The divine power, in its fullness, penetrates the universe
at all times, but each existent being shows for this power only to its own
degree. Stone, plant, animal and man all are sustained by the one power,
without which nothing could ever exist. In the same degrees that stone, plant
and animal receive the power, it is received also by man, for man's physical
being is the sum of all that nature contains. So long as man is content with
these degrees of existence, man cannot be distinguished from nature either in
origin or end; he would be considered merely as nature in the state of
self-awareness, a mirror in which for a certain period nature can be seen ad
known. Man is immersed in nature, though his thought is not coffined.
When we stand upon the shore of the sea, and watch the
inrolling waves, it seems as though the ocean were moving and advancing upon
the shore, but this motion and advancement are illusions of the eye, for each
drop of the sea continues ever in the same place. It is a motion we attribute
to the sea, which in the sea itself is only agitation. And thus the constant
change and movement of life on the surface of nature; it is the illusion of
life, not progressiveness of being. For nature as a whole lives, through the
divine power, but the existence of each production of nature is merely lent and
then withdrawn. The tree lives, but the leaves that are put forth by the tree wither
and fall. Today we see a man, and the man shares in the common thought; but
tomorrow we see another man in his place, and the actions and thoughts of the
first are repeated. The continuity of men is but the continuity of leafage, not
the continuousness of the tree from season to season.
But man is immersed in nature as the ship is immersed in the
sea, and the force of the wind which practiced only agitation in the sea,
produces true movement and progress in the ship. But the ship that is deprived
of sails, and is rudderless, then shares only the agitation of the sea, the end
of which vessel is destruction So man when deprived of those faculties that
exist above nature, and independent of nature, lives in the agitation of nature
and dies like the foam on the wave. By his thought he may perceive this, and
become aware of it, but by thought it cannot he prevented or changed.
