Numerical System of Nature o/M.. E. Fries. 83 



the same time a part of a larger whole. They are capable of 

 being themselves resolved into other wholes until the human 

 mind sinks under ideas of sublimity and subtilty which are 

 imperceptible to it, — of the universe and of atoms. 



An atom is a whole (an individual), a plant is a whole, the 

 earth is a whole, the universe is a whole : hence all things which 

 exist are parts of one highest whole. 



The vital principle of every individual is one ; the same vitality 

 animates the universe ; so that there is one and the same primitive 

 power which is revealed, by divers phenomena, in divers degrees 

 of perfection. § 4. 



Let us imagine all nature to be an immense sphere ; all the rays 

 converging in the centre where they finally become confluent in 

 a point, which may be called the point of identity. This point 

 comprehends the perfection of all the rays ; for that the most per- 

 fect and most completely formed creations, as the sun, are always 

 situated in the centre, is testified by all authority, by all experience. 

 The powers of nature diverging from each centre in polar op- 

 position, are continually passing into opposite series. A new 

 sphere is formed by each opposition, whence the highest (most 

 perfect) sphere is again and again resolved into new spheres 

 which form wholes of themselves, and each of which, according 

 as its power is a more or less perfect evolution, in itself reflects 

 the whole in a more or less distinct degree. 



The centres of these spheres may be exceedingly distant from 

 each other, but their rays always impinge upon the rays of some 

 other sphere : hence they are not the most perfect forms (smnma) 

 of each section which run into each other, but those which are 

 least perfect (infima). 



The different spheres therefore, being dependent upon the same 

 eternal laws, and only varying according to the idea peculiar to 

 each sphere, answer the one to the other. Hence among all na- 

 tural productions, a more near or more remote resemblance is per- 

 ceptible; the one of them being such resemblance asexists between 

 subjects contained in the same sphere : — Salts, for example, which 

 are formed of the same basis combined with different acids ; the 

 other being such resemblance as exists between subjects contained 

 in different spheres of the same degree of evolution, as Isomor- 

 phous Salts, the bases of which are different but the form the 

 same, on account of the identical relation of their elements. 

 The former is called Affinity, the latter Analogy. 

 § 6. It is impossible for the human mind, itself a finite 

 creation, to regard nature, whether her powers or her pro- 

 ductions are considered, in the light of the whole manifestation 

 of an infinite power, but only as parts or fragments of such 

 manifestation. But to comprehend these as one whole, that 

 is, as an eternal and immutable yet ever varying body, or, 

 as innumerable forms of one highest whole, is the end of all 

 disquisition, the sum of which we call a System. 



L2 It 



