1830.
Tract upon Nourishing the Spirit.
451
daily business to increase their acquaintance with things, consider that their intelligence is sufficient to understand all matters, while they have a pit before them which everybody else can see, and they stalk on till they fall into it. What is the cause of this, but their al- lowing the spirit of their minds to gallop away after external objects, like a man occupied with looking at distant mountains, not knowing that his feet have already fallen into a quagmire? 'The polish- ed scholars of the present day esteem themselves to be the most clever people in the world, and sometimes they are outwitted by men of a very inferior stapp, and entangled in the meshes of their nets, because their spirits are dissipated about external annoyances, and they are unable to cultivate an acquaintance with themselves; all this arises from a want of silent meditation. Others again, seeking to avert calami- ties and obtain blessings, pray to spiritual intelligences, be- cause they think that such are intelligent and incomprehensible by mankind, not knowing that the visible and invisible worlds, being separated one from another, the medium whereby o spirits in this seen world, can communicate with the invisible spirits of the unseen world, is just because spirit with spirits hold intercourse together, without being trammeled by the limits of external form.
吾之陽神
our
Since then our own spirits can hold intercourse with the spirits of the invisible world, it is clear that our spirits must like them be intelli- gent. Hence it was, that when the ancients offered sacrifices, they fasted to a great extent, in order to settle their own spirits, and then they could hold intercourse with the spirits which pervade heaven and earth, together with the manes of their ancestors. Some however, who insist upon discerning some visible traces of their being, think that the existence of spiritual essences is after all a mere pretense, But when our bodies, from the hair on the head to the sole of the foot, happen to experience the least pain or itching, it is immediately per- ceived by the mind: the reason of this is, that our spirits, though col- lected in the heart, pervade at the same time every part of the body. Taking our bodies therefore as a ground of argument, we should say that there is not a separate mind for every part of the head, eyes, hands, and feet; but the heart resides in the centre, and is fully acquainted with every pain, connected with each hair and fibre ; it is not necessary for the ear to listen, or the eye to see, or the hand to feel, but the Ů Ã‡ mind is instantly acquainted with it, as speedily as echo follows sound. If the mind however be absent, a man sees without perceiving, and hears without noticing, because the spirit is taken up with something