-in
active functions, such as those connected with hunger, respiration,
sleep, digestion; in many passive ones, such as we are accustomed to call
mental, as in memory, the perception of color, sound--a purely automatic
action of the body, which it pursues simply by following out its own
laws, independent of the soul's direction or interference.

PHYSICAL CONNECTION.

THE ANIMAL NATURE STRENGTHENS THE ACTION OF THE SPIRIT.

S 2.--Organism of the Operations of the Soul--of its Maintenance and
Support--of Generation.

All those conditions which we accept as requisite to the perfection of
man in the moral and material world may be included in one fundamental
sentence: The perfection of man consists in his ability to exercise his
powers in the observation of the plan of the world; and since between the
measure of the power and the end towards which it works there must exist
the completest harmony, perfection will consist in the highest possible
activity of his powers, and, at the same time, in their mutual
subordination. But the action of the human soul is--from a necessity
which I do not understand--bound fast to the action of matter. The
changes in the world of matter must be modified and, so to speak, refined
by a peculiar class of secondary powers--I mean the senses--before they
can produce in me any corresponding ideas; while, on the other hand, a
fresh set of organic powers, the agents of voluntary movements must come
into play between the inner spirit and the outward world in order to make
the changes of the former tell upon the latter; thus must the operations
of thinking and sensation alike correspond to certain movements of the
internal sensorium. All this goes to make up the organism of the soul's
activities.

But matter is spoil stolen from the eternal change, and wears itself
away, even as it works; in its movement its very element is driven from
its grooves, chased away and lost. Because now, on the contrary, that
simple essence, the soul, possesses in itself permanence and stability,
and in its essence neither gains nor loses aught,--matter cannot keep
step with the activity of the spirit, and there would thus soon be an end
of the organism of spiritual life, and therewith of all action of the
soul. To prevent which there must be added to the first system or
organic powers a second one, which shall make good the losses sustained,
and sustain the decay by a chain of new creations ready to take the pl