Page:Immanuel Kant - Dreams of a Spirit-Seer - tr. Emanuel Fedor Goerwitz (1900).djvu/150

 132 spiritual origin or principle, because this possesses in itself the divine esse, and also the divine force—active, creative, and formative. This essence may also be called soul, because all that is spiritual lives; and when that which is alive acts upon that which is not so, upon that, for instance, which is natural, it causes it either to live as if from itself, or to derive from it something of the appearance of life; the former is the case with animals, the latter with vegetables. The reason that nothing in nature exists but from a spiritual origin or principle is, that no effect is produced without a cause. Such is the case with nature; all the several and most minute objects belonging to it are effects produced from a cause, which is prior, interior, and superior to it, and proceeding immediately from God. For since there exists a spiritual world, which is prior, interior, and superior, to the natural world, therefore all that belongs to the spiritual world is cause, and all that belongs to the natural world is effect."—Ath. Cr., 94.

14 (p. 57).—"That nature serves as a covering for that which is spiritual, is evident from the souls of beasts, which are spiritual affections, being clothed from materials in the world, it being well known that their bodies are material; so also the bodies of men. The reason that the spiritual can be clothed from the material is, that all the objects which exist in nature, whether they belong to atmosphere, to water, or to earth, are, as to every individual of them, effects produced from the spiritual as a cause. The effects again act as one with the cause, and are in complete agreement with it, according to the axiom, that nothing exists in the effect that is not in the cause. But the difference is, that the cause is a living force, because it is spiritual, while the effect derived from it is a dead force, because it is natural. From this it is, that there are in the natural world such objects as are in complete agreement with those which exist in the spiritual world, and that the former can be suitably conjoined with the latter. Hence then it is, that it is said that nature was created that the spiritual may be clothed from it with forms to serve for use. That nature was created that the spiritual may be terminated in it, follows from what has been already said, that the objects in the spiritual world are causes, while those in the natural world are effects, and effects are limits."—Ath. Cr., 95.

15 (p. 59).—"Effects teach nothing but effects; when effects alone are considered no cause is brought to light; but causes reveal effects.