"Nature" (to use the nervous
language of an-old writer,) "will be melted down and recoined; and all
will be bright and beautiful."
Alas! if this be possible now, or at any time henceforward, whence came
the dross? If nature be bullion that can be melted and thus purified by
the conjoint action of heat and elective attraction, I pray Mr. Noble to
tell me to what name or 'genus' he refers the dross? Will he tell me, to
the Devil? Whence came the Devil? And how was the pure bullion so
thoughtlessly made as to have an elective affinity for this Devil?
Sect. V. p. 286.
The next anecdote that I shall adduce is similar in its nature to the
last * * *. The relater is Dr. Stilling, Counsellor at the Court of
the Duke of Baden, in a work entitled 'Die Theorie der Geister-Kunde',
printed in 1808.
Mr. Noble is a man of too much English good sense to have relied on
Sung's ('alias' Dr. Stilling's) testimony, had he ever read the work in
which this passage is found. I happen to possess the work; and a more
anile, credulous, solemn fop never existed since the days of old Audley.
It is strange that Mr. Noble should not have heard, that these three
anecdotes were first related by Immanuel Kant, and still exist in his
miscellaneous writings.
Ib. p. 315.
"Can he be a sane man who records the subsequent reverie as matter of
fact? The Baron informs us, that on a certain night a man appeared to
him in the midst of a strong shining light, and said, 'I am God the
Lord, the Creator and Redeemer; I have chosen thee to explain to men
the interior and spiritual sense of the Sacred Writings: I will
dictate to thee what thou oughtest to write?' From this period, the
Baron relates he was so illumined, as to behold, in the clearest
manner, what passed in the spiritual world, and that he could converse
with angels and spirits as with men," &c.
Pages:
373
374
375
376
377
378
379
380
381
382
383
384
385
386
387
388
389
390
391
392
393
394
395
396
397