Page:The Collected Works of Theodore Parker Discourse volume 1.djvu/164

Rh and self-conscious. From the nature of these things, it must be so.

if God be present in Matter, the analogy is that he is also present in Man. But to examine this point more closely, let us set out as before from the Idea of God. If he have not the limitations of matter, but is Infinite, as the Idea declares, then he pervades Spirit as well as Space; is in Man as well as out of him. If it follows from the Idea that he is immanent in the Material World—in a moss; it follows also that he must be immanent in the Spiritual world—in a man. If he is immanently active, and thus totally and essentially present, in each corner of Space, and each Atom of creation, then is he as universally present in all Spirit. If the reverse be true, then he is not omnipresent, therefore not Infinite, and of course not God. The Infinite God must fill each point of Spirit as of Space. Here then, in God's presence in the soul, is a basis laid for his direct influence on men; as his presence in Nature is the basis of his direct influence there.

As in Nature his influence was modified only by the capacities of material things, so here must it be modified only by the capabilities of spiritual things; there it assumed the forms of mechanical, vital, and instinctive action; here it must ascend to the form of voluntary and self-conscious action. This conclusion follows undeniably from the analogy of God's presence and activity in Matter. It follows as necessarily from the Idea of God, for as he is the materiality of Matter, so is he the spirituality of Spirit.