"Mesmeric Revelation" - читать интересную книгу автора (Poe Edgar Allan)

P. You speak of rudimental "beings." Are there other rudimental
thinking beings than man?
V. The multitudinous conglomeration of rare matter into nebulae,
planets, suns, and other bodies which are neither nebulae, suns, nor
planets, is for the sole purpose of supplying pabulum for the
idiosyncrasy of the organs of an infinity of rudimental beings. But
for the necessity of the rudimental, prior to the ultimate life, there
would have been no bodies such as these. Each of these is tenanted
by a distinct variety of organic rudimental thinking creatures. In
all, the organs vary with the features of the place tenanted. At
death, or metamorphosis, these creatures, enjoying the ultimate
life- immortality- and cognizant of all secrets but the one, act all
things and pass every where by mere volition:- indwelling, not the
stars, which to us seem the sole palpabilities, and for the
accommodation of which we blindly deem space created- but that space
itself- that infinity of which the truly substantive vastness swallows
up the star-shadows- blotting them out as non-entities from the
perception of the angels.
P. You say that "but for the necessity of the rudimental life, there
would have been no stars." But why this necessity?
V. In the inorganic life, as well as in the inorganic matter
generally, there is nothing to impede the action of one simple
unique law- the Divine Volition. With the view of producing
impediment, the organic life and matter (complex, substantial and law-
encumbered) were contrived.
P. But again- why need this impediment have been produced?
V. The result of law inviolate is perfection- right- negative
happiness. The result of law violate is imperfection, wrong,
positive pain. Through the impediments afforded by the number,
complexity, and substantiality of the laws of organic life and matter,
the violation of law is rendered, to a certain extent, practicable.
Thus pain, which is the inorganic life is impossible, is possible in
the organic.
P. But to what good end is pain thus rendered possible?
V. All things are either good or bad by comparison. A sufficient
analysis will show that pleasure in all cases, is but the contrast
of pain. Positive pleasure is a mere idea. To be happy at any one
point we must have suffered at the same. Never to suffer would have
been never to have been blessed. But it has been shown that, in the
inorganic life, pain cannot be; thus the necessity for the organic.
The pain of the primitive life of Earth, is the sole basis of the
bliss of the ultimate life in Heaven.
P. Still there is one of your expressions which I find it impossible
to comprehend- "the truly substantive vastness of infinity."
V. This, probably, is because you have no sufficiently generic
conception of the term "substance" itself. We must not regard it as
a quality, but as a sentiment:- it is the perception, in thinking
beings, of the adaptation of matter to their organization. There are
many things on the Earth, which would be nihility to the inhabitants
of Venus- many things visible and tangible in Venus, which we could