It is a loan, as movement
is. The universal life is a sum total, of which the units are visible
here, there, and everywhere, just as an electric wheel throws off sparks
along its whole surface. Life passes through us; we do not possess it.
Hirn admits three ultimate principles: [Footnote: Gustave-Adolphe Hirn,
a French physicist, born near Colmar, 1815, became a corresponding
member of the Academy of Sciences in 1867. The book of his to which
Amiel refers is no doubt _Consequences philosophiques at metaphysiques
de la thermodynamique, Analyse elementaire de l'univers_ (1869).] the
atom, the force, the soul; the force which acts upon atoms, the soul
which acts upon force. Probably he distinguishes between anonymous souls
and personal souls. Then my fly would be an anonymous soul.
(_Same day_).--The national churches are all up in arms against
so-called Liberal Christianity; Basle and Zurich began the fight, and
now Geneva has entered the lists too. Gradually it is becoming plain
that historical Protestantism has no longer a _raison d'etre_ between
pure liberty and pure authority. It is, in fact, a provisional stage,
founded on the worship of the Bible--that is to say, on the idea of a
written revelation, and of a book divinely inspired, and therefore
authoritative.
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