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IMPREGNATION. 157
metrical soul, or a mean, deformed soul ; a strong,
healthy soul, or a weak and sickly soul. There are
souls generated too weak to form their bodies. And as
the soul has all faculties in itself; as the intellectual, and
animal, and organic parts of the soul, each generate
their own portion, we find men born with strong organic
souls, and weak intellectual, or the reverse. It is pos
sible also to have an ugly soul in a beautiful or body, the
reverse ; but these are exceptional, and grow out of
discordant conjunctions.
And the soul grows like as the body grows, and
changes as the body changes, and grows strong by ex
ercise, and great by the reception of soul nutriment ;
and is prepared to generate stil! higher souls : and this
is the law of education, development, progress. So
we have diseases of the soul as of the body ; these
reacting on each other; and each susceptible of proper
curative treatment, as we shall see further on. Does
not the mind feed on thoughts and feelings, and get
starved or surfeited, and grow dyspeptic on trash or
sweetmeats, or exhilarated and intoxicated ? Who has
not felt his whole soul strengthened by communion
with some strong spirit ?
This sublime function of the generation of human
beings, soul and body, is performed by the two male
and female organs, the testes and the ovaries, acted
upon by every human faculty, and modified by every
human circumstance and action. And now the reader
will better see the force of what I have said of the in
fluence of these organs upon mind and body, as shown
from their
when they are lost, diseased, or perverted
natural uses.
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