ything to this explanation; the
difficulty lies in the audacious sweep of the speculation itself; we
will, however, attempt an illustration, although we fear it will be to
illustrate _obscurum per obscurius_. Let A B C D be four out of the
Infinite number of the Divine attributes. A the attribute of mind; B the
attribute of extension; C and D other attributes, the nature of which is
not known to us. Now, A, as the attribute of mind, is that which
perceives all which takes place under B C and D, but it is only as it
exists in God that it forms the universal consciousness of all
attributes at once. In its modifications it is combined separately with
the modifications of each, constituting in combination with the modes of
each attribute a separate being. As forming the mind of B, A perceives
what takes place in B, but not what takes place in C or D. Combined with
B, it forms the soul of the human body, and generally the soul of all
modifications of extended substance; combined with C, it forms the soul
of some other analogous being; combined with D, again of another; but
the combinations are only in pairs, in which A is constant. A and B make
one being, A and C another, A and D a third; but B will not combine with
C, nor C with D; each attribute being, as it were, conscious only of
itself. And therefore, although to those modifications of mind and
extension which we call ourselves, there are corresponding modifications
under C and D, and generally under each of the Infinite attributes of
God, each of ourselves being in a sense Infinite--nevertheless, we
neither have nor can have any knowledge of ourselves in this Infinite
aspect; our actual consciousness being limited to the phenomena of
sensible experience.

English readers, however, are likely to care little for all this; they
will look to the general theory, and judge of it as its aspect affects
them. And first, perhaps, they will be tempted to throw aside as absurd
the notion that their bodies go through the many operations which they
experience them to do, undirected by their minds. It is a thing, they
may say, at once preposterous and incredible. It is, however, less
absurd than it seems; and, though we could not persuade ourselves to
believe it, absurd in the sense of having nothing to be said for it, it
certainly is not. It is far easier, for instance, to imagine the human
body capable by its own virtue, and by the laws of material
organisation, of building a house