Observations placeholder
Kant, Immanuel - Dreams of a Spirit Seer - 05 Chapter One
Identifier
015096
Type of Spiritual Experience
Background
A description of the experience
Chapter One - continued
I confess that I am very much inclined to assert the existence of immaterial natures in the world, and to put my soul itself into that class of beings.
But then, how mysterious does the communion of soul and body become.
But, at the same time, how natural that it is incomprehensible, inasmuch as our conceptions of external actions are derived from those of matter, and are always connected with the conditions of impact and pressure, which do not exist in this case.
For how could an immaterial being be such an obstruction so that matter in its motion could collide with it, a spirit; and how could corporeal things act upon an unknown being which does not oppose them with impenetrability, and which does not hinder them in any way from being at the same time present in the space in which it is itself?
It seems that a spiritual essence is inmostly present in matter, and that it does not act upon those forces which determine the mutual relations of elements, but upon the inner principle of their state. For every substance, even a simple element of matter, must have an inner activity as the reason for its external efficiency, although I cannot specify in what it consists.