Page:Letters on the Human Body (John Clowes).djvu/106

86 mental sense, of which it is the basis and figure, and thus to the inmost and highest sense, by virtue of which it is in connection with its and  original.

If then man is so unwise as to suffer his bodily senses to gain the ascendancy over the superior senses of mind, either by directing his judgment or by alluring his will; if he allows them to darken his knowledge, and to deaden his love, of spiritual and eternal concerns, by the mistaken suggestions and enchanting fascinations of mere natural and temporal gratifications; if the servants and handmaids be thus permitted to exalt themselves above their masters and mistresses, so as to give commands instead of receiving them, and to dictate rather than to obey; if the instrumentals set themselves above their principals, the feet above the head, the creatures above their creating powers—what, I would ask, must, in such case, be the necessary tremendous consequence, but that all order will be inverted, so that earth will be exalted above heaven; natural delights above spiritual joys; the things of time above those of eternity; and finally man himself above his, to the utter extirpation of all innocence, gratitude, holiness, wisdom, and happiness, in the bosom of the deluded offender?