into the Will, and become governing laws of the individual life. In an internal sphere of the natural consciousness, it is calculated, in the first place, for obtaining conceptions of the internal forms of individual relationship corresponding with the internal directions of the Moral Sentiments, and of establishing these as governing laws of the Will. It thus connects the individual with others, in the various relations of life, from an internal point of view, or from the point of internal instead of external use, and establishes forms of manifestation calculated to secure the realization of the ends proposed in these conceptions. In the next place, it is calculated for obtaining conceptions of the internal forms of individual relationship corresponding with the internal directions of the Religious Sentiments, and of establishing these as governing laws of the Will. It thus connects the individual with supernatural ideas which represent an inversion of the laws of spiritual life, and establishes these as governing laws of the individual life; for these internal religious, as well as these internal moral, experiences are realized from the destructive side of the sentimental nature, which corresponds with the Finite, and are therefore antagonistic and destructive to those which are realized in an external sphere of the consciousness.

The spiritual principle, which constitutes the Spirit of Will, or Individuality, and which we name "Consciousness," is the introspective, unifying, vitalizing, and self-determining principle, and presides over the entire sum of individual recognitions and relationships, and determines him in view of all the materials which enter into his consciousness. It is therefore the principle through which he obtains a knowledge of his entire individual position in view of all his light and all his love, of all that he has, and all that he has not, made one with himself by individual appropriation; or in view of all that he is, and all that he hopes to be; demanding an absolute law by the operation of which all his experiences shall become one, or harmonious, as a perfect individuality of body, soul, and spirit. Now, although this principle is particularly appropriate to the spiritual sphere of the consciousness, it obtains a natural development, and realizes manifestations of a natural character, which are of the utmost importance in preparing the individual for the Spiritual Birth; for it must be obvious that he must obtain the most full and precise information with regard to his natural condition from an internalnatural point of view, before he can be placed in that self-conscious spiritual position which includes a free self-determination,

and which must therefore include a perfect knowledge of his own condition, from both a natural and a spiritual point of view.

Although these principles of the Will correspond with, and are thus appropriate to, the three several spheres of consciousness into which the soul successively comes, and become developed successively, as it grows from below upwards and is born of blood, of water, and of spirit,—it will be understood that the entire Will, as well as the entire Mind, is an original creation, but that the individual becomes conscious of himself as he becomes developed through individual appropriation and construction, and through supernatural communication and direction. As a tri-personal form is the necessary condition of life, all these principles of the Will must, of course, be in some degree united in manifestation. In natural spheres of consciousness, however, this union is comparatively an unconscious one, for the reason that the development of the Mind and the growth of the individual are necessarily partial, and the spheres of the Will are also discordant, so that they cannot become consciously developed together. The most external principle is influenced by those which are higher, in proportion as the individual becomes internal: but this internal growth is accompanied by a decline of power in the external manifesting principle; and although all its self-conscious manifestations are constructed as means for the production of use to the individual from a natural point of view, in his endeavors to realize what is good for him upon the whole, all its internal presentations and conceptions, and all its external manifestations, are realized under the direction of Divine Providence, by which the individual is provided with what is really the most useful to him; and this, of course, will be very far from what he proposes to himself, from the natural and false point of view to which he is confined.

There is no subject that seems to be less understood than the Will, and none about which there has been so much dispute; and the principal reason for this is, that, from the nature of its constitution, it seems in a particular manner to be the opposite of what it really is, while the necessities of the individual demand that he should believe it to be what it appears: for, being the personal and self-conscious department of the human constitution, upon which the individual must rely for information with regard to every thing that is presented to him from within as an individual experience, it is extremely difficult for him to recognize the fact that every one of these internal experiences, as well as every thing that is presented to him through the external senses, is an

unreal and deceptive appearance that is the opposite of what it seems. The Will has been regarded in Philosophy, not as a complex department of the human constitution, whose laws, functions, and phenomena were to be separately investigated and described, but as a simple, independent power of the soul which acts as a sovereign, and determines the individual to this or that decision or act; and therefore the principal if not the only question in regard to it has been, "What is it that determines the Will?" Some have taken the ground, that it is determined by motives, or by the particular wants of the individual constitution, and is thus necessitated; and some have taken the opposite ground, that it determines itself without reference to these motives or wants, and is therefore free. Some have assumed, with Locke, that the Will is determined by "the present and most pressing want or uneasiness;" and some have taken the more rational position, that it is determined by a calculation of "what is good for the individual upon the whole;" while the phrenologists teach, according to Mr. Combe, "that the knowing and reflecting faculties constitute the Will." Although the phrenologists have not discovered the organs through which the Will is manifested, and do not recognize it as a separate principle or power of the mind, they have discovered the organs of the personifying principles, and have described some of their most external manifestations under the forms of "Firmness," "Self-Esteem," "Acquisitiveness," and "Secretiveness." They have also observed some of the lower manifestations of the Will, but refer them to sources in the mind with which they have no relation. Thus M. Broussais, in treating of the organ of "Cautiousness," has described, in the following manner, manifestations which are referable to the lowest principle or region of the Will: "Dupuytren was the celebrated surgeon of the Hôtel Dieu; a man of great talents and decision of character. He calculated all his actions and all his words. He never used an expression or executed a gesture of which the effect was not foreseen. He practised one manner with the student,- another with the patient of the lower orders,-another with the patient of a higher class,— another was reserved for princes, - another differently graduated was exhibited towards his professional brethren, and to them alone, — and, finally, still another for the public in his gratuitous consultations. Cuvier also was a man who calculated all his actions. He spoke exactly what he wished to express in regard to events, and never manifested a sentiment or project which he had not

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specifically designed to communicate. This is the power which enables its possessor to restrain the manifestation of all his faculties, and to allow them to act only on proper occasions." We have now described this department of the human constitution in a particular manner, and have shown that the principles of the Mind furnish the means through which the Will becomes developed, and also the forms through which the individual becomes specifically manifested. We have shown that the principles of "Personality" and "Property" constitute the most concentrated form of the Individual as Male and Female, whose office it is to appropriate and to construct or individualize those intellectual and affectional experiences of the mind, or those laws and forms of truth and of good, which are congenial to their constitution, and suited to the present want of the individual, into systematic forms, in which the lower is made subject to the higher, by which they are adapted to the immediate use of the individual, both from universal and ideal, and from personal and practical, points of view; and that in this way the individual obtains an orderly arrangement of, and thus a systematic command over, all his intellectual and affectional acquisitions and wants, which prepares them for combination in the Will for the purpose of realizing an individual plan of life, by which he can be directed in the most systematic and profitable manner in realizing what is good for him upon the whole. This combination and individualization are effected by means of the three principles of the Will here enumerated, which constitute a tri-personal individual form that becomes developed from the lowest to the highest in the growth of the individual from below upwards as body, soul, and spirit, and becomes manifested from the highest to the lowest as spirit, soul, and body; the spirit being self-conscious, vital, and real, the soul relative and representative, and the body internally negative and destructive, while it is at the same time externally productive as the manifesting principle. These three principles correspond with the spiritual, the supernatural, and the natural regions of the mind, or of the general consciousness: their full development, as accompanied by a corresponding development of the mind, is alluded to in the Scriptures as births of blood, of water, and of spirit; and they will represent in their spiritual condition and regenerated form the Spirit, Water, and Blood which constitute the divine-humanity of Christ.

We have now given a general analysis of the Human Constitution, enumerated all the primitive principles which it contains,

and shown the precise relationships which exist between them; and this will therefore be found to include, not only a comprehensible ground for every individual manifestation that can possibly be conceived, but also to include the ground for a knowledge of those relationships between the various departments of thought and of life which are necessary to the comprehension of their true nature, as a substitute for those empirical and fictitious individual opinions, founded in appearances, which have heretofore been entertained upon these subjects. We would call particular attention to this statement of the forms of the human constitution, and the relationships between its spheres, departments, and principles, which are established by the application of the laws of Absolute Science, because the conception of these here realized reveals the character of every principle and form of life: so that, even from the very general description that we are able now to give of them, more light is thrown upon the nature, and the relative dignity and importance, of the various forms of human manifestation, than can be obtained from all other sources; while this will, of course, be greatly increased by the more particular statements that will be made in the succeeding volumes. By this conception and classification, under the Universal Laws of Existence, we do not simply offer an addition to knowledge already acquired, but we realize a universal and permanent form that cannot admit of any addition, subtraction, or change. The number of these primitive principles, which is eighty, or "fourscore," will therefore be found to be the same as that named in the Scriptures, in which all natural, supernatural, and spiritual forms and relationships are represented. We there read: "The days of our years are threescore years and ten; and if by reason of strength they be fourscore years, yet is their strength labor and sorrow." That this description is not to be understood literally, but refers to the fundamental principles of human nature by which its mental states are produced, or to the permanent forms of life and the states of life produced through these forms, may be inferred from the definitions of these words given by Swedenborg, who says, "Day signifies what is perpetual and eternal; and by Years are signified states in the manifestation of the Soul." These primitive principles we will now enumerate and classify under one general form.