Page:The astral world, higher occult powers; (IA astralworldhighe00tiff).pdf/29

 intellectual faculties have power to pursue their investigations. That which perceives the absolute must of itself be absolute; that is, the finite can not receive the infinite—the finite can not embrace the infinite. Therefore, if the infinite is ever to be represented to man, there must be a department that is receptive of the infinite; and that department must be infinite, or it can not receive the infinite. When I dwell more particularly upon this subject, I will endeavor to make it apparent to you so far as language is capable of making it.

Corresponding to the three spheres of perception there are three spheres of affection. The first sphere is called the sphere of self-love, or, to use a word which would express it in every relation, I would call it lust; that is, the desire for self-gratification. This is the lowest sphere pertaining to the finite, and corresponding to the sphere of fact or phenomena. The second sphere is the sphere of relational love, and that divides naturally into two departments—the love of unconscious nature, the love of sciences, etc., and the love of conscious being, or moral love, by which man loves his neighbor, some conscious being out of himself. That is the second sphere of love, known as relational, and it belongs to the sphere of relational truth, or the sphere of intellectual and moral investigation. There is a third sphere of impulse or love, known as the divine or absolute love, called the love of God, the love of the infinite. In one of these three spheres is every man's ruling affection to be found—in the sphere of self-love, seeking self-gratification; or in the sphere of moral love, seeking the welfare of his