position of error enters there;”[1] “Reality is spiritual, harmonious, immutable, immortal, divine, eternal.”[2]
Plotinus speaking of the “intelligible world”, or of nature spiritually considered as Mrs. Eddy would phrase it, says: “Nothing preternatural is there.”[3]
Proclus says: “To nature, indeed, considered as a whole, nothing is preternatural; because all natural productive powers are derived from it. But to nature which ranks as a part, one thing is according to, and another contrary to nature.”[4] Spinoza writes to Oldenburg: “Each part of nature agrees with its whole, and is associated with the remaining parts. For as to the means whereby the parts are really associated, and each part agrees with its whole, I told you in my former letter that I am in ignorance. To answer such a question, we should have to know the whole of nature and its several parts;”[5] “I do not attribute to nature either beauty or deformity, order or confusion.”[6]
The student should be reminded that this theory of the absolute and present perfection of the world has its basis in Plato's doctrine that in the world of ideas and paradigms, which is the world of realities, there is no defect nor evil, as
- ↑ S. and H. p. 503.
- ↑ S. and H. p. 335.
- ↑ 5. 9. 10.
- ↑ Nature of Evil. 3. (p. 117.)
- ↑ Letter, 15.
- ↑ Letter, 15.
