More Who then are the real old bachelors and old maids, and who the really childless? Not so much the unmarried by ring and book, as they who have not courted and wedded nature, receiving from her in reply, as a happy father from his beloved, a family of beautiful ideas. are the children of the desolate than the children of the married.' in so attaching ourselves to nature, whether through the medium of science or of poetry, we enjoy a glorious and unshadowed matrimony; and to count the numbers of our little ones, must cast up the infinite charms and amenities unceasingly developed to our eyes, and the sweet solaces which refresh and lift up our hearts. Language continually acknowledges the splendid harmony above alluded to. The identical terms applied to physical generation are those which intuition dictates as the proper ones to designate the operations of the mind. For example; to know is literally to 'beget'; 'Adam knew Eve his wife, and she conceived, and bare Cain'. 'Knowledge', the family of the mind, is a collection of things known or begotten. Etymologically, 'know' is the same word as the Greek yévw, yiyvopai, yıуvάσкw, &c.; the Latin geno, gigno, genero, nascor, (gnascor,) cognosco, &c., and the Anglo-Saxon cennan, to bring forth, cunnian, to enquire, cunnan and cnawan, to know, from which last it is proximately derived, as con and ken from the preceding. Knowledge in Anglo-Saxon is canne, birth cenning, a mother cennestre, a parturient woman cennynde wif. Our auxiliary verb can is the same word, holding its signification of ability to perform, by reason that knowledge is power.' From the common primæval base of this Protean family comes also the Greek yʊvŋ, a woman; together with the word used by Horace as a synecdoche for woman in the celebrated lines 'Nam fuit ante Helenam,' &c. -Satires, Lib. i. iii. 105-108. Nature is so called because the genitrix of all things. To be ignorant' is literally to be childless. Pregnant, engender, progeny, and a multitude of others, are terms at once physiological and psychological. On the same ground we speak also of our conceptions' and of giving birth to our ideas. SWEDENBORG'S PHYSIOLOGY AND PSYCHOLOGY. No. III.-DEGREES. AMONG the wonders with which creation teems, that of endless variety is invested with peculiar interest. When the truth is first encountered, that in the rich fertility of the boundless creation there exist not two things which are precisely alike, not only not two human beings, but two sides of the same face-two members of the same individual--nay not two blades of grass, nor two leaves plucked from the same treethe mind is struck with astonishment, and hesitates to give full credence to the fact until it has verified its truth by comparative investigation. Yet it is from this element of variety that the superintending providence of the "wise God, our Saviour," educes that exquisite harmony which is manifested in all his works. Indeed, harmony and its attendant perfection is the result of variety both in heaven and on earth,* and the greater the variety the greater is the resultant perfection. But harmony and perfection are not the results of variety alone. For that these may exist Order must reign throughout the whole. Now order is the offspring of the arrangements of succession and subordination, and it is requisite for the production of these that every one thing should be higher or lower, or more or less than any other. This HIGHER and LOWER constitute what Swedenborg terms DISCRETE DEGREES, and MORE and LESS constitute CONTINUOUS DEGREES. These latter degrees are well known, and, indeed, the knowledge of them dates from the period when man first exercised the powers of observation and reflection. But the discovery of the existence of DISCRETE DEGREES we owe to the profoundly penetrating genius of Swedenborg.† The nature of Continuous Degrees may be illustrated by light, which, existing in brightness in the centre, decreases towards the circumference, or increases from the circumference towards the centre; it progresses from much to less, or from little to more. Suppose the space existing between the centre and the circumference divided by concentric circles into a number of parts, in that case each division would constitute a degree. Now the light in each degree would be precisely of the same nature; but there would be more in those which approximated the centre, than in those situated more remotely from it; and vice versâ. Thus light, though decreasing or increasing, is continued unchanged in nature from degree to degree. These observations may be extended, with equal truth, to every thing of which more and less can be predicated. For example-gross to subtle-warm to cold-dense to rare— long to short-wide to narrow-wise to simple, &c. Continuous Degrees are, in all cases, unlimited in number. For it H. & H., 56, 405. + See "The Economy of the Animal Kingdom," and "The Animal Kingdom;" also D. L. and W., 201. is obvious that any number of degrees may be iatroduced between a centre and its circumference. It is a curious fact connected with the progress of knowledge, that while Continuous Degrees are universally recognised, those which are Discrete appear to be unknown to all but the readers of Swedenborg; and it also may be remarked, that while such ignorance prevails without the circle of his readers, within this circle the cultivation of a knowledge of these degrees is much more limited than is desirable, or than, from its extensive utility, and the interest with which it is invested, can readily be accounted for. The value of an acquaintance with Discrete Degrees scarcely admits of being over-estimated, for it develops truths of so novel, interesting, and important a character, that we assert, without the fear of being justly chargeable with hyperbole, that a correct and intimate knowledge of these degrees elevates discrimination into a previously unknown region, and adds a new world to our mental acquisitions. In reference to the value of such knowledge, Swedenborg observes, "We are led into the inmost knowledge of natural things by the doctrine of series and (Discrete) degrees, conjoined with experience."* He also asserts it to be impossible "to climb or leap from the organic, physical, and material world" immediately to the immaterial, without possessing a knowledge of order and Discrete Degrees as guides; and again he states, "We can never arrive at a true knowledge of the animal kingdom unless we entertain a distinct idea of subordination and succession, of efficient causes, and unless we have a distinct conception of the nature of the prior and posterior sphere, or what amounts to the same thing, of the interior and exterior, and of the difference between them." He further observes, "The knowledge of Degrees is, as it were, a key to open the knowledge of things, and enter into them. * * The interior things which lie hid can by no means be discovered unless Degrees be understood, for exterior things advance to things interior, and these to things which are inmost by Degrees, not by Continuous Degrees, but Discrete Degrees." Also, "There are Continuous Degrees and Discrete Degrees, the former and the latter being in every form, both in the spiritual and in the natural world; all are acquainted with Continuous Degrees, but few are acquainted with Discrete Degrees; and they who are not acquainted with these latter, grope as in the dark, whilst they investigate the causes of things."§ Again, "That there is not the least thing in any animal, nor the least + A. K., 17. A. K., 456, note (c). D. L. & W., 184. Intercourse, 16. § On D. L., xi. See also Intercourse, 17. * *Eco. of the A. K., 632. N. S. NO. 175.-VOL. XIV. C thing in any vegetable, nor the least thing in any mineral, nor the least thing in æther and air, in which there are not those degrees."* Again, "He that has not acquired a clear apprehension of these degrees, cannot be acquainted with the difference between the various heavens and between the interior and exterior faculties of man; nor can he be acquainted with the difference between the spiritual world and the natural, nor between the spirit of a man and his body; nor consequently can he understand what correspondences and representations are, and their origin, nor what is the nature of influx."† Having, we trust, fully established the importance of a knowledge of Discrete Degrees, we shall now endeavour to unfold and elucidate their nature. We shall take our illustrations first from the objects which exist in the natural world, although aware that the most eminent, striking, and beautiful instances are to be found in the heavens, and in their relations one with another. But this proceeding is adopted in preference, because our observations are addressed to those who may not be acquainted with truths of a spiritual nature, as well as to those who are. And, besides, to these latter, it is pleasing to see truth embodied in and reflected by nature; and it may be also useful to them in affording the means of exhibiting their ideas palpably to those who are wholly unacquainted with spiritual realities, and who, consequently, are impervious to illustrations drawn from a world they know not of, and in the existence of which they, as yet, do not believe. While Continuous Degrees, as we have shewn, are in every instance innumerable, Discrete Degrees, on the contrary, can in no case exceed three in number; also, these three, taken together, always constitute a one. We have seen, likewise, that each continuous degree partakes of the nature of all; but it is a property of a Discrete Degree that it does not partake of the nature of either of the other degrees with which it is associated; it is perfectly distinct from these, even while it is indissolubly united with them. They are united to each other as end, cause, and effect; as highest, middle, and lowest; as inmost, interior, and ultimate. They may be contemplated in a fruit tree, -the end (or object intended) is the production of fruit; the cause of production is the combination of the means employed, consisting of seed, root, sap, trunk, branches, &c.; and the effect is the fruit. In the fruit the three degrees co-exist, and form a one, and cannot be carried further or multiplied, but they recommence in new seed, in which is contained the end, as an effort to reproduce the means, and through these, again, the effect. * D. L. & W., 223. H. & H., 38. See also 211. Highest, middle, and lowest may be broadly illustrated by the three kingdoms of nature. Without the lowest, (the mineral,) the middle (the vegetable) could not exist; and without both or either, the highest (the animal) could neither have been produced nor be continued. Taken together they form a one-the world. Inmost, interior, and ultimate. The apple and the nut may furnish illustrations of these. In the apple, the seed, (inmost,) the pulp, (interior,) and the skin, (ultimate ;) the nut has its kernel, its shell, and its shaggy integument, the husk. It were useless here to increase our illustrations from natural objects, as the lover of truth may multiply instances at pleasure as he pursues the interesting study of degrees, and becomes better acquainted with their nature; he cannot be where apt examples do not exuberantly abound. One other instance shall here be added, however, because it is of a character that includes both that which is natural and that which is spiritual, and is also readily comprehensible by every one. Affection is the first, or inmost animating principle of humanity; thought is the second, or middle; without the first the second could not be produced; speech is the third, or last, and is the effect of the united first and second. In this last, or ultimate, all three co-exist and form a one. Nor does affection become thought, nor thought merge into speech; though the three are indissolubly united, yet each retains its distinctness entire and inviolate. 86 To illustrate from the things of the spiritual world we shall give the following passage from Swedenborg. Speaking of Continuous Degrees as exhibited in the arrangement of a society in heaven, he says::-* 'They who are in the midst of the society are in clearer light than they who are in the ultimates, the light decreasing according to distance from the midst, even to the ultimates. The case is the same with wisdom: they who are in the midst, or centre of the society, being in the light of wisdom, but they who are in the ultimates of heaven, or in the circumference, being in the shade of wisdom, and being simple; the case is the same with love in the societies, since the affections of love, which make wisdom, and the uses of affections, which make the life of the inhabitants there, continually decrease from the midst, or centre, even to the ultimates, or circumferences. These are Continuous Degrees, but Discrete Degrees are altogether different, the latter proceeding not in a superficies to the sides around, but from highest to lowest, wherefore they are called degrees descending; they are discrete as efficient causes and effects, which again become efficient, even to the ultimate effect, and are as a producing force to the forces produced, |