spur to action; sense the first step on the ladder to perfection.



ANIMAL SENSATIONS ACCOMPANY MENTAL SENSATIONS.

S 12.--Law.


The understanding of man is extremely limited, and, therefore, all
sensations resulting from its action must of necessity be also limited.
In order, therefore, to give these sensations greater impulse, and with
redoubled force to attract the will to good and restrain it from evil,
both natures, the spiritual and the animal, are so intimately connected
with each other that their modifications, being mutually interchanged,
impart strength to one another. Hence arises a fundamental law of mixed
natures, which, being reduced to its primary divisions, runs thus: the
activities of the body correspond to the activities of the mind; that is,
any overstraining of a mental activity is necessarily followed by an
overstraining of certain bodily actions,--just as the equilibrium, or
harmonious action, of the mental powers is associated with that of the
bodily powers in perfect accord. Further: mental indolence induces
indolence in the bodily actions; mental inaction causes them to cease
altogether. Thus, as perfection is ever accompanied by pleasure,
imperfection by the absence of pleasure, this law may be thus expressed:
Mental pleasure is invariably attended by animal pleasure, mental pain by
animal pain. [Complacency and Displacency perhaps more aptly express the
meaning of Lust and Unlust, which we translate by pleasure and pain.]