RaptorWizard
Permabanned
- Joined
- Mar 19, 2012
- Messages
- 5,895
- MBTI Type
- INTJ
- Enneagram
- 5w6
- Instinctual Variant
- sx/so
There is no individual thing in nature which is not surpassed in strength and power by some other thing, but any individual thing being given, another and stronger is also given, by which the former can be destroyed. There is always a bigger fish. Every part is important, each comprising the whole. We suffer in so far as we are a part of nature, which part cannot be conceived by it alone without the other parts. The force by which man perseveres in existence is limited, and infinitely surpassed by the power of external causes. The power by which individual things and consequently man preserve their being is the actual power of God or nature, not in so far as it is infinite, but in so far as it can be manifested by the actual essence of man. The power therefore of man, in so far as it is manifested by his actual essence, is part of the infinite power of God or nature, that is to say, part of his essence. Hence it follows that man is always necessarily subject to passions, and that he follows and obeys the common order of nature, accommodating his self to it as far as the nature of things requires. If the power of man is but an expression of the infinite power of God, by better understanding the powers of our own minds, we can better understand the power of God, and hence become more like him.