THE

LAW OF CONTRARIETY.

IN our description of the structure of the Human Constitution, we have shown that it includes two opposite spheres which are combined together in production,- a personal sphere which constitutes what is relatively Substance in the Human Constitution, because it includes the indefinite forms or personal affinities of the individual, which are universal appropriating powers, and also includes Self-Consciousness, Individuality, or Will, which becomes developed through the means of these appropriations; and a general sphere which constitutes what is relatively Form in the Human Constitution, because it includes the principles of the human mind, which furnishes all the definite forms through which the individual obtains his consciousness, and becomes specifically manifested. Now, as the law of Contrariety demands that all changes of Substance shall be governed by a law of growth from below upwards, and that all changes of Form shall be governed by a law of development from within outwards, it consequently demands that the individual shall grow from below upwards, and that his mind shall be developed from within outwards; that, as the manifestations of his mind became degraded by being produced through lower forms, they should also become elevated by a more internal or self-conscious life; and that, as the manifestations of the individual became elevated by being produced through higher and more internal regions of Individuality or Will, and also by a more internal and self-conscious life, they should become degraded by the realization of an affinity for the lower or more external productions of the mind, and by the consequent appropriation and application of these as laws of the individual life. As the Personal Constitution, and also each department of the Mind, contains vital and destructive laws, representing Infinite and

Finite, which must be developed successively, in the personal constitution from below upwards, or from destructive to vital; and in the mind from within outwards, or from vital to destructive, — the destructive personal laws must first be incarnated and manifested in combination with forms corresponding with the vital laws of the Mind, which are representatives of Spiritual Life; and the vital personal laws must be incarnated and manifested in combination with conceptions of the destructive laws of the Mind, which are representatives of Spiritual Death. With regard to the quality of his life, therefore, the individual is constantly ascending; while, with regard to the forms of his life, he is continually descending: and the consequence of this is, that the lowest and the highest things are brought together, and are made to combine in production, the points of elevation and degradation are reversed and confounded, so that things are the opposite of what they seem, and all forms which are vital as the representatives of spiritual truth, good, and beauty, or use, have to be repudiated and destroyed, while forms which are opposite to these are substituted in their place as the governing laws of the individual belief and life, before spiritual realities, of which these are the natural representatives, can be presented to the consciousness, and realized in the life.

The necessity for this may be shown from a more external point of the consciousness in the following manner. As the incarnation of the soul is commenced in this external and material atmosphere, it must, of course, take its departure from the lowest and most external point of the individual consciousness, and ascend by gradual processes of natural growth and development in a manner analogous to that by which the lower forms of life, which are its material representatives, are produced; and, as this development and growth of the individual are obviously produced by the subjection of his personal want to laws which are communicated to him through the principles of his mind, he must, of course, commence with the appropriation of laws corresponding with spiritual life, which must be communicated to him. in the most external forms, corresponding with his individual position, as the condition of his subjection to them, and of their use to him in his growth and development; and these laws must be realized by him in a more internal, conscious, and comprehensible manner as he becomes elevated, in his growth from below upwards. But as the human constitution is, in every one of its departments, representative of both Infinite and Finite Principles,

as the Soul is destined to become at-one with one or the other of these in a spiritual sphere of consciousness, as, in realizing this consciousness, there must be presented to it laws and forms of spiritual life, upon the one hand, and of spiritual death, upon the other, that the individual may choose which of these shall constitute the life of his new, Spiritual Existence, and as natural forms representative of these must have been conceived, and applied as the laws of the individual life, as a preparation for this spiritual presentation, the laws appropriated by the individual must include those which are destructive as well as those which are vital and productive; and as only one of these can be appropriated at any one period, owing to the violent antagonism between them, in the conception and application of these laws, it is necessary that those which are vital, as the representatives of Spiritual Life, should be applied in the development of the individual while he is confined to an external condition and sphere of consciousness, and that those which are destructive, as the representatives of Spiritual Death, should be applied in the development of the individual when he has become elevated in his condition, and internal in his consciousness. It is necessary that vital and not destructive laws should operate in the external sphere, not only because the highest and most internal forms are then demanded under the law of Contrariety, but because, if the destructive laws should be applied, not only would the development of the individual be prevented, but he would be destroyed; because, in this external sphere, every thing is brought down into the region of Sensation, and carried out into external manifestation in the life so that, separate from the law of production here stated, we may see the necessity that the destructive laws of the mind should be applied as laws of the individual life in an internal, and not in an external, sphere of consciousness. In this internal sphere, they can be applied without the same disastrous consequences, because, although they are destructive to all the productive forms and institutions which have been established as the representatives of the laws of spiritual life, the individual, in becoming internal and self-conscious, loses the power of external manifestation, and is principally confined to impracticable theories, which cannot be carried out in the life, and the object of which is the production of laws and forms of thought representative of Absolute Falsehood, as a preparation for his entrance into a spiritual sphere of consciousness. These conceptions of destructive laws and forms are also useful in producing the destruction

of theories and institutions, which, although externally representative of spiritual life, are destructive to the ideas which they represent; because they are governed by a natural law, correspond with natural thought and the natural life which are opposite to these ideas, and retard the progress of the individual, or the realization in him of self-conscious, independent experiences, and must therefore be removed from the belief and from the life, as a preparation for the reception of those which are spiritual and real. We see, then, that the law of Contrariety is sustained, both from a theoretical and from a practical point of view, as one of the laws which regulate the phenomena of natural life, or the changes which take place in the growth and development of the human constitution. We will now illustrate this law by showing its operation in the State, in Philosophy, in the Church, and in the manifestations of the Sentimental Nature, through which supernatural laws are communicated, and forms corresponding with these are established, through the operation of which the development of the Individual Consciousness is produced; and, in doing this, we are to show, that, in each of these, the most opposite things are combined in production, that each one of these is addressed to, and is associated in production with, individuals who are in a sphere the most opposite to that which is represented by it, and that, as it becomes internal and self-conscious, and therefore elevated as to its substance, it becomes external and naturalistic, and is thus degraded in its form.

THE STATE may be seen to illustrate the law of Contrariety, because it is realized at the commencement of every social development in its most perfect natural form, while the people who become subject to it, and are associated with it in production, are confined to the rudest or most barbarous condition of the individual consciousness. The State performs, at its commencement, a service that is perfectly analogous to that performed by the Church, with which it is at this time closely united, and to which it is subordinate, in establishing the highest forms of social organization, and in subjecting the people to their productive influences. A directing power is thus furnished by the State for the guidance of the individual at a time when his consciousness is not sufficiently elevated for the purpose of self-government, and a dependent condition of the people is realized that is represented in an extreme and external manner by the complicated machinery of Chinese society, in which the most minute directions regulating the performance of all the duties of life are furnished by the State,

and emanate from the supreme head of the Nation. This may be seen to illustrate the law of Contrariety, because it is evident that a true social condition is not here realized, but only represented, and, in being represented, is contradicted; and because, in proportion as the individual becomes fitted to fulfil his duties to the State from an internal, real, and self-conscious point of view by the elevation of the individual condition, all legitimate social forms are repudiated and destroyed by him. Although Society as originally constituted, including the subjection of the individual to the State and of the State to the Church, is the legitimate representative of that spiritual form which is founded in the laws of spiritual life, it is the furthest removed from a true social organization, for the reason, that, instead of promoting, it prevents the growth and development of the individual from an internal, real, and self-conscious point of view. The individual is here completely subordinated and made subject to the State, as he must indeed be in order that any real social organization should exist; but, in being thus subordinated, he becomes annihilated, and nothing but an external appearance representing a true social condition is produced. In order that a true social condition should be realized, instead of being represented, it is necessary that the individuals who compose the State should have been prepared by a complete development of all their powers and capacities from an internal, self-conscious, and individual point of view, through a course of independent individual experiences, as well as from an external, unconscious, social point of view; and this cannot, of course, be accomplished while the individual remains in bondage to the State, and also to the Church, under which the individual is necessarily crushed: for although this bondage is self-imposed, and this sacrifice of the individual is willingly submitted to by him, he is, for these very reasons, the more completely annihilated. It will thus be seen that the form and the substance of social life are not identical, but are, on the contrary, the farthest removed from each other in the order of production, because they belong to opposite spheres of life, that between these two extremes must intervene the development of Individualism and Naturalism, which, instead of leading the individual to subject personal want to universal law through vital social forms, lead him to substitute the Individual for the Universal, or to establish personal want from a universal point of view through destructive social forms, and that, in passing from the form to the substance of Social Life, all those ideas and institu