The Apocalypse of Nature

Preface

PREFACE.

What a hallowed and important crisis is that, when a glimpse of the intellectual or moral world breaks in upon the mind—what complicated reflections of regret and astonishment arise, while it strives to arrange and disclose its conceptions and ideas! The mind, according to history, tradition and astronomical calculation, has been operating for 5000 years, with a ratio of improvement equal to its experience in knowledge, and yet has been so confined by the narrow boundaries of the animal and physical world, that the existence of an intellectual world has never suggested itself even to the imagination—What an inexplicable problem! Through the same long epoch, the whole power of the mind has been employed to preserve existence by means that renders it miserable. What a grievous and melancholy reflection!

How shall we attempt the solution of this problem—how offer consolation to afflicted thought?

"Truth is dangerous to be displayed."

This is the detestable axiom whose exposed falsehood will produce the solution of the problem, and the consolation of human sorrows.

The vanity of erudition and the cowardice of animal sensibility, labor to propagate this false doctrine.

To indolent and weak minds memory is made the substitute for judgment, and the facts and chronology of ancient history become its criterion for the present conduct and counsel of nations. To minds of great animal sensibility, and little judgment, every reformation or change portends danger and destruction, as the patient racked and tortured with the disease of the stone, sees, in the relief of lithotomy, all the horror of instantaneous death.

Men of great animal knowledge and ingenuity, in a comparative view of nations, fear the progress of truth, lest it produce wisdom and virtue to humanize their own country, which losing in consequence its ferocity, would be invaded and enslaved by the vice and folly of their neighbors. They do not reflect upon the irresistible force of truth, which, whenever it appears, will remain fixed as a sun, and all the powers of error, aided by art, can never force it below the moral horizon, though they may cause occasional fogs and mists, to interrupt, like passing clouds, its meridian splendor. Animal sensibility would find an asylum in its congenial rays, which could not fail to bring all humanized matter into the happy state of universal sympathy, and, rising above the horizon of humanity, would mark the aurora of intellectual existence, or well-being of all sensitive Nature.

All mankind are agreed in their lamentations for the miseries of human nature, and all do, or must agree, that the only remedy is to be found in the intellectual faculties of man. Under what diabolical fascination, or spell of the demon Error, must he act, who consents to chain those faculties, lest their operations should produce the increase instead of the remedy of those miseries.

In the primitive state of society, men removed many physical ills by the power of intellect; and those ills which may be called moral, or ignorant institutions, shall they be perpetuated by prohibiting the use of intellect or exposition of thought, at the very time humanity stands in most need of it? It may be the interest of priests and kings to maintain such a doctrine, to persuade men, like the sheep, to suffer the aggregation of the fold; but when, by the increase of intellect, arising from the free communication of thought, they shall find that the accidental evil of the wolves is to be preferred to the confirmed treachery and tyranny of shepherds, who, for their own personal advantage tear off their fleeces, and perpetuate their miserable existence; Humanity will then, with one common consent, burst from the chains of error, and hail the glorious dawn of the sun of truth, bringing the first day of light to intellectual existence, and the first day of happiness to all sensitive Nature.

For any defect or inelegance of style in the following pages, I myself possess, and offer also to my readers, this consolatory reflection;

Error will be divested of all the power of her insidious blandishments of eloquence; and Truth will be displayed in all the beauty of her nakedness.

Introduction

INTRODUCTION.

The incomprehensible cause of motion having hitherto been adored by mankind, under the personification of a deity, with attributes suited to the imagination of the votaries, it is no wonder that more than nineteen twentieths of animate matter, or the brute creation, has been sacrificed to the cruelty, and the caprice of mankind, who created the deity and his laws for the protection of their particular species alone.

The Apocalypse of Nature, which testifies and exposes the intimate connection and relation of all matter, must necessarily destroy this partial demon, and his more partial laws, and substitute in his place, a power that demands no personification; and this is the effect of motion, or its instrument of operation, the Volition of Man, which is the source of all [moral] good and evil.

This then is the true and comprehensible power, which demands no adoration, but only the study and attention of mankind to bring it into operation, which may be effected by extending the force of the intellectual faculties. The means to produce this first of all intelligible causes, must be by association; for as by the increase of number of bodies, greater physical powers are acquired; so also is intellectual momentum increased by collective minds; so that if an union of all the inhabitants of this globe was procured, the increase of corporeal and of mental strength would be parallel.

Such an union of the mental powers, produced by the free communication and intercourse of thought of all mankind, would form such a perfect intelligence, or primary cause to direct a wise and universal volition, as would bring the moral world from its chaos to order and system, by exposing to every individual the knowledge of Self, and its connection with Nature. Man would then exist in all the plenitude of his essence, connecting himself with all sensitive matter. He would stop the vibrations of violence upon the great chain of nature, and the moulds of animation would be perfectionated to communicate happiness to the universal inter-revolution of matter; and though the chain of Nature might be agitated from time to time, by opposition to the offensive volition of destructive animals, as ignorant men, beasts of prey, and venemous reptiles; yet its vibration would subside when the cause was removed, and sympathy would resume its power to eternize the tranquillity and happiness of all sensitive Nature.

The adoration of the effect of moral motion in volition, or self in system, should be formed by the example of the Guebers, or worshippers of the Sun, who contemplated its effects alone, and direct its congenial rays to the purposes of subsistence, and comforts of life. So should the children of Nature direct the congenial emotions of the volition, or self, in system, to procure a happiness to all sensitive Nature, the only adoration a pure and perfect intelligence can admit of. Were the Guebers to neglect the effect, and reason only upon the cause or essence of the sun, the physical world would be affected with the same disorders that the moral world is now subject to, from the preposterous employment of thought about the cause, and not the effect, of intelligence.

The Apocalypse of Nature

the

APOCALYPSE

[Or REVELATION]

of

NATURE.

Matter

MATTER.

All things that make an impression upon the senses of animated matter, contain in themselves a power or propensity to motion, which power is augmented or varied by the different combinations of bodies.

Matter, which in its dissolution, separates, can never be annihilated, and though it may disperse into an infinity of small particles, which, making no impression upon the gross organs of sense, may disappear, yet must continue to be in the great mass of existence; to which, as it is impossible to suppose a beginning, it is also impossible to suppose an end, and it may, therefore, be called eternal.

Matter is sufficiently defined to all the purposes of useful intelligence, by the word substance.

Motion is that substance in action.

Volition is the inceptive motion of the moral world, and the direction of this, in a right line to happiness, or well-being, is the only operation upon which the intellectual powers ought to be employed. Secondary causes and effects should alone be investigated, and primary or connection abandoned. We know that desire is the motive cause of pleasure, which effect is also the object of desire; but the connection between them can never be known; and as it is the effect alone which brings any utility, the augmentation and improvement of its causes alone merit attention.

The operation of the intellectual powers is to be guided and governed by utility, till it has discovered the line or orbit of happiness: then speculation and abstraction may be indulged in, as if unsuccessful in discovery they will be useful in amusement; whereas at present they serve but to confound the mental faculty, and embarrass it in the search of the right line to happiness.

How vain are the researches of the finely-constituted faculties in the discovery of the well-being of animated matter, if the errant powers of some minds labor to prove its non-existence, whose sophistical reasonings, like the destructive eye of the basilisk, dazzles the fear-confounded faculties of the self-devoted bird. I have examined the syllogisms of these sophists, that seem to have confounded all philosophers, and they appear to me such impertinent vagaries of the verbal ingenuity of man, that they form a deplorable evidence of the distance of the human mind from its intellectual acme. The mind arrived at this state possesses full power to procure happiness to its essence, and all abstraction beyond that point, proves its weakness by its impertinence.

Motion

MOTION

Is the force or soul of matter, and cause of all action; [its source is] impenetrable to all human knowledge.

The noblest production of motion is the animation of matter, which it combines into an organization capable of much action; the long continuance of which uses the machine, and dissolves it into its primary state, from which it again returns into animation, and forms an eternal revolution of combination and dissolution.

The most complicated animal machine is that called

Man

MAN.

This machine is formed of particles of matter, organized so as to resemble a corded instrument of music of five strings which correspond with the five senses. The intellectual faculties hold the bow and play, and the passions form the stops upon the handle of the instrument, and if just tones are produced, simultaneously or successively, their harmony or melody forms what is called an agreeable tune or air, or well-being and happiness, of which man himself possesses consciousness, and in this power he is superior to, and differs from the inanimate instrument.

The inceptive power of motion can no more be accounted for in the animal, than in any other part of matter; nor should the discovery at all interest the mind, being obviously impossible.

The volition or operation of the intellectual faculties to procure this agreeable air, or well-being of its essence, is all that merits the concern of a well-organized man.

The animal man is a subject that demands the whole attention and capacity of intellect, to investigate, not the origin, but means and end of his existence. On his action or motion depends the well-being of all animate and inanimate matter. We have proved that animals are ducts, or canals of identity, to receive matter in its eternal revolution. The connection or communion of matter with matter is seen by the constant transmutation of it in aliment, dissolved aud digested by animated bodies; which bodies, decomposed and absorbed by the elements, return to vegetation and animation, and continue this change, (not death,) of existence, to all eternity.

Death or change of existence is the dissolution of identity, which is but the tune of the instrument, and has no connection with Nature, which is formed by matter alone. How this is formed we know as little of, as of the connection between fire and heat; but we have an instinctive and conscious testimony, that we are immortal parts of the great integer—Nature; that we have existed from, and shall continue to exist to all eternity, though our identities have been interrupted by the weakness of reminiscence, or changed by decay or death.

A weak mind, that attaches itself to identity alone, may not be able to conceive its eternal connection with Nature, but I defy a mind, that has arrived at the acme of intellect and considers the indestructibility of matter to separate itself from its eternal integer, though it can have no knowledge of the mode of connection.

The utility of this doctrine is indisputable, as it shows us that we shall participate, in present and future, of all the evil that our vice or violence may bring upon the great mass of Nature, in the same manner, that the sobriety or intemperance of youth prepares a healthy or disordered old age, and that no clemency of an imaginary power or deity, can relieve us from the present or future consequences of our own actions.

Such a religion or doctrine would not fail, if universally taught, to render all mankind wise, virtuous and happy. The tyrant would tremble at the cruelty he prepares for another identity—the violent or vicious man would cease to perpetuate his brutality, lest his succeeding identity be animated to a world of misery; and the brute creation would be entitled to more humanity than our own species, lest their dumbness might conceal the pain which man inflicts, and lest he in future, assuming the identity of a brute, might suffer that pain, his inhumanity had caused and perpetuated.

The absurd and cruel institutions of society tyrannize over Nature, by multiplying the wants and classes of humanity, by substituting power to peace, labor to repose, riches to happiness. Original violence having destroyed truth in its abstract, or in the great circle and system; mankind, by operating in a contracted system of relative truth, perpetuate misery for their present and future identities.

When the human capacity shall arrive at intellectual existence, and conceive intuitively the sacred doctrine of the unity and eternity of all Nature, the whole moral economy of humanity will be changed—the system of Nature will be known—self will be discovered—happiness will be studied—and man, in the plenitude of intellectual existence, will be brought to a state of enlightened Nature, or absolute liberty directed and controlled by a wise volition, to obtain the end of well-being to self and fellow-selves, or all sensitive creatures.

The Volition

The VOLITION

Or will is produced both by physical and by moral causes; it is first examined by the Judgment, and in proportion as it is, or is not, thereby influenced, it effects an harmonious or a discordant tune.

The volition of man may be regarded as the source of moral motion, and takes its birth from outward or inward impression. This affection in man, unaccompanied by wisdom, is often dangerous to his well-being, and is very inferior to that of brutes, which instinct directs in a right line to their well-being. Hence the origin of coercion, to restrain the volition which would have answered all the end of wisdom, had not mankind, from an increase of population, seperated into several societies, each of which became, as it were, an individual, with its own unwise volition. Different associations having no coertion to restrain them, waged war on each other, and their violence or evil volition unrestrained, forced mankind into the asylum of civilization, where they met coertion, a monster who devoured their liberty and happiness, in order to assure to them their miserable existence.

In proportion as wisdom augments or advances, coertion must diminish or recede, and this is exemplified in the present state of different nations; those possess most liberty who possess most wisdom. The latter must always precede; for should the former dare to assume the precedence, it changes into licentiousness, and wisdom flies from its society, and to preserve existence, coertion must be called in, though to that demon, happiness is sacrificed upon the altar of despotism.

The Judgment

The JUDGMENT

Is the power of the mental qualities, to assort, to relate, to compare the ideas presented to it, to draw therefrom just inferences or deductions, and to direct and preserve the volition in a strait line to truth.

It is the great moral excellence of the machine called man; and if this machine is so organized as to allow the perfect operation of judgment, it must, when played upon, ever produce a melodious air.

Other machines that are less perfectly organized, and where this faculty may be wanting, are still capable of performing the same melody, but then they must follow the example of the first, which answers to the leader of the band, and they may acquire the habit of playing well, though they do not in so eminent a degree feel the consciousness, or know the cause of the melodious tune, which they produce by imitation, as the leader does by invention, by which it must receive a greater proportion of pleasure.

The faculty of judgment is the sovereign of the mental powers, and places its throne in the mind, holding a most despotic empire over the volition, whose residence is [figuratively said to be] in the heart. This it must treat with uncommon severity; for upon the least indulgence it rebels, and drives judgment from its throne, and even when it assumes an abject posture of supplication to wait with resignation the sovereign decree, its treachery must still be suspected, and it must not be suffered to approach even the steps of the throne; nay, with all these precautions, it has been known to menace its sovereign, and influence decrees, which judgment imagined were of pure motive. It often employs an officious emissary, named vanity, who whispers in the ear of judgment to obtain a partial decree for volition concealed behind its flowing robes. In short, judgment can never be secure till it has elevated its throne to a pinnacle, where the whispers of the emissary, and the supplications of volition, can never reach.

If we attend to the polemical writings of mis-named philosophers, and the conversation of modern disputants, we shall be sensible on what a low and humble throne judgment is seated, and what power the emissary, vanity, possesses; for their disputes tend not to form, but only to support an opinion; and with them truth and triumph are synonimous. If we would demonstrate by observation the power of volition over judgment, we might notice the clubs in St. James' street, and the conduct of some august personages, who resemble and equal in their great powers and excellence of intelligence, reflection and anticipation, the Caribbee Indians, who play for their beds in the morning, and cry for them at night, as do the former for their estates.

Having, by this allegory, shown the powers and properties of the animal machine, Man, I shall proceed to investigate his essence and end of existence; and first of his Essence.

The Essence of Man

ESSENCE.

We find in that combination of matter, called man, two powers, one passive, and the other active. The first is the corporeal power, formed of the visible and tangible parts, called body: the other is the result of the organization of that body, forming the power vulgarly called soul. The body, by its organs of sense, as eyes, ears, nose, palate, and various members, communicates with the soul, and conveys to it that intelligence, which the soul administers in procuring well-being to the body, and constantly directs it to the objects of pleasure, and warns it against those of pain. Where these component parts are perfect, the machine is moved in a right line to well-being, unless interrupted by some extraneous power over which it has no control.

The corporeal part of this machine is, as it were a canal or duct, to receive extraneous matter, and to communicate to it in its momentary passage the pleasure of consciousness or existence; for the foreign matter incorporates every moment in the machine, by respiration and aliment, and passes with such velocity, that thought can form no period of absolute, corporeal, or mental identity. The action of the memory, which lasts no longer than the nerve, its agent, vibrates, conveys epochas of pain and pleasure, called existence, to the circulating matter, and this is what is vulgarly understood by identity, which ceases, upon the decomposition of the corporeal and mental union, and releases itself in all Nature, from which it is impossible, even in thought, to separate it.

All Nature, that is, all its parts, called I, you, they, which are, were, and will be eternally a part of Nature, are interested in preserving these canals, or selfish identities of persons, in order that matter may be assured happiness and well-being in its eternal revolution.

The essence of man may be simply and intelligibly defined to be; Matter organized so as to procure a volition, and to possess means, to gratify the same, and to procure judgment, which may direct that volition and means to well-being and happiness of the man. Whatever opposes that judgment, must be inimical to man, as what aids it must be friendly.

Nothing proves so strongly the false principles of civil institutions, as the political tenet of necessity to keep the people in ignorance. This tenet is justified upon considerations of relative truth: for example; suppose any one nation, to cultivate truth; in proportion as this advanced, coercion would recede, and ultimately leave mankind in a state of absolute liberty, which would be employed in enjoying happiness, or a slate of pleasure, repose and content. If the neighboring nations continued in a state of ignorance, coercion would oblige them to substitute wealth and power to pleasure, labor and care to repose, and ambition and avarice to content. This disposition would lead them to invade their happy neighbors, in order to subdue and enslave them; but moral principles are like seed on the earth, which in many cases may be dispersed, and trod to destruction, yet some will not fail to take root, and these will invigorate and multiply, and may eventually cover the whole earth with vegetation.

Nations tremble, therefore, at this effect of truth, and dread the revolution or innovation, which may change its acorns into oaks, though these latter must ultimately vegetate over all Nature, and shade it from the injuries of ignorance and violence.

The innovations that truth must naturally bring about, would not appal strong minds, if they reflected, that the agitation which the falling pebble of truth causes in the centre of the lake, subsides into easy undulations, which spread themselves to the extremities, without injuring the waters. The innovations of error are alone to be dreaded. Truth and Nature, oppose the recoiling frothy waves, and never suffer a calm upon the lake of humanity, while error like a hurricane, continues to trouble its waters.

Of what little value is the present period of existence, compared to eternity?—how important is that reform which promises eternal happiness to our immortal connections with Nature, when this essence dissolves, and breaks our present form of connection with Nature. Since the elements in motion may convey our connections to the climes of Africa, some members of the British senate, not yet arrived at a state of intellectual existence, who vote the continuation of African slavery and misery, no doubt perpetuate that injustice and cruelty to their own connections, or future essence in Nature. However this doctrine of connection may, by its novelty and importance, dazzle or confound minds unused to abstract contemplation, or the common exercise of thought; to an intellectual mind, that can invert its powers upon self, it appears intuitive, easy and almost demonstrative, from the universal transformation of matter into matter, and the impossibility to conceive its cessation, though we cannot imagine its mode of connection with Nature.

Let us now consider what are the causes that disorder these canals, or oppose this machine, man, in his progress on the right line to well-being, or happiness. First, let them be considered in an Individual State.

In this state his opponents or enemies are, physical ills, as hunger, beasts, sickness, disorder of the elements, and enemies of his own species. These alternately interrupt his repose, and destroy him. His mental faculties, in a progressive improvement, lead him to association, which may guard him against these evils; but as the faculties of the mind are slow in improvement, association, will be slow in its effect, but like all parts of Nature, will move in a circle of perfection and destruction. Let us now view the animal man in a

State of Association

STATE of ASSOCIATION.

The first state of association of men was domestic, and it seems to have been well adapted to the enjoyment of animal happiness; or corporeal well-being, by their mutual aid in building houses, nursing in sickness, procuring provision, increasing defence against the common enemy, and improving their mental powers and sensual pleasures, by inter-communication. In this state, however it might be corporeally grateful, the mental faculties had no power, either to confer consciousness of existence, or intellectual happiness, and could not arrest the evil progress of a too extensive association, which introduced the different violences of personal tyranny, assumption of property, and public or civilized coercion, which destroyed all liberty and with it happiness.

The progress of the extension of association, will no doubt, at length so improve the mental faculties, that it will discover that state, individual and social, which the essence of man requires, to procure to it well-being or happy existence.

As long as individual violence exists, so long must exist public coercion: but this should only be exercised over the violators. I know but one other instance where it has the slightest pretext of justification, which is, in compelling the individual to labor on his proportion of soil, which gives subsistence to the society; but this would be rendered absolutely unnecessary by the example of education; for as the labor of one man would maintain twenty, the unconquerable indolence of a few perverse individuals, who might resist the force of education, can never be a sufficient reason to employ coercion, which is the demon of all sensitive Nature. Besides, the example of many Indian tribes, who cultivate the soil in common, and have substituted the habit of custom and education for coercion, demonstrates this to be the error of civilization, and shows the superiority of uncorrupted instinct over corrupted and prejudiced reason, by conducting the animal, man, nearer to a state of well-being; though this can only be perfected and secured by enlightened reason.

The present mode of association is founded upon ignorance and error. The competition of nations for riches and power has obliged them to sacrifice happiness to those objects, and states and individuals are both the victims of this folly.

Let us review the life of man in the present state of civilization. The poor man, upon whose labor depends the riches of the state, is, by the avarice and policy of the great, obliged to such excessive toil, as reduces him to a state of mere animal existence, and a premature and painful dissolution. He is so stimulated by the goad of necessity, that his mind, attached to the object of his labor, leaves him no repose, in which alone the faculty of thought can extend itself, and acquire consciousness of existence; so that his body becomes a painful duct or stage of matter, in its eternal revolution. The rich and powerful, who cause this evil, are themselves no less unhappy, though relieved from the goad of necessity, which they inflict upon others, to urge them to excessive labor. They do not labor sufficiently to procure themselves health, and this reduces them to a state of languor, from which they seek relief by the occupation of the mind, which, though it may cure that disorder, causes, by sedentary habits, a variety of others more painful.

The moral laws of chastity oppress with greater violence the rich females than the poor. The former, from their luxurious diet, derive irritable habits of blood, which inflame the passions, and these are incessantly exposed to the temptations attendant on the mode of conduct in high life; while the poor are freed from this torment, and its various causes. I allude only to the females; for the males, who have contrived by superior power to impose this law upon the weaker sex, disavow its duties; and disease, premature and painful old age and death revenge their treachery; for by imposing continence upon the whole gentle sex, the few, whose sense and sensibility see and break through the cobweb fetters of imagination, and claim their rightful asylum of Nature, from the smallness of their number, have to seek subsistence from the brutal lust of their tyrants, and become repositories, or common sewers of such pestilential diseases, that man, like the phenix, procreates in a burning nest.

The laws of chastity are intended to promote population, and population to increase defence. Would it not be wiser to consider, whether an unhappy people ought to be augmented, or desire to be defended; and whether it is acting as becomes intellectual beings, conscious of their eternal connection with the integer of Nature, to augment the quantity of matter in animal revolution, while the ducts or stages of identities are formed to communicate misery to passive matter, and perpetuate it to the active, or procreator.

Matter, continued

FURTHER CONSIDERATIONS

of

MATTER

The mind is overwhelmed with astonishment when it reflects, that the intellectual faculties seem to have lost their natural gravitation towards self, and are constantly propelled from their true centre. They have formed, or imagined a knowledge of motion, by an universal intelligence—they have discovered the laws of planetary revolutions of distant worlds—they have discovered the various laws of Nature in the parts of their own inhabited world—and yet the centre self is as unknown and neglected, as if it was a non-entity.