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THE

Emperial Magazine ;

OR, COMPENDIUM OF

RELIGIOUS, MORAL, & PHILOSOPHICAL KNOWLEdge.

ост.] "SOCIAL REFINEMENT HAS NO EXISTENCE WHERE LITERATURE IS UNKNOWN." [1822.

THE PHYSICAL AND MORAL WORLD.

or principle of right and wrong, in the more general sense, as it applies to

No. 10. Of the Passions, and of Moral taste, or matters of mere fancy or

Evil.

HAVING in the three preceding numbers completed, as briefly as we could, our account of the animal and intellectual faculties, we are aware it may still be asked," But the passions! the passions! What do you make of the passions? Man, it is admitted, is a being that can think, and reason, and contrive, and imitate; but is this all the account you would give of him? The passions, the passions, what is become of the passions?

opinion, predominates in the mind at the time.

As we formerly said of instinct, so may we now say of passion. "Instinct being thus a child of sensation, we may conclude, a priori, that all animated nature capable of feeling, will be subjects of instinct; and that instinct is something all animals have in common, which, through the medium of sensation, operates by some general, but irresistible laws in their system, since without obeying their dictates, the animal creation could not subsist." In like manner here, passion being thus a child, partly of sen

Well, as we formerly remarked, What is instinct? so we now resume the question, and ask, What is pas-sation, and partly of reason, we may sion? And, as formerly, of instinct, we asked, "Is it feeling, or is it action?" so now, of passion, we put a similar question, "Is it thought, or is it reason?" And as we formerly observed of instinct, that it is neither feeling simply, nor action simply; so now we observe in like manner of passion, that it is neither thought alone, nor reason alone. But, on account of man, in whom the passions reside, being a compound of the animal and rational faculties, passion seems to be a combination made up of the whole four; and answers the same purposes in man, considered as a rational being, which instinct does in brutes. So that it may with propriety be said, that it is feeling producing action, and thought producing a kind of ratiocination; but ratiocination only of a certain kind,--leading irresistibly to the obedience of certain laws, or rather to the obtaining of certain ob-haled with every breath. jects, which every man passionately pursues as his chief good.

This seems to be the province of the passions, and, according to this view, it is evident that the whole class of the passions, whether good or bad, may be constantly, alternately, and reciprocally, called into action according as the moral or immoral principle, No. 45 VOL. IV.

conclude, a priori, that all animated and rational being capable of feeling and reasoning, will be subjects of passion; and that passion is something all have in common, which, through the medium of sensation and reason, operates by some general, but irresistible laws in their system, since without obeying their dictates, the rational creation could not subsist in its rational state. And accordingly we perceive, that wherever passion directed by reason has no existence at all, the man is more stupid than the brute; and on the other hand, wherever passion is allowed to gain the ascendency over reason, the actions of that person, so long, and in as far as he is under its influence, are not the actions of a man, strictly speaking, neither are they the actions of a brute; but they are those of a kind of demon, firebrands and fury being ex

Thus is nature, in all her operations, most pointedly scrupulous to keep every order of beings in its own sphere. Nor is it possible for her to be more pointed in this respect than are the sacred oracles; many thousand instances of which we could adduce, were it necessary.

The reader will now observe, that, 3 L

as our doctrine of sensation and instinct, formerly stated, renders the external and internal modes of animation, maintained amidst a cloud of darkness, by our author and the physiologists, altogether unnecessary and abortive; so in like manner does our doctrine of the passions, now laid down, render what he styles the active and passive mode of intelligence, and all the mighty fabric he so industriously builds upon it, without any solidity or foundation.

Thus have we finished, in the most succinct and perspicuous manner we were able, the grand scale of Intelligence, in its three most wonderful steps, as it respects the Intelligence of God himself-of angels-and of men. Far be it from us, however, to pretend that we have exhausted the subject. If we have only afforded some additional glimmerings, and opened a new method, through the instrumentality of our author, to render further approximations easy-this is all that we lay claim to.

The six steps of the great scale being thus finished, we are now prepared to enter on the seventh and last step, which is the great Moral scale; or scale of Physical and Moral Good and Evil.

And in order to treat this step in as perspicuous a manner as possible, it will be necessary to take a glance, in the first place, of what the scripture says of the invisible state of eternity. Our author, all at once enters deeply into this subject; plunging, as it were, into this boundless ocean. Here he beholds a state, from the various adumbrations of scripture, 2 Cor. xii. 2, 4. Rev. xxi. 3, 10, 18, 22, &c. at once marked with ideas of perfect beauty, symmetry, regularity, harmony, splendour, glory, centrical position, exaltation, commanding influence, stability, radiation of light, limitation or fencing in.

These allegorical representations, he observes, are connected in figure with the central step of the great scale or seven-fold mystery of nature, by the vegetation of the Tree of Life, and Paradise illuminated by the Divine Glory.

These allegories sufficiently prove,

For brevity's sake, we have had to pass over unnoticed two of these steps. See No. 8, for August, conclusion.

that the state of Eternity is widely different from any thing apparent in the visible universe; for the alternation of light and darkness must obtain, wherever planetary worlds are revolving. "But there shall be no night there. And the city had no need of the sun, neither of the moon, to shine in it; for the glory of God did lighten it, and the Lamb is the light thereof. And the nations of them that are saved shall walk in the light of it; and they need no candle, neither light of the sun; for the Lord God giveth_them light; and they shall reign for ever and ever."

As light and darkness belong to the first step of the scale of the universe, so do attraction and repulsion to the second; which, by contrast, produce the centripetal and centrifugal forces in the laws of motion, by which means the revolving orbs are made to approx. imate nearer to, or to recede to a greater distance from, their centre of gravity. And even where the motions are exactly circular, there must needs be an alternate proximity and distance, relative to the sun, in every spot of a planet's surface, as it turns on its axis; and where the orbits are elliptical, a vicissitude of Aphelion and Perihelion, and many other irregularities, must needs be produced. Now, all these are inconsistent with the figurative imagery of the eternal state; so that the visible universe must be temporal and transitory; “heaven and earth shall pass away.”

What a luminous view of this sublime subject does this admirable hint suggest? We have heard it often spoken of; and many pious and wellmeaning people have spent their strength in telling us, "That there shall be a new heaven and a new earth;" but never one till this moment has been able as it were to demonstrate the point, from the clear and perspicuous allegorical representations of scripture, which now appear as evident as the sun at noon-day. This great discovery, shall we call it, has been reserved for Mr. Macnab; and we think it indeed somewhat remarkable, that all the bodies of this visible universe, which constitute that heaven and earth which shall pass away, are, in their very figure or form, to say nothing of their restless motion, so essentially different from that which is stationary and eternal. All these,

as if made for motion, and motion, as if indicative of their end, appear in a spherical shape. But not so the New heaven and New earth, for which we look according to his promise. This is connected with the type or representation, not of the circle, but of the square. The figure of the New Jerusalem, which John saw descending from God out of heaven, was not that of a sphere or globe, but of a cube or square; denoting at once, that it is designed not for motion, or for a temporary and transitory state, like all the bodies of this visible universe; but for a state fixed and permanent, and built upon the immoveable foundation which God hath laid in Zion.

The vicissitudes observed in the first and second of the scale, throughout the visible universe, suggest, by analogy, corresponding vicissitudes in the sixth and seventh. Thus, in the physical side of the scale, step first, the intensity of light shed upon a body, may be diminished by elongation of the distance, or intercepted by the chemical nature of the body itself; that is to say, it may be diminished by phenomena belonging to the second, or intercepted by phenomena belonging to the third of the scale. Even so, in the spiritual side of the scale, the effulgence of divine light or glory, which is emblematically represented by the natural light, on the soul of a being like man, may be diminished by ignorance, or intercepted by the animal nature of an imbodied spirit; that is to say, it may be diminished by phenomena belonging to the sixth or intellectual, or intercepted by phenomena belonging to the fifth or animal steps of the scale. But this diminution or interception of the divine light or glory, through the unavoidable ignorance or weakness of the animal nature, of the creature on whom it is shed, argues no degree of wrong in the moral, of falsehood in the intellectual, or of pain in the animal part of its constitution. All this might take place in a state of perfect innocence and purity. For the state of diminution and interception alluded to, is that of sleep, or any thing analogous to it among perfect beings; for Adam In the first or Elemental, . . . In the second or Mechanical, In the third or Chemical, .

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slept while yet in perfect innocence and happiness, Gen ii. 21.

But it may be remarked, that sleep is not only that which distinguishes the state of probation from the state of eternity, but that it is a symbol of death, while death itself is yet unknown. Thus it was to Adam in Paradise. It is a temporary victory of the left or physical, over the right or spiritual side of the scale. Sleep seems to be a physical phenomenon designed to prevail universally over all the systems of the universe, which are visited with an alternation of light and darkness. Hence, says the Apostle, as a kind of proverbial expression, "They that sleep, sleep in the night." Many, if not all the different species of vegetables, obey this law, and almost all the brute creation;-and as for the beasts of prey, which roam the desarts in the dark, and turn day into night, or the midnight balls and bacchanalian revels among the human species; such phenomena, whether among men or brutes, are by no means natural, nor had they the smallest place in the original constitution of God's universe. For throughout the universe, in its original state, it is proverbially true, They that sleep, sleep in the night." This is the agreeable period which nature has allotted to recruit their exhausted spirit; and where innocence exists, to follow Nature's laws is the grand concern.

66

Our author proceeds to give a beautiful delineation of sleep and dreaming; but in this we shall not follow him, but rather attend to what he says in the next article, as being more connected with our subject.

"Thus, anterior to his transgression, we see that man was figuratively admonished of death; and the same admonition is given once a day to the inhabitants of every other world in the universe, wherever the rays of light are intercepted by opaque masses.” Art. 261.

He had formerly remarked, Art. 94, that in this world, the seven steps of the great scale of the universe, as already laid down, are distinguished by certain analogous vicissitudes or contrarieties. Thus, there are, Light and Darkness. Attraction and Repulsion. Composition and Decomposition.

Theory, Art. 256–260.

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but in the last sense, it arises from the constitution of the animal nature of an imbodied spirit, to which no blame can be attached, being analogous to the obscuration which takes place in all the different planets by their rotatory motion on their axis.

In the sixth or Intellectual, . . . Knowledge and Ignorance. In the seventh or Moral, . . . Right and Wrong. Now, as it is the main design of our implies moral guilt, and had no exist author here to shew, that notwith-ence prior to the introduction of sin; standing such vicissitudes and contrarieties did indeed exist from the beginning of the creation, or period when the whole order of this visible universe was adjusted and set a-going, yet that these vicissitudes and contrarieties did not imply at that time the existence of Physical or Moral Evil. For as light and darkness, in the first of the scale, may be produced either by an elongation of the planet's distance from the source of light, or by the chemical opacity of the planet's body; even so in the seventh of the scale, which is the step that harmonizes with the first, there is Moral Illumination, when the eye of the intellect beholds the glory of the "Sun of righteousness;" and Moral Obscuration, when either by an elongation of the distance from God, which is not applicable to a state of innocence, or by the animal nature of an imbodied spirit, it is cast into a passive state, and hence is incapable of active and direct Moral Illumination at the time, as in the sleep of Adam in Paradise. Moral Obscuration in the first signification,

In the same way may attraction and repulsion, composition and decompon tion, strength and weakness, and all the mechanical, chemical, and vegetable phenomena of nature, with their corresponding phenomena of spirit, be easily conceived as existing in a state analogous to this world in every respect, yet without either physical or moral evil. Such, it is probable, is the condition of every other world in the universe; and such was the condition of our own, anterior to the first transgression. But by the introduction of sin and death into our world, its whole nature underwent a fatal change. Let, therefore, the epithet Noxious be added to the foregoing scale of Vicissitudes and Contrarieties, and the scale of Physical and Moral Evil will be as follows. There is,

In the first or Elemental, . . Noxious Light and Noxious darkness.
In the second or Mechanical, Noxious Attraction and Noxious Repulsion.
In the third or Chemical, Noxious Composition and Noxious Decomposi-

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In the fourth or Vegetable, Noxious Strength and Noxious Weakness.
In the fifth or Animal, .. Noxious Action and Noxious Passion.
In the sixth or Intellectual, Noxious Knowledge and Noxious Ignorance.
In the seventh or Moral, . . . Noxious Moral Illumination and Noxious Moral
Obscuration.

of nature, devoid of moral virtue. By turning the back upon the prospect of glory, as the Final End in the seventh or moral step of the scale, and looking towards the six preceding steps, the heart is inverted, or perverted, and never can, by any natural means, be rectified."

"These symbols are expressive of intelligence or knowledge, a retrogradathe whole compass of Moral and Phy-tion or looking back to the nakedness sical Evil, so that each of them may be conceived to represent a class, or catalogue of evils, sliding into each other by insensible gradation, and resolvable only by approximation. The subject of inquiry is, the mystery of moral and physical evil. Now, evil having been first introduced through the moral faculty of man, we begin with the seventh or last of the scale, and proceed contrary to the natural order to the first.

"Evil arises from the inversion of the affections of a moral agent, from the prospect of glory (to which they were at first directed) towards mere

1. We begin then, with Norious Moral Illumination, and Noxious Morel Obscuration. The first has for its final end, false glory, or pride, which is the root of all evil. It has for its author, Satan, who seduced mankind by inspiring them with a principle of false glory, and made even the same at

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