This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1897 edition. Excerpt: ... CHAPTER XI. THE SOUL. "The soul that sinneth, it shall die." --bible. I have already defined the soul as a vacuum, and herein appears the impossibility of it. The sublime and the ridiculous are so closely united that sometimes one is taken for the other. Modern philosophy, backed by science, says there are no vacuums; that "nature abhors vacuums "-- thus virtually admitting their existence; for how can nature abhor that which has no existence? It is not possible to conceive of a thing which has no foundation or existence. The supernatural is denied also, and that shows the weakness and nakedness of philosophy. The soul is supernatural, and it is a vacuum; but it is not given to ordinary minds to comprehend this. How can the natural mind believe in that which nature abhors? We instinctively try to destroy that which we abhor, and the mind that rejects a proposition is at variance therewith, and its thought is that of destruction. No man can conceive of the supernatural, except he have a something in himself in harmony with the idea. The soul is a vacuum--it is supernatural, because nature cannot destroy it; and that which is hidden is always superior to that which is visible. Soul corresponds to the feminine principle in nature, but this correspondence does not make a natural thing of it at all. It is not a thing, but that which gives birth to things. Attraction it: the feminine of nature, but this is not the soul, but that which the soul produces as a governing law in nature. In nature, things are moved by Contact and by Impact. Operations by contact are always downward. We cannot operate upwards, save as we receive that which is superior from above by impact. This is the way of the spirit. Spirit is Natural, Unnatural, Terrine, and...