Page:The astral world, higher occult powers; (IA astralworldhighe00tiff).pdf/40

 influence of these material bodies. My first position is this: The manifestation of impulse in finite beings rises out of the relation which one finite being sustains to another. There is no impulse that does not grow out of this relation; and the impulse is according to the nature and character of that relation. In the divine order, if my body, as a physical and a finite existence, did not sustain any relation, it would be subject to no impulse; therefore, whenever I perceive an impulse arising within me, I am informed thereby that I sustain a certain relation to something, and that if I would become truly wise in controlling that impulse, I must learn what that relation is. I might begin back of mind or conscious being to show how uniform this law is in the material or unconscious world, as that the influence between the earth and the sun arises out of a certain relation existing between them, and that if you change or destroy that relation, you change or destroy that influence. But I will illustrate this truth by reference to a conscious being. If man could be isolated from all laws, he would be a very different being from what he now is, although he might retain the same constitution which he now possesses; because he could not then come into certain relations which are necessary, in order to have revealed within him certain affections. I will take, for instance, the conjugal relation. It is the nearest the Divine. It is the first-begotten relation below the Infinite. Until a man and woman come into the true conjugal relation, they can not experience that love known as conjugal love. Till then it can not be begotten in them. They may conjecture they know what it is, but until that