sary to Marriage, are realized through the sentimental experiences of the individual. Through the operation of the religious sentiments in connection with the Catholic Church, individuals realize an experience in which they seem to have surrendered all desire for personal happiness, except that which is derived from the performance of religious duties, and in which the countenance acquires that heavenly expression which has been embodied by the early religious painters. Through the operation of the religious sentiments in connection with the Protestant Church, individuals have been led, under the influence of their religious belief, to make great sacrifices of personal inclination, which are also representative of this total individual sacrifice; although, as the individual has now become more self-conscious and more disorderly from the demand for Individual Liberty, the examples of self-sacrifice presented by this Church fall far short of those presented by the Catholic. In both these cases, however, there are two facts connected with them, which prove the natural and selfish character of these manifestations; and these are, first, that heaven, or a condition of future and everlasting happiness, is expected as a reward; and, next, that the individual endeavors in this way to work out his own salvation: for we shall clearly demonstrate in this work, that, although asceticism in the Church is a legitimate representative of this sacrifice of individual life, it is destructive to the very idea which it represents. When the Moral Sentiments become the governing sentimental powers, and "Sympathy" consequently becomes the governing sentimental law, a philanthropic manifestation, universal in character, is produced, under the influence of which the individual is led to make the greatest personal sacrifices for the sake of others. But this supremacy of good becomes realized under the influence of Feeling as a governing power, without any reference to Truth; and in fact originates in the supremacy of the law of "Sympathy," which is in itself one of the most destructive principles that the human constitution contains, because, in its essence, it demands universal individual gratification. We see, then, that it is not in the highest form of Natural Truth or of Natural Good, or even in that combination of these which we find in the sentimental experiences of the Catholic Church, that Marriage can be realized, although it is here represented; but only in the total sacrifice of individual life and motive-power, and the reception of a new spiritual love and life that is at-one with the Infinite; which can be realized only in a spiritual sphere of consciousness, and is the Charity that cometh

from God. This fact is represented by St. Paul in the following words: "And now abideth faith, hope, charity, these three; but the greatest of these is Charity. Though I have the gift of prophecy, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge; and though I have all faith, so that I could remove mountains; and have not Charity, I am nothing. And though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and though I give my body to be burned, and have not Charity, it profiteth me nothing."

Marriage must be represented in the structure and manifestations of the Soul, as the condition both of natural and of spiritual life. With regard to the first, as the Human Constitution must present through its entire organization a discordant antagonism of vital and destructive principles, or of indefinite laws representing Infinite and Finite, of which the individual is unconscious, -as the condition of individual consciousness, or of natural life, this constitution must contain in every one of its departments a supernatural principle, constituting a medium through which the Divine Activity can operate in the combination of these laws in definite forms, or in the production of phenomena corresponding with them; and, as the condition of any productive manifestation, these laws and phenomena must be combined and manifested in a supernatural manner outside of the individual consciousness. With regard to the second, as nothing can be realized in the spiritual that has not been represented in the natural, it being therefore written, "that is not first which is spiritual, but that which is natural, and afterwards that which is spiritual,”. mediums through which Marriage is represented in natural forms must be developed in the human constitution as a preparation for their reconstruction as mediums for the manifestation of Spiritual Life; and religious experiences representing the marriage of the soul to God must be realized by the soul in a natural sphere of consciousness, in order that the consummation of this marriage should be possible when a spiritual consciousness shall be communicated to it. While all truth, good, and beauty, or use, may therefore be said to be the result of Marriage, because, even in the Natural, this is represented in their production, all these are, in the natural, produced from conflicting opposites; for, even with regard to the operation of those active principles representative of Marriage, through which natural uses are produced, we find that the conclusion or the action, as the case may be, results from a compromise between opposite facts and opposite motives, and not from the concurrence of all. Marriage is represented through

out the whole organization of the Mind, because, in every one of its departments, opposites are combined in manifestation through a productive principle representing the divine creative act, and constituting mediums through which the creative process is conducted, and God becomes the creator, preserver, and governor of the soul; and it is also represented in the Will, where the individual constructs a plan of life for himself by the combination of opposite intellectual, affectional, and sentimental experiences, in the endeavor to secure what seems to him good upon the whole, and through which at the same time the divine providence of God operates in producing for him what is really his greatest good. But we see that Marriage is not realized by the Mind, because all the conclusions of the individual are a compromise between opposite views of truth and of good which cannot be reconciled; and that it is not realized by the Will, because its development is partial and one-sided (what it gains in one region being lost in another), — because its ideal and actual states can never be made to agree, and because even its determinations and its actions are always in discord with each other. Every individual entertains opinions which are mutually destructive, and is conscious of desires or wants which are perfectly antagonistic; and, although the Reason is continually demanding some law that shall give consistency and harmony to the soul, no such law has ever been realized by it. Division and discord are inseparable from natural life, because it is necessarily governed by the laws of diversity, partiality, and separation. Even Christianity, therefore, could not be proclaimed as One Gospel, but was divided and antagonized in the Gospels of Circumcision and Uncircumcision; although we are taught in the Scriptures, that "in Jesus Christ neither circumcision availeth any thing, nor uncircumcision, but faith which worketh by love; and the letter of the Bible abounds with the most palpable contradictions, so that individuals and sects entertaining the most opposite beliefs build upon it, and quote its language with equal effect in the support of their peculiar opinions, while each one of these sects maintains doctrines which are as opposite as are these sects. It may therefore be said, that, while the lowest form of natural life is produced through marriage, even the highest must become realized in opposition and discord. This apparent contradiction will be best explained by considering the difference between the natural and the supernatural manifestations of the human constitution; between those for which an adequate motive may readily be assigned, and those

which seem to be contrary to natural inclination: for although it has been customary to regard all the operations of human nature as simply natural, and clearly comprehensible under the relationship of cause and effect, this opinion cannot be maintained for a moment in view of the nature of existence, and of the facts which are disclosed to us by the application of the laws of our science in the development of a system of psychological truth. Though all the forms of the consciousness seem to be realized by the operation of natural causes, and though every personal manifestation seems to be produced by the individual will, and the strongest motive to determine the individual act, — yet all natural forms of truth, of good, and of use, must necessarily be produced by the divine providence of God, whose watchful care must be incessantly exercised in directing and counteracting the destructive tendency of that finite force which must continually operate upon all natural forms, and in combining and manifesting the discordant powers of the human constitution, so that the greatest amount of use may be produced by their operation, because it is evident that these results could not be effected in any other way. Being constituted as a representative of both Infinite and Finite, the organization through which the soul obtains its natural consciousness is necessarily constructed in a dualistic form, as life against death, and good against evil; and consequently this natural form can become productively manifested only by the supernatural combination of its conflicting elements, with the subjection of the destructive to the vital power. In order that this subjection and this manifestation should be realized, and that man should be created in the image of God, and prepared by processes of natural growth and development for a resurrection into the spiritual, it is necessary that every department of his mind should contain an active and constructive principle, through which the Divine Activity can operate in the creation of these discordant natural powers, and their combination and manifestation outside of the individual consciousness in a supernatural manner, representing Marriage, or the union of opposites through voluntary sacrifice, and still that all these manifestations should appear to the individual to be made by himself; it being necessary that an appearance of reality should be communicated to his consciousness. This does not conflict with the fact, that the life of human nature is constituted by laws corresponding with the Finite, which are destructive to truth, to good, and to use, even as natural produc

tions; because these constructive powers are not spiritual but supernatural forms, the life of which is natural; being perfectly analogous to the religious and moral sentiments which constitute the supernatural region of the mind, and which, while representing in their forms spiritual truth, good, and use, are governed in all their internal and in all their conscious external manifestations by these same destructive laws, so that nothing can be more completely separated and antagonized than the sentimental and the spiritual experiences of the soul.

These destructive natural laws must govern all the conscious manifestations of the supernatural principles, in which the natural motive powers are excited to act in the production of specific results and external manifestations contrary to these motives, as well as all the manifestations of the natural principles, for the reason that they are realized while the individual is confined to a natural sphere of consciousness; and we shall clearly demonstrate that these are the only laws which constitute the natural life of the soul, and govern all its relationships, all its internal manifestations, and all its conscious external manifestations. The operations of the dualistic natural principles of the mind do not therefore become united or made one, by being combined and manifested through these supernatural mediums, but are only combined through a compromise which appears to be made for the sake of individual knowledge or advantage; and therefore, when this advantage does not become apparent, the subjection of the destructive to the vital is effected outside of the consciousness in a manner not comprehensible to the individual. This subjection of the individual to the universal, through the sacrifice of personal want, is, as we shall show, the foundation of all truth, good, and use; and its representation in the natural is therefore provided for in a supernatural manner, because its realization is not there possible. We comprehend that this sacrifice of personal want can be made in the spiritual, because it is included in the realization of Christianity through an act of faith, as will be seen in our description of this fact. Such an experience is not possible, however, in a natural sphere of consciousness, but only a natural representation of this, because this consciousness is governed, under the law of necessity, by a purely selfish motive, which cannot really make any sacrifice; and the manifestations of these constructive principles cannot therefore be explained from a natural, but only from a supernatural, point of view. It is true that the selfish principle operates in a conscious natural man