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TIE HOLY TRINITY.
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be said to be altogether free from the pollution. Just as the intimate union of hydrogen and oxygen deprives those gases of their aerial freedom, so to speak, reducing it to bare fluidity of liquids, in the same way is the fusion of spirit and matter responsible for the loss and linnitation of the all-knowing faculty of the soul. Where the association with matter is of the worst type, as in the case of the lowest forms of life-metals and plantsknowledge is reduced to bare sensations of touch and a mechanical response to the external stimulus. In less unfortunate cases, other sense organs also appear, but deliberation, i.e., reflection and memory (except what is known as habit memory), do not appear, unless the soul acquires the central organ of reflection and the power to check the headlong rush of the torrential current of animal passions and desires. The organ of reflection is like the central telephone exchange of the nervous system where all the nerves--sensory and motor both-have their terminal endings. The clerk in charge of the office is the soul, the self-conscious force, whose self-consciousness directly depends on and is affected by the nature of his tendencies, desires and passions. These desires and tendencies are all of them powerful forces originating in the constitution of the soul by virtue of its union with matter. They clog the mental stream with rubbish, and prevent reflection. The point of this current of tendencies, the head of the serpent manas, is attention, which tests the quality of the incoming sensory stimulus by laying itself open to its vibratory impulse, and which sets a motor nerve in motion by the augmentation of energy at its inner terminal.
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