Edgar Allan Poe Works

Let us now, expanding our conceptions, look upon each of these system as in itself an atom; which in fact it is, when we consider it as but one of the countless myriads of systems which constitute the Universe. Regarding all, then, as but colossal atoms, each with the same ineradicable tendency to Unity which [...]

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The radical assumptions of this discourse suggest to me, and in fact imply, certain important modifications of the Nebular Theory as given by Laplace. The efforts of the repulsive power I have considered as made for the purpose of preventing contact among the atoms, and thus as made in the ratio of the approach to [...]

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I maintain, first, that only in the mode described is it conceivable that Matter could have been diffused so as to fulfil at once the conditions of radiation and of generally equable distribution. I maintain, secondly, that these conditions themselves have been imposed upon me, as necessities, in a train of ratiocination as rigorously logical [...]

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The process of thought, at this point, may be thus roughly sketched: — I say to myself — “Unity, as I have explained it, is a truth; I feel it. Diffusion is a truth; I see it. Radiation, by which alone these two truths are reconciled, is a consequent truth; I perceive it. Equability of [...]

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Discarding now the two equivocal terms, “gravitation” and “electricity,” let us adopt the more definite expressions, “Attraction”  and “Repulsion.”  The former is the body, the latter the soul; the one is the material, the other the spiritual, principle of the Universe. No other principles exist. All phenomena are referable to one, or to the other, [...]

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Let us begin, then, at once, with that merest of words, “Infinity.” This, like “God,” “spirit,” and some other expressions of which the equivalents exist in all languages, is by no means the expression of an idea, but of an effort at one. It stands for the possible attempt at an impossible conception. Man needed [...]

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AN ESSAY ON THE MATERIAL AND SPIRITUAL UNIVERSE. IT is with humility really unassumed — it is with a sentiment even of awe — that I pen the opening sentence of this work; for of all conceivable subjects, I approach the reader with the most solemn, the most comprehensive, the most difficult, the most august. [...]

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WITH VERY PROFOUND RESPECT, This Work is Dedicated TO ALEXANDER VON HUMBOLDT. To the few who love me and whom I love — to those who feel rather than to those who think — to the dreamers and those who put faith in dreams as in the only realities — I offer this book of [...]

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