Right ethics are central, and go from the soul
outward. Gift is contrary to the law of the universe. Serving others
is serving us. I must absolve me to myself. "Mind thy affair," says
the spirit:--"coxcomb, would you meddle with the skies, or with other
people?" Indirect service is left. Men have a pictorial or
representative quality, and serve us in the intellect. Behmen and
Swedenborg saw that things were representative. Men are also
representative; first, of things, and secondly, of ideas.
As plants convert the minerals into food for animals, so each man
converts some raw material in nature to human use. The inventors of
fire, electricity, magnetism, iron; lead, glass, linen, silk, cotton;
the makers of tools; the inventor of decimal notation; the geometer;
the engineer; musician,--severally make an easy way for all, through
unknown and impossible confusions. Each man is, by secret liking,
connected with some district of nature, whose agent and interpreter
he is, as Linnaeus, of plants; Huber, of bees; Fries, of lichens; Van
Mons, of pears; Dalton, of atomic forms; Euclid, of lines; Newton, of
fluxions.
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