If we conceive the operation by which the supreme being is
supposed to have produced all beings, no longer as an emanation,
an exertion of the creative force and infinite substance, but as
a division or differentiation of this substantial force, each
being, organized or unorganized, will appear to us the special
representative of one of the innumerable potentialities of the
infinite being, as a section of the absolute; and the collection
of all these individualities (fluids, minerals, plants, insects,
fish, birds, and quadrupeds) will be the creation, the universe.
Man, an abridgment of the universe, sums up and syncretizes
in his person all the potentialities of being, all the sections
of the absolute; he is the summit at which these potentialities,
which exist only by their divergence, meet in a group, but
without penetrating or becoming confounded with each other. Man,
therefore, by this aggregation, is at once spirit and matter,
spontaneity and reflection, mechanism and life, angel and brute.
He is venomous like the viper, sanguinary like the tiger,
gluttonous like the hog, obscene like the ape; and devoted like
the dog, generous like the horse, industrious like the bee,
monogamic like the dove, sociable like the beaver and sheep.
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