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SEEN IN MAN'S WISDOM.
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contained, or the vessel from that which fills it. An individual, endowed with certain faculties of mind, or, in other words, with a certain mental constitution or organization, has thereby merely the capability of receiving certain kinds and degrees of ideas and sentiments, when they flow in. There is no such thing as endowing an individual with thoughts and feelings, any more than there is a possibility of endowing the earth with heat and light. The earth is merely created, or endowed, with a faculty of receiving heat and light from the sun, as also rains and dews from the heavens, and thereby of producing flowers and fruits. It has no heat and light of its own, but is momentarily dependent for them on the sun above; so that were the sun to cease to shine, the earth would be barren and dead, producing nothing. And this would be the case, though its organization or structure were still unchanged. This shows, that the organization or constitution of the earth is one thing, and that the influx of heat and light, causing it to produce, is quite another thing—and yet that both are necessary to cause any production. For, as the organization alone, without the direct influx of heat and light from the sun, cannot produce anything, so neither can that heat and light produce, except according to the organization and character of the soil on which they fall. Though the sun's heat and light fall upon the rock of Gibraltar or the sands of Arabia for ever, or however intensely, yet they are for ever barren. And so, on the other hand, the richest soil can produce nothing in darkness and cold. Thus, in order to production, it is seen that two distinct things are necessary, first a proper organization, structure, or constitution in the soil and secondly the influence of active