Immanuel Kant

“ Philosophy, which on account of its self-conceit exposes itself to all sorts of empty questions, finds itself often in awkward embarrassment in view of certain stories, parts of which it cannot doubt without suffering for it, nor believe without being laughed at. Both difficulties we find to a certain degree united in the current accounts of spirit visions, the first in listening to him who avouches their truth, the second in communicating them to others. In fact, there is no reproach more bitter to the philosopher than that of credulity, and of yielding to common fancies. ”

“ We had to make use of a good deal of philosophy to know the difficulties surrounding a conception generally treated as being very convenient and common. Still more philosophy moves this phantom of knowledge yet further away, and convinces us that it is entirely beyond the horizon of man. For in the relations of cause and effect, of substance and action, philosophy at first serves to dissolve the complicated phenomena, and to reduce them to simpler conceptions. But when one has, finally, arrived at fundamental relations, philosophy has no business any more. ”

“ The fallacies, which are innumerable in all reasoning on spiritual, moral, and civil subjects, originate in this source; for a fallacy is the inversion of order; it is the judgment of the eye, rather than of the mind, the conclusion drawn from the appearance of a thing, rather than from its essence. To reason therefore from fallacies about the world and the existence of the things contained in it is to confirm, as it were, by argument that darkness is light, that that which is dead is alive, and that the body enters by influx into the soul, rather than the contrary. ”

“ But to select from among the innumerable tasks before us the one which humanity must solve, is the merit of the wise. After science has completed its course, it naturally arrives at a modest mistrust and, indignant with itself, it says: How many things there are which I do not understand! But reason, matured by experience so as to become wisdom, speaks through the mouth of Socrates when, among all the merchandise of a fair, he says serenely: "How many things there are which I do not need!" ”

“ But the Divine Providence proceeds so secretly, that man scarcely sees a vestige of it, and yet it is active in the most minute particulars relating to him, from infancy to old age in the world, and afterwards to eternity; and in every one of them it is eternity which it regards. Because the divine wisdom in itself is nothing but an end, providence therefore acts from an end, in an end, and with reference to an end; the end being that man may become wisdom and love, and thus the dwelling-place and the image of the divine life."—Ath. ”

“ We find in the works of philosophers many good and reliable proofs that everything which thinks must be simple; and that every substance which thinks according to reason, must be a unit of nature; and that the undivisible Ego could not be divided among many connected things which make up a whole. My soul, therefore, must be a simple substance. But this proof leaves still undecided, whether the soul be of the nature of such things as, united in space, form an expanded and impenetrable whole; whether, therefore, it be material, or whether it be immaterial, and, consequently, a spirit ”

“ But the common tales which are so strongly believed by some, while disputed by others, who have as little foundation for their opinion, why do they still float about for no visible reason, and yet unrefuted, and creep even into systems of doctrine, although they do not have in their favour that most convincing of proofs, the proof derived from utility (argumentum ab utili) ? What philosopher has not at one time or another cut the queerest figure imaginable, between the affirmations of a reasonable and firmly convinced eye-witness, and the inner resistance of insurmountable doubt? ”

“ Every one also whose mind is in a state of illustration when he reads the Word, perceives this to be the case, from the fact that God is good itself, love itself, and mercy itself; and that good itself cannot do evil to any one, also that love itself and mercy itself cannot reject man from itself, because it is contrary to the very essence of mercy and love, thus contrary to the Divine Itself. Wherefore they who think from an enlightened mind when they read the Word, clearly perceive that God never turns Himself away from man, that He deals with him from good, love, and mercy ”

“ For this reason Swedenborg is the very oracle of the spirits, who are just as curious to view in him the present state of the world, as he is curious to observe in their memory, as in a mirror, the wonders of the spirit-world. Although these spirits are also in the closest conjunction with the souls of all other men, operating upon them and being operated upon by them, they yet know this as little as men know it; so entirely obscure is that interior sense which belongs to the spiritual personality of men. ”

“ In this enormous man there is a universal, most intimate communion of one spirit with all others, and of all with one; and, whatever may be the positions or changes of living beings in regard to each other in this world, still each has his place in the Grand Man entirely distinct from his place here, a place which he never changes, which is in immeasurable space only according to appearance, but in reality signifies only a particular character of his relations and influences. ”

“ Who does not know that action and speech are natural, therefore that all things of action and speech are natural? Who does not know that affection and thought, which are spiritual, cause man to act and to speak? From this who may not see what correspondence is between things spiritual and things natural? Does not thought make the tongue speak, and affection together with thought make the body act? There are two distinct things: I can think without speaking, and I can will without acting ”

“ The only question is, how it is possible that they place the phantoms of their imagination outside of themselves, and even put them in relation to their body, which they sense through their external senses. The great clearness of the fantasy cannot be the cause, for the point at issue is, the place where an object is put; and, therefore, I demand that it be shown how the soul places such an image as it should perceive to be contained in itself, into an entirely different relation, namely, into a place outside of itself and among those objects which are offered to its real perception. ”

“ I have sometimes spoken with angels about the Word, and said that it is despised by some on account of its simple style, and that nothing at all is known about its internal sense, and that for this reason it is not believed that so much wisdom lies concealed in it. The angels said that the style of the Word, though it appears simple in the sense of the letter, is still such that nothing can be at all compared to it in excellence, because divine wisdom lies concealed, not only in the entire sense, but also in each word ”

“ The borders of folly and wisdom are marked so indistinctly that one can hardly walk long in the one region without making at times a little digression into the other. But so far as that sense of honour is concerned, which may sometimes be persuaded even against resisting reason, it seems to be a remnant of the old ancestral loyalty which, to be sure, does not exactly fit in with the present state of things, and therefore often becomes folly, yet, on that account, is not to be considered the natural heirloom of stupidity. ”

“ For, as I treated the dogmatic part before the historic, and thus set reasons before experience, I gave cause for the suspicion of underhand-dealing, by having the whole thing before my mind from the start, and then feigning to know nothing but abstract considerations, so that I might finally surprise the reader who is expecting no such thing, by a pleasing confirmation from experience. In fact, this is a trick which philosophers have used at several times with very good success. To wit, all knowledge has two ends of which you can take hold, the one a priori, the other a posteriori. ”

“ To be able to choose rationally, one must know first even the unnecessary, yea the impossible; then, at last, science arrives at the definition of the limits set to human reason by nature. All hollow schemes, perhaps not unworthy in themselves but lying outside of the sphere of men, will then flee to the limbus of vanity. ”

“ Respecting the life which proceeds from the Lord, respecting also the existence of all things in the universe derived from it, every man who is wise in heart may see that nature does not produce anything from itself, but that, for the purpose of producing, it merely ministers to the spiritual principle proceeding from the sun of heaven, which is the Lord; as the instrumental cause ministers to its principal cause, or a dead force to its living force. From this it is evident how much men are in error, who ascribe to nature the generations of animals and productions of vegetables ”

“ But because the church, from the Word, believes in the immortality of the soul, they could not but ascribe to it something vital, such as is of thought, but still not any thing with sensation, such as man has, until it is again conjoined to the body. On this opinion is founded the doctrine in regard to the resurrection, and the faith that there is to be a conjunction when the last judgment comes. Hence it is, that when any one thinks about the soul from doctrine and at the same time from hypothesis, he does not at all comprehend that it is a spirit, and that in a human form. ”

“ No experience teaches me to believe some parts of my sensation to be removed from myself, to shut up my Ego into a microscopically small place in my brain from whence it may move the levers of my body-machine, and cause me to be thereby affected. Thus I should demand a strong proof to make inconsistent what the schoolmasters say: my soul is as a whole in my whole body, and wholly in each part. Common sense often perceives a truth before comprehending the reasons with which to prove or explain it. ”

“ Sometimes a mistaken conception of honour comes up in this matter, but nevertheless there is even in the most unselfish and open natures a secret leaning to compare with the judgment of others what we have by ourselves recognized to be good and true, so as to make both concordant; on the other hand there is an inclination to stop, so to speak, each human soul on its way to knowledge, when it seems to go another path than that upon which we have entered. ”

“ For no one comes into hell until he is in his own evil and in the falsities of evil, since it is not allowed any one there to have a divided mind, namely, to think and speak one thing and to will another. Every evil spirit must there think what is false derived from evil, and must speak from the falsities of evil; in both cases from the will, thus from his own love and its delight and pleasure; just as in the world when he thought in his spirit, that is, as he thought in himself when he thought from interior affection. ”

“ For while, by experience alone, we can perceive that things of this world which we call "material" possess such a force, we can never conceive of the reason why they exist. [3] Now, if I suppose other substances being present in space with other forces than that propelling force which has for its consequence impenetrability, then, of course, I cannot think in the concrete of their activity, because it has no analogy with my conceptions from experience. ”

“ They are really immaterial to us, and the reasons pro and con which, for the moment, prevail, may, perhaps, decide the applause of schools, but hardly anything about the future destiny of the righteous. Human reason was not given strong enough wings to part clouds so high above us, clouds which withhold from our eyes the secrets of the other world. ”

“ Certain newer philosophers, as they like to be called, overcome this question easily. A spirit, they say, is a being possessed of reason. Then it is no miracle to see spirits; for he who sees men, sees beings possessing reason. But, they continue, this being in man, possessing reason, is only a part of man, and this part, the animating part, is a spirit. Very well then. Before you prove that only a spiritual being can have reason, take care that first of all I understand what kind of conception I must have of a spiritual being. ”

“ Swedenborg talks with departed souls at will, and reads in their memory (power of perception) that state which they observe in themselves, and sees it just as clearly as with bodily eyes. Moreover, the enormous distances which divide the rational inhabitants of the world are nothing in regard to the spiritual universe, and it is just as easy for one to talk with an inhabitant of Saturn, as with a deceased human soul. Everything depends on the condition of the interior state, and upon the conjunction in which spirits are according to the harmony of their states of good and truth. ”

“ A very common experience may be compared with this deception. After having slept, we often regard—with drowsy and half-opened eyes—the variegated threads of the bed-curtains, or of the covering, or the small spots of the nearest wall, and easily form out of them figures of human faces and similar things. The delusion ceases at will and as soon as attention is aroused. In this case the transfer of the focus imaginarius of the fantasies is, to some extent, subject to our discretion, while in the trance it cannot be controlled by any will power. ”

“ Thought and will are of the spirit of man, and not of the body. That the spirit does not appear to man in a human form, after it is loosed from the body, nor in another man, is because the body's organ of sight, or its eye, so far as it sees in the world, is material, and what is material sees what is material only. ”

“ For just because the morality of an action concerns the inner state of the spirit, it naturally can only in the immediate communion of spirits have an effect adequate to its full morality. Thus it would happen that man's soul would already in this life have to take its place among the spiritual substances of the universe according to its moral state, just as, according to the laws of motion, the matter of the universe arranges itself into an order conformable to its material forces. ”

“ Let not man therefore believe that any thing which one has thought in himself, and has done in secret, is concealed after death; but let him believe that each and all things then appear as in clear day. ”

“ Therefore it seems to be more in accordance with human nature and the purity of morals to base the expectation of a future world upon the sentiment of a good soul, than, conversely, to base the soul's good conduct upon the hope of another world. Of that nature is also that moral faith, the simplicity of which can do without many a subtlety of reasoning, and which alone is appropriate to man in any state, because, without deviations, it guides him to his true aims. ”

“ Then even metaphysics will become that from which at present it is rather far off, and which would seem the last thing to be expected of her — the companion of wisdom. As long as people think it still possible to attain knowledges about things so far off, wise simplicity may call out in vain that such great endeavours are unnecessary. The pleasure accompanying the extension of knowledge will easily make it appear a duty, and will consider deliberate and intentional contentedness to be foolish simplicity, opposed to the improvement of our nature. ”

“ It is, therefore, indeed one subject, which is thus at the same time a member of the visible and of the invisible world, but not one and the same person ; for, on account of their different quality, the conceptions of the one world are not ideas associated with those of the other world, thus, what I think as spirit, is not remembered by me as man, and, conversely, my state as man does not at all enter into the conception of myself as a spirit. ”

“ It is interesting to note all through Kant's "critical" period this forced attitude of neutrality as long as the inquiry is simply and solely as to the power of the reason as such to create a knowledge of things transcending experience. He is strictly and manfully consistent with himself in rejecting as conclusions of pure reason any experiences of an objective world experimentally observed, whether on this material plane of existence or any other. To refuse to deny the possibility of other planes of existence and other modes of knowing than we now experience, is as far as he will go. ”

“ But in such a case would not this thinking Ego be subjected to the common fate of material natures, and, as it was drawn out of the chaos of all elements to vivify an animal machine, why should it not, after this casual combination has ceased, return in future to its origin? It is at times necessary to frighten the thinker who is on the wrong path, by the consequences, so that he may pay more attention to the principles by which he has been led off as in a dream. ”