We do not know that we can add anything to this explanation; the difficulty lies in the audacious sweep of the speculation itself; we will however attempt an illustration, although we fear it will be to illustrate obscurum tier obscurius.  Let A B C D be four out of the Infinite number of the Divine attributes.  A the attribute of mind; B the attribute of extension; C and D other attributes, the nature of which is not known to us.  Now A, as the attribute of mind, is that which perceives all which takes place under B C and D, but it is only as it exists in God that it forms the universal consciousness of an attributes at once.  In its modifications it is combined separately with the modifications of each, constituting in combination with the modes of each attribute a separate being.  As forming the mind of B, A perceives what takes place in B, but not what takes place in C or D. Combined with B, it forms the soul of the human body, and generally the soul of all modifications of extended substance; combined with C, it forms the soul of some other analogous being; combined with D, again of another; but the combinations are only in pairs, in which A is constant.  A and B make one being, A and C another, A and D a third; but B will not combine with C, nor C with D; each attribute being, as it were, conscious only of itself.  And therefore, although to those modifications of mind and extension which we call ourselves there are corresponding modifications under C and D, and generally under each of the Infinite attributes of God; each of ourselves being in a sense Infinite, nevertheless we neither have nor can have any knowledge of ourselves in this Infinite aspect; our actual consciousness being limited to the phenomena of sensible experience.

English readers, however, are likely to care little for all this; they will look to the general theory, and judge of it as its aspect affects them.  And first, perhaps, they will be tempted to throw aside as absurd the notion that their bodies go through the many operations which they experience them to do, undirected by their minds; it is a thing they may say at once preposterous and incredible.  And no doubt on the first blush it sounds absurd, and yet, on second thoughts, it is less so than it seems; and though we could not persuade ourselves to believe it, absurd in the sense of having nothing to be said for it, it certainly is not.  It is far easier, for instance, to imagine the human body capable by its own virtue, and by the laws of material organisation, of building a house, than of thinking; and yet men are allowed to say that the body thinks, without being regarded as candidates for a lunatic asylum.  We see the seed shoot up into stem and leaf and throw out flowers; we observe it fulfilling processes of chemistry more subtle than were ever executed in Liebig’s laboratory, and producing structures more cunning than man can imitate.  The bird builds her nest, the spider shapes out its delicate web and stretches it in the path of his prey;