The brute follows it without freedom.
I, from whom, in the visible world, the movement proceeds (without,
therefore, originating in me), follow it freely.
But, pure and holy, and near to thine own essence as aught, to mortal
apprehension, can be, this thy life flows forth as a band which binds
spirits with spirits in one, as air and ether of the one world of
Reason, inconceivable and incomprehensible, and yet lying plainly
revealed to the spiritual eye. Conducted by this light-stream, thought
floats unrestrained and the same from soul to soul, and returns purer
and transfigured from the kindred breast. Through this mystery the
individual finds, and understands, and loves himself, only in another;
and every spirit detaches itself only from other spirits; and there
is no man, but only a Humanity; no isolated thinking, and loving, and
hating, but only a thinking, and loving, and hating in and through
one another. Through this mystery the affinity of spirits, in the
invisible world, streams forth into their corporeal nature, and
represents itself in two sexes, which, though every spiritual band
could be severed, are still constrained, as natural beings, to love
each other. It flows forth into the affection of parents and children,
of brothers and sisters, as if the souls were sprung from one blood as
well as the bodies--as if the minds were branches and blossoms of the
same stem; and from thence it embraces, in narrower or wider circles,
the whole sentient world.
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