Page:Swedenborg, Harbinger of the New Age of the Christian Church.djvu/123

 or when our intuition of objects calls up in the objects themselves the image and glory of our own selfhood. It is like pouring a liquor upon some exquisite wine, which throws it into a froth, sullies its purity, and clouds its translucence. It is as if the animal spirits were stirred into waves, and a tempest drove the grosser blood into insurgent motion, by which the organs of internal sensation or perception becoming swollen, the powers of thought are dulled, and the whole scene of action in their theatre changed. In those who experience these disorderly states, the rational faculty is crippled and brought to a standstill; or rather its movements become retrograde instead of progressive. A limit is put to its operations, which its possessor imagines to be the limit of all human capacity, because he himself is unable to overstep it. He sees little or nothing in the most studied researches of others, but everything—oh, how vain-glorious!—in his own. Nor can he return to correct conceptions until his elated thoughts have subsided to their proper level. 'There are many,' says Seneca, 'who might have attained wisdom, had they not fancied they had attained it already.' The Muses love a tranquil