness.'' It is an im- 
 portant discovery, accidentally made, some time since, and by far 
 not as widely known, as its value deserves, namely, that : the best 
 and most speedy way of learning a thing, is, ' to engage in teaching 
 the same to others.' Now, in our attempt at teaching men l the 
 science ' to make all mankind perfect and happy, we very soon dis- 
 covered, how little we really knew thereof ourselves. But 'where 
 there is a will, there is a way ;' and as we were, in the bottom of 
 our souls, convinced of the absolute existence of such a 'divine 
 seience,' our very ignorance of its true character, became the most 
 stirring incentive to make ourselves master of its angelic facts and 
 syllogisms, with all the speed at our command. We have made 
 
MATERIALS, ETC., FOR FORMING A SAVIOUR NATION. 269 
 
 some progress in this heavenly knowledge ; but, as heretofore, 
 there was nowhere a perfect and full system of divine truth, in scien- 
 tific form and completion, in existence; and we being unable to 
 bring forth such an one ourselves, this greatly felt want, retarded 
 as well our own progress, to a fuller perception of the celestial 
 light, as also the conversion of others, to the embracing of the 
 infinite truth that inspires us. 
 
 3. " But, although until recently, w r e lacked the perfect system of 
 which we felt the need, we yet were in possession of a goodly 
 number of precious truths that forever belong to it ; and, by the 
 good use we made of the same, we succeeded in making the time 
 spent in this place, not only useful to our own progress, but also 
 to strew out a great deal of good seed, destined to germinate into 
 heavenly sprouts, ere-long. The glorious idea, which has become 
 master of our hearts and minds, makes them leap with joy and ex- 
 tasy, at every step, leading us, even were it but one inch, nearer to 
 the grand goal. And its never exhaustible power keeps us joyful, 
 contented, and of even temper, while enduring toil and tribulation, 
 trouble and vexation, for promoting the happiness of man's entire 
 race. The value of every human act is contained in the motive, pur- 
 pose, design, from which it flows. Where that motive is truly 
 divine, no matter how exteriorly small and apparently insignificant 
 the material shapes therein engaged may be ; an atmosphere of 
 heaven, at all times, invisibly surrounds such heart, soothing and 
 feasting it with thoughts and feelings, constituting the joys and 
 nourishment by which the immortal celestials themselves subsist. 
 
 4. " We have succeeded in inducing quite a number of people 
 to be of one and the same faith with us, namely : aspiring sincerely 
 with us for the same great aim of all humanity's perfection, and hap- 
 piness. We brought them to this firm conviction, by a series of 
 truths, something like the following : a.) All human things on 
 earth, have had, and must have, a beginning. All beginnings are 
 usually small, and ordinarily difficult. The three to four hundred 
 millions of human beings, now constituting the probable number 
 on earth of the ' so-called ' Christians, of the various denominations, 
 have all sprung, first : from Christ's single and solitary being ; and, 
 next, from the also small number of one hundred and twenty primitive 
 Christians, assembled together, for Christ's most cherished purpose, 
 
270 THE TEMPLE OF TRUTH. 
 
 on the day of Pentecost, at Jerusalem, A. D. 34. There were also but 
 three men, whose virtuous and patriotic union incipiently effected 
 and eventually secured the freedom of the people of Switzerland ; 
 and history abounds in facts of a similar nature, all, in general, 
 proving the smallness and difficulty of beginnings, b.) Further : 
 they who know Christ in any degree, must know absolutely, that 
 the purpose for which he came on earth, for which he worked and 
 taught, labored, lived, and died : was no other than leading all hu- 
 manity to perfection and its heaven. Hence all, who honestly believe 
 in Christ, must embrace this His purpose, most determinately, as 
 their very own. This purpose embraces ' love to God above all 
 things;' and includes likewise ' loving our neighbor as ourselves.' 
 How, where we thus in reality love a human being, it gives us the 
 greatest joy, to do him or her all manner of good, and protect them 
 against oil possible harm, since that is wJiat we do to ourselves. He, 
 therefore, who thus loves all men, has in that very love, not only an 
 exhaustless source of happiness and joy, which the self-dooming 
 man-hater can not know ; but through that love, the lover is pro- 
 tected against doing men any evil. For how can I do harm and 
 injury to those I truly love ? c.) Now, the one hundred and 
 twenty primitive Christians, by sincerely embracing Christ's own 
 purpose into their innermost heart, thereby became not only 'one 
 heart and one soul,' among and with one another, but all of them 
 also became of one spirit with Christ himself, whereby they became 
 fitted for receiving God's Holy Grhost or Spirit, to fill their soul 
 with the joy, essence, and power, and their mind with the light, 
 truth, and wisdom of heaven itself : so Christ, who declares Him- 
 self spiritually present at all times, Matt, xxviii, 20, also promises to 
 all men, who, at any time, truly embrace His ever-living purpose, 
 and fixedly post themselves upon His eternal platform of princi- 
 ples, first : ' That any two who shall agree on earth in asking any 
 thing of his Father in heaven, the same shall be done.' Matt, xviii, 
 19 ; and, next : ' That He will pray the Father, to give us another 
 comforter, to abide with us forever,' who ' shall teach us all things.' 
 John xiv, 16, 26. And, finally, He (Christ), prays in the follow- 
 ing sublime strains, for all men, who, at any period, shall embrace 
 His divine truth, proving therein, at the same time, that 'perfect 
 unity of tlie actors in purpose, sentiment, and action,'' is the life and 
 
MATERIALS, ETC., FOE FORMING A SAVIOUR NATION. 271 
 
 soul of His system, saying : ' Neither pray I for these alone (His 
 then disciples and followers), but for them also, which shall believe 
 on Me through their word ;' ' That they all may be one ; as thou, 
 Father, art in me, and I in thee, that they also maybe one in us : that 
 tlie world may believe that tlwu hast sent me.' John xvii, 20, 21. 
 d.) Now, if the three hundred and fifty millions of nominal 
 followers of Christ on earth, were in this manner united in and 
 with Christ, and his all-loving purpose, as one man, what should we 
 see ? Why, we should behold the entire prodigious mass, perme- 
 ated and pervaded by a conflagration of heavenly love as intense 
 and all-melting as the one beatifying the hearts of men on the first 
 day of Pentecost. We should see how this love-fire would show 
 these men, that they had been blind before, and had never, until 
 now, known the true value of man. For they would run around, 
 apparently, to the uninitiated, like possessed, but all the time hunting 
 and inquiring, to discover suffering human beings, oppressed by mis- 
 eries and calamities of one sort or another, so that they should have 
 an opportunity, by effectually relieving the tortured victims from 
 their cruel pangs, of whatever sort, to feast themselves upon those 
 exquisite morsels of divine voluptuousness, ever flowing from actions 
 of love, removing human pain, engendering bliss and joy, and causing 
 the tear of heartfelt joy and gratitude to glisten alike in the hence- 
 forth ever true brotherly eyes, of relieved, as well as reliever. But, 
 since a condition of things, as glorious as this, is at this moment, no 
 more than ' a pious wish,' or 'heavenly dream,' we must, for this 
 time, let it rest, and put our own shoulders, practically, in such 
 manner to the wheel of conditions and circumstances surround- 
 ing us, of which, experience and common sense inform us con- 
 jointly, that it is, at present, the only resource left open, from 
 which to gather the force and power which indispensably we need. 
 5. " This method left us, is, to gain and convert to our convic- 
 tion, by the force of its inherent truth, one single man, after another. 
 One only, added to ourselves, make three. If we three double 
 ourselves, say, in one month, there are six of us at the end of the 
 month. And continuing the process, at the same rate, there will, 
 at the end of the first twelvemonths, be, the already highly respect- 
 able number of 12,328 human individuals. And the same operation 
 protracted for one year longer, will give us at its end, 50,750,208, or 
 
272 THE TEMPLE OF TRUTH. 
 
 very nearly fifty-one millions of human souls, redeemed from blindness 
 and error to the brightness of solar truth. If the beneficent process 
 should, with equal success, be carried on one single half year longer, 
 we should, after the lapse of five-and-a-fourth months thereof, 
 hardly have any conversions left to be made ; for, at the end of the 
 sixth month, our whole number gained would be a fraction over 
 sixteen hundred and twenty- four millions, which is supposed to 
 overrun the actual number of the human race on earth, believed to 
 count about one thousand millions, at least one-third. These figures 
 contain both comfort and inspiration for those who '■hunger and 
 thirst after righteousness,'' Matt, v, 6, by showing in how brief a 
 period of time, the most stupendous operations can be accomplished, 
 particularly when every new force gained, is instantly transformed 
 into an active medium for expanding the arena of conquest. In 
 Eev. chap, vii, verse 4, we are told that the number of those 
 originally sealed as 'followers of the Lamb,' and participants of his 
 millennial glories, amount to one hundred and forty-four thou- 
 sand, or twelve times twelve thousand individuals. And in verse 
 9, as also belonging to the 'ransomed of the Lord,' we are 
 told of a far greater number, a number really so large, that it is 
 actually described as : ' Lo, a great multitude, which no man could 
 number.'' Now, whatever the amount of these numbers may be, 
 they can in no event be larger than that of the whole race. And 
 even it, as above shown, could, in the short space of less than two 
 and a half years, if the Lord saw fit to have it so, become con- 
 verted to the truth, through a machinery presenting ostensibly 
 nothing super-extraordinary in its operations, whatever else its 
 concealed virtues might be. Hence, it may be assumed as a settled 
 matter, that, when the period of these apocalyptic events shall 
 itself have actually arrived, it will take up comparatively but little 
 time, to carry them all out into accomplished fact." Thus far the 
 fragmentary report of our young couple's letter, the ideas of which, 
 it will be perceived, are perfectly identical with our own. 
 
 6. From what, precedingly, we have said, the meaning and sig- 
 nification we attach to the term "saviour nation,'" can not, easily, 
 any longer, be misunderstood by any one. For, thereby we mean a 
 people whose heart is ruled by the spirit of Christ; the purpose of 
 whose commonwealth is one and the same with that of God, to "wipe 
 
MATERIALS, ETC., FOR FORMING A SAVIOUR NATION. 273 
 
 off all tears from human eyes" Rev. xxi, 4 ; and " to feed their 
 minds upon the joy-pastures cf mountain-sized truths and ideas," 
 Ezek. xxxiv, 14 ; to remove every vestige of human misery within 
 their power's reach; to insure to every human being a secured and 
 liappy home, actually in real essence "inalienable ;" to increase its 
 charms for the inmates, by therein realizing " that attractive indus- 
 try," for which they received the "gifts;" to raise and encourage 
 its productive action, by securing to it its entire result ; to transform 
 the aspect of exterior nature, in connection with men's Iwme, home- 
 stead and all their surroundings, into a paradise of beauty, comfort, 
 neatness, cleanliness and health; to change and confirm, by the 
 powers vested in them, Matt, xviii, 18, the inner condition of every 
 participant's consciousness, into a heaven of highest, godlike joys t 
 wherein he feels that, although his beatitude is already inexpressi- 
 ble, he is still conscious of its perpetual increase. 
 
 7. In claiming all the foregoing, for every human being who is a 
 member of our " saviour nation," or within reach of its action, we 
 thereby do not, by any means, design to be understood as claiming 
 only those good gifts thus specifically named, and not laying claim 
 to those others, which we have omitted, specifying explicitly ; but, 
 on the contrary, we claim them all, the unnamed and even unknown, 
 no less than the named and the known. For, inasmuch, as the very 
 subsistence, of a true saviour nation, is irrefutable proof, that " they 
 seek (and have found'), the kingdom of Qod and his righteousness;" 
 they are thereby clearly entitled to the fulfillment of the thereto 
 attached, solemn, and explicit promise, that : " All other good things 
 slmll be added unto them." Matt, vi, 33. And since He, the mighty 
 great one, whom we call and adore as our God, is as absolutely 
 and essentially present, on this, His, and our own, earth, as in any 
 other loccdity, in His grand domain : He can, by blessing us with His 
 light, wisdom, and the opening of our innermost perception, make us 
 to understand, and capacitate us to enjoy, all the most exquisite joys, 
 beatitudes, and extasies, to be found within any heaven extant within 
 His all bountiful, ever-glorious dominion. 
 
 8. There is a principle of imitation, existing in man, which lies 
 at the bottom of what is called "fashion," and other kindred phe- 
 nomena in human nature, which, as yet, is not only little applied to 
 his 'practical benefit, but is also, only just now, beginning to become 
 
274 THE TEMPLE OF TKUTH. 
 
 sufficiently understood, to make such beneficent application possible. It 
 may, for instance, be easily observed, that whatever a considerable 
 number of young people of a certain age, become induced to under- 
 take, in regard to the introduction of something new, in the line of dress> 
 amusements, enjoyments, manners, mode of speech, etc., etc., acts 
 by, as it were, almost irresistible attraction, upon the large majority 
 of the rest, so that the force of this influence, may be inferred, 
 from the adage it has given origin to, to- wit : " Rather out of the 
 world than out of fashion." Next, it is perceived that all labor, and 
 hence also the hardest and most repulsive occupation, loses its 
 repelling features for man, generally, in proportion to the increase of 
 the number therein engaged. Hence, even the dread terrors of ivar, 
 and the incessant toil, dangers, and perils of an active soldier's life, 
 added to the rigidity of military discipline, do, by dint of the large 
 numbers, composing great armies, participating therein, not only 
 become endurable for all or most of those therein engaged ; but even 
 acquire, for not a small number thereof, such attractive charms, as 
 to induce them to prefer a military, to any other mode of life, from 
 actual choice. Further, the same principle is active and visible, in 
 modified shapes, in the joyous and zealous activity, infused into its 
 individual members by a cause, supported by men, knowing them- 
 selves strong by knowledge, means, and numbers ; it shows itself in 
 the eagerness with which people go to, and the secret enjoyment they 
 feel in, the presence of large bodies of men, such as they meet at 
 churches, political, and other conventions, balls, social parties, places of 
 amusement, and public resort, etc.; and last, but by no means least, 
 by the a^-conquering inspiration and cfea^-defying enthusiasm, visi- 
 ble, more or less, in all revolutions, or political and religious struggles, 
 wherewith the cause of the many, or ALL, penetrates and inspirits 
 the single individual, so entirely, as to enable and urge him, to stake 
 and sacrifice his all and himself, a self-immolating victim, at the altar 
 of the public good. 
 
 9. Thus, it is apparent, that, as the single drop of water, where 
 ever it can, is forced to unite with a second drop, then with the 
 little rill of a streamlet, running into a creek, next with it into a 
 river, wherewith to empty finally into, and unite with, the waters of 
 the boundless ocean : so man is attracted to man, to society, commu- 
 nity, the nation, and finally, the whole human race. This unques- 
 
MATERIALS, ETC., FOR FORMING A SAVIOUR NATION. 275 
 
 tionable power of human masses, over the force of the single in- 
 dividual, wherever it has an opportunity to make itself available, 
 furnishes unmistakable indication, that the whole mass of mankind, 
 though existing ostensibly, in time, in the shape of split up fragments 
 to the number of a thousand million individuals, constitutes, never- 
 theless, in a mystical, supersensual manner, one inexpressibly grand, 
 wonderfully, co-organized being, whereof each one as a member, for 
 weal or woe, is indissolubly bound, like part, to the whole, by the 
 sacred bonds of an all-conjoining solidarity. Hence, also, the mighty 
 control exercised by public opinion upon all men in positions it can 
 reach ; hence the very terror entertained by most men of this public 
 opinion, whereby they are even afraid to publicly avow and main- 
 tain true convictions, if conflicting with the known views of commu- 
 nity at large. Hence the eagerness wherewith most men aspire after 
 the favorable opinion of the public, endeavoring to gain and attract 
 it, in all possible kinds of ways ; and hence the intoxicating joy, 
 seizing upon the community at large, and the various private and 
 public means they resort to, for expressing and manifesting the same, 
 when now and then, accidentally, but by unmistakable facts, they 
 discover a true man or woman, who are unostentatiously engaged all 
 the time, in doing all the good they can, not to their family only, but 
 also to their neighbors, community, nation, and race. 
 
 10. Now, as all men, without exception, even if not caring in 
 equal degrees about the signs of external manifestation, can not help 
 but place an indefinitely high value and estimate, upon the esteem, 
 affection, and favor which community entertains towards them : 
 society possesses in this principle, as soon as properly made availa- 
 ble, a lever of infinite power, sufficient for removing all the evils that 
 until now have been crushing it, and for drawing forth, on the other 
 hand, out of the depth of man's will and nature, those precious 
 fruits of divine virtue and excellence, as it were, like regular harvest 
 crops, which hitherto have only constituted the rare and extraor- 
 dinary exceptions. This lever, if duly applied, is capable of trans- 
 forming, within a period of time so brief as almost supposed to be 
 entirely insufficient, the ivhole aspect of human existence on earth, by 
 changing those very forces in man into sources of inexhaustible 
 blessings, ivhich, by an unnatural combination of conditions have 
 hitherto only acted as his curse. Until now, community has been 
 
276 THE TEMPLE OF TRUTH. 
 
 thinking, but never as yet, thinking sufficiently deep to fully under- 
 stand and secure its own good. It never yet has sufficiently appre- 
 ciated, that every man is a divine being, but chained absolutely to a 
 certain number of creatural needs, wants, necessities, demanding, 
 as laws of nature, their regular gratification, which, if not rationally 
 provided, accorded, and placed within equitable reach of each indi- 
 vidual by the social machinery of community itself : nature impels 
 the man to disregard the artificial conventionalism of men, and 
 possess itself by force or cunning of that, whereof it can or will, not do 
 or be without. Now, as soon as men shall see and understand, what 
 supreme love to God, and love to one's neighbor, as themselves, really 
 demand of them, their intellects will become celestially, divinely 
 clairvoyant, and they will all, impelled by affection, not only desire 
 that no one of their fellow-beings shall any longer be poor and needy, 
 but that poverty and indigence themselves shall, with all other things 
 seducing and corrupting man, disappear, and prisons, penitentiaries, 
 and gallows be rendered forever useless and unused, with the utmost 
 practicable speed. For, men will then clearly see and feel, that 
 every man who, by men-made laws and arrangements, is forced or 
 seduced to transgress the laws of God and nature, and thus fall a 
 victim to sin and crime, no matter in wliatever way, is the brother, 
 child, grandchild, etc., of some one among us ; that he has a mother, 
 whose heart can never cease Zoiwp' him ; but that he is the creature 
 of a creative deity, which is absolute love itself. Hence the 
 man, whom by irrational and imperfect social, domestic, educational, 
 and other arrangements, we seduce and spoil, until he is the victim 
 of vice, crime, and the hatred he entertains against his fellows and 
 the shiftless and imperfect ways and means that have proven, so 
 destructive to him : if thus lost to himself, is a loss to God and the 
 human race, so infinite, that all the material wealth of the whole 
 earth, can not even compare to it as a drop of water to the immeas- 
 urable ocean. 
 
 11. Until now, the religion of Christ has, in the most essential 
 particular, been entirely and totally misunderstood in this, that it 
 necessarily presupposes the existence of a perfect church, in which 
 individual man may learn perfection. Christ demands divine per- 
 fection ; demands it even of the individual man, but explicitly de- 
 clares : " That man must have absolutely, at least, one man, with 
 
MATERIALS, ETC., FOR FORMING A SAVIOUR NATION. 277 
 
 whom, as a true friend, he becomes one, in the love-spirit of Christ," 
 Matt, xviii, 20 ; next, He declares : " That perfect union and love 
 between His followers, is the only reliable sign and proof, that they 
 are truly such ; capable of convincing the world of the fact," John, 
 xvii, 21 ; finally, Christ declares : " I am the vine, ye are the 
 branches: he that abideth in me, and I in him, the same bringeth 
 forth much fruit : for without me ye can do nothing." John xv, 5. 
 Now, the man, who thus is in Christ, is at the same time in the 
 community of the members, whereof Christ is the head. That com- 
 munity is Christ's holy, visible body, or Church. It is only in, and 
 as a member of, such true Church of Christ, that individual man 
 can " do anything," that is, be educated to divine perfection in love, 
 virtue, wisdom, and goodness : "As his Father in heaven himself 
 is perfect." Matt. v. 48. As long as there is visibly no such perfect 
 Church of Christ on earth, but only ecclesiastical human organiza- 
 tions, under various names, all more or less imperfect, and none 
 entirely and exclusively ruled by the spirit of Jesus : no individual 
 man is capable of reaching "perfection," the end and object of his 
 existence in that sense and degree, meant to be understood, as con- 
 jointly pronounced, by " nature, reason, and religion," in Chap, xxiii. 
 Therefore, we can not get the perfect part, until we get the perfect 
 whole, to which such part belongs as a piece or member ; hence, we 
 shall not get to see the perfect Christian, or divinely patriotic citizen, 
 until the "new heaven and the new earth;" that is, the perfect Church 
 of Christ, together with the divinely perfect state, shall, as the New 
 Jerusalem, or the god-and-heaven-Yike-reorganization of human 
 labor and society, have descended upon earth, like a beautiful bride. 
 Eev. xxi, 1, 2. The religion of Christ realized, is, therefore, a 
 perfect Church, state, and society, composed of individual members, 
 embracing each other with sincere affection, which is perfect love, and 
 thereby striving conjointly after all-sided perfection, the aim of each 
 and all. 
 
 12. But the accomplishment of that grandest of all possible 
 facts, is before our door, knocking for admittance, as will be shown 
 in its due time and place. Hence, the heavenly "householder" has 
 sent out his summons in all directions, inviting laborers of every 
 kind and description, to come and work in "Ms vineyard." Matt. 
 xx, 1, 6. Now, then, let every laborer come along, and the strong 
 
278 THE TEMPLE OP TRUTH. 
 
 with the weak, can each earn their heavenly "penny." The work 
 to be finally accomplished, is the production of a " saviour nation," 
 wherein the spirit of Christ, rules in every heart, and the wisdom 
 of God in every head ; for, if that is realized, it will be " God's 
 kingdom on earth," or the long-prayed for "millennium of love." 
 Any fact, truth, knowledge, or thought calculated to assist in bring- 
 ing about this devoutly to be wished for consummation, no matter 
 from where, or by whomsoever contributed, will be graciously and 
 gratefully accepted, and receive its due and appropriate place in the 
 grand, progressively perfecting system, to which its nature shall 
 entitle it. 
 
 13. "Hitherto our nations," says, in substance, a living, noble 
 writer and profound thinker,* " have been mobs." — " Our cities and com- 
 munities are aimless." The main reason of this sad, but too true, 
 fact, is to be found in our prevailing ignorance of man's and man- 
 kind's destination, and the true principles of social organization. 
 For, although all these termed civilized nations and communities 
 call themselves, and profess to be, Christians, yet the main stamina 
 and whole machinery of their social and political structure, is no 
 other than the old heathen principle of compulsion, or brute force, 
 added to an actual modernized modification of ancient feudalism. 
 This modification consists in this, that, in past times, man ruled his 
 iveaker fellow-man, and allotted to him, what amount of property 
 and franchises he saw fit, by the direct operation of the physical 
 sword ; that is, superior bodily or brute force; whereas, now, he rules 
 him, not a whit less selfishly, by superior cunning, knowledge, or 
 tJwught. Hence, as long as such state of things endures, life can 
 not possibly assume traits more elevated, and features more exalted ; 
 since the injured can not feel friendship and love for those that op- 
 press them ; and they, who thus wrong their fellow-men, for the 
 sake of paltry gain, can neither truly esteem or love one another, nor 
 their victims, nor enjoy the sweet solace of divine approbation in 
 their inmost mental chamber. As long, therefore, as we have not 
 castes only, but also outcasts in our society, who are deprived of any 
 real interest and stake in community, except what physical necessity 
 itself perpetually and absolutely forces upon them : there is an open 
 
 * K. W. Emerson. 
 
MATERIALS, ETC., FOR FORMING A SAVIOUR NATION. 279 
 
 or silent state of warfare forever subsisting among us, which will 
 not cease, until men determine to conclude peace, by obeying God, 
 in truly loving their neighbor, as a friend and brother, by deed, even 
 as themselves. 
 
 14. As soon, however, as any single dozen of men shall com- 
 mence unitedly to introduce such heavenly principles, in true 
 sincerity into actual practice, the great problem will be as good as 
 solved ; for that number, as the active leaven, or the living mustard 
 seed, will suffice celestially to revolutionize society almost with elec- 
 trical speed. F 'or joy as well as truth, increases in magnitude, inten- 
 sity and power, with the number in, and by, which it acts. As 
 soon then as our dozen true patriots have found one another, they 
 will constitute to each a society so sweet, as to become, like the par- 
 takers of Pentecost, intoxicated by its heavenly nectar ; and, like an 
 army inspired by irresistible enthusiasm, ran from one victory to 
 another, until by the conquest of mankind, they prove to the world, 
 that true love is omnipotent. Everyway man gained for the great 
 truth, is an increase of power, which, proportionally, increases the 
 means, the zeal and the efficiency of propagation. In a brief time 
 they will be numerous, strong, and able enough, to make a sys- 
 tematic application of scientific power and labor-saving machinery 
 of every sort and description. No sooner is that accomplished, 
 than they will be able to vacate and empty whole towns and cities 
 of their pauper, indigent, and unemployed inhabitants, placing them, 
 as partners, in permanent, pleasant homes, attractive and easy 
 occupations, and by a system of education, unknown at present to 
 science or the world, reclaim the neglected mind of the uneducated 
 laboring adult, within an incredibly brief time, for a henceforth 
 regular progress, in intellectual, ethical, and practical perfection. Or, 
 wherever cities and towns offer opportunities and co-operation, in 
 the glorious, humanitary work, the unemployed need not be re- 
 moved, but may, for their own, and the benefit of the place and its 
 inhabitants, be instituted into proper employment on the spot. 
 
 15. No sooner will our patriotic, cosmopolitan Christians have 
 got thus far, when the means at their control will rapidly enable 
 them to convert their fellow-men in large numbers, so as actually 
 soon to transform the nation into a saviour nation in sober earnest. 
 For, the simple presence of Christ's love in the hearts of a conjoint 
 
ZbO THE TEMPLE OF TKUTH. 
 
 number of men, and the consistent practice and application of the 
 same, is heaven realized on earth, and the science or theory thereof, 
 may he fitly called : a lee-line to heaven, or a railroad to paradise 
 regained. And where men see heaven exist "before their eyes, it is 
 easy to convert them to it. For, it is nothing hut the sheerest igno- 
 rance of God, themselves, and the true nature of all things, by 
 which Christ-professing mankind hitherto, have had to remain in 
 that state of semi-barbarism, which they call civilization ; but which, 
 closely scrutinized, and relative conditions taken into due account, 
 produces a richer crop of darker deeds and more atrocious crimes, 
 than probably the most barbarous and least cultivated people on the 
 globe. All men know, no matter how transiently and imperfectly, 
 the nature of joy. They all are as greedy for and after it, as the 
 starving man for the morsel of bread. Now, if men understood their 
 best interests, their constant study would be, not, as now, how to 
 cause one another the utmost trouble, vexation, grief, and harm ; but, 
 how each one could produce for all the rest, the greatest, best, most 
 durable and exquisite joys. The more and the longer they would 
 study this science of Ood and practice this art of heaven : the 
 deeper all nature would disclose to them its rich, concealed secrets ; 
 the more luminously-shining would their own intellect discover the 
 infinite treasures of knowledge and truth, as yet hidden, unknown 
 to man, in the wondrous being of God and man himself ; and the 
 more would one vast ocean of celestial friendship, heavenly joy, and 
 godlike beatitude, melt the numerous millions of the whole nation, 
 into one heart and one soul, which in the fullness and exuber- 
 ance of its ineffable extasy and happiness, would have no greater 
 concern than, with utmost feasible speed, to make all mankind par- 
 ticipants thereof. It is well known that one single true friend yields 
 to man's heart an enjoyment so rich and siveet, that hardly any joy 
 known to man can surpass it : how great then and intense would 
 the happiness of man be, if he knew himself the passionately beloved 
 and loving friend, of the twenty-five to thirty or more millions of 
 men of a whole nation f 
 
 16. Man is created in heaven. Hence his undying aspiration after 
 it, and all the features belonging to it. He wants order, beauty, 
 reality, stability, in all around him ; hence chaos, disorder, ugliness, 
 semblance, shams, naturally and deservedly provoke his abhorrence. 
 
MATERIALS, ETC., FOR FORMING A SAVIOUR NATION. 281 
 
 Every man, therefore, if permitted to enjoy an unperverted course 
 of development from the innocency of childhood to the full vigor 
 and mental light of mature manhood, would, if aided by his fellow- 
 men, as the social contract, underlying human existence, really 
 implies and demands, build for himself a miniature heaven, differing 
 in many of its features, from that of all other men. But as the 
 present so-called social state of man is, in its true nature, an anti- 
 social and ivarring state of existence, men not only receive no aid 
 from society itself, but its members are, in a great proportion, like 
 madmen, ferocious beasts, hallucinated demons, openly and clan- 
 destinely engaged not only in reciprocally tearing to pieces each 
 other's heaven, but like fiends, mutually destroying even themselves. 
 All these, and a vast number of other evils, the /ora?-apparatus called 
 government, which society now, at prodigious expense, maintains as 
 a regulating machinery, to keep itself in some sort of order, is en- 
 tirely unable to prevent. 
 
 17. But, as soon as you make the nation, as the generative pro- 
 genitor of its children, what by nature, reason, and religion, it 
 really is designed to be : One vast domestic and political copartner- 
 ship, for one universal and absolute purpose, including a ivhole ocean 
 of ends : all your evils will disappear, as if blown away. For you 
 will have no longer one single man in community, whose direct 
 interest it is not that every evil should vanish the sooner the better. 
 And as thereby society ceases to sacrifice and immolate human vic- 
 tims, to false arrangements built upon erroneous notions : the amount 
 of new forces thereby gained will swell the increase of its indus- 
 trial productiveness so prodigiously, that there will be no end to the 
 abundance of wealth. This is in part fulfilling, in a natural way, 
 what Christ has promised, to the striving after God's kingdom, 
 Matt, vi, 33. For, as soon as a nation of men becomes just towards 
 all its members, and determines to take a loving care and concern in 
 their welfare, such state thereby becomes a true " commonwealth," 
 or actual partnership, wherein every one of its nm'mal human 
 beings, has a certain portion of stock, property, or interest, which, 
 in connection with his or her sphere of action in such community, 
 is at all times sufficient to secure existence, and protect against 
 want. Next, as community has a direct interest in the augmenta- 
 tion of its industrial productibility, since its true external power 
 
282 THE TEMPLE OF TRUTH. 
 
 depends thereon ; and, as its productiveness consists in the aggre- 
 gate producing capacity of all its individual members, which, by- 
 assistance and insurance from the whole, to each may indefinitely 
 be increased in various infallible ways : it is community's paramount 
 interest, to bring this as speedily about as ever possible, by furnish- 
 ing tools (with materials and needed information, where lacking), 
 to those who can handle them. From the moment that such ar- 
 rangements are perfected, crimes and depredations will in such com- 
 munity cease; since the motive to the same is removed, and an 
 opposite motive to promote the good of every man at all times, 
 actively planted in its place. 
 
 18. All the evils found in any community, are defects or injuries 
 of a threefold nature : mental, moral, and corporeal, a.) The mental 
 defect, is an iDtellectual damage of injury, suffered by community 
 through its afflicted members, consisting in the want, the weakness, 
 or the false direction of their intellectual powers, that is : in igno- 
 rance, stupidity and error, b.) The moral defect, or the psychical 
 damage or injury of man or a people consists in the want, the 
 weakness, and wrong direction of their will or volition, that is : in 
 immorality, vice, and crime, c.) The corporeal defect, and bodily 
 damage or injury of man or a people, consists in the want, the 
 weakness, and false application of their bodily forces, originating 
 either from the ignorance or errors of the intellect, or the weakness 
 and wrong direction of volition, and producing, at all times, as 
 legitimate fruits and inevitable effects, indolence, disease, said poverty. 
 Now, all these evils flow, as their sources, from certain defects 
 existing in the living machinery of our domestic, social, and public 
 institutions, as now framed and subsisting. A source of that kind, 
 from which permanently an evil flows, indicates the commission of a 
 radical wrong, perpetrated by community against its own good, and 
 the damage and pain of the evil is the punishment inflicted by nature's 
 lo.ws for their infringement, as also designed to induce and enforce 
 measures for the evil's removal by proper reform. For, if you want 
 to dry up a stream, you must remove its headwaters, as the sources 
 from which it flows. Thus, nature itself forces mankind from the 
 imperfect towards the more perfect, on the one hand, by the effects 
 of pain and loss she attaches to the false and wrong ; and, on the 
 other, by those, not only of freedom from the evil, but also addi- 
 
MATERIALS, ETC., FOR FORMING A SAVIOUR NATION. 283 
 
 tionally, the positive enjoyment of the pleasure, joy, and increase 
 of means and power, ever connected with that which in itself is 
 true, good, and hence correct and right, in the eye of reason and God. 
 Hence, there is no stability in imperfect conditions and institutions ; 
 one that is letter, gradually presses the worse one to the wall, until 
 itself has finally to surrender the space to the best one possible, which 
 is forever to keep it. 
 
 19. Now, of all countries existing upon this globe, and of all 
 forms or government that men have ever tried to govern themselves 
 by, upon earth, there are none which so evidently have by Providence 
 designedly been prepared, for the purpose of realizing a saviour na- 
 tion, as the land and the institutions of these United States. The 
 former is large and fertile enough to accommodate and sustain 
 almost, if not fully, one half of the present entire population of 
 the globe ; and the latter, having made the people themselves the 
 permanent depository of their own sovereign power, have therein 
 preserved a door, widely thrown open, for the introduction of all and 
 any improvements, surely not excluding the possibly best, which these 
 sovereigns may possess the wisdom to see, and the virtue and pa- 
 triotism to demand introducing. Hence, even a whole host of 
 various defects, which such people may have inherited from the 
 past, and which to remedy, neither time nor opportunity have yet 
 been favorable, will, when that proper time eventually arrives, be 
 overcome by conquering even difficulties apparently insurmountable. 
 And as this youngest among the nations, is placed upon a new con- 
 tinent, lying amidst the great oceans that separate the two extremes 
 of the ancient world : that very geographical position, so easily 
 permitting access to, and speedy inteixourse with, all countries of the 
 globe, is beyond question a stubborn fact of pi'oplietic significance. 
 For the same nation which, first, by embracing and introducing into 
 its midst, of Christ's whole love and full purpose, thereby establishing 
 a perfect peace and heavenly friendship among all the members of its 
 body, and thus making itself a saving nation of all its own ; that 
 very nation will thereby likewise become the model, and saviour 
 nation of the "rest of mankind," by the double action, as well of its 
 power, as of its transcending example. Tor a nation which becomes 
 so divinely wise, as to aspire through all its citizens and agencies, and 
 with the whole immense power at its control, after consummate 
 24 
 
284 THE TEMPLE OF TRUTH. 
 
 perfection in all its men, things, and institutions ; thereby makes 
 itself: " The city that is set on a hill; hence the light of the world, 
 which can not be hid." Matt, v, 14. 
 
 20. Now, if ever there was a country, led " onward" by a " mani- 
 fest destiny," that country is America, — the States of this Union. 
 Hence " Young America" is ambitious, which is right and proper, 
 that it should be, as it feels itself "beaconed onward" by a grand 
 though as yet not clearly understood, destination. If now the 
 young giant, at one leap, clears all the inferior objects that court his 
 ambition, saying to them all : " I will none of you," but "my" and my 
 country's glory, shall simply consist in this, that all nations and 
 
 MEN, SHALL LOOK WITH JOY AND GRATITUDE UPON US :" then men 
 
 may prepare for beholding a spectacle upon earth, which to enjoy 
 even the immortals in superior mansions will feel eager. For then 
 we shall see a race gifted with great grasp of intellect, endowed with 
 a power of execution of rare elasticity and energy, in possession of 
 means, sufficient for all purposes, upon which they may resolve : 
 combine these and all their other forces, for the accomplishment of 
 the grandest, most glorious purpose, that ever expanded the bosom of na- 
 tion or man. a.) First, like the man, Luke xv, 4, they will wander 
 about among themselves, endeavoring to find and reclaim every 
 sheep that, in one way or other, has become lost. This will en- 
 kindle an affection and friendship between man and man, as that, 
 existing between the members of the most affectionate families. 
 Thereby every man, will feel it his duty to be "his brother's keeper," 
 guarding him against harm, poverty, misery, doing all to make him 
 prosperous, happy, joyous, wise, good, and perfect, and in brief, be 
 to him, in reality, a brother and friend, loving him, as his own self. 
 To do this the more effectually, will require the mastery over " the 
 science of, or leading to, perfection," which every man, as much as he 
 shall need thereof for his case, can acquire without any difficulty, 
 by simply surrendering himself to be taught by the, Comforter, 
 Holy Ghost or Spirit of Truth, for He will lead every man, who 
 seeks and desires the truth, into all truth. Johnxiv, 26. This opera- 
 tion of internal love toward all its own members, will cement every 
 private particle of humanity so firmly and closely to the body politic, 
 as to make it one unitary mass, in sentiment, feeling, and purpose, ' 
 in aspiration, striving, and action, b.) Next, having now in their 
 
MATERIALS, ETC., FOR FORMING A gAVIOUR NATION. 285 
 
 dealings with one another, firmly habituated themselves to act, 
 unswervingly by the principles of unbending honesty, honor, and rec- 
 titude, they will carry that habit, and in it the external form of tbeir 
 love of truth and man, into all their dealings with other nations 
 and the citizens or subjects thereof. They will by this, iu the first 
 instance, gain and secure the confidence of them all, which will ena- 
 ble them to maintain an increasing commercial intercourse with every 
 one, thereby disposing of the accumulating masses of stock resulting 
 from their steadily increasing productiveness, and thus necessarily 
 continue to grow in wealth and the means of power. 
 
 21. Meanwhile the combined^ozyer of the national intellect, sup- 
 ported by the boundless power of the nation's means, will be most 
 assiduously engaged, in working out the eternal science of heaven, in 
 all its national, humanitary, and cosmical features, embracing, with 
 all the known results of definite science, the whole ramifications of 
 mankind's knowledge, aspiration, aim, and destiny, into one grand 
 all-encircling system ; which, thus encycling all the truths now in 
 'possession of men, of whatever sort, will, therefore at once be readily 
 and joyously embraced by every thinking and searching intellect; 
 inasmuch as it presents all requisite tools, means, and materials to 
 institute and prosecute a regular process of progressing discovery in 
 every direction of the boundless sea of the yet unknown. At the 
 head of that system will stand, as a beacon, guiding every mariner 
 on life's ocean, rearing its eternal light-flashing cap to the throne 
 of God, that infinite, divine idea, which, heretofore, and until 
 now, did dimly and unconsciously, but henceforth shall clearly and 
 consciously, with ethereal fire inspire, enthuze, and expand the bosom 
 of all America, to- wit : " The realization of the ultimate 
 
 PERFECTION AND HAPPINESS OF ALL MANKIND," by and through 
 
 America, as the God-appointed saviour nation of the whole race. 
 a.) As every thing that has real being, discloses, in various degrees, 
 the triune divine attribute of absolute beauty, truth, and goodness, 
 which, when actively realized in any object, constitute its perfection, 
 from which happiness emanates as an effect ; the theory of the sys- 
 tem, will now have to point out and define, in what : 1.) Indi- 
 vidual, domestic, and social ; 2.) Political, national, and cosmical ; 
 3.) Physical, psychical, and intellectual ; and, 4.) iEsthetical, 
 ethical, and religious perfection and happiness respectively consist. 
 
286 THE TEMPLE OF TKUTH. 
 
 5.) Next come the practical application and introduction into 
 actual life of the system itself. This requires men wlio know 
 heaven, by having it livingly active in their bosom,, It consists in 
 knowledge, understanding, and wisdom, controlled by divine love 
 and goodness. As heaven is a universal principle, present latently or 
 actively, in some degree or other, in every bosom, he, who becomes 
 the inventor or discoverer of its ineffable wonders in his own breast, 
 thereby obtains the telescope to see and understand, what rejoicingly 
 or painingly passes and transpires in the hearts and souls of human 
 beings, and thereby the wisdom to teach all who are sincere, in a 
 brief time, the divine secret of godlike government of the same. 
 Teaching, is also learning, leading to greater and more perfect 
 insight. Now, where every step of a science proves itself, by the 
 most glorious and grateful sensations, to body, soul, and intellect 
 of man, that it is all an absolute keality, as the science of heaven, 
 as soon as practically applied, forever does : it is easy to perceive, 
 that its learners will quickly grasp it ; that they will multiply beyond 
 number and count ; that the conjoint action of the vast number, will 
 soon realize the boundless benefits and happiness for all; that, hence, 
 of actual opposition there can be none ; that all misery will speedily 
 vanish from their presence, and continue to do so, until universal 
 redemption and happiness have been achieved. As all these grand 
 achievements are, in reality, fruits of a system forming the educa- 
 tional method of eternity, it is proper to take a closer look at : 
 
 I. The effects of true education upon, and for, the individual man 
 himself. — The man whose forces of body, volition, and intellect, 
 have been duly developed and educated by proper training and 
 discipline, is a free, vigorous, healthy, and independent being ; who, 
 at all times, and everywhere, and with but little trouble is capable of 
 procuring for himself, the means of his own support. For, "in every 
 branch of labor, be it of whatever kind it may, he is expert, indus- 
 trious, persevering. In every situation and kind of employment, 
 he will, by his general expertness and all-conquering patience, soon 
 make himself at home. His habits and mode of life, being simple 
 and natural, render his body strong, and his health vigorous and 
 tough. His moral and amiable course of conduct will gain for him 
 the respect and attachment of his fellow-men, and will, wherever he 
 be, procure him a sphere of action. In the application of his means, 
 
MATERIALS, ETC., FOR FORMING A SAVIOUR NATION. 287 
 
 you will find him prudent, intelligent, wise. In situations of peril 
 and danger, he exhibits not only presence of mind, courage, and self- 
 possession, but you also see him armed with the faculties to save his 
 own, or the life of others, and to defend himself and them efficiently 
 against all manner of unforeseen aggressions. In trying positions he 
 will not fall a prey to despair ; for hope, and resolution, with resig- 
 nation, will keep him erect. In fortune as in misfortune you will 
 find him a man, respecting the dignity of human nature in all, and 
 never forgetting that as a man, he has sacred duties to perform to- 
 wards the whole human race. His industry, economy, and frugality, 
 with his many other qualifications and his knowledge, will, in the 
 end, not fail to procure him the means, enabling him to serve his 
 fellow-men in a thousand-fold manner, and thus become useful and a 
 benefactor to them, where otherwise he never might have been so. 
 And his warm, noble heart, glowing with the motives of virtue and 
 goodness, impels him incessantly to do good to men, even where and 
 when sometimes the purity of his motives and aims is not properly 
 appreciated or even misunderstood. For, it is neither gratitude nor 
 honor from men, that constitute the end and aim of his endeavors ; 
 his reward is greater, nearer, and more certain. He carries it within 
 his own bosom, from whence no storm can sweep it, and no outward 
 fate deprive him of it. In short, place such, man wherever you will, 
 and everywhere he will do honor to human nature, and by his own 
 actions command the respect of all men. Now let us examine : 
 
 II. The effects of a perfect education upon the family. — A man 
 educated in such manner, will be a dutiful and grateful son, a faithful 
 husband, and a providing, exemplary, and tender fatJier of a family. 
 His intelligence, knowledge, manners, and habits will gain and 
 secure him in a high degree, the esteem, the affection and confidence 
 of all around him. They will love him, imitate and emulate his 
 course, and cheerfully obey his word and counsel ; and in this obe- 
 dience contract the habit of obeying the laws of community when 
 entering themselves into active life. As the whole house knows, 
 and is convinced that such father designs the welfare of the whole 
 and every member in it, and, by his maturer experience and clearer 
 and greater knowledge is enabled to effect this object more securely 
 and certainly than any one of them ; they manifest their conviction 
 
288 THE TEMPLE OP TRUTH. 
 
 by a willing, cheerful, co-operating obedience. From this proceed 
 unity and harmony in all the movements of the whole family. 
 Thereby every labor, work, or enterprise proceeds with ease and 
 speed, and is blessed with result and success. For courage and cheer- 
 fulness render everz/ employment easy ; but morosity and aversion 
 make the easiest thing a burden. The sagacious prudence, economy, 
 and persevering industry of such head of the family, which impart 
 themselves to every member thereof, bring blessings and success 
 upon all their actions and doings ; and their united exertions, as 
 well in as out of the house, are ultimately crowned with wealth, 
 abundance, and independence. The children raised in such family 
 circle, appropriate to themselves the virtues and habits of their pa- 
 rents, and will, when becoming heads of families themselves, trans- 
 plant the acquired good qualities, in a similar manner, to their 
 own offspring. Every community consists of single families. Im- 
 agine to yourselves a whole state of families thus educated : a'nd 
 you have got the consummated and realized beau-ideal of the 
 terrestrial happiness of an entire nation, or whole people. Now, let 
 us cast a nearer glance at : 
 
 III. The effects of such education, thus made visible in the condition 
 of a state. — The man thus educated is a good, a useful, a patriotic 
 citizen. His example as well as his actions are beneficial to commu- 
 nity. And as every member of his family follows the illustrious 
 example of its head : every one of them is a positive benefit to the 
 commonwealth. As the man thus moving on upon the path of per- 
 fection, can only, with the love of his whole heart, embrace a 
 state and a Church that promote and lead to all-sided perfection : 
 he will everywhere endeavor to infuse his patriotic zeal for the 
 welfare of the whole, and the spreading of virtuous piety in every 
 bosom. Thus it is now self-evident, that the perfect individual, as 
 man and woman, is the first and indispensable condition to the per- 
 fect, prosperous, and happy family ; that, as society, community, a 
 people, nation, or state, as well as Church, being composed of a 
 given number of individuals and families, existing under one and 
 the same political or ecclesiastical organization : they can only be 
 perfect and happy, in proportion to the perfection and happiness exist- 
 ing in these its individual and domestic elements, and the capacity 
 
MATERIALS, ETC., FOR FORMING A SAVIOUR NATION. 289 
 
 inherent in such organization itself, for promoting the perpetual pro- 
 gress towards higher perfection and prosperity of the wliole state or 
 Church, and all its individual members. 
 
 22. Now, after the people of this Union, shall have determined 
 to form themselves into a saviour nation, and made good their claim 
 to this divine appellation, by the reconciliation and universal peace 
 introduced between all the individuals and families composing com- 
 munity, as also through the systemized perseverance by which 
 private, domestic, and national perfection and happiness are pursued : 
 what will be the natural sequel and inevitable consequence of that 
 highly hopeful state of things ? a.) As by the application of scientific 
 power and labor-saving machinery, guided and directed by a system 
 of science and art, more consummate than the world ever saw, the 
 productiveness of the country in every branch of useful industry, will 
 be enhanced to a degree beyond all calculation : there is here a 
 source of wealth and power literally without limits and end. The 
 extensive commercial intercourse with all nations on the globe, 
 thereby rendered necessary and lucrative, will offer constant oppor- 
 tunities, to show " America and the American character " to all these 
 people in their true and natural traits. Nor will there occasions 
 be lacking to befriend and serve these people both by the kind and 
 generous action of private individuals, as well as by those of public 
 agents, acting in the name, and on behalf of the whole nation. There- 
 by the whole world will soon intimately know, not only America's 
 great and tremendous power, but also become convinced, that the 
 young giant nation, with divine pride, disdains making any other than 
 the most just, beneficent and magnanimous uses of its formidable 
 capacities ; and that to keep on friendly terms with it and its citi- 
 zens, requires only to do what is right and just, b.) After America 
 shall thus, for a time, have been ivatched by the Argus eyes of a 
 whole world, and is, with wonder and admiration, discovered to be 
 perfectly faithful to her exalted character of a saviour nation, both in 
 her measures of internal and external policy ; the venerating surprise, 
 unlimited confidence, and affectionate enthusiasm, irresistibly seizing 
 all thinking nations of the earth in her favor, will be the occasion to 
 cause "annexation" to, or "admission" into, the powerful confeder- 
 ation of States, to become the ruling watchword of the day, tho 
 age, and the tvorld, until accomplished. For it is expressly prophe- 
 
290 THE TEMPLE OF TRUTH. 
 
 sied, by the highest authority known to man : "And there shall he 
 onefold and one Shepherd." John x, 16. It is likewise prophesied : 
 " They shall beat their swords into plowshares, and tlieir spears into 
 pruning hooks : nation sliall not lift up sword against nation, neither 
 shall they learn war any more" Isaiah ii, 4 ; Micah iv, 3. c.) Now, 
 by the arrival of the time above referred to, the world will have 
 become sufficiently wise to perceive and understand, that no sooner 
 has a nation obtained admittance as a co-or sister- State, into the 
 American Union, when both the above prophecies, respecting the 
 permanent relationship of these States among one another, have 
 become fulfilled to the very letter. For they then are all in one 
 mighty fold, under one self-chosen Shepherd, have retained all their at- 
 tributes of sovereignty, of any real use and value, and surrendered 
 only, among some unessential others, the pernicious and destruct- 
 ive one, of declaring war, and " secundem artem " (i. e. scientifically), 
 mutually destroying one another en masse. Hence every new State 
 annexed absolutely cuts off that proportionate amount of the possible 
 future chance for war ; and the final result of the process, rendered 
 eventually inevitable by the conjoint interests of men and nations, 
 will be first : ilie ultimate annexation of the whole globe, and thereby 
 the further impossibility of all and any war ; and, next : the reign- 
 ing of everlasting peace between all the private citizens of each 
 State and the world, and between all the then United States of 
 the whole earth. Then one vast chorus, chiming harmoniously, in 
 strains of gratitude, happiness, and joy, will forever ascend to 
 heaven, all around the globe, chanting enrapturedly : 
 
 By God's great power and uncreated hand, 
 
 Rose Love's and Freedom's temple on earth's happy land; 
 
 And may the Almighty guard its heavenly dome, 
 
 As long as sunbeams dance, and planets roam. 
 
 825 
 

 
 ^ V* 
 
 £°« 
 
 1 -a, .V s J^S* 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 1 r +p 
 
 & 
 
 ,0 c 
 
 Deacidified using the Bookkeeper process. 
 Neutralizing agent: Magnesium Oxide 
 Treatment Date: August 2004 
 
 PreservationTechnologies 
 
 A WORLD LEADER IN PAPER PRESERVATION 
 
 1 1 1 Thomson Park Drive 
 Cranberry Township, PA 16066 
 (724)779-2111 
 

 
 <• ' o , v * A 
 
 
 
 
 
LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 
 
 012 972 380 4 
 
 H 
 
 m 
 
 \t 
 
 HI 
 
 rtt 
 
 
 I 
 
 m