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AUTHOR: 
 
 SEWALL, FRANK 
 
 TITLE: 
 
 BEING AND EXISTENCE 
 
 PLACE: 
 
 NEW YORK 
 
 DA TE : 
 
 1909 
 
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 Sevvall, Frank, 1857-1915. 
 
 Beinc and existence; a philosophical dincuscion, 
 by Frank Gowall. Kew York, LIcGeorge, 1909. 
 
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 Being and Exigence 
 
 A Philosophical Discussion 
 
 By Frank Sewall 
 
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 Being and Exigence 
 
 A Philosophical Discussion 
 
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 BY 
 
 FRANK SEWALL 
 
 ■ 
 
 ■» \* 
 
 ^*s^ 
 
 ReifHnted fi-om THE NEW PHILOSOPHY 
 
 E- F. Stroh, Bryn Athyn, Pa^ 
 
 J. B. McGeorge, 3 W. 29th St., New York 
 
 1909 
 
 K'ir 
 
 ''n~.:r 
 
By the Same Author 
 
 fci 
 
 .(^ 
 
 k 
 
 Reason^ in Belief. — An examination into the rational and philosophic 
 contents of the Christian faith. London : Elliot Stock. 260 pp. 
 Price, I1.25. New York : J. B. McGeorge, 3 W. 29th St. 
 
 Swedenborg and Modem Idealism. — A retrospect of philosophy 
 from KanTto the present time. London : J. Spiers. New York 
 as above. Price, $1.25. 
 
 The New Metaphysics* — Or the Law of End, Cause and Effect. Lon- 
 don: J. Spiers. New York as above. Price, $1.25. 
 
 The Ethics of Service, — Or the Moral Law of Use. London: J. 
 Spiers. New York as above. Price, 25 cents, paper. 
 
 Dante and Swedenborg. — And Other Essays in the New Renaissance. 
 London : J. Spiers. New York as above. Price, $1.25. 
 
 ii 
 
Contents 
 
 ji ji 
 
 i. 
 
 I. 
 II. 
 III. 
 
 IV. 
 V. 
 VI. 
 
 VII. 
 
 VIII. 
 
 IX. 
 
 X. 
 
 XI. 
 
 XII. 
 
 XIII. 
 
 XIV. 
 
 Being ... 9 
 
 Existence ... 12 
 
 Trinal Monism 15 
 
 The Pragmatic Test ; or the World as We Know It 17 
 
 The First Evolution 21 
 
 God 23 
 
 Life and Love ... 25 
 
 Love is Substance 29 
 
 Wisdom the First Form 30 
 
 Divine Personality . 3^ 
 
 Omnipotence, Omnipresence^ Omniscience 33 
 
 What is Order? 33 
 
 The Knowledge of Opposites 34 
 
 "In Space Without Spa'ce" 3S 
 
Foreword 
 
 • 
 
 '• 
 
 In this series of papers it is my desire to examine phil- 
 osophically the questions relating to Being, to Existence, to 
 Creation, to Man and Man's Relation to Deity; to find in 
 what central truths the three planes of human thought, — 
 theology, philosophy, and science harmonize and are at one; 
 and so to arrive at a recognition of God as abiding in and 
 controlling, with the perfect and peaceful sway of infinite 
 Love, Wisdom, and Power, the whole sphere of our and of 
 all existence. 
 
 :0\ 
 
 f 
 
• V 
 
 Being and Exigence 
 
 A PhUosophical Discussion 
 
 I. BEING. 
 
 Attention is first called to the most fundamental of all ques- 
 tions — ^The Nature of Being: What is it, to Be? 
 
 I call this the most fundamental of all questions because Be- 
 ing constitutes the first knowledge of man and is that fact which 
 nobody can deny or without acknowledging which no thought 
 or reasoning whatever is possible. In order to reason at all 
 there must be a reasoner, therefore something is ; if only the 
 reasoner: but the process of our reason involves a variety of 
 things from which to reason and about which to reason ; there- 
 fore Being must comprise many things besides the reason. 
 As this is that universal knowledge with which all must start, 
 our first inquiry is therefore "What is Being: what is it, to 
 
 be r 
 
 It may seem to many, at first glance, that this question is 
 quite unnecessary since their idea of Being is a simple one, com- 
 mon to all minds alike; but a little reflection will show that 
 this is not the case. Being means to some minds what it does 
 not to others. A child may think there are no stars in the 
 heavens at mid-day because we cannot see them. A savage 
 might say that the earth w because he can tread on it and that 
 above the earth nothing is because there is nothing to tread 
 on; the early Ionic philosophers taught that all being was 
 originally some one of the physical elements ; later the Eleatic 
 school, that all being was mind and what was not mind was 
 not anything. So we see that Being itself must be defined and 
 must therefore be capable of some kind of analysis. Even if 
 we say that "To be" is a simple idea ; prior to the idea of be- 
 ing anything or nothing, of being this or that, the question will 
 still arise, what is it for a thing to he? Is it for instance to be 
 in intention, or in thought, or in fact? And if the latter 
 only, then what is meant by the statement, which no one can 
 
10 
 
 BEING AND EXISTENCE. 
 
 deny, that every work of man involving thought or desire 
 must have **been" in mind before it could have acquired any be- 
 ing in matter? 
 
 Now, when we talk of a thing s being we are not consider- 
 ing the simple idea of being but we qualify it by the idea of 
 the thing it is. Thus to the universal substance we give a 
 particular form and thus make a thing of it. To get at the 
 idea of being pure and simple, without even calling it sub- 
 stance, we must take away therefore all idea of form or of any 
 thing, or any possible object of thinking, as this or that. We 
 then have left the idea, or at least the name, Being. Is there 
 such a — we can not call it thing because it is not things we 
 are here trying to name, — but is there any real content to 
 this name — ^pure abstract Being? Surely "there is no other 
 name we can give it for that would be to qualify it — to make 
 it the being of some thing. But that there is such a reality 
 we are compelled to adrhit. Out of no Being no being could 
 come. Wle can not conceive of Being having a beginning or 
 having an end. As far as thought goes it goes ; and if thought 
 stops it still knows by intuition that Being reaches beyond. 
 Nameless, quantity-less, indefinable as this concept of Pure Be- 
 ing is, there are two things we therefore can assert of it be- 
 sides its self-necessary reality. And these are its infinity and 
 its eternity. 
 
 To this concept or primary reality Swedenborg therefore 
 gives the name the Esse and he says its sole attributes are 
 **the infinite" and ''the eternal." He also calls it the Ipsum, 
 or the essential self — but this is evidentlv in distinction, 
 from that which is not self and implies the idea of the other. 
 To the Esse, the pure Being, we therefore can attach only the 
 ideas of the infinite and the eternal. But even these ideas are, 
 in this connection, only negative terms and assert rather 
 our inability than our ability to attach any form or any idea to 
 simple Being. For in calling it infiinite we merely say that we 
 can give it no bounds in space ; and in calling it eternal, that 
 we can give it no bounds in time. 
 
 But the question now arises : is this pure Being, of which we 
 can form no idea, while we are convinced of its eternal reality, 
 all the Being there is? Is this the Being we are attempting 
 philosophically to analyze? 
 
 BEING AND EXISTENCE. 
 
 II 
 
 That it is riot is evident from the fact that there is Being 
 which we consciously perceive and which we can definitely 
 know and which we can see and touch. This also, although not 
 infinite and eternal, is nevertheless to be classed under the 
 term Being, and must come within the range of our inquiry as 
 to what Being is. When we proceed to examine Being, there- 
 fore, the word does not mean, mere Esse, mere pure Being 
 in the abstract of which we can only say that it is infinite and 
 eternal ; but it means "All that is.'' 
 
 Now the moment we begin to examine Being in the sense of' 
 "All that is" we leave the idea of abstract Being and take up, 
 instead, the idea of Existence ; and we find that in reality there 
 is no such thing as Being that does not exist. While we can 
 form perhaps a dim conception of such Being apart from our 
 conception of its particular form of existence, still we can not 
 conceive of even that pure Being as not existing. But existing 
 Being is the being that we know ; it is the "All that is ;" it is 
 the Being of which we form a part ; it is the Being in other 
 parts, In all the infinite variety of parts and kinds which we 
 know through our senses. We dare not say, therefore, that 
 we do not know Being or what Being is, since we do know 
 it in that existence which is everywhere manifest to us. 
 
 We are quite ready to agree with the Agnostic's idea that 
 of the pure Being, which we abstractly conceive of, the Esse 
 itself, we can know nothing, save to deny it any limit in time 
 or space. But, far from this being the ."All that is," this 
 imagined Being, if it were without existence would be mere 
 nothing, a pure fiction of the mind. Says Swedenborg: "An 
 Esse without a substance is a mere imaginary entity, substance 
 being a subsisting entity ; and whatever is a substance is like- 
 wise a form, for substance, too, without a form is a mere 
 imaginary entity." (T. C. R, 20.) Also "An Esse unless it 
 exist is nothing, and in like manner an existere is nothing un- 
 less it be derived from its esse. Wherefore granting one we 
 must grant the other." 
 
 However much then the Agnostic may deny his ability to 
 know a pure Being which does not exist, we say that with 
 that conception we have, whether in science or philosophy or 
 revelation, nothing to do. But neither can the Agnostic any 
 
/ 
 
 12 
 
 BEING AND EXISTENCE. 
 
 fe' 
 
 more than ourselves deny that all Being that is, does exist, and 
 that therefore it has form and must come more or less within 
 the range of our ability to know; since the existing world is 
 that of which we form a conscious part and of which we are 
 conscious and intelligent observers. 
 
 Taking then the existing world, the "All that is," as the ob- 
 ject of our philosophic study, we cannot, (even as Agnostics), 
 say that we know nothing of its inmost reality until we can 
 say that pure Being or this inmost reality does not manifest 
 itself in this its own existence. If existence is the existing 
 of that which is, then in knowing existence we must know in 
 some manner or degree that which is, or the inmost reality. 
 
 II. EXISTENCE. 
 
 Taking then the word Being in the practical sense of the 
 Existing, of the ''All that is," and thus stepping out upon the 
 plane of a real world of knowledge and not of imaginary 
 entities which practically are nothing, we find that this Being, 
 this ''All that is" — far from being^beyond analysis or definition 
 — defines itself with absolute unerring accuracy to every mind 
 that gives a little careful thought to any simple object of its 
 knowledge. For we find that in the very existence of anything 
 there is necessarily involved three entirely discrete degrees of 
 Being, and that to know Being is at the same time to know 
 these three degrees. 
 
 The existence of anything which can be an object of our 
 knowledge involves in itself : I. the End or purpose from which 
 it ever came to be ; II. the Cause, or the manner how it came 
 to be ; and finally III. the Effect, or the thing itself as it is. 
 Whether we take the world as a whole, or any least part of it, 
 we find there is this involution in it of these three degrees of be- 
 ing: the end, the cause and the effect. If we take the "All that 
 is" as the existence we are to study, we find, by the very 
 necessary laws of our thinking, involved in it these three de- 
 grees of Being : the end or the Why of its existence, the cause 
 or the How of its existence, the effect or the What of its ex- 
 istence. Nay, if we ascend to God, the supreme object of all 
 contemplation and all knowledge — and regard Him not as 
 an abstract nothing, but as an existing God — ^we then must 
 
 i 
 
 } 
 
 BEING AND EXISTENCE. 
 
 13 
 
 know Him in His own infinite but self-derived degrees — 
 namely God in that which is His own end or purpose of being ; 
 God in His own manner or Laws of existence, and God in His 
 own Proceeding or outstanding effects. 
 
 I have said that these three degrees are involved one within 
 the other. Thus that the end is in the cause, and that the end 
 and the cause of anything are in the effect or the thing itself. 
 Thus : 
 
 Illustration A. 
 
 In speech : in every sentence spoken, that is, in any speech as 
 an effect, there is the thought which shaped and articulated 
 it, which is its cause; and there is the affection or desire 
 which prompted it, which is its end. Thus in the sentence 
 spoken there are involved the three planes of its existence; 
 the affection is in the thought, and the affection and the 
 thought are in the words as uttered and as producing an actual 
 material effect on the air. Such being the involution of being 
 in the sentence or in the effect, the evolution of being will 
 be the extraction of the meaning of the sentence from the 
 words spoken — which we may call the study of the cause, or 
 the manner how of the sentence; and then the extraction of 
 the feeling or the purpose that lay behind the meaning, which 
 we may call the study of the end {Endzweck), the motive or 
 "reason why" of the utterance. 
 
 Illustration B. 
 
 If we pick up a pebble from the pathway, the same trinity, 
 eternal and divine, lies involved in its existence as in the na- 
 ture of man, or as in the whole existing world. The pebble as 
 we feel and see it is effect; but the effect never 
 would have been but for a cause, and that cause 
 never would have been but for an end or purpose 
 that prompted it. The evolution of the real being 
 of the pebble is the unfolding of a cause within the out- 
 ward material shape and the unfolding of an end or destined 
 use within the cause. For just as truly as there can be no ef- 
 fect without a cause, as truly can there be no cause without an 
 end or purpose that brought it about. Therefore the end itself 
 
 y 
 
M 
 
 BEING AND EXISTENCE. 
 
 may also be and is sometimes called the First or Final cause 
 (from Finis, the end) in distinction from the intermediate de- 
 gree between end and effect which we then may designate as 
 the instrumental or efficient cause, being that by which the end 
 proceeds to its effect. 
 
 Inasmuch therefore as the existence of everything that is 
 involves these three degrees of Being, effect, cause and end, 
 the knowledge of anything, to be a true or complete knowledge, 
 must embrace the knowledge of : I. its ultimate form as effect ; 
 II. of its existence as cause ; and III, of its being as end. Any- 
 thing short of this cannot be called a complete knowledge of 
 anything, much less a philosophy. 
 
 To know a thing philosophically we must be able to answer 
 the three questions about it: Why? How? What? From 
 what end or purpose does it have its being: by what law or 
 cause does it derive its special existence? What has this end, 
 by means of the cause, produced in effect? To answer these 
 questions when asked regarding the "All that is" is the aim 
 of a true philosophy. 
 
 It will be seen readily that to study existence from Being 
 only, and so as end only or as an abstraction — would be no 
 philosophy: no more is it a true science or knowing to study 
 existence as mere effect. The only complete knowledge is a 
 knowledge of effects from their causes and of causes from 
 their ends. The only true knowledge of the world or of ex- 
 istence is therefore the knowledge of the plane of effect from 
 the plane of cause and the plane of cause from that of end. 
 
 Science is therefore entirely justified in limiting the range 
 of its investigation to the plane of effect or what it calls the 
 "facts" of sensuous experience, and so in making the world 
 of time and space the whole world of its handling and report- 
 ing. The only error would be in claiming that such a knowl- 
 edge is the complete knowledge of the world, and that the all 
 of Being contains nothing intelligible beyond the reach ^of this 
 kind of investigation. Again science is quite right in saying, 
 as Aristotle taught regarding Plato's ideas, that a world of 
 ideas not embodied in existing things would be only an idle 
 and useless world ; and that therefore the place to study ideas 
 is in the existent phenomenal world. But this is quite differ- 
 
 BEING AND EXISTENCE. 
 
 15 
 
 ent from denying the reality of ideas and causes as constituting 
 a degree of being discrete from that of the effect, although 
 residing within the plane of effect, like the watch spring be- 
 hind the movement of the hands upon the face. 
 
 III. TRINAL MONISM. 
 
 Having glanced briefly at what is involved in the idea of Be- 
 ing, as an object of thought, it will be profitable here to con- 
 sider briefly another fundamental concept — which is prac- 
 tically the same but at the present day is discussed under an- 
 other name, namely, the Nature of the One. What is Mon- 
 ism? If all is reduceable to a One, what is that One? Is it 
 material? Is it spiritual? Is it without quality whatever? 
 Is it something or nothing? If something — how are we to 
 conceive of it? 
 
 THE NATURE OF THE ONE. 
 
 The most mischievous error in the conception of the One 
 is that this primal principal of universality, unity and har- 
 mony from which, or in which, all things have their real being 
 is an Absolute. For it is clear that there is, or can be, no ab- 
 solute One — whether as considered numerically or in- 
 trinsically. For the Absolute means the unrelated; but One 
 as the first of a series is certainly related to all that follows 
 and has no numerical meaning whatever except as related to a 
 series. 
 
 If, on the other hand, we try to think of One not as first of 
 a series but as all absolutely, then there is nothing to make 
 it one, nothing to distinguish it from the simple nothingness 
 of the unthought. So if we discuss the One at all, we must 
 first begin by distinguishing it — by conceiving it as an object 
 of thought : and this, of course, renders it no longer an ab- 
 solute. 
 
 One, intrinsically regarded, then, is not absolute. For if 
 we regard it even most abstractly as Being, or, as the whole 
 of being, it is related to the not-being, and, as a whole, is 
 related to its parts ; and in analyzing Being, in order to dis- 
 tinguish it from nothing, we have had to give it qualities, that 
 
 / 
 
i6 
 
 BEING AND EXISTENCE. 
 
 is, to make it something — or the being of something rather 
 than the being of nothing. This being of something, there- 
 fore, has a nature — however abhorrent this idea may be to 
 the devotee of pure Absohitism. The Absohite, if you please 
 to call it so, the Primal One — Pure Being — has a nature, a 
 nahira, that is a becoming something. While it forever 
 is, it is also forever being born ; and it is born in becoming 
 something — or from a state of simple being becoming an ex- 
 istence. While at first, considered as pure Esse, it has no 
 conceivable attributes except those of infinity and eternity, 
 which are simply the absence of finition or qualification — it is 
 in existence that Being acquires essentials capable of being 
 defined or thought of. Therefore, the stage by which pure 
 Being exists, or becomes the Being of Something is a stage 
 of definition. Swedenborg designates as the first "Finite" 
 that which is distinctly conceived and born of the Infinite in 
 the making of a world. [See Principia: Ch. II. On the In- 
 Unite: Ch. I.] The quality of that first motion in the Infinite, 
 w^hich is the "point" or "first simple," is its quality of 
 "finiting," that is, of defining. (See Summary of Principia: 
 II :20.) Thus it is by definition that things become and defini- 
 tion is a purely mental act. Things do not define themselves. 
 It is by definition that things or something exists out of Be- 
 ing; or it is by definition that Being is bom (tiatum) into 
 existence and that nature (natura) is: just as it is by the Word 
 that all things were made ; and it is by definition that the One 
 becomes an existing reality to our thought. But the nature of 
 the Infinite and Eternal One must be that which it has by 
 virtue of its own being and from no other source or cause. 
 It must be a nature w^hich is intrinsic to the being and be- 
 coming of any thing as such. 
 
 In examining into this nature of the One, as necessary and 
 intrinsic, we found in our discussion in the last chapter, that 
 this nature is trinal, in that it involves the three elements of 
 what it is, how it is, and why it is. In other words, reduced 
 to a formula the nature of every thing that is, involves the 
 three principles, the End from which : the Cause by which : and 
 the Effect in which the thing exists. No thing or class of 
 things not even the infinite One exists, except as something 
 
 BEING AND EXISTENCE. 
 
 17 
 
 distinguishable from other things — the Infinite as distinguish- 
 9,ble from the things contained in itself. "God is infinite," 
 says Swedenborg, "and he is called infinite because he has these 
 infinite things in himself; quia infinita in se hahet." This 
 distinguishing element of a nature or of a thing is its form; 
 and, therefore, we may call the form, the cause of a thing be- 
 cause it is what makes it be what it is and not something 
 else. But behind this form or instrumental cause, causa ef- 
 Hciens, each thing must have an originating end or final cause, 
 causa iinalis, a purpose or first motion which conceived the 
 form or the mode of causing and bringing forth the effect. 
 
 In the Infinite itself this first cause is the real causa sui, the 
 Cause of Itself, in being the End which takes form in the 
 efficient causes — as Love takes form in Wisdom, — and by 
 these proceeds to actualize itself in effects. But the 
 principle is true of animate and inanimate things alike; of 
 things finite or of the Infinite. A thing is what it is because 
 of its cause, and its cause is shaped by the end which lies 
 behind or within it, and both end and cause reside within the 
 effect as in their ultimate. In the Infinite, the end is self- 
 moved or self-originated — and the cause is self-caused as 
 having that first end in it. 
 
 In finite things, the ends and causes are secondary, oj^rat- 
 ing from the essential End and Cause in the Infinite. 
 
 Thus the End, Cause and Effect, pervade each and every 
 thing of the universe and embrace all being in their system 
 of trinal Monism. 
 
 IV. THE PRAGMATIC TEST; OR THE WORLD AS 
 
 WE KNOW IT. 
 
 From this theoretical statement of the nature of the One 
 if we proceed now to apply this principle to the world as we 
 know it, our problem reduces itself simply to seeking in crea- 
 tion as an effect the inner planes of cause and of end. 
 
 To say that there is no end, and that there is no cause, and 
 that all is effect, is both -a contradiction of terms and a viola- 
 tion of the principles of all science. For, first, if the effect 
 exist, there must be a cause, since there can be no effect with- 
 out cause ; and, secondly, that which we know as the objective 
 
i8 
 
 BEING AND EXISTENCE. 
 
 world or as matter is effect, since it is in itself void of every 
 thing which is causative or can account for its own being. 
 Moreover, science is correctly defined as a knowledge of 
 facts in their relations to law. The facts themselves are not 
 the law; the facts are what the senses perceive. The law is 
 what the intellect deduces or comprehends. One apple falling 
 from a tree does not make a law of gravitation ; but neither do 
 a thousand apples falling make such a law any more than one. 
 Each apple falling is simply a fact by itself, having, as a ma- 
 terial phenomenon, no power to make or cause others to fall. 
 The law of gravitation is something which the ynind perceives 
 as a "way how" nature is made to act, and, as it is the mind 
 and not the senses that perceives this zvay how, as "law," 
 therefore we may hold that the law exists in that which is 
 not nature, but is in nature as cause is in its eflFect, or as the 
 mind is in the body. 
 
 Unless matter makes itself and moves itself, therefore, we 
 must look somewhere else than to matter for that which is 
 the cause of matter and of physical locomotion. 
 
 And this brings us to the recognition of that second law 
 of the degrees of being, viz. : that besides being three in num- 
 ber,— end, cause, and eflFect,— these are entirely distinct, one 
 from another, and can by no means be confused, merged one 
 into the other, or substituted one for the other. In the in- 
 finitely many series of such units of end, cause and eflFect, 
 embraced in the whole range of existence from God down to 
 matter, that which is eflFect in one series may serve often as 
 end in another. An impression received in my mind as eflFect 
 may be the end or originating cause of my eflFort to produce 
 the sartie or a diflFerent eflFect in another ; but in the same series 
 the end must be end and never cause or eflFect, although in 
 these; the cause must be always cause and never eflFlct, al- 
 though in the eflFect; and the eflFect must remain ever eflFect 
 and only eflFect, although in this eflFect reside both the end 
 and the cause. Moreover the cause, although not the end, 
 yet derives all its existence from the end; and the eflFect, 
 though not the cause or the end, yet derives all its actuality 
 from the reason why, and the manner how of its being. For if 
 
 BEING AND EXISTENCE. 
 
 19 
 
 r> 
 
 '9 
 
 I 
 
 there was no purpose of its being and no manner of its he- 
 coming, it simply would never have existed. 
 
 Does some one say — but here is an elementary atom ; it simply 
 is ; there was no purpose for making it, and no manner or law of 
 making it ? But science to-day has stepped far beyond the stage 
 of being satisfied with the "simply is" of knowledge. Least of 
 all is it satisfied, as the restless search of its laboratories testifies, 
 with the name of an ultimate atom or indivisible unit of mat- 
 ter so long as behind the name are playing all sorts of multi- 
 tudinous forces and essences. Whatever name be given to 
 this ultimate " basic unit of the physical universe, whether 
 atom or electron or ion or vortex or energic, how can one 
 call that a simple which is the complex of innumerable effects 
 involved in its production, and which contains in itself 
 potentialities which only the minds of countless generations will 
 be able to discover and put to use. In other words, no atom 
 is so simple as not to have its Why and its How ; and the 
 how and the why of its being are, with its actual existence, the 
 discrete degrees that together constitute it an atom. 
 
 Illustration C. 
 
 In relation to this search of science for an ultimate per- 
 manent reality in matter the following extracts from an 
 article by B. Latour, in the Cosmos (Paris) of November 2, 
 1907, are of interest, especially to the student of Swedenborg's 
 Principia with its distinctly stated theory of the successive 
 degrees of atmospheres and their respective forces and func- 
 tions, viz., the atmospheric air, the ether, and the aura : 
 
 "Not long since," says Mr. Latour, "matter — the chemical 
 atom — appeared as a somewhat complicated structure, of 
 variable form according to the chemical elements under con- 
 sideration — the carbon atom was different from that of hydro- 
 gen, that of gold, etc. ; and these structural differences of the 
 atomic elements corresponded to differences in their physical 
 and chemical properties. Side by side with matter, all phy- 
 sicists agreed in recognizing the existence of a medium hav- 
 ing special properties — the ether — in which ordinary matter 
 is plunged. This etheric medium is indispensable to explain 
 
 / 
 
20 
 
 BEING AND EXISTENCE. 
 
 the propagation of the vibratory movements that constitute 
 Hght, radiant heat, and electric waves. Matter and ether 
 were supposed to be indissolubly linked together, and mutually 
 interpenetrable, but while they entered in common into divers 
 physical phenomena, their natures remained completely dis- 
 tinct and they seemed irreducible, the one to the other. 
 
 "To-day the position of science is changed — another step 
 has been made toward unity. Matter and ether are no longer 
 two distinct constituents of things, and, paradoxical as it may 
 seem, matter has given place to ether. Matter, which for the 
 purpose of our common and gross experimentation, appears 
 to be in some sort the sole fundamental physical reality, is 
 now only a modification of the ether. Regarding the nature 
 of the ether, on the other hand, there continues to be deep 
 mystery, and even its more important and primordial prop- 
 erties are the subject of discussion among scientific men, some 
 attributing to it extreme tenuity, others regarding it as the 
 densest of all known substances." * * 
 
 "Modern physicists having gone still further in the path 
 of unification ; they tend to consider the .electron itself as a 
 local modification or deformation of the ether. ... On 
 this theory the forces that manifest themselves between elec- 
 trons are attributed to a sort of elasticity in the ether, of which 
 their very existence is a proof 
 
 "Thus, owing to this last hypothesis of the constitution of 
 the electron, the ether, that was devised to explain certain 
 phenomena of heat, light, and electricity, becomes in addition 
 the unifying element in molecular and electromagnetic 
 theories. So, also, in all the phenomena of the physical world 
 we meet electrons 
 
 "When the electrons are in motion, we have an electric cur- 
 rent. There are certain free electrons that move from atom 
 to atom ; this is the case of a current in the interior of a metal- 
 lic conductor, and self-induction, that important phenomenon 
 that appears at every alteration of current, is nothing but the 
 electromagnetic inertia of the electrons. In electrolysis, or 
 chemical decomposition by electricity, we have a different 
 kind of current, due to the movement of the ions into which 
 
 BEING AND EXISTENCE. 
 
 21 
 
 i 
 
 > 
 
 the substance is decomposed. An ion, on the new theory, is 
 a chemical atom or group of atoms having electrons in excess 
 (in which case it is electrically negative) or in deficiency 
 (when it is positive). These electrified particles are set in 
 motion in an electric field, and move toward the electrodes 
 plunged in the fluid to be decomposed. 
 
 "When the electrons vibrate, they generate in the surround- 
 ing ether electromagnetic waves, which include those of light 
 and radiant heat. If an electron is suddenly arrested in its 
 movement, there is an electric shock that travels through the 
 ether like an explosive wave through air; this gives rise to 
 the X-rays." 
 
 And the writer concludes with the admirable and, it would 
 seem, only rational accounting for so wonderful an evolution of 
 media and forces, namely, in a divine disposition or manner- 
 how in their very coming into existence. 
 
 "In this bold and triumphant flight of science toward a 
 larger and more comprehensive synthesis, we may detect a 
 homage — perhaps too unconscious — to the unity of divine 
 truth and to the simplicity of that eternal wisdom which, at 
 the basis of the created universe, has disposed all things 
 regularly, in number, weight, and measure." — Translation 
 made for The Literary Digest. 
 
 V. THE FIRST EVOLUTION. 
 
 We have in our study of Pure Being or the Esse seen that 
 there are but two attributes which can be assigned to it and 
 these in their negative sense only, namely, infinity and eternity ; 
 in naming which we merely confess our inability to assign any 
 bound to Being either in time or in space. In other words we 
 confess our inability to define it. And this is also the claim 
 of the Agnostics. But the new philosophy says what the Ag- 
 nostics must also admit on candid reflection, that pure Being 
 or Esse must have its existence ; that all being must exist ; and 
 that when being becomes existence then it assumes a how or 
 manner of being; it becomes a something ; it has qualities ; 
 form : knowable properties. Through this existence of Being 
 only do we know that there is Being. The attributes eternal 
 
 \ 
 
a 
 
 22 
 
 BEING AND EXISTENCE. 
 
 and infinite as applied to Esse are empty negatives. If we try 
 to think of them the brain swoons. To think the eternal or 
 the endless merely as negatives is like trying to breathe in a 
 vacuum. It strangles thought. Whereas these very attributes 
 when transferred into the reasonable degree of the Existere 
 become no longer negations but thinkable attributes. The 
 eternal now means the embracing of all times without being, 
 itself, of time, or qualified by time ; and the infinite means, con- 
 taining infinite, that is, all things in itself. 
 
 *'Deus infinitus est"— says Swedenborg, ''quia infinita in*se 
 habet. — " So in proceeding from the Esse to the Existere of 
 Being we proceed from the unthinkable to the thinkable. The 
 Being as Esse is the fundamental of sense, of our feeling of a 
 thing: the existence is the fundamental of our thought about 
 the thing. We feci a thing to be ; we think of a thing's exist- 
 ence in thinking of its qualities. We feel that whatever is, is : 
 but we do not know zi^hat the thing is until it exists. We know 
 the quality of Being only when it becomes the Being of some- 
 thing. ^ 
 
 The first evolution is therefore from a feeling to a thought: 
 from our feeling of that which is, to a thought of idiat that 
 is, which is. 
 
 In this we step therefore not from the definite to the indefi- 
 nite but the reverse. It is from the unknowable to the know- 
 able or the thinkable that we step in coming to our conception 
 of God. For God in human conception is not an absolute, but 
 rather, is Being which exists under certain definite knowable 
 •qualities. It is also God alone who makes Being from being 
 no thing to being some thing, to h^ve form, to be visible to our 
 thought, and thus intelligible. Instead of being the Unknow- 
 able, God is therefore essentially the first Knowable evolution 
 and manifestation of Being. For God is not only the first 
 substance, but also the first Form. In God the first Esse be- 
 comes the first Existere, the first End becomes the First Cause : 
 the first Motive becomes the first Law. God from unknowable 
 Esse becomes knowable intelligible Existence. 
 
 , 
 
 •-ILO 
 
 •i M 
 
 <» 
 
 f 
 
 BEING AND EXISTENCE. 
 
 VI. GOD. 
 
 23 
 
 From the doctrine of the Esse we proceed therefore to that 
 of the Existere. From Being to the being a somewhat, — to 
 having qualities. The Being with qualities — or Being as a 
 conceivable and knowable somewhat is God. From the con- 
 sideration of pure or abstract Being we come to the study of 
 God. 
 
 We are not to conceive of God as therefore secondary to Be- 
 ing or derivable from Being; but rather that the underived, 
 the self-existent Being becomes of necessity itself the know- 
 able God, or, that the Esse necessarily exists. It is the same 
 as with substance and form, or as end with cause, while sub- 
 stance may be conceived of and named, in the abstract, without 
 form, that is under the only two, and these negative attributes, 
 of infinity and eternity. The substance in becoming anything 
 makes the concept of its form just as necessary to us as the 
 concept of the substance itself. The thing conceived of is 
 therefore substance and form, and cannot be otherwise. 
 
 So is God at once Esse and Existere ; we are compelled by the 
 very necessity of our thinking or as preliminary to any thought 
 to admit the infinite and eternal Being or Esse ; but the moment 
 we form that esse with qualities it exists, and that existence of 
 the esse is God as object of our thought. God is therefore not 
 to be thought of as existence derived from prior Being, even 
 though we have to think consecutively: but God is in reality, 
 i. e., independent of our thought the eternally Existing Esse. 
 
 So in the discrete degrees end, cause and efifect, end may be 
 conceived of as an abstraction but it does not exist as such;, 
 for an end, to be an end, must be the "End in View," must 
 look to some effect and this through some means or cause. 
 Thus, when existing or when actual, it is end causing effect. 
 The cause is not derived from the end as something remote 
 but it is the end causing. In the same manner God is the Esse 
 existing. 
 
 But why must Esse exist, or why must Being thus be some- 
 thing ; or what is the same thing, why must there be a God ? 
 We have seen that we know that being is, or that the con- 
 
 ^ 
 
\ 
 
 24 
 
 BEING AND EXISTENCE. 
 
 BEING AND EXISTENCE. 
 
 25 
 
 cept of infinite eternal Being is fundamental to ot^r thinking 
 or knowing any thing. But besides this universal, fundamental 
 concept we also know things as being, — the finite, visible and 
 tangible objects of our senses. For instance: We not only 
 know by consciousness or inmost perception that there is and 
 always was and will be Being to which we can set no bounds, 
 but we also know through our senses the particular, the bound- 
 ed things that are. Now these particular things that are, are 
 or exist because of their possessing some thing of that original 
 and boundless being: For they either i. derive thence their be- 
 ing ; or II., they have sprung out of nothing ; or in., finally they 
 are themselves eternal and self originating. 
 
 Now we cannot admit either of the two latter assertions, 
 and we are thus compelled by our very knowledge of particular 
 things to admit some universal Being which is Being in itself, 
 and self existent. The admission of universal Being is as 
 necessary as the admission of particular things. Our knowl- 
 edge or our power, to know, demands them both. 
 
 We have thus before us the imiversal Being, the all that is, 
 in two discrete degrees which are undeniable. We have found 
 ourselves compelled to admit on the one hand universal, un- 
 created, primal Being, or the Being conceived of in the relation 
 of origin and end of all else : and we have on the other hand 
 this ''all else' or this Being on the plane of eflfects or of particu- 
 lar finite things. 
 
 , Now if there were no finite things, no particular beings, then 
 the original Being or Esse might be regarded as abiding in it- 
 self, without conceivable form, as neither moving nor giving 
 motion, and so as neither desiring, causing, creating nor pro- 
 ceeding. But we know that particular finite and created things 
 do exist : we know that Being is not merely end, if that were 
 possible now that the Esse assumes the relation of cause to an 
 eflFect, Our knowledge, too, of being as eflFect, or of being as 
 created, necessitates an admission of Being as Creator. 
 
 It is now that pure Being or the Esse assumes a relation to 
 that which is outside of itself, or to the being as finite. It is 
 now^ that the Esse assumes the relation of cause to an eflfect 
 of creator to a created. As such it of necessity— ^.r-uf.y, 1. e., 
 stands forth or out of itself. The existence of the Esse ; or 
 
 r 
 
 the standing forth of pure Being into a Being with qualities, 
 is thus necessarily implied in our knowledge of particular 
 things. Unless we deny that particular things exist we must 
 admit that the pure esse ex-ists, as it is alone in the ex-istence 
 of the pure esse that particular things could come to have any 
 being at all. The origin of all finite things is therefore in the 
 existence of the infinite and eternal ESSE. 
 
 But in this existing or standing forth, the esse, as I have 
 said, becomes qualified; from Being universal or pure Esse it 
 becomes a somewhat, a Being with qualities. Now what are 
 these qualities ? What are the necessary attributes of necessary 
 existence — those qualities without which esse could never 
 stand forth and assume the relation of end to cause and effect, 
 or of creator to created ? 
 
 There must be some self -prompting or self -moving force in 
 the pure esse itself : something by virtue of which an other than 
 self is created for the very purpose that the pure Esse may as- 
 sume relation to that which is not self, may therefore exist. 
 
 This impelling force in the esse or this all moving and all 
 begetting substance is, regarded in itself Life, or, regarded in 
 its relation to others, Love. 
 
 VII. LIFE AND LOVE. 
 Life is the only name we can give to Being when we regard 
 
 « 
 
 it as self moving, as self created, simply : but when we regard 
 it as the primal end, the first cause of finite being, the creator 
 of the created, then we can give it only the name of this eternal 
 motion, this eternal desire, this seeking the other than it- 
 self, — Love. 
 
 Swedenborg says that all men know that life is but they 
 do not know ivhat life is, namely, that it is love! Precisely 
 as the Agnostics may say that ''pure Being eternal and 
 infinite is, but we do not know what it is ;" or that "there 
 is a universal life and a source of life to finite being but we do 
 not know what that life is." But let them consider what alone 
 that life, that self-moved and moving substance must be, which 
 can cause other things to be, or make Being to exist, or can ac- 
 count for there being things over against the original pure 
 
./ 
 
 26 
 
 BEING AND EXISTENCE. 
 
 Being;— and they will see that no other name belongs to it 
 but that of love. Science, as well as philosophy, seeks the First 
 Mover inasmuch as the distinctive quality of matter or all 
 created substance is its vis inerticE or its inability to move it- 
 self, even though it be constantly and wholly in motion, /. c, 
 moved. 
 
 Matter might almost be defined as that order of being which 
 is incapable of self-motion and can only be moved. But by 
 this definition we would by no means imply that matter is not 
 everywhere in motion. Rather we would say with modern 
 science that matter everywhere exhibits motion the more in- 
 teriorly it is examined ; so that the searcher after the original 
 atom is almost brought, with the late Lord Kelvin in one stage 
 of his inquiry, to define matter in its primitive state as a form 
 of motion in a frictionless space, a definition recalling Sweden- 
 borg's term— ''a mode of motion in the infinite.'* Since motion 
 exists and matter cannot originate it, its origin must be sought 
 in a cause which is before or above matter. There is a common 
 agreement to call this moving cause a force; but this force 
 must be self originating ; and there is no conceivable self-origi- 
 nating force but that of volition— the will acting. The will 
 acting is what Swedenborg calls love and this he names the 
 real substance, the real life, the real first Mover, before which 
 nothing was and without which nothing could have come into 
 existence. 
 
 I have said that pure Esse when qualified exists or stands 
 forth with qualities : and that pure Being now stands forth' or 
 exists in the quality of love, love as the prime substance, force, 
 motion of all things and therefore as the life. It would seem 
 as if love were therefore an attribute or a quality of being 
 rather than the being, the first substance itself. This has been 
 a common conception with philosophers and theologians here- 
 tofore. Notwithstanding the Scriptural declaration that "God 
 is love," the theologians have clung to an idea that God is a 
 Being that loves but that nevertheless has a kind of funda- 
 mental being apart from and independent of the love. In the 
 same way instead of holding that God is life they have con- 
 ceived of God as substance having life as an attribute. Di- 
 
 ' 
 
 -«»V4 
 
 .r> 
 
 BEING AND EXISTENCE. 
 
 27 
 
 rectly contrary is the conception of the new philosophy, that 
 the first substance — the Esse as existing — is love itself, is life 
 itself. If these are qualities or attributes of pure being take 
 them away and there is no being left. There was never infinite 
 Being that was not living being; there was never infinite Be- 
 ing that was not loving Being. The love and the life are in 
 reality identical with the Being although in our minds 
 and in our speech we may treat of Being as abstracted from 
 both. Swedenborg, thus in T. C. R., No. 36, distinguishes be- 
 tween the Esse of God and his Essence. *'We have made a 
 distinction between the esse of God and his essence by reason 
 of the distinction between the Infinity of God and his love ; 
 infinity being a term applicable to the esse of God and love to 
 his essence ; for the esse of God is more universal than his es- 
 sence and the infinity of God is more universal than his love; 
 therefore we add the adjective or term 'infinite' to the essen- 
 tials or attributes of God which are called 'infinite' — as we 
 say of the Divine Love that 'it is infinite,' not that the esse of 
 God is pre-existent to his essence hut because it enters into the 
 essence as into something adjoined, cohering zcith determining, 
 forming, and at the same time exalting it:" non quod Esse 
 Dei praeexistat, sed quia ingreditur Essentiaiii ut adjunct- 
 ivum cohaerens, determinans, formans et simul elevans. 
 
 From which we learn that the infinite is more universal than 
 the essence love, only in the sense that the adjective as a term 
 is more universal than the substantive classified by it. Red is 
 a more universal term than flower and yet we define or limit 
 flower when we say a red flower. The term red "determines" 
 and so forms the substantive flower. So infinite, a term ap- 
 plicable to the esse of God, determines and forms or gives 
 universality to love as the essence of God. But love we see to 
 be that substance which is infinite. 
 
 The eflFort to get behind the idea of love as the first sub- 
 stance is like that to arrive at some thing prior to life itself, 
 prior to force, prior to volition or that which alone moves it- 
 self. The scientists have stopped at Force as the ultimate con- 
 ception of the all-originating source. When they say — "Give 
 us Force and Matter" it is evident thev mean — "Give us the 
 
J\ 
 
 28 
 
 BEING AND EXISTENCE. 
 
 mover and the things moved and we have the Universe." "L' 
 atom et la Force — Voila V univers ;" (Saigey in La Physique 
 Moderne). In resolving the atom to its elementary substance 
 there is no limit to its conceivable divisibility so that there is 
 no appreciable fixed bulk of stuff constituting the ground of 
 matter. We use the atomic symbol to express such but we 
 cannot reach it in fact. The ultimate source of matter would 
 seem to resolve itself into the mathematical point, or that 
 which according to its definition has neither length, breadth nor 
 thicknes, but which by its mation evolves or creates the line, 
 the line by revolution the surface, the surface by revolution the 
 sphere, etc. Thus the origin of the conception of space-filling 
 mattef seems to be found in force or that which produces 
 motion. Now there is but one self-originating force conceiv- 
 able, namely, that of volition. Hence it seems a clearly scien- 
 tific deduction that love as the originating volition is the primary 
 substance. The moving force of love as the prime substance 
 is instinctively admitted in the phrases which speak of man's 
 acting from, or being "impelled," by this or that "motive;'* 
 meaning an action of the zcill; as also by our naming these 
 love- or volition-beats, "emotions" and "impulses." That 
 which moves and sets in motion is love, and love is life ; and as 
 the life must precede in our conception the thing that is ani- 
 mated or made to live, and as the mover must precede the mov- 
 ed, so life and love must be conceived of as. prior to those 
 fixed, dead and in themselves motionless forms which we call 
 the material substances. Our idea of substance, drawn from 
 matter is of something solid, inert, impenetrable, lifeless ; but 
 this is clearly rather the form or the appearance of substance 
 to our senses than the very prime substance which as we have 
 seen must be action itself and life itself. So Swedenborg 
 speaks of fire as the primary substance in a state of the most 
 intense activity — and the scientists have come to speak of heat, 
 force and mode of motion as equivalent terms. And the idea 
 of love, the counterpart of heat in the spiritual order, as the 
 fitting all embracing name for this only all originating motive- 
 force is not a transcendental or figurative one, but one de- 
 manded by the exactness of science. 
 
 - 4 
 
 r^ 
 
 » 
 
 BEING AND EXISTENCE. 29 
 
 VIII. LOVE IS SUBSTANCE. 
 
 For we have now to notice that what we sensuously and ob- 
 jectively know of substance in matter is not the pure sub- 
 stance itself but the form of substance, and that of substance it- 
 self we have a conscious perception, or feeling, namely, that 
 it is life. It is a part of the inverted order of our human 
 knowledge as finite — and so of our human science, that we 
 .•should think we know what we do not know and that we should 
 deny or call unknowable that which we are more sure of than 
 anything else. Thus the scientists say, we know what matter 
 is because our senses tell us, and it is therefore the only know- 
 able substance ; whereas the truth is, the substance of matter 
 does not appeal to the senses at all, we neither can feel it, taste 
 it, measure it nor weigh it. What our senses have to do with is 
 the appearances, or the forms which this ever living, ever mov- 
 ing substance assumes to them. Thus it is form, and form only, 
 that we know in matter or have a scientia of, and the science 
 of matter is not a knowledge of substances at all but of the 
 forms and appearances of substances. 
 
 On the other hand, the agnostic scientist says, "of that which 
 is beyond' the veil of phenomena, or beyond the testimony of 
 our senses we know nothing; we acknowledge that something 
 is there but what that something is we know not." And yet in 
 a true sense — that something beyond is the only thing that all 
 men. Agnostics as well as others, do know and know most 
 intimately, and that is life. If there is anything that every 
 human being knows really, — by conscious perception of it, 
 that is, instead of by mere learned definitions of it, — it is life. 
 And this is the fundamental knowledge because it is the knowl- 
 edge of the substance itself. Out of this grow and on this rest 
 all other knowledges and all proofs and certainties. The 
 scientific or sensuous knowledge is but a knowledge of the 
 forms of this substance or of the phenomena of this life. 
 Descartes deduced his first certainty '7 am" from the con- 
 sciousness of his thinking — cogito ergo sum. He did not de- 
 rive his being from his thinking but his certainty of his being; 
 and a strictly true statement of what he meant would be; — I 
 
30 
 
 BEING AND EXISTENCE 
 
 think; therefore I am certain that I am. But he might have 
 said with perfect accuracy, "I love; therefore I am," for his 
 loving was his ver>^ life or being itself. 
 
 We see therefore that knowledge applies to the form of 
 things just as feeling or perception does to their substance. 
 We feel that a thing is ; we know zchat it is ; we feel or perceive 
 its substance ; we know its form. Our perception of the sub- 
 stance of sensible objects is indeed an inferred knowledge 
 rather than a direct one. We cannot say that we feel or per- 
 ceive the substance of an orange; all that we know is the 
 forms by which that substance appeals to our various senses, 
 thus as round, yellow, sweet, etc. But because our primary 
 knowledge is composed of a perception of our own life as the 
 SUBSTANCE to which all sensuous knowledge subserves as form, 
 therefore we infer that within all forms which we know there 
 must be equally a substance. 
 
 In other words, our first immediate knowledge of ourselves 
 in consciousness tells us that life presents itself to ourself as 
 something to be known ; and that that presentation of life to 
 knowledge is by life's assuming some form to our sense, at 
 least, if not to our thinking. Thus our first knowledge is that 
 substance has form— and our first and universal and abiding 
 inference is that all forms are forms of an actual or a possible 
 substance. Hence our belief in the phenomenal world. 
 
 IX. WISDOiM THE FIRST FORM. 
 
 We have seen that love is the necessary essence of being, so 
 far as being exists or stands forth and causes other things to 
 exist or be created. And this love is life ; or it is esse conceiv- 
 ed of as in motion and moving to an end. Life, motion, force, 
 all these suggest the primary substance and activitv out of 
 which a world of things indiscriminately might come ; but a 
 chosen, definite workl, a world with an order and form, a 
 cosmos, could only come from this life, motion or force di- 
 rected to an end; and the only name for this force and mo- 
 tion directed to an end is love. For love is not indiscrimin- 
 ate; there can be no love except for a certain thing to be 
 loved. 
 
 A 
 
 . 
 
 • V * 
 
 'J 
 
 BEING AND EXISTENCE. 
 
 31 
 
 From this all-begetting and all-originating love there comes 
 the first direction of the motion to an end — this is the begetting 
 or the evolution of form out of substance. It is in the phy- 
 sical plane the motion of the first point into the line, or the 
 defining of space, that gives us the element of natural or 
 physical shape and bulk, and so gives us what we know as 
 matter. 
 
 But the self-direction of love is its knowledge how or by 
 what intermediate causes to produce its effect, and this knowl- 
 edge how as pertaining to love itself is nothing else than the 
 sapientia, (from "sapere" — to know how) wisdom. Wisdom 
 is, therefore, the first product and the form of love; it is as 
 necessary a counterpart of love as love is- of pure being; for as 
 pure being could never exist or stand forth in creation without 
 love as the first motor, so could love never proceed to the creat- 
 ing of its own objects without the wisdom by which out of 
 love's own substance these particular things are to be formed. 
 Therefore, by this wisdom, called in revelation the Word or the 
 Logos, all things were made that were made ; and this same 
 wisdom or Word is the very and only Form in which Love, or 
 the primary Substance, can reveal itself to the world of its own 
 creatures. 
 
 X. DIVINE PERSONALITY. 
 
 We see, therefore, that the necessary postulate that "the esse 
 exists" renders equally necessary the postulate that the pri- 
 mary substance, or that the very essence of being is love, 
 and that the very form of that essence is wisdom. Love's pro- 
 cession through cause to its own eflFect is law itself, and order 
 itself. Law is derived from no other source than love's self- 
 knowledge; and love's only begotten law is wisdom. The 
 existence of the visible universe, therefore, compels our rational 
 assent to these propositions : 
 
 I. That existence implies esse, pure being that exists. 
 
 II. The pure being or esse, in order to exist or stand forth 
 from itself must be self-moved to this end. 
 
 III. This self-motion exists only in volition, and volition or 
 that motion self-determined to an end, we name love. 
 
32 
 
 BEING AND EXISTENCE. 
 
 IV. But self-motion to an end is likewise self -direction, 
 which is the origin of form and of law. 
 
 V. The self-given form or law of the original e-motion of 
 pure being — love — is wisdom. 
 
 VI. Therefore, love and wisdom constitute the first sub- 
 stance and first form, or they are Substance itself and Form 
 itself, from which are all finite substances and forms. In these 
 alone pure Esse exists, and from these alone can a world of 
 things be produced. 
 
 VII. But love and wisdom are human or what we can alone 
 name personal attributes. They constitute our idea of person, 
 and we can conceive of them only as residing in a person. 
 
 VIII. Hence the first substance, force, motion, and life, 
 from which is all finite existence, is personal substance, force, 
 motion and life. 
 
 IX. But the only name of such an original being of love 
 and wisdom, or all originating Person is God. 
 
 X. God, therefore, is the Esse existing, or Pure Being 
 standing forth in knowable form, the Divine-Human. 
 
 We have thus from the doctrine of the pure being, unknow- 
 able except as to infinity and eternity, arrived at the doctrine of 
 God, knowable because existing, standing forth to our knowl- 
 edge, as not only divine Substance, but as divine Form, as 
 divine Love and divine Wisdom, and, as, therefore, the Father 
 and creator of all worlds and all things. We are thus prepared 
 intellectually, that is, with rational assent, to enter into these 
 declarations of Swedenborg, regarding the Divine essence. — 
 T, C. R. 36. 
 
 I. God is Love itself and wisdom itself, and these two con- 
 stitute his essence. 
 
 II. God is good itself and truth itself, because good is of 
 love and truth is of wisdom. 
 
 III. Love itself and wisdom itself are Life itself, which is 
 life in itself. 
 
 IV. Love and wisdom in God make one. 
 And further : T. C. R. 49 ; 
 
 V. As infinity, immensity, and eternity appertain to the 
 Divine Esse, so omnipotence, omniscience and omnipresence ap- 
 pertain to the Divine Essence, and these three are properties of 
 
 . 
 
 r'i 
 
 BEING AND EXISTENCE. 
 
 53 
 
 the Divine Wisdom derived from the Divine Love. For these 
 three proceed from the Divine Love and Wisdom much in the 
 same maner as the power and presence of the sun of this world, 
 and in all its parts proceed from the sun's heat and light. 
 
 XL OMNIPOTENCE, OMNIPRESENCE, OMNIS- 
 CIENCE. 
 
 Here, then, we have the entire doctrine of God, namely, as 
 to His Divine Essence, which is Love and Wisdom, and His 
 divine properties, which are omnipotence, omnipresence and 
 omniscience, and we are to note that these properties are those 
 of the Divine Wisdom as derived from the Divine Love. This 
 means, in other words, that God is all powerful because Divine 
 Wisdom derived from divine Love has all the ability there is. 
 Not only is knowledge power, but all power is in the knowing 
 how to do the behests of volition. It means that God is all- 
 wise because the divine Wisdom derived from the divine Love 
 is all-wise, knowing, as it must, all the ends of divine Love. 
 It means that God is everywhere present because the divine 
 Wisdom derived from the divine Love is present in everything 
 that love has created, and is instrumental to this very creation 
 and preservation in existence of these several things. 
 
 XII. WHAT IS ORDER? 
 
 Again, Swedenborg says: 'The omnipotence, omniscience 
 and omnipresence of God cannot be known until it be known 
 what is meant by order and until it be ascertained that God is 
 order, and that He introduced order into the universe and all its 
 parts at the creation. The omnipotence of God in the universe 
 and all its parts proceeds and operates according to the laws of 
 His own order." 
 
 ''Order is the quality of the disposition, determination and 
 activity of the parts, substances or entities, which constitute 
 the form of a thing, and whereupon its state depends ; the per- 
 fection of which (state) is produced by wisdom operating by 
 love. By substance we mean at the same time form because 
 every substance is a form, and the quality of a form is its state, 
 the perfection or imperfection of which results from order." 
 
34 
 
 BEING AND EXISTENCE 
 
 "God is order because He is Substance itself and Form itself. 
 He is substance because all things that subsist derived their ex- 
 istence originally, and continue to derive it, from Him ; and He 
 is Form because all the quality of substances did originally and 
 does arise still from Him, and quality can only be derived from 
 form. 
 
 "Now as God is the very, the one only and the first Sub- 
 stance and Form, and at the same time the very and only Love 
 and the very and only Wisdom, and since wisdom operating 
 from love constitutes form, and its state and quality is accord- 
 ing to the order inherent in it, it necessarily follows that God is 
 order itself, and consequently that He introduced order both 
 into the universe and into all its parts, and that He introduced 
 the most perfect order. 
 
 "God by virtue of his omnipotence cannot effect such things 
 as are contrary to the laws of his own order established in the 
 universe or prescribed in the nature of every man." • 
 
 "That God perceives, sees and knozi's all things even to the 
 most minute which are done according to order is a conse- 
 quence of the order of nature zvhich derives its universality 
 from the singidars of which it is composed; for singulars, con- 
 sidered collectively, are termed a universal just as particulars 
 considered collectively are called a whole; and the universal 
 together with all its component parts is a work that coheres 
 together as one, so that no one part can be touched and affect- 
 ed but all the rest have some perception of it." — T, C. R., 
 52-60. ^ 
 
 Xni. THE KNOWLEDGE OF OPPOSITES. 
 
 God is also present with things which are not in the order of 
 creation, by the perception of the relation of such things to 
 such order. He is also cognizant of things which are not in 
 order, by his perception of opposites, or of their opposition to 
 that order. 
 
 God is omnipresent in all the gradations of his own order 
 from first to last, therefore, in all the created world, and all its 
 minutest particulars ; for it is from single things being in order 
 that there is such a thing as universal order. The presence of 
 God in the single things of order is, therefore, at the same time 
 
 jfl fc. 
 
 BEING AND EXISTENCE. 
 
 35 
 
 >*?••• 
 
 •'•< 
 
 the omnipresence of God in the universal order and in all 
 creation. God is present in the single things of order just as 
 the heat and light of the natural sun are present in every least 
 thing that has physical being, for as we have seen the divine 
 Wisdom derived from the Love itself creates and gives order 
 to all things. God, therefore, by virtue of his order and not by 
 virtue of his spatial extension, is present in everything of the 
 created universe. God is not extended any more than we 
 can speak of love or wisdom as extended; and yet God is in 
 all space and everywhere because his order, the form impress- 
 ed on the world from his ever-creating and ever-present love 
 and wisdom, is everywhere. What we say figuratively or 
 lifter an image of the truth in regard to a great work which a 
 man has planned or which he directs and governs, namely, that 
 ^'the man is everywhere in it," means that his mind has shaped 
 its every detail, and is constantly aware of what is being done. 
 So we may say, not figuratively, but really because of that fore- 
 most reality from which are borrowed all human figures and 
 images, that God although not extended in space, because not 
 created, is nevertheless present in all space in all the gradations 
 of his own order. — See T. C. R., 63. 
 
 XIV. "IN SPACE WITHOUT SPACE." 
 
 This being present in space without spatial attributes, is be- 
 coming a fact or a condition more easy for us to realize, owing 
 to the marvellous modern inventions by which space and time 
 seem practically annhilated so far as mental contact is concern- 
 ed, even when the bodily subjects of this contact are as re- 
 motely fixed in space as ever. The magnetic or aural wave 
 Stcems to travel with almost the rapidity of thought itself, so 
 that the personal presence of beings hundreds of miles apart is 
 as immediate almost as their mental presence by mutual recol- 
 lection. Moreover, it is said that there are visible stars in our 
 firmament so distant that a ray of light coming from them to 
 us occupies thousands of years, and that consequently when 
 to-night we look at one of those stars we are actually "in time 
 without time," since we are beholding in this present moment 
 to-night things which are happening three thousand years ago, 
 or in the time of King David or of the Trojan War. If, then, 
 
36 
 
 BEING AND EXISTENCE. 
 
 a "thousand years may become but as yesterday" in the sight 
 of even finite man, how much more must it be so in the case of 
 the infinite Wisdom. Not that we should, however, think of 
 the Divine as being "not in space" because located somewhere 
 . above or out of space, and so as communicating wi^h us by 
 thought or otherwise from afar off; but rather is rented to 
 space just as the idea and motion of a work of art is rel tted to 
 every part of the work, or as the thought of a writer is ii. very 
 word and on every page of his book, and as the Hfe of man, as 
 his voHtion and thought are in every part of his body. So lay 
 we conceive of God by his love and wisdom, and, there foi , by 
 his order or what the scientist calls "law," being present in all 
 space without being spatial, and thus as omnipresent in the 
 whole universe of his creating. 
 
 It is as life, as the substance, the essential love itself, that 
 God truly is in all things and is their very being; but it is by 
 virtue of wisdom as the form of all forms that we think our-^^ 
 selves apart from God, and think a nature outside of Him ; and 
 thus we think a space which He is not, and think Him afar off. 
 For it is thought that makes a many, and thus separates ; while 
 it is love that draws together and makes a one. And God, then, 
 could be no One, such as love demands, that is, no One as 
 the union of many, except the thought had made the many by 
 means of diverse forms and qualities. The omnipresence of 
 God, therefore, is not only that of the Divine order or law in 
 all the divine things of creation, but it is that of his own divine 
 love in all the forms of his zvisdom. It is the presence, there- 
 fore, not only of the cause in all the effects but it is the 
 presence of the End in all the causes. 
 
 Therefore, we arrive at a rational apprehension of the com- 
 plete doctrine of the unity of God as set forth by Swedenborg 
 in these words with which we conclude: "God is in all space 
 without space and in all time without time; consequently the 
 universe as to essence and order is the fulness of God. It 
 follows, therefore, that by his omnipresence He perceives all 
 things, by His omniscience He provides all things, by His 
 omnipotence He operates all things. Hence it is plain that 
 omnipresence, omniscience and omnipotence makes a one ; or 
 that one implies the other, so that they cannot be separated." — 
 T. C, R., 63. 
 
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 Swedish Royal Academy Edition 
 
 ...OF... > 
 
 Swedenborg's Scientific 
 and Piiilosopliical Worlcs 
 
 The original design of this publication has been extended and 
 there will be included in this form all the Scientific and Philosoph- 
 ical Works, as follows: 
 
 Volumes I and II Now Ready 
 
 Yol* I.— Geologica et Epistolse; 
 
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 Principia Rerum Naturalium ab experimentis et Geome- 
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 Rerum Naturalium sive Novorum Tentaminum phse- 
 nomena mundi philosophice explicandi Pars Tertia. 
 
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 Vol. v.— De Ferro. 
 
 VoLVI.— De Cupro. 
 
 Vol. VII.— First Book on the Brain. 
 
 Vol. VIII.— Economy of the Animal Kingdom. 
 
 Vol. IX.— Second Book on the Brain. 
 
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