earths in our solar system which are called planets and earths in the starry heaven their inhabitants, and the spirits and angels there from things heard and seen _from the latin_ of emanuel swedenborg swedenborg society (incorporated) - bloomsbury way, london, w.c. * * * * * _the issues of this volume in a demy vo edition by the swedenborg society have been:--_ _first edition_ _second edition_ _third edition_ _reprinted_ " " " _for other editions, see "a bibliography of the works of emanuel swedenborg"_ (james hyde). _printed in great britain by morrison & gibb ltd., london and edinburgh_ * * * * * table of contents. nos. earths in the universe, - the planet mercury, - the planet jupiter, - the planet mars, - the planet saturn, - the planet venus, - the moon, , reasons why the lord willed to be born on our earth, and not on any other, - earths in the starry heaven, - the first earth in the starry heaven, - the second earth in the starry heaven, - the third earth in the starry heaven, - the fourth earth in the starry heaven, - the fifth earth in the starry heaven, - page index of subjects, index of scripture references, * * * * * earths in the universe. . inasmuch as, by the divine mercy of the lord, the interiors which are of my spirit have been opened in me, and it has thereby been given me to speak with spirits and angels, not only with those who are near our earth, but also with those who are near other earths; and since i had an ardent desire to know whether there were other earths, and to know their character and the character of their inhabitants; it has been granted me by the lord to speak and have intercourse with spirits and angels who are from other earths, with some for a day, with some for a week, with some for months; and to be instructed by them respecting the earths from and near which they were, and concerning the life, customs, and worship of their inhabitants, besides various other things there that are worthy of note. and since it has been given me to become acquainted with these matters in this way, it is permitted me to describe them from the things which i have heard and seen. it is necessary that it be known that all spirits and angels are from the human race[a], and that they are near their own earths[b], and are acquainted with what is upon them; and that a man may be instructed by them, if his interiors are so far opened as to enable him to speak and be in company with them: for man in his essence is a spirit[c], and is in company with spirits as to his interiors[d]; wherefore he whose interiors are opened by the lord, is able to speak with them, as man with man[e]. it has now been granted me to enjoy this privilege daily for twelve years. [footnote: _from the_ arcana coelestia: _in which work these and subsequent articles, which are inserted below the line, are explained and shown._] [footnote a: there are no spirits and angels who are not from the human race, no. .] [footnote b: the spirits of every earth are near their own earth, because they are of its inhabitants, and of a similar genius; and they are meant to be of service to them, no. .] [footnote c: the soul, which lives after death, is the spirit of man, which in a man is the man himself, and also appears in the other life in a perfect human form, nos. , , , , , , , , , , .] [footnote d: man, even during his abode in the world, is, as to his interiors, consequently as to his spirit or soul, in the midst of spirits and angels who are of such a character as he himself is, nos. , , , , .] [footnote e: man is capable of speaking with spirits and angels, and the ancients on our earth frequently spoke with them, nos. , , , , , , . but at the present day it is dangerous for man to speak with them, unless he be in a true faith, and be led by the lord, nos. , , .] . that there are many earths, and men upon them, and spirits and angels from them, is very well known in the other life; for in that life, every one who from a love of the truth and consequent use desires it, is allowed to speak with the spirits of other earths, so as to be convinced that there is a plurality of worlds, and informed that the human race is not from one earth only, but from numberless earths; and so as to be informed, besides, of what genius and life they are, and of what character their divine worship is. . i have sometimes spoken on this subject with the spirits of our earth, and it was said that a man of sound understanding may conclude, from many things which he knows, that there are more earths than one, and that there are human beings upon them. for it is an inference of reason, that such huge bodies as the planets are, some of which exceed this earth in magnitude, are not empty bodies, created only to be carried and to rotate around the sun, and to shine with their scanty light (_lumen_) for the benefit of one earth only; but that they must needs have a nobler use than this. he who believes, as every one ought to believe, that the divine created the universe for no other end than the existence of the human race, and of a heaven from it (for the human race is the seminary of heaven), cannot but believe that wherever there is an earth, there are human beings. that the planets, which are visible to our eyes, being within the boundaries of this solar system, are earths, may be clearly seen from the following considerations. they are bodies of earthy matter, because they reflect the sun's light (_lumen_), and, when seen through the telescope, appear, not as stars shining from their flame, but as earths (_terrae_) variegated with dark spots. like our earth, they are carried round the sun and advance progressively through the path of the zodiac, which motion causes years, and seasons of the year, which are spring, summer, autumn, and winter. they likewise rotate upon their own axis, just as our earth does, and this rotation causes days, and times of the day, that is, morning, mid-day, evening, and night. and moreover, some of them also have moons, which are called satellites, which perform their revolutions around their globes in stated times, as the moon does around ours. the planet saturn, because it is so very far distant from the sun, has also a great luminous ring, which supplies that earth with much, although reflected, light. how is it possible for any one who is acquainted with these facts, and thinks from reason, to assert that such bodies are uninhabited? . i have, moreover, spoken with spirits [to the effect] that men may be led to believe that there are more earths in the universe than one, by considering the immensity of the starry heaven with its innumerable stars, each of which, in its own place, that is, in its own system, is a sun, and like our sun, but differs in magnitude. any one who rightly weighs these facts must conclude that so immense a whole cannot but be the means to an end which is the final end of creation, and that this end is a heavenly kingdom, in which the divine may dwell with angels and men. for the visible universe, that is, the heaven resplendent with such an innumerable multitude of stars, which are so many suns, is merely a means for the existence of earths, and of human beings upon them, from whom a heavenly kingdom [may be formed]. from these considerations a rational man cannot but think that a means so immense to an end so great was not provided for a human race, and a heaven from them, from one earth only. what would this be to the divine, who is infinite, and to whom thousands, yea, myriads, of earths, all filled with inhabitants, would be but a little thing and almost nothing! . besides, the angelic heaven is so immense that it corresponds to each single part in man, myriads [of angels corresponding] to each member, and organ, and viscus, and to each affection of them; and it has been given me to know that this heaven, as to all its correspondences, cannot possibly exist except from the inhabitants of very many earths[f]. [footnote f: heaven corresponds to the lord, and man, as to all things in general and particular, corresponds to heaven; and hence heaven, before the lord, is a man in a large effigy, and may be called the grand or greatest man, nos. , , - , - , . concerning the correspondence of man, and of all things pertaining to him, with the grand man, which is heaven, in general, from experience, nos. , - , - , - , - , - - , - , - , - , - , - , - , - , - , - , - , - , - , .] . there are spirits whose sole study is the acquisition of knowledges finding in them their only delight. these spirits are therefore permitted to wander about, and even to pass beyond this solar system into others, and procure knowledges. they have stated that there are earths in immense numbers, inhabited by human beings, not only in this solar system, but in the starry heaven beyond it. these spirits are from the planet mercury. . with regard, in general, to the divine worship of the inhabitants of other earths: all there, who are not idolaters, acknowledge the lord to be the one only god; for they adore the divine, not as an invisible divine, but as visible, for this reason, besides others, that when the divine appears to them it is in the human form, as he formerly did to abraham and others on this earth [g]; and all who adore the divine under the human form are accepted by the lord [h]. they also say that no one can worship god rightly, and still less be conjoined with him, unless he comprehends him by some idea, and that god cannot be comprehended except in the human form; and that if he be not thus comprehended, the interior sight, which is that of the thought, concerning god, is dissipated, as is the sight of the eye, when looking into the universe with nothing to limit the view; and that then the thought cannot but fall into nature, and worship it instead of god. [footnote g: the inhabitants of all the earths adore the divine being under the human form, consequently the lord, nos. - , , , , . and they rejoice when they hear that god actually became man, no. . it is impossible to think of god except in the human form, nos. , , . man is able to worship and love that of which he has some idea, but not that of which he has no idea, nos. , , , , , .] [footnote h: the lord receives all who are in good, and who adore the divine under the human form, nos. , .] . when they were told that the lord assumed the human on our earth, they pondered for awhile, and then said that it was done for the salvation of the human race. the earth or planet mercury, and its spirit and inhabitants . that the entire heaven resembles one man, who is therefore called the grand or greatest man (_maximus homo_), and that all things in general and particular in man, both his exteriors and interiors, correspond to that man or to heaven, is an arcanum as yet unknown in the world; but that it is so has been shown in many passages[i]. but to constitute that grand man, those who come from our earth into heaven are insufficient, being comparatively few; they must come from many other earths: and it is provided by the lord that as soon as there is in any part a deficiency in the quality or quantity of the correspondence, those who may supply it shall be immediately summoned from another earth, in order that the proportion may be preserved, and heaven by this means maintain its consistence. [footnote i: see note f.] . it has also been disclosed to me from heaven, what the spirits from the planet mercury have relation to in the grand man, namely, that they have relation to the memory, but to the memory of things abstracted from earthly and merely material things. as, however, it has been given me to speak with them, and this for many weeks, and to learn of what character they are, and to examine how the inhabitants of that earth are circumstanced, i wish to adduce the experiences themselves. . some spirits came to me, and it was stated from heaven that they were from the earth nearest to the sun, which on our earth is called the planet mercury. immediately on their coming they sifted out of my memory the things that i knew. this, spirits can do most skilfully, for when they come to a man they see in his memory all the particulars it contains[j]. while passing in review the various things, and, among others, the cities and places where i had been, i observed that they had no wish to know the temples, palaces, houses, and streets, but only the things i knew to have been done in them, also the things that related to the government there, and to the genius and manners of the inhabitants, and other similar things; for such matters are closely associated with the places in a man's memory, so that when the places are called to mind, these matters also suggest themselves. i was surprised to find them of such a character, and therefore inquired why they disregarded the magnificent objects of the places, and only inquired into the facts and transactions connected with them. they said that they had no delight in regarding material, corporeal, and terrestrial things, but only things that are real. hence it was proved that the spirits of that earth, in the grand man, have relation to the memory of things abstracted from material and terrestrial things. [footnote j: spirits enter into all things of man's memory, and do not [insinuate anything] from their own [memory] into the man's, nos. , , , , , , . the angels enter into the affections and ends, from which and for the sake of which a man thinks, wills, and acts in such or such a manner in preference to every other, nos. , , .] . i was told that the life of the inhabitants of that earth is such, namely, that they do not concern themselves about terrestrial and corporeal things, but only about the statutes, laws, and governments of the nations there; and also about the things of heaven, which are innumerable. i was further informed, that many of the men (_homines_) of that earth converse with spirits, and that thence they have knowledges respecting spiritual things and the states of life after death, and that thence also they have a contempt for corporeal and terrestrial things; for those who know for a certainty, and believe, that there is a life after death, are concerned about heavenly things, as being eternal and blessed, but not about worldly things, except so far as the necessities of life require. such being the character of its inhabitants, such also is that of the spirits who are from it[k]. [footnote k: the spirits who are with man are in possession of all things of his memory, nos. , , , .] . how eagerly they search for and imbibe the knowledges of such things as pertain to the memory raised above the sensual things of the body, was made manifest to me from the circumstance that when they looked into the things which i knew respecting heavenly subjects, they ran over them all, and kept on stating the nature of each. for when spirits come to a man, they enter into the whole of his memory, and call forth from it what suits themselves; nay, what i have often observed, they read its contents as from a book[k]. these spirits did this more skilfully and quickly, because they did not linger over such matters as are heavy and sluggish, and confine and consequently impede the internal sight, as is the nature of all terrestrial and corporeal things, when regarded as ends, that is, when alone loved; but they devoted their attention to things themselves; for those matters to which terrestrial things do not cling, carry the mind (_animus_) upwards, and so introduce it into a wide field [of view], whereas merely material things drag the mind (_animus_) downwards, and thus limit and imprison it. their eagerness to acquire knowledges and enrich the memory was further evident from the following circumstances: once, when i was writing something concerning things to come, and they were at a distance, so that they could not look into those things from my memory; because i was unwilling to read them in their presence, they were very indignant, and, contrary to their usual demeanour, they were disposed to inveigh against me, saying that i was the worst of men, and other like things; and, to show their resentment, they caused a kind of contraction, attended with pain, on the right side of my head as far as the ear; but such treatment did me no harm. as, however, they had done evil, they removed themselves to a still greater distance, yet kept stopping, being desirous of knowing what i had written. such is their eager desire for knowledges. . the spirits of mercury, more than other spirits, possess the knowledges of things, both of those which are within this solar system, and those which are beyond it in the starry heaven; and whatever things they have once acquired they retain, and recollect them as often as similar ones occur. from this also it may manifestly appear that spirits have memory, and that it is much more perfect than that of men; and further, that spirits retain what they hear, see, and apperceive, and especially such matters as they are delighted with, as these spirits are with the knowledges of things; for things that are matters of delight and love flow in as it were spontaneously, and remain; other things do not enter, but only touch the surface and pass by. . when the spirits of mercury come to other societies, they try to discover from them what they know, and when they have ascertained this, they depart. there is also such a communication among spirits, and especially among angels, that when they are in a society, if they are accepted and loved, they communicate or share all they know.[l] [footnote l: in the heavens there is a communication of all goods, inasmuch as heavenly love communicates all its possessions to others; and hence the angels derive wisdom and happiness, nos. , , , , , , .] . the spirits of mercury, on account of their knowledges, are more conceited than others; wherefore they were told that, although they know innumerable things, there is yet an infinity of things which they do not know; and that even were the knowledges with them to increase to eternity, they would still be unable to attain to so much as an acquaintance with the generals of all things. they were told that they were conceited and elated of disposition, and that this character is unbecoming; but they replied, that it is not conceit, but only a glorying on account of the capacity of their memory. thus they have the art of excusing their faults. . they are averse to verbal speech, because it is material; wherefore, when i conversed with them without intermediate spirits, i could only do so by a kind of active thought. their memory, because it is a memory of things, not of purely material images, brings nearer to the thought its proper objects; for the thought, which is above the imagination, requires for its objects things abstracted from those of matter. but notwithstanding that this is the case, the spirits of mercury excel but little in the faculty of judgment. they take no delight in the things which pertain to judgment and to conclusions from knowledges; for their delight is in the bare knowledges. . it was suggested to them, whether they did not wish to make any use of their knowledges; for it is not enough to be delighted with knowledges, because knowledges have respect to uses, and uses ought to be their ends; that from knowledges alone no use results to themselves, but to others with whom they are willing to share or communicate them; and that it is not at all meet for a man who wants to become wise to stand still in knowledges alone, inasmuch as these are only instrumental causes, meant to be serviceable for the investigation of matters which ought to belong to the life. but they replied that they were delighted with knowledges, and that to them knowledges were uses. . some of them, also, wish to appear, not as men, like the spirits of other earths, but as crystalline globes. their wanting to appear so, although they do not, arises from the circumstance that the knowledges of immaterial things are in the other life represented by crystals. . the spirits of mercury differ entirely from those of our earth, for the spirits of our earth concern themselves not so much about [immaterial] things as about worldly, corporeal, and terrestrial things, which are material. for this reason the spirits of mercury cannot be together with the spirits of our earth, and therefore wherever they meet them they flee away, for the spiritual spheres that are exhaled from both are almost contrary. the spirits of mercury have a common saying, that they do not want to look at the sheath, but at things stripped of their sheath, thus at interior things. . there appeared a flame of considerable brightness, which blazed cheerfully, and this for about an hour. that flame signified the advent of some spirits of mercury who, for penetration, thought, and speech, were prompter than those who preceded them. when they were come, they instantly ran over the things that were in my memory, but, owing to their promptness, i was unable to apperceive what they observed. immediately afterwards, i heard them say that the matter was thus and thus. with regard to the things which i had seen in the heavens and in the world of spirits, they said that they knew them before. i perceived that a multitude of spirits who were consociated with them, was behind, a little to the left, in the plane of the occiput. . at another time i saw a multitude of such spirits, but at some little distance from me, in front a little to the right, and they spoke with me from thence, but through intermediate spirits; for their speech is as quick as thought, which does not fall into human speech, except by means of other spirits; and what surprised me, they spoke in a body, and yet as promptly and rapidly as possible. their speech, being of many together, was apperceived as undulatory, and, what was remarkable, it glided towards my left eye, although they were to the right. the reason was, that the left eye corresponds to the knowledges of things abstracted from material things, thus to such as belong to intelligence, while the right eye corresponds to such as belong to wisdom[m]. with the same promptness with which they spoke, they perceived the things that they heard, and formed their judgment upon them, saying of one thing that it was so, and of another that it was not so, their judgment being as it were instantaneous. [footnote m: the eye corresponds to the understanding, because the understanding is the internal sight, and the sight of things immaterial, nos. , , , , . the sight of the left eye corresponds to truths, consequently to intelligence; and the sight of the right eye corresponds to the goods of truth, consequently to wisdom, no. .] . there was a spirit from another earth, who was well qualified to converse with them, being a prompt and rapid speaker, but who affected elegance in his discourse. they instantly formed their judgment concerning whatever he spoke, saying of one thing that it was too elegantly, of another that it was too learnedly expressed; so that the only thing they attended to was, whether they heard from him anything which was not known to them before, rejecting thereby such things as obscured the subject, which are chiefly affectations of elegance in expression and of erudition; for these hide the things themselves and in their place substitute expressions, which are the material forms of things; on these the speaker keeps his mind (_animus_) fixed, and wants to draw attention to his expressions rather than their meaning, by which the ears of his auditors are more affected than their minds (_mens_). . the spirits of the earth mercury do not tarry in one place, or among assemblies of the spirits of one system, but wander through the universe. the reason is that they have reference to the memory of things, which requires to be continually enriched; therefore it is granted them to wander about, and everywhere acquire knowledges. if, while travelling in this manner, they meet with spirits who love material, that is, corporeal and terrestrial things, they shun them, and betake themselves to where they do not hear such things. from this it may appear that their mind (_animus_) is elevated above sensual things, and thus that they are in interior light (_lumen_). this it was also given me actually to perceive when they were near me and were speaking with me. i observed then that i was withdrawn from sensual things to such a degree, that the light (_lumen_) of my eyes began to grow dull and dim. . the spirits of that earth go about by companies and phalanxes, and when assembled together they form as it were a globe. they are joined together in this manner by the lord in order that they may act as a one, and that the knowledges of each may be communicated to all, and the knowledges of all to each, as is the case in heaven[l]. that they wander through the universe in quest of the knowledges of things, was made manifest to me also from this fact, that once, when they appeared very remote from me, they spoke with me from thence, and said that they were then gathered together, and were going beyond the sphere of this system into the starry heaven, where they knew there were such as had no concern about terrestrial and corporeal things, but about things elevated above them, with whom they desired to be. it was stated that they themselves do not know whither they are going, but that under the divine auspices they are conveyed to where they may be instructed concerning such things as they had previously been unacquainted with, and which are in agreement with the knowledges they already possess. it was also stated that they do not know how they meet with the companions with whom they are conjoined, and that this also is effected under the divine auspices. . as they journey through the universe in this manner, and are thus enabled to know more than others about the systems and earths beyond the sphere of our solar system, i have spoken with them on this subject also. they said that in the universe there are very many earths, with human beings upon them; and that they wonder at its being supposed by some, whom they called men of little judgment, that the heaven of the omnipotent god consists only of the spirits and angels who come from one earth, when these are so few that, relatively to the omnipotence of god, they are scarcely anything, and this would be the case even if there were myriads of systems with myriads of earths. they said, moreover, that they knew of the existence of earths in the universe exceeding in number some hundreds of thousands; and yet what is this to the divine, who is infinite! . the spirits of mercury, when they were with me while i was writing and explaining the word as to its internal sense, and who perceived what i was writing, said that the things which i wrote were very gross, and that almost all the expressions appeared as material. but it was given to reply, that the men of our earth nevertheless look upon the things that have been written, as subtle and elevated, and that many things they do not understand. i added, that very many on this earth do not know that it is the internal man that acts on the external, and causes it to live, and that from the fallacies of the senses they persuade themselves that the body has a life of its own, and that in consequence the evil and unbelieving are in doubt as to a life after death. also, that that in man which is to live after death they do not call the spirit but the soul; and that they dispute about what the soul is and where its abode is, and believe that the material body, although dispersed to all the winds, must be again conjoined to it, in order that man may live as a man; besides many other things of the same kind. when the spirits of mercury heard these things, they asked whether such men could become angels. to this it was given to answer that those who have lived in the good of faith and charity become angels, and that then they are no longer in external and material things, but in internal and spiritual things; and that when they come into this state, they are in a light superior to that in which the spirits from mercury are. in order that they might know that this was so, an angel who had come into heaven from our earth, and who had been such while he lived in the world, was allowed to speak with them; which circumstance will be detailed below [at no. ]. . afterwards there was sent me by the spirits of mercury a long paper of an irregular shape, consisting of several papers stuck together, which appeared as if printed with types such as are used on this earth. i asked whether they had such among them; but they said they had not, but that they knew that there were such printed papers on our earth. they were not willing to say more; but i perceived that they thought that the knowledges on our earth were on papers, and not so much within the man himself, thus derisively insinuating that the papers, so to speak, knew more than the man. but they were instructed as to the real state of the case. after some time they returned, and sent me another paper, which also appeared printed with types like unto the former one; not, however, like it, stuck together and untidy, but symmetrically shaped and neat: they said they had been further informed that on this earth there were such papers, and books made of them. . from the facts that have now been stated, it clearly appears, that spirits retain in the memory the things that they see and hear in the other life, and that they are equally capable of being instructed as when they were men in the world, consequently, of being instructed in those things that are of faith, and thereby of being perfected. the more interior spirits and angels are, the more promptly and fully do they imbibe, and the more perfectly do they retain [what they hear], and as this [capacity remains] for ever, it is evident that wisdom is continually growing with them. with the spirits of mercury, the science of things is continually growing, yet not therefore wisdom, because they love knowledges, which are means, but not uses, which are ends. . furthermore, the character of the genius of the spirits who are from the planet mercury may still further appear from the following facts. it must be known that all spirits and angels without exception were once men, for the human race is the seminary of heaven; and that spirits are altogether such as to their affections and inclinations as they had been when they lived as men in the world, for every one's life follows him[n]. this being the case, the genius of the men of every earth may be known from the genius of the spirits who are from it. [footnote n: every one's life remains with him and follows him after death, nos. , . the externals of life are kept closed after death, and the internals of life are opened, nos. , , . all things in general and particular of thought are then made manifest, nos. , .] . since the spirits of mercury in the grand man have relation to the memory of things abstracted from material things, therefore when any one speaks to them of terrestrial, corporeal, and merely worldly things, they are absolutely unwilling to hear; and if they are forced to hear of those things, they transmute them into others, and for the most part into contrary things, so as to avoid them. . in order that i might know for certain that such was their genius, it was allowed to represent to them meadows, fallow-lands, gardens, woods, and streams. to represent such things is to exhibit before another in imagination those things which, in the other life, appear to the life. but they instantly transmuted them; they darkened the meadows and fallow-lands, and by representations filled them with snakes; the streams they turned black, so that the water no longer appeared limpid. when i asked why they did so, they said they did not want to think of such things, but of realities, which are the knowledges of things abstracted from terrestrial things, especially of such as exist in the heavens. . i afterwards represented to them birds both large and small, such as exist on our earth; for in the other life such things can be represented to the life. on seeing those birds represented, they at first wanted to change them, but they afterwards were delighted with them, and became quiet; the reason was, that birds signify the knowledges of things, and the perception of this fact then flowed in[o]; they therefore abstained from transmuting them, and so from turning away the ideas of their memory. afterwards it was permitted me to represent before them a very pleasant garden full of lamps and lights; they then paused and their attention was fixed, because lamps with lights signify truths (_veritates_) which shine from good[p]. from this it was evident that they could be detained in the consideration of material things, provided only that the signification of those things in the spiritual sense were insinuated at the same time; for the things which belong to the spiritual sense are not abstracted from material things to the same extent, inasmuch as they are representative of these. [footnote o: birds signify rational things, intellectual things, thoughts, ideas, and knowledges, nos. , , , , , , , , . and this with variety according to the genera and species of the birds, no. .] [footnote p: lamps with lights signify truths (_veritates_) which shine from good, nos. , , .] . moreover, i spoke with them about sheep and lambs, but they were not willing to hear of such things, because they were perceived by them as terrestrial things; the reason was, that they did not understand what innocence is, which lambs signify; this was apperceived from the circumstance that, on my saying that lambs, when represented in heaven, signify innocence[q], they said that they did not know what innocence was, but only knew it by name: the reason is, that they are affected with knowledges only, but not with uses, which are the ends of knowledges, consequently they are unable to know, from internal perception, what innocence is. [footnote q: lambs in heaven, and in the word, signify innocence, nos. , , .] . some of the spirits of the earth mercury came to me, being sent by others, in order that they might hear what was going on near me. these were told by one of the spirits of our earth, to tell their [friends] not to speak anything but what was true, and not, as they were wont, to present opposite things to their questioners; for that if any of the spirits of our earth were to do so, he would be punished. but immediately the company from which those spirits had been sent forth, and which was at a distance, made answer, that if they must be punished on that account, they must all be punished, inasmuch as, from continual practice, they could not do otherwise. they said that when they speak with the men of their own earth, they also do likewise, not, however, with any intention to deceive, but to inspire the desire of knowing; for when they present opposite things, and conceal things in a certain manner, the desire of knowing is excited, and thus from the zeal of exploring those things, the memory is perfected. i also, on another occasion, spoke with them on the same subject, and, as i knew that they spoke with the men of their earth, i asked in what manner they instructed their inhabitants. they said that they do not instruct them fully as to how a matter is, but keep insinuating some apperception of it, in order that from this the desire of exploring and of acquiring knowledge may be nourished and grow; for if they were to answer all their questions, the desire would perish. they added, that they suggest opposites for this reason also, that the truth (_veritas_) may afterwards appear the better; for all truth appears from relation to its opposites. . it is their custom not to tell another what they know, but still they want to learn from all others what is known to them. with their own society, however, they communicate everything, insomuch that what one knows all know, and what all know each one in the society knows[l]. . inasmuch as the spirits of mercury abound in knowledges, they are in a certain kind of conceit; hence they imagine that they know so much that it is almost impossible to know more. but it was told them by the spirits of our earth, that they do not know much but little, and that the things which they do not know are comparatively infinite; and that the things which they do not know, are, relatively to those they do know, as the waters of the largest ocean to those of a very small fountain; and further, that the first step towards wisdom consists in knowing, acknowledging, and perceiving that what one knows, is, compared with what one does not know, so little as hardly to be anything. in order that they might know that it is so, it was granted that a certain angelic spirit should speak with them, and tell them generally what they knew and what they did not know, and that there were infinite things which they did not know, and that eternity would not suffice for their acquiring even a general knowledge of things. he spoke by means of angelic ideas much more readily than they did, and as he disclosed to them what they knew and what they did not know, they were struck with amazement. afterwards i saw another angel speaking with them, who appeared at some height towards the right; he was from our earth. he recounted very many things which they did not know; and afterwards he spoke with them by means of changes of state, which they said they did not understand. he then told them that every change of state, and also every smallest part of such change, contains infinite things. when they heard this, as they had been conceited on account of their knowledges, they began to humble themselves. their humiliation was represented by the sinking downwards of the compact body (_volumen_) which they formed (for that company appeared at the time as a compact body, in front towards the left, at a distance, in the plane of the region below the navel); but the compact body appeared as it were hollowed in the middle, and raised at the sides; an alternating motion was also observed therein. they were also told what that signified, that is, what they thought in their humiliation, and that those who appeared elevated at the sides were not as yet in any humiliation; and i saw that the compact body was separated, and that those who were not in humiliation were sent back towards their earth, the rest remaining. . there once came some spirits of mercury to a certain spirit from our earth, who, during his life in the world, had been most celebrated for his learning,--he was christian wolf--desiring to receive information from him on various subjects. but when they perceived that what he said was not elevated above the sensual things of the natural man, because in speaking he thought of honour, and wanted, as in the world (for in the other life every one is like his former self), to connect various things into series, and from these again and continually to deduce others, and so form several chains of such, which they did not see or acknowledge to be true, and which therefore they declared to be chains which neither cohered in themselves nor with the conclusions, and called them the obscurity of authority, they ceased to question him, inquiring only _what this was called and what that_. and because he answered these questions also by material ideas, and not by any that were spiritual, they departed from him. for in the other life every one speaks spiritually, or by spiritual ideas, so far as in the world he had believed in god; and materially, so far as he had not believed. as an opportunity here offers, i may relate how the case is, in the other life, with the learned who acquire intelligence by their own meditation kindled by the love of knowing truths for the sake of truths, thus for the sake of uses apart from worldly considerations; and how the case is with those who acquire intelligence from others without any meditation of their own, as is the practice of those who desire to know truths merely for the purpose of acquiring a reputation for learning, and of thereby attaining honour or gain in the world, and consequently not for the sake of uses apart from worldly considerations. i may here relate a certain experience concerning men of this character. there was apperceived a certain sound penetrating from beneath near the left side as far as the left ear: i observed that there were spirits who were attempting to force their way there, but i could not ascertain of what character they were. when they had forced their way, however, they spoke with me, saying that they were logicians and metaphysicians, and that they had immersed their thoughts in such [sciences] without any other end than that of acquiring a reputation for learning, and thus of attaining to honours and wealth: they lamented that they now led a miserable life, because they had studied these sciences for no other end, and thus had not cultivated their rational by means of them. their speech was slow and muffled. in the meantime there were two conversing above my head, and when i asked who they were, i was told that one of them was of the highest distinction in the learned world, and it was given me to believe that he was aristotle. who the other was, was not stated. he was then let into the state in which he had been when he lived in the world, for every one can easily be let into the state of life which he had had in the world, since every state of his life remains with him. i was surprised to find that he applied himself to the right ear, and he spoke there, hoarsely, indeed, but still sensibly. from the purport of what he said i apperceived that he was of quite a different genius from those schoolmen who first arose, namely, that he hatched what he wrote from his own thought, and from the same source produced his philosophical system, so that the terms which he invented, and applied to subjects of thought, were forms of expression by which he described interior things; also that he was excited to such pursuits by a delight of the affection, and by a desire of knowing the things that belonged to the thought and the understanding; and that he followed obediently whatever his spirit had dictated. this was the reason he applied himself to the right ear, differently from his followers, who are called schoolmen, and who do not proceed from thought to terms, but from terms to thoughts, thus by a contrary way; and many of them do not even proceed to thoughts, but stick fast entirely in terms, their application of which, when they make any, being to confirm whatever they want to, and to invest falsities with an appearance of truth, according to their eagerness to persuade. consequently for them philosophy is rather a means of becoming foolish than a means of becoming wise; and therefore they have darkness instead of light. afterwards, i conversed with him on analytical science, saying that a little child, in half an hour, speaks more philosophically, analytically, and logically, than he could describe in a volume, because all things of human thought and consequently of human speech are analytical, and the laws thereof are from the spiritual world; and that he who wants to think artificially from terms is not unlike a dancer who wants to learn to dance from a knowledge of the motory fibres and muscles; if he were to keep his mind (_animus_) fixed on that knowledge whilst dancing, he would hardly be able to move a foot, and yet, without that knowledge, he sets in action all the motory fibres that are scattered throughout the whole of his body, and, in due measure, the lungs, diaphragm, sides, arms, neck, and all the other parts, to describe all which volumes would not suffice; and that the case is just like this with those who want to think from terms. he approved of these observations, and said, that if one learns to think in that way one proceeds in inverted order: adding, that if any one wants to be foolish, he has only to proceed in that way; and that one should constantly think of use, and from what is interior. he next showed me what idea he had had of the supreme deity. he had represented him to himself as having a human face, and encompassed about the head with a radiant circle; but he now knew that the lord is himself that man, and that the radiant circle is the divine [proceeding] from him, which inflows not only into heaven but also into the universe, disposing and ruling both. he added, that he who disposes and rules heaven, disposes and rules the universe also, because the one cannot be separated from the other. he also said, that he believed in only one god, whose attributes and qualities men distinguished by names as numerous as the gods they worshipped. a woman appeared to me who stretched out her hand, desiring to stroke his cheek. when i expressed my surprise at this, he said, that while he was in the world such a woman had often appeared to him, and as it were stroked his cheek, and that her hand was beautiful. the angelic spirits said that such women sometimes appeared to the ancients, and that they called them pallases; and that the one who appeared to him was from spirits who, when they lived as men in the ancient times, were delighted with ideas and indulged in thoughts, but without philosophy; and as such spirits were with him, and were delighted with him because he thought from what is interior, they representatively exhibited such a woman to his view. lastly, he told me what idea he had had concerning the soul or spirit of man, which he called pneuma, namely, that it was an invisible vital [principle], like something of the ether. he said that he knew his spirit would live after death, since it was his interior essence, which cannot die, because it can think; and moreover that he could not think clearly concerning it, but only obscurely, because he had not possessed any knowledge on the subject except from himself, with a little also from the ancients. aristotle, it may be remarked, is among sane spirits in the other life, but many of his followers are among the foolish. . i once saw that some spirits of our earth were with some spirits of mercury, and i heard them conversing with one another; and on this occasion the spirits of our earth asked them, among other things, in whom they believed. they replied that they believed in god. but when they inquired further concerning the god in whom they believed, they would not say, since it is their custom not to give direct answers to questions. then the spirits from the earth mercury, in their turn, asked the spirits from our earth in whom they believed. they said that they believed in the lord god. the spirits of mercury then said they perceived that they believed in no god, and that they had contracted a habit of professing belief with the mouth when yet they do not believe. (the spirits of mercury have an exquisite perception, in consequence of their continually exploring, by means of perception, what others know.) the spirits of our earth were of the number of those who in the world had made profession of faith according to the doctrine of the church, but still had not lived the life of faith; and those who do not live the life of faith, in the other life have no faith, because it is not in the man[r]. on hearing this they were silent, because, by an apperception then given them, they acknowledged that the case was so. [footnote r: they who make profession of faith from doctrine, and do not live the life of faith, have no faith, nos. , , , , , . and their interiors are contrary to the truths of faith, although in the world they do not know this, nos. , .] . certain spirits knew from heaven that a promise had once been made to the spirits of the earth mercury, that they should see the lord; they were, therefore, asked by the spirits about me whether they recollected that promise. they said that they did recollect it; but that they did not know whether the promise had been made in such a manner as to preclude all doubt respecting it. while they were thus talking together, the sun of heaven appeared to them. (the sun of heaven, which is the lord, is seen only by those who are in the inmost or third heaven; others see the light which proceeds from it.) on seeing the sun, they said that this was not the lord god, because they saw no face. meanwhile the spirits were conversing with each other, but i did not hear what they said. suddenly, however, the sun again appeared, and in the midst of it the lord, encompassed with a solar circle: at this sight the spirits of mercury humbled themselves profoundly, and bowed down. at that time also, the lord appeared out of that sun to certain spirits of our earth, who, when they were men, had seen him in the world; and they, one after another, and thus many in succession, confessed that it was the lord himself; and they made this confession before the whole assembly. at the same time also the lord appeared out of the sun to the spirits of the planet jupiter, who declared with a clear voice, that it was he himself whom they had seen on their earth when the god of the universe appeared to them[s]. [footnote s: the lord is the sun of heaven, from which proceeds all the light there, nos. , , . and the lord thus appears to those who are in his celestial kingdom, where love to him reigns, nos. , - , , . he appears at a middle height above the plane of the right eye, nos. , . therefore in the word the sun signifies the lord as to the divine love, nos. , , . the sun of the world does not appear to spirits and angels, but in its place as it were a dark something behind, opposite to the sun of heaven or to the lord, no. .] . after the lord had appeared, some were led towards the front parts to the right, and as they advanced, they said that they saw a light much clearer and purer than they had ever seen before, and that a greater light could not possibly be seen: and it was then the time of evening here. those who said this were many[t]. [footnote t: in the heavens there is great light, which exceeds, by many degrees, the noon-day light on earth, nos. , , , - , , , . all light in the heavens is from the lord as the sun there, nos. , , , , , , , , , . the divine truth proceeding from the divine good of the lord's divine love appears in the heavens as light and constitutes all the light there, nos. , , , , , , . the light of heaven illuminates both the sight and the understanding of the angels, nos. , . heaven being said to be in light and heat, signifies in wisdom and in love, nos. , , .] . it should be known that the sun of the world does not appear at all to any spirit, nor does anything of the light from it. the light of this sun is, to spirits and angels, like thick darkness. this sun remains in the perception with spirits only from their having seen it when they were in the world, and it is exhibited to them in idea as an exceedingly dark something, and situated behind at a considerable distance, at a little height above the plane of the head. the planets which are within the system of this sun appear according to a fixed situation in respect to the sun: mercury appears behind, a little towards the right; the planet venus to the left, a little backwards; the planet mars to the left in front; the planet jupiter likewise to the left in front, but at a greater distance; the planet saturn directly in front, at a considerable distance; the moon to the left, at a moderate height: the satellites also appear to the left relatively to their own planets. such is the situation of these planets in the ideas of spirits and angels. spirits also appear near their own planet, but apart from it. with regard to the spirits of mercury in particular, they do not appear in any particular quarter, or at any particular distance, but they appear sometimes in front, sometimes to the left, sometimes a little to the back; the reason is, that they are allowed to wander through the universe for the purpose of procuring knowledges. . some spirits of mercury once appeared to the left in a globe, and afterwards in a compact body (_volumen_) extending itself lengthwise. i wondered whither they were bent, whether to this or to some other earth, and i soon observed that they turned towards the right, and, rolling along, approached the earth or planet venus towards the quarter in front. but when they reached it, they said that they would not remain there, because the inhabitants were evil; wherefore they turned round to the back part of that earth, and then said they would remain there, because the inhabitants of that part were good. while this was taking place i was sensible of a remarkable change in the brain, and of a powerful operation from it. from this it was given me to conclude that the spirits of venus who are from that part of the planet, were in concord with the spirits of mercury, and that they had relation to the memory of material things which is in concord with the memory of immaterial things, to which the spirits of mercury have relation; hence a more powerful operation was felt from them when they were there. . i was desirous of knowing what kind of face and body the men (_homines_) on the earth mercury have, and whether they are like the men (_homines_) on our earth. there was then exhibited before my eyes a woman exactly resembling those who are on that earth. her face was beautiful, but smaller than that of the women of our earth; she was also more slender in body, but of equal height: her head was covered with some linen stuff, arranged without art but still in a becoming manner. a man (_vir_) also was exhibited. he, too, was more slender in body than the men (_viri_) of our earth; he was clothed in a garment of dark blue fitting closely to his body, without folds or protuberances anywhere. such, i was told, were the personal form and clothing of the men (_homines_) of that earth. afterwards there were exhibited some kinds of their oxen and cows, which did not, indeed, differ much from those on our earth, except that they were smaller, and approximated in some measure to the stag and hind species. . they were also questioned about the sun of the system, how it appears from their earth. they said that it appeared large, and larger there than from other earths; they said that they knew this from the ideas of other spirits respecting the sun. they said further that they enjoyed a middle temperature, neither too hot nor too cold. it was then given me to tell them, that it has been so provided for them by the lord, in order that they might not be exposed to excessive heat from the circumstance of their earth being in greater proximity to the sun than the other earths, since heat does not arise from nearness to the sun, but from the height and density of the aerial atmosphere, as is evident from the cold on high mountains even in hot climates; also, that heat is varied according to the direct or oblique incidence of the sun's rays, as is evident from the seasons of winter and summer in every region. these are the particulars which it has been given me to know respecting the spirits and inhabitants of the earth mercury. the earth or planet jupiter, and its spirits and inhabitants. . it has been given me to have longer intercourse with the spirits and angels of the planet jupiter than with the spirits and angels from the other planets; and i can therefore relate more particulars respecting their state of life and respecting that of the inhabitants of that planet. that those spirits were from that planet, was evident from many circumstances, and was also declared from heaven. . the earth or planet jupiter itself does not indeed appear to spirits and angels: for in the spiritual world no earth is ever visible to any one, but only the spirits and angels who are from it. those who are from the planet jupiter appear in front to the left, at some little distance, and this constantly (see above, no. ): there also the planet is. the spirits of every earth are near their own earth, because they are from its inhabitants (for every man after death becomes a spirit), and because they are thus of a similar genius, and can be with the inhabitants and be of service to them. . they related that in the region of their earth where they had lived when in the world, the multitude of human beings was as great as the earth could support; that it was fertile, and abounded in all things; that the inhabitants desired no more than sufficed for the necessities of life, and that what was not necessary they did not regard as useful; and that therefore the multitude of human beings was so great. they said that their principal care was the education of their children, and that they loved them most tenderly. . they further related that on their earth they are distinguished into clans, families, and households, and that all live together with their own, separate from the others, and that therefore their habitual intercourse is confined to their kindred: also that no one ever desires another's goods; nor does it ever enter the mind (_animus_) of any one to covet any of the goods of another, much less to obtain them by any artifice, and still less to attack and plunder them; this they consider a crime contrary to human nature, and horrible. when i wanted to tell them that on this earth there were wars, depredations, and murders, they turned away, and refused to hear. it has been told me by the angels that the most ancient inhabitants of our earth dwelt in the same manner, that is to say, distinguished into clans, families, and households, and that all in those times were content with their own goods; and that it was an entirely unknown thing for one to enrich himself with the goods of others, or to assume dominion from the love of self; and that on this account the ancient, and especially the most ancient times, were more acceptable to the lord than those which have succeeded them; and that, as their state was such, innocence then reigned, and, together with innocence, wisdom; that every one then did what was good for the sake of good, and what was just for the sake of justice; that they did not know what it was to do what was good and just with a view to their own honour, or for the sake of gain; and that in those times they spoke nothing but what was true, and this not so much from truth as from good, that is, not from the intellectual separate [from the voluntary], but from the voluntary conjoined with the intellectual. such were the ancient times. angels then could therefore have habitual intercourse with men, and carry their minds, almost separated from corporeal things, into heaven, and could even lead them about there, and show them the magnificent and goodly things there, and also communicate to them their own happinesses and delights. these times were also known to ancient writers, who called them the golden, and likewise the saturnian times. the reason why these times were such was, as has been stated, that men then lived distinguished into clans, clans into families, and families into households, and every household dwelt by itself; and that it then never entered into any one's mind (_mens_) to seize upon another's inheritance, and thus acquire for himself opulence and dominion: the love of self and the love of the world were then far away; every one rejoiced in his own, and not less in another's good. but in the course of time this scene was changed and totally reversed, when the lust of exercising dominion and of possessing many things invaded the mind (_animus_). then the human race, for the sake of self-defence, gathered themselves into kingdoms and empires; and because the laws of charity and conscience, which had been inscribed upon the heart, ceased to operate, it became necessary, in order to restrain deeds of violence, to enact [external] laws, of which the rewards were honours and gain, and the punishments were the deprivation thereof. when the state was thus changed, heaven itself became removed from man, and this more and more even to the present ages, when the very existence of heaven and hell is unknown, yea, is even denied by some. these statements have been made in order to show clearly by the parallel, what is the state of those who are on the earth jupiter, and whence they have their goodness of disposition and also their wisdom, of which more will be said in the following pages. . by long-continued intercourse with the spirits of the earth jupiter, it became manifest to me that they were better disposed than the spirits of many other earths. their approach when they came to me, their stay with me, and their influx at the time, were so gentle and sweet as to be inexpressible. in the other life the quality of every spirit manifests itself by an influx, which is the communication of his affection. goodness of disposition manifests itself by gentleness and sweetness; by gentleness, because it is afraid to hurt, and by sweetness, because it loves to do good. i could distinguish very clearly between the gentleness and sweetness of the influx proceeding from the good spirits of our earth, and the gentleness and sweetness of the influx from the spirits of jupiter. they said that when any slight disagreement arises among them, there appears as it were a thin dazzling white ray of light, like that of ordinary lightning or like the little swath which encompasses glittering and wandering stars; but the disagreement among them is soon adjusted. glittering stars, which are at the same time wandering signify what is false; but glittering and fixed stars signify what is true; thus the former signify disagreement.[u] [footnote u: stars in the word signify the knowledges of good and truth, consequently truths, nos. , , . and in the other life truths are represented by fixed stars, but falsities by wandering stars, no. .] . i could distinguish the presence of the spirits of jupiter, not only by the gentleness and sweetness of their approach and influx, but also by this circumstance, that their influx was for the most part into the face, which they rendered cheerful and smiling, and this continually as long as they were present. they said that they in the same way dispose the faces of the inhabitants of their earth, when they come to them, being desirous thus to inspire them with tranquillity and delightsomeness of heart. the tranquillity and delightsomeness with which they inspired me, sensibly filled my breast and heart: at the same time the longings and anxieties about the future, which cause disquiet and wretchedness, and agitate the mind with various passions, were removed. from this it could be made apparent to me what was the character of the life of the inhabitants of the earth jupiter; for the inborn disposition of the inhabitants is known from the spirits, since every one carries his own life with him from the world, and lives it when he becomes a spirit. it was observed that they had a state of still more interior blessedness or happiness. this was observed by its being perceived that their interiors were not closed, but open to heaven; for the more open to heaven the interiors are, the more capable are they of receiving divine good, and with it blessedness and interior happiness. it is quite otherwise with those who do not live in the order of heaven; with them the interiors are closed, and the exteriors are open to the world. . it was also shown me what kind of faces the inhabitants of the earth jupiter have; not that i saw the inhabitants themselves but spirits with faces similar to those they had when they dwelt on their earth. but before this was shown me, one of their angels appeared behind a bright white cloud, and gave permission. two faces were then shown. they were like the faces of the men of our earth, fair and beautiful; sincerity and modesty shone forth from them. when the spirits of jupiter were with me, the faces of the men of our earth appeared smaller than usual: this was owing to the circumstance that there inflowed from those spirits the idea they had that their own faces were larger. for when they live as men on their earth they believe that after their decease their faces will be larger, and round in form; and this idea, being impressed upon them, remains; and when they become spirits, they appear to themselves to have larger faces. the reason why they believe that their faces will be larger is that they say the face is not the body, because they see, hear, speak, and manifest their thoughts by means of it, and because the mind thus shines through it; hence they have an idea of the face as the mind in form. and as they know that they will become wiser after their life in the world, they believe that the form of the mind, that is, the face, will become larger. they also believe that after their decease they shall perceive a fire which will communicate warmth to their faces. this belief arises from a knowledge possessed by the wiser amongst them that fire, in the spiritual sense, signifies love, that love is the fire of life, and that from that fire the angels have life[x]. such of them as have lived in heavenly love also have their wish gratified, and feel their face grow warm, and then the interiors of their minds are kindled with love. for this reason the inhabitants of that earth frequently wash and clean their face, and also carefully protect it from the sun's heat. they have a covering made of the inner or outer bark of a tree, which is of a bluish colour, and with this they encircle the head, and thus protect the face. with respect to the faces of the men of our earth, which they saw through my eyes[y], they said that they were not beautiful, and that such beauty as they had consisted in the outward skin, but not in the fibres from within. they were surprised to see that the faces of some were covered with warts and pustules, or otherwise disfigured, and said that no such faces are ever to be seen among them. yet there were some faces that pleased them, such, namely, as were cheerful and smiling, and such as were slightly prominent about the lips. [footnote x: fire in the word signifies love in both senses, nos. , , . sacred and heavenly fire is divine love and every affection which is of that love, nos. , , . infernal fire is the love of self and of the world, and every concupiscence belonging to those loves, nos. , , , , , , . love is the fire of life, and life itself is actually derived from that fire, nos. , , .] [footnote y: spirits and angels do not see the things that are in this solar world but they saw through my eyes, no. .] . the reason they were pleased with the faces that were prominent about the lips was, that their speech is effected mostly by means of the face, especially by the part about the lips, and also because they never counterfeit, that is, never speak otherwise than they think, so that they do not constrain their face, but give it free play. it is otherwise with those who from childhood have learned to counterfeit: with these the face is, in consequence, constrained from within, lest anything of the thought should shine forth from it; nor has it free play from without, but is kept in readiness to relax or constrain itself, as cunning may dictate. the truth (_veritas_) of this may appear from an examination of the fibres of the lips and surrounding parts, for the series of the fibres there are manifold, complicated, and interwoven, having been created, not only for mastication and verbal speech, but also for expressing the ideas of the mind (_animus_). . it was also shown me how the thoughts are expressed by means of the face. the affections which belong to the love are manifested by means of the countenance and its changes, and the thoughts therein by variations as to the forms of the interiors there: it is impossible to describe them further. the inhabitants of the earth jupiter have also verbal speech, but not so loud as with us. the one speech aids the other, and life is insinuated into the verbal speech by the speech of the face. i have been informed by the angels that the very first speech in every earth was speech by the face, and from two origins there, the lips and the eyes. the reason this kind of speech was the first is, that the face was formed to effigy forth whatever a man thinks and wills; in consequence of which the face is also called the effigy and index of the mind (_animus_). another reason is, that in the most ancient or primeval times sincerity prevailed, and no one cherished or wanted to cherish a thought which he was not willing should shine forth out of his face. in this way, also, the affections of the mind (_animus_), and the thoughts from them, could be exhibited to the life and in fulness; thus also they even appeared to the eye as very many things together in a form. this speech was therefore as superior to the speech of words as sight is to hearing, that is, as the sight of a landscape surpasses hearing about it and forming an idea of it from the verbal description. they added, that such speech was in agreement with the speech of the angels, with whom men in those times also had communication; also, that when the face speaks, that is, the mind through the face, angelic speech is with the man in its ultimate natural form, which is not the case when the mouth speaks by words. every one can also comprehend that verbal speech could not have been used by the most ancient people, since the words of a language are not imparted immediately, but have to be invented and applied to objects; which it requires a course of time to effect[z]. so long as sincerity and rectitude prevailed among men, such speech continued; but as soon as the mind began to think one thing and speak another, which was the case when man began to love himself and not the neighbour, verbal speech began to increase, the face being either silent or deceitful. hence the internal form of the face was changed, became contracted, and hardened, and began to become almost devoid of life; while the external form, inflamed by the fire of the love of self, appeared before the eyes of men as if alive; for this absence of life, which is underneath, does not appear before the eyes of men, but it appears before the eyes of the angels, since the angels see interior things. such are the faces of those who think one thing and speak another; for simulation, hypocrisy, cunning, and deceit, which constitute modern prudence, produce such effects. but the case is different in the other life: there, no one is allowed to speak one way and think another. there, also, the variance is clearly perceived in each single expression, and when it is perceived, the spirit in whom there is such variance is expelled from society, and punished. he is afterwards by various methods brought to speak as he thinks, and to think as he wills, until his mind is one, and not divided. if he is good, he is brought to will good, and to think and speak the truth from good; and if he is evil, he is brought to will evil, and to think and speak falsity from evil. until this is effected, a good spirit is not raised into heaven, nor an evil one cast into hell: and the object of this is, that in hell there may be nothing but evil and the falsity of evil, and in heaven nothing but good and the truth of good. [footnote z: the most ancient people on this earth spoke by the face and lips by means of internal respiration, nos. , , . the inhabitants of some other earths have a similar speech, nos. , , , . concerning the perfection and excellence of that speech, nos. , , .] . the spirits who were from that earth informed me about various other particulars relating to its inhabitants, as, about their gait, their food, and their dwellings. with respect to their gait, they do not walk erect like the inhabitants of this and of many other earths, nor do they creep like animals, but as they advance they assist themselves with their hands, and alternately half raise themselves on their feet, and at every third step they face about sideways and behind them, and at the same time also bend the body a little, which is done quickly; for among them it is [considered] unbecoming to be looked at by others except in the face. while walking in this manner they always keep the face raised as we do, so that they may look at the heaven as well as at the earth. they do not hold it down so as to look at the earth; this they call accursed. the basest among them do so; but if they do not get accustomed to raise the face, they are expelled from their society. when, however, they sit, they appear, like the men of our earth, erect as to the upper part of the body, but they sit with the feet crossed. they are extremely cautious, not only when they walk, but also when they sit, not to be seen behind, but in the face. they also gladly desire that their face should be seen, because their mind appears from it, for they never show a face at variance with the mind, nor have they the power to do so. those who are present, therefore, see clearly what is their disposition towards them--which indeed they do not conceal--especially whether their apparent friendliness is sincere or forced. these facts were made known to me by their spirits, and confirmed by their angels. for the above reason also, their spirits are seen, not like others, to walk erect; but almost like swimmers, to assist their progress with their hands, and by turns to look around. . those who live in their hot climates go naked, except for a covering about the loins; nor are they ashamed of their nakedness for their minds are chaste, and they love their own consorts only, and abhor adulteries. they were greatly surprised that the spirits of our earth, on hearing of their manner of walking and of their being naked, should deride and think lasciviously, without in the least attending to their heavenly life, but only to such details. they said that this was a sign that they cared more for bodily and earthly things than for heavenly things, and that indecent thoughts occupied their minds. they were told that nakedness is no occasion either of shame or scandal to those who live in chastity, and in a state of innocence, but that it is to those who live in lasciviousness and immodesty. . when the inhabitants of that earth lie in bed, they turn their faces forwards or into the chamber, but not backwards or towards the wall. this was told me by their spirits, who said that the cause was that they believe that they thus turn their face to the lord, but that if they turn it backwards they turn it away from him. the like has sometimes happened to myself when in bed, but i had not previously been aware of its origin. . they take pleasure in prolonging their repasts, not so much from delight in feeding as from delight in conversing then. when they sit at table, they do not sit on chairs or benches, nor on raised seats of turf, nor on the grass, but on the leaves of a particular tree. they were not willing to say of what tree the leaves were; but when i guessed at several, they at last assented when i named the fig tree. they informed me besides, that they do not prepare their food to please the palate, but chiefly for the sake of use; they added that to them the food which is wholesome is savoury. a conversation took place on this subject among the spirits, and it was urged that it would be well for man to observe this rule, for thus he would ensure having a sound mind in a sound body. it is otherwise with those with whom the taste rules: the body hence becomes diseased, at least it becomes inwardly feeble, consequently so does the mind; for the mind comports itself according to the interior state of the recipient parts of the body, as sight and hearing do according to the state of the eye and ear; hence the folly of placing all the delight of life in luxury and pleasure; from this too comes dulness in such things as belong to thought and judgment, and acuteness in such as belong to the body and the world. by this man acquires the likeness of a brute animal, with which indeed such persons not inappropriately compare themselves. . their dwellings were also shown me. they are lowly dwellings constructed of wood; but within they are lined with bark or cork of a pale blue colour, and the walls and ceiling are spotted as with stars, to represent the heaven; for they are fond of picturing the visible heaven with its constellations in the interiors of their houses, the reason being that they believe the constellations to be the abodes of the angels. they have tents also, which are rounded off above and extended in length, spotted likewise within with stars on a blue ground. they retire into these in the day-time, to prevent their faces suffering from the heat of the sun. they bestow much care on the fashioning of these tents of theirs, and on keeping them clean. in them they also take their repasts. . the horses of our earth, when seen by the spirits of jupiter, appeared to me smaller than usual, although they were pretty robust and tall; which appearance arose from the idea those spirits had concerning the horses on that earth. they informed me that among them there are also horses like ours, though much larger, but that they are wild or in the woods, and that when they come in sight they strike terror into them, although they are quite harmless; they added that their fear of them is innate or natural. this gave me occasion to think of the cause of that fear. for in the spiritual sense, a horse signifies the intellectual formed from scientifics[aa]; and as they are afraid of cultivating the intellectual by worldly sciences, from this comes an influx of fear. that they do not care for scientifics, which are of human erudition, will be seen in the following pages. [footnote aa: the horse signifies the intellectual, nos. - , , , , , , , , . and the "white horse" in the apocalypse denotes the understanding of the word, no. .] . the spirits of that earth are not inclined to associate with the spirits of our earth, because they differ in disposition and manners. they say that the spirits of our earth are cunning, and are quick and clever in the contrivance of evils, and that they know and think little about what is good. moreover, the spirits of the earth jupiter are much wiser than the spirits of our earth; they also say of ours that they talk much and think little, and that therefore they cannot interiorly perceive many things, and that they cannot even perceive what good is. they conclude from this that the men of our earth are external men. it was also once permitted the evil spirits of our earth to act by their wicked arts, and to infest the spirits of jupiter who were with me. the latter endured them for a very long time, but at length confessed that they could do so no longer, and that they believed that there could not be worse spirits, since they so perverted their imagination, and also their thought, that they seemed to themselves as it were bound, and incapable of being extricated from this bondage, and set at liberty, except by divine aid. while i read from the word some passages on the subject of our saviour's passion, some european spirits uttered dreadful scandals, with the intention of seducing the spirits of jupiter. inquiry being made as to who they were, and what their profession in the world had been, it was ascertained that some of them had been preachers, and many of them were of those who call themselves members of the society of the lord, or jesuits. i remarked that these, during their life in the world, by their preachings on the subject of the lord's passion, had been able to move the common people to tears. i also added the cause, that in the world they had thought one way and spoken another, thus that they had entertained one sentiment in their hearts and professed another with their lips; but that now they are not allowed to speak thus deceitfully, for, on becoming spirits, they are compelled to speak exactly as they think. the spirits of jupiter were exceedingly astonished that there could be such a variance between the interiors and exteriors belonging to a man, that is to say, that it should be possible to speak one way and think quite another way, which would be impossible for them. they were surprised to hear that many who are from our earth even become angels, and that they are of quite a different heart. they had supposed that all on our earth were like those [evil ones who were then present], but they were told that many are not of this character, and that there are also some who think from good, and not, like these, from evil, and that those who think from good become angels. in order that they might know that this was the case, there came from the heaven of angels from our earth choirs, one after another, who glorified the lord together with one voice, and with harmony[bb]. these choirs affected the spirits of jupiter who were with me, with such intense delight, that they seemed to themselves as it were caught up into heaven. this glorification by the choirs lasted about one hour. the delights which they experienced from this were communicated to me, and i was enabled to feel them sensibly. they said they would relate this occurrence to those of them who were elsewhere. [footnote bb: it is called a choir when many spirits speak at once and unanimously, concerning which see nos. , , . in their speech there is harmony, concerning which see nos. , . by means of choirs in the other life an inauguration into unanimity is effected, no. .] . the inhabitants of the earth jupiter place wisdom in thinking well and justly on all things that occur in life. this wisdom they imbibe from their parents from childhood, and it is successively transmitted to posterity, and goes on increasing from the love they have for it as existing with their parents. of the sciences, such as exist on our earth, they know nothing whatever, nor have they any desire to know. they call them shades, and compare them to clouds which come between [the earth and] the sun. they were led into this idea concerning the sciences by the conduct of some who had come from our earth, who boasted in their presence that they were wise by reason of the sciences. the spirits from our earth, who thus boasted, were such as placed wisdom in such things as are matters of the memory only, as in languages, especially the hebrew, greek, and latin, in the noteworthy publications of the learned world, in criticism, in bare experimental facts, and in terms, especially philosophical ones, and other similar things, not using them as means for becoming wise, but making wisdom to consist in those very things. such persons, in consequence of not having cultivated their rational faculty by the sciences as means, in the other life have little perception, for they see only in terms and from terms, and, for those who see in this way, those things are as little formless masses, and as clouds before the intellectual sight (see above, no. ); and those who have been conceited of their learning from this source perceive still less. but those who have used the sciences as means of invalidating and annihilating the things that belong to the church and to faith, have entirely destroyed their intellectual, and see in the dark like owls, seeing falsity for truth and evil for good. the spirits of jupiter, from intercourse with such persons, concluded that the sciences occasion shade and blindness; it was told them, however, that on this earth the sciences are means of opening the intellectual sight, which is in the light of heaven; but because of the dominion of such things as belong to merely natural and sensual life, the sciences, to those [who are such], are means of becoming insane, that is to say, of confirming themselves in favour of nature against the divine, and in favour of the world against heaven. the sciences, they were further informed, are in themselves spiritual riches, and those who possess them are like those who possess worldly riches, which likewise are means of performing uses to oneself, one's neighbour, and one's country, and are also means of doing evil to them. they are, moreover, like dress, which serves for use and adornment and also for gratifying pride, as with those who would be held in honour for that alone. the spirits of the earth jupiter understood this perfectly; but they were surprised that, being men, they should stand still in the means, and prefer to wisdom itself such things as only lead to it; and that they did not see, that to immerse the mind in these, and not raise it above them, is to becloud and blind it. . a certain spirit ascending from the lower earth came to me, and said that he had heard the things that i had spoken to the other spirits, but did not understand anything of what had been said about spiritual life and its light. being asked whether he desired to be instructed on the subject, he answered that he had not come with that intention, from which i could conclude that such subjects did not come within his comprehension. he was exceedingly stupid. it was stated by the angels that, when he lived a man in the world, he had been among the most celebrated for his learning. he was cold, as was sensibly felt from his breath; which was a sign that he had no spiritual, but merely natural light (_lumen_); consequently that by means of the sciences he had not opened but closed up for himself the way to the light (_lux_) of heaven. . as the inhabitants of the earth jupiter acquire intelligence for themselves by a different way from that followed by those of our earth, and as, besides, they are of a different natural disposition in consequence of their life, they cannot be together long, but either shun them or remove them. there are spheres, which are to be called spiritual spheres, which continually emanate, nay, pour forth, from every spirit; they flow from the activity of the affections and the consequent thoughts, consequently from the very life[cc]. all consociations in the other life take place according to the spheres; things that are in agreement are conjoined according to the agreement, and things that disagree are removed according to the disagreement. the spirits and angels who are from the earth jupiter have relation, in the grand man, to the imaginative [part] of thought, and thus to an active state of the interior parts; while the spirits of our earth have relation to the various functions of the exterior parts of the body, and when these desire to have the dominion, the active or imaginative [part] of thought from the interior cannot flow in. hence the oppositions between the spheres of the life of the two. [footnote cc: a spiritual sphere, which is the sphere of the life, flows forth and pours forth from every man, spirit, and angel, and encompasses them about, nos. , , . it flows forth from the life of their affection and consequent thought, nos. , , . in the other life consociations are effected according to the spheres, and so also are dissociations, nos. , , , .] . with respect to their divine worship, its principal feature is that they acknowledge our lord as the supreme being who governs heaven and earth. him they call the one only lord; and because they acknowledge and worship him during their life in the body, they seek him after death, and find him: he is the same with our lord. being questioned whether they knew that the one only lord is man, they replied that they all know that he is man, because in their earth he has been seen by many as a man; and that he instructs them concerning the truth (_veritas_), preserves them, and gives eternal life to those who worship him from good. they said further, that it is revealed to them by him how they ought to live, and how they ought to believe; and that what is revealed is handed on by the parents to the children, and thus the doctrine spreads to all the families, and thus to the whole clan that is descended from one father. they added, that it seems to them as if they had the doctrine written on their minds; which they conclude from the circumstance, that they instantly perceive and acknowledge as of themselves, whether what others say concerning the life of heaven with man is true or not. they do not know that their one only lord was born a man on our earth; they said that it does not concern them to know this, but only to know that he is very man, and governs the universe. when i said that on our earth he is named the christ jesus, and that the christ signifies the anointed or the king, and jesus, the saviour, they said that they do not worship him as a king, because kingship savours of what is worldly, but that they worship him as the saviour. the spirits of our earth having injected a doubt whether their one only lord was the same with our lord, they removed it by recollecting that they had seen him in the sun, and had acknowledged that it was he himself whom they had seen on their earth (see above, no. ). once also there inflowed with the spirits of jupiter who were with me, a momentary doubt whether their one only lord was the same as our lord; but this doubt, which inflowed in a moment, was also dispelled in a moment; (it had inflowed from some spirits from our earth;) and then, what surprised me, they so blushed with shame for having doubted on this point, though but for a moment, that they told me not to make it public, lest on account of it they should be charged with any incredulity, when yet they now knew it more than others. these spirits were greatly affected and rejoiced when they heard it declared that the one only lord is the only man, and that all derive from him what entitles them to be called men, and, indeed, that they are only so far men as they are images of him, that is, so far as they love him and the neighbour, consequently so far as they are in good; for the good of love and of faith is the lord's image. . there were some spirits of the earth jupiter with me while i was reading the seventeenth chapter of john, relating to the lord's love and his glorification. on hearing the things that are written there, a holy influence filled them, and they acknowledged that all things therein were divine. but then some spirits of our earth, who were infidels, kept insinuating scandals, saying that the lord was born an infant, lived a man, appeared like another man, and was crucified and other like things: but the spirits of the earth jupiter paid no attention to those things. they said that such are their devils, whom they abhor; adding, that in their minds there abides absolutely nothing that is heavenly, but only what is earthly, which they called dross. they said that they had also ascertained this to be the case from the fact, that when they heard that on that earth they go naked, obscenity instantly occupied their thoughts, and that they gave no thought at all to their heavenly life, of which they also heard at the same time. . in how clear a perception on spiritual subjects the spirits of jupiter are, was made evident to me from their representation of how the lord converts depraved affections into good ones. they represented the intellectual mind as a beautiful form, and imparted to it the activity of a form fit for the life of affection. this they did in a manner which cannot be described in words, and so skilfully that they were highly commended by the angels. there were present at the time some of the learned from our earth, who had immersed the intellectual in terms belonging to scientifics, and had written and thought much about form, substance, the material and the immaterial, and the like, without applying them to any use; these could not even comprehend that representation. . on their earth the greatest care is taken to prevent any one falling into wrong opinions respecting the one only lord; and if they observe that any begin to think wrongly respecting him, they first admonish them, then deter them by threats, and at length by punishments. they said they had observed, that any family, into which any such thing had crept, is removed from amongst them, not by the punishment of death inflicted by their fellow-men, but by spirits depriving them of respiration and consequently of life, after first threatening them with death. for in that earth spirits speak with the inhabitants and chastise them if they have done evil, and also if they have intended to do evil; of which more will be said in subsequent pages. therefore, if they think ill concerning the one only lord, and do not repent, they are threatened with death. in this way the worship of the lord, who to them is the supreme divine, is preserved on that earth. . they stated that they have no holy days, but that every morning at sunrise, and every evening at sunset, they perform holy worship to the one only lord in their tents; and that they also, after their manner, sing sacred songs. . i was further informed that in that earth there are some who call themselves saints, and who, under penalty of punishment in case of disobedience, command their servants, of whom they have great numbers, to address them as lords. they also forbid them to adore the lord of the universe, saying that they themselves are mediatory lords, and that they will convey their supplications to the lord of the universe. the lord of the universe, who is our lord, they do not call the one only lord, as all the others do, but the supreme lord, for the reason that they call themselves lords. they call the sun of the world the face of the supreme lord, and believe that he has his abode there; wherefore they also adore the sun. the other inhabitants hold them in aversion, and are unwilling to have intercourse with them, both because they adore the sun, and because they call themselves lords, and are worshipped by their servants as mediatory gods. their head-dress was shown me by spirits: it was a high crowned hat of a dark colour. in the other life such appear to the left at some height, where they sit like idols, and at first are worshipped by the servants who had formerly been with them; but these, too, afterwards hold them in derision. what surprised me, their faces there shine as from fire: this arises from their having believed themselves to be saints; yet, notwithstanding this fiery appearance of their faces, they are cold, and intensely desire to become warm. from this it is evident that the fire from which they shine is the fire of the love of self, and an _ignis fatuus_. in order to acquire warmth they seem to themselves to cut wood, and while cutting, under the wood appears something of a man, whom at the same time they try to strike. this arises from their attributing merit and holiness to themselves: those who do this in the world, in the other life seem to themselves to cut wood, as was likewise the case with some from our earth, who have been spoken of elsewhere. to illustrate this subject, i may here adduce my experience concerning these:[a] "in the lower earth, under the soles of the feet, are also those who have placed merit in good acts and works. many of them appear to themselves to cut wood. the place where they are is very cold, and they seem to themselves to acquire warmth by their labour. with these also i have spoken, and it was given me to ask them whether they had any desire to get out of that place: to this they replied, that they had not as yet merited it by their labour. but when this state has been accomplished they are taken out from thence. these [spirits] are natural, because wishing to merit salvation is not spiritual, for it comes from the proprium and not from the lord; and besides, they prefer themselves to others, and some of them despise others; and if they do not receive more joy than others in the other life, they are indignant against the lord; wherefore when they are cutting wood, it appears as if something of the lord were under the wood. this arises from their indignation."[dd] [footnote a: _arcana_, no. . see also nos. , .--tr.] [footnote dd: merit and righteousness belong to the lord alone, nos. , , , , . those who place merit in works, or want to merit heaven by the good deeds which they do, in the other life want to be served, and are never contented, no. . they despise their neighbour, and are angry with the lord himself if they do not receive reward, no. . what their lot in the other life is, nos. , , , . they are of those who in the lower earth appear to cut wood, nos. , .] . it is common on that earth for spirits to speak with the inhabitants, and to instruct them, and also to chastise them if they have done evil. as many particulars on this subject have been related to me by their angels, i will recount them in their order. the reason that spirits there speak with men is, that they think much about heaven and the life after death, and are comparatively little solicitous about the life of the world; for they know that they shall live after their decease, and in a happy state according to the state of their internal man that has been formed in the world. speaking with spirits and angels was common on our earth also in ancient times, and for the same reason, namely, that they thought [much] of heaven and little of the world. but in course of time that living communication with heaven was closed, in proportion as man, from being internal, became external, or, what is the same, as he began to think much about the world and little about heaven, and especially when he ceased to believe in the existence of heaven and hell, or in the existence in himself of a spirit-man that lives after death. for at this day it is believed that the body lives from itself and not from its spirit; wherefore unless man now cherished the belief that he is to rise again with his body, he would have no belief in the resurrection. . with reference specially to the presence of spirits with the inhabitants of the earth jupiter, there are spirits who chastise, spirits who instruct, and spirits who govern them. the spirits who chastise apply themselves to the left side, and incline themselves towards the back; and when there, they draw out of the man's memory all the things that he has done or thought: this is easy for spirits to do, for when they come to a man they enter into all his memory[j]. if they find he has done evil, or has thought evil, they reprove him, and also chastise him with pain in the joints of his feet or hands, or with pain about the region of the belly; this, too, spirits can do skilfully when it is permitted. when such spirits come to a man, they inspire him with a horror accompanied by fear, by which the man is made aware of their coming. fear may be excited in any person by evil spirits on their approach, especially by those who, during their life in the world, had been robbers. in order that i might know how these spirits act when they come to a man of their own earth, it was permitted that such a spirit should approach me. when he was near, horror accompanied by fear manifestly seized hold of me; yet it was not inwardly that i shuddered, but outwardly, because i knew it was a spirit of such a character. he also came in sight, and he appeared as a dark cloud, in which were wandering stars; wandering stars signify falsities, but fixed stars signify truths. he applied himself to my left side towards the back; and he also began to reprove me for deeds and thoughts which he drew out of my memory, and on which he put a wrong construction; but he was checked by the angels. when he apperceived that he was with one who was not a man of his own earth, he began to speak to me, saying, that when he comes to a man, he knows all things in general and particular that the man has done and thought, and that he severely reproves him, and also chastises him with various pains. at yet another time such a chastising spirit came to me, and applied himself to my left side below the middle of the body, as the former spirit had done; he also wanted to punish me; but he, too, was restrained by the angels. he showed me, however, the kinds of punishments which they are permitted to inflict on the men of their earth, if they do evil, or harbour the intention of doing it. these were, besides the pain of the joints, a painful contraction about the middle of the belly, which is felt like compression by a tight belt; a deprivation of respiration at times even to suffocation; also a prohibition to eat anything but bread for a time; and, lastly, the threat of death, if they do not discontinue doing such things, with the deprivation, at the same time, of conjugial, parental, and social joy; grief on this account is then also insinuated. . the spirits who instruct also apply themselves to their left side, but more in front. they, too, reprove, but mildly, and then teach them how they ought to live. they also appear dark, yet not, like the former, as clouds, but as if clothed with sackcloth. these are called instructors, but the former, chastisers when these spirits are present, angelic spirits are also present, sitting at the head, which they fill in a peculiar manner: their presence there is also perceived as a gentle breathing, for they fear lest their approach and influx should cause man to perceive the least pain or anxiety. they govern both the chastising and the instructing spirits; the chastisers, lest they treat the man more hardly than is permitted by the lord, and the instructors, that they may teach the truth. while the chastising spirit was with me, angelic spirits were also present, and kept my face continually cheerful and smiling, the region about the lips prominent, and my mouth slightly open. this the angels easily effect by means of influx, when the lord permits. they said that they induce such a countenance on the inhabitants of their earth, when they are present with them. . if a man, after chastisement and instruction, again does evil, or thinks to do evil, and does not restrain himself in accordance with the precepts of truth, he is more severely punished when the chastising spirit returns; but the angelic spirits moderate the punishment according to the intention in the deeds, and the will in the thoughts. from these facts it may appear, that their angels who sit at the head have a kind of judicial power over man, since they permit, moderate, restrain, and influence. it was said, however, that it is not they who judge, but that the lord alone is judge, and that all things which they enjoin on the chastising and instructing spirits inflow into them from him, and that it appears as if it were from them. . spirits there speak with man, but man in his turn does not speak with the spirits, except the words, when instructed, _that he will do so no more_. nor is he allowed to tell any one that a spirit has spoken to him; if he does so, he is punished afterwards. those spirits of jupiter, when they were with me, at first supposed that they were with a man of their own earth; but when i in my turn spoke with them, and also when i thought of publishing what passed between us, and so relating it to others, then, because they were not allowed to chastise or instruct me, they discovered that they were with a stranger. . there are two signs which appear to those spirits when they are with man (_homo_). they see an old man (_vir_) with a white face; this is a sign to speak only what is true, and to do only what is just. they also see a face in a window; this is a sign to them to depart. this old man has also appeared to me; and a face has also appeared in a window, on seeing which those spirits immediately departed from me. . besides the spirits who have already been mentioned, there are spirits who urge contrary things. they consist of those who, during their life in the world, had been banished from the society of others because they were evil. when they approach there appears as it were a flying fire, which descends near the face. they place themselves beneath at the posterior parts of the man, and from thence they speak towards the higher parts. they say things that are contrary to what the instructor-spirit teaches from the angels, namely, that men should not live according to instruction, but according to their own inclination, and in licentiousness, with other similar things. they generally come after the other spirits have departed; but the people there know who and what those spirits are, and therefore pay no attention to them. still, they learn in this way what evil is, and thereby what good is; for by means of evil one learns what good is, inasmuch as the quality of good is known from its opposite. every perception of a thing is according to reflection relative to its differences from things that are contrary in various ways and degrees. . the chastising and instructing spirits do not come to those who call themselves saints and mediatory lords, and who have been treated of above (at no. ), as they do to others on that earth, because they do not suffer themselves to be instructed and are not amended by discipline; they are inflexible, because they act from the love of self. spirits say they know such by their coldness, and that when they apperceive the cold they depart from them. . among the spirits of jupiter there are also some whom they call chimney-sweepers, because they appear in garments like those of chimney-sweepers, and with the face smeared with soot; who and of what character they are i am also permitted to describe. one such spirit came to me, and anxiously entreated me to intercede for him, that he might come into heaven. he said he did not know that he had done evil, only that he had rebuked the inhabitants of the earth: he added that, after rebuking, he had instructed them. he applied himself to my left side under the elbow, and spoke as if with a double voice; he could also excite pity. but i could only say in reply that i could not render him any assistance, and that this was possible for the lord alone; nor could i intercede for him, because i did not know whether it would be of any use; but that if he were worthy he might have hope. he was then sent amongst some well-disposed spirits who were from his own earth; but they said that he could not be in their company, because he was not of the same character. but as he still importuned with intense desire to be let into heaven, he was sent into a society of well-disposed spirits of this earth; but they, too, said that he could not be with them. in the light of heaven he was also of a black colour, but he said that he was not of a black, but of a murrhine colour. i was told that of such a character at first are the spirits who afterwards are received amongst those who constitute the province of the seminal vesicles in the grand man or heaven; for in those vesicles the semen is collected, and is enclosed in a covering of suitable matter fit to preserve the prolific quality of the seed from being dissipated but which may be put off in the neck of the uterus, so that what is reserved within may be serviceable for conception, or the impregnation of the ovulum. hence, also, that seminal matter has an endeavour, and as it were a burning desire, to put itself off, and leave the semen to perform its use. something similar to this appeared with that spirit. he again came to me in mean raiment, and again said that he had an ardent desire to enter heaven, and that he now apperceived that he was such that he could go there. it was then given me to tell him that perhaps this was a sign that he would soon be received. the angels then told him to cast off his raiment, which, from the ardency of his desire, he did with a quickness that could scarcely be surpassed. by this was represented the character of the desires of those who are in the province to which the seminal vesicles correspond. it was said that such spirits, when prepared for heaven, are stripped of their own garments, and clothed with new shining garments, and become angels. they were likened to caterpillars, which, having passed through their vile state, are changed into chrysalides and then into butterflies, when they are given other clothing, and also wings of a blue or yellow, a silver or golden colour. then, too, they are given the freedom to fly in the open air as in their heaven, to celebrate their marriages, and lay their eggs, and so provide for the propagation of their kind; then also there are given to them sweet and pleasant food which they suck from the juices and odours of the various flowers. . in what precedes nothing has been said as to the character of the angels who are from that earth; for those already mentioned (no. ), who come to the men of their earth, and sit at the head, are not angels in their interior heaven, but are angelic spirits or angels in their exterior heaven. and as it has been disclosed to me what the character of those [interior] angels is, it is permitted me to relate what it has been given me to know concerning them. a certain one of those spirits of jupiter, who inspire fear, approached my left side beneath the elbow, and spoke to me from thence. his speech was harsh, and his expressions were not very distinct and separate from each other, so that i had to consider a long time before i could gather the sense; and while he was speaking he inspired some degree of fear, admonishing me in this way to receive the angels well when they came. but it was given me to reply that this did not depend on me, but that with me all were received according to what they themselves were. soon after this the angels of that earth came, and it was given me to perceive from their speech with me that they differed entirely from the angels of our earth; for their speech was not effected by means of words, but by means of ideas which diffused themselves through my interiors from all sides: and for this reason also they had an influx into the face, so that the face accorded with each particular, beginning at the lips, and proceeding towards the circumference in every direction. the ideas, which were in place of verbal expressions were discrete from each other, but in a very small degree. afterwards they spoke with me by means of ideas still less discrete, so that hardly any interval was perceived: in my perception it was like the meaning of words with those who attend only to the sense abstractedly from the expressions. this speech was more intelligible to me than the former, and it was also fuller. like the other, it inflowed into the face, but the influx was more continuous according to the character of the speech; it did not, however, like the former, begin at the lips, but at the eyes. afterwards they spoke in a manner still more continuous and full; and now the face could not accord by a suitable motion; but it was felt that the influx was into the brain, and that this was acted upon in like manner. lastly, they spoke in such a manner that the speech fell only into the interior understanding; its fluency was like that of rarefied air. i was sensible of the influx itself, but not distinctly of the particulars. these several kinds of speech were circumstanced like different fluids--the first kind was like flowing water; the second like water of less density; the third like the atmosphere respectively; and the fourth like rarefied air. the spirit already mentioned, who was on the left side, sometimes interposed, chiefly admonishing me to behave modestly towards his angels; for there were spirits present from our earth who suggested such things as gave displeasure. he said that he did not [at first] understand what the angels were speaking about, but that he afterwards did, when he had moved to my left ear. then also his speech was not harsh as before, but like that of other spirits. . i afterwards spoke with the angels respecting some of the remarkable things on our earth, especially the art of printing, the word, and the various doctrinals of the church from the word; and i stated that the word and the doctrinals [of the church] were published, and were thus learnt. they wondered exceedingly that such things could be made public by writing and printing. . it was given me to see how the spirits of that earth, after having been prepared, are taken up into heaven, and become angels. on such occasions there appear chariots and shining horses as of fire, by which they are carried away like elijah. the reason why chariots and shining horses as of fire appear, is that in this way there is represented that they are instructed and prepared to enter heaven; for chariots signify the doctrinals of the church, and shining horses, an enlightened understanding[ee]. [footnote ee: chariots signify the doctrinals of the church, nos. , , . horses signify the intellectual, nos. , , , , , , , , , , , . the white horse in the apocalypse signifies the understanding of the word, no. . by elijah in the representative sense is meant the word, nos. , . and since all the doctrine of the church and the understanding thereof are from the word, elijah is called "the chariots of israel and the horsemen thereof," no. . on this account he was taken up by a chariot of fire, and horses of fire, nos. , .] . the heaven into which they are carried away appears on the right towards their earth, consequently separated from the heaven of the angels of our earth. the angels who are in that heaven appear clothed in resplendent blue, spotted with little stars of gold, and this because they were fond of that colour in the world, and also believed it to be the most heavenly colour, especially because they are in that variety of good of love to which this colour corresponds[ff]. [footnote ff: blue originating in red or flame corresponds to the good of celestial love; and blue originating in white or light (_lucidum_) corresponds to the good of spiritual love, no. .] . there appeared to me a bald head, but only the topmost part of it, which was bony. i was told that such a bald head is seen by those who are to die within a year, and that they then prepare themselves. they do not fear death there, except on account of leaving their conjugial consorts, their children, or their parents, for they know that they shall live after death, and that they do not quit life because they go to heaven; wherefore, they do not call death dying, but being heaven-made. those on that earth who have lived in truly conjugial love, and have taken such care of their children as becomes parents, do not die of disease, but tranquilly as in sleep, and so pass from the world into heaven. the age of man there is generally thirty years, according to the years of our earth. it is of the lord's providence that they die within such a short space of time, lest the number of men should increase beyond what that earth can support. and as, when they have completed those years, they do not suffer themselves to be led by spirits and angels, like those who have not yet completed them, spirits and angels seldom attend those who have passed that age. they also come to maturity sooner than on our earth. they also contract marriages in the first flower of early manhood, and then their delights consist in loving their conjugial partners and taking care of their children. other delights they indeed call delights, but relatively external ones. the earth or planet mars, and its spirits and inhabitants. . of all the spirits who come from the earths of this solar system, those of mars are the best, being for the most part celestial men, not unlike those who were of the most ancient church on this earth[gg]. when they are represented as to their quality, they are represented with the face in heaven and the body in the world of spirits; and those of them who are angels are represented with the face towards the lord and the body in heaven. [footnote gg: the first and most ancient church on this earth was a celestial church, which was the chief of all, concerning which, see nos. , , , , , , , , , , , . a church is called celestial wherein love to the lord is the principal thing, but spiritual wherein the principal thing is charity towards the neighbour, and faith, nos. , , , , , .] . in the idea of spirits and angels, the planet mars, like the planets elsewhere, appears constantly in its own place, which is to the left in front, at some distance, in the plane of the breast, and thus outside of the sphere where the spirits of our earth are. the spirits of one earth are separated from those of another, because the spirits of each earth have relation to some particular province in the grand man[f]; and are, therefore, in other and different states; and this diversity of state causes them to appear separate from each other, either to the right or to the left, at a greater or lesser distance[hh]. [footnote hh: distances in the other life are real appearances, which are exhibited to the sight by the lord, according to the states of the interiors of angels and spirits, nos. , , , .] . spirits from thence came to me, and applied themselves to my left temple, where they breathed their speech upon me, but i did not understand it. as to its flow it was very soft: i had never before perceived any softer; it was like a very gentle breeze. it breathed first upon the left temple, and upon the upper part of the left ear; the breathing proceeded thence to the left eye, and by degrees to the right, and flowed down afterwards, especially from the left eye, to the lips; and when at the lips it entered through the mouth, and through a way within the mouth, and, indeed, through the eustachian tube, into the brain. when the breathing arrived there, i understood their speech, and was enabled to speak with them. when they spoke with me, i observed that my lips were moved, and my tongue also slightly, which was owing to the correspondence of interior with exterior speech. exterior speech is that of articulate sound which impinges upon the external membrane of the ear, and it is conveyed from thence, by means of the small organs, membranes, and fibres, which are within the ear, to the brain. from these facts it was given me to know that the speech of the inhabitants of mars was different from that of the inhabitants of our earth, in that it is not sonorous, but almost tacit, insinuating itself into the interior hearing and sight by a shorter way; and that, being such, it was more perfect, and fuller of the ideas of thought, thus approaching nearer to the speech of spirits and angels. among them the very affection of the speech is also represented in the face, and its thought in the eyes; for with them thought and speech, and affection and the face, act in unity. they account it infamous to think one thing and speak another, and to will one thing and show another in the face. they know not what hypocrisy is, nor fraudulent simulation and deceit. the same kind of speech prevailed amongst the most ancient inhabitants of our earth, as it has been given me to learn by conversation with some of them in the other life; and to elucidate this subject i may relate what i have heard respecting it, as follows: "it was shown me by an influx which i cannot describe, what was the character of the speech which prevailed amongst those who were of the most ancient church[gg]. it was not articulate, like the vocal speech of our time, but tacit, being effected, not by external, but by internal respiration, consequently it was a cogitative speech. it was given me also to apperceive the character of their internal respiration. it proceeded from the navel towards the heart, and so through the lips without sound when they spoke. it did not enter the ear of another by an external way, and strike upon what is called the drum of the ear, but by a certain internal way, and indeed by what at this day is called the eustachian tube. it was shown me, that by such speech they could express the feelings of the mind (_animus_), and the ideas of thought, much more fully than can possibly be done by articulate sounds or audible expressions, which speech is likewise directed by respiration, but external; for there is not a vocal sound, yea, there is nothing in a vocal sound, which is not directed by applications of the respiration. but with them this was done much more perfectly, because by the internal respiration, which, because more interior, is also more perfect, and more applicable and conformable to the very ideas of thought; besides, [it is done] also by slight motions of the lips, and corresponding changes of the face; for, as they were celestial men, whatever they thought shone forth from their face and eyes, which were conformably varied, the face as to form according to the life of the affection, and the eyes as to light. it was quite impossible for them to present a countenance which was not in agreement with their thoughts. as their speech was effected by internal respiration, which is that of the human spirit itself, they could have communion with angels, and speak with them." the respiration of the spirits of mars was also communicated to me[ii], and it was perceived that it proceeded from the region of the chest towards the navel, and thence flowed upwards through the breast, with an imperceptible breathing (_halitus_) towards the mouth. from these facts, and also from other experiential proofs, it was made evident to me that they were of a celestial genius, consequently, that they were not unlike those who belonged to the most ancient church on this earth. [footnote ii: spirits and angels have respiration, nos. , , , .] . i was informed that the spirits of mars in the grand man have relation to the medium between the intellectual and the voluntary, consequently to thought from affection, and the best of them to the affection of thought; hence it is that their face acts in unity with their thought, and that they cannot simulate in the presence of anyone. and as this is their relation in the grand man, the middle province, which is between the cerebrum and the cerebellum, corresponds to them; for with those in whom the cerebrum and the cerebellum are conjoined as to spiritual operations, the face acts in unity with the thought, so that the very affection of the thought shines forth from the face, and the general [character] of the thought from the affection, and also from certain signs that show themselves in the eyes. wherefore, while they were with me, i sensibly apperceived a drawing back of the anterior part of the head towards the hinder part, thus of the cerebrum towards the cerebellum[kk]. [footnote kk: human faces on our earth in ancient times received influx from the cerebellum, and then the face acted in unity with the interior affections of the man; but afterwards they received influx from the cerebrum when man began to simulate and counterfeit by the face affections not his own. concerning the changes thereby occasioned to the face in course of time, see nos. - .] . on one occasion when spirits of mars were with me, and occupied the sphere of my mind, spirits from our earth came and desired to intrude themselves also into that sphere; but the spirits of our earth became as if insane: this was caused by their being quite out of harmony; for the spirits of our earth in the grand man have relation to the external sense, and consequently these spirits were in idea turned towards the world and towards self, while the spirits of mars were in idea turned from self to heaven and the neighbour; hence the contrariety. but some angelic spirits of mars then approached, and on their coming the communication was taken away, and so the spirits of our earth departed. . the angelic spirits spoke with me concerning the life of the inhabitants on their earth; [saying] that they are not under forms of government, but are distinguished into greater and lesser societies, in which they associate themselves with such as agree in disposition, which they know at once by the face and speech, and in this they are seldom mistaken; they are then instantly friends. they also said their consociations are delightful, and that they converse with each other on what passes in their societies, and especially in heaven, for many of them have open communication with the angels of heaven. those in their societies who begin to think wrongly, and consequently to will what is evil, are dissociated and left to themselves alone, in consequence of which they drag on a most wretched life, out of society, among rocks or other places, for the rest no longer trouble about them. some societies try by various methods to compel such persons to repent; but when this is to no purpose they dissociate themselves from them. thus they take precautions lest the lust of dominion and the lust of gain should creep in, that is, lest from the lust of dominion any should subject some society to themselves, and afterwards many others; and lest from the lust of gain any should deprive others of their goods. every one there lives content with his own goods, and every one with his own honour, that of being reputed just and a lover of the neighbour. this delightful and tranquil state of mind (_animus_) would perish, unless those who think and will evil were cast out, and a prudent but severe check given to the first beginnings of the love of self and the love of the world. for these are the loves which first led to the establishment of empires and kingdoms, within which there are few who do not desire to acquire dominion, and to possess the goods of others, for there are few who do what is just and fair from a love of justice and fairness, still less who do good from charity itself, but most from fear of the law, the loss of life, of gain, of honour, and of reputation for the sake of these. . concerning the divine worship of those who dwell on that earth, they said that they acknowledge and adore our lord, saying that he is the only god, and that he governs both heaven and the universe; that all good is from him, and that he leads them; also that he very often appears on their earth amongst them. it was then given me to tell them that on our earth christians also know that the lord governs heaven and earth, according to his own words in matthew, "_all power is given unto me in heaven and on earth_" (xxviii. ), but that they do not believe it as those who belong to the earth mars do. they said also that there they believe that with themselves there is nothing but what is filthy and infernal, and that all good is of the lord; nay, they added that of themselves they are devils, and that the lord draws them out of hell, and continually withholds them from it. on one occasion, when the lord was named, i saw that those spirits humbled themselves more inwardly and profoundly than can be described: for in their humiliation there was the thought that of themselves they were in hell, and that thus they were utterly unworthy to look to the lord, who is the holy itself. so profoundly were they in this thought from faith, that they were, as it were, outside of themselves, and in that thought they remained on their knees till the lord raised them, and then drew them as it were out of hell. when they thus emerge from humiliation, they are filled with good and love, and consequently with joy of heart. when they humble themselves in this manner, they do not turn their face to the lord, for this they dare not do then, but avert it. the spirits who were about me said that never had they seen such humiliation. . some spirits who were from that earth were surprised that so many spirits from hell were about me, and that they also spoke to me; but it was given me to reply that this was permitted them for the purpose of enabling me to know their characters, and why they are in hell, and that this is according to their life. it was also given me to state that there were several among them whom i had known when they lived in the world, and that some of them had then occupied stations of great dignity, and that then they had nothing at heart but the world; but that no evil spirit, even the most infernal, could possibly do me any injury, because i was continually protected by the lord. . an inhabitant of that earth was exhibited before me. he was not indeed an inhabitant, but was like one. his face resembled the faces of the inhabitants of our earth, but the lower part of the face was black, not owing to a beard, which he had not, but to blackness in its place. this blackness extended to underneath the ears on both sides. the upper part of the face was ruddy, like the faces of the inhabitants of our earth who are not quite fair. they said further that on their earth they subsist on the fruits of trees, especially on a certain kind of round fruit which grows out of their earth; and likewise on pulse. they are clothed with garments which they make of the fibres of the inner bark of certain trees, which fibres have such a consistence that they can be woven, and also cemented together by a kind of gum they have among them. they related further that they know how to make fluid fires, from which they have light during evening and night. . i saw a certain flaming object, exceedingly beautiful; it was of various colours, crimson, and also a glowing ruby hue, and from the flame the colours also glowed beautifully. i also saw a hand, to which this flaming object adhered, at first on the back of it, afterwards on the palm or hollow, and from thence it played round about the hand. this continued for some time. afterwards this hand with the flaming object was removed to a distance and where it rested there was a bright light (_lucidum_). in that bright light the hand disappeared; and the flaming object was then changed into a bird, whose colours were at first similar to those of the flaming object, and gleamed in the same manner; but these colours gradually changed, and with them the vigour of life in the bird. it flew about, at first about my head, then forwards into a kind of narrow chamber, which appeared like a sanctuary, and as it flew onwards its life departed, and at length it became stony; it was then at first of a pearly, afterwards of a dusky colour; but although without life, it kept on flying. while this bird was flying about my head, and still in the vigour of life, a spirit was seen rising up from below, through the region of the loins to that of the breast, and from there he wished to take that bird; but because it was so beautiful, the spirits who were about me prevented his doing so, for the eyes of all were fixed upon it. but this spirit who had risen up from below used all his power to persuade them that the lord was with him, and consequently that he was acting from the lord. although the most of them did not believe this, they nevertheless no longer hindered him from taking the bird; but as at that moment heaven inflowed he was unable to retain it, but immediately, opening his hand, set it free. when this had taken place, the spirits who were around me, and who had intently watched the bird and its successive changes, began talking with each other about it, and they continued talking for a considerable time. they perceived that such a sight could not but signify something heavenly; they knew that what is flaming signifies celestial love and its affections; that a hand, to which the flaming object adhered, signifies life and its power; that changes of the colours signify the varieties of life as to wisdom and intelligence; that a bird has the same signification with this difference, however, that what is flaming signifies celestial love and the things that belong to celestial love, while a bird signifies spiritual love and the things that belong to that love; (celestial love is love to the lord, and spiritual love is charity towards the neighbour,[note gg]); and that the changes of the colours and at the same time of the life in the bird, till it became stony, signify the successive changes of spiritual life as to intelligence. they also knew that the spirits who ascend from below, through the region of the loins to that of the breast, are in a strong persuasion that they are in the lord, and consequently believe that whatever they do, even though it be evil, they do of the lord's will. but nevertheless this did not enable them to know who were meant by that sight. at length they were instructed from heaven, that the inhabitants of mars were meant; that their celestial love, in which many of them still are, was signified by the flaming object that adhered to the hand; and that the bird in the beginning, while it was in the beauty of its colours and the vigour of its life, signified their spiritual love: but that the bird when it had become as it were stony and devoid of life, and at length of a dusky colour, signified those inhabitants who have removed themselves from the good of love, and are in evil, and still believe, nevertheless, that they are in the lord. the same thing was signified by the spirit who rose up and wished to take away the bird. . the bird of stone also represented inhabitants of that earth, who by a strange method transmute the life of their thoughts and affections into almost no life, on which subject i have learned the following particulars. there was a certain spirit above my head who spoke with me, and from the tone of his voice he was apperceived to be as it were in a state of sleep. in this state he spoke many things, and with a sagacity (_prudentia_) that he could not have surpassed when awake. it was given me to perceive that he was a subject through whom angels spoke, and that in that state he apperceived [their speech] and produced it[ll]; for he spoke nothing but what was true; if anything inflowed from any other source, he indeed admitted it, but did not produce it. i questioned him respecting his state. he said that to him that state was a peaceful one, and was free from all solicitude respecting the future; and that at the same time he was performing uses by which he had communication with heaven. i was told that such, in the grand man, have relation to the _longitudinal sinus_, which lies in the brain between its two hemispheres, and is there in a tranquil state, no matter how disturbed the brain may be on either side. while i was in conversation with this spirit, some spirits introduced themselves towards the anterior part of the head where he was, and pressed upon him; wherefore he retired to one side, and gave place to them. the spirit strangers spoke with each other; but neither the spirits about me, nor i myself, understood what they said. i was informed by the angels that they were spirits from the earth mars, who have the skill to speak with each other in such a way that the spirits present could not understand or perceive anything. i wondered that there could possibly be speech of this kind, since for all spirits there is one speech, which flows from thought, and consists of ideas which are heard as vocal expressions in the spiritual world. i was told that those spirits have a certain method of forming ideas, expressed by the lips and face, unintelligible to others, and that they at the same instant skilfully withdraw their thoughts, guarding particularly lest anything of the affection should manifest itself, because if anything of the affection were perceived, the thought would appear, for the thought flows from the affection, and as it were in it. i was further informed that such speech was contrived by those inhabitants of mars,--though not by all,--who make heavenly life to consist in knowledges alone, and not in the life of love; and that when they become spirits they retain it. these are they who were specially signified by the bird of stone; for to produce a speech by alterations of the face and motions of the lips, with a removal of the affections and a withdrawal of the thoughts from others, is to deprive speech of life and make it like an image, and by degrees to produce the same effect on themselves. but although they imagine that what they speak among themselves is not understood by others, angelic spirits nevertheless perceive each and all of the things they say, the reason being that no thought can be withdrawn from them. this was also shown them by actual experience. i was thinking of the fact that the evil spirits of our earth are not affected with shame when they infest others. this [thought] inflowed with me from some angelic spirits who perceived their speech. those spirits of mars then acknowledged that this was the subject they were speaking of among themselves, and they were astonished. besides this, more things, both of their conversation and thought, were disclosed by an angelic spirit, notwithstanding all their endeavours to hide away their thoughts from him. afterwards those spirits inflowed from above into my face. the influx was felt like fine striated rain, which was a sign that they were not in the affection of truth and of good, for this is represented by what is striated. they then spoke plainly with me, saying, that the inhabitants of their earth speak in the same way among themselves. they were then told that this is evil, as by so doing they block up the internals, and recede from them to the externals, which also they deprive of their life; and especially because it is not sincere to speak in this manner. for they who are sincere do not wish to speak or even to think anything but what others, yea, what all, even the whole heaven, might know. but those who are unwilling that others should know what they say, pass judgment on others, and think ill of others and well of themselves, and at length are led by habit so far as to think and speak ill of the church, and of heaven, yea, of the lord himself. i have been told that those who love knowledges, and not so much a life according to them, have relation, in the grand man, to the inner membrane of the skull; but that those who accustom themselves to speak without affection, and to draw the thought to themselves and withdraw it from others, have relation to that membrane, when it has become ossified, because, from having some spiritual life, they come at length to have none. [footnote ll: communications are effected by means of spirits sent forth from societies of spirits and angels to other societies, and these emissary spirits are called subjects, nos. , , , - .] . as the bird of stone represented those also who are in knowledges alone, and in no life of love, and as these consequently have no spiritual life, therefore, by way of appendix, i may here show that those only have spiritual life who are in heavenly love, and thence in knowledges; and that a love contains in itself all the power of knowing (_cognitinum_) which belongs to that love. take for example the animals of the earth, and also the living creatures of the heaven, that is, the birds. these have the knowledge (_scientia_) of all things that belong to their love. their loves are, to nourish themselves, to dwell safely, to propagate their kind, to take care of their young, and, with some, to provide for the winter. they have, therefore, all the requisite knowledge, for this is inherent in those loves, and inflows into them as into its own receptacles; and this knowledge in some animals is such that man cannot but be amazed at it. their knowledge is connate and is called instinct; but it belongs to the natural love in which they are. if man were in his own love, which is love to god and towards the neighbour, (this love is man's peculiar love, by which he is distinguished from beasts, and it is heavenly love,) he would not only be in all requisite knowledge, but likewise in all intelligence and wisdom; for these [qualities] would inflow into those loves from heaven, that is, from the divine through heaven. as, however, man is not born into those loves, but into their contraries, that is to say, into the loves of self and of the world, therefore he cannot but be born in complete ignorance and want of knowledge but by divine means he is brought to something of intelligence and wisdom, yet not actually into any, unless the loves of self and of the world are removed, and a way is thus opened for love to god and towards the neighbour. that love to god and love towards the neighbour have in them all intelligence and wisdom, may appear from those who have been in those loves in the world. these, when, after death, they come into heaven, know and are wise in things of which they previously knew nothing; yea, they there think and speak, like the rest of the angels, such things as the ear has not heard, nor the mind known, which are ineffable. the reason is, that those loves have the faculty of receiving such things into themselves. the earth or planet saturn, and its spirits and inhabitants. . the spirits from that earth appear in front at a considerable distance, below, in the plane of the knees, where that earth itself is; and when the eye is opened thither, a multitude of spirits come into view, who are all from that earth. they are seen on this side of that earth, and to the right of it. it has been given me to speak with them also, and thereby to know of what character they are relatively to others. they are well-disposed, and they are modest; and as they esteem themselves little, therefore also in the other life they appear small. . they are extremely humble in worship, for in worship they esteem themselves as nothing. they worship our lord, and acknowledge him as the only god. the lord also appears to them at times under an angelic form, and thus as a man, and at such times the divine shines forth from his face, and affects the mind (_animus_). the inhabitants also, when they come of age, speak with spirits, by whom they are instructed concerning the lord, and how he ought to be worshipped, and also how they ought to live. when any desire to lead astray the spirits who are from that earth, and to draw them away from faith in the lord, or from humiliation towards him, and from uprightness of life, they say they wish to die. on these occasions there appear in their hands small knives, with which they seem to desire to strike their breasts. on being questioned why they do so, they say that they would rather die than be drawn away from the lord. the spirits of our earth sometimes mock at them on this account, and assail them with reproaches for acting so; but their reply is, that they are well aware that they do not kill themselves, but that this is only an appearance flowing forth from the will of their mind (_animus_) rather to die than be drawn away from the worship of the lord. . they said that sometimes spirits from our earth come to them and ask them what god they worship, their answer to whom is, that they are insane, and that there can be no greater insanity than to ask what god any one worships, when yet there is but one god for all in the universe; and that still more insane are they in not saying that the lord is that one only god, and that he governs the whole heaven, and consequently the whole world, since he who governs heaven must also govern the world, because the world is governed by means of heaven. . they said that on their earth there are some who call the nocturnal light (_lumen_), which is great, the lord, but that these are separated from the rest, and are not tolerated by them. that nocturnal light (_lumen_) comes from the great ring which encircles that earth at a distance, and from the moons which are called the satellites of saturn. . they related that another kind of spirits, who go in troops, frequently come to them, desiring to learn how things are with them, and that by various methods they elicit from them whatever they know. they said of these spirits, that they are not insane, except in this particular, that they desire to know so much for no other use than that simply of knowing. they were afterwards instructed that these spirits are from the planet mercury, that is, from the earth nearest the sun, and that they are delighted with knowledges alone, and not so much with the uses from them. . the inhabitants and spirits of the planet saturn have relation, in the grand man, to the middle sense between the spiritual and the natural man, but to that which recedes from the natural and accedes to the spiritual. hence it is that those spirits appear to be carried away or caught up into heaven, and soon afterwards let down again; for whatever belongs to spiritual sense is in heaven, but whatever belongs to natural sense is beneath heaven. inasmuch as the spirits of our earth, in the grand man, have relation to natural and corporeal sense, it has been given me to know from manifest experience how the spiritual and the natural man, when the latter is not in faith and charity, fight and contend with each other. some spirits of the earth saturn came into view from afar, and then a living communication was opened between them and spirits of our earth who were of this character. these latter, on thus perceiving the spirits of saturn, became as if insane, and began to infest them, infusing unworthy ideas concerning faith, and also concerning the lord. while uttering invective and abuse, they also cast themselves into the midst of them, and, from the insanity in which they were, endeavoured to do them injury. the spirits of saturn, however, were not at all afraid, because they were secure and in tranquillity; but those spirits of our earth, when in the midst of them, began to be tortured, and to breathe with difficulty, and so rushed out, one in this direction, another in that, and disappeared. those who were present apperceived from this what is the character of the natural man, separate from the spiritual, when he comes into a spiritual sphere, namely, that he is insane; for the natural man separate from the spiritual is wise only from the world, and not at all from heaven; and he who is wise only from the world, believes nothing but what the senses apprehend, and what he believes he believes from the fallacies of the senses, which, unless they are removed by the influx from the spiritual world, produce falsities. hence it is that spiritual things are nothing to him, insomuch that he can hardly bear to hear the word spiritual mentioned; wherefore such become insane when they are kept in a spiritual sphere. it is different while they live in the world; then they either think naturally about spiritual things, or avert their ears, that is, hear and do not attend. it was also manifest from this experience, that the natural man cannot introduce himself into the spiritual, that is, ascend; but that, when man is in faith, and thus in spiritual life, the spiritual man inflows into the natural, and thinks therein; for there is spiritual influx, that is, influx from the spiritual world into the natural, but not contrariwise[mm]. [footnote mm: there is spiritual influx, and not physical or natural influx, consequently influx is from the spiritual world into the natural, and not from the natural into the spiritual, nos. , , , , , , . it appears as if influx were from externals into man's internals, but this is a fallacy, no. .] . furthermore, the spirits of that earth gave me information concerning the inhabitants, the nature of their consociations and other particulars. they said that they live divided into families, every family apart from the others; thus, a man (_vir_) and wife with their children; and that these, when they unite in marriage, are separated from the house of the parents, and have no further care about it; wherefore the spirits from that earth appear in pairs. that they are little solicitous about food and raiment; that they live on the fruits and pulse which their earth produces; and that they are lightly clothed, being girt with a coarse skin or coat, which keeps out the cold. further, that all on that earth know that they shall live after death; and that on this account they have no care for their body, except so far as is necessary for the sake of the life which they say is to endure and to serve the lord; that for this reason also they do not bury the bodies of the dead, but cast them away, and cover them with branches of trees from the forest. . being questioned concerning that great belt which appears from our earth to rise above the horizon of that planet, and to vary its positions, they said, that it does not appear to them as a belt, but only as a snowy something in the sky in various directions. the earth or planet venus, and its spirits and inhabitants. . the planet venus, in the idea of spirits and angels, appears to the left a little behind, at some distance from our earth. it is said, in the idea of spirits, because to no spirit does the sun of this system, or any planet, appear; but spirits have only an idea that they exist. in consequence of this bare idea, the sun of this system is exhibited behind as a very dark something, and the planets not moving as in the system, but remaining constantly in their places (see above, no. ). . in the planet venus there are two kinds of men, of contrary dispositions; the first mild and humane, the second savage and almost brutal. those who are mild and humane appear on the other side of the earth, those who are savage and almost brutal appear on the side of it looking this way. but it should be known that they appear thus according to the states of their life, for the state of life determines every appearance of space and of distance there. . some of those who appear on the other side of the planet, and who are mild and humane, came to me, and were presented to my sight overhead, and i spoke with them on various subjects. amongst other things, they said that while they were in the world they acknowledged, and now still more acknowledge, our lord as their one only god. they added that on their earth they had seen him, and they also represented how they had seen him. these spirits, in the grand man, have relation to _the memory of material things, agreeing with the memory of immaterial things_, to which the spirits of mercury have relation: wherefore the spirits of mercury have the fullest agreement with these spirits of venus; therefore, when they were together, i was sensible from their influx of a remarkable change, and a powerful operation in my brain (see above, no. ). . i did not, however, speak with those spirits who are on the side that looks this way, and who are savage and almost brutal; but the angels informed me of their character, and the origin of their so brutal nature: it is this; they are greatly delighted with robbery, and more especially with eating the prey. the delight they have in thinking about eating the prey was communicated to me, and was apperceived to be exceedingly great. that there have also been inhabitants of a like brutal nature, on our earth, appears from the histories of various nations; also from the inhabitants of the land of canaan ( sam. xxx. ); and likewise from the jewish and israelitish nation even in the time of david, in that they made yearly excursions, and plundered the nations, and rejoiced in feasting on the booty. i was informed, further, that the greater part of those inhabitants are giants, and that the men of our earth reach only to their navel; also, that they are stupid, not seeking to know anything about heaven or eternal life, their only care being about their land and their cattle. . as they are of this character, even when they come into the other life, they are greatly infested there by evils and falsities. their hells appear near the earth, and do not communicate with the hells of the evil of our earth, because they are of an entirely different genius and disposition; hence also their evils and falsities are of an entirely different kind. . but those of them who are such that they can be saved, are in places of vastation, and are there reduced to the last degree of despair; for evils and falsities of this kind cannot otherwise be subdued and removed. when they are in the state of despair, they cry out that they are beasts, that they are abominations, that they are hatreds, and thus that they are damned. some of them, when in such a state, even cry out against heaven; but for this they are forgiven, because it proceeds from despair. the lord restrains them from indulging in vituperation beyond fixed limits. when they have passed through extreme suffering, the corporeal [principles] with them being then as it were dead, they are finally saved. it was also said of them that, during their life on their earth, they had believed in a certain supreme creator without a mediator; but when they are saved, they are also instructed that the lord is the only god, saviour, and mediator. i have seen some of them, after they had passed through extreme suffering, taken up into heaven; and when they were received there, i have apperceived such a tenderness of joy from them as drew tears from my eyes. the spirits and inhabitants of the moon. . some spirits appeared overhead, and voices like thunders were heard thence; for their voices thundered forth just as thunders do from the clouds after lightnings. i supposed that there was an immense multitude of spirits, who had acquired the art of uttering their voices with such a sound. the more simple spirits who were with me laughed at them, at which i greatly marvelled. the cause of their laughter was soon disclosed, and it was, that the spirits who thundered were not many, but few, and were also small as children, and that on former occasions they had terrified them by such sounds, and yet were quite unable to do them the least harm. in order that i might know their character, some of them let themselves down from on high, where they were thundering; and, strange to say, one carried another on his back, and the two thus approached me. their faces appeared not unhandsome, but longer than those of other spirits. in stature they were like boys of seven years old, but of more robust frame; so that they were dwarfs. i was told by the angels that they were from the moon. the one who had been carried by the other came to me, applying himself to my left side under the elbow, and from thence he spoke, saying, that when they utter their voice they thunder in this manner; and that by so doing they strike with terror the spirits who would do them harm, and put some to flight, so that they go safely wherever they please. in order that i might know for certain that the sound they make was of this kind, he retired from me to some others, but not quite out of sight, and thundered in like manner. they showed to me, moreover, that their voice, being sent forth from the abdomen after the manner of an eructation, thus resounded like thunder. it was perceived that this arose from the circumstance, that the inhabitants of the moon do not, like the inhabitants of other earths, speak from the lungs, but from the abdomen, and thus from some collection of air therein; the reason of which is, that the moon is not surrounded with an atmosphere of the same kind as that of other earths. i was informed that the spirits of the moon, in the grand man, have relation to the ensiform or xiphoid cartilage to which the ribs are attached in front, and from which descends the _linea alba_, which is the point of attachment of the abdominal muscle. . it is known to spirits and angels, that there are inhabitants even in the moon, and likewise in the moons or satellites which are about the earth jupiter and the earth saturn. even those who have not seen spirits who are from them, and spoken with them, entertain no doubt that there are human beings upon them, for they, too, are earths, and where there is an earth, there is man; for man is the end for the sake of which an earth exists, and nothing has been made by the supreme creator without an end. it may be evident to anyone who thinks from reason in any degree enlightened that the end of creation is the human race, in order that there may exist a heaven from it. the reasons why the lord willed to be born on our earth, and not on any other . there are several reasons, about which i have received information from heaven, why it pleased the lord to be born, and to assume the human, on our earth, and not on any other. the principal reason _was for the sake of the word, that it might be written on our earth; and when written might afterwards be published throughout the whole earth; and that, once published, it might be preserved for all posterity; and that thus it might be made manifest, even to all in the other life, that god did become man_. . _that the principal reason was for the sake of the word_, is because the word is the divine truth itself, which teaches man that there is a god, that there is a heaven and a hell, that there is a life after death; and which teaches, besides, how man ought to live and believe in order that he may come into heaven, and thus may be happy to eternity. without revelation, and thus, on this earth, without the word, all these things would have been entirely unknown; and yet man has been so created, that as to his interiors he cannot die[nn]. [footnote nn: by natural light (_lumen_) alone, nothing can be known concerning the lord, heaven and hell, the life of man after death, and the divine truths, by means of which man has spiritual and eternal life, nos. , - . this may appear from the consideration that many, and amongst them the learned, do not believe these things, although they are born where the word is, and where there is instruction by means of the word concerning them, no. . therefore it was necessary that there should be a revelation from heaven, because man was born for heaven, no. .] . _that the word might be written on our earth_, is because the art of writing has existed here from the most ancient time, first on tablets, next on parchment, afterwards on paper, and lastly publication by printing. this was provided by the lord for the sake of the word. . _that the word might afterwards be published throughout the whole of this earth_, is because here there is an intercourse of all nations, not only by journeys on land, but also by navigation to all parts of the entire globe; hence the word, after it had once been written, could be conveyed from one nation to another, and be taught everywhere. . _that the word, after it had once been written, might be preserved for all posterity_, consequently for thousands and thousands of years, and that it has also been so preserved, is known. . _that thus it might he made manifest that god has become man_; for this is the first and most essential purpose for which the word was given; since no one can believe in a god, and love a god, whom he cannot comprehend under some form; wherefore, they who acknowledge an invisible and thus incomprehensible [principle], sink in thought into nature, and consequently believe in no god. wherefore, it pleased the lord to be born on this earth, and to make this manifest through the word, so that it might not only be made known on this globe, but _might also by this means be made manifest to spirits and angels from other earths, and likewise to the gentiles from our own[oo]_. [footnote oo: the gentiles in the other life are instructed by angels, and they who have lived well according to their religionism receive the truths of faith and acknowledge the lord, nos. , , , - , , , .] . it should be known that the word on our earth, which was given by the lord through heaven, effects the union of heaven and the world, for which end there is a correspondence of all things in the letter of the word with the divine things in heaven; and that the word in its supreme and inmost sense treats of the lord, of his kingdom in the heavens and on earth, and of love and faith from him and towards him, consequently of life from him and in him. such things are exhibited to the angels in heaven when the word of our earth is read and preached[pp]. [footnote pp: the word is understood by the angels in the heavens in a different manner from what it is understood by men on earth, and the internal or spiritual sense is for the angels, but the external or natural sense for men, nos. - , , , , , , , , . the word is what unites heaven and earth, nos. , , , , , . the word, therefore, was written by strict correspondences, nos. , , , , , , , , , . in the inmost sense of the word the lord alone and his kingdom are treated of, nos. , , , , .] . in every other earth, divine truth is manifested by word of mouth through spirits and angels, as was stated in the foregoing pages, in treating of the inhabitants of the earths in this solar system. but this takes place within families; for in most earths the human race dwell distinct according to families; wherefore, divine truth thus revealed through spirits and angels is not conveyed far beyond the families, and unless a new revelation constantly succeeds, it is either perverted, or perishes. it is otherwise on our earth, where the divine truth, which is the word, remains in its integrity for ever. . it should be known that the lord acknowledges and receives all, from whatever earth they may be, who acknowledge and worship god under the human form, since god under the human form is the lord: and as the lord appears to the inhabitants in the earths in an angelic form, which is the human form, therefore, when the spirits and angels from these earths hear from the spirits and angels of our earth that god is actually man, they receive that word, acknowledge it, and rejoice that it is so. . to the reasons that have been adduced above, may be added, that the inhabitants and spirits of our earth, in the grand man, have relation to natural and external sense; and natural and external sense is the ultimate in which the interiors of life close, and on which they rest, as on their common [basis]. the case is the same with the divine truth in the letter, which is called the word, and which for this reason also was given on this earth, and not on any other[qq]. and as the lord is the word, and the first and last of it, therefore, in order that all things might exist according to order. he also willed to be born on this earth, and to become the word, according to these words in john, "in the beginning was the word, and the word was with god, and god was the word. the same was in the beginning with god. all things were made through it, and without it was not anything made that was made.... _and the word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, and we saw its glory the glory as of the only-begotten of the father_.... no one hath seen god at any time; the only-begotten son, who is in the bosom of the father, himself hath manifested him" (i. - , , ). the word denotes the lord as to the divine truth, consequently the divine truth from the lord[rr]. but this is an arcanum which enters into the understanding of only a few. [footnote qq: the word in the sense of the letter is natural, no. ; by reason that what is natural is the ultimate, in which spiritual and celestial things close, and on which they subsist as on their foundation, and that otherwise the internal or spiritual sense of the word without an external or natural sense would be as a house without a foundation, nos. , , , , .] [footnote rr: the word is the lord as to the divine truth, consequently the divine truth from the lord, nos. , , , . through the divine truth all things were created and made, nos. , , , .] earths in the starry heaven. . those who are in heaven are able to speak and converse not only with those angels and spirits who are from the earths in our solar system, but also with those who are from other earths in the universe beyond this system; and not only with the spirits and angels there, but also with the inhabitants themselves, only, however, with those whose interiors have been opened, so that they are able to hear those who speak from heaven. the same thing is possible for a man to whom it has been given by the lord to speak with spirits and angels, during his life in the world; for a man as to his interiors is a spirit, the body which he carries about in the world being serviceable to him only for performing functions in this natural or terrestrial sphere, which is the ultimate or last sphere. but to no one is it given to speak as a spirit with angels and spirits, unless he be of such a character that he can be consociated with angels as to faith and love. neither can he be consociated with them, unless his faith and love are directed to the lord; for man is conjoined to the lord by means of faith in him and love to him, that is, by means of truths of doctrine and goods of life from him; and when he has been conjoined [with the lord], he is secure from the assaults of evil spirits from hell. with others the interiors cannot be opened to such an extent, since they are not in the lord. this is the reason why there are few at this day to whom it is given to speak and converse with angels; a manifest proof of which is, that at the present day it is scarcely believed that spirits and angels exist, and still less that they are present with every man, and that through them man has connection with heaven, and, through heaven, with the lord; and that it is still less believed that a man, when he dies as to the body, lives a spirit, and in the human form as before. . since, with many in the church at the present day, there is no faith in a life after death, and scarcely any faith concerning heaven, nor concerning the lord as being the god of heaven and earth, therefore the interiors that are of my spirit have been opened by the lord, so that, while i am in the body, i might at the same time be with angels in heaven, and not only speak with them, but see the stupendous things there, and describe the same, lest possibly it might hereafter be said, who has come to us from heaven, and told us of its existence, and of the things that are there? but i know that those who hitherto have at heart denied heaven and hell, and the life after death, will still persist in confirming themselves against them, and in denying them; for it is easier to make a raven white than to make those believe who have once at heart rejected faith; the reason is, that they always think about such matters from a negative, and not from an affirmative, standpoint. nevertheless, let those facts that have already been stated, and that yet remain to be stated, concerning angels and spirits, be for those few who are in faith. in order that others also may be led to some degree of acknowledgment, it has been granted me to relate such things as delight and allure the man who is desirous of acquiring knowledge: of this character are the things that shall now be related concerning the earths in the starry heaven. . he who is not acquainted with the arcana of heaven, cannot believe that a man can see earths that are so far distant, and give any account of them from sensuous experience. but let him know that the spaces and distances, and therefore the progressions, which exist in the natural world, in their origin and first cause are changes of the state of the interiors, and that with angels and spirits they appear according to these changes[ss]; and that through changes of state they may be apparently translated from one place to another, and from one earth to another, even to earths which are at the end of the universe: so likewise may man as to his spirit, his body still remaining in its own place. this has been the case with me, since, by the lord's divine mercy, it has been given to me to speak with spirits as a spirit, and at the same time with men as a man. that a man, as to his spirit, can be translated in this manner, is inconceivable to the sensual man, since he is in space and in time, and measures his progressions according to them. [footnote ss: motions, progressions, and changes of place, in the other life, are changes of the state of the interiors of life, and nevertheless it really appears to spirits and angels as if they actually existed, nos. - , , , , .] . that there are many systems, may appear to every one from the fact that so many stars appear in the universe; and it is known in the learned world that every star is like a sun in its own place, for it remains fixed as the sun of our earth does in its place; and that it is the distance that makes it appear in so small a form as a star; consequently, that, like the sun of our system, each star has planets around it, which are earths; and that the reason why these do not appear before our eyes is on account of their immense distance, and because only the light from their own star reaches us, which light cannot be again reflected from the planets so far as to reach us. to what other purpose could so great a heaven with so many constellations be intended? for the end of the creation of the universe is man, that from man there may be an angelic heaven; but what would a human race, and from it an angelic heaven, from one single earth, be for an infinite creator, for whom a thousand, yea tens of thousands of earths, would not suffice? it has been calculated that, supposing there were in the universe a million earths, and on every earth three hundred million men, and two hundred generations within six thousand years, and that to every man or spirit there were to be allotted a space of three cubic ells, the sum of that great number of men or spirits would not occupy a space equal to a thousandth part of this earth, consequently hardly the space occupied by one of the satellites of the planet jupiter or saturn: which would be a space in the universe so small as to be scarcely discernible; for a satellite [of jupiter or saturn] is scarcely visible to the naked eye. what would this be for the creator of the universe, for whom the whole universe, even if it were completely filled, would not be enough, for he is infinite. in conversing with the angels on this subject, they have told me that they have a similar idea of the fewness of the human race relatively to the infinity of the creator; but that, nevertheless, they do not think from spaces, but from states, and that according to their idea, earths numbering as many myriads as could ever be conceived in thought would still be as absolutely nothing to the lord. the earths in the starry heaven, however, shall now be treated of in what follows from real experience; from which it will likewise be made manifest how the translations to these earths were effected as to my spirit, whilst my body remained in its own place. the first earth in the starry heaven, and its spirits and inhabitants: from things heard and seen. . i was led by the lord by means of angels to a certain earth in the starry heaven, where it was given me to gaze upon the earth itself, yet not to speak with the inhabitants of it, but with spirits who had come from it. all the inhabitants or men of every earth, on the termination of their life in the world, become spirits, and remain near their own earth. from them, however, information is obtained concerning their earth and the state of its inhabitants; for men, when they quit the body, carry with them all their former life and all their memory[tt]. being led to earths in the universe does not mean being led and translated thither as to the body, but as to the spirit; and the spirit is led through variations of the state of the inner life, which appear to it as progressions through spaces[ss]. approaches, also, are effected according to the agreements or likenesses of the states of life; for agreement or likeness of life conjoins, and disagreement and unlikeness disjoin. from this it may appear how translation as to the spirit is effected, and how it is made to approach distant regions, while the man, nevertheless, remains in his own place. but to lead a spirit outside of his own globe through variations of the state of his interiors, and to cause the variations to proceed successively until a state is reached which agrees or coincides with the state of those to whom he is being led, is in the power of the lord alone; for there is needed a continual direction and foresight from first to last, both on the journey thither, and on the return journey, especially when this is to be effected with a man who is still as to the body in the world of nature, and thereby in space. that this has actually been effected, those who are in corporeal sensual things, and who think from them, cannot be induced to believe. the reason is that the corporeal sensual [faculties] cannot conceive of progressions apart from spaces. but, nevertheless, those who think from the sensual of their spirit, that has in some degree been removed or withdrawn from the sensual of the body, thus, who think interiorly in themselves, may be induced to believe and comprehend it, since in the idea of interior thought there is neither space nor time, but instead of them there are those things from which spaces and times proceed. those things, therefore, that follow, concerning the earths in the starry heaven, are for the use of the latter, and not for the former, unless they are of such a character as to suffer themselves to be instructed. [footnote tt: man after death has with him the memory of all his concerns in the world, nos. - .] . in a state of wakefulness, i was led as to the spirit by the lord through angels to a certain earth in the universe, accompanied by some spirits from this globe. the progression took place towards the right, and lasted for two hours. near the boundary of our solar system, there appeared first a whitish but dense cloud, and after it a fiery smoke ascending from a great gulf: this was an immense chasm, separating our solar system on that side from certain systems of the starry heaven. the fiery smoke appeared over a considerable distance. i was conveyed across the midst of it, and then there appeared beneath in that gulf or chasm very many men, who were spirits (for all spirits appear in the human form, and are actually men). i also heard them talking with each other; but whence they were, or of what character, it was not given me to know. one of them, however, told me that they were guards to prevent spirits passing without permission from this into any other system in the universe. that this was the case, was also confirmed; for when some spirits who were in the company, and who had not received permission to pass, came to that great interstice, they began to cry out wildly that they were perishing, for they were like persons struggling in the agony of death; wherefore they stopped on this side of the chasm, and could not be conveyed any further; for the fiery smoke which exhaled from the chasm attacked them, and tortured them in this manner. . after i had been translated across that great chasm, i at length reached a place where i stopped; and then some spirits appeared to me above, and it was given me to speak with them. from their speech, and from their peculiar manner of apperceiving things and explaining them, i discerned clearly that they were from another earth; for they differed altogether from the spirits of our solar system. they also apperceived from my speech that i had come from a great distance. . after we had conversed for awhile on various subjects, i asked them what god they worshipped. they said they worshipped some angel, who appears to them as a divine man, for he is resplendent with light; and that he instructs them and enables them to apperceive what they ought to do. they said further that they knew that the most high god is in the sun of the angelic heaven, and that he appears to their angel and not to themselves; and that he is too great for them to dare to adore him. the angel whom they worshipped was an angelic society, to which it has been given by the lord to preside over them, and to teach them the way of what is just and right; therefore they have light from a certain flame, which appears like a little torch, somewhat fiery and yellow. the reason of this originates in their not adoring the lord; therefore they do not receive light from the sun of the angelic heaven, but from the angelic society; for an angelic society, when permitted by the lord, can exhibit such a light to spirits who are in a lower region. i also saw that angelic society, which was high above them; and i also saw the flame there whence they had light. . in other respects they were modest, rather simple, but still they thought well enough. the quality of their intellectual could be inferred from the light which prevailed among them; for the intellect is according to the reception of the light which is in the heavens; since it is the divine truth proceeding from the lord as a sun, that shines there, and enables the angels not only to see but also to understand[uu]. [footnote uu: there is much light in the heavens, nos. , , , , - , , , . all light in the heavens is from the lord as the sun there, nos. , , , , , , , , . the divine truth proceeding from the lord appears in the heavens as light, nos. , , , , , , . that light illuminates both the sight and the understanding of angels and spirits, nos. , . the light of heaven also illuminates the understanding of man, nos. , , , , , , , , .] . i was informed that the inhabitants and spirits of that earth, in the grand man, have relation to something in the spleen: and in this i was confirmed by an influx into the spleen while they were speaking with me. . when asked about the sun of their system, which illuminates their earth, they said that it appeared flaming. when i represented the size of the sun of our earth, they said that their sun was smaller; for before our eyes their sun appears as a star; and i was told by the angels that it was one of the lesser stars. they also said that the starry heaven is also seen from their earth; and that a star larger than the rest appears to them towards the west; it was said from heaven that this is our sun. . my sight was afterwards opened, so that i could in some measure gaze upon that earth itself; and there appeared many meadows and forests with trees covered with leaves; likewise fleecy sheep. afterwards i saw some of the inhabitants, who belonged to the lower class, clothed nearly like the country folk in europe. i also saw a man (_vir_) with his wife (_mulier_). she appeared of handsome stature and of graceful mien; so did the man; but, what surprised me, he walked about pompously, with as it were a haughty gait, while the woman's gait, on the contrary, was humble. the angels told me that such is the custom on that earth, and that notwithstanding this peculiarity, the men are loved, because they are good. i was further told that they are not allowed to have more than one wife, because it is contrary to the laws. the woman i saw had an ample garment before her breast, behind which she could conceal herself, and which was so made that she could put her arms in it, and wrap herself in it, and in this wise go away: the lower portion of it could be gathered up, and, when gathered up and folded about the body, it looked like a stomacher, such as is worn by the women of our earth. the same garment, however, also served the man for an article of clothing. he was seen to take it from the woman and throw it over his own back, and loosening the lower part, which thus flowed down to his feet like a robe, he walked about clad in this manner. what i saw on that earth was not seen with the eyes of my body, but with the eyes of my spirit, and a spirit can see the objects that are on an earth, when it is permitted by the lord. . as i know that many will doubt the possibility of a man's being able, with the eyes of his spirit, to see anything on an earth so distant, i may state how the matter is. distances in the other life are not as distances on the earth. in the other life distances are altogether according to the states of the interiors of each one. they who are in a similar state are together in one society and in one place. all presence there results from likeness of state, and all distance results from unlikeness of state. hence it was that i was near to that earth when i was brought by the lord into a state similar to that of its spirits and inhabitants, and that being then present i conversed with them. hence it is evident that earths in the spiritual world are not distant as in the natural world, but only apparently so according to the states of life of their inhabitants and spirits. the state of life is the state of the affections as to love and faith. in regard to a spirit, or, what is the same, a man as to his spirit, being able to see the things that are on an earth, i may also explain how the case therein is. neither spirits nor angels are able, by their own sight, to see anything that is in the world; for to them the light of the world, that is, solar light, is as thick darkness: just as man by his bodily sight cannot see anything that is in the other life; for to him the light of heaven is as thick darkness. but nevertheless spirits and angels, when it pleases the lord, can see the things in the natural world through the eyes of a man; but this is not granted by the lord with any except those whom he permits to speak with spirits and angels, and to be together with them. it has been permitted them to see through my eyes the things in this world, and as plainly as i myself did; and even to hear men speaking with me. it has sometimes happened that through me some have seen their friends, with whom they had been intimate in the life of the body, altogether present as before, and they have been amazed thereat. wives also have seen in this manner their husbands and children, and have wanted me to tell them that they were present and saw them, and to inform them of their state in the other life. but it was forbidden me to say and reveal to them that they had been seen in this way, for the further reason that they would have called me insane, or have thought my information ravings of the mind (_animus_), for i was well aware that, although they affirmed with their mouth, they yet did not at heart believe in the existence of spirits, the resurrection of the dead and their living among spirits, and these being able to see and hear by means of a man. when my interior sight was first opened, and when those who are in the other life saw through my eyes the world and the things therein, they were so amazed that they called it the miracle of miracles, and were affected with new joy that there was thus granted a communication of the earth with heaven, and of heaven with the earth. this joy continued for months; but afterwards it became familiar, and now the wonder has ceased. i have been informed that the spirits and angels with other men do not in the least see the things in the world, but only perceive the thoughts and affections of those with whom they are. from all this it may appear, that man was so created that, while living amongst men in the world, he might at the same time live in heaven amongst angels, and contrariwise, so that heaven and the world might be together with man, and act as a one, and that men might know what passes in heaven, and angels what passes in the world; and that when men depart this life, they might pass thus from the lord's kingdom on earth into his kingdom in the heavens, not as into another, but as into the same kingdom, in which they had been during their life in the body. but as man has become so corporeal, he has closed heaven against himself. . lastly, i conversed with spirits who were from that earth concerning various things on our earth, especially concerning the fact that sciences are cultivated here, which are not cultivated elsewhere, such as astronomy, geometry, mechanics, physics, chemistry, medicine, optics, and natural philosophy; and likewise arts, which are unknown elsewhere, as the arts of ship-building, of smelting metals, of writing on paper, and likewise of publishing by printing, and thus of communicating with others on the earth, and thus also of preserving what is communicated for the use of posterity for thousands of years; and that this has been done also with the word which is from the lord, and that on this account revelation is for ever permanent on our earth. . at last i was shown the hell of those who are from that earth. those who appeared from there inspired great terror. i dare not describe their monstrous faces. sorceresses also appeared there, who practise nefarious arts. they appeared clad in green, and struck me with horror. the second earth in the starry heaven, and its spirits and inhabitants. . i was afterwards led by the lord to an earth in the universe which was at a much greater distance from our earth than the first one that has just been treated of. that it was at a much greater distance, was plain from this circumstance, that i was two days in being led thither as to my spirit. this earth was to the left, whereas the former was to the right. as remoteness in the spiritual world does not, as already observed, arise from distance of place, but from difference of state, the long-continuance of my progression thither, which lasted two days, enabled me to conclude that the state of the interiors which prevailed with them, which is the state of the affections and of the consequent thoughts, differed proportionately from the state of the interiors which prevails with the spirits from our earth. as i was conveyed thither as to the spirit by means of changes of the state of the interiors, i was enabled to observe the successive changes themselves before i arrived there. this took place while i was awake. . when i arrived there, i did not see the earth, but only the spirits who were from that earth; for, as has already been stated, the spirits of every earth appear about their own earth, because they are of a similar genius with the inhabitants, for they are of them, and are serviceable to them. those spirits appeared at a considerable height over my head, and from thence they saw me coming. it must be borne in mind that they who stand on high in the other life can behold those who are below them, and the higher they stand the wider is the extent of their vision; and that not only can they behold them, but also speak with them. they observed from there that i was not from their earth, but from some other at a distance; wherefore, addressing me from thence, they questioned me on various subjects, and to these questions it was also permitted me to reply. among other things, i told them from what earth i came, and what kind of earth it was; and afterwards i told them about the earths in our solar system; and then also about the spirits of the earth or planet mercury, that they wander about to many earths for the purpose of procuring for themselves knowledges about various things. on hearing this, they said that they had also seen those spirits among themselves. . i was told by the angels from our earth that the inhabitants and spirits of that earth, in the grand man, have relation to keenness of vision, and that therefore they appear on high; and that they have a most penetrating keenness of sight. in consequence of their having this relation, and of their seeing clearly the things that were below, in the course of our conversation i compared them to eagles, which fly aloft, and enjoy a piercing and extensive view of surrounding things. at this they became indignant, supposing that i considered them like eagles as to their rapacity, and consequently that i thought them evil; but i replied, that i did not liken them to eagles as to rapacity, but as to keenness of vision. . being questioned concerning the god whom they worshipped, they replied that they worshipped a god visible and invisible; a god visible under the human form, and an invisible god, under no form at all; and i learned from their discourse, and likewise from the ideas of their thoughts which were communicated to me, that the visible god was our lord himself, and they also called him lord. to this it was given me to reply, that on our earth also, an invisible and a visible god is worshipped; and that the invisible god is called the father, and the visible, the lord; but that both are one, as he himself taught, saying, that no one had ever seen the form of the father, that the father and he are one, that whoso seeth him seeth the father, and that the father is in him and he in the father; consequently, that both divine [essences] are in one person. that these are the words of the lord himself, see john v. ; x. ; xiv. , - . . afterwards i saw other spirits from the same earth, who appeared in a place beneath the former: with these also i conversed; but they were idolaters, for they worshipped an idol of stone, like a man, but an unhandsome one. it is to be observed, that all who come into the other life, in the beginning have a worship which is like their worship in the world, but that by degrees they are removed from it. the reason why this takes place is, that all worship remains implanted in man's interior life, from which it cannot be removed and eradicated except by degrees. on seeing this, it was given me to tell them that they ought not to worship what is dead, but what is living; to which they replied, that they knew that god lives, and that a stone does not, but that they thought of the living god while looking on a stone resembling a man, and that otherwise the ideas of their thought could not be fixed upon and determined to the invisible god. it was then given me to tell them that the ideas of thought can be fixed upon and determined to the invisible god, when they are fixed upon and determined to the lord, who is god visible in thought under the human form; and thus that man can be conjoined with the invisible god in thought and affection, consequently in faith and love, when he is conjoined with the lord, but not otherwise. . the spirits who were seen on high were questioned whether on their earth they live under the rule of princes or kings. to this they replied, that they do not know what governments are, and that they live under themselves, distinguished into clans, families, and households. they were questioned whether they were thus in security. they said they were secure, since one family never envies another, nor desires to deprive another of anything. they were indignant at being asked such questions, as if they had been charged with being at enmity, or with needing protection against robbers. what, said they, does anyone need but food and raiment, and thus to live content and quiet under one's own management? . being further questioned concerning their earth, they said that they have meadows, flower-gardens, orchards full of fruit-trees, and also lakes containing fish; and that they have birds of a blue colour, with golden feathers; and large and small animals. amongst the smaller, they mentioned one sort which had the back raised like the camels on our earth; nevertheless, they do not feed on their flesh, but only on the flesh of fishes, and besides on the fruits of trees, and on the leguminous plants of the earth. they said, moreover, that they do not live in artificial houses, but in groves, amongst the leafy boughs of which they make roofs to shelter them from rain and the heat of the sun. . being questioned respecting their sun, which appears as a star from our earth, they said that it has a fiery appearance, and that it is not larger to the sight than a man's head. i was told by the angels that the star which is their sun is one of the smaller stars, not far distant from the equator. . there were seen some spirits who were like what they had been during their abode as men on their earth. they had faces not unlike the faces of the men of our earth, except that their eyes and nose were small. as this appeared to me something of a deformity, they said that with them small eyes and a small nose are considered a beauty. a female was seen, clothed in a gown ornamented with roses of various colours. i asked whence they procured for themselves materials for clothing on that earth. they answered that they gather from certain plants substances which they spin into thread; and that they then at once lay the threads in double and triple rows, moistening them with a glutinous water to give them consistence. afterwards they colour the cloth, thus prepared, with the juices of herbaceous plants. it was also shown me how they prepare the thread. the women sit down on a seat, with their backs bent, and twist the threads with their toes; and when twisted they draw the threads towards them, and work them with their hands. . they said also, that on that earth a husband has only one wife, and no more; and that they beget from ten to fifteen children. they added, that there are likewise found harlots on that earth; but that these, after the life of the body, when they become spirits, are sorceresses, and are cast into hell. the third earth in the starry heaven, and its spirits and inhabitants. . there appeared some spirits at a distance, who were unwilling to approach. the reason was, that they could not be together with the spirits of our earth who were then about me. from this i apperceived that they were from another earth; and i was told afterwards that they were from a certain earth in the universe; but where that earth is, was not made known to me. these spirits, unlike the spirits from our earth, were absolutely unwilling to think about their body, or even about anything corporeal and material; hence it was that they were unwilling to approach; yet, after the removal of some of the spirits of our earth, they drew nearer, and spoke with me. but then there was a sense of anxiety arising from the collision of the spheres; for spiritual spheres surround all spirits and societies of spirits[cc]; and since they emanate from the life of the affections and the consequent thoughts, therefore where the affections are contrary collision takes place, and hence arises anxiety. the spirits of our earth related, that they dare not even approach them; since, on their approach, they are not only seized with anxiety, but also appear to themselves as if they were bound hand and foot with serpents, from which they cannot be freed till they have departed. this appearance takes its origin from correspondence; for the spirits of our earth, in the grand man, have relation to external sense, consequently to the corporeal sensual, and this sensual is represented in the other life by serpents[xx]. [footnote xx: the external sensual of man in the spiritual world is represented by serpents, because it is in the lowest [parts], and relatively to the more interior things in man, lies on the ground, and as it were creeps; and on this ground they were called serpents who reasoned from that sensual, nos. - , , .] . as the spirits of that earth are such, they appear in the eyes of other spirits, not in a distinct human form, as others do, but as clouds, in most cases like a dusky cloud, with the fair human colour interspersed; but they said, that within they are fair, and that when they become angels, this duskiness is changed into a beautiful blue; which was also shown me. i asked whether, during their life as men in the world, they had entertained such an idea respecting their bodies. they replied that the men of their earth make no account of their bodies, but only of the spirit in the body, because they know that the spirit will live for ever, but that the body must perish. they said also, that many on their earth believe that the spirit of the body has existed from eternity, and that it was infused into the body when they were conceived; but they added, that now they know that it is not so, and that they repent of having ever been in so false an opinion. . when i asked them whether they would like to see any objects on our earth, informing them that it was possible to do so through my eyes (see above, no. ), they answered first, that they could not, and afterwards, that they would not, because the things that they would see would be only earthly and material things, from which they remove their thoughts as much as possible. but nevertheless, there were represented before them magnificent palaces, resembling those on our earth possessed by kings and princes; for such things can be represented before spirits, and, when they are represented, they appear exactly as if they existed. but the spirits from that earth esteemed them as nothing, calling them marble images; and then they related that they have more magnificent things belonging to them, which are their sacred temples, built not of stone but of wood. when it was objected that these were still earthly objects, they replied that they were not earthly, but heavenly, because when they gaze upon them they have not an earthly but a heavenly idea; believing that after death they should also see like objects in heaven. . they then represented their sacred temples before the spirits of our earth, who declared that they had not seen anything more magnificent; and as they were also seen by me, i can therefore describe them. they are constructed of trees not cut down, but growing in the place where they first took root. they said that on that earth there are trees of a wonderful size and height; these they set in rows from the first, so that they may form porticos and colonnades; and by cutting and pruning, they fit and prepare the tender shoots, so that as they grow they may interlace and join together so as to form the groundwork and floor of the temple to be constructed, and to rise at the sides to form the walls, and above to bend into arches to form the roof. in this manner they construct the temple with admirable art, raised high above the ground. they also prepare an ascent into it by successive branches of the trees, extended from the trunk and firmly connected together. moreover, they adorn the temple without and within in various ways, by disposing the foliage into forms: thus they build entire groves. but it was not permitted me to see the character of these temples within: i was only told that the light of their sun is let in by apertures amongst the branches, and is transmitted here and there through crystals, by which means the light falling upon the walls is varied in colours like those of the rainbow, especially blue and orange, of which they are fondest. such are their architectural works, which they prefer to the most magnificent palaces of our earth. . they said further, that the inhabitants do not dwell in high places, but on the earth in lowly cottages, for the reason that high places are for the lord who is in heaven, and lowly places for men who are on earth. their cottages were also shown me. they were oblong, having within along the walls a continuous couch, on which they lie one behind another. on the side opposite to the door is a rounded alcove, before which is a table, and behind the table a fire-place, by which the whole chamber is lighted. in this fire-place, there is not a burning fire, but a luminous wood, which gives out as much light as the flame of a common fire does. they said that in the evening these logs of wood appeared as if they had in them the fire of live coals. . they said that they do not live as societies, but as households by themselves; and that they are societies when they meet for worship; that on these occasions those who teach walk within the temple, and the rest in the porches at the sides; and that at their meetings they experience interior joys, arising from the sight of the temple, and from the worship celebrated therein. . in respect to divine worship, they said that they acknowledge a god under the human form, consequently our lord; for all who acknowledge the god of the universe under the human form are accepted and led by our lord: the rest cannot be led, because they think apart from a form. they added, that the inhabitants of their earth are instructed about the things of heaven by a certain immediate intercourse with angels and spirits, into which they may be brought by the lord more easily than others, because they reject corporeal things from their thought and affection. i asked what becomes of those amongst them who are evil. they told me that on their earth no wicked person is allowed to exist; but if any one thinks and does evil, he is reprimanded by a certain spirit, who threatens him with death if he persists in doing so; and if he persists, he dies by a swoon; and that by this means the men of that earth are preserved from the contagion of evils. a certain spirit of this character was also sent to me: he spoke with me as if with those [evil ones]: he moreover inflicted something of pain in the region of my abdomen, saying that this is what he does to those who think and do evil, and that he threatens them with death if they persist. i was also told that they who profane holy things are grievously punished; and that before the punishing spirit comes, there appears to them in vision the gaping mouth of a lion, of a livid colour, which seems as if it would swallow their head, and tear it asunder from the body, whence they are seized with horror. they call the punishing spirit the devil. . as they were desirous to know how the case is on our earth in regard to revelation, i told them that it is effected by means of writing and preaching from the word, and not by immediate intercourse with spirits and angels; and that what is written can be published by printing, and thus be read and comprehended by whole societies, and that thus the life can be amended. they were exceedingly surprised that such an art, utterly unknown elsewhere, could exist on our earth; but they comprehended that on this earth, where corporeal and terrestrial things are so much loved, divine things could not otherwise inflow from heaven and be received; and that it would be dangerous for such beings to converse with angels. . the spirits of that earth appear above, in the plane of the head, towards the right. all spirits are distinguished by their situation relatively to the human body; and this is a consequence of the universal heaven corresponding with all things of man[f]. these spirits keep themselves in that plane, and at that distance, because their correspondence is not with the externals, but with the interiors, belonging to man. their action is upon the left knee, above and a little below, with a certain vibration very sensibly felt. this is a sign that they correspond with _the conjunction of natural things and heavenly things_. the fourth earth in the starry heaven, and its spirits and inhabitants. . i was conducted to yet another earth which is in the universe beyond our solar system, which was effected by changes of the state of my mind, consequently as to the spirit; for, as has already been repeatedly observed, a spirit is conducted from place to place no otherwise than by changes of the state of his interiors, which changes appear to him in all respects as advancements from place to place, or as journeyings. these changes lasted continuously for about ten hours before i came from the state of my life to the state of their life, thus before i arrived there as to my spirit. i was conveyed towards the east, to the left, and seemed to be gradually elevated from a horizontal plane. i was also permitted to observe clearly the progression and advance from my former place, till at length those from whom i had departed no longer appeared; and in the meantime i spoke on various subjects with the spirits who were with me. a certain spirit was also with us who, during his life in the world, had been a prelate and a preacher, as well as a very pathetic writer. from my idea concerning him, my spirit-companions supposed he was more a christian at heart than the rest; for in the world an idea is conceived and a judgment formed from the preaching and writing, and not from the life, if this is not manifest; and if anything inconsistent appears in the life, it is nevertheless excused; for the idea or thought and perception concerning any one draws everything to its side. . after this i observed that i was, as to my spirit, in the starry heaven, far beyond our solar system; for this can be observed from the changes of state and the consequent apparent continued progression, which had lasted nearly ten hours. at length i heard spirits conversing near some earth, which also i afterwards saw. when i had come near them, after some conversation they said that strangers sometimes come to them from other places, who converse with them concerning god, and confuse the ideas of their thought. they also pointed out the way by which they came, from which it was perceived that they were of the spirits of our earth. on being questioned then as to the confusion caused in their ideas, they said it arose from those spirits saying that they ought to believe in a divine being distinguished into three persons, whom they nevertheless call one god; and on examining the idea of their thoughts, it is exhibited as a trine, not continuous hut discrete, with some as three persons conversing with each other, and with some as two seated together, one near the other, and a third listening to them and going from them; and although they call each person god, and have a different idea concerning each, they still say there is but one god. they complained exceedingly, that they had thrown them into a confusion of ideas, by thinking of three and speaking of one, when nevertheless one ought to think as one speaks, and speak as one thinks. the spirit who in the world had been a prelate and a preacher, and who was also with me, was then examined as to the character of the idea he entertained respecting one god and three persons: [and it was found that] he represented to himself three gods, which, however, made one by continuity. he, however, exhibited this three in one as invisible because it was divine; and while he was exhibiting this, it was perceived that he was then thinking only of the father, and not of the lord, and that his idea concerning the invisible god was no other but as of nature in its first principles, from which idea it resulted that the inmost of nature was his divine, so that he might easily be led from this to acknowledge nature as god. it is to be borne in mind, that the idea which any person entertains on any subject is, in the other life, exhibited to the life, and through it every one is examined as to the character of his thought and perception on matters of faith; and that the idea of the thought concerning god is the chief of all, for through it, if genuine, conjunction is effected with the divine, and consequently with heaven. they were afterwards questioned concerning the nature of their idea respecting god. they replied that they did not conceive of an invisible god, but of a god visible under the human form; and that they knew this not only from an interior perception, but also from the fact, that he has appeared to them as a man. they added that if, according to the idea of some strangers, they were to conceive of god as invisible, consequently without form and quality, they would not be able to think about god at all, inasmuch as such an invisible [being] does not fall into any idea of thought. on hearing this, it was given me to tell them that they do well to think of god under the human form, and that many on our earth think in like manner, especially when they think of the lord; and that the ancients thought in no other way. i then told them about abraham, lot, gideon, manoah and his wife, and what is related of them in our word, namely, that they saw god under the human form, and acknowledged him, thus seen, to be the creator of the universe, and called him jehovah, and this also from an interior perception; but that at the present day that interior perception is lost in the christian world, and only remains with the simple who are in faith. . previous to this conversation, they had believed that our company also consisted of those who want to confuse them by the idea of three in relation to god; wherefore, on hearing what was said, they were affected with joy, and said that god, whom they then called the lord, had also sent some to teach them concerning him; and that they are unwilling to admit strangers who disturb them, especially with the idea of three persons in the divinity, knowing as they do that god is one, consequently that the divine is one, and does not consist of three in unanimity, unless they are disposed to think of god as of an angel, in whom there is an inmost of life which is invisible, and from which he thinks and is wise; an external of life, which is visible under a human form, from which he sees and acts; and a proceeding of life, which is the sphere of love and of faith from him; for from every spirit and angel there proceeds a sphere of life by which he is known at a distance[cc]; and as to the lord, that that proceeding of life from him is the divine itself which fills and constitutes the heavens, because it proceeds from the very esse of the life of love and of faith. they said that in this and in no other manner can they perceive a trinity and unity together. on hearing this, it was given me to say that such an idea of a trinity and unity together agrees with the angelic idea concerning the lord, and that it is from the lord's own doctrine concerning himself. for he teaches that the father and himself are one; that the father is in him and he in the father; that he who seeth him seeth the father; and he who believeth in him believeth in the father and knoweth the father; also that the comforter, whom he calls the spirit of truth, and likewise the holy spirit, proceeds from him, and does not speak from himself but from him, by which comforter is meant the divine proceeding. i was further permitted to tell them that their idea concerning a trinity and unity together agrees with the esse and existere of the lord's life when he was in the world. the esse of his life was the divine itself, for he was conceived of jehovah, and the esse of every one's life is that of which he is conceived; the existere of life from that esse is the human in a form. the esse of the life of every man, which he has from his father, is called the soul, and the existere of life thence derived is called the body. soul and body constitute one man. the likeness between them resembles the likeness between that which is in endeavour and that which is in the resulting act, for an act is endeavour acting, and thus the two are one. endeavour in man is called the will, and endeavour acting is called action; the body is the instrumental, by means of which the will, which is the principal, acts, and in acting the instrumental and principal are a one. such is the case with soul and body. and such is the idea which the angels in heaven have concerning soul and body: hence they know that the lord made his human divine from the divine in himself, which to him was the soul from the father. neither is the faith which is received throughout the christian world in opposition to this idea, for it teaches, that "_although christ is god and man, yet he is not two, but one christ;... yea, he is altogether one by unity of person; for as body and soul are one man, so also god and man are one christ_"[yy]. as there was such a union or such a oneness in the lord, therefore he rose again, not only as to the soul, but also as to the body, which he glorified in the world, which is not the case with any man; on which subject he also instructed his disciples, saying, "_feel me and see, for a spirit hath not flesh and bones, as ye see me have_" [(luke xxiv. )][zz]. this was clearly understood by those spirits, for such truths fall into the understanding of angelic spirits. they then added, that the lord alone has power in the heavens, and that the heavens are his; to which it was given me to answer, that this also is known to the church on our earth from the mouth of the lord himself before he ascended into heaven; for he then said, "_all power is given unto me in heaven and on earth_" [(matt, xxviii. )]. [footnote yy: from the creed of athanasius.] [footnote zz: immediately after death, man rises again as to his spirit; and he is in the human form, and he is a man as to all things in general and particular, nos. , , , , , , , . man rises again only as to the spirit, and not as to the body, nos. , . the lord alone rose again as to the body also, nos. , , , .] . i afterwards conversed with those spirits concerning their earth; for all spirits can do this when their natural or external memory is opened by the lord; for this they carry with them from the world, but it is not opened except at the lord's good pleasure. respecting their earth, from which they had come, the spirits then said that when leave is given them, they appear to the inhabitants, and converse with them, as men; and that this is effected by their being let into their natural or external memory, and consequently into such a thought as they had been in when they lived in the world; and that on such occasions the inhabitants have their interior sight or the sight of their spirit opened, by which they see the spirits. they added, that the inhabitants know no otherwise than that they are men of their earth, and only apperceive they are not when they are suddenly removed from their sight, i told them that the same thing also happened on our earth in ancient times, as, for instance, to abraham, sarah, lot, the inhabitants of sodom, manoah and his wife, joshua, mary, elizabeth, and the prophets generally; and that the lord appeared in like manner, and they who saw him knew no otherwise than that he was a man of the earth, till he revealed himself. but that at the present day this rarely happens; the reason is, lest men by such things should be compelled to believe; for compelled faith, such as is the faith which enters by means of miracles, does not inhere, and would also be hurtful to those with whom faith may be implanted by means of the word in a state without compulsion. . the spirit, who had been a prelate and a preacher in the world, entirely disbelieved that any other earths existed besides our own, because he had thought in the world that the lord was born on this earth alone, and that without the lord none could be saved; wherefore he was reduced into a state similar to that into which spirits are reduced when they appear on their own earth as men (which state has been treated of just above); and thus he was let into that earth, so that he not only saw it, but also conversed with the inhabitants there. this done, a communication was by this means granted me also, so that i likewise saw the inhabitants, and also some objects on that earth (see above, no. ). there appeared then four kinds of men, but one after the other in succession; the first i saw were clothed; the second were naked, of a human flesh colour; the next were naked, but with flame-coloured bodies; and the last were black. . while the spirit who had been a prelate and a preacher was with those who were clothed, a woman with a very pretty face appeared. she was simply attired; her robe hung gracefully behind her, and was also drawn over her arms, and she wore a beautiful head-dress, in the form of a chaplet of flowers. that spirit was greatly delighted at the sight of this virgin; he spoke to her, and also took her by the hand; but, apperceiving that he was a spirit, and not of that earth, she hurried hastily away from him. afterwards there appeared to him on the right several other women, who had the care of sheep and lambs, which they were then leading to a watering-trough, into which water was led by means of a trench from some lake. they were similarly clothed, and had shepherds' crooks in their hands, by which they led the sheep and lambs to drink; they said the sheep went whichever way they pointed with their crooks: the sheep which we saw were large, with woolly tails, broad and long. the faces of the women, when seen nearer, were full and beautiful. some men were also seen; their faces were of a human flesh colour, like that of the men of our earth, but with this difference, that the lower part of the face, instead of being bearded, was black, and the nose more of a snowy-white than of a flesh colour. afterwards the spirit who, as already mentioned, had been a preacher in the world, was led further on, but reluctantly, because he was still thinking about that woman with whom he had been delighted, as was evident from the circumstance that there still appeared something of his shadow in the former place. he then came to those who were naked. they were seen walking together by twos, husband and wife, girt with a girdle about the loins, and some sort of covering around the head. that spirit, when he was with them, was led into the state in which he had been in the world when he was disposed to preach, and then he said he would preach before them the lord crucified; but they said they would not hear such a thing, because they did not know what it was, but that they knew that the lord lives. he then said he would preach the lord living; but this too they refused, saying that they apperceived in his speech something not heavenly, because it had much respect to himself, and his own fame and honour; and that they could hear from the tone of voice whether what was said came from the heart or not; and that, as he was of such a character, he was unable to teach them; wherefore he was silent. during his life in the world he had been extremely pathetic, so that he could deeply move his hearers to holiness; but this pathetic manner had been acquired by art, thus from self and the world, and not from heaven. . they said, moreover, that they have a perception whether the conjugial is with those of their clan who are naked; and it was shown that they perceive this by virtue of a spiritual idea concerning marriage, which idea being communicated to me was to the effect, that a likeness of the interiors was formed by the conjunction of good and truth, consequently of love and faith, and that from that conjunction descending by influx into the body conjugial love comes into existence. for all things which belong to the mind (_animus_) are exhibited in some natural form in the body, consequently in the form of conjugial love, when the interiors of two mutually love each other, and from that love also desire to will and to think the one as the other, and thus to be together and be conjoined as to the interiors which are of the mind (_mens_). hence the spiritual affection, which is of the minds, becomes natural affection in the body, and clothes itself with the sense of conjugial love. the spiritual affection which is of the minds is the affection of good and truth, and of their conjunction; for all things of the mind, or of the thought and will, have relation to truth and good. they also said that it is quite impossible for the conjugial to exist between one man and several wives, since the marriage of good and truth, which pertains to the minds, can exist only between two. . after this, the spirit already spoken of came to those who were naked, but whose bodies were flame-coloured; and lastly, to those who were black, some of whom were naked and some clothed; but the latter and the former dwelt in a different part of the same earth; for a spirit may be led in an instant to places far asunder on an earth, since he does not proceed and advance like man through spaces, but through changes of state (see above, nos. , )[ss]. . i lastly conversed with the spirits of that earth concerning the belief of the inhabitants of our earth on the subject of the resurrection, in that they cannot conceive that men come into the other life immediately after death, and then appear as men as to the face, the body, the arms, the feet, and all the external and internal senses; still less that they are then clothed in garments, and have mansions and dwelling-places; and that the sole reason of this is that most persons here think from the sensuals which belong to the body, and therefore believe in the existence of nothing but what they see and touch; and that few of them can be withdrawn from external sensual things to interior things, and thus be elevated into the light of heaven, in which such things are perceived. hence it is, that they can have no idea of their soul or spirit as of a man, but as of wind, or air, or a breath without form, in which there is yet something vital. this is the reason why they do not believe they shall rise again till the end of the world, which they call the last judgment, when the body, though mouldered into dust, and scattered by every wind, will be brought together again and conjoined to its soul or spirit. i added, that it is permitted them to believe this, since those who, as was said, think from external sensual things, can conceive no otherwise than that the soul or spirit cannot live as a man in a human form, unless it receive again that body which it carried about in the world; wherefore, unless it were asserted that the body will rise again, they would reject from their heart as incomprehensible the doctrine of the resurrection and of eternal life. but nevertheless this thought concerning the resurrection has this advantage with it, that it leads them to believe in a life after death, a consequence of which belief is, that when they lie on a sick bed, and do not, as theretofore, think from worldly and corporeal things, thus not from sensual things, they then believe that they shall live immediately after their decease; they then also speak of heaven, and of the hope of a life there immediately after death, quite apart from their doctrinal concerning the last judgment. i related further, that sometimes it had been matter of surprise to me, that when those who are in faith speak of a life after death, and of their friends and relatives who are dying or dead, and do not at the same time think about the last judgment, they believe that they will live or are living as men immediately on their decease. but as soon as thought concerning the last judgment flows in, this idea is changed into the material idea concerning their earthly body, that it is again to be conjoined to their soul; for they do not know that every man is a spirit as to his interiors, and that this it is which lives in the body and in each of its parts, and not the body which lives of itself; and that it is the spirit of every one from which his body has its human form, and which, consequently, is principally the man, and in a similar form, but invisible to the eyes of the body, yet visible to the eyes of spirits. hence also, when the sight of a man's spirit is opened, which is effected by the removal of the bodily sight, angels appear as men: in this manner angels appeared to the ancients, as recorded in the word. i have also sometimes spoken with spirits, with whom i had been acquainted when they lived as men in the world, and i have asked them whether they had any inclination to be clothed again with their earthly bodies, as they used to think would be the case. but they fled far away at the very idea of such a conjunction, being smitten with amazement that, while in the world, they should have thought in this manner under the influence of so blind a belief, devoid of all understanding. . moreover, on that earth i saw the dwellings of the inhabitants: they were lowly houses, extended in length, with windows at the sides, according to the number of the rooms or chambers into which they were divided. the roof was arched, and there was a door on each side at the end. they told me that they were built of earth, and covered with turf; and that the windows were formed of filaments of grass woven together in such a manner that the light shone through. i also saw little children; and the inhabitants told me that their neighbours come to them, especially for the sake of the little children, that they may be in company with other children in the presence and under the direction of their parents. there also appeared fields becoming white with standing crops that were at that time nearly ripe for harvest. the seeds or grains of that corn were shown me, and they were like grains of chinese wheat: i was also shown some bread made from it, which was in small square loaves. there also appeared plains of grass adorned with flowers; also trees laden with fruit like pomegranates; also shrubs, which were not vines, but still produced berries from which they prepare wine. . the sun of that earth, which is to us a star, appears there flaming, in size almost a fourth part of our sun. their year is about two hundred days, and each day fifteen hours, relatively to the length of days on our earth. the earth itself is one of the least in the starry heaven, being scarcely five hundred german miles in circumference. the angels stated these particulars from a comparison made with things of the like kind on our earth, which they saw in me, or in my memory. their conclusions were formed by angelic ideas, whereby are instantly known the measures of spaces and times, in a just proportion relatively to spaces and times elsewhere. angelic ideas, which are spiritual, in such calculations immensely surpass human ideas, which are natural. the fifth earth in the starry heaven, and its spirits and inhabitants. . i was led to yet another earth in the universe beyond our solar system, and on this occasion also by changes of state continued for nearly twelve hours. in company with me were several spirits and angels from our earth, with whom i conversed during this voyage or progression. i was carried at times obliquely upwards and obliquely downwards, continually towards the right, which in the other life is towards the south. in two places only did i see spirits, and in one i spoke with them. during this journey or progression i was permitted to observe how immense was the lord's heaven, which is designed for angels and spirits; for from the parts uninhabited i was enabled to conclude that it was so immense that, supposing there were many myriads of earths, and on each earth as great a multitude of human beings as on our own, there would still be a place of abode for them to eternity, and it would never be filled. this i was enabled to conclude from a comparison made with the [inhabited] extent of the heaven which is about our earth and designed for it, which extent was so small relatively, as not to equal one ten-thousand-thousandth part of the extent uninhabited. . when the angelic spirits who were from that earth came into view, they accosted us, asking who we were, and what we wanted. we told them that we were travelling, that we had been transported thither, and that they had nothing to fear from us. for they were afraid that we were of those who disturb them concerning god, faith, and kindred subjects, on account of whom they had betaken themselves to that quarter of their earth, shunning them as much as possible. we asked them by what they were disturbed. they replied, by the idea of three, and by the idea of the divine without the human in god, when they yet know and perceive that god is one, and that he is man. it was then perceived that those who disturbed them, and whom they shunned, were from our earth: this was manifest also from this consideration, that there are spirits from our earth who thus wander about in the other life, in consequence of their fondness for and delight in travelling, which they have contracted in the world; for on other earths there is no such custom of travelling as on ours. it was afterwards discovered that they were monks, who had travelled on our globe from a desire to convert the gentiles. we therefore told them that they did well to shun them, because their intention was, not to teach, but to secure gain and dominion; and that they strive by various means first to captivate men's minds (_animi_), and afterwards to subject them to themselves as slaves: moreover, that they did well in not suffering their idea concerning god to be disturbed by such spirits. they said further, that these spirits also confuse them by asserting that they ought to have faith, and to believe what they say; but that their reply to them is, that they do not know what faith or believing means, since they perceive in themselves whether a thing be so or not. they were of the lord's celestial kingdom, where all know by interior perception the truths which with us are called the truths of faith, for they are in enlightenment from the lord; but it is otherwise with those who are in the spiritual kingdom. that the angelic spirits of that earth were of the lord's celestial kingdom, i could also see from the flame whence their ideas flowed; for in the celestial kingdom the light is flaming, and in the spiritual kingdom it is bright white. they who are of the celestial kingdom, when the discourse is about truths, say no more than yea, yea, or nay, nay, and never reason about them whether they be so or not. these are they of whom the lord says, "_let your discourse be yea, yea, nay, nay; what is beyond this is of evil_" [(matt. v. )]. hence it was that those spirits said that they did not know what it is to have faith or to believe. they consider this to be like one saying to his companion, who with his own eyes sees houses or trees, that he ought to have faith or to believe that they are houses and trees, when he sees clearly that they are so. such are they who are of the lord's celestial kingdom, and such were these angelic spirits[aaa]. we told them that few on our earth have interior perception, because in their youth they learn truths, and do not practise them. for man has two faculties, which are called the understanding and the will; they who admit truths no further than into the memory, and thence in some degree into the understanding, but not into the life, that is, into the will, these, inasmuch as they cannot be in any enlightenment or interior sight from the lord, say that those truths ought to be believed, or that man ought to have faith in them; and they also reason about them whether they be truths or not; nay, they are not willing that they should be perceived by any interior sight, or by any enlightenment by the understanding. they say this, because truths with them are without light from heaven, and to those who see without light from heaven, falsities may appear as truths, and truths as falsities. hence so great blindness has fallen on many on our earth, that although a man does not practise truths or live according to them, they say nevertheless that he may be saved by faith alone, as if a man were not man from the life and according to it, but from the knowledge of such things as belong to faith, apart from the life. we afterwards conversed with them concerning the lord, concerning love to him, love towards the neighbour, and regeneration; saying, that loving the lord consists in loving the precepts which are from him, that is, in living according to them from love[bbb]; that love towards the neighbour consists in willing good and thence doing good to a fellow-citizen, to one's country, to the church, to the lord's kingdom, not for the selfish end of being seen or acquiring merit, but from the affection of good[ccc]. concerning regeneration, we observed that they who are being regenerated by the lord, and who commit truths immediately to the life, come into an interior perception concerning them; but that those who receive truths first in the memory, and afterwards will them and do them, are those who are in faith; for they act from faith, which is then called conscience. these things, they said, they perceived to be so, and therefore perceived also what faith is. i conversed with them by means of spiritual ideas, by which such subjects may be exhibited and comprehended in light. [footnote aaa: heaven is distinguished into two kingdoms, one of which is called the celestial kingdom, the other the spiritual kingdom, nos. , . the angels in the celestial kingdom have vastly more knowledge and wisdom than the angels in the spiritual kingdom, no. . the celestial angels do not think and speak from faith, like the spiritual angels, but from an internal perception that a thing is so, nos. , , , , , , , , , , , . the celestial angels say only concerning the truths of faith, yea, yea, or nay, nay, but the spiritual angels reason whether a thing be so or not so, nos. , , , , , .] [footnote bbb: loving the lord means living according to his commandments, nos. , , , , .] [footnote ccc: loving the neighbour consists in doing what is good, just, and right, in every work and in every function, from the affection of what is good, just, and right, nos. , , , , . a life of love towards the neighbour is a life according to the lord's precepts, no. .] . the spirits with whom i had now spoken were from the northern part of their earth. i was afterwards led to others who were on the western part. these also, wishing to examine who and what i was; immediately said that there was nothing in me but evil, thinking that thus i might be deterred from approaching nearer. i apperceived that this was their manner of accosting all who come to them. but it was given me to reply that i well knew it to be so, and that in them likewise there was nothing but evil, by reason that every one is born into evil, and therefore whatever comes from man, spirit, or angel, as from what is his own, or from his proprium, is nothing but evil; inasmuch as all the good that is in every one, is from the lord. hence they apperceived that i was in the truth, and i was admitted to converse with them. they then showed me their idea concerning evil in man, and concerning good from the lord, how they are separated from each other. they placed one near the other, almost contiguous, but still distinct, yet as if bound in an inexpressible manner, so that the good led the evil, and restrained it, insomuch that it was not allowed to act at pleasure; and that thus the good bent the evil in whatever direction it desired, without the evil knowing anything of it. in this manner they exhibited the dominion of good over evil, and at the same time a state of freedom. they then asked how the lord appeared amongst the angels from our earth. i said that he appeared in the sun as a man, encompassed therein with a fiery solar [sphere], from which the angels in the heavens derive all light; and that the heat which proceeds thence is the divine good, and that the light which proceeds thence is the divine truth, both from the divine love, which is the fiery [sphere] appearing around the lord in that sun; but that that sun only appears to the angels in heaven, and not to the spirits who are beneath, since the latter are more remote from the reception of the good of love and of the truth of faith, than the angels who are in the heavens (see above, no. ). it was given them thus to inquire concerning the lord, and concerning his appearance before the angels from our earth, because it pleased the lord then to become present among them, and to reduce into order the things which had been disturbed there by the evil spirits of whom they complained. the reason also why i was led thither, was in order that i might be an eye-witness of these things. . there was then seen a dark cloud towards the east descending from on high, which in its descent appeared by degrees full of light and in the human form. at length this [human form] appeared in a flaming radiance, encompassed with small stars of the same colour. thus the lord presented himself before the spirits with whom i was conversing. at his presence all the spirits who were there were instantly gathered together from every side; and when they were come, they were separated, the good from the evil, the good to the right and the evil to the left, and this in an instant as of their own accord. those on the right were arranged in order according to the quality of the good, and those on the left according to the quality of the evil, with them: they who were good remained to form among themselves a heavenly society; but the evil were cast into the hells. afterwards i saw that that flaming radiance descended to the lower parts of the earth there to a considerable depth, and then it appeared at one time in a flaming [lustre] verging to luminosity, at another time in a luminosity verging into obscurity, and at another in obscurity: and i was told by the angels that that appearance is according to the reception of truth from good, and of falsity from evil, with those who inhabit the lower parts of that earth, and that the flaming radiance itself was subject to no such variations. they also said, that the lower parts of that earth were inhabited both by the good and by the evil; but that they were thoroughly separated, to the end that the evil might be ruled by the lord through the good. they added, that the good are by turns elevated thence into heaven by the lord, and that others succeed in their place, and so on perpetually. in that descent, the good were separated from the evil in like manner, and all things were reduced to order; for the evil, by various arts and cunning contrivances, had intruded themselves into the dwellings of the good there, and had infested them; and this was the cause of the present visitation. that cloud, which in descending appeared by degrees full of light and in the human form, and afterwards as a flaming radiance, was an angelic society, in whose midst the lord was. from this it was given me to know what is meant by the lord's words in the gospels, where, speaking of the last judgment, he says, "_that he would come with the angels in the clouds of heaven, with glory and power_" [(matt. xxiv. ; mark xiii. ; luke xxi. )]. . after this were seen some monkish spirits, those, namely, who have already been spoken of as having been travelling monks or missionaries in the world; and there was also seen a crowd of spirits who were from that earth, most of them evil, whom they had drawn over to their side, and led astray. these were seen on the eastern quarter of that earth, from whence they had driven away the good, who betook themselves to the northern side of the earth, and of whom we have spoken above. that crowd, together with their seducers, were collected together to the number of some thousands, and were separated; the evil of that crowd were cast into the hells. it was also given me to speak with one spirit who was a monk, and to ask him what he did there. he replied that he taught them concerning the lord. i asked, what besides. he said, concerning heaven and hell. i asked, what further. he said, concerning faith in all that he should say. i asked again, if he taught anything else. he said, concerning the power of remitting sins, and of opening and shutting heaven. he was then examined as to what he knew concerning the lord, the truths of faith, the remission of sins, man's salvation, and heaven and hell; and it was discovered that he knew scarcely anything, that he was in obscurity and falsity concerning all and each of these subjects, and that he was possessed solely by the lust of acquiring gain and dominion, which he had contracted in the world and brought with him from thence. he was therefore told that as he had, prompted by that lust, travelled thus far, and as he was such in regard to doctrine, he could not but deprive the spirits of that earth of heavenly light, and inflict on them the darkness of hell, and thus cause hell, and not the lord, to have dominion with them. moreover, he was cunning in seducing, but stupid as to the things relating to heaven. as he was of such a character, he was afterwards cast into hell. thus the spirits of that earth were freed of them. . the spirits of that earth, amongst other things, also said that those strangers, who, as has been said, were monkish spirits, used all their endeavours to persuade them to live together in society, and not separate and solitary. for spirits and angels dwell and live together just as they had done in the world. those who have dwelt together collectively in the world, also dwell collectively together in the other life; and those who have dwelt separated into households and families, also dwell separated there. these spirits, whilst they had lived as men on their earth, had dwelt separated, every household and family, and thus every clan, apart, and therefore knew not what it was to dwell together in society. wherefore, when it was told them that those strangers wanted to persuade them to this, in order that they might reign and rule over them, and that they could not otherwise subject them to themselves and make them slaves, they replied that they were totally ignorant what was meant by reigning and ruling. that they flee away at the bare idea of rule and domination, was manifest to me from this circumstance, that one of them, who accompanied us on the return journey, when i showed him the city in which i dwelt, at the first sight of it fled away, and was seen no more. . i then conversed with the angels who were with me, concerning dominion, that there are two kinds of dominion, one, of love towards the neighbour, and the other, of the love of self; and that the dominion of love towards the neighbour exists among those who dwell separated into households, families, and clans: but the dominion of the love of self among those who dwell together in society. among those who live separated into households, families, and clans, he who is the father of the clan bears rule, and under him the fathers of families, and under these the fathers of each household. he is called the father of the clan, from whom the families are derived, and the households of which the families are composed. but all these exercise dominion from love, like the love of a father towards his children, who teaches them how they ought to live, provides for their good, and as far as possible gives to them of what is his own. it never enters into his mind to subject them to himself, as subjects or as servants, but he loves that they should obey him as sons obey their father. and since this love, as is known, increases in descending, therefore the father of a clan acts from a more inward love than the father himself from whom the children are immediately descended. such also is the dominion in the heavens, because such is the lord's dominion; for his dominion is from divine love towards the whole human race. but the dominion of the love of self, which is opposite to the dominion of love towards the neighbour, began when man alienated himself from the lord; for in proportion as a man does not love and worship the lord, in that proportion he loves and worships himself, and in that proportion also he loves the world. then it was that, from the necessity for self-preservation, clans consisting of families and households gathered themselves into one body, and established governments under various forms. for in proportion as that love increased, in the same proportion evils of every kind, as, enmity, envy, hatred, revenge, cruelty and deceit, increased with it, being directed against all who opposed that love; for from the proprium, in which those are who are in the love of self, nothing but evil springs, inasmuch as man's proprium is nothing but evil, and, as the proprium is evil, it is not receptive of good from heaven: therefore the love of self, when it is the reigning love, is the father of all such evils[ddd]; and that love is also of such a nature, that in proportion as it is left without restraint, it rushes on until at length each one who is of such a character wants to have dominion over all others in the whole globe, and wishes to possess all the goods of the others; nay, it is not even content with this, but would have dominion over the whole heaven; as may appear from the case of modern babylon. such then is the dominion of the love of self, from which the dominion of love towards the neighbour differs as much as heaven does from hell. but notwithstanding that the dominion of the love of self is such in societies, or in kingdoms and empires, there nevertheless exists even in these a dominion of love towards the neighbour among those who are wise from faith in and love to god, for these love the neighbour. that in the heavens also these dwell distinguished into clans, families, and households, although in societies together, but according to spiritual affinities which have relation to the good of love and the truth of faith, will, by the lord's divine mercy, be stated elsewhere. [footnote ddd: man's proprium, which he derives from his parents, is nothing but dense evil, nos. , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , . man's proprium consists in loving himself more than god, and the world more than heaven, and in holding his neighbour of no account in respect to himself, except it be for the sake of himself, consequently [in making much of] himself; thus it consists of the love of self and of the world, nos. , , , . all evils flow from the love of self and of the world, when these predominate, nos. , , , , , , , , , , , , , . these evils are contempt of others, enmity, hatred, revenge, cruelty, deceit, nos. , - , , , . and from these evils all falsity flows, nos. , , , .] . i afterwards questioned those spirits concerning various things in the earth from which they were; and first, concerning their divine worship, and concerning revelation. concerning the divine worship, they said that clans, with their families, meet together every thirtieth day, in one place, and hear preaching; and that on these occasions the preacher, from a pulpit raised a little from the ground, teaches them the divine truths which lead to the good of life. concerning revelation, they said that it is made early in the morning in a state midway between sleeping and wakefulness, when they are in an interior light not as yet interfered with by the bodily senses and worldly things; that on such occasions they hear the angels of heaven speaking concerning divine truths, and a life according to them; and that when they are quite awake, an angel in a white garment appears to them by the bed, and then suddenly disappears from their sight; and that by this they know that what they have heard is from heaven. thus a divine vision is distinguished from a vision which is not divine; for in a vision which is not divine no angel appears. they added, that in such a manner revelations are made with their preachers, and sometimes also with others. . on questioning them concerning their houses, they said that they are lowly, built of wood, with a flat roof, having a cornice sloping downwards; and that in front dwell the husband and wife, in the next chamber the children, and the maid-servants and men-servants at the back. with regard to food, they said that they drink milk with water; and that they get the milk from cows, which are woolly like sheep. concerning their [mode of] life, they said that they go naked, and that to them nakedness is not a matter of shame; also that their habitual association is with those who are within their own families. . concerning the sun of that earth, they related that it appears to the inhabitants of a flame-colour; that the time of their year is two hundred days, and that a day equals nine hours of our time, which they could conclude from the length of the days of our earth perceived in me; and further, that they have a perpetual spring and summer, and consequently that the fields are ever blooming, and the trees are ever bearing fruit: the reason why the case is thus is, that their year is so short, being equal to the time of only seventy-five days of our year; and when the years are so short, the cold does not continue long in winter nor the heat in summer, and the ground in consequence is in a continual state of verdancy. . concerning betrothals and marriages on that earth, they related that a daughter, when she approaches a marriageable age, is kept at home, nor is she allowed to go out till the day she is to be married; and that she is then conducted to a certain connubial house, where several other marriageable young women are also brought; that they are there placed behind a screen, which reaches as high as the middle of the body, so that they appear naked as to the breast and face; that on such occasions the young men come there to choose for themselves a wife; and that when a young man sees a young woman suitable for him, and to whom his mind (_animus_) draws him, he takes her by the hand. if she then follows him, he leads her to a house that has been prepared, and she becomes his wife. for they see from the faces whether they agree in disposition (_animus_), since on that earth every one's face is an index of the disposition (_animus_), and disguises and counterfeits nothing. in order that everything may be done with decency and without lasciviousness, an old man is seated behind the young virgins, and an elderly woman at their side, to watch. there are many such places to which the young women are conducted; and there are also stated times for the young men to make their choice; for if they do not find a girl to suit them at one place, they go to another; and if not at one time, they return again at another. they said further, that a husband has only one wife, and never more than one, because this is contrary to divine order. index of subjects. _the numbers refer to the paragraph, not to the pages. the footnotes are referred to as part of the text._ act. see endeavour. adoration. see under worship. affections, angels enter into man's, ; manifested by the countenance, ; how spiritual affection becomes natural affection, ; affection of thought, . agreement of life conjoins, [ ]. analytical science, [ ]. angel. see under spirits. difference between celestial and spiritual angels, [ ]. animals, instinct of, ; how man becomes like a brute animal, [ ]. animus. see mind. anxiety arises from collision of spheres, . apparition of a flame, ; of a face, ; of an old man, ; of a bald head, . appearance of spirits and angels on our earth, ; why it no longer takes place, . architecture, . aristotle, [ ]. athanasian creed quoted, [ ]. atmosphere of the moon, . babylon, modern, [ ]. bald head, apparition of, . betrothals, . birds, signification of, , [ ]; instinct of, ; bird of stone, - . blue, correspondence of, . body (the) is only of use in this world, ; soul and body, [ ]. brute animal, how man becomes like, [ ]. butterflies, [ ]. caterpillars, [ ]. celestial and spiritual kingdom and angels, [ ]. cerebrum and cerebellum, . changes of colours, [ ]; of state, , , . chariots, signification of, . chasms, , . chastising spirits, - . chimney-sweepers, . choirs, [ ]. church, difference between celestial and spiritual, . clouds, , . cold, , . colours, signification of, [ ]. comforter, [ ]. communication, mutual, of all things in heaven, , , ; of men with spirits, ; with heaven, how and when closed, ; with heaven, on mars, ; communications are effected by subjects, [ ]. conceit, of spirits of mercury, , ; impairs perception, [ ]. conjugial (the), . conjunction with the lord, how effected, , ; of natural things and heavenly things, . consociations are effected according to spheres, ; with angels, conditions of, . correspondence of heaven and the lord, and of man and heaven, , . counterfeiting, its effect on the face, . creation, the end of, is man, , . crystals, . dancer, [ ]. danger of intercourse with spirits, . devil, . disagreement of life disjoins, [ ]. dissociations are effected according to spheres, . distances in their origin are changes of state, ; in the other life are real appearances, ; how circumstanced, , ; distance results from unlikeness of state, . divine truth appears in heaven as light, , ; all things were created through the divine truth, . divine truth proceeding from the lord is the word, . divine worship. see under worship. doctrine, all, from the word, . dominion of good over evil, . the two kinds of dominion, . dress, its use and abuse, [ ]. dwarfs, [ ]. eagles, . earth (our), ignorance on, , [ ]; character of spirits of, , , , , , , , ; the spirits of, in the grand man, relate to the various functions of the exterior parts of the body, ; to the external sense, ; to natural and corporeal sense, [ ]; to natural and external sense, ; to external sense, thus to the corporeal sensual, ; corporeal things loved on, . earths in the universe, , , , ; not visible in the other life, ; spirits are near their own earth, , , , ; where there is an earth, there is man, ; earths are only apparently distant in the other world, . see also planets. elijah, . emissary spirits, [ ]. empires, origin of, [ ], [ ], [ ]. endeavour and act, [ ]. ensiform cartilage, [ ]. esse and existere, [ ]. european spirits, [ ]. eustachian tube, . evil shows up good, ; every man born into evil, ; evils all flow from the love of self, [ ]. externals (the) of life are kept closed after death, and the internals of life are opened, . eye, its correspondence, . faces, on jupiter, ; effect of counterfeiting on the face, ; how changed in course of time, [ ], ; apparition of a face, ; when it acts in unity with the thought, ; in ancient times the face received influx from the cerebellum, . faith, no, with mere professors, ; compelled faith does not inhere, . falsity, all, flows from evil, [ ]. see also truths. fear can be excited in anyone by evil spirits, . fire, its signification in the word, [ ]; infernal fire, [ ]; the fiery [sphere] around the lord in the spiritual sun, [ ]. flame, apparition of a, ; signification of, [ ]; flaming object, ; flaming radiance, . food should be prepared with a view to use, . genius of men, how known, . gentiles in the other life, . giants on venus, . glorification by choirs, [ ]. god cannot be comprehended except under the human form, ; uncomprehended, cannot be believed in, ; under the human form is the lord, . golden age, . good is known from evil, . goodness of disposition, how manifested, . governing spirits of jupiter, , . governments unknown on other earths, ; origin of, [ ], [ ], [ ]. grand man, constitution of, . guards, . gulfs, . hand, signification of, [ ]. happiness of the angels is from mutual communication of their goods, . harlots on other earths, . heat signifies love, ; does not arise from nearness to the sun, . the heat and light from the spiritual sun, [ ]. heaven corresponds to the lord, ; before the lord it is a man in a large effigy, called the grand man, ; its immensity, , ; resembles one man, ; how it became removed from man, [ ]; is the end of creation, , ; is distinguished into two kingdoms, [ ]. horses, signification of, , . the "white horse," , . human. how the lord made his human divine, [ ]. human form (the) is the form of the divine, , ; of heaven, ; of every angel and spirit, , . adoration of god under the human form, . human race (the) is from numberless earths, ; is the seminary of heaven, , . humiliation of spirits of mercury, ; of spirits of mars, [ ]. hypocrisy is not allowed in the other life, [ ]. ideas, material, ; angelic, ; spiritual, [ ]; are open in the other life, [ ]; importance of the idea concerning god, [ ]. idolaters, . imaginative [part or faculty] of thought, . immensity of heaven, , . infestation by spirits, [ ]. influx manifests quality, ; is spiritual, [ ]. instinct, . instructing spirits of jupiter, - . instrumental and principal, [ ]. intellect (the) is according to the reception of light, . internals. see under externals. jesuits, [ ]. jupiter (the planet), - . population and fertility, . goodness and wisdom of the inhabitants, , ; their care of their faces, , ; their manner of walking, ; their nakedness, ; their position in bed, ; their repasts, ; their divine worship, - ; representation of spirits and angels in the grand man, ; their perception, ; intercourse between inhabitants and spirits, - ; chastising and instructing spirits, - ; angels of their interior heaven, and their different kinds of speech, ; how their spirits become angels, , ; how they die, ; their age, [ ]. keenness of vision, . kingdoms, origin of, [ ], [ ], [ ]; celestial and spiritual, [ ]. knee, . knowledges have respect to uses, ; are only instrumental means, ; their communication among spirits of mercury, . lambs, signification of, , . lamps, signification of, . last judgment, , [ ]. learned in the other life, [ ], , . life, the, follows every one after death, , ; man can be let into former state of life, [ ]; life itself is actually derived from love, [ ]; those only have spiritual life who are in heavenly love, ; state of life, . light signifies wisdom, ; in heaven, , ; the light of this world is darkness to spirits, [ ]; the light of heaven enlightens the understanding of angels, , but is darkness to man, [ ]; light in the celestial and spiritual kingdoms, [ ]; the light from the spiritual sun is the divine truth, . likeness of life conjoins, [ ]. lips, speech by the, , . logicians, [ ]. longitudinal sinus, [ ]. lord (the) is the sun of heaven, , ; is the only god, , ; seen in the midst of the sun by spirits of mercury, of our earth, and of jupiter, , ; by spirits of mars, ; seen under an angelic form by spirits of saturn, . love is the fire of life, [ ]; a love contains in itself all power of knowing, ; parental love grows in descending, ; celestial and spiritual love, [ ]; conjugial love, ; love to god and towards the neighbour is man's peculiar love, [ ]; what these loves consist in, [ ]; love of self, its nature, [ ]; love of self and love of the world necessitated the formation of governments, . man as to his essence is a spirit, [ ], . a man whose interiors are opened by the lord, can speak with spirits, [ ]; man as to his interiors is in the midst of spirits and angels, ; cannot see anything in the other life, [ ]; corresponds to heaven, , ; does not rise as to his body, [ ]; man after death becomes a spirit, , , ; after death is in the human form as before, ; after death has the memory of all his concerns in the world, ; how distinguished from beasts, [ ]; is not born into his peculiar loves, [ ]; is the end of creation, , ; was born for heaven, ; was created to live in both worlds, [ ]; the natural and spiritual man, . marriages, . mars (the planet). the spirits are the best of all, ; speech and character, ; representation in the grand man, ; life, ; divine worship, ; humiliation, ; body, clothing, and nourishment, . material things drag the mind downwards, . medium between the intellectual and the voluntary, . membrane, inner, of the skull, [ ]. memory, of spirits of mercury, , , , ; of spirits of venus, ; spirits enter into man's, , ; of spirits, , ; is permanent after death, , . mercury (the planet). representation in the grand man, ; desire for knowledges, ; conceit, , ; deficiency in judgment, ; knowledges alone loved, apart from uses, , , , ; instantaneous judgment ; rapid speech, , ; permitted to wander through the universe , , , , ; perfection of memory, ; instruction of inhabitants by spirits, ; perception, ; body and clothing, ; apparent size of the sun, ; temperature of the earth, . merit belongs to the lord alone, [ ]. metaphysicians, [ ]. middle sense between the spiritual and the natural man, . mind (_animus_). all things belonging to the mind are exhibited under some natural form in the body, . mind (the) (_mens_) comports itself according to the interior state of the body, [ ]. miracle of miracles, [ ]. monks, , , . moons, [ ], , , . most ancient church was a celestial church, . most ancient people, ; spoke by the face and lips, [ ], [ ]. most ancient times, [ ]. motions in the other life, . nakedness is no shame to those who are chaste, , . natural light gives no information on spiritual subjects, . natural man, his character, [ , ]. natural and external sense is the ultimate, . navigation, . old man, apparition of, . opposites, their use, . pallas, [ ]. papers, printed, . perception, of spirits of mercury, ; is impaired by conceit, [ ]; perception of good from evil, ; is lost in the christian world, [ ]; is rare on our earth, [ ]. philosophy, [ ]. planets are inhabited, ; their situation in the other life, , ; do not appear to any spirit, . plurality of worlds, . preacher, , , , . presence in the other life results from likeness of state, . prey, delight of eating, . principal and instrumental, [ ]. printing, art of, ; was for the sake of the word, - , , ; unknown on other earths, ; printed papers seen, . proceeding (divine), . progressions in the other life, , [ ]. proprium is nothing but evil, , [ ]. punishing spirit, . punishments inflicted by spirits, , . quality of spirits manifested by influx, . regeneration, [ ]. representation of objects in the other life, . respiration, spirits and angels have, [ ]; of spirits of mars, [ ]. resurrection of man, [ ]; of the lord, [ ]; belief concerning, . revelation on jupiter, ; on this earth and on others, - , , , . riches, use and abuse of, [ ]. right (the) in the other life is towards the south, . righteousness belongs to the lord alone, [ ]. ring of saturn, [ ], , . saints on jupiter, . satellites, [ ], , , . saturn (the planet). character of the spirits, ; worship, ; representation in the grand man, ; manners and customs, ; ring or belt, [ ], , . sciences are not known on jupiter, ; are cultivated on our earth only, ; on our earth are means of opening the intellectual sight, [ ], and also of closing it, ; are spiritual riches, [ ]; analytical science, [ ]. schoolmen, [ ], . seminal vesicles, . sense, natural and external, ; the internal sense without an external would be like a house without a foundation, . sensual, [ ], ; represented by serpents, . separate. see under society. serpents, . sight, opening of spiritual, is effected by removal of bodily, [ ]; keenness of sight, . sincerity prevailed in the most ancient times, [ ]. sinus, longitudinal, . society, living in, and living separate, , , , ; an angelic society, [ ]. sorceresses, , . soul is the spirit of man, and is the man himself, and in the human form, ; soul and body, [ ]. spaces and distances, origin of, ; space and time, [ ]. speech, verbal, is material, , ; of spirits, ; by the lips, , ; angelic, [ ]; of most ancient people, , ; of angels of jupiter, ; of spirits of mars, , [ ]. spheres, , ; collision of spheres produces anxiety, . spirit (the) of man is the man himself, and in the human form, . spirits and angels are all from the human race, , ; the spirits with man possess all things of his memory, ; spirits are near their own earth, , , , ; spirits of one earth are separated from those of another, ; their character determined by their previous life, ; are distinguished by their situation relatively to the human body, ; spirits and angels do not see the things in this world, [ ], [ ], but can see them through a man specially prepared, [ ]; are all in the human form, ; intercourse with, in ancient times, [ ], ; danger of intercourse with spirits at the present day, ; spirits of our earth, see under earth. spiritual man inflows in to the natural, [ ]. spiritual sense, . spleen, . spring, perpetual, . stars are suns, , ; signification of, , [ ]. state, diversity of, causes separation, ; the state of life, what, . striated, [ ]. subjects, [ ]. sun (the) in the word signifies the lord as to the divine love, . sun of heaven (the) is the lord, ; only appears to the angels, [ ]. sun of this world (the) is not seen in the other life, , , . swedenborg's peculiar state, , , , [ ], , . systems, , . taste (the). consequence of its ruling in the body, [ ]. temples, , . thought is made manifest after death, ; how manifested in the face, ; the thought flows from the affection, and as it were in it, ; thought and speech ought to be one, ; effects of thinking from the sensuals of the body, . thunder, . time and space, [ ]. translation as to the spirit to distant places, , [ ], , , . travelling, . trees, temples of, . trinity, , . truth. see divine truth. truths and falsities represented by stars, , [ ]. types. see printing. unbelief, modern, . understanding (the) is the internal sight, . understanding and will, [ ]. universe, earths in, , , , . unlikeness of life disjoins, [ ]. uses ought to be the ends of knowledges, . venus (the planet). two kinds of men, , - ; representation of, in the grand man, , . vesicles, seminal, . visions, . wisdom of the angels is from the mutual communication of their goods, ; is always growing with angels, ; the first step towards wisdom, ; wisdom on jupiter, . wolf, . word on our earth, why printed, , - , . worship, not possible without an idea, ; remains implanted in man's interior life, ; divine worship on other earths, , , ; on jupiter, - ; on mars, ; on saturn, ; on venus, ; on the first earth, ; on our earth, , ; on the third earth, , ; on the fourth earth, ; on the fifth earth, ; adoration of god under the human form, . writing has existed on our earth from the most ancient times, . xiphoid cartilage, [ ]. index of scripture references. samuel nos. xxx. , matthew v. , [ ] xxiv. , [ ] xxviii. , , [ ] mark xiii. , [ ] luke xxi. , [ ] xxiv. , [ ] john i. - , , , v. , x. , xiv. , - , [transcriber's note: obvious printer's errors have been corrected, all other inconsistencies are as in the original. the author's spelling has been maintained. some printed caracters could not be reproduce in this file and have been described [tn: description].] the temple of nature; or, the origin of society. t. bensley, printer, bolt court, fleet street, london. the temple of nature; or, the origin of society: a poem, with philosophical notes. by erasmus darwin, m.d. f.r.s. author of the botanic garden, of zoonomia, and of phytologia. unde hominum pecudumque genus, vitæque volantum, et quæ marmoreo fert monstra sub æquore pontus? igneus est illis vigor, & cælestis origo. virg. Æn. vi. . london: printed for j. johnson, st. paul's churchyard, by t. bensley, bolt court, fleet street. . preface. the poem, which is here offered to the public, does not pretend to instruct by deep researches of reasoning; its aim is simply to amuse by bringing distinctly to the imagination the beautiful and sublime images of the operations of nature in the order, as the author believes, in which the progressive course of time presented them. the deities of egypt, and afterwards of greece, and rome, were derived from men famous in those early times, as in the ages of hunting, pasturage, and agriculture. the histories of some of their actions recorded in scripture, or celebrated in the heathen mythology, are introduced, as the author hopes, without impropriety into his account of those remote periods of human society. in the eleusinian mysteries the philosophy of the works of nature, with the origin and progress of society, are believed to have been taught by allegoric scenery explained by the hierophant to the initiated, which gave rise to the machinery of the following poem. priory near derby, jan. , . origin of society. canto i. production of life. contents. i. subject proposed. life, love, and sympathy . four past ages, a fifth beginning . invocation to love . ii. bowers of eden, adam and eve . temple of nature . time chained by sculpture . proteus bound by menelaus . bowers of pleasure . school of venus . court of pain . den of oblivion . muse of melancholy . cave of trophonius . shrine of nature . eleusinian mysteries . iii. morning . procession of virgins . address to the priestess . descent of orpheus into hell . iv. urania . god the first cause . life began beneath the sea . repulsion, attraction, contraction, life . spontaneous production of minute animals . irritation, appetency . life enlarges the earth . sensation, volition, association . scene in the microscope; mucor, monas, vibrio, vorticella, proteus, mite . v. vegetables and animals improve by reproduction . have all arisen from microscopic animalcules . rocks of shell and coral . islands and continents raised by earthquakes . emigration of animals from the sea . trapa . tadpole, musquito . diodon, lizard, beaver, lamprey, remora, whale . venus rising from the sea, emblem of organic nature . all animals are first aquatic . fetus in the womb . animals from the mud of the nile . the hierophant and muse - . canto i. production of life. i. by firm immutable immortal laws impress'd on nature by the great first cause, say, muse! how rose from elemental strife organic forms, and kindled into life; how love and sympathy with potent charm warm the cold heart, the lifted hand disarm; allure with pleasures, and alarm with pains, and bind society in golden chains. four past eventful ages then recite, and give the fifth, new-born of time, to light; the silken tissue of their joys disclose, swell with deep chords the murmur of their woes; their laws, their labours, and their loves proclaim, and chant their virtues to the trump of fame. immortal love! who ere the morn of time, on wings outstretch'd, o'er chaos hung sublime; warm'd into life the bursting egg of night, and gave young nature to admiring light!-- you! whose wide arms, in soft embraces hurl'd round the vast frame, connect the whirling world! whether immers'd in day, the sun your throne, you gird the planets in your silver zone; or warm, descending on ethereal wing, the earth's cold bosom with the beams of spring; press drop to drop, to atom atom bind, link sex to sex, or rivet mind to mind; attend my song!--with rosy lips rehearse, and with your polish'd arrows write my verse!-- so shall my lines soft-rolling eyes engage, and snow-white fingers turn the volant page; the smiles of beauty all my toils repay, and youths and virgins chant the living lay. ii. where eden's sacred bowers triumphant sprung, by angels guarded, and by prophets sung, wav'd o'er the east in purple pride unfurl'd, and rock'd the golden cradle of the world; four sparkling currents lav'd with wandering tides their velvet avenues, and flowery sides; on sun-bright lawns unclad the graces stray'd, and guiltless cupids haunted every glade; till the fair bride, forbidden shades among, heard unalarm'd the tempter's serpent-tongue; eyed the sweet fruit, the mandate disobey'd, and her fond lord with sweeter smiles betray'd. conscious awhile with throbbing heart he strove, spread his wide arms, and barter'd life for love!-- now rocks on rocks, in savage grandeur roll'd, steep above steep, the blasted plains infold; the incumbent crags eternal tempest shrouds, and livid light'nings cleave the lambent clouds; round the firm base loud-howling whirlwinds blow, and sands in burning eddies dance below. [footnote: _cradle of the world_, l. . the nations, which possess europe and a part of asia and of africa, appear to have descended from one family; and to have had their origin near the banks of the mediterranean, as probably in syria, the site of paradise, according to the mosaic history. this seems highly probable from the similarity of the structure of the languages of these nations, and from their early possession of similar religions, customs, and arts, as well as from the most ancient histories extant. the two former of these may be collected from lord monboddo's learned work on the origin of language, and from mr. bryant's curious account of ancient mythology. the use of iron tools, of the bow and arrow, of earthen vessels to boil water in, of wheels for carriages, and the arts of cultivating wheat, of coagulating milk for cheese, and of spinning vegetable fibres for clothing, have been known in all european countries, as long as their histories have existed; besides the similarity of the texture of their languages, and of many words in them; thus the word sack is said to mean a bag in all of them, as [greek: sakkon] in greek, saccus in latin, sacco in italian, sac in french, and sack in english and german. other families of mankind, nevertheless, appear to have arisen in other parts of the habitable earth, as the language of the chinese is said not to resemble those of this part of the world in any respect. and the inhabitants of the islands of the south-sea had neither the use of iron tools nor of the bow, nor of wheels, nor of spinning, nor had learned to coagulate milk, or to boil water, though the domestication of fire seems to have been the first great discovery that distinguished mankind from the bestial inhabitants of the forest.] hence ye profane!--the warring winds exclude unhallow'd throngs, that press with footstep rude; but court the muse's train with milder skies, and call with softer voice the good and wise. --charm'd at her touch the opening wall divides, and rocks of crystal form the polish'd sides; through the bright arch the loves and graces tread, innocuous thunders murmuring o'er their head; pair after pair, and tittering, as they pass, view their fair features in the walls of glass; leave with impatient step the circling bourn, and hear behind the closing rocks return. here, high in air, unconscious of the storm. thy temple, nature, rears it's mystic form; from earth to heav'n, unwrought by mortal toil, towers the vast fabric on the desert soil; o'er many a league the ponderous domes extend. and deep in earth the ribbed vaults descend; a thousand jasper steps with circling sweep lead the slow votary up the winding steep; ten thousand piers, now join'd and now aloof, bear on their branching arms the fretted roof. unnumber'd ailes connect unnumber'd halls, and sacred symbols crowd the pictur'd walls; with pencil rude forgotten days design, and arts, or empires, live in every line. while chain'd reluctant on the marble ground, indignant time reclines, by sculpture bound; and sternly bending o'er a scroll unroll'd, inscribes the future with his style of gold. --so erst, when proteus on the briny shore, new forms assum'd of eagle, pard, or boar; the wise atrides bound in sea-weed thongs the changeful god amid his scaly throngs; till in deep tones his opening lips at last reluctant told the future and the past. [footnote: _pictur'd walls_, l. . the application of mankind, in the early ages of society, to the imitative arts of painting, carving, statuary, and the casting of figures in metals, seems to have preceded the discovery of letters; and to have been used as a written language to convey intelligence to their distant friends, or to transmit to posterity the history of themselves, or of their discoveries. hence the origin of the hieroglyphic figures which crowded the walls of the temples of antiquity; many of which may be seen in the tablet of isis in the works of montfaucon; and some of them are still used in the sciences of chemistry and astronomy, as the characters for the metals and planets, and the figures of animals on the celestial globe.] [footnote: _so erst, when proteus_, l. . it seems probable that proteus was the name of a hieroglyphic figure representing time; whose form was perpetually changing, and who could discover the past events of the world, and predict the future. herodotus does not doubt but that proteus was an egyptian king or deity; and orpheus calls him the principle of all things, and the most ancient of the gods; and adds, that he keeps the keys of nature, _danet's dict._, all which might well accord with a figure representing time.] here o'er piazza'd courts, and long arcades, the bowers of pleasure root their waving shades; shed o'er the pansied moss a checker'd gloom, bend with new fruits, with flow'rs successive bloom. pleas'd, their light limbs on beds of roses press'd, in slight undress recumbent beauties rest; on tiptoe steps surrounding graces move, and gay desires expand their wings above. here young dione arms her quiver'd loves, schools her bright nymphs, and practises her doves; calls round her laughing eyes in playful turns, the glance that lightens, and the smile that burns; her dimpling cheeks with transient blushes dies, heaves her white bosom with seductive sighs; or moulds with rosy lips the magic words, that bind the heart in adamantine cords. behind in twilight gloom with scowling mien the demon pain, convokes his court unseen; whips, fetters, flames, pourtray'd on sculptur'd stone, in dread festoons, adorn his ebon throne; each side a cohort of diseases stands, and shudd'ring fever leads the ghastly bands; o'er all despair expands his raven wings, and guilt-stain'd conscience darts a thousand stings. deep-whelm'd beneath, in vast sepulchral caves, oblivion dwells amid unlabell'd graves; the storied tomb, the laurell'd bust o'erturns, and shakes their ashes from the mould'ring urns.-- no vernal zephyr breathes, no sunbeams cheer, nor song, nor simper, ever enters here; o'er the green floor, and round the dew-damp wall, the slimy snail, and bloated lizard crawl; while on white heaps of intermingled bones the muse of melancholy sits and moans; showers her cold tears o'er beauty's early wreck, spreads her pale arms, and bends her marble neck. so in rude rocks, beside the Ægean wave, trophonius scoop'd his sorrow-sacred cave; unbarr'd to pilgrim feet the brazen door, and the sad sage returning smil'd no more. [footnote: _trophonius scoop'd_, l. . plutarch mentions, that prophecies of evil events were uttered from the cave of trophonius; but the allegorical story, that whoever entered this cavern were never again seen to smile, seems to have been designed to warn the contemplative from considering too much the dark side of nature. thus an ancient poet is said to have written a poem on the miseries of the world, and to have thence become so unhappy as to destroy himself. when we reflect on the perpetual destruction of organic life, we should also recollect, that it is perpetually renewed in other forms by the same materials, and thus the sum total of the happiness of the world continues undiminished; and that a philosopher may thus smile again on turning his eyes from the coffins of nature to her cradles.] shrin'd in the midst majestic nature stands, extends o'er earth and sea her hundred hands; tower upon tower her beamy forehead crests, and births unnumber'd milk her hundred breasts; drawn round her brows a lucid veil depends, o'er her fine waist the purfled woof descends; her stately limbs the gather'd folds surround, and spread their golden selvage on the ground. [footnote: _fam'd eleusis stole_, l. . the eleusinian mysteries were invented in egypt, and afterwards transferred into greece along with most of the other early arts and religions of europe. they seem to have consisted of scenical representations of the philosophy and religion of those times, which had previously been painted in hieroglyphic figures to perpetuate them before the discovery of letters; and are well explained in dr. warburton's divine legation of moses; who believes with great probability, that virgil in the sixth book of the Æneid has described a part of these mysteries in his account of the elysian fields. in the first part of this scenery was represented death, and the destruction of all things; as mentioned in the note on the portland vase in the botanic garden. next the marriage of cupid and psyche seems to have shown the reproduction of living nature; and afterwards the procession of torches, which is said to have constituted a part of the mysteries, probably signified the return of light, and the resuscitation of all things. lastly, the histories of illustrious persons of the early ages seem to have been enacted; who were first represented by hieroglyphic figures, and afterwards became the gods and goddesses of egypt, greece, and rome. might not such a dignified pantomime be contrived, even in this age, as might strike the spectators with awe, and at the same time explain many philosophical truths by adapted imagery, and thus both amuse and instruct?] from this first altar fam'd eleusis stole her secret symbols and her mystic scroll; with pious fraud in after ages rear'd her gorgeous temple, and the gods rever'd. --first in dim pomp before the astonish'd throng, silence, and night, and chaos, stalk'd along; dread scenes of death, in nodding sables dress'd, froze the broad eye, and thrill'd the unbreathing breast. then the young spring, with winged zephyr, leads the queen of beauty to the blossom'd meads; charm'd in her train admiring hymen moves, and tiptoe graces hand in hand with loves. next, while on pausing step the masked mimes enact the triumphs of forgotten times, conceal from vulgar throngs the mystic truth, or charm with wisdom's lore the initiate youth; each shifting scene, some patriot hero trod, some sainted beauty, or some saviour god. iii. now rose in purple pomp the breezy dawn, and crimson dew-drops trembled on the lawn; blaz'd high in air the temple's golden vanes, and dancing shadows veer'd upon the plains.-- long trains of virgins from the sacred grove, pair after pair, in bright procession move, with flower-fill'd baskets round the altar throng, or swing their censers, as they wind along. the fair urania leads the blushing bands, presents their offerings with unsullied hands; pleas'd to their dazzled eyes in part unshrouds the goddess-form;--the rest is hid in clouds. "priestess of nature! while with pious awe thy votary bends, the mystic veil withdraw; charm after charm, succession bright, display, and give the goddess to adoring day! so kneeling realms shall own the power divine, and heaven and earth pour incense on her shrine. "oh grant the muse with pausing step to press each sun-bright avenue, and green recess; led by thy hand survey the trophied walls, the statued galleries, and the pictur'd halls; scan the proud pyramid, and arch sublime, earth-canker'd urn, medallion green with time, stern busts of gods, with helmed heroes mix'd, and beauty's radiant forms, that smile betwixt. [footnote: _the statued galleries_, l. . the art of painting has appeared in the early state of all societies before the invention of the alphabet. thus when the spanish adventurers, under cortez, invaded america, intelligence of their debarkation and movements was daily transmitted to montezuma, by drawings, which corresponded with the egyptian hieroglyphics. the antiquity of statuary appears from the memnon and sphinxes of egypt; that of casting figures in metals from the golden calf of aaron; and that of carving in wood from the idols or household gods, which rachel stole from her father laban, and hid beneath her garments as she sat upon the straw. gen. c. xxxi. v. .] "waked by thy voice, transmuted by thy wand, their lips shall open, and their arms expand; the love-lost lady, and the warrior slain, leap from their tombs, and sigh or fight again. --so when ill-fated orpheus tuned to woe his potent lyre, and sought the realms below; charm'd into life unreal forms respir'd, and list'ning shades the dulcet notes admir'd.-- "love led the sage through death's tremendous porch, cheer'd with his smile, and lighted with his torch;-- hell's triple dog his playful jaws expands, fawns round the god, and licks his baby hands; in wondering groups the shadowy nations throng, and sigh or simper, as he steps along; sad swains, and nymphs forlorn, on lethe's brink, hug their past sorrows, and refuse to drink; night's dazzled empress feels the golden flame play round her breast, and melt her frozen frame; charms with soft words, and sooths with amorous wiles, her iron-hearted lord,--and pluto smiles.-- his trembling bride the bard triumphant led from the pale mansions of the astonish'd dead; gave the fair phantom to admiring light,-- ah, soon again to tread irremeable night!" [footnote: _love led the sage_, l. . this description is taken from the figures on the barbarini, or portland vase, where eros, or divine love, with his torch precedes the manes through the gates of death, and reverting his smiling countenance invites him into the elysian fields.] [footnote: _fawns round the god_, l. . this idea is copied from a painting of the descent of orpheus, by a celebrated parisian artist.] iv. her snow-white arm, indulgent to my song, waves the fair hierophant, and moves along.-- high plumes, that bending shade her amber hair, nod, as she steps, their silver leaves in air; bright chains of pearl, with golden buckles brac'd, clasp her white neck, and zone her slender waist; thin folds of silk in soft meanders wind down her fine form, and undulate behind; the purple border, on the pavement roll'd, swells in the gale, and spreads its fringe of gold. "first, if you can, celestial guide! disclose from what fair fountain mortal life arose, whence the fine nerve to move and feel assign'd, contractile fibre, and ethereal mind: "how love and sympathy the bosom warm, allure with pleasure, and with pain alarm, with soft affections weave the social plan, and charm the listening savage into man." "god the first cause!--in this terrene abode young nature lisps, she is the child of god. from embryon births her changeful forms improve, grow, as they live, and strengthen as they move. [footnote: _god the first cause_, l. . a jove principium, musæ! jovis omnia plena. virgil. in him we live, and move, and have our being. st. paul.] [footnote: _young nature lisps_, l. . the perpetual production and increase of the strata of limestone from the shells of aquatic animals; and of all those incumbent on them from the recrements of vegetables and of terrestrial animals, are now well understood from our improved knowledge of geology; and show, that the solid parts of the globe are gradually enlarging, and consequently that it is young; as the fluid parts are not yet all converted into solid ones. add to this, that some parts of the earth and its inhabitants appear younger than others; thus the greater height of the mountains of america seems to show that continent to be less ancient than europe, asia, and africa; as their summits have been less washed away, and the wild animals of america, as the tigers and crocodiles, are said to be less perfect in respect to their size and strength; which would show them to be still in a state of infancy, or of progressive improvement. lastly, the progress of mankind in arts and sciences, which continues slowly to extend, and to increase, seems to evince the youth of human society; whilst the unchanging state of the societies of some insects, as of the bee, wasp, and ant, which is usually ascribed to instinct, seems to evince the longer existence, and greater maturity of those societies. the juvenility of the earth shows, that it has had a beginning or birth, and is a strong natural argument evincing the existence of a cause of its production, that is of the deity.] "ere time began, from flaming chaos hurl'd rose the bright spheres, which form the circling world; earths from each sun with quick explosions burst, and second planets issued from the first. then, whilst the sea at their coeval birth, surge over surge, involv'd the shoreless earth; nurs'd by warm sun-beams in primeval caves organic life began beneath the waves. [footnote: _earths from each sun_, l. . see botan. garden, vol. i. cant. i. l. .] "first heat from chemic dissolution springs, and gives to matter its eccentric wings; with strong repulsion parts the exploding mass, melts into lymph, or kindles into gas. attraction next, as earth or air subsides, the ponderous atoms from the light divides, approaching parts with quick embrace combines, swells into spheres, and lengthens into lines. last, as fine goads the gluten-threads excite, cords grapple cords, and webs with webs unite; and quick contraction with ethereal flame lights into life the fibre-woven frame.-- hence without parent by spontaneous birth rise the first specks of animated earth; from nature's womb the plant or insect swims, and buds or breathes, with microscopic limbs. [footnote: _first heat from chemic_, l. . the matter of heat is an ethereal fluid, in which all things are immersed, and which constitutes the general power of repulsion; as appears in explosions which are produced by the sudden evolution of combined heat, and by the expansion of all bodies by the slower diffusion of it in its uncombined state. without heat all the matter of the world would be condensed into a point by the power of attraction; and neither fluidity nor life could exist. there are also particular powers of repulsion, as those of magnetism and electricity, and of chemistry, such as oil and water; which last may be as numerous as the particular attractions which constitute chemical affinities; and may both of them exist as atmospheres round the individual particles of matter; see botanic garden, vol. i. additional note vii. on elementary heat.] [footnote: _attraction next_, l. . the power of attraction may be divided into general attraction, which is called gravity; and into particular attraction, which is termed chemical affinity. as nothing can act where it does not exist, the power of gravity must be conceived as extending from the sun to the planets, occupying that immense space; and may therefore be considered as an ethereal fluid, though not cognizable by our senses like heat, light, and electricity. particular attraction, or chemical affinity, must likewise occupy the spaces between the particles of matter which they cause to approach each other. the power of gravity may therefore be called the general attractive ether, and the matter of heat may be called the general repulsive ether; which constitute the two great agents in the changes of inanimate matter.] [footnote: _and quick contraction_, l. . the power of contraction, which exists in organized bodies, and distinguishes life from inanimation, appears to consist of an ethereal fluid which resides in the brain and nerves of living bodies, and is expended in the act of shortening their fibres. the attractive and repulsive ethers require only the vicinity of bodies for the exertion of their activity, but the contractive ether requires at first the contact of a goad or stimulus, which appears to draw it off from the contracting fibre, and to excite the sensorial power of irritation. these contractions of animal fibres are afterwards excited or repeated by the sensorial powers of sensation, volition, or association, as explained at large in zoonomia, vol. i. there seems nothing more wonderful in the ether of contraction producing the shortening of a fibre, than in the ether of attraction causing two bodies to approach each other. the former indeed seems in some measure to resemble the latter, as it probably occasions the minute particles of the fibre to approach into absolute or adhesive contact, by withdrawing from them their repulsive atmospheres; whereas the latter seems only to cause particles of matter to approach into what is popularly called contact, like the particles of fluids; but which are only in the vicinity of each other, and still retain their repulsive atmospheres, as may be seen in riding through shallow water by the number of minute globules of it thrown up by the horses feet, which roll far on its surface; and by the difficulty with which small globules of mercury poured on the surface of a quantity of it can be made to unite with it.] [footnote: _spontaneous birth_, l. . see additional note, no. i.] "in earth, sea, air, around, below, above, life's subtle woof in nature's loom is wove; points glued to points a living line extends, touch'd by some goad approach the bending ends; rings join to rings, and irritated tubes clasp with young lips the nutrient globes or cubes; and urged by appetencies new select, imbibe, retain, digest, secrete, eject. in branching cones the living web expands, lymphatic ducts, and convoluted glands; aortal tubes propel the nascent blood, and lengthening veins absorb the refluent flood; leaves, lungs, and gills, the vital ether breathe on earth's green surface, or the waves beneath. so life's first powers arrest the winds and floods, to bones convert them, or to shells, or woods; stretch the vast beds of argil, lime, and sand, and from diminish'd oceans form the land! [footnote: _in branching cones_, l. . the whole branch of an artery or vein may be considered as a cone, though each distinct division of it is a cylinder. it is probable that the amount of the areas of all the small branches from one trunk may equal that of the trunk, otherwise the velocity of the blood would be greater in some parts than in others, which probably only exists when a part is compressed or inflamed.] [footnote: _absorb the refluent flood_, l. . the force of the arterial impulse appears to cease, after having propelled the blood through the capillary vessels; whence the venous circulation is owing to the extremities of the veins absorbing the blood, as those of the lymphatics absorb the fluids. the great force of absorption is well elucidated by dr. hales's experiment on the rise of the sap-juice in a vine-stump; see zoonomia, vol. i. sect. xxiii.] [footnote: _and from diminish'd oceans_, l. . the increase of the solid parts of the globe by the recrements of organic bodies, as limestone rocks from shells and bones, and the beds of clay, marl, coals, from decomposed woods, is now well known to those who have attended to modern geology; and dr. halley, and others, have endeavoured to show, with great probability, that the ocean has decreased in quantity during the short time which human history has existed. whence it appears, that the exertions of vegetable and animal life convert the fluid parts of the globe into solid ones; which is probably effected by combining the matter of heat with the other elements, instead of suffering it to remain simply diffused amongst them, which is a curious conjecture, and deserves further investigation.] "next the long nerves unite their silver train, and young sensation permeates the brain; through each new sense the keen emotions dart, flush the young cheek, and swell the throbbing heart. from pain and pleasure quick volitions rise, lift the strong arm, or point the inquiring eyes; with reason's light bewilder'd man direct, and right and wrong with balance nice detect. last in thick swarms associations spring, thoughts join to thoughts, to motions motions cling; whence in long trains of catenation flow imagined joy, and voluntary woe. [footnote: _and young sensation_, l. . both sensation and volition consist in an affection of the central part of the sensorium, or of the whole of it; and hence cannot exist till the nerves are united in the brain. the motions of a limb of any animal cut from the body, are therefore owing to irritation, not to sensation or to volition. for the definitions of irritation, sensation, volition, and association, see additional note ii.] "so, view'd through crystal spheres in drops saline, quick-shooting salts in chemic forms combine; or mucor-stems, a vegetative tribe, spread their fine roots, the tremulous wave imbibe. next to our wondering eyes the focus brings self-moving lines, and animated rings; first monas moves, an unconnected point, plays round the drop without a limb or joint; then vibrio waves, with capillary eels, and vorticella whirls her living wheels; while insect proteus sports with changeful form through the bright tide, a globe, a cube, a worm. last o'er the field the mite enormous swims, swells his red heart, and writhes his giant limbs. [footnote: _or mucor-stems_, l. . mucor or mould in its early state is properly a microscopic vegetable, and is spontaneously produced on the scum of all decomposing organic matter. the monas is a moving speck, the vibrio an undulating wire, the proteus perpetually changes its shape, and the vorticella has wheels about its mouth, with which it makes an eddy, and is supposed thus to draw into its throat invisible animalcules. these names are from linneus and muller; see appendix to additional note i.] v. "organic life beneath the shoreless waves was born and nurs'd in ocean's pearly caves; first forms minute, unseen by spheric glass, move on the mud, or pierce the watery mass; these, as successive generations bloom, new powers acquire, and larger limbs assume; whence countless groups of vegetation spring, and breathing realms of fin, and feet, and wing. [footnote: _beneath the shoreless waves_, l. . the earth was originally covered with water, as appears from some of its highest mountains, consisting of shells cemented together by a solution of part of them, as the limestone rocks of the alps; ferber's travels. it must be therefore concluded, that animal life began beneath the sea. nor is this unanalogous to what still occurs, as all quadrupeds and mankind in their embryon state are aquatic animals; and thus may be said to resemble gnats and frogs. the fetus in the uterus has an organ called the placenta, the fine extremities of the vessels of which permeate the arteries of the uterus, and the blood of the fetus becomes thus oxygenated from the passing stream of the maternal arterial blood; exactly as is done by the gills of fish from the stream of water, which they occasion to pass through them. but the chicken in the egg possesses a kind of aerial respiration, since the extremities of its placental vessels terminate on a membranous bag, which contains air, at the broad end of the egg; and in this the chick in the egg differs from the fetus in the womb, as there is in the egg no circulating maternal blood for the insertion of the extremities of its respiratory vessels, and in this also i suspect that the eggs of birds differ from the spawn of fish; which latter is immersed in water, and which has probably the extremities of its respiratory organ inserted into the soft membrane which covers it, and is in contact with the water.] [footnote: _first forms minute_, l. . see additional note i. on spontaneous vitality.] "thus the tall oak, the giant of the wood, which bears britannia's thunders on the flood; the whale, unmeasured monster of the main, the lordly lion, monarch of the plain, the eagle soaring in the realms of air, whose eye undazzled drinks the solar glare, imperious man, who rules the bestial crowd, of language, reason, and reflection proud, with brow erect who scorns this earthy sod, and styles himself the image of his god; arose from rudiments of form and sense, an embryon point, or microscopic ens! "now in vast shoals beneath the brineless tide, on earth's firm crust testaceous tribes reside; age after age expands the peopled plain, the tenants perish, but their cells remain; whence coral walls and sparry hills ascend from pole to pole, and round the line extend. [footnote: _an embryon point_, l. . the arguments showing that all vegetables and animals arose from such a small beginning, as a living point or living fibre, are detailed in zoonomia, sect. xxxix. . . on generation.] [footnote: _brineless tide_, l. . as the salt of the sea has been gradually accumulating, being washed down into it from the recrements of animal and vegetable bodies, the sea must originally have been as fresh as river water; and as it is not saturated with salt, must become annually saline. the sea-water about our island contains at this time from about one twenty-eighth to one thirtieth part of sea salt, and about one eightieth of magnesian salt; brownrigg on salt.] [footnote: _whence coral walls_, l. . an account of the structure of the earth is given in botanic garden, vol. i. additional notes, xvi. xviii. xix. xx. xxiii. xxiv.] "next when imprison'd fires in central caves burst the firm earth, and drank the headlong waves; and, as new airs with dread explosion swell, form'd lava-isles, and continents of shell; pil'd rocks on rocks, on mountains mountains raised, and high in heaven the first volcanoes blazed; in countless swarms an insect-myriad moves from sea-fan gardens, and from coral groves; leaves the cold caverns of the deep, and creeps on shelving shores, or climbs on rocky steeps. as in dry air the sea-born stranger roves, each muscle quickens, and each sense improves; cold gills aquatic form respiring lungs, and sounds aerial flow from slimy tongues. [footnote: _drunk the headlong waves_, l. . see additional note iii.] [footnote: _an insect-myriad moves_, l. . after islands or continents were raised above the primeval ocean, great numbers of the most simple animals would attempt to seek food at the edges or shores of the new land, and might thence gradually become amphibious; as is now seen in the frog, who changes from an aquatic animal to an amphibious one; and in the gnat, which changes from a natant to a volant state. at the same time new microscopic animalcules would immediately commence wherever there was warmth and moisture, and some organic matter, that might induce putridity. those situated on dry land, and immersed in dry air, may gradually acquire new powers to preserve their existence; and by innumerable successive reproductions for some thousands, or perhaps millions of ages, may at length have produced many of the vegetable and animal inhabitants which now people the earth. as innumerable shell-fish must have existed a long time beneath the ocean, before the calcareous mountains were produced and elevated; it is also probable, that many of the insect tribes, or less complicate animals, existed long before the quadrupeds or more complicate ones, which in some measure accords with the theory of linneus in respect to the vegetable world; who thinks, that all the plants now extant arose from the conjunction and reproduction of about sixty different vegetables, from which he constitutes his natural orders. as the blood of animals in the air becomes more oxygenated in their lungs, than that of animals in water by their gills; it becomes of a more scarlet colour, and from its greater stimulus the sensorium seems to produce quicker motions and finer sensations; and as water is a much better vehicle for vibrations or sounds than air, the fish, even when dying in pain, are mute in the atmosphere, though it is probable that in the water they may utter sounds to be heard at a considerable distance. see on this subject, botanic garden, vol. i. canto iv. l. , note.] "so trapa rooted in pellucid tides, in countless threads her breathing leaves divides, waves her bright tresses in the watery mass, and drinks with gelid gills the vital gas; then broader leaves in shadowy files advance, spread o'er the crystal flood their green expanse; and, as in air the adherent dew exhales, court the warm sun, and breathe ethereal gales. [footnote: _so trapa rooted_, l. . the lower leaves of this plant grow under water, and are divided into minute capillary ramifications; while the upper leaves are broad and round, and have air bladders in their footstalks to support them above the surface of the water. as the aerial leaves of vegetables do the office of lungs, by exposing a large surface of vessels with their contained fluids to the influence of the air; so these aquatic leaves answer a similar purpose like the gills of fish, and perhaps gain from water a similar material. as the material thus necessary to life seems to be more easily acquired from air than from water, the subaquatic leaves of this plant and of sisymbrium, oenanthe, ranunculus aquatilis, water crow-foot, and some others, are cut into fine divisions to increase the surface, whilst those above water are undivided; see botanic garden, vol. ii. canto iv. l. . note. few of the water plants of this country are used for economical purposes, but the ranunculus fluviatilis may be worth cultivation; as on the borders of the river avon, near ringwood, the cottagers cut this plant every morning in boats, almost all the year round, to feed their cows, which appear in good condition, and give a due quantity of milk; see a paper from dr. pultney in the transactions of the linnean society, vol. v.] "so still the tadpole cleaves the watery vale with balanc'd fins, and undulating tail; new lungs and limbs proclaim his second birth, breathe the dry air, and bound upon the earth. so from deep lakes the dread musquito springs, drinks the soft breeze, and dries his tender wings, in twinkling squadrons cuts his airy way, dips his red trunk in blood, and man his prey. [footnote: _so still the tadpole_, l. . the transformation of the tadpole from an aquatic animal into an aerial one is abundantly curious, when first it is hatched from the spawn by the warmth of the season, it resembles a fish; it afterwards puts forth legs, and resembles a lizard; and finally losing its tail, and acquiring lungs instead of gills, becomes an aerial quadruped. the rana temporaria of linneus lives in the water in spring, and on the land in summer, and catches flies. of the rana paradoxa the larva or tadpole is as large as the frog, and dwells in surinam, whence the mistake of merian and of seba, who call it a frog fish. the esculent frog is green, with three yellow lines from the mouth to the anus; the back transversely gibbous, the hinder feet palmated; its more frequent croaking in the evenings is said to foretell rain. linnei syst. nat. art. rana. linneus asserts in his introduction to the class amphibia, that frogs are so nearly allied to lizards, lizards to serpents, and serpents to fish, that the boundaries of these orders can scarcely be ascertained.] [footnote: _the dread musquito springs_, l. . see additional note iv.] "so still the diodons, amphibious tribe, with two-fold lungs the sea or air imbibe; allied to fish, the lizard cleaves the flood with one-cell'd heart, and dark frigescent blood; half-reasoning beavers long-unbreathing dart through erie's waves with perforated heart; with gills and lungs respiring lampreys steer, kiss the rude rocks, and suck till they adhere; the lazy remora's inhaling lips, hung on the keel, retard the struggling ships; with gills pulmonic breathes the enormous whale, and spouts aquatic columns to the gale; sports on the shining wave at noontide hours, and shifting rainbows crest the rising showers. [footnote: _so still the diodon_, l. . see additional note v.] [footnote: _at noontide hours_, l. . the rainbows in our latitude are only seen in the mornings or evenings, when the sun is not much more than forty-two degrees high. in the more northern latitudes, where the meridian sun is not more than forty-two degrees high, they are also visible at noon.] "so erst, ere rose the science to record in letter'd syllables the volant word; whence chemic arts, disclosed in pictured lines, liv'd to mankind by hieroglyphic signs; and clustering stars, pourtray'd on mimic spheres, assumed the forms of lions, bulls, and bears; --so erst, as egypt's rude designs explain, rose young dione from the shoreless main; type of organic nature! source of bliss! emerging beauty from the vast abyss! sublime on chaos borne, the goddess stood, and smiled enchantment on the troubled flood; the warring elements to peace restored, and young reflection wondered and adored." [footnote: _as egypt's rude design_, l. . see additional note vi.] [footnote: _rose young dione_, l. . the hieroglyphic figure of venus rising from the sea supported on a shell by two tritons, as well as that of hercules armed with a club, appear to be remains of the most remote antiquity. as the former is devoid of grace, and of the pictorial art of design, as one half of the group exactly resembles the other; and as that of hercules is armed with a club, which was the first weapon. the venus seems to have represented the beauty of organic nature rising from the sea, and afterwards became simply an emblem of ideal beauty; while the figure of adonis was probably designed to represent the more abstracted idea of life or animation. some of these hieroglyphic designs seem to evince the profound investigations in science of the egyptian philosophers, and to have outlived all written language; and still constitute the symbols, by which painters and poets give form and animation to abstracted ideas, as to those of strength and beauty in the above instances.] now paused the nymph,--the muse responsive cries, sweet admiration sparkling in her eyes, "drawn by your pencil, by your hand unfurl'd, bright shines the tablet of the dawning world; amazed the sea's prolific depths i view, and venus rising from the waves in you! "still nature's births enclosed in egg or seed from the tall forest to the lowly weed, her beaux and beauties, butterflies and worms, rise from aquatic to aerial forms. thus in the womb the nascent infant laves its natant form in the circumfluent waves; with perforated heart unbreathing swims, awakes and stretches all its recent limbs; with gills placental seeks the arterial flood, and drinks pure ether from its mother's blood. erewhile the landed stranger bursts his way, from the warm wave emerging into day; feels the chill blast, and piercing light, and tries his tender lungs, and rolls his dazzled eyes; gives to the passing gale his curling hair, and steps a dry inhabitant of air. [footnote: _awakes and stretches_, l. . during the first six months of gestation, the embryon probably sleeps, as it seems to have no use for voluntary power; it then seems to awake, and to stretch its limbs, and change its posture in some degree, which is termed quickening.] [footnote: _with gills placental_, l. . the placenta adheres to any side of the uterus in natural gestation, or of any other cavity in extra-uterine gestation; the extremities of its arteries and veins probably permeate the arteries of the mother, and absorb from thence through their fine coats the oxygen of the mother's blood; hence when the placenta is withdrawn, the side of the uterus, where it adhered, bleeds; but not the extremities of its own vessels.] [footnote: _his dazzled eyes_, l. . though the membrana pupillaris described by modern anatomists guards the tender retina from too much light; the young infant nevertheless seems to feel the presence of it by its frequently moving its eyes, before it can distinguish common objects.] "creative nile, as taught in ancient song, so charm'd to life his animated throng; o'er his wide realms the slow-subsiding flood left the rich treasures of organic mud; while with quick growth young vegetation yields her blushing orchards, and her waving fields; pomona's hand replenish'd plenty's horn, and ceres laugh'd amid her seas of corn.-- bird, beast, and reptile, spring from sudden birth, raise their new forms, half-animal, half-earth; the roaring lion shakes his tawny mane, his struggling limbs still rooted in the plain; with flapping wings assurgent eagles toil to rend their talons from the adhesive soil; the impatient serpent lifts his crested head, and drags his train unfinish'd from the bed.-- as warmth and moisture blend their magic spells, and brood with mingling wings the slimy dells; contractile earths in sentient forms arrange, and life triumphant stays their chemic change." [footnote: _as warmth and moisture_, l. . in eodem corpore sæpe altera pars vivit; rudis est pars altera tellus. quippe ubi temperiem sumpsêre humorque calorque, concipiunt; & ab his oriuntur, cuncta duobus. ovid. met. l. . . this story from ovid of the production of animals from the mud of the nile seems to be of egyptian origin, and is probably a poetical account of the opinions of the magi or priests of that country; showing that the simplest animations were spontaneously produced like chemical combinations, but were distinguished from the latter by their perpetual improvement by the power of reproduction, first by solitary, and then by sexual generation; whereas the products of natural chemistry are only enlarged by accretion, or purified by filtration.] then hand in hand along the waving glades the virgin sisters pass beneath the shades; ascend the winding steps with pausing march, and seek the portico's susurrant arch; whose sculptur'd architrave on columns borne drinks the first blushes of the rising morn, whose fretted roof an ample shield displays, and guards the beauties from meridian rays. while on light step enamour'd zephyr springs, and fans their glowing features with his wings, imbibes the fragrance of the vernal flowers, and speeds with kisses sweet the dancing hours. urania, leaning with unstudied grace, rests her white elbow on a column's base; awhile reflecting takes her silent stand, her fair cheek press'd upon her lily hand; then, as awaking from ideal trance, on the smooth floor her pausing steps advance, waves high her arm, upturns her lucid eyes, marks the wide scenes of ocean, earth, and skies; and leads, meandering as it rolls along through nature's walks, the shining stream of song. first her sweet voice in plaintive accents chains the muse's ear with fascinating strains; reverts awhile to elemental strife, the change of form, and brevity of life; then tells how potent love with torch sublime relights the glimmering lamp, and conquers time. --the polish'd walls reflect her rosy smiles, and sweet-ton'd echoes talk along the ailes. end of canto i. origin of society. canto ii. reproduction of life. contents. i. brevity of life . reproduction . animals improve . life and death alternate . adonis emblem of mortal life . ii. solitary reproduction . buds, bulbs, polypus . truffle; buds of trees how generated . volvox, polypus, tænia, oysters, corals, are without sex . storge goddess of parental love; first chain of society . iii. female sex produced . tulip bulbs, aphis . eve from adam's rib . iv. hereditary diseases . grafted trees, bulbous roots degenerate . gout, mania, scrofula, consumption . time and nature . v. urania and the muse lament . cupid and psyche, the deities of sexual love . speech of hymen . second chain of society . young desire . love and beauty save the world . vegetable sexes, anthers and stigmas salute . vegetable sexual generation . anthers of vallisneria float to the stigmas . ant, lampyris, glow-worm, snail . silk-worm . vi. demon of jealousy . cocks, quails, stags, boars . knights of romance . helen and paris . connubial love . married birds, nests of the linnet and nightingale . lions, tigers, bulls, horses . triumphal car of cupid . fish, birds, insects . vegetables . march of hymen . his lamp . vii. urania's advice to her nymphs . dines with the muse on forbidden fruit . angels visit abraham - . canto ii. reproduction of life. i. "how short the span of life! some hours possess'd, warm but to cool, and active but to rest!-- the age-worn fibres goaded to contract, by repetition palsied, cease to act; when time's cold hands the languid senses seize, chill the dull nerves, the lingering currents freeze; organic matter, unreclaim'd by life, reverts to elements by chemic strife. thus heat evolv'd from some fermenting mass expands the kindling atoms into gas; which sink ere long in cold concentric rings, condensed, on gravity's descending wings. [footnote: _how short the span of life_, l. . the thinking few in all ages have complained of the brevity of life, lamenting that mankind are not allowed time sufficient to cultivate science, or to improve their intellect. hippocrates introduces his celebrated aphorisms with this idea; "life is short, science long, opportunities of knowledge rare, experiments fallacious, and reasoning difficult."--a melancholy reflection to philosophers!] [footnote: _the age-worn fibres_, l. . why the same kinds of food, which enlarge and invigorate the body from infancy to the meridian of life, and then nourish it for some years unimpaired, should at length gradually cease to do so, and the debility of age and death supervene, would be liable to surprise us if we were not in the daily habit of observing it; and is a circumstance which has not yet been well understood. before mankind introduced civil society, old age did not exist in the world, nor other lingering diseases; as all living creatures, as soon as they became too feeble to defend themselves, were slain and eaten by others, except the young broods, who were defended by their mother; and hence the animal world existed uniformly in its greatest strength and perfection; see additional note vii.] "but reproduction with ethereal fires new life rekindles, ere the first expires; calls up renascent youth, ere tottering age quits the dull scene, and gives him to the stage; bids on his cheek the rose of beauty blow, and binds the wreaths of pleasure round his brow; with finer links the vital chain extends, and the long line of being never ends. [footnote: _but reproduction_, l. . see additional note viii.] "self-moving engines by unbending springs may walk on earth, or flap their mimic wings; in tubes of glass mercurial columns rise, or sink, obedient to the incumbent skies; or, as they touch the figured scale, repeat the nice gradations of circumfluent heat. but reproduction, when the perfect elf forms from fine glands another like itself, gives the true character of life and sense, and parts the organic from the chemic ens.-- where milder skies protect the nascent brood, and earth's warm bosom yields salubrious food; each new descendant with superior powers of sense and motion speeds the transient hours; braves every season, tenants every clime, and nature rises on the wings of time. [footnote: _unbending springs_, l. . see additional note i. .] "as life discordant elements arrests, rejects the noxious, and the pure digests; combines with heat the fluctuating mass, and gives a while solidity to gas; organic forms with chemic changes strive, live but to die, and die but to revive! immortal matter braves the transient storm, mounts from the wreck, unchanging but in form.-- [footnote: _combines with heat_, l. . it was shown in note on line of the first canto, that much of the aerial and liquid parts of the terraqueous globe was converted by the powers of life into solid matter; and that this was effected by the combination of the fluid, heat, with other elementary bodies by the appetencies and propensities of the parts of living matter to unite with each other. but when these appetencies and propensities of the parts of organic matter to unite with each other cease, the chemical affinities of attraction and the aptitude to be attracted, and of repulsion and the aptitude to be repelled, succeed, and reduce much of the solid matters back to the condition of elements; which seems to be effected by the matter of heat being again set at liberty, which was combined with other matters by the powers of life; and thus by its diffusion the solid bodies return into liquid ones or into gasses, as occurs in the processes of fermentation, putrefaction, sublimation, and calcination. whence solidity appears to be produced in consequence of the diminution of heat, as the condensation of steam into water, and the consolidation of water into ice, or by the combination of heat with bodies, as with the materials of gunpowder before its explosion.] [footnote: _immortal matter_, l. . the perpetual mutability of the forms of matter seems to have struck the philosophers of great antiquity; the system of transmigration taught by pythagoras, in which the souls of men were supposed after death to animate the bodies of a variety of animals, appears to have arisen from this source. he had observed the perpetual changes of organic matter from one creature to another, and concluded, that the vivifying spirit must attend it.] "so, as the sages of the east record in sacred symbol, or unletter'd word; emblem of life, to change eternal doom'd, the beauteous form of fair adonis bloom'd.-- on syrian hills the graceful hunter slain dyed with his gushing blood the shuddering plain; and, slow-descending to the elysian shade, a while with proserpine reluctant stray'd; soon from the yawning grave the bursting clay restor'd the beauty to delighted day; array'd in youth's resuscitated charms, and young dione woo'd him to her arms.-- pleased for a while the assurgent youth above relights the golden lamp of life and love; ah, soon again to leave the cheerful light, and sink alternate to the realms of night. [footnote: _emblem of life_, l. . the egyptian figure of venus rising from the sea seems to have represented the beauty of organic nature; which the philosophers of that country, the magi, appear to have discovered to have been elevated by earthquakes from the primeval ocean. but the hieroglyphic figure of adonis seems to have signified the spirit of animation or life, which was perpetually wooed or courted by organic matter, and which perished and revived alternately. afterwards the fable of adonis seems to have given origin to the first religion promising a resurrection from the dead; whence his funeral and return to life were celebrated for many ages in egypt and syria, the ceremonies of which ezekiel complains as idolatrous, accusing the women of israel of lamenting over thammus; which st. cyril interprets to be adonis, in his commentaries on isaiah; danet's diction.] ii. "hence ere vitality, as time revolves, leaves the cold organ, and the mass dissolves; the reproductions of the living ens from sires to sons, unknown to sex, commence. new buds and bulbs the living fibre shoots on lengthening branches, and protruding roots; or on the father's side from bursting glands the adhering young its nascent form expands; in branching lines the parent-trunk adorns, and parts ere long like plumage, hairs, or horns. "so the lone truffle, lodged beneath the earth, shoots from paternal roots the tuberous birth; no stamen-males ascend, and breathe above, no seed-born offspring lives by female love. from each young tree, for future buds design'd organic drops exsude beneath the rind; while these with appetencies nice invite, and those with apt propensities unite; new embryon fibrils round the trunk combine with quick embrace, and form the living line: whose plume and rootlet at their early birth seek the dry air, or pierce the humid earth. [footnote: _so the lone truffle_, l. . lycoperdon tuber. this plant never rises above the earth, is propagated without seed by its roots only, and seems to require no light. perhaps many other fungi are generated without seed by their roots only, and without light, and approach on the last account to animal nature.] [footnote: _while these with appetencies_, l. . see additional note viii.] "so safe in waves prolific volvox dwells, and five descendants crowd his lucid cells; so the male polypus parental swims, and branching infants bristle all his limbs; so the lone tænia, as he grows, prolongs his flatten'd form with young adherent throngs; unknown to sex the pregnant oyster swells, and coral-insects build their radiate shells; parturient sires caress their infant train, and heaven-born storge weaves the social chain; successive births her tender cares combine, and soft affections live along the line. [footnote: _prolific volvox_, l. . the volvox globator dwells in the lakes of europe, is transparent, and bears within it children and grandchildren to the fifth generation; syst. nat.] [footnote: _the male polypus_, l. . the hydra viridis and fusca of linneus dwell in our ditches and rivers under aquatic plants; these animals have been shown by ingenious observers to revive after having been dried, to be restored when mutilated, to be multiplied by dividing them, and propagated from portions of them, parts of different ones to unite, to be turned inside outwards and yet live, and to be propagated by seeds, to produce bulbs, and vegetate by branches. syst. nat.] [footnote: _the lone tænia_, l. . the tape-worm dwells in the intestines of animals, and grows old at one extremity, producing an infinite series of young ones at the other; the separate joints have been called gourd-worms, each of which possesses a mouth of its own, and organs of digestion. syst. nat.] [footnote: _the pregnant oyster_, l. . ostrea edulis dwells in the european oceans, frequent at the tables of the luxurious, a living repast! new-born oysters swim swiftly by an undulating movement of fins thrust out a little way from their shells. syst. nat. but they do not afterwards change their place during their whole lives, and are capable of no other movement but that of opening the shell a little way: whence professor beckman observes, that their offspring is probably produced without maternal organs; and that those, who speak of male and female oysters, must be mistaken: phil. magaz. march . it is also observed by h. i. le beck, that on nice inspection of the pearl oysters in the gulf of manar, he could observe no distinction of sexes. nicholson's journal. april .] [footnote: _and coral insects_, l. . the coral habitation of the madrepora of linneus consists of one or more star-like cells; a congeries of which form rocks beneath the sea; the animal which constructs it is termed medusa; and as it adheres to its calcareous cavity, and thence cannot travel to its neighbours, is probably without sex. i observed great masses of the limestone in shropshire, which is brought to newport, to consist of the cells of these animals.] [footnote: _and heaven-born storge_, l. . see additional note ix.] "on angel-wings the goddess form descends, round her fond broods her silver arms she bends; white streams of milk her tumid bosom swell, and on her lips ambrosial kisses dwell. light joys on twinkling feet before her dance with playful nod, and momentary glance; behind, attendant on the pansied plain, young psyche treads with cupid in her train. iii. "in these lone births no tender mothers blend their genial powers to nourish or defend; no nutrient streams from beauty's orbs improve these orphan babes of solitary love; birth after birth the line unchanging runs, and fathers live transmitted in their sons; each passing year beholds the unvarying kinds, the same their manners, and the same their minds. till, as erelong successive buds decay, and insect-shoals successive pass away, increasing wants the pregnant parents vex with the fond wish to form a softer sex; whose milky rills with pure ambrosial food might charm and cherish their expected brood. the potent wish in the productive hour calls to its aid imagination's power, o'er embryon throngs with mystic charm presides, and sex from sex the nascent world divides, with soft affections warms the callow trains, and gives to laughing love his nymphs and swains; whose mingling virtues interweave at length the mother's beauty with the father's strength. [footnote: _a softer sex_, l. . the first buds of trees raised from seed die annually, and are succeeded by new buds by solitary reproduction; which are larger or more perfect for several successive years, and then they produce sexual flowers, which are succeeded by seminal reproduction. the same occurs in bulbous rooted plants raised from seed; they die annually, and produce others rather more perfect than the parent for several years, and then produce sexual flowers. the aphis is in a similar manner hatched from an egg in the vernal months, and produces a viviparous offspring without sexual intercourse for nine or ten successive generations; and then the progeny is both male and female, which cohabit, and from these new females are produced eggs, which endure the winter; the same process probably occurs in many other insects.] [footnote: _imagination's power_, l. . the manner in which the similarity of the progeny to the parent, and the sex of it, are produced by the power of imagination, is treated of in zoonomia. sect. . . . it is not to be understood, that the first living fibres, which are to form an animal, are produced by imagination, with any similarity of form to the future animal; but with appetencies or propensities, which shall produce by accretion of parts the similarity of form and feature, or of sex, corresponding with the imagination of the father.] [footnote: _his nymphs and swains_, l. . the arguments which have been adduced to show, that mankind and quadrupeds were formerly in an hermaphrodite state, are first deduced from the present existence of breasts and nipples in all the males; which latter swell on titillation like those of the females, and which are said to contain a milky fluid at their birth; and it is affirmed, that some men have given milk to their children in desert countries, where the mother has perished; as the male pigeon is said to give a kind of milk from his stomach along with the regurgitated food, to the young doves, as mentioned in additional note ix. on storge. secondly, from the apparent progress of many animals to greater perfection, as in some insects, as the flies with two wings, termed diptera; which have rudiments of two other wings, called halteres, or poisers; and in many flowers which have rudiments of new stamina, or filaments without anthers on them. see botanic garden, vol. ii. curcuma, note, and the note on l. of canto i. of this work. it has been supposed by some, that mankind were formerly quadrupeds as well as hermaphrodites; and that some parts of the body are not yet so convenient to an erect attitude as to a horizontal one; as the fundus of the bladder in an erect posture is not exactly over the insertion of the urethra; whence it is seldom completely evacuated, and thus renders mankind more subject to the stone, than if he had preserved his horizontality: these philosophers, with buffon and helvetius, seem to imagine, that mankind arose from one family of monkeys on the banks of the mediterranean; who accidentally had learned to use the adductor pollicis, or that strong muscle which constitutes the ball of the thumb, and draws the point of it to meet the points of the fingers; which common monkeys do not; and that this muscle gradually increased in size, strength, and activity, in successive generations; and by this improved use of the sense of touch, that monkeys acquired clear ideas, and gradually became men. perhaps all the productions of nature are in their progress to greater perfection! an idea countenanced by modern discoveries and deductions concerning the progressive formation of the solid parts of the terraqueous globe, and consonant to the dignity of the creator of all things.] "so tulip-bulbs emerging from the seed, year after year unknown to sex proceed; erewhile the stamens and the styles display their petal-curtains, and adorn the day; the beaux and beauties in each blossom glow with wedded joy, or amatorial woe. unmarried aphides prolific prove for nine successions uninform'd of love; new sexes next with softer passions spring, breathe the fond vow, and woo with quivering wing. "so erst in paradise creation's lord, as the first leaves of holy writ record, from adam's rib, who press'd the flowery grove, and dreamt delighted of untasted love, to cheer and charm his solitary mind, form'd a new sex, the mother of mankind. --buoy'd on light step the beauty seem'd to swim, and stretch'd alternate every pliant limb; pleased on euphrates' velvet margin stood, and view'd her playful image in the flood; own'd the fine flame of love, as life began, and smiled enchantment on adoring man. down her white neck and o'er her bosom roll'd, flow'd in sweet negligence her locks of gold; round her fine form the dim transparence play'd, and show'd the beauties, that it seem'd to shade. --enamour'd adam gaz'd with fond surprise, and drank delicious passion from her eyes; felt the new thrill of young desire, and press'd the graceful virgin to his glowing breast.-- the conscious fair betrays her soft alarms, sinks with warm blush into his closing arms, yields to his fond caress with wanton play, and sweet, reluctant, amorous, delay. [footnote: _the mother of mankind_, l. . see additional note x.] iv. "where no new sex with glands nutritious feeds, nurs'd in her womb, the solitary breeds; no mother's care their early steps directs, warms in her bosom, with her wings protects; the clime unkind, or noxious food instills to embryon nerves hereditary ills; the feeble births acquired diseases chase, till death extinguish the degenerate race. [footnote: _acquired diseases_, l. . see additional note xi.] "so grafted trees with shadowy summits rise, spread their fair blossoms, and perfume the skies; till canker taints the vegetable blood, mines round the bark, and feeds upon the wood. so, years successive, from perennial roots the wire or bulb with lessen'd vigour shoots; till curled leaves, or barren flowers, betray a waning lineage, verging to decay; or till, amended by connubial powers, rise seedling progenies from sexual flowers. [footnote: _so grafted trees_, l. . mr. knight first observed that those apple and pear trees, which had been propagated for above a century by ingraftment were now so unhealthy, as not to be worth cultivation. i have suspected the diseases of potatoes attended with the curled leaf, and of strawberry plants attended with barren flowers, to be owing to their having been too long raised from roots, or by solitary reproduction, and not from seeds, or sexual reproduction, and to have thence acquired those hereditary diseases.] "e'en where unmix'd the breed, in sexual tribes parental taints the nascent babe imbibes; eternal war the gout and mania wage with fierce uncheck'd hereditary rage; sad beauty's form foul scrofula surrounds with bones distorted, and putrescent wounds; and, fell consumption! thy unerring dart wets its broad wing in youth's reluctant heart. [footnote: _and, fell consumption_, l. . ... hæret lateri lethalis arundo. virgil.] "with pausing step, at night's refulgent noon, beneath the sparkling stars, and lucid moon, plung'd in the shade of some religious tower, the slow bell counting the departed hour, o'er gaping tombs where shed umbrageous yews on mouldering bones their cold unwholesome dews; while low aerial voices whisper round, and moondrawn spectres dance upon the ground; poetic melancholy loves to tread, and bend in silence o'er the countless dead; marks with loud sobs infantine sorrows rave, and wring their pale hands o'er their mother's grave; hears on the new-turn'd sod with gestures wild the kneeling beauty call her buried child; upbraid with timorous accents heaven's decrees, and with sad sighs augment the passing breeze. 'stern time,' she cries, 'receives from nature's womb her beauteous births, and bears them to the tomb; calls all her sons from earth's remotest bourn, and from the closing portals none return!' v. urania paused,--upturn'd her streaming eyes, and her white bosom heaved with silent sighs; with her the muse laments the sum of things, and hides her sorrows with her meeting wings; long o'er the wrecks of lovely life they weep, then pleased reflect, "to die is but to sleep;" from nature's coffins to her cradles turn, smile with young joy, with new affection burn. and now the muse, with mortal woes impress'd, thus the fair hierophant again address'd. --"ah me! celestial guide, thy words impart ills undeserved, that rend the nascent heart! o, goddess, say, if brighter scenes improve air-breathing tribes, and births of sexual love?"-- the smiling fair obeys the inquiring muse, and in sweet tones her grateful task pursues. "now on broad pinions from the realms above descending cupid seeks the cyprian grove; to his wide arms enamour'd psyche springs, and clasps her lover with aurelian wings. a purple sash across his shoulder bends, and fringed with gold the quiver'd shafts suspends; the bending bow obeys the silken string, and, as he steps, the silver arrows ring. thin folds of gauze with dim transparence flow o'er her fair forehead, and her neck of snow; the winding woof her graceful limbs surrounds, swells in the breeze, and sweeps the velvet grounds; as hand in hand along the flowery meads his blushing bride the quiver'd hero leads; charm'd round their heads pursuing zephyrs throng, and scatter roses, as they move along; bright beams of spring in soft effusion play, and halcyon hours invite them on their way. [footnote: _enamoured psyché_, l. . a butterfly was the ancient emblem of the soul after death as rising from the tomb of its former state, and becoming a winged inhabitant of air from an insect creeping upon earth. at length the wings only were given to a beautiful nymph under the name of psyche, which is the greek word for the soul, and also became afterwards to signify a butterfly probably from the popularity of this allegory. many allegorical designs of cupid or love warming a butterfly or the soul with his torch may be seen in spence's polymetis, and a beautiful one of their marriage in bryant's mythology; from which this description is in part taken.] "delighted hymen hears their whisper'd vows, and binds his chaplets round their polish'd brows, guides to his altar, ties the flowery bands, and as they kneel, unites their willing hands. 'behold, he cries, earth! ocean! air above, 'and hail the deities of sexual love! 'all forms of life shall this fond pair delight, 'and sex to sex the willing world unite; 'shed their sweet smiles in earth's unsocial bowers, 'fan with soft gales, and gild with brighter hours; 'fill pleasure's chalice unalloy'd with pain, 'and give society his golden chain.' "now young desires, on purple pinions borne, mount the warm gales of manhood's rising morn; with softer fires through virgin bosoms dart, flush the pale cheek, and goad the tender heart. ere the weak powers of transient life decay, and heaven's ethereal image melts away; love with nice touch renews the organic frame, forms a young ens, another and the same; gives from his rosy lips the vital breath, and parries with his hand the shafts of death; while beauty broods with angel wings unfurl'd o'er nascent life, and saves the sinking world. [footnote: _while beauty broods_, l. . alma venus! per te quoniam genus omne animantum concipitur, visitque exortum lumina coeli. lucret.] "hence on green leaves the sexual pleasures dwell, and loves and beauties crowd the blossom's bell; the wakeful anther in his silken bed o'er the pleased stigma bows his waxen head; with meeting lips and mingling smiles they sup ambrosial dewdrops from the nectar'd cup; or buoy'd in air the plumy lover springs, and seeks his panting bride on hymen-wings. [footnote: _from the nectar'd cup_, l. . the anthers and stigmas of flowers are probably nourished by the honey, which is secreted by the honey-gland called by linneus the nectary; and possess greater sensibility or animation than other parts of the plant. the corol of the flower appears to be a respiratory organ belonging to these anthers and stigmas for the purpose of further oxygenating the vegetable blood for the production of the anther dust and of this honey, which is also exposed to the air in its receptacle or honey-cup; which, i suppose, to be necessary for its further oxygenation, as in many flowers so complicate an apparatus is formed for its protection from insects, as in aconitum, delphinium, larkspur, lonicera, woodbine; and because the corol and nectary fall along with the anthers and stigmas, when the pericarp is impregnated. dr. b. s. barton in the american transactions has lately shown, that the honey collected from some plants is intoxicating and poisonous to men, as from rhododendron, azalea, and datura; and from some other plants that it is hurtful to the bees which collect it; and that from some flowers it is so injurious or disagreeable, that they do not collect it, as from the fritillaria or crown imperial of this country.] "the stamen males, with appetencies just, produce a formative prolific dust; with apt propensities, the styles recluse secrete a formative prolific juice; these in the pericarp erewhile arrive, rush to each other, and embrace alive. --form'd by new powers progressive parts succeed, join in one whole, and swell into a seed. [footnote: _with appetencies just_, l. . as in the productions by chemical affinity one set of particles must possess the power of attraction, and the other the aptitude to be attracted, as when iron approaches a magnet; so when animal particles unite, whether in digestion or reproduction, some of them must possess an appetite to unite, and others a propensity to be united. the former of these are secreted by the anthers from the vegetable blood, and the latter by the styles or pericarp; see the additional note viii. on reproduction.] "so in fond swarms the living anthers shine of bright vallisner on the wavy rhine; break from their stems, and on the liquid glass surround the admiring stigmas as they pass; the love-sick beauties lift their essenced brows, sigh to the cyprian queen their secret vows, like watchful hero feel their soft alarms, and clasp their floating lovers in their arms. [footnote: _of bright vallisner_, l. . vallisneria, of the class of dioecia. the flowers of the male plant are produced under water, and as soon as their farina or dust is mature, they detach themselves from the plant, rise to the surface and continue to flourish, and are wafted by the air or borne by the current to the female flowers. in this they resemble those tribes of insects, where the males at certain seasons acquire wings, but not the females, as ants, coccus, lampyris, phalæna, brumata, lichanella; botanic garden, vol. ii. note on vallisneria.] "hence the male ants their gauzy wings unfold, and young lampyris waves his plumes of gold; the glow-worm sparkles with impassion'd light on each green bank, and charms the eye of night; while new desires the painted snail perplex, and twofold love unites the double sex. [footnote: _and young lampyris_, l. . the fire-fly is at some seasons so luminous, that m. merian says, that by putting two of them under a glass, she was able to draw her figures of them by night. whether the light of this and of other insects be caused by their amatorial passion, and thus assists them to find each other; or is caused by respiration, which is so analogous to combustion; or to a tendency to putridity, as in dead fish and rotten wood, is still to be investigated; see botanic garden, vol. i. additional note ix.] "hence, when the morus in italia's lands to spring's warm beam its timid leaf expands; the silk-worm broods in countless tribes above crop the green treasure, uninform'd of love; erewhile the changeful worm with circling head weaves the nice curtains of his silken bed; web within web involves his larva form, alike secured from sunshine and from storm; for twelve long days he dreams of blossom'd groves, untasted honey, and ideal loves; wakes from his trance, alarm'd with young desire, finds his new sex, and feels ecstatic fire; from flower to flower with honey'd lip he springs, and seeks his velvet loves on silver wings. [footnote: _untasted honey_, l. . the numerous moths and butterflies seem to pass from a reptile leaf-eating state, and to acquire wings to flit in air, with a proboscis to gain honey for their food along with their organs of reproduction, solely for the purpose of propagating their species by sexual intercourse, as they die when that is completed. by the use of their wings they have access to each other on different branches or on different vegetables, and by living upon honey probably acquire a higher degree of animation, and thus seem to resemble the anthers of flowers, which probably are supported by honey only, and thence acquire greater sensibility; see note on vallisneria, l. of this canto. a naturalist, who had studied this subject, thought it not impossible that the first insects were the anthers and stigmas of flowers, which had by some means loosened themselves from their parent plant, like the male flowers of vallisneria, and that other insects in process of time had been formed from these, some acquiring wings, others fins, and others claws, from their ceaseless efforts to procure food or to secure themselves from injury. he contends, that none of these changes are more incomprehensible than the transformation of caterpillars into butterflies; see botanic garden, vol. i. additional note xxxix.] vi. "the demon, jealousy, with gorgon frown blasts the sweet flowers of pleasure not his own, rolls his wild eyes, and through the shuddering grove pursues the steps of unsuspecting love; or drives o'er rattling plains his iron car, flings his red torch, and lights the flames of war. here cocks heroic burn with rival rage, and quails with quails in doubtful fight engage; of armed heels and bristling plumage proud, they sound the insulting clarion shrill and loud, with rustling pinions meet, and swelling chests, and seize with closing beaks their bleeding crests; rise on quick wing above the struggling foe, and aim in air the death-devoting blow. there the hoarse stag his croaking rival scorns, and butts and parries with his branching horns; contending boars with tusk enamell'd strike, and guard with shoulder-shield the blow oblique; while female bands attend in mute surprise, and view the victor with admiring eyes.-- [footnote: _there the hoarse stag_, l. . a great want of one part of the animal world has consisted in the desire of the exclusive possession of the females; and these have acquired weapons to combat each other for this purpose, as the very thick shield-like horny skin on the shoulder of the boar is a defence only against animals of his own species, who strike obliquely upwards, nor are his tushes for other purposes, except to defend himself, as he is not naturally a carnivorous animal. so the horns of the stag are sharp to offend his adversary, but are branched for the purpose of parrying or receiving the thrusts of horns similar to his own, and have therefore been formed for the purpose of combating other stags for the exclusive possession of the females, who are observed, like the ladies in the times of chivalry, to attend the car of the victor. the birds, which do not carry food to their young, and do not therefore marry, are armed with spurs for the purpose of fighting for the exclusive possession of the females, as cocks and quails. it is certain that these weapons are not provided for their defence against other adversaries, because the females of these species are without this armour; zoonomia, sect. xxxix. , .] "so knight on knight, recorded in romance, urged the proud steed, and couch'd the extended lance; he, whose dread prowess with resistless force, o'erthrew the opposing warrior and his horse, bless'd, as the golden guerdon of his toils, bow'd to the beauty, and receiv'd her smiles. "so when fair helen with ill-fated charms, by paris wooed, provoked the world to arms, left her vindictive lord to sigh in vain for broken vows, lost love, and cold disdain; fired at his wrongs, associate to destroy the realms unjust of proud adulterous troy, unnumber'd heroes braved the dubious fight, and sunk lamented to the shades of night. "now vows connubial chain the plighted pair, and join paternal with maternal care; the married birds with nice selection cull soft thistle-down, gray moss, and scattered wool, line the secluded nest with feathery rings, meet with fond bills, and woo with fluttering wings. week after week, regardless of her food, the incumbent linnet warms her future brood; each spotted egg with ivory lips she turns, day after day with fond expectance burns, hears the young prisoner chirping in his cell, and breaks in hemispheres the obdurate shell. loud trills sweet philomel his tender strain, charms his fond bride, and wakes his infant train; perch'd on the circling moss, the listening throng wave their young wings, and whisper to the song. [footnote: _the incumbent linnet_, l. . the affection of the unexperienced and untaught bird to its egg, which induces it to sit days and weeks upon it to warm the enclosed embryon, is a matter of great difficulty to explain; see additional note ix. on storge. concerning the fabrication of their nests, see zoonomia, sect. xvi. . on instinct.] [footnote: _hears the young prisoner_, l. . the air-vessel at the broad end of an incubated egg gradually extends its edges along the sides of the shell, as the chick enlarges, but is at the same time applied closer to the internal surface of the shell; when the time of hatching approaches the chick is liable to break this air-bag with its beak, and thence begin to breathe and to chirp; at this time the edges of the enlarged air-bag extend so as to cover internally one hemisphere of the egg; and as one half of the external shell is thus moist, and the other half dry, as soon as the mother hearing the chick chirp, or the chick itself wanting respirable air, strikes the egg, about its equatorial line, it breaks into two hemispheres, and liberates the prisoner.] [footnote: _and whisper to the song_, l. . a curious circumstance is mentioned by kircherus de musurgia, in his chapter de lusciniis. "that the young nightingales, that are hatched under other birds, never sing till they are instructed by the company of other nightingales." and johnston affirms, that the nightingales that visit scotland, have not the same harmony as those of italy, (pennant's zoology, octavo, p. ), which would lead us to suspect, that the singing of birds, like human music, is an artificial language rather than a natural expression of passion.] "the lion-king forgets his savage pride, and courts with playful paws his tawny bride; the listening tiger hears with kindling flame the love-lorn night-call of his brinded dame. despotic love dissolves the bestial war, bends their proud necks, and joins them to his car; shakes o'er the obedient pairs his silken thong, and goads the humble, or restrains the strong.-- slow roll the silver wheels,--in beauty's pride celestial psyche blushing by his side.-- the lordly bull behind and warrior horse with voice of thunder shake the echoing course, chain'd to the car with herds domestic move, and swell the triumph of despotic love. "pleased as they pass along the breezy shore in twinkling shoals the scaly realms adore, move on quick fin with undulating train, or lift their slimy foreheads from the main. high o'er their heads on pinions broad display'd the feather'd nations shed a floating shade; pair after pair enamour'd shoot along, and trill in air the gay impassion'd song. with busy hum in playful swarms around emerging insects leave the peopled ground, rise in dark clouds, and borne in airy rings sport round the car, and wave their golden wings. admiring fawns pursue on dancing hoof, and bashful dryads peep from shades aloof; emerging nereids rise from coral cells, enamour'd tritons sound their twisted shells; from sparkling founts enchanted naiads move, and swell the triumph of despotic love. [footnote: _with undulating train_, l. . the side fins of fish seem to be chiefly used to poise them; as they turn upon their backs immediately when killed, the air-bladder assists them perhaps to rise or descend by its possessing the power to condense the air in it by muscular contraction; and it is possible, that at great depths in the ocean the air in this receptacle may by the great pressure of the incumbent water become condensed into so small a space, as to cease to be useful to the animal, which was possibly the cause of the death of mr. day in his diving ship. see note on ulva, botan. gard. v. ii. the progressive motion of fish beneath the water is produced principally by the undulation of their tails. one oblique plain of a part of the tail on the right side of the fish strikes the water at the same time that another oblique plain strikes it on the left side, hence in respect to moving to the right or left these percussions of the water counteract each other, but they coincide in respect to the progression of the fish; this power seems to be better applied to push forwards a body in water, than the oars of boats, as the particles of water recede from the stroke of the oar, whence the comparative power acquired is but as the difference of velocity between the striking oar and the receding water. so a ship moves swifter with an oblique wind, than with a wind of the same velocity exactly behind it; and the common windmill sail placed obliquely to the wind is more powerful than one which directly recedes from it. might not some machinery resembling the tails of fish be placed behind a boat, so as to be moved with greater effect than common oars, by the force of wind or steam, or perhaps by hand?] [footnote: _on pinions broad display'd_, l. . the progressive motion of birds in the air is principally performed by the movement of their wings, and not by that of their tails as in fish. the bird is supported in an element so much lighter than itself by the resistance of the air as it moves horizontally against the oblique plain made by its breast, expanded tail and wings, when they are at rest; the change of this obliquity also assists it to rise, and even directs its descent, though this is owing principally to its specific gravity, but it is in all situations kept upright or balanced by its wings. as the support of the bird in the air, as well as its progression, is performed by the motion of the wings; these require strong muscles as are seen on the breasts of partridges. whence all attempts of men to fly by wings applied to the weak muscles of their arms have been ineffectual; but it is not certain whether light machinery so contrived as to be moved by their feet, might not enable them to fly a little way, though not so as to answer any useful purpose.] "delighted flora, gazing from afar, greets with mute homage the triumphal car; on silvery slippers steps with bosom bare, bends her white knee, and bows her auburn hair; calls to her purple heaths, and blushing bowers, bursts her green gems, and opens all her flowers; o'er the bright pair a shower of roses sheds, and crowns with wreathes of hyacinth their heads.-- --slow roll the silver wheels with snowdrops deck'd, and primrose bands the cedar spokes connect; round the fine pole the twisting woodbine clings, and knots of jasmine clasp the bending springs; bright daisy links the velvet harness chain, and rings of violets join each silken rein; festoon'd behind, the snow-white lilies bend, and tulip-tassels on each side depend. --slow rolls the car,--the enamour'd flowers exhale their treasured sweets, and whisper to the gale; their ravelled buds, and wrinkled cups unfold, nod their green stems, and wave their bells of gold; breathe their soft sighs from each enchanted grove, and hail the deities of sexual love. "onward with march sublime in saffron robe young hymen steps, and traverses the globe; o'er burning sands, and snow-clad mountains, treads, blue fields of air, and ocean's briny beds; flings from his radiant torch celestial light o'er day's wide concave, and illumes the night. with dulcet eloquence his tuneful tongue convokes and captivates the fair and young; his golden lamp with ray ethereal dyes the blushing cheek, and lights the laughing eyes; with secret flames the virgin's bosom warms, and lights the impatient bridegroom to her arms; with lovely life all nature's frame inspires, and, as they sink, rekindles all her fires." vii. now paused the beauteous teacher, and awhile gazed on her train with sympathetic smile. 'beware of love! she cried, ye nymphs, and hear 'his twanging bowstring with alarmed ear; 'fly the first whisper of the distant dart, 'or shield with adamant the fluttering heart; 'to secret shades, ye virgin trains, retire, 'and in your bosoms guard the vestal fire.' --the obedient beauties hear her words, advised, and bow with laugh repress'd, and smile chastised. [footnote: _with laugh repress'd_, l. . the cause of the violent actions of laughter, and of the difficulty of restraining them, is a curious subject of inquiry. when pain afflicts us, which we cannot avoid, we learn to relieve it by great voluntary exertions, as in grinning, holding the breath, or screaming; now the pleasurable sensation, which excites laughter, arises for a time so high as to change its name, and become a painful one; and we excite the convulsive motions of the respiratory muscles to relieve this pain. we are however unwilling to lose the pleasure, and presently put a stop to this exertion; and immediately the pleasure recurs, and again as instantly rises into pain. which is further explained in zoonomia, sect. . . . when this pleasurable sensation rises into a painful one, and the customs of society will not permit us to laugh aloud, some other violent voluntary exertion is used instead of it to alleviate the pain.] [footnote: _with smile chastised_, l. . the origin of the smile has generally been ascribed to inexplicable instinct, but may be deduced from our early associations of actions and ideas. in the act of sucking, the lips of the infant are closed round the nipple of its mother, till it has filled its stomach, and the pleasure of digesting this grateful food succeeds; then the sphincter of the mouth, fatigued by the continued action of sucking, is relaxed; and the antagonist muscles of the face gently acting, produce the smile of pleasure, which is thus during our lives associated with gentle pleasure, which is further explained in zoonomia, sect. . . .] now at her nod the nymphs attendant bring translucent water from the bubbling spring; in crystal cups the waves salubrious shine, unstain'd untainted with immodest wine. next, where emerging from its ancient roots its widening boughs the tree of knowledge shoots; pluck'd with nice choice before the muse they placed the now no longer interdicted taste. awhile they sit, from higher cares released, and pleased partake the intellectual feast. of good and ill they spoke, effect and cause, celestial agencies, and nature's laws. so when angelic forms to syria sent sat in the cedar shade by abraham's tent; a spacious bowl the admiring patriarch fills with dulcet water from the scanty rills; sweet fruits and kernels gathers from his hoard, with milk and butter piles the plenteous board; while on the heated hearth his consort bakes fine flour well kneaded in unleaven'd cakes. the guests ethereal quaff the lucid flood, smile on their hosts, and taste terrestrial food; and while from seraph-lips sweet converse springs, lave their fair feet, and close their silver wings. end of canto ii. origin of society. canto iii. progress of the mind. contents. i. urania and the muse converse . progress of the mind . ii. the four sensorial powers of irritation, sensation, volition, and association . some finer senses given to brutes . and armour . finer organ of touch given to man . whence clear ideas of form . vision is the language of the touch . magic lantern . surprise, novelty, curiosity . passions, vices . philanthropy . shrine of virtue . iii. ideal beauty from the female bosom . eros the god of sentimental love . young dione idolized by eros . third chain of society . iv. ideal beauty from curved lines . taste for the beautiful . taste for the sublime . for poetic melancholy . for tragedy . for artless nature . the genius of taste . v. the senses easily form and repeat ideas . imitation from clear ideas . the senses imitate each other . in dancing . in drawing naked nymphs . in architecture, as at st. peter's at rome . mimickry . vi. natural language from imitation . language of quails, cocks, lions, boxers . pantomime action . verbal language from imitation and association . symbols of ideas . gigantic form of time . wings of hermes . vii. recollection from clear ideas . reason and volition . arts of the wasp, bee, spider, wren, silk-worm . volition concerned about means or causes . man distinguished by language, by using tools, labouring for money, praying to the deity . the tree of knowledge of good and evil . viii. emotions from imitation . the seraph; sympathy . christian morality the great bond of society - . canto iii. progress of the mind. i. now rose, adorn'd with beauty's brightest hues, the graceful hierophant, and winged muse; onward they step around the stately piles, o'er porcelain floors, through laqueated ailes, eye nature's lofty and her lowly seats, her gorgeous palaces, and green retreats, pervade her labyrinths with unerring tread, and leave for future guests a guiding thread. first with fond gaze blue fields of air they sweep, or pierce the briny chambers of the deep; earth's burning line, and icy poles explore, her fertile surface, and her caves of ore; or mark how oxygen with azote-gas plays round the globe in one aerial mass, or fused with hydrogen in ceaseless flow forms the wide waves, which foam and roll below. [footnote: _how oxygen_, l. . the atmosphere which surrounds us, is composed of twenty-seven parts of oxygen gas and seventy-three of azote or nitrogen gas, which are simply diffused together, but which, when combined, become nitrous acid. water consists of eighty-six parts oxygen, and fourteen parts of hydrogen or inflammable air, in a state of combination. it is also probable, that much oxygen enters the composition of glass; as those materials which promote vitrification, contain so much of it, as minium and manganese; and that glass is hence a solid acid in the temperature of our atmosphere, as water is a fluid one.] next with illumined hands through prisms bright pleased they untwist the sevenfold threads of light; or, bent in pencils by the lens, convey to one bright point the silver hairs of day. then mark how two electric streams conspire to form the resinous and vitreous fire; beneath the waves the fierce gymnotus arm, and give torpedo his benumbing charm; or, through galvanic chain-work as they pass, convert the kindling water into gas. [footnote: _two electric streams_, l. . it is the opinion of some philosophers, that the electric ether consists of two kinds of fluids diffused together or combined; which are commonly known by the terms of positive and negative electricity, but are by these electricians called vitreous and resinous electricity. the electric shocks given by the torpedo and by the gymnotus, are supposed to be similar to those of the galvanic pile, as they are produced in water. which water is decomposed by the galvanic pile and converted into oxygen and hydrogen gas; see additional note xii. the magnetic ether may also be supposed to consist of two fluids, one of which attracts the needle, and the other repels it; and, perhaps, chemical affinities, and gravitation itself, may consist of two kinds of ether surrounding the particles of bodies, and may thence attract at one distance and repel at another; as appears when two insulated electrised balls are approached to each other, or when two small globules of mercury are pressed together.] how at the poles opposing ethers dwell, attract the quivering needle, or repel. how gravitation by immortal laws surrounding matter to a centre draws; how heat, pervading oceans, airs, and lands, with force uncheck'd the mighty mass expands; and last how born in elemental strife beam'd the first spark, and lighten'd into life. now in sweet tones the inquiring muse express'd her ardent wish; and thus the fair address'd. "priestess of nature! whose exploring sight pierces the realms of chaos and of night; of space unmeasured marks the first and last, of endless time the present, future, past; immortal guide! o, now with accents kind give to my ear the progress of the mind. how loves, and tastes, and sympathies commence from evanescent notices of sense? how from the yielding touch and rolling eyes the piles immense of human science rise?-- with mind gigantic steps the puny elf, and weighs and measures all things but himself!" the indulgent beauty hears the grateful muse, smiles on her pupil, and her task renews. attentive nymphs in sparkling squadrons throng, and choral virgins listen to the song; pleased fawns and naiads crowd in silent rings, and hovering cupids stretch their purple wings. ii. "first the new actions of the excited sense, urged by appulses from without, commence; with these exertions pain or pleasure springs, and forms perceptions of external things. thus, when illumined by the solar beams, yon waving woods, green lawns, and sparkling streams, in one bright point by rays converging lie plann'd on the moving tablet of the eye; the mind obeys the silver goads of light, and irritation moves the nerves of sight. [footnote: _and irritation moves_, l. . irritation is an exertion or change of some extreme part of the sensorium residing in the muscles or organs of sense in consequence of the appulses of external bodies. the word perception includes both the action of the organ of sense in consequence of the impact of external objects and our attention to that action; that is, it expresses both the motion of the organ of sense, or idea, and the pain or pleasure that succeeds or accompanies it. irritative ideas are those which are preceded by irritation, which is excited by objects external to the organs of sense: as the idea of that tree, which either i attend to, or which i shun in walking near it without attention. in the former case it is termed perception, in the latter it is termed simply an irritative idea.] "these acts repeated rise from joys or pains, and swell imagination's flowing trains; so in dread dreams amid the silent night grim spectre-forms the shuddering sense affright; or beauty's idol-image, as it moves, charms the closed eye with graces, smiles, and loves; each passing form the pausing heart delights, and young sensation every nerve excites. [footnote: _and young sensation_, l. . sensation is an exertion or change of the central parts of the sensorium or of the whole of it, _beginning_ at some of those extreme parts of it which reside in the muscles or organs of sense. sensitive ideas are those which are preceded by the sensation of pleasure or pain, are termed imagination, and constitute our dreams and reveries.] "oft from sensation quick volition springs, when pleasure thrills us, or when anguish stings; hence recollection calls with voice sublime immersed ideas from the wrecks of time, with potent charm in lucid trains displays eventful stories of forgotten days. hence reason's efforts good with ill contrast, compare the present, future, and the past; each passing moment, unobserved restrain the wild discordancies of fancy's train; but leave uncheck'd the night's ideal streams, or, sacred muses! your meridian dreams. [footnote: _quick volition springs_, l. . volition is an exertion or change of the central parts of the sensorium, or of the whole of it _terminating_ in some of those extreme parts of it which reside in the muscles and organs of sense. the vulgar use of the word _memory_ is too unlimited for our purpose: those ideas which we voluntarily recall are here termed ideas of _recollection_, as when we will to repeat the alphabet backwards. and those ideas which are suggested to us by preceding ideas are here termed ideas of _suggestion_, as whilst we repeat the alphabet in the usual order; when by habits previously acquired b is suggested by a, and c by b, without any effort of deliberation. reasoning is that operation of the sensorium by which we excite two or many tribes of ideas, and then reexcite the ideas in which they differ or correspond. if we determine this difference, it is called judgment; if we in vain endeavour to determine it, it is called doubting. if we reexcite the ideas in which they differ, it is called distinguishing. if we reexcite those in which they correspond, it is called comparing.] [footnote: _each passing moment_, l. . during our waking hours, we perpetually compare the passing trains of our ideas with the known system of nature, and reject those which are incongruous with it; this is explained in zoonomia, sect. xvii. . . and is there termed intuitive analogy. when we sleep, the faculty of volition ceases to act, and in consequence the uncompared trains of ideas become incongruous and form the farrago of our dreams; in which we never experience any surprise, or sense of novelty.] "and last suggestion's mystic power describes ideal hosts arranged in trains or tribes. so when the nymph with volant finger rings her dulcet harp, and shakes the sounding strings; as with soft voice she trills the enamour'd song, successive notes, unwill'd, the strain prolong; the transient trains association steers, and sweet vibrations charm the astonish'd ears. [footnote: _association steers_, l. . association is an exertion or change of some extreme part of the sensorium residing in the muscles and organs of sense in consequence of some antecedent or attendant fibrous contractions. associate ideas, therefore, are those which are preceded by other ideas or muscular motions, without the intervention of irritation, sensation, or volition between them; these are also termed ideas of suggestion.] "on rapid feet o'er hills, and plains, and rocks, speed the scared leveret and rapacious fox; on rapid pinions cleave the fields above the hawk descending, and escaping dove; with nicer nostril track the tainted ground the hungry vulture, and the prowling hound; converge reflected light with nicer eye the midnight owl, and microscopic fly; with finer ear pursue their nightly course the listening lion, and the alarmed horse. "the branching forehead with diverging horns crests the bold bull, the jealous stag adorns; fierce rival boars with side-long fury wield the pointed tusk, and guard with shoulder-shield; bounds the dread tiger o'er the affrighted heath arm'd with sharp talons, and resistless teeth; the pouncing eagle bears in clinched claws the struggling lamb, and rends with ivory jaws; the tropic eel, electric in his ire, alarms the waves with unextinguish'd fire; the fly of night illumes his airy way, and seeks with lucid lamp his sleeping prey; fierce on his foe the poisoning serpent springs, and insect armies dart their venom'd stings. [footnote: _the branching forehead_, l. . the peculiarities of the shapes of animals which distinguish them from each other, are enumerated in zoonomia, sect. xxxix. . . on generation, and are believed to have been gradually formed from similar living fibres, and are varied by reproduction. many of these parts of animals are there shown to have arisen from their three great desires of lust, hunger, and security.] [footnote: _the tropic eel_, l. . gymnotus electricus.] [footnote: _the fly of night_, l. . lampyris noctiluca. fire-fly.] "proud man alone in wailing weakness born, no horns protect him, and no plumes adorn; no finer powers of nostril, ear, or eye, teach the young reasoner to pursue or fly.-- nerved with fine touch above the bestial throngs, the hand, first gift of heaven! to man belongs; untipt with claws the circling fingers close, with rival points the bending thumbs oppose, trace the nice lines of form with sense refined, and clear ideas charm the thinking mind. whence the fine organs of the touch impart ideal figure, source of every art; time, motion, number, sunshine or the storm, but mark varieties in nature's _form_. [footnote: _the hand, first gift of heaven_, l. . the human species in some of their sensations are much inferior to animals, yet the accuracy of the sense of touch, which they possess in so eminent a degree, gives them a great superiority of understanding; as is well observed by the ingenious mr. buffon. the extremities of other animals terminate in horns, and hoofs, and claws, very unfit for the sensation of touch; whilst the human hand is finely adapted to encompass its object with this organ of sense. those animals who have clavicles or collar-bones, and thence use their forefeet like hands, as cats, squirrels, monkeys, are more ingenious than other quadrupeds, except the elephant, who has a fine sense at the extremity of his proboscis; and many insects from the possessing finer organs of touch have greater ingenuity, as spiders, bees, wasps.] [footnote: _trace the nice lines of form_, l. . when the idea of solidity is excited a part of the extensive organ of touch is compressed by some external body, and this part of the sensorium so compressed exactly resembles in figure the figure of the body that compressed it. hence when we acquire the idea of solidity, we acquire at the same time the idea of figure; and this idea of figure, or motion of a part of the organ of touch, exactly resembles in its figure the figure of the body that occasions it; and thus exactly acquaints us with this property of the external world. now, as the whole universe with all its parts possesses a certain form or figure, if any part of it moves, that form or figure of the whole is varied. hence, as motion is no other than a perpetual variation of figure, our idea of motion is also a real resemblance of the motion that produced it. hence arises the certainty of the mathematical sciences, as they explain these properties of bodies, which are exactly resembled by our ideas of them, whilst we are obliged to collect almost all our other knowledge from experiment; that is, by observing the effects exerted by one body upon another.] "slow could the tangent organ wander o'er the rock-built mountain, and the winding shore; no apt ideas could the pigmy mite, or embryon emmet to the touch excite; but as each mass the solar ray reflects, the eye's clear glass the transient beams collects; bends to their focal point the rays that swerve, and paints the living image on the nerve. so in some village-barn, or festive hall the spheric lens illumes the whiten'd wall; o'er the bright field successive figures fleet, and motley shadows dance along the sheet.-- symbol of solid forms is colour'd light, and the mute language of the touch is sight. [footnote: _the mute language of the touch_, l. . our eyes observe a difference of colour, or of shade, in the prominences and depressions of objects, and that those shades uniformly vary when the sense of touch observes any variation. hence when the retina becomes stimulated by colours or shades of light in a certain form, as in a circular spot, we know by experience that this is a sign that a tangible body is before us; and that its figure is resembled by the miniature figure of the part of the organ of vision that is thus stimulated. here whilst the stimulated part of the retina resembles exactly the visible figure of the whole in miniature, the various kinds of stimuli from different colours mark the visible figures of the minuter parts; and by habit we instantly recall the tangible figures. so that though our visible ideas resemble in miniature the outline of the figure of coloured bodies, in other respects they serve only as a language, which by acquired associations introduce the tangible ideas of bodies. hence it is, that this sense is so readily deceived by the art of the painter to our amusement and instruction. the reader will find much very curious knowledge on this subject in bishop berkeley's essay on vision, a work of great ingenuity.] "hence in life's portico starts young surprise with step retreating, and expanded eyes; the virgin, novelty, whose radiant train soars o'er the clouds, or sinks beneath the main, with sweetly-mutable seductive charms thrills the young sense, the tender heart alarms. then curiosity with tracing hands and meeting lips the lines of form demands, buoy'd on light step, o'er ocean, earth, and sky, rolls the bright mirror of her restless eye. while in wild groups tumultuous passions stand, and lust and hunger head the motley band; then love and rage succeed, and hope and fear; and nameless vices close the gloomy rear; or young philanthropy with voice divine convokes the adoring youth to virtue's shrine; who with raised eye and pointing finger leads to truths celestial, and immortal deeds. [footnote: _starts young surprise_, l. . surprise is occasioned by the sudden interruption of the usual trains of our ideas by any violent stimulus from external objects, as from the unexpected discharge of a pistol, and hence does not exist in our dreams, because our external senses are closed or inirritable. the fetus in the womb must experience many sensations, as of resistance, figure, fluidity, warmth, motion, rest, exertion, taste; and must consequently possess trains both of waking and sleeping ideas. surprise must therefore be strongly excited at its nativity, as those trains of ideas must instantly be dissevered by the sudden and violent sensations occasioned by the dry and cold atmosphere, the hardness of external bodies, light, sound, and odours; which are accompanied with pleasure or pain according to their quantity or intensity. as some of these sensations become familiar by repetition, other objects not previously attended to present themselves, and produce the idea of novelty, which is a less degree of surprise, and like that is not perceived in our dreams, though for another reason; because in sleep we possess no voluntary power to compare our trains of ideas with our previous knowledge of nature, and do not therefore perceive their difference by intuitive analogy from what usually occurs. as the novelty of our ideas is generally attended with pleasurable sensation, from this arises curiosity, or a desire of examining a variety of objects, hoping to find novelty, and the pleasure consequent to this degree of surprise; see additional note vii. .] [footnote: _and meeting lips_, l. . young children put small bodies into their mouths, when they are satiated with food, as well as when they are hungry, not with design to taste them, but use their lips as an organ of touch to distinguish the shape of them. puppies, whose toes are terminated with nails, and who do not much use their forefeet as hands, seem to have no other means of acquiring a knowledge of the forms of external bodies, and are therefore perpetually playing with things by taking them between their lips.] iii. "as the pure language of the sight commands the clear ideas furnish'd by the hands; beauty's fine forms attract our wondering eyes, and soft alarms the pausing heart surprise. warm from its cell the tender infant born feels the cold chill of life's aerial morn; seeks with spread hands the bosoms velvet orbs, with closing lips the milky fount absorbs; and, as compress'd the dulcet streams distil, drinks warmth and fragrance from the living rill; eyes with mute rapture every waving line, prints with adoring kiss the paphian shrine, and learns erelong, the perfect form confess'd, ideal beauty from its mother's breast. [footnote: _seeks with spread hands_, l. . these eight beautiful lines are copied from mr. bilsborrow's address prefixed to zoonomia, and are translated from that work; sect. xvi. .] [footnote: _ideal beauty_, l. . sentimental love, as distinguished from the animal passion of that name, with which it is frequently accompanied, consists in the desire or sensation of beholding, embracing, and saluting a beautiful object. the characteristic of beauty therefore is that it is the object of love; and though many other objects are in common language called beautiful, yet they are only called so metaphorically, and ought to be termed agreeable. a grecian temple may give us the pleasurable idea of sublimity, a gothic temple may give us the pleasurable idea of variety, and a modern house the pleasurable idea of utility; music and poetry may inspire our love by association of ideas; but none of these, except metaphorically, can be termed beautiful, as we have no wish to embrace or salute them. our perception of beauty consists in our recognition by the sense of vision of those objects, first, which have before inspired our love by the pleasure, which they have afforded to many of our senses; as to our sense of warmth, of touch, of smell, of taste, hunger and thirst; and, secondly, which bear any analogy of form to such objects.] "now on swift wheels descending like a star alights young eros from his radiant car; on angel-wings attendant graces move, and hail the god of sentimental love. earth at his feet extends her flowery bed, and bends her silver blossoms round his head; dark clouds dissolve, the warring winds subside. and smiling ocean calms his tossing tide, o'er the bright morn meridian lustres play, and heaven salutes him with a flood of day. [footnote: _alights young eros_, l. . there were two deities of love belonging to the heathen mythology, the one said to be celestial, and the other terrestrial. aristophanes says, "sable-winged night produced an egg, from which sprung up like a blossom eros, the lovely, the desirable, with his glossy golden wings." see botanic garden, canto i. l. . note. the other deity of love, cupido, seems of much later date, as he is not mentioned in the works of homer, where there were so many apt situations to have introduced him.] [footnote: _earth at his feet_, l. . te, dea, te fugiunt venti, te nubila coeli, adventumque tuum; tibi suaves dædala tellus submittit flores; tibi rident æquora ponti; placatumque nitet diffuso lumine coelum. lucret.] "warm as the sun-beam, pure as driven snows, the enamour'd god for young dione glows; drops the still tear, with sweet attention sighs, and woos the goddess with adoring eyes; marks her white neck beneath the gauze's fold, her ivory shoulders, and her locks of gold; drinks with mute ecstacy the transient glow, which warms and tints her bosom's rising snow. with holy kisses wanders o'er her charms, and clasps the beauty in platonic arms; or if the dewy hands of sleep, unbid, o'er her blue eye-balls close the lovely lid, watches each nascent smile, and fleeting grace, that plays in day-dreams o'er her blushing face; counts the fine mazes of the curls, that break round her fair ear, and shade her damask cheek; drinks the pure fragrance of her breath, and sips with tenderest touch the roses of her lips;-- o'er female hearts with chaste seduction reigns, and binds society in silken chains. iv. "if the wide eye the wavy lawns explores, the bending woodlands, or the winding shores, hills, whose green sides with soft protuberance rise, or the blue concave of the vaulted skies;-- or scans with nicer gaze the pearly swell of spiral volutes round the twisted shell; or undulating sweep, whose graceful turns bound the smooth surface of etrurian urns, when on fine forms the waving lines impress'd give the nice curves, which swell the female breast; the countless joys the tender mother pours round the soft cradle of our infant hours, in lively trains of unextinct delight rise in our bosoms _recognized by sight_; fond fancy's eye recalls the form divine, and taste sits smiling upon beauty's shrine. [footnote: _the wavy lawns_, l. . when the babe, soon after it is born into this cold world, is applied to its mother's bosom; its sense of perceiving warmth is first agreeably affected; next its sense of smell is delighted with the odour of her milk; then its taste is gratified by the flavour of it; afterwards the appetites of hunger and of thirst afford pleasure by the possession of their objects, and by the subsequent digestion of the aliment; and lastly, the sense of touch is delighted by the softness and smoothness of the milky fountain, the source of such variety of happiness. all these various kinds of pleasure at length become associated with the form of the mother's breast; which the infant embraces with its hands, presses with its lips, and watches with its eyes; and thus acquires more accurate ideas of the form of its mother's bosom, than of the odour and flavour or warmth, which it perceives by its other senses. and hence at our maturer years, when any object of vision is presented to us, which by its waving or spiral lines bears any similitude to the form of the female bosom, whether it be found in a landscape with soft gradations of rising and descending surface, or in the forms of some antique vases, or in other works of the pencil or the chisel, we feel a general glow of delight, which seems to influence all our senses; and if the object be not too large, we experience an attraction to embrace it with our arms, and to salute it with our lips, as we did in our early infancy the bosom of our mother. and thus we find, according to the ingenious idea of hogarth, that the waving lines of beauty were originally taken from the temple of venus.] "where egypt's pyramids gigantic stand, and stretch their shadows o'er the shuddering sand; or where high rocks o'er ocean's dashing floods wave high in air their panoply of woods; admiring taste delights to stray beneath with eye uplifted, and forgets to breathe; or, as aloft his daring footsteps climb, crests their high summits with his arm sublime. [footnote: _with his arm sublime_, l. . objects of taste have been generally divided into the beautiful, the sublime, and the new; and lately to these have been added the picturesque. the beautiful so well explained in hogarth's analysis of beauty, consists of curved lines and smooth surfaces, as expressed in the preceding note; any object larger than usual, as a very large temple or a very large mountain, gives us the idea of sublimity; with which is often confounded the terrific, and the melancholic: what is now termed picturesque includes objects, which are principally neither sublime nor beautiful, but which by their variety and intricacy joined with a due degree of regularity or uniformity convey to the mind an agreeable sentiment of novelty. many other agreeable sentiments may be excited by visible objects, thus to the sublime and beautiful may be added the terrific, tragic, melancholic, artless, &c. while novelty superinduces a charm upon them all. see additional note xiii.] "where mouldering columns mark the lingering wreck of thebes, palmyra, babylon, balbec; the prostrate obelisk, or shatter'd dome, uprooted pedestal, and yawning tomb, on loitering steps reflective taste surveys with folded arms and sympathetic gaze; charm'd with poetic melancholy treads o'er ruin'd towns and desolated meads; or rides sublime on time's expanded wings, and views the fate of ever-changing things. [footnote: _poetic melancholy treads_, l. . the pleasure arising from the contemplation of the ruins of ancient grandeur or of ancient happiness, and here termed poetic melancholy, arises from a combination of the painful idea of sorrow with the pleasurable idea of the grandeur or happiness of past times; and becomes very interesting to us by fixing our attention more strongly on that grandeur and happiness, as the passion of pity mentioned in the succeeding note is a combination of the painful idea of sorrow with the pleasurable one of beauty, or of virtue.] "when beauty's streaming eyes her woes express, or virtue braves unmerited distress; love sighs in sympathy, with pain combined, and new-born pity charms the kindred mind; the enamour'd sorrow every cheek bedews, and taste impassion'd woos the tragic muse. [footnote: _the tragic muse_, l. . why we are delighted with the scenical representations of tragedy, which draw tears from our eyes, has been variously explained by different writers. the same distressful circumstance attending an ugly or wicked person affects us with grief or disgust; but when distress occurs to a beauteous or virtuous person, the pleasurable idea of beauty or of virtue becomes mixed with the painful one of sorrow and the passion of pity is produced, which is a combination of love or esteem with sorrow; and becomes highly interesting to us by fixing our attention more intensely on the beauteous or virtuous person. other distressful scenes have been supposed to give pleasure to the spectator from exciting a comparative idea of his own happiness, as when a shipwreck is viewed by a person safe on shore, as mentioned by lucretius, l. . but these dreadful situations belong rather to the terrible, or the horrid, than to the tragic; and may be objects of curiosity from their novelty, but not of taste, and must suggest much more pain than pleasure.] "the rush-thatch'd cottage on the purple moor, where ruddy children frolic round the door, the moss-grown antlers of the aged oak, the shaggy locks that fringe the colt unbroke, the bearded goat with nimble eyes, that glare through the long tissue of his hoary hair;-- as with quick foot he climbs some ruin'd wall, and crops the ivy, which prevents its fall;-- with rural charms the tranquil mind delight, and form a picture to the admiring sight. while taste with pleasure bends his eye surprised in modern days at nature unchastised. [footnote: _nature unchastised_, l. . in cities or their vicinity, and even in the cultivated parts of the country we rarely see undisguised nature; the fields are ploughed, the meadows mown, the shrubs planted in rows for hedges, the trees deprived of their lower branches, and the animals, as horses, dogs, and sheep, are mutilated in respect to their tails or ears; such is the useful or ill-employed activity of mankind! all which alterations add to the formality of the soil, plants, trees, or animals; whence when natural objects are occasionally presented to us, as an uncultivated forest and its wild inhabitants, we are not only amused with greater variety of form, but are at the same time enchanted by the charm of novelty, which is a less degree of surprise, already spoken of in note on l. of this canto.] "the genius-form, on silver slippers born, with fairer dew-drops gems the rising morn; sheds o'er meridian skies a softer light, and decks with brighter pearls the brow of night; with finer blush the vernal blossom glows, with sweeter breath enamour'd zephyr blows, the limpid streams with gentler murmurs pass, and gayer colours tinge the watery glass, charm'd round his steps along the enchanted groves flit the fine forms of beauties, graces, loves. v. "alive, each moment of the transient hour, when rest accumulates sensorial power, the impatient senses, goaded to contract, forge new ideas, changing as they act; and, in long streams dissever'd, or concrete in countless tribes, the fleeting forms repeat. which rise excited in volition's trains, or link the sparkling rings of fancy's chains; or, as they flow from each translucent source, pursue association's endless course. [footnote: _when rest accumulates_, l. . the accumulation of the spirit of animation, when those parts of the system rest, which are usually in motion, produces a disagreeable sensation. whence the pain of cold and of hunger, and the irksomeness of a continued attitude, and of an indolent life: and hence the propensity to action in those confined animals, which have been accustomed to activity, as is seen in the motions of a squirrel in a cage; which uses perpetual exertion to exhaust a part of its accumulated sensorial power. this is one source of our general propensity to action; another perhaps arises from our curiosity or expectation of novelty mentioned in the note on l. . of this canto. but the immediate cause of our propensity to imitation above that of other animals arises from the greater facility, with which by the sense of touch we acquire the ideas of the outlines of objects, and afterwards in consequence by the sense of sight; this seems to have been observed by aristotle, who calls man, "the imitative animal;" see zoonomia, vol. i. sect. xxii.] "hence when the inquiring hands with contact fine trace on hard forms the circumscribing line; which then the language of the rolling eyes from distant scenes of earth and heaven supplies; those clear ideas of the touch and sight rouse the quick sense to anguish or delight; whence the fine power of imitation springs, and apes the outlines of external things; with ceaseless action to the world imparts all moral virtues, languages, and arts. first the charm'd mind mechanic powers collects, means for some end, and causes of effects; then learns from other minds their joys and fears, contagious smiles and sympathetic tears. [footnote: _all moral virtues_, l. . see the sequel of this canto l. on sympathy; and l. on language; and the subsequent lines on the arts of painting and architecture.] "what one fine stimulated sense discerns, another sense by imitation learns.-- so in the graceful dance the step sublime learns from the ear the concordance of time. so, when the pen of some young artist prints recumbent nymphs in titian's living tints; the glowing limb, fair cheek, and flowing hair, respiring bosom, and seductive air, he justly copies with enamour'd sigh from beauty's image pictured on his eye. [footnote: _another sense_, l. . as the part of the organs of touch or of sight, which is stimulated into action by a tangible or visible object, must resemble in figure at least the figure of that object, as it thus constitutes an idea; it may be said to imitate the figure of that object; and thus imitation may be esteemed coeval with the existence both of man and other animals: but this would confound perception with imitation; which latter is better defined from the actions of one sense copying those of another.] "thus when great angelo in wondering rome fix'd the vast pillars of saint peter's dome, rear'd rocks on rocks sublime, and hung on high a new pantheon in the affrighted sky. each massy pier, now join'd and now aloof, the figured architraves, and vaulted roof, ailes, whose broad curves gigantic ribs sustain, where holy echoes chant the adoring strain; the central altar, sacred to the lord, admired by sages, and by saints ador'd, whose brazen canopy ascends sublime on spiral columns unafraid of time, were first by fancy in ethereal dyes plann'd on the rolling tablets of his eyes; and his true hand with imitation fine traced from his retina the grand design. [footnote: _thus when great angelo_, l. . the origin of this propensity to imitation has not been deduced from any known principle; when any action presents itself to the view of a child, as of whetting a knife, or threading a needle; the parts of this action in respect of time, motion, figure, are imitated by parts of the retina of his eye; to perform this action therefore with his hands is easier to him than to invent any new action; because it consists in repeating with another set of fibres, viz. with the moving muscles, what he had just performed by some parts of the retina; just as in dancing we transfer the times of the motions from the actions of the auditory nerves to the muscles of the limbs. imitation therefore consists of repetition, which is the easiest kind of animal action; as the ideas or motions become presently associated together; which adds to the facility of their production; as shown in zoonomia, vol. i. sect. xxii. . it should be added, that as our ideas, when we perceive external objects, are believed to consist in the actions of the immediate organs of sense in consequence of the stimulus of those objects; so when we think of external objects, our ideas are believed to consist in the repetitions of the actions of the immediate organs of sense, excited by the other sensorial powers of volition, sensation, or association.] "the muse of mimicry in every age with silent language charms the attentive stage; the monarch's stately step, and tragic pause, the hero bleeding in his country's cause, o'er her fond child the dying mother's tears, the lover's ardor, and the virgin's fears; the tittering nymph, that tries her comic task, bounds on the scene, and peeps behind her mask, the punch and harlequin, and graver throng, that shake the theatre with dance and song, with endless trains of angers, loves, and mirths, owe to the muse of mimicry their births. [footnote: _the muse of mimicry_, l. . much of the pleasure received from the drawings of flowers finely finished, or of portraits, is derived from their imitation or resemblance of the objects or persons which they represent. the same occurs in the pleasure we receive from mimicry on the stage; we are surprised at the accuracy of its enacted resemblance. some part of the pleasure received from architecture, as when we contemplate the internal structure of gothic temples, as of king's college chapel in cambridge, or of lincoln cathedral, may arise also from their imitation or resemblance of those superb avenues of large trees, which were formerly appropriated to religious ceremonies.] "hence to clear images of form belong the sculptor's statue, and the poet's song, the painter's landscape, and the builder's plan, and imitation marks the mind of man. [footnote: _imitation marks_, l. . many other curious instances of one part of the animal system imitating another part of it, as in some contagious diseases; and also of some animals imitating each other, are given in zoonomia, vol. i. sect. xxii. . to which may be added, that this propensity to imitation not only appears in the actions of children, but in all the customs and fashions of the world; many thousands tread in the beaten paths of others, who precede or accompany them, for one who traverses regions of his own discovery.] vi. "when strong desires or soft sensations move the astonish'd intellect to rage or love; associate tribes of fibrous motions rise, flush the red cheek, or light the laughing eyes. whence ever-active imitation finds the ideal trains, that pass in kindred minds; her mimic arts associate thoughts excite and the first language enters at the sight. [footnote: _and the first language_, l. . there are two ways by which we become acquainted with the passions of others: first, by having observed the effects of them, as of fear or anger, on our own bodies, we know at sight when others are under the influence of these affections. so children long before they can speak, or understand the language of their parents, may be frightened by an angry countenance, or soothed by smiles and blandishments. secondly, when we put ourselves into the attitude that any passion naturally occasions, we soon in some degree acquire that passion; hence when those that scold indulge themselves in loud oaths and violent actions of the arms, they increase their anger by the mode of expressing themselves; and, on the contrary, the counterfeited smile of pleasure in disagreeable company soon brings along with it a portion of the reality, as is well illustrated by mr. burke. (essay on the sublime and beautiful.) these are natural signs by which we understand each other, and on this slender basis is built all human language. for without some natural signs no artificial ones could have been invented or understood, as is very ingeniously observed by dr. reid. (inquiry into the human mind.)] "thus jealous quails or village-cocks inspect each other's necks with stiffen'd plumes erect; smit with the wordless eloquence, they know the rival passion of the threatening foe. so when the famish'd wolves at midnight howl, fell serpents hiss, or fierce hyenas growl; indignant lions rear their bristling mail, and lash their sides with undulating tail. or when the savage-man with clenched fist parades, the scowling champion of the list; with brandish'd arms, and eyes that roll to know where first to fix the meditated blow; association's mystic power combines internal passions with external signs. "from these dumb gestures first the exchange began of viewless thought in bird, and beast, and man; and still the stage by mimic art displays historic pantomime in modern days; and hence the enthusiast orator affords force to the feebler eloquence of words. "thus the first language, when we frown'd or smiled, rose from the cradle, imitation's child; next to each thought associate sound accords, and forms the dulcet symphony of words; the tongue, the lips articulate; the throat with soft vibration modulates the note; love, pity, war, the shout, the song, the prayer form quick concussions of elastic air. "hence the first accents bear in airy rings the vocal symbols of ideal things, name each nice change appulsive powers supply to the quick sense of touch, or ear or eye. or in fine traits abstracted forms suggest of beauty, wisdom, number, motion, rest; or, as within reflex ideas move, trace the light steps of reason, rage, or love. the next new sounds adjunctive thoughts recite, as hard, odorous, tuneful, sweet, or white. the next the fleeting images select of action, suffering, causes and effect; or mark existence, with the march sublime o'er earth and ocean of recording time. [footnote: _hence the first accents_, l. . words were originally the signs or names of individual ideas; but in all known languages many of them by changing their terminations express more than one idea, as in the cases of nouns, and the moods and tenses of verbs. thus a whip suggests a single idea of that instrument; but "to whip," suggests an idea of action, joined with that of the instrument, and is then called a verb; and "to be whipped," suggests an idea of being acted upon or suffering. thus in most languages two ideas are suggested by one word by changing its termination; as amor, love; amare, to love; amari, to be loved. nouns are the names of the ideas of things, first as they are received by the stimulus of objects, or as they are afterwards repeated; secondly, they are names of more abstracted ideas, which do not suggest at the same time the external objects, by which they were originally excited; or thirdly, of the operations of our minds, which are termed reflex ideas by metaphysical writers; or lastly, they are the names of our ideas of parts or properties of objects; and are termed by grammarians nouns adjective. verbs are also in reality names of our ideas of things, or nouns, with the addition of another idea to them, as of acting or suffering; or of more than one other annexed idea, as of time, and also of existence. these with the numerous abbreviations, so well illustrated by mr. horne tooke in his diversions of purley, make up the general theory of language, which consists of the symbols of ideas represented by vocal or written words; or by parts of those words, as their terminations; or by their disposition in respect to their order or succession; as further explained in additional note xiv.] "the giant form on nature's centre stands, and waves in ether his unnumber'd hands; whirls the bright planets in their silver spheres, and the vast sun round other systems steers; till the last trump amid the thunder's roar sound the dread sentence "time shall be no more!" "last steps abbreviation, bold and strong, and leads the volant trains of words along; with sweet loquacity to hermes springs, and decks his forehead and his feet with wings. vii. "as the soft lips and pliant tongue are taught with other minds to interchange the thought; and sound, the symbol of the sense, explains in parted links the long ideal trains; from clear conceptions of external things the facile power of recollection springs. [footnote: _in parted links_, l. . as our ideas consist of successive trains of the motions, or changes of figure, of the extremities of the nerves of one or more of our senses, as of the optic or auditory nerves; these successive trains of motion, or configuration, are in common life divided into many links, to each of which a word or name is given, and it is called an idea. this chain of ideas may be broken into more or fewer links, or divided in different parts of it, by the customs of different people. whence the meanings of the words of one language cannot always be exactly expressed by those of another; and hence the acquirement of different languages in their infancy may affect the modes of thinking and reasoning of whole nations, or of different classes of society; as the words of them do not accurately suggest the same ideas, or parts of ideal trains; a circumstance which has not been sufficiently analysed.] "whence reason's empire o'er the world presides, and man from brute, and man from man divides; compares and measures by imagined lines ellipses, circles, tangents, angles, sines; repeats with nice libration, and decrees in what each differs, and in what agrees; with quick volitions unfatigued selects means for some end, and causes of effects; all human science worth the name imparts, and builds on nature's base the works of arts. [footnote: _whence reason's empire_, l. . the facility of the use of the voluntary power, which is owing to the possession of the clear ideas acquired by our superior sense of touch, and afterwards of vision, distinguishes man from brutes, and has given him the empire of the world, with the power of improving nature by the exertions of art. reasoning is that operation of the sensorium by which we excite two or many tribes of ideas, and then reexcite the ideas in which they differ or correspond. if we determine this difference, it is called judgment; if we in vain endeavour to determine it, it is called doubting. if we reexcite the ideas in which they differ, it is called distinguishing. if we reexcite those in which they correspond, it is called comparing.] "the wasp, fine architect, surrounds his domes with paper-foliage, and suspends his combs; secured from frost the bee industrious dwells, and fills for winter all her waxen cells; the cunning spider with adhesive line weaves his firm net immeasurably fine; the wren, when embryon eggs her cares engross, seeks the soft down, and lines the cradling moss; conscious of change the silkworm-nymphs begin attach'd to leaves their gluten-threads to spin; then round and round they weave with circling heads sphere within sphere, and form their silken beds. --say, did these fine volitions first commence from clear ideas of the tangent sense; from sires to sons by imitation caught, or in dumb language by tradition taught? or did they rise in some primeval site of larva-gnat, or microscopic mite; and with instructive foresight still await on each vicissitude of insect-state?-- wise to the present, nor to future blind, they link the reasoning reptile to mankind! --stoop, selfish pride! survey thy kindred forms, thy brother emmets, and thy sister worms! [footnote: _the wasp, fine architect_, l. . those animals which possess a better sense of touch are, in general, more ingenious than others. those which have claviculæ, or collar-bones, and thence use the forefeet as hands, as the monkey, squirrel, rat, are more ingenious in seizing their prey or escaping from danger. and the ingenuity of the elephant appears to arise from the sense of touch at the extremity of his proboscis, which has a prominence on one side of its cavity like a thumb to close against the other side of it, by which i have seen him readily pick up a shilling which was thrown amongst the straw he stood upon. hence the excellence of the sense of touch in many insects seems to have given them wonderful ingenuity so as to equal or even excel mankind in some of their arts and discoveries; many of which may have been acquired in situations previous to their present ones, as the great globe itself, and all that it inhabit, appear to be in a perpetual state of mutation and improvement; see additional note ix.] "thy potent acts, volition, still attend the means of pleasure to secure the end; to express his wishes and his wants design'd language, the _means_, distinguishes mankind; for _future_ works in art's ingenious schools his hands unwearied form and finish tools; he toils for money _future_ bliss to share, and shouts to heaven his mercenary prayer. sweet hope delights him, frowning fear alarms, and vice and virtue court him to their arms. [footnote: _thy potent acts, volition_, l. . it was before observed, how much the superior accuracy of our sense of touch contributes to increase our knowledge; but it is the greater energy and activity of the power of volition, that marks mankind, and has given them the empire of the world. there is a criterion by which we may distinguish our voluntary acts or thoughts from those that are excited by our sensations: "the former are always employed about the means to acquire pleasurable objects, or to avoid painful ones; while the latter are employed about the possession of those that are already in our power." the ideas and actions of brutes, like those of children, are almost perpetually produced by their present pleasures or their present pains; and they seldom busy themselves about the _means_ of procuring future bliss, or of avoiding future misery. whilst the acquiring of languages, the making of tools, and the labouring for money, which are all only the _means_ of procuring pleasure; and the praying to the deity, as another means to procure happiness, are characteristic of human nature.] "unenvied eminence, in nature's plan rise the reflective faculties of man! labour to rest the thinking few prefer! know but to mourn! and reason but to err!-- in eden's groves, the cradle of the world, bloom'd a fair tree with mystic flowers unfurl'd; on bending branches, as aloft it sprung, forbid to taste, the fruit of knowledge hung; flow'd with sweet innocence the tranquil hours, and love and beauty warm'd the blissful bowers. till our deluded parents pluck'd, erelong, the tempting fruit, and gather'd right and wrong; whence good and evil, as in trains they pass, reflection imaged on her polish'd glass; and conscience felt, for blood by hunger spilt, the pains of shame, of sympathy, and guilt! [footnote: _and gather'd right and wrong_, l. . some philosophers have believed that the acquisition of knowledge diminishes the happiness of the possessor; an opinion which seems to have been inculcated by the history of our first parents, who are said to have become miserable from eating of the tree of knowledge. but as the foresight and the power of mankind are much increased by their voluntary exertions in the acquirement of knowledge, they may undoubtedly avoid many sources of evil, and procure many sources of good; and yet possess the pleasures of sense, or of imagination, as extensively as the brute or the savage.] viii. "last, as observant imitation stands, turns her quick glance, and brandishes her hands, with mimic acts associate thoughts excites, and storms the soul with sorrows or delights; life's shadowy scenes are brighten'd and refin'd, and soft emotions mark the feeling mind. [footnote: _and soft emotions_, l. . from our aptitude to imitation arises what is generally understood by the word sympathy, so well explained by dr. smith of glasgow. thus the appearance of a cheerful countenance gives us pleasure, and of a melancholy one makes us sorrowful. yawning, and sometimes vomiting, are thus propagated by sympathy; and some people of delicate fibres, at the presence of a spectacle of misery, have felt pain in the same parts of their bodies, that were diseased or mangled in the object they saw. the effect of this powerful agent in the moral world, is the foundation of all our intellectual sympathies with the pains and pleasures of others, and is in consequence the source of all our virtues. for in what consists our sympathy with the miseries or with the joys of our fellow creatures, but in an involuntary excitation of ideas in some measure similar or imitative of those which we believe to exist in the minds of the persons whom we commiserate or congratulate!] "the seraph, sympathy, from heaven descends, and bright o'er earth his beamy forehead bends; on man's cold heart celestial ardor flings, and showers affection from his sparkling wings; rolls o'er the world his mild benignant eye, hears the lone murmur, drinks the whisper'd sigh; lifts the closed latch of pale misfortune's door, opes the clench'd hand of avarice to the poor, unbars the prison, liberates the slave, sheds his soft sorrows o'er the untimely grave, points with uplifted hand to realms above, and charms the world with universal love. "o'er the thrill'd frame his words assuasive steal, and teach the selfish heart what others feel; with sacred truth each erring thought control, bind sex to sex, and mingle soul with soul; from heaven, he cried, descends the moral plan, and gives society to savage man. "high on yon scroll, inscribed o'er nature's shrine, live in bright characters the words divine. "in life's disastrous scenes to others do, what you would wish by others done to you." --winds! wide o'er earth the sacred law convey, ye nations, hear it! and ye kings, obey! [footnote: _high on yon scroll_, l. . the famous sentence of socrates "know thyself," so celebrated by writers of antiquity, and said by them to have descended from heaven, however wise it may be, seems to be rather of a selfish nature; and the author of it might have added "know also other people." but the sacred maxims of the author of christianity, "do as you would be done by," and "love your neighbour as yourself," include all our duties of benevolence and morality; and, if sincerely obeyed by all nations, would a thousandfold multiply the present happiness of mankind.] "unbreathing wonder hush'd the adoring throng, froze the broad eye, and chain'd the silent tongue; mute was the wail of want, and misery's cry, and grateful pity wiped her lucid eye; peace with sweet voice the seraph-form address'd, and virtue clasp'd him to her throbbing breast." end of canto iii. origin of society. canto iv. of good and evil. contents. i. few affected by sympathy . cruelty of war . of brute animals, wolf, eagle, lamb, dove, owl, nightingale . of insects, oestrus, ichneumon, libellula . wars of vegetables . of fish, the shark, crocodile, whale . the world a slaughter-house . pains from defect and from excess of stimulus . ebriety and superstition . mania . association . avarice, imposture, ambition, envy, jealousy . floods, volcanoes, earthquakes, famine . pestilence . pains from sympathy . ii. good outbalances evil . life combines inanimate matter, and produces happiness by irritation . as in viewing a landscape . in hearing music . by sensation or fancy in dreams . the patriot and the nun . howard, moira, burdett . by volition . newton, herschel . archimedes, savery . isis, arkwright . letters and printing . freedom of the press . by association . ideas of contiguity, resemblance, and of cause and effect . antinous . cecilia . iii. life soon ceases, births and deaths alternate . acorns, poppy-seeds, aphises, snails, worms, tadpoles, herrings innumerable . so mankind . all nature teems with life . dead organic matter soon revives . death is but a change of form . exclamation of st. paul . happiness of the world increases . the phoenix . system of pythagoras . rocks and mountains produced by organic life . are monuments of past felicity . munificence of the deity . iv. procession of virgins . hymn to heaven . of chaos . of celestial love . offering of urania - . canto iv. of good and evil. i. "how few," the muse in plaintive accents cries, and mingles with her words pathetic sighs.-- "how few, alas! in nature's wide domains the sacred charm of sympathy restrains! uncheck'd desires from appetite commence, and pure reflection yields to selfish sense! --blest is the sage, who learn'd in nature's laws with nice distinction marks effect and cause; who views the insatiate grave with eye sedate, nor fears thy voice, inexorable fate! [footnote: _blest is the sage_, l. . felix, qui potuit rerum cognoscere causas; quique metus omnes, et inexorabile fatum, subjecit pedibus, strepitumque acherontis avari. virg. georg. ii. .] "when war, the demon, lifts his banner high, and loud artillery rends the affrighted sky; swords clash with swords, on horses horses rush, man tramples man, and nations nations crush; death his vast sithe with sweep enormous wields, and shuddering pity quits the sanguine fields. "the wolf, escorted by his milk-drawn dam, unknown to mercy, tears the guiltless lamb; the towering eagle, darting from above, unfeeling rends the inoffensive dove; the lamb and dove on living nature feed, crop the young herb, or crush the embryon seed. nor spares the loud owl in her dusky flight, smit with sweet notes, the minstrel of the night; nor spares, enamour'd of his radiant form, the hungry nightingale the glowing worm; who with bright lamp alarms the midnight hour, climbs the green stem, and slays the sleeping flower. [footnote: _the towering eagle_, l. . torva leæna lupum sequitur, lupus ipse capellam, florentem cytisum sequitur lasciva capella. virg.] "fell oestrus buries in her rapid course her countless brood in stag, or bull, or horse; whose hungry larva eats its living way, hatch'd by the warmth, and issues into day. the wing'd ichneumon for her embryon young gores with sharp horn the caterpillar throng. the cruel larva mines its silky course, and tears the vitals of its fostering nurse. while fierce libellula with jaws of steel ingulfs an insect-province at a meal; contending bee-swarms rise on rustling wings, and slay their thousands with envenom'd stings. [footnote: _fell oestrus buries_, l. . the gadfly, bot-fly, or sheep-fly: the larva lives in the bodies of cattle throughout the whole winter; it is extracted from their backs by an african bird called buphaga. adhering to the anus it artfully introduces itself into the intestines of horses, and becomes so numerous in their stomachs, as sometimes to destroy them; it climbs into the nostrils of sheep and calves, and producing a nest of young in a transparent hydatide in the frontal sinus, occasions the vertigo or turn of those animals. in lapland it so attacks the rein deer that the natives annually travel with the herds from the woods to the mountains. lin. syst. nat.] [footnote: _the wing'd ichneumon_, l. . linneus describes seventy-seven species of the ichneumon fly, some of which have a sting as long and some twice as long as their bodies. many of them insert their eggs into various caterpillars, which when they are hatched seem for a time to prey on the reservoir of silk in the backs of those animals designed for their own use to spin a cord to support them, or a bag to contain them, while they change from their larva form to a butterfly; as i have seen in above fifty cabbage-caterpillars. the ichneumon larva then makes its way out of the caterpillar, and spins itself a small cocoon like a silk worm; these cocoons are about the size of a small pin's head, and i have seen about ten of them on each cabbage caterpillar, which soon dies after their exclusion. other species of ichneumon insert their eggs into the aphis, and into the larva of the aphidivorous fly: others into the bedeguar of rose trees, and the gall-nuts of oaks; whence those excrescences seem to be produced, as well as the hydatides in the frontal sinus of sheep and calves by the stimulus of the larvæ deposited in them.] [footnote: _while fierce libellula_, l. . the libellula or dragon-fly is said to be a most voracious animal; linneus says in their perfect state they are the hawks to naked winged flies; in their larva state they run beneath the water, and are the cruel crocodiles of aquatic insects. syst. nat.] [footnote: _contending bee-swarms_, l. . stronger bee-swarms frequently attack weak hives, and in two or three days destroy them and carry away their honey; this i once prevented by removing the attacked hive after the first day's battle to a distinct part of the garden. see phytologia, sect. xiv. . .] "yes! smiling flora drives her armed car through the thick ranks of vegetable war; herb, shrub, and tree, with strong emotions rise for light and air, and battle in the skies; whose roots diverging with opposing toil contend below for moisture and for soil; round the tall elm the flattering ivies bend, and strangle, as they clasp, their struggling friend; envenom'd dews from mancinella flow, and scald with caustic touch the tribes below; dense shadowy leaves on stems aspiring borne with blight and mildew thin the realms of corn; and insect hordes with restless tooth devour the unfolded bud, and pierce the ravell'd flower. "in ocean's pearly haunts, the waves beneath sits the grim monarch of insatiate death; the shark rapacious with descending blow darts on the scaly brood, that swims below; the crawling crocodiles, beneath that move, arrest with rising jaw the tribes above; with monstrous gape sepulchral whales devour shoals at a gulp, a million in an hour. --air, earth, and ocean, to astonish'd day one scene of blood, one mighty tomb display! from hunger's arm the shafts of death are hurl'd, and one great slaughter-house the warring world! [footnote: _the shark rapacious_, l. . the shark has three rows of sharp teeth within each other, which he can bend downwards internally to admit larger prey, and raise to prevent its return; his snout hangs so far over his mouth, that he is necessitated to turn upon his back, when he takes fish that swim over him, and hence seems peculiarly formed to catch those that swim under him.] [footnote: _the crawling crocodiles_, l. . as this animal lives chiefly at the bottom of the rivers, which he frequents, he has the power of opening the upper jaw as well as the under one, and thus with greater facility catches the fish or water-fowl which swim over him.] [footnote: _one great slaughter-house_, l. . as vegetables are an inferior order of animals fixed to the soil; and as the locomotive animals prey upon them, or upon each other; the world may indeed be said to be one great slaughter-house. as the digested food of vegetables consists principally of sugar, and from this is produced again their mucilage, starch, and oil, and since animals are sustained by these vegetable productions, it would seem that the sugar-making process carried on in vegetable vessels was the great source of life to all organized beings. and that if our improved chemistry should ever discover the art of making sugar from fossile or aerial matter without the assistance of vegetation, food for animals would then become as plentiful as water, and they might live upon the earth without preying on each other, as thick as blades of grass, with no restraint to their numbers but the want of local room. it would seem that roots fixed in the earth and leaves innumerable waving in the air were necessary for the decomposition of water and air, and the conversion of them into saccharine matter, which would have been not only cumberous but totally incompatible with the locomotion of animal bodies. for how could a man or quadruped have carried on his head or back a forest of leaves, or have had long branching lacteal or absorbent vessels terminating in the earth? animals therefore subsist on vegetables; that is they take the matter so prepared, and have organs to prepare it further for the purposes of higher animation and greater sensibility.] "the brow of man erect, with thought elate, ducks to the mandate of resistless fate; nor love retains him, nor can virtue save her sages, saints, or heroes from the grave. while cold and hunger by defect oppress, repletion, heat, and labour by excess, the whip, the sting, the spur, the fiery brand, and, cursed slavery! thy iron hand; and led by luxury disease's trains, load human life with unextinguish'd pains. [footnote: _while cold and hunger_, l. . those parts of our system, which are in health excited into perpetual action, give us pain, when they are not excited into action: thus when the hands are for a time immersed in snow, an inaction of the cutaneous capillaries is induced, as is seen from the paleness of the skin, which is attended with the pain of coldness. so the pain of hunger is probably produced by the inaction of the muscular fibres of the stomach from the want of the stimulus of food. thus those, who have used much voluntary exertion in their early years, and have continued to do so, till the decline of life commences, if they then lay aside their employment, whether that of a minister of state, a general of an army, or a merchant, or manufacturer; they cease to have their faculties excited into their usual activity, and become unhappy, i suppose from the too great accumulation of the sensorial power of volition; which wants the accustomed stimulus or motive to cause its expenditure.] "here laughs ebriety more fell than arms, and thins the nations with her fatal charms, with gout, and hydrops groaning in her train, and cold debility, and grinning pain, with harlot's smiles deluded man salutes, revenging all his cruelties to brutes! there the curst spells of superstition blind, and fix her fetters on the tortured mind; she bids in dreams tormenting shapes appear, with shrieks that shock imagination's ear, e'en o'er the grave a deeper shadow flings, and maddening conscience darts a thousand stings. [footnote: _here laughs ebriety_, l. . sævior armis luxuria incubuit, victumque ulciscitur orbem. horac.] [footnote: _e'en o'er the grave_, l. . many theatric preachers among the methodists successfully inculcate the fear of death and of hell, and live luxuriously on the folly of their hearers: those who suffer under this insanity, are generally most innocent and harmless people, who are then liable to accuse themselves of the greatest imaginary crimes; and have so much intellectual cowardice, that they dare not reason about those things, which they are directed by their priests to believe. where this intellectual cowardice is great, the voice of reason is ineffectual; but that of ridicule may save many from these mad-making doctors, as the farces of mr. foot; though it is too weak to cure those who are already hallucinated.] "there writhing mania sits on reason's throne, or melancholy marks it for her own, sheds o'er the scene a voluntary gloom, requests oblivion, and demands the tomb. and last association's trains suggest ideal ills, that harrow up the breast, call for the dead from time's o'erwhelming main, and bid departed sorrow live again. [footnote: _and last association_, l. . the miseries and the felicities of life may be divided into those which arise in consequence of irritation, sensation, volition, and association; and consist in the actions of the extremities of the nerves of sense, which constitute our ideas; if they are much more exerted than usual, or much less exerted than usual, they occasion pain; as when the finger is burnt in a candle; or when we go into a cold bath: while their natural degree of exertion produces the pleasure of life or existence. this pleasure is nevertheless increased, when the system is stimulated into rather stronger action than usual, as after a copious dinner, and at the beginning of intoxication; and diminished, when it is only excited into somewhat less activity than usual, which is termed ennui, or irksomeness of life.] [footnote: _ideal ills_, l. . the tooth-edge is an instance of bodily pain occasioned by association of ideas. every one in his childhood has repeatedly bit a part of the glass or earthen vessel, in which his food has been given him, and has thence had a disagreeable sensation in his teeth, attended at the same time with a jarring sound: and ever after, when such a sound is accidentally produced, the disagreeable sensation of the teeth follows by association of ideas; this is further elucidated in zoonomia, vol. i. sect. xvi. .] "here ragged avarice guards with bolted door his useless treasures from the starving poor; loads the lorn hours with misery and care, and lives a beggar to enrich his heir. unthinking crowds thy forms, imposture, gull, a saint in sackcloth, or a wolf in wool. while mad with foolish fame, or drunk with power, ambition slays his thousands in an hour; demoniac envy scowls with haggard mien, and blights the bloom of other's joys, unseen; or wrathful jealousy invades the grove, and turns to night meridian beams of love! [footnote: _enrich his heir_, l. . cum furor haud dubius, cum sit manifesta phrenitis, ut locuples moriaris, egenti vivere fato. juvenal.] [footnote: _a wolf in wool_, l. . a wolf in sheep's clothing.] "here wide o'er earth impetuous waters sweep, and fields and forests rush into the deep; or dread volcano with explosion dire involves the mountains in a flood of fire; or yawning earth with closing jaws inhumes unwarned nations, living in their tombs; or famine seizes with her tiger-paw, and swallows millions with unsated maw. "there livid pestilence in league with dearth walks forth malignant o'er the shuddering earth, her rapid shafts with airs volcanic wings, or steeps in putrid vaults her venom'd stings. arrests the young in beauty's vernal bloom, and bears the innocuous strangers to the tomb!-- [footnote: _with airs volcanic_, l. . those epidemic complaints, which are generally termed influenza, are believed to arise from vapours thrown out from earthquakes in such abundance as to affect large regions of the atmosphere, see botanic garden, v. i. canto iv. l. . while the diseases properly termed contagious originate from the putrid effluvia of decomposing animal or vegetable matter.] "and now, e'en i, whose verse reluctant sings the changeful state of sublunary things, bend o'er mortality with silent sighs, and wipe the secret tear-drops from my eyes, hear through the night one universal groan, and mourn unseen for evils not my own, with restless limbs and throbbing heart complain, stretch'd on the rack of sentimental pain! --ah where can sympathy reflecting find one bright idea to console the mind? one ray of light in this terrene abode to prove to man the goodness of his god?" [footnote: _sentimental pain_, l. . children should be taught in their early education to feel for all the remediable evils, which they observe in others; but they should at the same time be taught sufficient firmness of mind not intirely to destroy their own happiness by their sympathizing with too great sensibility with the numerous irremediable evils, which exist in the present system of the world: as by indulging that kind of melancholy they decrease the sum total of public happiness; which is so far rather reprehensible than commendable. see plan for female education by dr. darwin, johnson, london, sect. xvii. this has been carried to great excess in the east by the disciples of confucius; the gentoos during a famine in india refused to eat the flesh of cows and of other animals to satisfy their hunger, and save themselves from death. and at other times they have been said to permit fleas and musquitoes to feed upon them from this erroneous sympathy.] ii. "hear, o ye sons of time!" the nymph replies, quick indignation darting from her eyes; "when in soft tones the muse lamenting sings, and weighs with tremulous hand the sum of things; she loads the scale in melancholy mood, presents the evil, but forgets the good. but if the beam some firmer hand suspends, and good and evil load the adverse ends; with strong libration, where the good abides, quick nods the beam, the ponderous gold subsides. "hear, o ye sons of time! the powers of life arrest the elements, and stay their strife; from wandering atoms, ethers, airs, and gas, by combination form the organic mass; and,--as they seize, digest, secrete,--dispense the bliss of being to the vital ens. hence in bright groups from irritation rise young pleasure's trains, and roll their azure eyes. [footnote: _from wandering atoms_, l. . had those ancient philosophers, who contended that the world was formed from atoms, ascribed their combinations to certain immutable properties received from the hand of the creator, such as general gravitation, chemical affinity, or animal appetency, instead of ascribing them to a blind chance; the doctrine of atoms, as constituting or composing the material world by the variety of their combinations, so far from leading the mind to atheism, would strengthen the demonstration of the existence of a deity, as the first cause of all things; because the analogy resulting from our perpetual experience of cause and effect would have thus been exemplified through universal nature.] "with fond delight we feel the potent charm, when zephyrs cool us, or when sun-beams warm; with fond delight inhale the fragrant flowers, taste the sweet fruits, which bend the blushing bowers, admire the music of the vernal grove, or drink the raptures of delirious love. "so with long gaze admiring eyes behold the varied landscape all its lights unfold; huge rocks opposing o'er the stream project their naked bosoms, and the beams reflect; wave high in air their fringed crests of wood, and checker'd shadows dance upon the flood; green sloping lawns construct the sidelong scene, and guide the sparkling rill that winds between; conduct on murmuring wings the pausing gale, and rural echoes talk along the vale; dim hills behind in pomp aerial rise, lift their blue tops, and melt into the skies. [footnote: _the varied landscape_, l. . the pleasure, we feel on examining a fine landscape, is derived from various sources; as first the excitement of the retina of the eye into certain quantities of action; which when there is in the optic nerve any accumulation of sensorial power, is always agreeable. . when it is excited into such successive actions, as relieve each other; as when a limb has been long exerted in one direction, by stretching it in another; as described in zoonomia, sect. xl. . on ocular spectra. . and lastly by the associations of its parts with some agreeable sentiments or tastes, as of sublimity, beauty, utility, novelty; and the objects suggesting other sentiments, which have lately been termed picturesque as mentioned in the note to canto iii, l. of this work. the two former of these sources of pleasure arise from irritation, the last from association.] "so when by handel tuned to measured sounds the trumpet vibrates, or the drum rebounds; alarm'd we listen with ecstatic wonder to mimic battles, or imagined thunder. when the soft lute in sweet impassion'd strains of cruel nymphs or broken vows complains; as on the breeze the fine vibration floats, we drink delighted the melodious notes. but when young beauty on the realms above bends her bright eye, and trills the tones of love; seraphic sounds enchant this nether sphere; and listening angels lean from heaven to hear. [footnote: _we drink delighted_, l. . the pleasure we experience from music, is, like that from viewing a landscape, derived from various sources; as first from the excitement of the auditory nerve into certain quantities of action, when there exists any accumulation of sensorial power. . when the auditory nerve is exerted in such successive actions as relieve each other, like stretching or yawning, as described in botanic garden, vol. ii, interlude the third, these successions of sound are termed melody, and their combinations harmony. . from the repetition of sounds at certain intervals of time; as we hear them with greater facility and accuracy, when we expect them; because they are then excited by volition, as well as by irritation, or at least the tympanum is then better adapted to assist their production; hence the two musical times or bars; and hence the rhimes in poetry give pleasure, as well as the measure of the verse: and lastly the pleasure we receive from music, arises from the associations of agreeable sentiments with certain proportions, or repetitions, or quantities, or times of sounds which have been previously acquired; as explained in zoonomia vol. i. sect. xvi. . and sect. xxii. .] "next by sensation led, new joys commence from the fine movements of the excited sense; in swarms ideal urge their airy flight, adorn the day-scenes, and illume the night. her spells o'er all the hand of fancy flings, gives form and substance to unreal things; with fruits and foliage decks the barren waste, and brightens life with sentiment and taste; pleased o'er the level and the rule presides, the painter's brush, the sculptor's chisel guides, with ray ethereal lights the poet's fire, tunes the rude pipe, or strings the heroic lyre: charm'd round the nymph on frolic footsteps move the angelic forms of beauty, grace, and love. "so dreams the patriot, who indignant draws the sword of vengeance in his country's cause; bright for his brows unfading honours bloom, or kneeling virgins weep around his tomb. so holy transports in the cloister's shade play round thy toilet, visionary maid! charm'd o'er thy bed celestial voices sing, and seraphs hover on enamour'd wing. "so howard, moira, burdett, sought the cells, where want, or woe, or guilt in darkness dwells; with pity's torch illumed the dread domains, wiped the wet eye, and eased the galling chains; with hope's bright blushes warm'd the midnight air, and drove from earth the demon of despair. erewhile emerging from the caves of night the friends of man ascended into light; with soft assuasive eloquence address'd the ear of power to stay his stern behest; at mercy's call to stretch his arm and save his tottering victims from the gaping grave. these with sweet smiles imagination greets, for these she opens all her treasured sweets, strews round their couch, by pity's hand combined, bright flowers of joy, the sunshine of the mind; while fame's loud trump with sounds applausive breathes and virtue crowns them with immortal wreathes. "thy acts, volition, to the world impart the plans of science with the works of art; give to proud reason her comparing power, warm every clime, and brighten every hour. in life's first cradle, ere the dawn began of young society to polish man; the staff that propp'd him, and the bow that arm'd, the boat that bore him, and the shed that warm'd, fire, raiment, food, the ploughshare, and the sword, arose, volition, at thy plastic word. "by thee instructed, newton's eye sublime mark'd the bright periods of revolving time; explored in nature's scenes the effect and cause, and, charm'd, unravell'd all her latent laws. delighted herschel with reflected light pursues his radiant journey through the night; detects new guards, that roll their orbs afar in lucid ringlets round the georgian star. "inspired by thee, with scientific wand pleased archimedes mark'd the figured sand; seized with mechanic grasp the approaching decks, and shook the assailants from the inverted wrecks. --then cried the sage, with grand effects elate, and proud to save the syracusian state; while crowds exulting shout their noisy mirth, 'give where to stand, and i will move the earth.' so savery guided his explosive steam in iron cells to raise the balanced beam; the giant-form its ponderous mass uprears, descending nods and seems to shake the spheres. [footnote: _mark'd the figur'd sand_, l. . the ancient orators seem to have spoken disrespectfully of the mechanic philosophers. cicero mentioning archimedes, calls him homunculus e pulvere et radio, alluding to the custom of drawing problems on the sand with a staff.] [footnote: _so savery guided_, l. . captain savery first applied the pressure of the atmosphere to raise water in consequence of a vacuum previously produced by the condensation of steam, though the marquis of worcester had before proposed to use for this purpose the expansive power of steam; see botanic garden, vol. i. canto i. l. . note.] "led by volition on the banks of nile where bloom'd the waving flax on delta's isle, pleased isis taught the fibrous stems to bind, and part with hammers from the adhesive rind; with locks of flax to deck the distaff-pole, and whirl with graceful bend the dancing spole. in level lines the length of woof to spread, and dart the shuttle through the parting thread. so arkwright taught from cotton-pods to cull, and stretch in lines the vegetable wool; with teeth of steel its fibre-knots unfurl'd, and with the silver tissue clothed the world. [footnote: _the waving flax_, l. . flax is said to have been first discovered on the banks of the nile, and isis to have been the inventress of spinning and weaving.] [footnote: _so arkwright taught_, l. . see botanic garden, vol. ii. canto ii. l. , note.] "ages remote by thee, volition, taught chain'd down in characters the winged thought; with silent language mark'd the letter'd ground, and gave to sight the evanescent sound. now, happier lot! enlighten'd realms possess the learned labours of the immortal press; nursed on whose lap the births of science thrive, and rising arts the wrecks of time survive. [footnote: _the immortal press_, l. . the discovery of the art of printing has had so great influence on human affairs, that from thence may be dated a new æra in the history of mankind. as by the diffusion of general knowledge, both of the arts of taste and of useful sciences, the public mind has become improved to so great a degree, that though new impositions have been perpetually produced, the arts of detecting them have improved with greater rapidity. hence since the introduction of printing, superstition has been much lessened by the reformation of religion; and necromancy, astrology, chiromancy, witchcraft, and vampyrism, have vanished from all classes of society; though some are still so weak in the present enlightened times as to believe in the prodigies of animal magnetism, and of metallic tractors; by this general diffusion of knowledge, if the liberty of the press be preserved, mankind will not be liable in this part of the world to sink into such abject slavery as exists at this day in china.] "ye patriot heroes! in the glorious cause of justice, mercy, liberty, and laws, who call to virtue's shrine the british youth, and shake the senate with the voice of truth; rouse the dull ear, the hoodwink'd eye unbind, and give to energy the public mind; while rival realms with blood unsated wage wide-wasting war with fell demoniac rage; in every clime while army army meets, and oceans groan beneath contending fleets; oh save, oh save, in this eventful hour the tree of knowledge from the axe of power; with fostering peace the suffering nations bless, and guard the freedom of the immortal press! so shall your deathless fame from age to age survive recorded in the historic page; and future bards with voice inspired prolong your sacred names immortalized in song. "thy power association next affords ideal trains annex'd to volant words, conveys to listening ears the thought superb, and gives to language her expressive verb; which in one changeful sound suggests the fact at once to be, to suffer, or to act; and marks on rapid wing o'er every clime the viewless flight of evanescent time. [footnote: _her expressive verb_, l. . the verb, or the word, has been so called from its being the most expressive term in all languages; as it suggests the ideas of existence, action or suffering, and of time; see the note on canto iii. l. , of this work.] "call'd by thy voice contiguous thoughts embrace in endless streams arranged by time or place; the muse historic hence in every age gives to the world her _interesting_ page; while in bright landscape from her moving pen rise the fine tints of manners and of men. [footnote: _call'd by thy voice_, l. . the numerous trains of associated ideas are divided by mr. hume into three classes, which he has termed contiguity, causation, and resemblance. nor should we wonder to find them thus connected together, since it is the business of our lives to dispose them into these three classes; and we become valuable to ourselves and our friends as we succeed in it. those who have combined an extensive class of ideas by the contiguity of time or place, are men learned in the history of mankind, and of the sciences they have cultivated. those who have connected a great class of ideas of resemblances, possess the source of the ornaments of poetry and oratory, and of all rational analogy. while those who have connected great classes of ideas of causation, are furnished with the powers of producing effects. these are the men of active wisdom who lead armies to victory, and kingdoms to prosperity; or discover and improve the sciences which meliorate and adorn the condition of humanity.] "call'd by thy voice resemblance next describes her sister-thoughts in lucid trains or tribes; whence pleased imagination oft combines by loose analogies her fair designs; each winning grace of polish'd wit bestows to deck the nymphs of poetry and prose. [footnote: _polish'd wit bestows_, l. . mr. locke defines wit to consist of an assemblage of ideas, brought together with quickness and variety, wherein can be found any resemblance or congruity, thereby to make up pleasant pictures and agreeable visions in the fancy. to which mr. addison adds, that these must occasion surprise as well as delight; spectator, vol. i. no. lxii. see note on canto iii. l. . and additional note, vii. . perhaps wit in the extended use of the word may mean to express all kinds of fine writing, as the word taste is applied to all agreeable visible objects, and thus wit may mean descriptive sublimity, beauty, the pathetic, or ridiculous, but when used in the confined sense, as by mr. locke and mr. addison as above, it may probably be better defined a combination of ideas with agreeable novelty, as this may be effected by opposition as well as by resemblance.] "last, at thy potent nod, effect and cause walk hand in hand accordant to thy laws; rise at volition's call, in groups combined, amuse, delight, instruct, and serve mankind; bid raised in air the ponderous structure stand, or pour obedient rivers through the land; with cars unnumber'd crowd the living streets, or people oceans with triumphant fleets. "thy magic touch imagined forms supplies from colour'd light, the language of the eyes; on memory's page departed hours inscribes, sweet scenes of youth, and pleasure's vanish'd tribes. by thee antinous leads the dance sublime on wavy step, and moves in measured time; charm'd round the youth successive graces throng, and ease conducts him, as he moves along; unbreathing crowds the floating form admire, and vestal bosoms feel forbidden fire. "when rapp'd cecilia breathes her matin vow, and lifts to heaven her fair adoring brow; from her sweet lips, and rising bosom part impassion'd notes, that thrill the melting heart; tuned by thy hand the dulcet harp she rings, and sounds responsive echo from the strings; bright scenes of bliss in trains suggested move, and charm the world with melody and love. iii. "soon the fair forms with vital being bless'd, time's feeble children, lose the boon possess'd; the goaded fibre ceases to obey, and sense deserts the uncontractile clay; while births unnumber'd, ere the parents die, the hourly waste of lovely life supply; and thus, alternating with death, fulfil the silent mandates of the almighty will; whose hand unseen the works of nature dooms by laws unknown--who gives, and who resumes. [footnote: _the goaded fibre_, l. . old age consists in the inaptitude to motion from the inirritability of the system, and the consequent want of fibrous contraction; see additional note vii.] "each pregnant oak ten thousand acorns forms profusely scatter'd by autumnal storms; ten thousand seeds each pregnant poppy sheds profusely scatter'd from its waving heads; the countless aphides, prolific tribe, with greedy trunks the honey'd sap imbibe; swarm on each leaf with eggs or embryons big, and pendent nations tenant every twig. amorous with double sex, the snail and worm, scoop'd in the soil, their cradling caverns form; heap their white eggs, secure from frost and floods, and crowd their nurseries with uncounted broods. ere yet with wavy tail the tadpole swims, breathes with new lungs, or tries his nascent limbs; her countless shoals the amphibious frog forsakes, and living islands float upon the lakes. the migrant herring steers her myriad bands from seas of ice to visit warmer strands; unfathom'd depths and climes unknown explores, and covers with her spawn unmeasured shores. --all these, increasing by successive birth, would each o'erpeople ocean, air, and earth. [footnote: _ten thousand seeds_, l. . the fertility of plants in respect to seeds is often remarkable; from one root in one summer the seeds of zea, maize, amount to ; of inula, elecampane, to ; of helianthus, sunflower, to ; of papaver, poppy, ; of nicotiana, tobacco, to ; to this must be added the perennial roots, and the buds. buds, which are so many herbs, in one tree, the trunk of which does not exceed a span in thickness, frequently amount to ; lin. phil. bot. p. .] [footnote: _the countless aphides_, l. . the aphises, pucerons, or vine-fretters, are hatched from an egg in the early spring, and are all called females, as they produce a living offspring about once in a fortnight to the ninth generation, which are also all of them females; then males are also produced, and by their intercourse the females become oviparous, and deposite their eggs on the branches, or in the bark to be hatched in the ensuing spring. this double mode of reproduction, so exactly resembling the buds and seeds of trees, accounts for the wonderful increase of this insect, which, according to dr. richardson, consists of ten generations, and of fifty at an average in each generation; so that the sum of fifty multiplied by fifty, and that product again multiplied by fifty nine times, would give the product of one egg only in countless millions; to which must be added the innumerable eggs laid by the tenth generation for the renovation of their progeny in the ensuing spring.] [footnote: _the honey'd sap_, l. . the aphis punctures with its fine proboscis the sap-vessels of vegetables without any visible wound, and thus drinks the sap-juice, or vegetable chyle, as it ascends. hence on the twigs of trees they stand with their heads downwards, as i have observed, to acquire this ascending sap-juice with greater facility. the honey-dew on the upper surface of leaves is evacuated by these insects, as they hang on the underside of the leaves above; when they take too much of this saccharine juice during the vernal or midsummer sap-flow of most vegetables; the black powder on leaves is also their excrement at other times. the vegetable world seems to have escaped total destruction from this insect by the number of flies, which in their larva state prey upon them; and by the ichneumon fly, which deposits its eggs in them. some vegetables put forth stiff bristles with points round their young shoots, as the moss-rose, apparently to prevent the depredation of these insects, so injurious to them by robbing them of their chyle or nourishment.] [footnote: _the tadpole swims_, l. . the progress of a tadpole from a fish to a quadruped by his gradually putting forth his limbs, and at length leaving the water, and breathing the dry air, is a subject of great curiosity, as it resembles so much the incipient state of all other quadrupeds, and men, who are aquatic animals in the uterus, and become aerial ones at their birth.] "so human progenies, if unrestrain'd, by climate friended, and by food sustain'd, o'er seas and soils, prolific hordes! would spread erelong, and deluge their terraqueous bed; but war, and pestilence, disease, and dearth, sweep the superfluous myriads from the earth. thus while new forms reviving tribes acquire each passing moment, as the old expire; like insects swarming in the noontide bower, rise into being, and exist an hour; the births and deaths contend with equal strife, and every pore of nature teems with life; which buds or breathes from indus to the poles, and earth's vast surface kindles, as it rolls! [footnote: _which buds or breathes_, l. . organic bodies, besides the carbon, hydrogen, azote, and the oxygen and heat, which are combined with them, require to be also immersed in loose heat and loose oxygen to preserve their mutable existence; and hence life only exists on or near the surface of the earth; see botan. garden, vol. i. canto iv. l. . l'organisation, le sentiment, le movement spontané, la vie, n'existent qu'à la surface de la terre, et dans les lieux exposés à la lumière. traité de chimie par m. lavoisier, tom. i. p. .] "hence when a monarch or a mushroom dies, awhile extinct the organic matter lies; but, as a few short hours or years revolve, alchemic powers the changing mass dissolve; born to new life unnumber'd insects pant, new buds surround the microscopic plant; whose embryon senses, and unwearied frames, feel finer goads, and blush with purer flames; renascent joys from irritation spring, stretch the long root, or wave the aurelian wing. [footnote: _born to new life_, l. . from the innumerable births of the larger insects, and the spontaneous productions of the microscopic ones, every part of organic matter from the recrements of dead vegetable or animal bodies, on or near the surface of the earth, becomes again presently reanimated; which by increasing the number and quantity of living organizations, though many of them exist but for a short time, adds to the sum total of terrestrial happiness.] "when thus a squadron or an army yields, and festering carnage loads the waves or fields; when few from famines or from plagues survive, or earthquakes swallow half a realm alive;-- while nature sinks in time's destructive storms, the wrecks of death are but a change of forms; emerging matter from the grave returns, feels new desires, with new sensations burns; with youth's first bloom a finer sense acquires, and loves and pleasures fan the rising fires.-- thus sainted paul, 'o death!' exulting cries, 'where is thy sting? o grave! thy victories?' [footnote: _thus sainted paul_, l. . the doctrine of st. paul teaches the resurrection of the body in an incorruptible and glorified state, with consciousness of its previous existence; he therefore justly exults over the sting of death, and the victory of the grave.] "immortal happiness from realms deceased wakes, as from sleep, unlessen'd or increased; calls to the wise in accents loud and clear, sooths with sweet tones the sympathetic ear; informs and fires the revivescent clay, and lights the dawn of life's returning day. [footnote: _and lights the dawn_, l. . the sum total of the happiness of organized nature is probably increased rather than diminished, when one large old animal dies, and is converted into many thousand young ones; which are produced or supported with their numerous progeny by the same organic matter. linneus asserts, that three of the flies, called musca vomitoria, will consume the body of a dead horse, as soon as a lion can; syst. nat.] "so when arabia's bird, by age oppress'd, consumes delighted on his spicy nest; a filial phoenix from his ashes springs, crown'd with a star, on renovated wings; ascends exulting from his funeral flame, and soars and shines, another and the same. [footnote: _so when arabia's bird_, l. . the story of the phoenix rising from its own ashes with a star upon its head seems to have been an hieroglyphic emblem of the destruction and resuscitation of all things; see botan. garden, vol. i. canto iv. l. .] "so erst the sage with scientific truth in grecian temples taught the attentive youth; with ceaseless change how restless atoms pass from life to life, a transmigrating mass; how the same organs, which to day compose the poisonous henbane, or the fragrant rose, may with to morrow's sun new forms compile, frown in the hero, in the beauty smile. whence drew the enlighten'd sage the moral plan, that man should ever be the friend of man; should eye with tenderness all living forms, his brother-emmets, and his sister-worms. [footnote: _so erst the sage_, l. . it is probable, that the perpetual transmigration of matter from one body to another, of all vegetables and animals, during their lives, as well as after their deaths, was observed by pythagoras; which he afterwards applied to the soul, or spirit of animation, and taught, that it passed from one animal to another as a punishment for evil deeds, though without consciousness of its previous existence; and from this doctrine he inculcated a system of morality and benevolence, as all creatures thus became related to each other.] "hear, o ye sons of time! your final doom, and read the characters, that mark your tomb: the marble mountain, and the sparry steep, were built by myriad nations of the deep,-- age after age, who form'd their spiral shells, their sea-fan gardens and their coral cells; till central fires with unextinguished sway raised the primeval islands into day;-- the sand-fill'd strata stretch'd from pole to pole; unmeasured beds of clay, and marl, and coal, black ore of manganese, the zinky stone, and dusky steel on his magnetic throne, in deep morass, or eminence superb, rose from the wrecks of animal or herb; these from their elements by life combined, form'd by digestion, and in glands refined, gave by their just excitement of the sense the bliss of being to the vital ens. [footnote: _the marble mountain_, l. . from the increased knowledge in geology during the present century, owing to the greater attention of philosophers to the situations of the different materials, which compose the strata of the earth, as well as to their chemical properties, it seems clearly to appear, that the nucleus of the globe beneath the ocean consisted of granite; and that on this the great beds of limestone were formed from the shells of marine animals during the innumerable primeval ages of the world; and that whatever strata lie on these beds of limestone, or on the granite, where the limestone does not cover it, were formed after the elevation of islands and continents above the surface of the sea by the recrements of vegetables and of terrestrial animals; see on this subject botanic garden, vol. i. additional note xxiv.] "thus the tall mountains, that emboss the lands, huge isles of rock, and continents of sands, whose dim extent eludes the inquiring sight, are mighty monuments of past delight; shout round the globe, how reproduction strives with vanquish'd death,--and happiness survives; how life increasing peoples every clime, and young renascent nature conquers time; --and high in golden characters record the immense munificence of nature's lord!-- [footnote: _are mighty monuments_, l. . the reader is referred to a few pages on this subject in phytologia, sect. xix. . , where the felicity of organic life is considered more at large; but it is probable that the most certain way to estimate the happiness and misery of organic beings; as it depends on the actions of the organs of sense, which constitute ideas; or of the muscular fibres which perform locomotion; would be to consider those actions, as they are produced or excited by the four sensorial powers of irritation, sensation, volition, and association. a small volume on this subject by some ingenious writer, might not only amuse, as an object of curiosity; but by showing the world the immediate sources of their pains and pleasures might teach the means to avoid the one, and to procure the other, and thus contribute both ways to increase the sum total of organic happiness.] [footnote: _how life increasing_, l. . not only the vast calcareous provinces, which form so great a part of the terraqueous globe, and also whatever rests upon them, as clay, marl, sand, and coal, were formed from the fluid elements of heat, oxygen, azote, and hydrogen along with carbon, phosphorus, and perhaps a few other substances, which the science of chemistry has not yet decomposed; and gave the pleasure of life to the animals and vegetables, which formed them; and thus constitute monuments of the past happiness of those organized beings. but as those remains of former life are not again totally decomposed, or converted into their original elements, they supply more copious food to the succession of new animal or vegetable beings on their surface; which consists of materials convertible into nutriment with less labour or activity of the digestive powers; and hence the quantity or number of organized bodies, and their improvement in size, as well as their happiness, has been continually increasing, along with the solid parts of the globe; and will probably continue to increase, till the whole terraqueous sphere, and all that inhabit it shall dissolve by a general conflagration, and be again reduced to their elements. thus all the suns, and the planets, which circle round them, may again sink into one central chaos; and may again by explosions produce a new world; which in process of time may resemble the present one, and at length again undergo the same catastrophe! these great events may be the result of the immutable laws impressed on matter by the great cause of causes, parent of parents, ens entium!] "he gives and guides the sun's attractive force, and steers the planets in their silver course; with heat and light revives the golden day, and breathes his spirit on organic clay; with hand unseen directs the general cause by firm immutable immortal laws." charm'd with her words the muse astonish'd stands, the nymphs enraptured clasp their velvet hands; applausive thunder from the fane recoils, and holy echoes peal along the ailes; o'er nature's shrine celestial lustres glow, and lambent glories circle round her brow. iv. now sinks the golden sun,--the vesper song demands the tribute of urania's tongue; onward she steps, her fair associates calls from leaf-wove avenues, and vaulted halls. fair virgin trains in bright procession move, trail their long robes, and whiten all the grove; pair after pair to nature's temple sweep, thread the broad arch, ascend the winding steep; through brazen gates along susurrant ailes stream round their goddess the successive files; curve above curve to golden seats retire, and star with beauty the refulgent quire. and first to heaven the consecrated throng with chant alternate pour the adoring song, swell the full hymn, now high, and now profound, with sweet responsive symphony of sound. seen through their wiry harps, below, above, nods the fair brow, the twinkling fingers move; soft-warbling flutes the ruby lip commands, and cymbals ring with high uplifted hands. to chaos next the notes melodious pass, how suns exploded from the kindling mass, waved o'er the vast inane their tresses bright, and charm'd young nature's opening eyes with light. next from each sun how spheres reluctant burst, and second planets issued from the first. and then to earth descends the moral strain, how isles, emerging from the shoreless main, with sparkling streams and fruitful groves began, and form'd a paradise for mortal man. [footnote: _to chaos next_, l. . namque canebat uti magnum per inane coacta semina terrarumque, animæque, marisque fuissent; et liquidi simul ignis; ut his exordia primis omnia, et ipse tener mundi concreverit orbis. virg. ec. vi. l. .] sublimer notes record celestial love, and high rewards in brighter climes above; how virtue's beams with mental charm engage youth's raptured eye, and warm the frost of age, gild with soft lustre death's tremendous gloom, and light the dreary chambers of the tomb. how fell remorse shall strike with venom'd dart, though mail'd in adamant, the guilty heart; fierce furies drag to pains and realms unknown the blood-stain'd tyrant from his tottering throne. by hands unseen are struck aerial wires, and angel-tongues are heard amid the quires; from aile to aile the trembling concord floats, and the wide roof returns the mingled notes, through each fine nerve the keen vibrations dart, pierce the charm'd ear, and thrill the echoing heart.-- mute the sweet voice, and still the quivering strings, now silence hovers on unmoving wings.-- --slow to the altar fair urania bends her graceful march, the sacred steps ascends, high in the midst with blazing censer stands, and scatters incense with illumined hands: thrice to the goddess bows with solemn pause, with trembling awe the mystic veil withdraws, and, meekly kneeling on the gorgeous shrine, lifts her ecstatic eyes to truth divine! end of canto iv. contents of the notes. canto i. line. origin of european nations. early use of painting and hieroglyphics. proteus represents time. cave of trophonius. eleusinian mysteries. antiquity of statuary, casting figures, and carving. infancy of the present world. of heat. of attraction. of contraction. arteries not conical. venous absorption. decrease of the ocean. sensation and volition. mucor, vibrio. animals are first aquatic. sea, originally was not salt. animals from the sea. aquatic plants. frogs. rainbow in northern latitudes. venus rising from the sea. the fetus in the womb. animals from the mud of the nile. canto ii. shortness of life. old age surprising. organic and chemical properties. immortality of matter. adonis emblem of life. the truffle, lycoperdon. volvox. polypus. tænia. oysters. coral-insect. female sex produced. power of imagination. mankind were formerly hermaphrodites and quadrupeds. hereditary diseases of vegetables. psyche and cupid. some honey poisonous. appetency and propensity. vallisneria. lampyris. insects from anthers and stigmas. horns of stags, and tusks of boars, spurs of cocks. chick in the egg. songs of birds. how fish swim. how birds fly. of smiles, and of laughter. canto iii. oxygen, and hydrogen, and azote. two electric ethers. irritation. sensation. volition, memory. intuitive analogy. association. armour of brutes. of the human hand. perception of figure. sight the language of the touch. surprise, novelty, curiosity. the lips an organ of touch. ideal beauty. two deities of love. idea of beauty from the female bosom. taste for sublimity. poetic melancholy. taste for tragedy. taste for uncultivated nature. accumulation of sensorial power. imitation described. imitation of one sense by another. mimickry or resemblance. the parts of the system imitate each other. external signs of passions. theory of language. ideas so called are parts of a train of actions. of reason. reasoning of insects. volition distinguishes mankind. if knowledge produces happiness. sympathy the source of virtue. maxim of socrates. canto iv. oestrus or gadfly. ichneumon fly. libellula. bees. shark. crocodile animals prey on vegetables. defect of stimulus. theatric preachers. pleasure of life, ennui. of tooth-edge. epidemic complaints. compassion may be too great. doctrine of atoms. pleasure of viewing a landscape. pleasure from music. ancient orators spoke disrespectfully of the mechanic philosophers. influence of printing. associated ideas of three classes. wit defined. surprising number of seeds. of the aphis, its numbers. aphis drinks the sap-juice. the mutation of the tadpole. animation near the surface of the earth. all dead animal and vegetable bodies become animated. doctrine of st. paul. happiness increased. doctrine of pythagoras. geology. method of investigation of organic happiness. organic life increases. additional notes. additional notes. spontaneous vitality of microscopic animals. hence without parent by spontaneous birth rise the first specks of animated earth. canto i. l. . _prejudices against this doctrine._ i. from the misconception of the ignorant or superstitious, it has been thought somewhat profane to speak in favour of spontaneous vital production, as if it contradicted holy writ; which says, that god created animals and vegetables. they do not recollect that god created all things which exist, and that these have been from the beginning in a perpetual state of improvement; which appears from the globe itself, as well as from the animals and vegetables, which possess it. and lastly, that there is more dignity in our idea of the supreme author of all things, when we conceive him to be the cause of causes, than the cause simply of the events, which we see; if there can be any difference in infinity of power! another prejudice which has prevailed against the spontaneous production of vitality, seems to have arisen from the misrepresentation of this doctrine, as if the larger animals had been thus produced; as ovid supposes after the deluge of deucalion, that lions were seen rising out of the mud of the nile, and struggling to disentangle their hinder parts. it was not considered, that animals and vegetables have been perpetually improving by reproduction; and that spontaneous vitality was only to be looked for in the simplest organic beings, as in the smallest microscopic animalcules; which perpetually, perhaps hourly, enlarge themselves by reproduction, like the roots of tulips from seed, or the buds of seedling trees, which die annually, leaving others by solitary reproduction rather more perfect than themselves for many successive years, till at length they acquire sexual organs or flowers. a third prejudice against the existence of spontaneous vital productions has been the supposed want of analogy; this has also arisen from the expectation, that the larger or more complicated animals should be thus produced; which have acquired their present perfection by successive generations during an uncounted series of ages. add to this, that the want of analogy opposes the credibility of all new discoveries, as of the magnetic needle, and coated electric jar, and galvanic pile; which should therefore certainly be well weighed and nicely investigated before distinct credence is given them; but then the want of analogy must at length yield to repeated ocular demonstration. _preliminary observations._ ii. concerning the spontaneous production of the smallest microscopic animals it should be first observed, that the power of reproduction distinguishes organic being, whether vegetable or animal, from inanimate nature. the circulation of fluids in vessels may exist in hydraulic machines, but the power of reproduction belongs alone to life. this reproduction of plants and of animals is of two kinds, which may be termed solitary and sexual. the former of these, as in the reproduction of the buds of trees, and of the bulbs of tulips, and of the polypus, and aphis, appears to be the first or most simple mode of generation, as many of these organic beings afterwards acquire sexual organs, as the flowers of seedling trees, and of seedling tulips, and the autumnal progeny of the aphis. see phytologia. secondly, it should be observed, that by reproduction organic beings are gradually enlarged and improved; which may perhaps more rapidly and uniformly occur in the simplest modes of animated being; but occasionally also in the more complicated and perfect kinds. thus the buds of a seedling tree, or the bulbs of seedling tulips, become larger and stronger in the second year than the first, and thus improve till they acquire flowers or sexes; and the aphis, i believe, increases in bulk to the eighth or ninth generation, and then produces a sexual progeny. hence the existence of spontaneous vitality is only to be expected to be found in the simplest modes of animation, as the complex ones have been formed by many successive reproductions. _experimental facts._ iii. by the experiments of buffon, reaumur, ellis, ingenhouz, and others, microscopic animals are produced in three or four days, according to the warmth of the season, in the infusions of all vegetable or animal matter. one or more of these gentlemen put some boiling veal broth into a phial previously heated in the fire, and sealing it up hermetically or with melted wax, observed it to be replete with animalcules in three or four days. these microscopic animals are believed to possess a power of generating others like themselves by solitary reproduction without sex; and these gradually enlarging and improving for innumerable successive generations. mr. ellis in phil. transact. v. lix. gives drawings of six kinds of animalcula infusoria, which increase by dividing across the middle into two distinct animals. thus in paste composed of flour and water, which has been suffered to become acescent, the animalcules called eels, vibrio anguillula, are seen in great abundance; their motions are rapid and strong; they are viviparous, and produce at intervals a numerous progeny: animals similar to these are also found in vinegar; naturalist's miscellany by shaw and nodder, vol. ii. these eels were probably at first as minute as other microscopic animalcules; but by frequent, perhaps hourly reproduction, have gradually become the large animals above described, possessing wonderful strength and activity. to suppose the eggs of the former microscopic animals to float in the atmosphere, and pass through the sealed glass phial, is so contrary to apparent nature, as to be totally incredible! and as the latter are viviparous, it is equally absurd to suppose, that their parents float universally in the atmosphere to lay their young in paste or vinegar! not only microscopic animals appear to be produced by a spontaneous vital process, and then quickly improve by solitary generation like the buds of trees, or like the polypus and aphis, but there is one vegetable body, which appears to be produced by a spontaneous vital process, and is believed to be propagated and enlarged in so short a time by solitary generation as to become visible to the naked eye; i mean the green matter first attended to by dr. priestley, and called by him conferva fontinalis. the proofs, that this material is a vegetable, are from its giving up so much oxygen, when exposed to the sunshine, as it grows in water, and from its green colour. dr. ingenhouz asserts, that by filling a bottle with well-water, and inverting it immediately into a basin of well-water, this green vegetable is formed in great quantity; and he believes, that the water itself, or some substance contained in the water, is converted into this kind of vegetation, which then quickly propagates itself. m. girtanner asserts, that this green vegetable matter is not produced by water and heat alone, but requires the sun's light for this purpose, as he observed by many experiments, and thinks it arises from decomposing water deprived of a part of its oxygen, and laughs at dr. priestley for believing that the seeds of this conferva, and the parents of microscopic animals, exist universally in the atmosphere, and penetrate the sides of glass jars; philos. magazine for may . besides this green vegetable matter of dr. priestley, there is another vegetable, the minute beginnings of the growth of which mr. ellis observed by his microscope near the surface of all putrefying vegetable or animal matter, which is the mucor or mouldiness; the vegetation of which was amazingly quick so as to be almost seen, and soon became so large as to be visible to the naked eye. it is difficult to conceive how the seeds of this mucor can float so universally in the atmosphere as to fix itself on all putrid matter in all places. _theory of spontaneous vitality._ iv. in animal nutrition the organic matter of the bodies of dead animals, or vegetables, is taken into the stomach, and there suffers decompositions and new combinations by a chemical process. some parts of it are however absorbed by the lacteals as fast as they are produced by this process of digestion; in which circumstance this process differs from common chemical operations. in vegetable nutrition the organic matter of dead animals, or vegetables, undergoes chemical decompositions and new combinations on or beneath the surface of the earth; and parts of it, as they are produced, are perpetually absorbed by the roots of the plants in contact with it; in which this also differs from common chemical processes. hence the particles which are produced from dead organic matter by chemical decompositions or new consequent combinations, are found proper for the purposes of the nutrition of living vegetable and animal bodies, whether these decompositions and new combinations are performed in the stomach or beneath the soil. for the purposes of nutrition these digested or decomposed recrements of dead animal or vegetable matter are absorbed by the lacteals of the stomachs of animals or of the roots of vegetables, and carried into the circulation of their blood, and these compose new organic parts to replace others which are destroyed, or to increase the growth of the plant or animal. it is probable, that as in inanimate or chemical combinations, one of the composing materials must possess a power of attraction, and the other an aptitude to be attracted; so in organic or animated compositions there must be particles with appetencies to unite, and other particles with propensities to be united with them. thus in the generation of the buds of trees, it is probable that two kinds of vegetable matter, as they are separated from the solid system, and float in the circulation, become arrested by two kinds of vegetable glands, and are then deposed beneath the cuticle of the tree, and there join together forming a new vegetable, the caudex of which extends from the plumula at the summit to the radicles beneath the soil, and constitutes a single fibre of the bark. these particles appear to be of two kinds; one of them possessing an appetency to unite with the other, and the latter a propensity to be united with the former; and they are probably separated from the vegetable blood by two kinds of glands, one representing those of the anthers, and the others those of the stigmas, in the sexual organs of vegetables; which is spoken of at large in phytologia, sect. vii. and in zoonomia, vol. i. sect. xxxix. . of the third edition, in octavo; where it is likewise shown, that none of these parts which are deposited beneath the cuticle of the tree, is in itself a complete vegetable embryon, but that they form one by their reciprocal conjunction. so in the sexual reproduction of animals, certain parts separated from the living organs, and floating in the blood, are arrested by the sexual glands of the female, and others by those of the male. of these none are complete embryon animals, but form an embryon by their reciprocal conjunction. there hence appears to be an analogy between generation and nutrition, as one is the production of new organization, and the other the restoration of that which previously existed; and which may therefore be supposed to require materials somewhat similar. now the food taken up by animal lacteals is previously prepared by the chemical process of digestion in the stomach; but that which is taken up by vegetable lacteals, is prepared by chemical dissolution of organic matter beneath the surface of the earth. thus the particles, which form generated animal embryons, are prepared from dead organic matter by the chemico-animal processes of sanguification and of secretion; while those which form spontaneous microscopic animals or microscopic vegetables are prepared by chemical dissolutions and new combinations of organic matter in watery fluids with sufficient warmth. it may be here added, that the production and properties of some kinds of inanimate matter, are almost as difficult to comprehend as those of the simplest degrees of animation. thus the elastic gum, or caoutchouc, and some fossile bitumens, when drawn out to a great length, contract themselves by their elasticity, like an animal fibre by stimulus. the laws of action of these, and all other elastic bodies, are not yet understood; as the laws of the attraction of cohesion, to produce these effects, must be very different from those of general attraction, since the farther the particles of elastic bodies are drawn from each other till they separate, the stronger they seem to attract; and the nearer they are pressed together, the more they seem to repel; as in bending a spring, or in extending a piece of elastic gum; which is the reverse to what occurs in the attractions of disunited bodies; and much wants further investigation. so the spontaneous production of alcohol or of vinegar, by the vinous and acetous fermentations, as well as the production of a mucus by putrefaction which will contract when extended, seems almost as difficult to understand as the spontaneous production of a fibre from decomposing animal or vegetable substances, which will contract when stimulated, and thus constitutes the primordium of life. some of the microscopic animals are said to remain dead for many days or weeks, when the fluid in which they existed is dried up, and quickly to recover life and motion by the fresh addition of water and warmth. thus the chaos redivivum of linnæus dwells in vinegar and in bookbinders paste: it revives by water after having been dried for years, and is both oviparous and viviparous; syst. nat. thus the vorticella or wheel animal, which is found in rain water that has stood some days in leaden gutters, or in hollows of lead on the tops of houses, or in the slime or sediment left by such water, though it discovers no sign of life except when in the water, yet it is capable of continuing alive for many months though kept in a dry state. in this state it is of a globulous shape, exceeds not the bigness of a grain of sand, and no signs of life appear; but being put into water, in the space of half an hour a languid motion begins, the globule turns itself about, lengthens itself by slow degrees, assumes the form of a lively maggot, and most commonly in a few minutes afterwards puts out its wheels, swimming vigorously through the water as if in search of food; or else, fixing itself by the tail, works the wheels in such a manner as to bring its food to its mouth; english encyclopedia, art. animalcule. thus some shell-snails in the cabinets of the curious have been kept in a dry state for ten years or longer, and have revived on being moistened with warmish water; philos. transact. so eggs and seeds after many months torpor, are revived by warmth and moisture; hence it may be concluded, that even the organic particles of dead animals may, when exposed to a due degree of warmth and moisture, regain some degree of vitality, since this is done by more complicate animal organs in the instances above mentioned. the hydra of linnæus, which dwells in the rivers of europe under aquatic plants, has been observed by the curious of the present time, to revive after it has been dried, to be restored after being mutilated, to multiply by being divided, to be propagated from small portions, to live after being inverted; all which would be best explained by the doctrine of spontaneous reproduction from organic particles not yet completely decomposed. to this should be added, that these microscopic animals are found in all solutions of vegetable or animal matter in water; as black pepper steeped in water, hay suffered to become putrid in water, and the water of dunghills, afford animalcules in astonishing numbers. see mr. ellis's curious account of animalcules produced from an infusion of potatoes and hempseed; philos. transact. vol. lix. from all which it would appear, that organic particles of dead vegetables and animals during their usual chemical changes into putridity or acidity, do not lose all their organization or vitality, but retain so much of it as to unite with the parts of living animals in the process of nutrition, or unite and produce new complicate animals by secretion as in generation, or produce very simple microscopic animals or microscopic vegetables, by their new combinations in warmth and moisture. and finally, that these microscopic organic bodies are multiplied and enlarged by solitary reproduction without sexual intercourse till they acquire greater perfection or new properties. lewenhoek observed in rain-water which had stood a few days, the smallest scarcely visible microscopic animalcules, and in a few more days he observed others eight times as large; english encyclop. art. animalcule. _conclusion._ there is therefore no absurdity in believing that the most simple animals and vegetables may be produced by the congress of the parts of decomposing organic matter, without what can properly be termed generation, as the genus did not previously exist; which accounts for the endless varieties, as well as for the immense numbers of microscopic animals. the green vegetable matter of dr. priestley, which is universally produced in stagnant water, and the mucor, or mouldiness, which is seen on the surface of all putrid vegetable and animal matter, have probably no parents, but a spontaneous origin from the congress of the decomposing organic particles, and afterwards propagate themselves. some other fungi, as those growing in close wine-vaults, or others which arise from decaying trees, or rotten timber, may perhaps be owing to a similar spontaneous production, and not previously exist as perfect organic beings in the juices of the wood, as some have supposed. in the same manner it would seem, that the common esculent mushroom is produced from horse dung at any time and in any place, as is the common practice of many gardeners; kennedy on gardening. _appendix._ the knowledge of microscopic animals is still in its infancy: those already known are arranged by mr. muller into the following classes; but it is probable, that many more classes, as well as innumerable individuals, may be discovered by improvements of the microscope, as mr. herschell has discovered so many thousand stars, which were before invisible, by improvements of the telescope. mr. muller's classes consist of i. _such as have no external organs._ . monas: punctiformis. a mere point. . proteus: mutabilis. mutable. . volvox: sphæricum. spherical. . enchelis: cylindracea. cylindrical. . vibrio: elongatum. long. *membranaceous. . cyclidium: ovale. oval. . paramecium: oblongum. oblong. . kolpoda: sinuatum. sinuous. . gonium: angulatum. with angles. . bursaria. hollow like a purse. ii. _those that have external organs._ *naked, or not enclosed in a shell. . cercaria: caudatum. with a tail. . trichoda: crinitum. hairy. . kerona: corniculatum. with horns. . himantopus: cirratum. cirrated. . leucophra: ciliatum undique. every part ciliated. . vorticella: ciliatum apice. the apex ciliated. *covered with a shell. . brachionus: ciliatum apice. the apex ciliated. . these animalcules are discovered in two or three days in all decompositions of organic matter, whether vegetable or animal, in moderate degrees of warmth with sufficient moisture. . they appear to enlarge in a few days, and some to change their form; which are probably converted from more simple into more complicate animalcules by repeated reproductions. see note viii. . in their early state they seem to multiply by viviparous solitary reproduction, either by external division, as the smaller ones, or by an internal progeny, as the eels in paste or vinegar; and lastly, in their more mature state, the larger ones are said to appear to have sexual connexion. engl. encyclop. . those animalcules discovered in pustules of the itch, in the feces of dysenteric patients, and in semine masculino, i suppose to be produced by the stagnation and incipient decomposition of those materials in their receptacles, and not to exist in the living blood or recent secretions; as none, i believe, have been discovered in blood when first drawn from the arm, or in fluids newly secreted from the glands, which have not previously stagnated in their reservoirs. . they are observed to move in all directions with ease and rapidity, and to avoid obstacles, and not to interfere with each other in their motions. when the water is in part evaporated, they are seen to flock towards the remaining part, and show great agitation. they sustain a great degree of cold, as some insects, and perish in much the same degree of heat as destroys insects; all which evince that they are living animals. and it is probable, that other or similar animalcules may be produced in the air, or near the surface of the earth, but it is not so easy to view them as in water; which as it is transparent, the creatures produced in it can easily be observed by applying a drop to a microscope. i hope that microscopic researches may again excite the attention of philosophers, as unforeseen advantages may probably be derived from them, like the discovery of a new world. additional notes. ii. the faculties of the sensorium. next the long nerves unite their silver train, and young sensation permeates the brain. cant. i. l. . i. the fibres, which constitute the muscles and organs of sense, possess a power of contraction. the circumstances attending the exertion of this power of contraction constitute the laws of animal motion, as the circumstances attending the exertion of the power of attraction constitute the laws of motion of inanimate matter. ii. the spirit of animation is the immediate cause of the contraction of animal fibres, it resides in the brain and nerves, and is liable to general or partial diminution or accumulation. iii. the stimulus of bodies external to the moving organ is the remote cause of the original contractions of animal fibres. iv. a certain quantity of stimulus produces irritation, which is an exertion of the spirit of animation exciting the fibres into contraction. v. a certain quantity of contraction of animal fibres, if it be perceived at all, produces pleasure; a greater or less quantity of contraction, if it be perceived at all, produces pain; these constitute sensation. vi. a certain quantity of sensation produces desire or aversion; these constitute volition. vii. all animal motions which have occurred at the same time, or in immediate succession, become so connected, that when one of them is reproduced, the other has a tendency to accompany or succeed it. when fibrous contractions succeed or accompany other fibrous contractions, the connexion is termed association; when fibrous contractions succeed sensorial motions, the connexion is termed causation; when fibrous and sensorial motions reciprocally introduce each other, it is termed catenation of animal motions. viii. these four faculties of the sensorium during their inactive state are termed irritability, sensibility, voluntarily, and associability; in their active state they are termed as above irritation, sensation, volition, association. irritation is an exertion or change of some extreme part of the sensorium residing in the muscles or organs of sense, in consequence of the appulses of external bodies. sensation is an exertion or change of the central parts of the sensorium, or of the whole of it, beginning at some of those extreme parts of it, which reside in the muscles or organs of sense. volition is an exertion or change of the central parts of the sensorium, or of the whole of it, terminating in some of those extreme parts of it, which reside in the muscles or organs of sense. association is an exertion or change of some extreme part of the sensorium residing in the muscles or organs of sense, in consequence of some antecedent or attendant fibrous contractions; see zoonomia, vol. i. the word sensorium is used to express not only the medullary part of the brain, spinal marrow, nerves, organs of sense and muscles, but also at the same time that living principle, or spirit of animation, which resides throughout the body, without being cognizable to our senses except by its effects. additional notes. iii. next when imprison'd fires in central caves burst the firm earth, and drank the headlong waves. canto i. l. . the great and repeated explosions of volcanoes are shown by mr. mitchell in the philosoph. transact. to arise from their communication with the sea, or with rivers, or inundations; and that after a chink or crack is made, the water rushing into an immense burning cavern, and falling on boiling lava, is instantly expanded into steam, and produces irresistible explosions. as the first volcanic fires had no previous vent, and were probably more central, and larger in quantity, before they burst the crust of the earth then intire, and as the sea covered the whole, it must rapidly sink down into every opening chink; whence these primeval earthquakes were of much greater extent, and of much greater force, than those which occur in the present era. it should be added, that there may be other elastic vapours produced by great heat from whatever will evaporate, as mercury, and even diamonds; which may be more elastic, and consequently exert greater force than the steam of water even though heated red hot. which may thence exert a sufficient power to raise islands and continents, and even to throw the moon from the earth. if the moon be supposed to have been thus thrown out of the great cavity which now contains the south sea, the immense quantity of water flowing in from the primeval ocean, which then covered the earth, would much contribute to leave the continents and islands, which might be raised at the same time above the surface of the water. in later days there are accounts of large stones falling from the sky, which may have been thus thrown by explosion from some distant earthquake, without sufficient force to cause them to circulate round the earth, and thus produce numerous small moons or satellites. mr. mitchell observes, that the agitations of the earth from the great earthquake at lisbon were felt in this country about the same time after the shock, as sound would have taken in passing from lisbon hither; and thence ascribes these agitations to the vibrations of the solid earth, and not to subterraneous caverns of communication; philos. transact. but from the existence of warm springs at bath and buxton, there must certainly be unceasing subterraneous fires at some great depth beneath those parts of this island; see on this subject botanic garden, vol. ii. canto iv. l. , note. for an account of the noxious vapours emitted from volcanoes, see botanic garden, vol. ii. cant. iv. l. , note. for the milder effects of central fires, see botanic garden, vol. i. cant. i. l. , and additional note vi. additional notes. iv. so from deep lakes the dread musquito springs, drinks the soft breeze, and dries his tender wings. canto i. l. . the gnat, or musquito, culex pipiens. the larva of this insect lives chiefly in water, and the pupa moves with great agility. it is fished for by ducks; and, when it becomes a fly, is the food of the young of partridges, quails, sparrows, swallows, and other small birds. the females wound us, and leave a red point; and in india their bite is more venomous. the male has its antennæ and feelers feathered, and seldom bites or sucks blood; lin. syst. nat. it may be driven away by smoke, especially by that from inula helenium, elecampane; and by that of cannabis, hemp. kalm. it is said that a light in a chamber will prevent their attack on sleeping persons. the gnats of this country are produced in greater numbers in some years than others, and are then seen in swarms for many evenings near the lakes or rivers whence they arise; and, i suppose, emigrate to upland situations, where fewer of them are produced. about thirty years ago such a swarm was observed by mr. whitehurst for a day or two about the lofty tower of derby church, as to give a suspicion of the fabric being on fire. many other kinds of flies have their origin in the water, as perhaps the whole class of neuroptera. thus the libellula, dragon fly: the larva of which hurries amid the water, and is the cruel crocodile of aquatic insects. after they become flies, they prey principally on the class of insects termed lepidoptera, and diptera of linneus. the ephemera is another of this order, which rises from the lakes in such quantities in some countries, that the rustics have carried cart-loads of them to manure their corn lands; the larva swims in the water: in its fly-state the pleasures of life are of short duration, as its marriage, production of its progeny, and funeral, are often celebrated in one day. the phryganea is another fly of this order; the larva lies concealed under the water in moveable cylindrical tubes of their own making. in the fly-state they institute evening dances in the air in swarms, and are fished for by the swallows. many other flies, who do not leave their eggs in water, contrive to lay them in moist places, as the oestros bovis; the larvæ of which exist in the bodies of cattle, where they are nourished during the winter, and are occasionally extracted by a bird of the crow-kind called buphaga. these larvæ are also found in the stomachs of horses, whom they sometimes destroy; another species of them adhere to the anus of horses, and creep into the lowest bowel, and are called botts; and another species enters the frontal sinus of sheep, occasioning a vertigo called the turn. the musca pendula lives in stagnant water; the larva is suspended by a thread-form respiratory tube; of the musca chamæleon, the larva lives in fountains, and the fly occasionally walks upon the water. the musca vomitoria is produced in carcases; three of these flies consume the dead body of a horse as soon as a lion. lin. syst. nat. additional note. v. amphibious animals. so still the diodons, amphibious tribe, with twofold lungs the sea and air imbibe. cant. i. l. . d. d. garden dissected the amphibious creature called diodon by linneus, and was amazed to find that it possessed both external gills and internal lungs, which he described and prepared and sent to linneus; who thence put this animal into the order nantes of his class amphibia. he adds also, in his account of polymorpha before the class amphibia, that some of this class breathe by lungs only, and others by both lungs and gills. some amphibious quadrupeds, as the beaver, water rat, and otter, are said to have the foramen ovale of the heart open, which communicates from one cavity of it to the other; and that, during their continuance under water, the blood can thus for a time circulate without passing through the lungs; but as it cannot by these means acquire oxygen either from the air or water, these creatures find it frequently necessary to rise to the surface to respire. as this foramen ovale is always open in the foetus of quadrupeds, till after its birth that it begins to respire, it has been proposed by some to keep young puppies three or four times a day for a minute or two under warm water to prevent this communication from one cavity of the heart to the other from growing up; whence it has been thought such dogs might become amphibious. it is also believed that this circumstance has existed in some divers for pearl; whose children are said to have been thus kept under water in their early infancy to enable them afterwards to succeed in their employment. but the most frequent distinction of the amphibious animals, that live much in the water, is, that their heart consists but of one cell; and as they are pale creatures with but little blood, and that colder and darker coloured, as frogs and lizards, they require less oxygen than the warmer animals with a greater quantity and more scarlet blood; and thence, though they have only lungs, they can stay long under water without great inconvenience; but are all of them, like frogs, and crocodiles, and whales, necessitated frequently to rise above the surface for air. in this circumstance of their possessing a one-celled heart, and colder and darker blood, they approach to the state of fish; which thus appear not to acquire so much oxygen by their gills from the water as terrestrial animals do by their lungs from the atmosphere; whence it may be concluded that the gills of fish do not decompose the water which passes through them, and which contains so much more oxygen than the air, but that they only procure a small quantity of oxygen from the air which is diffused in the water; which also is further confirmed by an experiment with the air-pump, as fish soon die when put in a glass of water into the exhausted receiver, which they would not do if their gills had power to decompose the water and obtain the oxygen from it. the lamprey, petromyzon, is put by linneus amongst the nantes, which are defined to possess both gills and lungs. it has seven spiracula, or breathing holes, on each side of the neck, and by its more perfect lungs approaches to the serpent kind; syst. nat. the means by which it adheres to stones, even in rapid streams, is probably owing to a partial vacuum made by its respiring organs like sucking, and may be compared to the ingenious method by which boys are seen to lift large stones in the street, by applying to them a piece of strong moist leather with a string through the centre of it; which, when it is forcibly drawn upwards, produces a partial vacuum under it, and thus the stone is supported by the pressure of the atmosphere. the leech, hirudo, and the remora, echeneis, adhere strongly to objects probably by a similar method. i once saw ten or twelve leeches adhere to each foot of an old horse a little above his hoofs, who was grazing in a morass, and which did not lose their hold when he moved about. the bare-legged travellers in ceylon are said to be much infested by leeches; and the sea-leech, hirudo muricata, is said to adhere to fish, and the remora is said to adhere to ships in such numbers as to retard their progress. the respiratory organ of the whale, i suppose, is pulmonary in part, as he is obliged to come frequently to the surface, whence he can be pursued after he is struck with the harpoon; and may nevertheless be in part like the gills of other fish, as he seems to draw in water when he is below the surface, and emits it again when he rises above it. additional note. vi. hieroglyphic characters. so erst as egypt's rude designs explain. canto i. l. . the outlines of animal bodies, which gave names to the constellations, as well as the characters used in chemistry for the metals, and in astronomy for the planets, were originally hieroglyphic figures, used by the magi of egypt before the invention of letters, to record their discoveries in those sciences. other hieroglyphic figures seem to have been designed to perpetuate the events of history, the discoveries in other arts, and the opinions of those ancient philosophers on other subjects. thus their figures of venus for beauty, minerva for wisdom, mars and bellona for war, hercules for strength, and many others, became afterwards the deities of greece and rome; and together with the figures of time, death, and fame, constitute the language of the painters to this day. from the similarity of the characters which designate the metals in chemistry, and the planets in astronomy, it may be concluded that these parts of science were then believed to be connected; whence astrology seems to have been a very early superstition. these, so far, constitute an universal visible language in those sciences. so the glory, or halo, round the head is a part of the universal language of the eye, designating a holy person; wings on the shoulders denote a good angel; and a tail and hoof denote the figure of an evil demon; to which may be added the cap of liberty and the tiara of popedom. it is to be wished that many other universal characters could be introduced into practice, which might either constitute a more comprehensive language for painters, or for other arts; as those of ciphers and signs have done for arithmetic and algebra, and crotchets for music, and the alphabets for articulate sounds; so a zigzag line made on white paper by a black-lead pencil, which communicates with the surface of the mercury in the barometer, as the paper itself is made constantly to move laterally by a clock, and daily to descend through the space necessary, has ingeniously produced a most accurate visible account of the rise and fall of the mercury in the barometer every hour in the year. mr. grey's memoria technica was designed as an artificial language to remember numbers, as of the eras, or dates of history. this was done by substituting one consonant and one vowel for each figure of the ten cyphers used in arithmetic, and by composing words of these letters; which words mr. grey makes into hexameter verses, and produces an audible jargon, which is to be committed to memory, and occasionally analysed into numbers when required. an ingenious french botanist, monsieur bergeret, has proposed to apply this idea of mr. grey to a botanical nomenclature, by making the name of each plant to consist of letters, which, when analysed, were to signify the number of the class, order, genus, and species, with a description also of some particular part of the plant, which was designed to be both an audible and visible language. bishop wilkins in his elaborate "essay towards a real character and a philosophical language," has endeavoured to produce, with the greatest simplicity, and accuracy, and conciseness, an universal language both to be written and spoken, for the purpose of the communication of all our ideas with greater exactness and less labour than is done in common languages, as they are now spoken and written. but we have to lament that the progress of general science is yet too limited both for his purpose, and for that even of a nomenclature for botany; and that the science of grammar, and even the number and manner of the pronunciation of the letters of the alphabet, are not yet determined with such accuracy as would be necessary to constitute bishop wilkins's grand design of an universal language, which might facilitate the acquirement of knowledge, and thus add to the power and happiness of mankind. additional note. vii. old age and death. the age-worn fibres goaded to contract by repetition palsied, cease to act. canto ii. l. i. _effects of age._ the immediate cause of the infirmities of age, or of the progress of life to death, has not yet been well ascertained. the answer to the question, why animals become feeble and diseased after a time, though nourished with the same food which increased their growth from infancy, and afterwards supported them for many years in unimpaired health and strength, must be sought for from the laws of animal excitability, which, though at first increased, is afterwards diminished by frequent repetitions of its adapted stimulus, and at length ceases to obey it. . there are four kinds of stimulus which induce the fibres to contract, which constitute the muscles or the organs of sense; as, first, the application of external bodies, which excites into action the sensorial power of irritation; dly, pleasure and pain, which excite into action the sensorial power of sensation; dly, desire and aversion, which excite into action the power of volition; and lastly, the fibrous contractions, which precede association, which is another sensorial power; see zoonomia, vol. i. sect. ii. . many of the motions of the organic system, which are necessary to life, are excited by more than one of these stimuli at the same time, and some of them occasionally by them all. thus respiration is generally caused by the stimulus of blood in the lungs, or by the sensation of the want of oxygen; but is also occasionally voluntary. the actions of the heart also, though generally owing to the stimulus of the blood, are also inflamed by the association of its motions with those of the stomach, whence sometimes arises an inequality of the pulse, and with other parts of the system, as with the capillaries, whence heat of the skin in fevers with a feeble pulse, see zoonomia. they are also occasionally influenced by sensation, as is seen in the paleness occasioned by fear, or the blush of shame and anger; and lastly the motions of the heart are sometimes assisted by volition; thus in those who are much weakened by fevers, the pulse is liable to stop during their sleep, and to induce great distress; which is owing at that time to the total suspension of voluntary power; the same occurs during sleep in some asthmatic patients. . the debility of approaching age appears to be induced by the inactivity of many parts of the system, or their disobedience to their usual kinds and quantities of stimulus: thus the pallid appearance of the skin of old age is owing to the inactivity of the heart, which ceases to obey the irritation caused by the stimulus of the blood, or its association with other moving organs with its former energy; whence the capillary arteries are not sufficiently distended in their diastole, and consequently contract by their elasticity, so as to close the canal, and their sides gradually coalesce. of these, those which are most distant from the heart, and of the smallest diameters, will soonest close, and become impervious; hence the hard pulse of aged patients is occasioned by the coalescence of the sides of the vasa vasorum, or capillary arteries of the coats of the other arteries. the veins of elderly people become turgid or distended with blood, and stand prominent on the skin; for as these do not possess the elasticity of the arteries, they become distended with accumulation of blood; when the heart by its lessened excitability does not contract sufficiently forcibly, or frequently, to receive, as fast as usual, the returning blood; and their apparent prominence on the skin is occasioned by the deficient secretion of fat or mucus in the cellular membrane; and also to the contraction and coalescence and consequent less bulk of many capillary arteries. . not only the muscular fibres lose their degree of excitability from age, as in the above examples; and as may be observed in the tremulous hands and feeble step of elderly persons; but the organs of sense become less excitable by the stimulus of external objects; whence the sight and hearing become defective; the stimulus of the sensorial power of sensation also less affects the aged, who grieve less for the loss of friends or for other disappointments; it should nevertheless be observed, that when the sensorial power of irritation is much exhausted, or its production much diminished; the sensorial power of sensation appears for a time to be increased; as in intoxication there exists a kind of delirium and quick flow of ideas, and yet the person becomes so weak as to totter as he walks; but this delirium is owing to the defect of voluntary power to correct the streams of ideas by intuitive analogy, as in dreams: see zoonomia: and thus also those who are enfeebled by habits of much vinous potation, or even by age alone, are liable to weep at shaking hands with a friend, whom they have not lately seen; which is owing to defect of voluntary power to correct their trains of ideas caused by sensation, and not to the increased quantity of sensation, as i formerly supposed. the same want of voluntary power to keep the trains of sensitive ideas consistent, and to compare them by intuitive analogy with the order of nature, is the occasion of the starting at the clapping to of a door, or the fall of a key, which occasions violent surprise with fear and sometimes convulsions, in very feeble hysterical patients, and is not owing i believe (as i formerly supposed) to increased sensation; as they are less sensible to small stimuli than when in health. old people are less able also to perform the voluntary exertions of exercise or of reasoning, and lastly the association of their ideas becomes more imperfect, as they are forgetful of the names of persons and places; the associations of which are less permanent, than those of the other words of a language, which are more frequently repeated. . this disobedience of the fibres of age to their usual stimuli, has generally been ascribed to repetition or habit, as those who live near a large clock, or a mill, or a waterfall, soon cease to attend to the perpetual noise of it in the day, and sleep dining the night undisturbed. thus all medicines, if repeated too frequently, gradually lose their effect; as wine and opium cease to intoxicate: some disagreeable tastes as tobacco, by frequent repetition cease to be disagreeable; grief and pain gradually diminish and at length cease altogether; and hence life itself becomes tolerable. this diminished power of contraction of the fibres of the muscles or organs of sense, which constitutes permanent debility or old age, may arise from a deficient secretion of sensorial power in the brain, as well as from the disobedience of the muscles and organs of sense to their usual stimuli; but this less production of sensorial power must depend on the inactivity of the glands, which compose the brain, and are believed to separate it perpetually from the blood; and is thence owing to a similar cause with the inaction of the fibres of the other parts of the system. it is finally easy to understand how the fibres may cease to act by the usual quantity of stimulus after having been previously exposed to a greater quantity of stimulus, or to one too long continued; because the expenditure of sensorial power has then been greater than its production; but it is not easy to explain why the repetition of fibrous contractions, which during the meridian of life did not expend the sensorial power faster than it was produced; or only in such a degree as was daily restored by rest and sleep, should at length in the advance of life expend too much of it; or otherwise, that less of it should be produced in the brain; or reside in the nerves; lastly that the fibres should become less excitable by the usual quantity of it. . but these facts would seem to show, that all parts of the system are not changed as we advance in life, as some have supposed; as in that case it might have preserved for ever its excitability; and it might then perhaps have been easier for nature to have continued her animals and vegetables for ever in their mature state, than perpetually by a complicate apparatus to have produced new ones, and suffer the old ones to perish; for a further account of stimulus and the consequent animal exertion, see zoonomia, vol. i. sect. . ii. _means of preventing old age._ the means of preventing the approach of age must therefore consist in preventing the inexcitability of the fibres, or the diminution of the production of sensorial power. . as animal motion cannot be performed without the fluid matter of heat, in which all things are immersed, and without a sufficient quantity of moisture to prevent rigidity: nothing seems so well adapted to both these purposes as the use of the warm bath; and especially in those, who become thin or emaciated with age, and who have a hard and dry skin, with hardness of the coat of the arteries; which feels under the finger like a cord; the patient should sit in warm water for half an hour every day, or alternate days, or twice a week; the heat should be about ninety-eight degrees on fahrenheit's scale, or of such a warmth, as may be most agreeable to his sensation; but on leaving the bath he should always be kept so cool, whether he goes into bed, or continues up, as not sensibly to perspire. there is a popular prejudice, that the warm bath relaxes people, and that the cold bath braces them; which are mechanical terms belonging to drums and fiddle-strings, but not applicable except metaphorically to animal bodies, and then commonly mean weakness and strength: during the continuance in the bath the patient does not lose weight, unless he goes in after a full meal, but generally weighs heavier as the absorption is greater than the perspiration; but if he suffers himself to sweat on his leaving the bath, he will undoubtedly be weakened by the increased action of the system, and its exhaustion: the same occurs to those who are heated by exercise, or by wine, or spice, but not during their continuance in the warm bath: whence we may conclude, that the warm bath is the most harmless of all those stimuli, which are greater than our natural habits have accustomed us to; and that it particularly counteracts the approach of old age in emaciated people with dry skins. it may be here observed in favour of bathing, that some fish are believed to continue to a great age, and continually to enlarge in size, as they advance in life; and that long after their state of puberty. i have seen perch full of spawn, which were less than two inches long; and it is known, that they will grow to six or eight times that size; it is said, that the whales, which have been caught of late years, are much less in size than those, which were caught, when first the whale-fishery was established; as the large ones, which were supposed to have been some hundred years old, are believed to be already destroyed. all cold-blooded amphibious animals more slowly waste their sensorial power; as they are accustomed to less stimulus from their respiring less oxygen; and their movements in water are slower than those of aerial animals from the greater resistance of the element. there besides seems to be no obstacle to the growth of aquatic animals; as by means of the air-bladder, they can make their specific gravity the same as that of the water in which they swim. and the moisture of the element seems well adapted to counteract the rigidity of their fibres; and as their exertions in locomotion, and the pressure of some parts on others, are so much less than in the bodies of land animals. . but as all excessive stimuli exhaust the sensorial power, and render the system less excitable for a time till the quantity of sensorial power is restored by sleep, or by the diminution or absence of stimulus; which is seen by the weakness of inebriates for a day at least after intoxication. and as the frequent repetition of this great and unnatural stimulus of fermented liquors produces a permanent debility, or disobedience of the system to the usual and natural kinds and quantities of stimulus, as occurs in those who have long been addicted to the ingurgitation of fermented liquors. and as, secondly, the too great deficiency of the quantity of natural stimuli, as of food, and warmth, or of fresh air, produces also diseases; as is often seen in the children of the poor in large towns, who become scrofulous from want of due nourishment, and from cold, damp, unairy lodgings. the great and principal means to prevent the approach of old age and death, must consist in the due management of the quantity of every kind of stimulus, but particularly of that from objects external to the moving organ; which may excite into action too great or too small a quantity of the sensorial power of irritation, which principally actuates the vital organs. whence the use of much wine, or opium, or spice, or of much salt, by their unnatural stimulus induces consequent debility, and shortens life, on the one hand, by the exhaustion of sensorial power; so on the other hand, the want of heat, food, and fresh air, induces debility from defect of stimulus, and a consequent accumulation of sensorial power, and a general debility of the system. whence arise the pains of cold and hunger, and those which are called nervous; and which are the cause of hysteric, epileptic, and perhaps of asthmatic paroxysms, and of the cold fits of fever. . though all excesses of increase and decrease of stimulus should be avoided, yet a certain variation of stimulus seems to prolong the excitability of the system; as during any diminution of the usual quantity of stimulus, an accumulation of sensorial power is produced; and in consequence the excitability, which was lessened by the action of habitual stimulus, becomes restored. thus those, who are uniformly habituated to much artificial heat, as in warm parlours in the winter months, lose their irritability in some degree, and become feeble like hot-house plants; but by frequently going for a time into the cold air, the sensorial power of irritability is accumulated and they become stronger. whence it may be deduced, that the variations of the cold and heat of this climate contribute to strengthen its inhabitants, who are more active and vigorous, and live longer, than those of either much warmer or much colder latitudes. this accumulation of sensorial power from diminution of stimulus any one may observe, who in severe weather may sit by the fire-side till he is chill and uneasy with the sensation of cold; but if he walks into the frosty air for a few minutes, an accumulation of sensorial power is produced by diminution of the stimulus of heat, and on his returning into the room where he was chill before, his whole skin will now glow with warmth. hence it may be concluded, that the variations of the quantity of stimuli within certain limits contribute to our health; and that those houses which are kept too uniformly warm, are less wholesome than where the inhabitants are occasionally exposed to cold air in passing from one room to another. nevertheless to those weak habits with pale skins and large pupils of the eyes, whose degree of irritability is less than health requires, as in scrofulous, hysterical, and some consumptive constitutions, a climate warmer than our own may be of service, as a greater stimulus of heat may be wanted to excite their less irritability. and also a more uniform quantity of heat may be serviceable to consumptive patients than is met with in this country, as the lungs cannot be clothed like the external skin, and are therefore subject to greater extremes of heat and cold in passing in winter from a warm room into the frosty air. . it should nevertheless be observed, that there is one kind of stimulus, which though it be employed in quantity beyond its usual state, seems to increase the production of sensorial power beyond the expenditure of it (unless its excess is great indeed) and thence to give permanent strength and energy to the system; i mean that of volition. this appears not only from the temporary strength of angry or insane people, but because insanity even cures some diseases of debility, as i have seen in dropsy, and in some fevers; but it is also observable, that many who have exerted much voluntary effort during their whole lives, have continued active to great age. this however may be conceived to arise from these great exertions being performed principally by the organs of sense, that is by exciting and comparing ideas; as in those who have invented sciences, or have governed nations, and which did not therefore exhaust the sensorial power of those organs which are necessary to life, but perhaps rather prevented them from being sooner impaired, their sensorial power not having been so frequently exhausted by great activity, for very violent exercise of the body, long continued, forwards old age; as is seen in post-horses that are cruelly treated, and in many of the poor, who with difficulty support their families by incessant labour. iii. _theory of the approach of age._ the critical reader is perhaps by this time become so far interested in this subject as to excuse a more prolix elucidation of it. in early life the repetition of animal actions occasions them to be performed with greater facility, whether those repetitions are produced by volition, sensation, or irritation; because they soon become associated together, if as much sensorial power is produced between every reiteration of action, as is expended by it. but if a stimulus be repeated at uniform intervals of time, the action, whether of our muscles or organs of sense, is performed with still greater facility and energy; because the sensorial power of association mentioned above, is combined with the sensorial power of irritation, and forms part of the diurnal chain of animal motions; that is, in common language, the acquired habit assists the power of the stimulus; see zoonomia, vol. i. sect. xxii. . and sect. xii. . . on this circumstance depends the easy motions of the fingers in performing music, and of the feet and arms in dancing and fencing, and of the hands in the use of tools in mechanic arts, as well as all the vital motions which animate and nourish organic bodies. on the contrary, many animal motions by perpetual repetition are performed with less energy; as those who live near a waterfall, or a smith's forge, after a time, cease to hear them. and in those infectious diseases which are attended with fever, as the small-pox and measles, violent motions of the system are excited, which at length cease, and cannot again be produced by application of the same stimulating material; as when those are inoculated for the small-pox, who have before undergone that malady. hence the repetition, which occasions animal actions for a time to be performed with greater energy, occasions them at length to become feeble, or to cease entirely. to explain this difficult problem we must more minutely consider the catenations of animal motions, as described in zoonomia, vol. i. sect. xvii. the vital motions, as suppose of the heart and arterial system, commence from the irritation occasioned by the stimulus of the blood, and then have this irritation assisted by the power of association; at the same time an agreeable sensation is produced by the due actions of the fibres, as in the secretions of the glands, which constitutes the pleasure of existence; this agreeable sensation is intermixed between every link of this diurnal chain of actions, and contributes to produce it by what is termed animal causation. but there is also a degree of the power of volition excited in consequence of this vital pleasure, which is also intermixed between the links of the chain of fibrous actions; and thus also contributes to its uniform easy and perpetual production. the effects of surprise and novelty must now be considered by the patient reader, as they affect the catenations of action; and, i hope, the curiosity of the subject will excuse the prolixity of this account of it. when any violent stimulus breaks the passing current or catenation of our ideas, surprise is produced, which is accompanied with pain or pleasure, and consequent volition to examine the object of it, as explained in zoonomia, vol. i. sect. xviii. , and which never affects us in sleep. in our waking hours whenever an idea of imagination occurs, which is incongruous to our former experience, we feel another kind of surprise, and instantly dissever the train of imagination by the power of volition, and compare the incongruous idea with our previous knowledge of nature, and reject it by an act of reasoning, of which we are unconscious, termed in zoonomia, "intuitive analogy," vol. i sect. xvii. . the novelty of any idea may be considered as affecting us with another kind of surprise, or incongruity, as it differs from the usual train of our ideas, and forms a new link in this perpetual chain; which, as it thus differs from the ordinary course of nature, we instantly examine by the voluntary efforts of intuitive analogy; or by reasoning, which we attend to; and compare it with the usual appearances of nature. these ideas which affect us with surprise, or incongruity, or novelty, are attended with painful or pleasurable sensation; which we mentioned before as intermixing with all catenations of animal actions, and contributing to strengthen their perpetual and energetic production; and also exciting in some degree the power of volition, which also intermixes with the links of the chain of animal actions, and contributes to produce it. now by frequent repetition the surprise, incongruity, or novelty ceases; and, in consequence, the pleasure or pain which accompanied it, and also the degree of volition which was excited by that sensation of pain or pleasure; and thus the sensorial power of sensation and of volition are subducted from the catenation of vital actions, and they are in consequence produced much weaker, and at length cease entirely. whence we learn why contagious matters induce their effects on the circulation but once; and why, in process of time, the vital movements are performed with less energy, and at length cease; whence the debilities of age, and consequent death. additional notes. viii. reproduction. but reproduction with ethereal fires new life rekindles, ere the first expires. canto ii. l. . i. the reproduction or generation of living organized bodies, is the great criterion or characteristic which distinguishes animation from mechanism. fluids may circulate in hydraulic machines, or simply move in them, as mercury in the barometer or thermometer, but the power of producing an embryon which shall gradually acquire similitude to its parent, distinguishes artificial from natural organization. the reproduction of plants and animals appears to be of two kinds, solitary and sexual; the former occurs in the formation of the buds of trees, and the bulbs of tulips; which for several successions generate other buds, and other bulbs, nearly similar to the parent, but constantly approaching to greater perfection, so as finally to produce sexual organs, or flowers, and consequent seeds. the same occurs in some inferior kinds of animals; as the aphises in the spring and summer are viviparous for eight or nine generations, which successively produce living descendants without sexual intercourse, and are themselves, i suppose, without sex; at length in the autumn they propagate males and females, which copulate and lay eggs, which lie dormant during the winter, and are hatched by the vernal sun; while the truffle, and perhaps mushrooms amongst vegetables, and the polypus and tænia amongst insects, perpetually propagate themselves by solitary reproduction, and have not yet acquired male and female organs. philosophers have thought these viviparous aphides, and the tænia, and volvox, to be females; and have supposed them to have been impregnated long before their nativity within each other; so the tænia and volvox still continue to produce their offspring without sexual intercourse. one extremity of the tænia, is said by linneus to grow old, whilst at the other end new ones are generated proceeding to infinity like the roots of grass. the volvox globator is transparent, and carries within itself children and grandchildren to the fifth generation like the aphides; so that the tænia produces children and grandchildren longitudinally in a chain-like series, and the volvox propagates an offspring included within itself to the fifth generation; syst. nat. many microscopic animals, and some larger ones, as the hydra or polypus, are propagated by splitting or dividing; and some still larger animals, as oysters, and perhaps eels, have not yet acquired sexual organs, but produce a paternal progeny, which requires no mother to supply it with a nidus, or with nutriment and oxygenation; and, therefore, very accurately resemble the production of the buds of trees, and the wires of some herbaceous plants, as of knot-grass and of strawberries, and the bulbs of other plants, as of onions and potatoes; which is further treated of in phytologia, sect. vii. the manner in which i suspect the solitary reproduction of the buds of trees to be effected, may also be applied to the solitary generation of the insects mentioned above, and probably of many others, perhaps of all the microscopic ones. it should be previously observed, that many insects are hermaphrodite, possessing both male and female organs of reproduction, as shell-snails and dew-worms; but that these are seen reciprocally to copulate with each other, and are believed not to be able to impregnate themselves; which belongs, therefore, to sexual generation, and not to the solitary reproduction of which i am now speaking. as in the chemical production of any new combination of matter, two kinds of particles appear to be necessary; one of which must possess the power of attraction, and the other the aptitude to be attracted, as a magnet and a piece of iron; so in vegetable or animal combinations, whether for the purpose of nutrition or for reproduction, there must exist also two kinds of organic matter; one possessing the appetency to unite, and the other the propensity to be united; (see zoonomia, octavo edition, sect. xxxix. .) hence in the generation of the buds of trees, there are probably two kinds of glands, which acquire from the vegetable blood, and deposite beneath the cuticle of the tree two kinds of formative organic matter, which unite and form parts of the new vegetable embryon; which again uniting with other such organizations form the caudex, or the plumula, or the radicle, of a new vegetable bud. a similar mode of reproduction by the secretion of two kinds of organic particles from the blood, and by depositing them either internally as in the vernal and summer aphis or volvox, or externally as in the polypus and tænia, probably obtains in those animals; which are thence propagated by the father only, not requiring a cradle, or nutriment, or oxygenation from a mother; and that the five generations, said to be seen in the transparent volvox globator within each other, are perhaps the successive progeny to be delivered at different periods of time from the father, and erroneously supposed to be mothers impregnated before their nativity. ii. sexual as well as solitary reproduction appears to be effected by two kinds of glands; one of which collects or secretes from the blood formative organic particles with appetencies to unite, and the other formative organic particles with propensities to be united. these probably undergo some change by a kind of digestion in their respective glands; but could not otherwise unite previously in the mass of blood from its perpetual motion. the first mode of sexual reproduction seems to have been by the formation of males into hermaphrodites; that is, when the numerous formative glands, which existed in the caudex of the bud of a tree, or on the surface of a polypus, became so united as to form but two glands; which might then be called male and female organs. but they still collect and secrete their adapted particles from the same mass of blood as in snails and dew-worms, but do not seem to be so placed as to produce an embryon by the mixture of their secreted fluids, but to require the mutual assistance of two hermaphrodites for that purpose. from this view-of the subject, it would appear that vegetables and animals were at first propagated by solitary generation, and afterwards by hermaphrodite sexual generation; because most vegetables possess at this day both male and female organs in the same flower, which linneus has thence well called hermaphrodite flowers; and that this hermaphrodite mode of reproduction still exists in many insects, as in snails and worms; and, finally, because all the male quadrupeds, as well as men, possess at this day some remains of the female apparatus, as the breasts with nipples, which still at their nativity are said to be replete with a kind of milk, and the nipples swell on titillation. afterwards the sexes seem to have been formed in vegetables as in flowers, in addition to the power of solitary reproduction by buds. so in animals the aphis is propagated both by solitary reproduction as in spring, or by sexual generation as in autumn; then the vegetable sexes began to exist in separate plants, as in the classes monoecia and dioecia, or both of them in the same plant also, as in the class polygamia; but the larger and more perfect animals are now propagated by sexual reproduction only, which seems to have been the chef-d'oeuvre, or capital work of nature; as appears by the wonderful transformations of leaf-eating caterpillars into honey-eating moths and butterflies, apparently for the sole purpose of the formation of sexual organs, as in the silk-worm, which takes no food after its transformation, but propagates its species and dies. iii. _recapitulation._ the microscopic productions of spontaneous vitality, and the next most inferior kinds of vegetables and animals, propagate by solitary generation only; as the buds and bulbs raised immediately from seeds, the lycoperdon tuber, with probably many other fungi, and the polypus, volvox, and tænia. those of the next order propagate both by solitary and sexual reproduction, as those buds and bulbs which produce flowers as well as other buds or bulbs; and the aphis, and probably many other insects. whence it appears, that many of those vegetables and animals, which are produced by solitary generation, gradually become more perfect, and at length produce a sexual progeny. a third order of organic nature consists of hermaphrodite vegetables and animals, as in those flowers which have anthers and stigmas in the same corol; and in many insects, as leeches, snails, and worms; and perhaps all those reptiles which have no bones, according to the observation of m. poupart, who thinks, that the number of hermaphrodite animals exceeds that of those which are divided into sexes; mém. de l'acad. des sciences. these hermaphrodite insects i suspect _to_ be incapable of impregnating themselves for reasons mentioned in zoonomia, sect. xxxix. . . and, lastly, the most perfect orders of animals are propagated by sexual intercourse only; which, however, does not extend to vegetables, as all those raised from seed produce some generations of buds or bulbs, previous to their producing flowers, as occurs not only in trees, but also in the annual plants. thus three or four joints of wheat grow upon each other, before that which produces a flower; which joints are all separate plants growing over each other, like the buds of trees, previous to the uppermost; though this happens in a few months in annual plants, which requires as many years in the successive buds of trees; as is further explained in phytologia, sect. ix. . . iv. _conclusion._ where climate is favourable, and salubrious food plentiful, there is reason to believe, that the races of animals perpetually improve by reproduction. the smallest microscopic animals become larger ones in a short time, probably by successive reproductions, as is so distinctly seen in the buds of seedling apple-trees, and in the bulbs of tulips raised from seed; both which die annually, and leave behind them one or many, which are more perfect than themselves, till they produce a sexual progeny, or flowers. to which may be added, the rapid improvement of our domesticated dogs, horses, rabbits, pigeons, which improve in size, or in swiftness, or in the sagacity of the sense of smell, or in colour, or other properties, by sexual reproduction. the great linneus having perceived the changes produced in the vegetable world by sexual reproduction, has supposed that not more than about sixty plants were at first created, and that all the others have been formed by their solitary or sexual reproductions; and adds, suadent hæc creatoris leges a simplicibus ad composita; gen. plant. preface to the natural orders, and amenit. acad. vi. . this mode of reasoning may be extended to the most simple productions of spontaneous vitality. there is one curious circumstance of animal life analogous in some degree to this wonderful power of reproduction; which is seen in the propagation of some contagious diseases. thus one grain of variolous matter, inserted by inoculation, shall in about seven days stimulate the system into unnatural action; which in about seven days more produces ten thousand times the quantity of a similar material thrown out on the skin in pustules! the mystery of reproduction, which alone distinguishes organic life from mechanic or chemic action, is yet wrapt in darkness. during the decomposition of organic bodies, where there exists a due degree of warmth with moisture, new microscopic animals of the most minute kind are produced; and these possess the wonderful power of reproduction, or of producing animals similar to themselves in their general structure, but with frequent additional improvements; which the preceding parent might in some measure have acquired by his habits of life or accidental situation. but it may appear too bold in the present state of our knowledge on this subject, to suppose that all vegetables and animals now existing were originally derived from the smallest microscopic ones, formed by spontaneous vitality? and that they have by innumerable reproductions, during innumerable centuries of time, gradually acquired the size, strength, and excellence of form and faculties, which they now possess? and that such amazing powers were originally impressed on matter and spirit by the great parent of parents! cause of causes! ens entium! additional notes. ix. storge. and heaven-born storge weaves the social chain. canto ii. l. . the greek word storge is used for the affection of parents to children; which was also visibly represented by the stork or pelican feeding her young with blood taken from her own wounded bosom. a number of pelicans form a semicircle in shallow parts of the sea near the coast, standing on their long legs; and thus including a shoal of small fish, they gradually approach the shore; and seizing the fish as they advance, receive them into a pouch under their throats; and bringing them to land regurgitate them for the use of their young, or for their future support. adanson, voyage to senegal. in this country the parent pigeons both male and female swallow the grain or other seeds, which they collect for their young, and bring it up mixed with a kind of milk from their stomachs, with their bills inserted into the mouths of the young doves. j. hunter's works. the affection of the parent to the young in experienced mothers may be in part owing to their having been relieved by them from the burden of their milk; but it is difficult to understand, how this affection commences in those mothers of the bestial world, who have not experienced this relief from the sucking of their offspring; and still more so to understand how female birds were at first induced to incubate their eggs for many weeks; and lastly how caterpillars, as of the silk-worm, are induced to cover themselves with a well-woven house of silk before their transformation. these as well as many other animal facts, which are difficult to account for, have been referred to an inexplicable instinct; which is supposed to preclude any further investigation: but as animals seem to have undergone great changes, as well as the inanimate parts of the earth, and are probably still in a state of gradual improvement; it is not unreasonable to conclude, that some of these actions both of large animals and of insects, may have been acquired in a state preceding their present one; and have been derived from the parents to their offspring by imitation, or other kind of tradition; thus the eggs of the crocodile are at this day hatched by the warmth of the sun in egypt; and the eggs of innumerable insects, and the spawn of fish, and of frogs, in this climate are hatched by the vernal warmth: this might be the case of birds in warm climates, in their early state of existence; and experience might have taught them to incubate their eggs, as they became more perfect animals, or removed themselves into colder climates: thus the ostrich is said to sit upon its eggs only in the night in warm situations, and both day and night in colder ones. this love of the mother in quadrupeds to the offspring, whom she licks and cleans, is so allied to the pleasure of the taste or palate, that nature seems to have had a great escape in the parent quadruped not devouring her offspring. bitches, and cats, and sows, eat the placenta; and if a dead offspring occurs, i am told, that also is sometimes eaten, and yet the living offspring is spared; and by that nice distinction the progenies of those animals are saved from destruction! "certior factus sum a viro rebus antiquissimis docto, quod legitur in berosi operibus homines ante diluvium mulierum puerperarum placentam edidisse, quasi cibum delicatum in epulis luxuriosis; et quod hoc nefandissimo crimine movebatur deus diluvio submergere terrarum incolas." anon. it may be finally concluded, that this affection from the parent to the progeny existed before animals were divided into sexes, and produced the beginning of sympathetic society, the source of which may perhaps be thus well accounted for; whenever the glandular system is stimulated into greater natural action within certain limits, an addition of pleasure is produced along with the increased secretion; this pleasure arising from the activity of the system is supposed to constitute the happiness of existence, in contradistinction to the ennui or tædium vitæ; as shown in zoonomia, sect. xxxiii. . hence the secretion of nutritious juices occasioned by the stimulus of an embryon or egg in the womb gives pleasure to the parent for a length of time; whence by association a similar pleasure may be occasioned to the parent by seeing and touching the egg or fetus after its birth; and in lactescent animals an additional pleasure is produced by the new secretion of milk, as well as by its emission into the sucking lips of the infant. this appears to be one of the great secrets of nature, one of those fine, almost invisible cords, which have bound one animal to another. the females of lactiferous animals have thus a passion or inlet of pleasure in their systems more than the males, from their power of giving suck to their offspring; the want of the object of this passion, either owing to the death of the progeny, or to the unnatural fashion of their situation in life, not only deprives them of this innocent and virtuous source of pleasure; but has occasioned diseases, which have been fatal to many of them. additional notes. x. eve from adam's rib. form'd a new sex, the mother of mankind. canto ii. l. . the mosaic history of paradise and of adam and eve has been thought by some to be a sacred allegory, designed to teach obedience to divine commands, and to account for the origin of evil, like jotham's fable of the trees; judges ix. . or nathan's fable of the poor man and his lamb; sam. xii. . or like the parables in the new testament; as otherwise knowledge could not be said to grow upon one tree, and life upon another, or a serpent to converse; and lastly that this account originated with the magi or philosophers of egypt, with whom moses was educated, and that this part of the history, where eve is said to have been made from a rib of adam might have been an hieroglyphic design of the egyptian philosophers, showing their opinion that mankind was originally of both sexes united, and was afterwards divided into males and females: an opinion in later times held by plato, and i believe by aristotle, and which must have arisen from profound inquiries into the original state of animal existence. additional notes. xi. hereditary diseases. the feeble births acquired diseases chase, till death extinguish the degenerate race. canto ii. l. . as all the families both of plants and animals appear in a state of perpetual improvement or degeneracy, it becomes a subject of importance to detect the causes of these mutations. the insects, which are not propagated by sexual intercourse, are so few or so small, that no observations have been made on their diseases; but hereditary diseases are believed more to affect the offspring of solitary than of sexual generation in respect to vegetables; as those fruit trees, which have for more than a century been propagated only by ingrafting, and not from seeds, have been observed by mr. knight to be at this time so liable to canker, as not to be worth cultivation. from the same cause i suspect the degeneracy of some potatoes and of some strawberries to have arisen; where the curled leaf has appeared in the former, and barren flowers in the latter. this may arise from the progeny by solitary reproduction so much more exactly resembling the parent, as is well seen in grafted trees compared with seedling ones; the fruit of the former always resembling that of the parent tree, but not so of the latter. the grafted scion also accords with the branch of the tree from whence it was taken, in the time of its bearing fruit; for if a scion be taken from a bearing branch of a pear or apple tree, i believe, it will produce fruit even the next year, or that succeeding; that is, in the same time that it would have produced fruit, if it had continued growing on the parent tree; but if the parent pear or apple tree has been cut down or headed, and scions are then, taken from the young shoots of the stem, and ingrafted; i believe those grafted trees will continue to grow for ten or twelve years, before they bear fruit, almost as long as seedling trees, that is they will require as much time, as those new shoots from the lopped trunk would require, before they produce fruit. it should thence be inquired, when grafted fruit trees are purchased, whether the scions were taken from bearing branches, or from the young shoots of a lopped trunk; as the latter, i believe, are generally sold, as they appear stronger plants. this greater similitude of the progeny to the parent in solitary reproduction must certainly make them more liable to hereditary diseases, if such have been acquired by the parent from unfriendly climate or bad nourishment, or accidental injury. in respect to the sexual progeny of vegetables it has long been thought, that a change of seed or of situation is in process of time necessary to prevent their degeneracy; but it is now believed, that it is only changing for seed of a superior quality, that will better the product. at the same time it may be probably useful occasionally to intermix seeds from different situations together; as the anther-dust is liable to pass from one plant to another in its vicinity; and by these means the new seeds or plants may be amended, like the marriages of animals into different families. as the sexual progeny of vegetables are thus less liable to hereditary diseases than the solitary progenies; so it is reasonable to conclude, that the sexual progenies of animals may be less liable to hereditary diseases, if the marriages are into different families, than if into the same family; this has long been supposed to be true, by those who breed animals for sale; since if the male and female be of different temperaments, as these are extremes of the animal system, they may counteract each other; and certainly where both parents are of families, which are afflicted with the same hereditary disease, it is more likely to descend to their posterity. the hereditary diseases of this country have many of them been the consequence of drinking much fermented or spirituous liquor; as the gout always, most kinds of dropsy, and, i believe, epilepsy, and insanity. but another material, which is liable to produce diseases in its immoderate use, i believe to be common salt; the sea-scurvy is evidently caused by it in long voyages; and i suspect the scrofula, and consumption, to arise in the young progeny from the debility of the lymphatic and venous absorption produced in the parent by this innutritious fossile stimulus. the petechiæ and vibices in the sea-scurvy and occasional hæmorrhages evince the defect of venous absorption; the occasional hæmoptoe at the commencement of pulmonary consumption, seems also to arise from defect of venous absorption; and the scrofula, which arises from the inactivity of the lymphatic absorbent system, frequently exists along with pulmonary as well as with mesenteric consumption. a tendency to these diseases is certainly hereditary, though perhaps not the diseases themselves; thus a less quantity of ale, cyder, wine, or spirit, will induce the gout and dropsy in those constitutions, whose parents have been intemperate in the use of those liquors; as i have more than once had occasion to observe. finally the art to improve the sexual progeny of either vegetables or animals must consist in choosing the most perfect of both sexes, that is the most beautiful in respect to the body, and the most ingenious in respect to the mind; but where one sex is given, whether male or female, to improve a progeny from that person may consist in choosing a partner of a contrary temperament. as many families become gradually extinct by hereditary diseases, as by scrofula, consumption, epilepsy, mania, it is often hazardous to marry an heiress, as she is not unfrequently the last of a diseased family. additional notes. xii. chemical theory of electricity and magnetism. then mark how two electric streams conspire to form the resinous and vitreous fire. canto iii. l. . i. _of attraction and repulsion._ the motions, which accomplish the combinations and decompositions of bodies, depend on the peculiar attractions and repulsions of the particles of those bodies, or of the sides and angles of them; while the motions of the sun and planets, of the air and ocean, and of all bodies approaching to a general centre or retreating from it, depend on the general attraction or repulsion of those masses of matter. the peculiar attractions above mentioned are termed chemical affinities, and the general attraction is termed gravitation; but the peculiar repulsions of the particles of bodies, or the general repulsion of the masses of matter, have obtained no specific names, nor have been sufficiently considered; though they appear to be as powerful agents as the attractions. the motions of ethereal fluids, as of magnetism and electricity, are yet imperfectly understood, and seem to depend both on chemical affinity, and on gravitation; and also on the peculiar repulsions of the particles of bodies, and on the general repulsion of the masses of matter. in what manner attraction and repulsion are produced has not yet been attempted to be explained by modern philosophers; but as nothing can act, where it does not exist, all distant attraction of the particles of bodies, as well as general gravitation, must be ascribed to some still finer ethereal fluid; which fills up all space between the suns and their planets, as well as the interstices of coherent matter. repulsion in the same manner must consist of some finer ethereal fluid; which at first projected the planets from the sun, and i suppose prevents their return to it; and which occasionally volatilizes or decomposes solid bodies into fluid or aerial ones, and perhaps into ethereal ones. may not the ethereal matter which constitutes repulsion, be the same as the matter of heat in its diffused state; which in its quiescent state is combined with various bodies, as appears from many chemical explosions, in which so much heat is set at liberty? the ethereal matter, which constitutes attraction, we are less acquainted with; but it may also exist combined with bodies, as well as in its diffused state; since the specific gravities of some metallic mixtures are said not to accord with what ought to result from the combination of their specific gravities, which existed before their mixture; but their absolute gravities have not been attended to sufficiently; as these have always been supposed to depend on their quantity of matter, and situation in respect to the centre of the earth. the ethereal fluids, which constitute peculiar repulsions and attractions, appear to gravitate round the particles of bodies mixed together; as those, which constitute the general repulsion or attraction, appear to gravitate round the greater masses of matter mixed together; but that which constitutes attraction seems to exist in a denser state next to the particles or masses of matter; and that which constitutes repulsion to exist more powerfully in a sphere further from them; whence many bodies attract at one distance, and repel at another. this may be observed by approaching to each other two electric atmospheres round insulated cork-balls; or by pressing globules of mercury, which roll on the surface, till they unite with it; or by pressing the drops of water,' which stand on a cabbage leaf, till they unite with it, and hence light is reflected from the surface of a mirror without touching it. thus the peculiar attractions and repulsions of the particles of bodies, and the general ones of the masses of matter, perpetually oppose and counteract each other; whence if the power of attraction should cease to act, all matter would be dissipated by the power of repulsion into boundless space; and if heat, or the power of repulsion, should cease to act, the whole world would become one solid mass, condensed into a point. ii. _preliminary propositions._ the following propositions concerning electricity and galvanism will either be proved by direct experiments, or will be rendered probable by their tending to explain or connect the variety of electric facts, to which they will be applied. . there are two kinds of electric ether, which exist either separately or in combination. that which is accumulated on the surface of smooth glass, when it is rubbed with a cushion, is here termed vitreous ether; and that which is accumulated on the surface of resin or sealing-wax, when it is rubbed with a cushion, is here termed resinous ether; and a combination of them, as in their usual state, may be termed neutral electric ethers. . atmospheres of vitreous or of resinous or of neutral electricity surround all separate bodies, are attracted by them, and permeate those, which are called conductors, as metallic and aqueous and carbonic ones; but will not permeate those, which are termed nonconductors, as air, glass, silk, resin, sulphur. . the particles of vitreous electric ether strongly repel each other as they surround other bodies; but strongly attract the particles of resinous electric ether: in similar manner the particles of the resinous ether powerfully repel each other, and as powerfully attract those of the vitreous ether. hence in their separate state they appear to occupy much greater space, as they, gravitate round insulated bodies, and are then only cognizable by our senses or experiments. they rush violently together through conducting substances, and then probably possess much less space in this their combined state. they thus resemble oxygen gas and nitrous gas; which rush violently together when in contact; and occupy less space when united, than either of them possessed separately before their union. when the two electric ethers thus unite, a chemical explosion occurs, like an ignited train of gunpowder; as they give out light and heat; and rend or fuse the bodies they occupy; which cannot be accounted for on the mechanical theory of dr. franklin. . glass holds within it in combination much resinous electric ether, which constitutes a part of it, and which more forcibly attracts vitreous electric ether from surrounding bodies, which stands on it mixed with a less proportion of resinous ether like an atmosphere, but cannot unite with the resinous ether, which is combined with the glass; and resin, on the contrary, holds within it in combination much vitreous electric ether, which constitutes a part of it, and which more forcibly attracts resinous electric ether from surrounding bodies, which stands on it mixed with a less proportion of vitreous ether like an atmosphere, but cannot unite with the vitreous ether, which is combined with the resin. as in the production of vitrification, those materials are necessary which contain much oxygen, as minium, and manganese; there is probably much oxygen combined with glass, which may thence be esteemed a solid acid, as water may be esteemed a fluid one. it is hence not improbable, that one kind of electric ether may also be combined with it, as it seems to affect the oxygen of water in the galvanic experiments. the combination of the other kind of electric ether with wax or sulphur, is countenanced from those bodies, when heated or melted, being said to part with much electricity as they cool, and as it appears to affect the hydrogen in the decomposition of water by galvanism. . hence the nonconductors of electricity are of two kinds; such as are combined with vitreous ether, as resin, and sulphur; and such as are combined with resinous ether, as glass, air, silk. but both these kinds of nonconductors are impervious to either of the electric ethers; as those ethers being already combined with other bodies will not unite with each other, or be removed from their situations by each other. whereas the perfect conducting bodies, as metals, water, charcoal, though surrounded with electric atmospheres, as they have neither of the electric ethers combined with them, suffer them to permeate and pass through them, whether separately or in their neutral state of reciprocal combination. but it is probable, that imperfect conductors may possess more or less of either the vitreous or resinous ether combined with them, since their natural atmospheres are dissimilar as mentioned below; and that this makes them more or less imperfect conductors. . those bodies which are perfect conductors, have probably neutral electric atmospheres gravitating round them consisting of an equal or saturated mixture of the two electric ethers, whereas the atmospheres round the nonconducting bodies probably consist of an unequal mixture of the electric ethers, as more of the vitreous one round glass, and more of the resinous one round resin; and, it is probable, that these mixed atmospheres, which surround imperfect conducting bodies, consist also of different proportions of the vitreous and resinous ethers, according to their being more or less perfect conductors. these minute degrees of the difference of these electric atmospheres are evinced by mr. bennet's doubler of electricity, as shown in his work, and are termed by him adhesive electric atmospheres, to distinguish them from those accumulated by art; thus the natural adhesive electricity of silver is more of the vitreous kind compared with that of zinc, which consists of a greater proportion of the resinous; that is, in his language, silver is positive and zinc negative. this experiment i have successfully repeated with mr. bennet's doubler along with mr. swanwick. . great accumulation or condensation of the separate electric ethers attract each other so strongly, that they will break a passage through nonconducting bodies, as through a plate of glass, or of air, and will rend bodies which are less perfect conductors, and give out light and heat like the explosion of a train of gunpowder; whence, when a strong electric shock is passed through a quire of paper, a bur, or elevation of the sheets, is seen on both sides of it occasioned by the explosion. whence trees and stone walls are burst by lightning, and wires are fused, and inflammable bodies burnt, by the heat given out along with the flash of light, which cannot be explained by the mechanic theory. . when artificial or natural accumulations of these separate ethers are very minute in quantity or intensity, they pass slowly and with difficulty from one body to another, and require the best conductors for this purpose; whence many of the phenomena of the torpedo or gymnotus, and of galvanism. thus after having discharged a coated jar, if the communicating wire has been quickly withdrawn, a second small shock may be taken after the principal discharge, and this repeatedly two or three times. hence the charge of the galvanic pile being very minute in quantity or intensity, will not readily pass through the dry cuticle of the hands, though it so easily passes through animal flesh or nerves, as this combination of charcoal with water seems to constitute the most perfect conductor yet known. . as light is reflected from the surface of a mirror before it actually touches it, and as drops of water are repelled from cabbage leaves without touching them, and as oil lies on water without touching it, and also as a fine needle may be made to lie on water without touching it, as shown by mr. melville in the literary essays of edinburgh; there is reason to believe, that the vitreous and resinous electric ethers are repelled by, or will not pass through, the surfaces of glass or resin, to which they are applied. but though neither of these electric ethers passes through the surfaces of glass or resin, yet their attractive or repulsive powers pass through them: as the attractive or repulsive power of the magnet to iron passes through the atmosphere, and all other bodies which exist between them. so an insulated cork-ball, when electrised either with vitreous or resinous ether, repels another insulated cork-ball electrised with the same kind of ether, through half an inch of common air, though these electric atmospheres do not unite. whence it may be concluded, that the general attractive and repulsive ethers accompany the electric ethers as well as they accompany all other bodies; and that the electric ethers do not themselves attract or repel through glass or resin, as they cannot pass through them, but strongly attract each other when they come into contact, rush together, and produce an explosion of the sudden liberation of heat and light. iii. _effect of metallic points._ . when a pointed wire is presented by a person standing on the ground to an insulated conductor, on which either vitreous or resinous electricity is accumulated, the accumulated electricity will pass off at a much greater distance than if a metallic knob be fixed on the wire and presented in its stead. . the same occurs if the metallic point be fixed on the electrised conductor, and the finger of a person standing on the ground be presented to it, the accumulated electricity will pass off at a much greater distance, and indeed will soon discharge itself by communicating the accumulated electricity to the atmosphere. . if a metallic point be fixed on the prime conductor, and the flame of a candle be presented to it, on electrising the conductor either with vitreous or resinous ether, the flame of the candle is blown from the point, which must be owing to the electric fluid in its passage from the point carrying along with it a stream of atmospheric air. the manner in which the accumulated electricity so readily passes off by a metallic point may be thus understood; when a metallic point stands erect from an electrised metallic plane, the accumulated electricity which exists on the extremity of the point, is attracted less than that on the other parts of the electrised surface. for the particle of electric matter immediately over the point is attracted by that point only, whereas the particles of electric matter over every other part of the electrised plane, is not only attracted by the parts of the plane immediately under them, but also laterally by the circumjacent parts of it; whence the accumulated electric fluid is pushed off at this point by that over the other parts being more strongly attracted to the plane. thus if a light insulated horizontal fly be constructed of wire with points fixed as tangents to the circle, it will revolve the way contrary to the direction of the points as long as it continues to be electrised. for the same reason as when a circle of cork, with a point of the cork standing from it like a tangent, is smeared with oil, and thrown upon a lake, it will continue to revolve backwards in respect to the direction of the point till all the oil is dispersed upon the lake, as first observed by dr. franklin; for the oil being attracted to all the other parts of the cork-circle more than towards the pointed tangent, that part over the point is pushed off and diffuses itself on the water, over which it passes without touching, and consequently without friction; and thus the cork revolves in the contrary direction. as the flame of a candle is blown from a point fixed on an electrised conductor, whether vitreous or resinous electricity is accumulated on it, it shows that in both cases electricity passes from the point, which is a forcible argument against the mechanical theory of positive and negative electricity; because then the flame should be blown towards the point in one case, and from it in the other. so the electric fly, as it turns horizontally, recedes from the direction of the points of the tangents, whether it be electrised with vitreous or resinous electricity; whereas if it was supposed to receive electricity, when electrised by resin, and to part with it when electrised by glass, it ought to revolve different ways; which also forcibly opposes the theory of positive and negative electricity. as an electrised point with either kind of electricity causes a stream of air to pass from it in the direction of the point, it seems to affect the air much in the same manner as the fluid matter of heat affects it; that is, it will not readily pass through it, but will adhere to the particles of air, and is thus carried away with them. from this it will also appear, that points do not attract electricity, properly speaking, but suffer it to depart from them; as it is there less attracted to the body which it surrounds, than by any other part of the surface. and as a point presented to an electrised conductor facilitates the discharge of it, and blows the flame of a candle towards the conductor, whether vitreous or resinous electricity be accumulated upon it; it follows, that in both cases some electric matter passes from the point to the conductor, and that hence there are two electric ethers; and that they combine or explode when they meet together, and give out light and heat, and occupy less space in this their combined state, like the union of nitrous gas with oxygen gas. iv. _accumulation of electric ethers by contact._ the electric ethers may be separately accumulated by contact of conductors with nonconductors, by vicinity of the two ethers, by heat, and by decomposition. glass is believed to consist in part of consolidated resinous ether, and thence to attract an electric atmosphere round it, which consists of a greater proportion of vitreous ether compared to the quantity of the resinous, as mentioned in proposition no. . this atmosphere may stand off a line from the surface of the glass, though its attractive or repulsive power may extend to a much greater distance; and a more equally mixed electric atmosphere may stand off about the same distance from the surface of a cushion. now when a cushion is forcibly pressed upon the surface of a glass cylinder or plane, the atmosphere of the cushion is forced within that of the glass, and consequently the vitreous part of it is brought within the sphere of the attraction of the resinous ether combined with the glass, and therefore becomes attracted by it in addition to the vitreous part of the spontaneous atmosphere of the glass; and the resinous part of the atmosphere of the cushion is at the same time repelled by its vicinity to the combined resinous ether of the glass. from both which circumstances a vitreous ether alone surrounds the part of the glass on which the cushion is forcibly pressed; which does not, nevertheless, resemble an electrised coated jar; as this accumulation of vitreous ether on one side of the glass is not so violently condensed, or so forcibly attracted to the glass by the loose resinous ether on the other side of it, as occurs in the charged coated jar. hence as weak differences of the kinds or quantities of electricity do not very rapidly change place, if the cushion be suddenly withdrawn, with or without friction, i suppose an accumulation of vitreous electric ether will be left on the surface of the glass, which will diffuse itself on an insulated conductor by the assistance of points, or will gradually be dissipated in the air, probably like odours by the repulsion of its own particles, or may be conducted away by the surrounding air as it is repelled from it, or by the moisture or other impurities of the atmosphere. and hence i do not suppose the friction of the glass-globe to be necessary, except for the purpose of more easily removing the parts of the surface from the pressure of the cushion to the points of the prime conductor, and to bring them more easily into reciprocal contact. when sealing wax or sulphur is rubbed by a cushion, exactly the same circumstance occurs, but with the different ethers; as the resinous ether of the spontaneous atmosphere of the cushion, when it is pressed within the spontaneous atmosphere of the sealing wax, is attracted by the solid vitreous ether, which is combined with it; and at the same time the vitreous ether of the cushion is repelled by it; and hence an atmosphere of resinous ether alone exists between the sealing wax and the cushion thus pressed together. it is nevertheless possible, that friction on both sealing wax and glass may add some facility to the accumulations of their opposite ethers by the warmth which it occasions. as most electric machines succeed best after being warmed, i think even in dry frosty seasons. though when a cushion is applied to a smooth surfaced glass, so as to intermix their electric atmospheres, the vitreous ether of the cushion is attracted by the resinous ether combined with the glass; but does not intermix with it, but only adheres to it: and as the glass turns round, the vitreous electric atmosphere stands on the solid resinous electric ether combined with the glass; and is taken away by the metallic points of the prime conductor. yet if the surface of the glass be roughened by scratching it with a diamond or with hard sand, a new event occurs; which is, that the vitreous ether attracted from the cushion by the resinous ether combined with the glass becomes adhesive to it; and stands upon the roughened glass, and will not quit the glass to go to the prime conductor; whence the surface of the glass having a vitreous electric atmosphere united, as it were, to its inequalities, becomes similar to resin; and will now attract resinous electric ether, like a stick of sealing wax, without combining with it. whence this curious and otherwise unintelligible phenomenon, that smooth surfaced glass will give vitreous electric ether to an insulated conductor, and glass with a roughened surface will give resinous ether to it. v. _accumulation of electric ethers by vicinity._ though the contact of a cushion on the whirling glass is the easiest method yet in use for the accumulation of the vitreous electric ether on an insulated conductor; yet there are other methods of effecting this, as by the vicinity of the two electric ethers with a nonconductor between them. thus i believe a great quantity of both vitreous and resinous electric ether may be accumulated in the following manner. let a glass jar be coated within in the usual manner; but let it have a loose external coating, which can easily be withdrawn by an insulating handle. then charge the jar, as highly as it may be, by throwing into it vitreous electric ether; and in this state hermetically seal it, if practicable, otherwise close it with a glass stopple and wax. when the external coating is drawn off by an insulating handle, having previously had a communication with the earth, it will possess an accumulation of resinous electric ether; and then touching it with your finger, a spark will be seen, and there will cease to be any accumulated ether. thus by alternately replacing this loose coating, and withdrawing it from the sealed charged jar, by means of an insulating handle; and by applying it to one insulated conductor, when it is in the vicinity of the jar; and to another insulated conductor, when it is withdrawn; vitreous electric ether may be accumulated on one of them, and resinous on the other; and thus i suspect an immense quantity of both ethers may be produced without friction or much labour, if a large electric battery was so contrived; and that it might be applied to many mechanical purposes, where other explosions are now used, as in the place of steam engines, or to rend rocks, or timber, or destroy invading armies! the principle of this mode of accumulating the two electric ethers in some measure resembles that of volta's electrophorus and bennet's doubler. vi. _accumulation of electric ethers by heat and by decomposition._ when glass or amber is heated by the fire in a dry season, i suspect that it becomes in some degree electric; as either of the electric ethers which is combined with them may have its combination with those materials loosened by the application of heat; and that on this account they may more forcibly attract the opposite one from the air in their vicinity. it has long been known, that a siliceous stone called the tourmalin, when its surfaces are polished, if it be laid down before the fire, will become electrified with vitreous, or what is called positive electricity on its upper surface; and resinous, or what is called negative electricity on its under surface; which i suppose lay in contact with somewhat which supported it near the fire. in this experiment i suppose the tourmalin to be naturally combined with resinous electric ether like glass; which on one side next towards the fire by the increase of its attractive power, owing to the heat having loosened its combination with the earth of the stone, more strongly attracts vitreous electric ether from the atmosphere; which now stands on its surface: and then as the lower surface of the stone lies in contact with the hearth, the less quantity of vitreous ether is there repelled by the greater quantity of it on the upper surface; while the resinous ether is attracted by it: and the stone is thus charged like a coated jar with vitreous electric ether condensed on one side of it, and resinous on the other. so cats, as they lie by the fire in a frosty day, become so electric as frequently to give a perceptible spark to one's finger from their ears without friction. a fourth method of separating the two ethers would seem to be by the decomposition of metallic bodies, as in the experiment with volta's galvanic pile; which is said by mr. davy to act so much more powerfully, when an acid is added to the water used in the experiment; as will be spoken of below. from experiments made by m. saussure on the electricity of evaporated water from hot metallic vessels, and from those of china and glass, he found when the vessel was calcined or made rusty by the evaporating water, that the electricity of it was positive (or vitreous), and that from china or glass was negative (or resinous), encyclop. britan. art. elect. no. , which seems also to show, that vitreous electric ether was given out or produced by the corrosion of metals, and resinous ether from the evaporation of water. vii. _the spark from the conductor, and of electric light._ when either the vitreous or resinous electric ether is accumulated on an insulated conductor, and an uninsulated conductor, as the finger of an attendant, is applied nearly in contact with it, what happens? the attractive and repulsive powers of the accumulated electric ether pass through the nonconducting plate of air, and if it be of the vitreous kind, it attracts the resinous electric ether of the finger towards it, and repels the vitreous electric ether of the finger from it. hence there exists for an instant a charged plate of air between the finger and the prime conductor, with an accumulation of vitreous ether on one side of it, and of resinous ether on the other side of it; and lastly these two kinds of electric ethers suddenly unite by their powerful attraction of each other, explode, and give out heat and light, and rupture the plate of nonconducting air, which separated them. the rupture or disjunction of the plate of air is known by the sound of the spark, as of thunder; which shows that a vacuum of air was previously produced by the explosion of the electric fluids, and a vibration of the air in consequence of the sudden joining again of the sides of the vacuum. the light which attends electric sparks and shocks, is not accounted for by the theory of dr. franklin. i suspect that it is owing to the combination of the two electric ethers, from which as from all chemical explosions both light and heat are set at liberty, and because a smell is said to be perceptible from electric sparks, and even a taste which must be deduced from new combinations, or decompositions, as in other explosions: add to this that the same thing occurs, when electric shocks are passed through eggs in the dark, or through water, a luminous line is seen like the explosion of a train of gunpowder; lastly, whether light is really produced in the passage of the galvanic electricity through the eyes, or that the sensation alone of light is perceived by its stimulating the optic nerve, has not yet been investigated; but i suspect the former, as it emits light from its explosion even in passing through eggs and through water, as mentioned above. viii. _the shock from the coated jar, and of electric condensation._ . when a glass jar is coated on both sides, and either vitreous or resinous electricity is thrown upon the coating on one side, and there is a communication to the earth from the other side, the same thing happens as in the plate of air between the finger and prime conductor above described; that is, the accumulated electricity, if it be of the vitreous kind, on one coating of the glass jar will attract the resinous part of the electricity, which surrounds or penetrates the coating on the other side of the jar, and also repel the vitreous part of it; but this occurs on a much more extensive surface than in the instance of the plate of air between the finger and prime conductor. the difference between electric sparks and shocks consists in this circumstance, that in the former the insulating medium, whether of air, or of thin glass, is ruptured in one part, and thus a communication is made between the vitreous and resinous ethers, and they unite immediately, like globules of quicksilver, when pressed forcibly together: but in the electric shock a communication is made by some conducting body applied to the other extremities of the vitreous, and of the resinous atmospheres, through which they pass and unite, whether both sides of the coated jar are insulated, or only one side of it. and in this line, as they reciprocally meet, they appear to explode and give out light and heat, and a new combination of the two ethers is produced, as a residuum after the explosion, which probably occupies much less space than either the vitreous or resinous ethers did separately before. at the same time there may be another unrestrainable ethereal fluid yet unobserved, given out from this explosion, which rends oak trees, bursts stone-walls, lights inflammable substances, and fuses metals, or dissipates them in a calciform smoak, along with which great light and much heat are emitted, or these effects are produced by the heat and light only thus set at liberty by their synchronous and sudden evolution. . the curious circumstance of electric condensation appears from the violence of the shock of the coated jar compared with the strongest spark from an insulated conductor, though the latter possesses a much greater surface; when vitreous electric ether is thrown on one side of a coated jar, it attracts the resinous electric ether of the other side of the coated jar; and the same occurs, when resinous ether is thrown on one side of it, it attracts the vitreous ether of the other side of it, and thus the vitreous electric ether on one side of the jar, and the resinous ether on the other side of it become condensed, that is accumulated in less space, by their reciprocal attraction of each other. this condensation of the two electric ethers owing to their reciprocal attraction appears from another curious event, that the thinner the glass jar is, the stronger will the charge be on the same quantity of surface, as then the two ethers approaching nearer without their intermixing attract each other stronger, and consequently condense each other more. and when the glass jar is very thin the reciprocal attractive powers of the vitreous and resinous ether attract each other so violently as at length to pass through the glass by rupturing it, in the same manner as a less forcible attraction of them ruptures and passes through the plate of air in the production of sparks from the prime conductor. as these two ethers on each side of a charged coated jar so powerfully attract each other, when a communication is made between them by some conducting substance as in the common mode of discharging an electrised coated jar, they reciprocally pass to each other for the purpose of combining, as some chemical fluids are known to do; as when nitrous gas and oxygen gas are mixed together; whence as these fluids pass both ways to intermix with each other, and then explode; a bur appears on each side of a quire of paper well pressed together, when a strong electric shock is passed through it; which is occasioned by their explosion, like a train of gunpowder, and consequent emission of some other ethereal fluid, either those of heat and light or of some new one not yet observed. whence it becomes difficult to explain, according to the theory of dr. franklin, which way the electric fluid passed; and which side of the coated jar contained positive and which the negative charge according to that doctrine. but the theory of the ingenious dr. franklin failed also in explaining other phenomena of the coated jar; since if the positive electricity accumulated on one side of the jar repelled the electricity from the coating on the other side of it, so as to produce an electric vacuum; why should it be so eager, when a communication is made by some conducting body, to run into that vacuum by its attraction or gravitation, which has been made by its repulsion; as thus it seems to be violently attracted by the vacuum, from which it had previously repelled a fluid similar to itself, which is not easily to be comprehended. . there is another mode by which either vitreous or resinous electric ether is capable of condensation; which consists in contracting the volume, so as to diminish the surface of the electrised body; as was ingeniously shown by dr. franklin's experiment of electrising a silver tankard with a length of chain rolled up within it; and then drawing up the chain by a silk string, which weakened the electric attraction of the tankard; which was strengthened again by returning the chain into it; thus the condensation of an electrised cloud is believed to condense the electric ether, which it contains, and thus to occasion the lightning passing from one cloud to another, or from a cloud into the earth. this experiment of the chain and tankard is said to succeed as well with what is termed negative electricity in the theory of dr. franklin, as with what is termed positive electricity; but in that theory the negative electricity means a less quantity or total deprivation or vacuity of that fluid; now to condense negative electricity by lowering the suspended chain into the tankard ought to make it less negative; whereas in this experiment i am told it becomes more so, as appears by its stronger repulsion of cork balls suspended on silk strings, and previously electrised by rubbed sealing wax: and if the negative electricity be believed to be a perfect vacuum of it, the condensation of a vacuum of electricity is totally incomprehensible; and this experiment alone seems to demonstrate the existence of two electric ethers. ix. _of galvanic electricity._ . the conductors of electricity, as well as the nonconductors of it, have probably a portion of the vitreous and resinous ethers combined with them, and have also another portion of these ethers diffused round them, which forms their natural or spontaneous adhesive atmospheres; and which exists in different proportions round them correspondent in quantity to those which are combined with them, but opposite in kind. these adhesive spontaneous atmospheres of electricity are shown to consist of different proportions or quantities of the electric ethers by mr. bennet's doubler of electricity, as mentioned in his work called new experiments on electricity, sold by johnson. in this work, p. , the blade of a steel knife was evidently, in his language, positive, compared to a soft iron wire which was comparatively negative; so the adhesive electricity of gold, silver, copper, brass, bismuth, mercury, and various kinds of wood and stone, were what he terms positive or vitreous; and that of tin and zinc, what he terms negative or resinous. where these spontaneous atmospheres of diffused electricity surrounding two conducting bodies, as two pieces of silver, are perfectly similar, they probably do not intermix when brought into the vicinity of each other; but if these spontaneous atmospheres of diffused electricity are different in respect to the proportion of the two ethers, or perhaps in respect to their quantity, in however small degree either of these circumstances exists, they may be made to unite but with some difficulty; as the two metallic plates, suppose one of silver, and another of zinc, which they surround, must be brought into absolute or adhesive contact; or otherwise these atmospheres may be forced together so as to be much flattened, and compress each other where they meet, like small globules of quicksilver when pressed together, but without uniting. this curious phenomenon may be seen in more dense electric atmospheres accumulated by art, as in the following experiment ascribed to mr. canton. lay a wooden skewer the size of a goose-quill across a dry wine-glass, and another across another wine-glass; let the ends of them touch each other, as they lie in a horizontal line; call them x and y; approach a rubbed glass-tube near the external end of the skewer x, but not so as to touch it; then separate the two skewers by removing the wine-glasses further from each other; and lastly, withdraw the rubbed glass-tube, and the skewer x will now be found to possess resinous electricity, which has been generally called negative or minus electricity; and the skewer y will be found to possess vitreous, or what is generally termed positive or plus electricity. the same phenomenon will occur if rubbed sealing wax be applied near to, but not in contact with, the skewer x, as the skewer x will then be left with an atmosphere of vitreous ether, and the skewer y with one of resinous ether. these experiments also evince the existence of two electric fluids, as they cannot be understood from an idea of one being a greater or less quantity of the same material; as a vacuum of electric ether, brought near to one end of the skewer, cannot be conceived so to attract the ether as to produce a vacuum at the other end. in this experiment the electric atmospheres, which are nearly of similar kinds, do not seem to touch, as there may remain a thin plate of air between them, in the same manner as small globules of mercury may be pressed together so as to compress each other, long before they intermix; or as plates of lead or brass require strongly to be pressed together before they acquire the attraction of cohesion; that is, before they come into real contact. . it is probable, that all bodies are more or less perfect conductors, as they have less or more of either of the electric ethers combined with them; as mentioned in preliminary proposition, no. vi. as they may then less resist the passage of either of the ethers through them. whence some conducting bodies admit the junction of these spontaneous electric atmospheres, in which the proportions or quantities of the two ethers are not very different, with greater facility than others. thus in the common experiments, where the vitreous or resinous ether is accumulated by art, metallic bodies have been esteemed the best conductors, and next to these water, and all other moist bodies; but it was lately discovered, that dry charcoal, recently burnt, was a more perfect conductor than metals; and it appears from the experiments discovered by galvani, which have thence the name of galvanism, that animal flesh, and particularly perhaps the nerves of animals, both which are composed of much carbon and water, are the most perfect conductors yet discovered; that is, that they give the least resistance to the junction of the spontaneous electric atmospheres, which exist round metallic bodies, and which differ very little in respect to the proportions of their vitreous and resinous ingredients. thus also, though where the accumulated electricities are dense, as in charging a coated glass-jar, the glass, which intervenes, may be of considerable thickness, and may still become charged by the stronger attraction of the secondary electric ethers; but where the spontaneous adhesive electric atmospheres are employed to charge plates of air, as in the galvanic pile, or probably to charge thin animal membranes or cuticles, as perhaps in the shock given by the torpedo or gymnotus, it seems necessary that the intervening nonconducting plate must be extremely thin, that it may become charged by the weaker attraction of these small quantities or difference of the spontaneous electric atmospheres; and in this circumstance only, i suppose, the shocks from the galvanic pile, and from the torpedo and gymnotus, differ from those of the coated jar. . when atmospheres of electricity, which do not differ much in the quantity or proportion of their vitreous and resinous ethers, approach each other, they are not easily or rapidly united; but the predominant vitreous or resinous ether of one of them repels the similar ether of the opposed atmosphere, and attracts the contrary kind of ether. the slowness or difficulty with, which atmospheres, which differ but little in kind or in density, unite with each other, appears not only from the experiment of mr. canton above related, but also from the repeated smaller shocks, which may be taken from a charged coated jar after the first or principal discharge, if the conducting medium has not been quickly removed, as is also mentioned above. hence those atmospheres of either kind of electric matter, which differ but very little from each other in kind or quantity, require the most perfect conductors to cause them to unite. thus it appears by mr. bennet's doubler, as mentioned in the preliminary proposition, no. vi. that the natural adhesive atmosphere round silver contains more vitreous electricity than that naturally round zinc; but when thin plates of these metals, each about an ounce in weight, are laid on each other, or moderately pressed together, their atmospheres do not unite. for metallic plates, which when laid on each other, do not adhere, cannot be said to be in real contact, of which their not adhering is a proof; and in consequence a thin plate of air, or of their own repulsive ethers exists between them. hence when two plates of zinc and silver are thus brought in to the vicinity of each other, the plate of air between them, as they are not in adhesive contact, becomes like a charged coated jar; and if these two metallic plates are touched by your dry hands, they do not unite their electricities, as the dry cuticle is not a sufficiently good conductor; but if one of the metals be put above, and another under the tongue, the saliva and moist mucous membrane, muscular fibres, and nerves, supply so good a conductor, that this very minute electric shock is produced, and a kind of pungent taste is perceived. when a plate or pencil of silver is put between the upper lip and the gum, and a plate or pencil of zinc under the tongue, a sensation of light is perceived in the eyes, as often as the exterior extremities of these metals are brought into contact; which is owing in like manner to the discharge of a very minute electric shock, which would not have been produced but by the intervention of such good conductors as moist membranes, muscular fibres, and nerves. in this situation, a sensation of light is produced in the eyes; which seems to show, that these ethers pass through nerves more easily, than through muscular flesh simply; since the passage of them through the retina of the eyes from the upper gum to the parts beneath the tongue is a more distant one, than would otherwise appear necessary. it is not so easy to give the sensation of light in the eyes by passing a small shock of artificially accumulated electricity through, the eyes (though this may, i believe, be done) because this artificial accumulated electricity, as it passes with greater velocity than the spontaneous accumulations of it, will readily permeate the muscles or other moist parts of animal bodies; whereas the spontaneous accumulations of electricity seem to require the best of all conductors, as animal nerves, to facilitate their passage. . in the galvanic pile of volta this electric shock becomes so much increased, as to pass by less perfect conductors, and to give shocks to the arms of the conducting person, if the cuticle of his hands be moistened, and even to show sparks like the coated jar; which appears to be effected in this manner. when a plate of silver is laid horizontally on a plate of zinc, the plate of air between them becomes charged like a coated jar; as the silver, naturally possessing more vitreous electric ether, repels the vitreous ether, which the zinc possesses in less quantity, and attracts the resinous ether of the zinc. whence the inferior surface of the plate of zinc abounds now with vitreous ether, and its upper surface with resinous ether. beneath this pair of plates lay a cloth moistened with water, or with some better conductor, as salt and water, or a slight acid mixed with water, or volatile alcali of ammoniac mixed with water, and this vitreous electric ether on the lower surface of the zinc plate will be given to the second silver plate which lies beneath it; and thus this second silver plate will possess not only its own natural vitreous atmosphere, which was denser or in greater quantity than that of the zinc plate next beneath it, but now acquires an addition of vitreous ether from the zinc plate above it, conducted to it through the moist cloth. this then will repel more vitreous ether from the second zinc plate into the third silver one; and so on till the plates of air between the zincs and silvers are all charged, and each stronger and stronger, as they descend in the pile. if the reader still prefers the franklinian theory of positive and negative electricity, he will please to put the word positive for vitreous, and negative for resinous, and he will find the theory of the galvanic pile equally thus accounted for. . when a galvanic pile is thus placed, and a communication between the two ends of it is made by wires, so that the electric shocks pass through water, the water becomes decomposed in some measure, and oxygen is liberated from it at the point of one wire, and hydrogen at the point of the other; and this though a syphon of water be interposed between them. this curious circumstance seems to evince the existence of two electric ethers, which enter the water at different ends of the syphon, and have chemical affinities to the component parts of it; the resinous ether sets at liberty the hydrogen at one end, and the vitreous ether the oxygen at the other end of the conducting medium. hence it must appear, that the longer the galvanic pile, or the greater the number of the alternate pieces of silver and zinc that it consists of, the stronger will be the galvanic shock; but there is another circumstance, difficult to explain, which is the perpetual decomposition of water by the galvanic pile; when water is made the conducting medium between the two extremities of the pile. as no conductors of electricity are absolutely perfect, there must be produced a certain accumulation of vitreous ether on one side of each charged plate of the galvanic pile, and of resinous ether on the other side of it, before the discharge takes place, even though the conducting medium be in apparent contact. when the discharge does take place, the whole of the accumulated electricity explodes and vanishes; and then an instant of time is required for the silver and zinc again to attract from the air, or other bodies in their vicinity, their spontaneous natural atmospheres, and then another discharge ensues; and so repeatedly and perpetually till the surface of one of the metallic plates becomes so much oxydated or calcined, that it ceases to act. hence a perpetual motion may be said to be produced, with an incessant decomposition of water into the two gasses of oxygen and hydrogen; which must probably be constantly proceeding on all moist surfaces, where a chain of electric conductors exists, surrounded with different proportions of the two electric ethers. whence the ceaseless liberation of oxygen from the water has oxydated or calcined the ores of metals near the surface of the earth, as of manganese, of zinc into lapis calaminaris, of iron into various ochres, and other calciform ores. from this source also the corrosion of some metals may be traced, when they are immersed in water in the vicinity of each other, as when the copper sheathing of ships was held on by iron nails. and hence another great operation of nature is probably produced, i mean the restoration of oxygen to the atmosphere from the surface of the earth in dewy mornings, as well as from the perspiration of vegetable leaves; which atmospheric oxygen is hourly destructible by the respiration of animals and plants, by combustion, and by other oxydations. . the combination of the electric ethers with metallic bodies, before mentioned appears from the galvanic pile; since, according to the experiments of mr. davy, when an acid is mixed with the water placed between the alternate pairs of silver and zinc plates, a much greater electric shock is produced by the same pile; and an anonymous writer in the phil. magaz. no. , for may , asserts, that when the intervening cloths or papers are moistened with pure alcali, as a solution of pure ammonia, the effect is greater than by any other material. it must here be observed, that both the acid and the alcaline solution, or common salt and water, and even water alone, in these experiments much erodes the plates of zinc, and somewhat tarnishes those of silver. whence it would appear, that as by the repeated explosions of the two electric ethers in the conducting water, both oxygen and hydrogen are liberated; the oxygen erodes the zinc plates, and thus increases the galvanic shock by liberating their combined electric ethers: and that this erosion is much increased by a mixture either of acid or of volatile alcali with the water. further experiments are wanting on this subject to show whether metallic bodies emit either or both of the electric ethers at the time of their solution or erosion in acids or in alcalies. x. _of the two magnetic ethers._ . magnetism coincides with electricity in so many important points, that the existence of two magnetic ethers, as well as of two electric ones, becomes highly probable. we shall suppose, that in a common bar of iron or steel the two magnetic ethers exist intermixed or in their neutral state; which for the greater ease of speaking of them may be called arctic ether and antarctic ether; and in this state like the two electric fluids they are not cognizable by our senses of experiments. when these two magnetic ethers are separated from each other, and the arctic ether is accumulated on one end of an iron or steel bar, which is then called the north pole of the magnet, and the antarctic ether is accumulated on the other end of the bar, and is then termed the south pole of the magnet; they become capable of attracting other pieces of iron or steel, and are thus cognizable by experiments. it seems probable, that it is not the magnetic ether itself which attracts or repels particles of iron, but that an attractive and repulsive ether attends the magnetic ethers, as was shown to attend the electric ones in no. ii. . of this note; because magnetism does not pass through other bodies, as it does not escape from magnetised steel when in contact with other bodies; just as the electric fluids do not pass through glass, but the attractive and repellent ethers, which attend both the magnetic and electric ethers, pass through all bodies. . the prominent articles of analogical coincidence between magnetism and electricity are first, that when one end of an iron bar possesses an accumulation of arctic magnetic ether, or northern polarity; the other end possesses an accumulation of antarctic magnetic ether, or southern polarity; in the same manner as when vitreous electric ether is accumulated on one side of a coated glass jar, resinous electric ether becomes accumulated on the other side of it; as the vitreous and resinous ethers strongly attract each other, and strongly repel the ethers of the same denomination, but are prevented from intermixing by the glass plane between them; so the arctic and antarctic ethers attract each other, and repel those of similar denomination, but are prevented from intermixing by the iron or steel being a bad conductor of them; they will, nevertheless, sooner combine, when the bar is of soft iron, than when it is of hardened steel; and then they slowly combine without explosion, that is, without emitting heat and light like the electric ethers, and therefore resemble a mixture of oxygen and pure ammonia; which unite silently producing a neutral fluid without emitting any other fluids previously combined with them. secondly, if the north pole of a magnetic bar be approached near to the eye of a sewing needle, the arctic ether of the magnet attracts the antarctic ether, which resides in the needle towards the eye of it, and repels the arctic ether, which resides in the needle towards the point, precisely in the same manner as occurs in presenting an electrised, glass tube, or a rubbed stick of sealing wax to one extremity of two skewers insulated horizontally on wine-glasses in the experiment ascribed to mr. canton, and described in no. ix. , of this additional note, and also so exactly resembles the method of producing a separation and consequent accumulation of the two electric ethers by pressing a cushion on glass or on sealing wax, described in no. of this note, that their analogy is evidently apparent. thirdly, when much accumulated electricity is approached to one end of a long glass tube by a charged prime conductor, there will exist many divisions of the vitreous and resinous electricity alternately; as the vitreous ether attracts the resinous ether from a certain distance on the surface of the glass tube, and repels the vitreous ether; but, as this surface is a bad conductor, these reciprocal attractions and repulsions do not extend very far along it, but cease and recur in various parts of it. exactly similar to this, when a magnetic bar is approximated to the end of a common bar of iron or steel, as described in mr. cavallo's valuable treatise on magnetism; the arctic ether of the north pole of the magnetic bar attracts the antarctic ether of the bar of common iron towards the end in contact, and repels the arctic ether; but, as iron and steel are as bad conductors of magnetism, as glass is of electricity, this accumulation of arctic ether extends but a little way, and then there exists an accumulation of antarctic ether; and thus reciprocally in three or four divisions of the bar, which now becomes magnetised, as the glass tube became electrised. another striking feature, which shows the sisterhood of electricity and magnetism, consists in the origin of both of them from the earth, or common mass of matter. the eduction of electricity from the earth is shown by an insulated cushion soon ceasing to supply either the vitreous or resinous ether to the whirling globe of glass or of sulphur; the eduction of magnetism from the earth appears from the following experiment: if a bar of iron be set upright on the earth in this part of the world, it becomes in a short time magnetical; the lower end possessing northern polarity, or arctic ether, and the higher end in consequence possessing southern polarity or antarctic ether; which may be well explained, if we suppose with mr. cavallo, that the earth itself is one great magnet, with its southern polarity or antarctic ether at the northern end of its axis; and, in consequence, that it attracts the arctic ether of the iron bar into that end of it which touches the earth, and repels the antarctic ether of the iron bar to the other end of it, exactly the same as when the southern pole of an artificial magnet is brought into contact with one end of a sewing needle. . the magnetic and electric ethers agree in the characters above mentioned, and perhaps in many others, but differ in the following ones. the electric ethers pass readily through metallic, aqueous, and carbonic bodies, but do not permeate vitreous or resinous ones; though on the surfaces of these they are capable of adhering, and of being accumulated by the approach or contact of other bodies; while the magnetic ethers will not permeate any bodies, and are capable of being accumulated only on iron and steel by the approach or contact of natural or artificial magnets, or of the earth; at the same time the attractive and repulsive powers both of the magnetic and electric ethers will act through all bodies, like those of gravitation and heat. secondly, the two electric ethers rush into combination, when they can approach each other, after having been separated and condensed, and produce a violent explosion emitting the heat and light, which were previously combined with them; whereas the two magnetic ethers slowly combine, after having been separated and accumulated on the opposite ends of a soft iron bar, and without emitting heat and light produce a neutral mixture, which, like the electric combination, ceases to be cognizable by our senses or experiments. thirdly, the wonderful property of the magnetic ethers, when separately accumulated on the ends of a needle, endeavouring to approach the two opposite poles of the earth; nothing similar to which has been observed in the electric ethers. from these strict analogies between electricity and magnetism, we may conclude that the latter consists of two ethers as well as the former; and that they both, when separated by art or nature, combine by chemical affinity when they approach, the one exploding, and then consisting of a residuum after having emitted heat and light; and the other producing simply a neutralised fluid by their union. xi. _conclusion._ . when two fluids are diffused together without undergoing any change of their chemical properties, they are said simply to be mixed, and not combined; as milk and water when poured together, or as oxygen and azote in the common atmosphere. so when salt or sugar is diffused in water, it is termed solution, and not combination; as no change of their chemical properties succeeds. but when an acid is mixed with a pure alcali a combination is produced, and the mixture is said to become neutral, as it does not possess the chemical properties which either of the two ingredients possessed in their separate state, and is therefore similar to neither of them. but when a carbonated alcali, as mild salt of tartar, is mixed with a mineral acid, they presently combine as above, but now the carbonic acid flies forcibly away in the form of gas; this, therefore, may be termed a kind of explosion, but cannot properly be so called, as the ethereal fluids of heat and light are not principally emitted, but an aerial one or gas; which may probably acquire a small quantity of heat from the combining matters. but when strong acid of nitre is poured upon charcoal in fine powder, or upon oil of cloves, a violent explosion ensues, and the ethereal matters of heat and light are emitted in great abundance, and are dissipated; while in the former instance the oxygen of the nitrous acid unites with the carbone forming carbonic acid gas, and the azote escapes in its gaseous form; which may be termed a residuum after the explosion, and may be confined in a proper apparatus, which the heat and light cannot; for the former, if its production be great and sudden, bursts the vessels, or otherwise it passes slowly through them; and the latter passes through transparent bodies, and combines with opake ones. but where ethers only are concerned in an explosion, as the two electric ones, which are previously difficult to confine in vessels; the repulsive ethers of heat and light are given out; and what remains is a combination of the two electric ethers; which in this state are attracted by all bodies, and form atmospheres round them. these combined electric atmospheres must possess less heat and light after their explosion; which they seem afterwards to acquire at the time they are again separated from each other, probably from the combined heat and combined light of the cushion and glass, or of the cushion and resin; by the contact of which they are separated; and not from the diffused heat of them; but no experiments have yet been made to ascertain this fact, this combination of the vitreous and resinous ethers may be esteemed the residuum after their explosion. . hence the essence of explosion consists in two bodies, which are previously united with heat and light, so strongly attracting each other, as to set at liberty those two repulsive ethers; but it happens, that these explosive materials cannot generally be brought into each other's vicinity in a state of sufficient density; unless they are also previously combined with some other material beside the light and heat above spoken of: as in the nitrous acid, the oxygen is previously combined with azote; and is thus in a condensed state, before it is brought into the contact or vicinity of the carbone; there are however bodies which will slowly explode; or give out heat and light, without being previously combined with other bodies; as phosphorus in the common atmosphere, some dead fish in a certain degree of putridity, and some living insects probably by their respiration in transparent lungs, which is a kind of combustion. but the two electric ethers are condensed by being brought into vicinity with each other with a nonconductor between them; and thus explode, violently as soon as they communicate, either by rupturing the interposed nonconductor, or by a metallic communication. this curious method of a previous condensation of the two exploding matters, without either of them being combined with any other material except with the ethers of heat and light, distinguishes, this ethereal explosion from that of most other bodies; and seems to have been the cause, which prevented the ingenious dr. franklin, and others since his time, from ascribing the powerful effects of the electric battery, and of lightning in bursting trees, inflaming combustible materials, and fusing metals, to chemical explosion; which it resembles in every other circumstance, but in the manner of the previous condensation of the materials, so as violently to attract each other, and suddenly set at liberty the heat and light, with which one or both of them were combined. . this combination of vitreous and resinous electric ethers is again destroyed or weakened by the attractions of other bodies; as they separate intirely, or exist in different proportions, forming atmospheres round conducting and nonconducting bodies; and in this they resemble other combinations of matters; as oxygen and azote, when united in the production of nitrous acid, are again separated by carbone; which attracts the oxygen more powerfully, than that attracts the azote, with which it is combined. this mode of again separating the combined electric ethers by pressing them, as they surround bodies in different proportions, into each other's atmospheres, as by the glass and cushion, has not been observed respecting the decomposition of other bodies; when their minute particles are brought so near together as to decompose each other; which has thence probably contributed to prevent this decomposition of the two combined electric ethers from being ascribed to chemical laws; but, as far as we know, the attractive and repulsive atmospheres round the minute particles of bodies in chemical operations may act in a similar manner; as the attractive and repulsive atmospheres, which accompany the electric ethers surrounding the larger masses of matter, and that hence both the electric and the chemical explosions are subject to the same laws, and also the decomposition again of those particles, which were combined in the act of explosion. . it is probable that this theory of electric and magnetic attractions and repulsions, which so visibly exist in atmospheres round larger masses of matter, may be applied to explain the invisible attractions and repulsions of the minute particles of bodies in chemical combinations and decompositions, and also to give a clear idea of the attractions of the great masses of matter, which form the gravitations of the universe. we are so accustomed to see bodies attract each other, when they are in absolute contact, as dew drops or particles of quicksilver forming themselves into spheres, as water rising in capillary tubes, the solution of salts and sugar in water, and the cohesion with which all hard bodies are held together, that we are not surprised at the attractions of bodies in contact with each other, but ascribe them to a law affecting all matter. in similar manner when two bodies in apparent contact repel each other, as oil thrown on water; or when heat converts ice into water and water into steam; or when one hard body in motion pushes another hard body out of its place; we feel no surprise, as these events so perpetually occur to us, but ascribe them as well as the attractions of bodies in contact with each other, to a general law of nature. but when distant bodies appear to attract or repel each other, as we believe that nothing can act where it does not exist, we are struck with astonishment; which is owing to our not seeing the intermediate ethers, the existence of which is ascertained by the electric and magnetic facts above related. from the facts and observations above mentioned electricity and magnetism consist each of them of two ethers, as the vitreous and resinous electric ethers, and the arctic and antarctic magnetic ethers. but as neither of the electric ethers will pass through glass or resin; and as neither of the magnetic ethers will pass through any bodies except iron; and yet the attractive and repulsive powers accompanying all these ethers permeate bodies of all kinds; it follows, that ethers more subtile than either the electric or magnetic ones attend those ethers forming atmospheres round them; as those electric and magnetic ethers themselves form atmospheres round other bodies. this secondary atmosphere of the electric one appears to consist of two ethers, like the electric one which it surrounds: but these ethers are probably more subtile as they permeate all bodies; and when they unite by the reciprocal approach of the bodies, which they surround, they do not appear to emit heat and light, as the primary electric atmospheres do; and therefore they are simpler fluids, as they are not previously combined with heat and light. the secondary magnetic atmospheres are also probably more subtile or simple than the primary ones. hence we may suppose, that not only all the larger insulated masses of matter, but all the minute particles also, which constitute those masses, are surrounded by two ethereal fluids; which like the electric and magnetic ones attract each other forcibly, and as forcibly repel those of the same denomination; and at the same time strongly adhere to the bodies, which they surround. secondly that these ethers are of the finer kind, like those secondary ones, which surround the primary electric and magnetic ethers; and that therefore they do not explode giving out heat and light when they unite, but simply combine, and become neutral; and lastly, that they surround different bodies in different proportions, as the vitreous and resinous electric ethers were shown to surround silver and zinc and many other metals in different proportions in no. ix. of this note. . for the greater ease of conversing on this subject, we shall call these two ethers, with which all bodies are surrounded, the masculine and the feminine ethers; and suppose them to possess the properties above mentioned. we should here however previously observe, that in chemical processes it is necessary, that the bodies, which are to combine or unite with each other, should be in a fluid state, and the particles in contact with each other; thus when salt is dissolving in water, the particles of salt unite with those of the water, which touch them; these particles of water become saturated, and thence attract some of the saline particles with less force; which are therefore attracted from them by those behind; and the first particles of water are again saturated from the solid salt; or in some similar processes the saturated combinations may subside or evaporate, as in the union of the two electric ethers, or in the explosion of gunpowder, and thus those in their vicinity may approach each other. this necessity of a liquid form for the purpose of combination appears in the lighting of gunpowder, as well as in all other combustion, the spark of fire applied dissolves the sulphur, and liquifies the combined heat; and by these means a fluidity succeeds, and the consequent attractions and repulsions, which form the explosion. the whole mixed mass of matter, of which the earth is composed, we suppose to be surrounded and penetrated by the two ethers, but with a greater proportion of the masculine ether than of the feminine. when a stone is elevated above the surface of the earth, we suppose it also to be surrounded with an atmosphere of the two ethers, but with a greater proportion of the feminine than of the masculine, and that these ethers adhere strongly by cohesion both to the earth and to the stone elevated above it. now the greater quantity of the masculine ether of the earth becomes in contact with the greater quantity of the feminine ether of the stone above it; which it powerfully attracts, and at the same time repels the less quantity of the masculine ether of the stone. the reciprocal attractions of these two fluids, if not restrained by counter attractions, bring them together as in chemical combination, and thus they bring together the solid bodies, which they reciprocally adhere to; if they be not immovable; which solid bodies, when brought into contact, cohere by their own reciprocal attractions, and hence the mysterious affair of distant attraction or gravitation becomes intelligible, and consonant to the chemical combinations of fluids. to further elucidate these various attractions, if the patient reader be not already tired, he will please to attend to the following experiment: let a bit of sponge suspended on a silk line be moistened with a solution of pure alcali, and another similar piece of sponge be moistened with a weak acid, and suspended near the former; electrize one of them with vitreous ether, and the other with resinous ether; as they hang with a thin plate of glass between them: now as these two electric ethers appear to attract each other without intermixing; as neither of them can pass through glass; they must be themselves surrounded with secondary ethers, which pass through the glass, and attract each other, as they become in contact; as these secondary ethers adhere to the primary vitreous and resinous ethers, these primary ones are drawn by them into each other's vicinity by the attraction of cohesion, and become condensed on each side of the glass plane; and then when the glass plane is withdrawn, the two electric ethers being now in contact rush violently together, and draw along with them the pieces of moistened sponge, to which they adhere; and finally the acid and alcaline liquids being now brought into contact combine by their chemical affinity. the repulsions of distant bodies are also explicable by this idea of their being surrounded with two ethers, which we have termed masculine and feminine for the ease of conversing about them; and have compared them to vitreous and resinous electricity, and to arctic and antarctic magnetism. as when two particles of matter, or two larger masses of it, are surrounded both with their masculine ethers, these ethers repel each other or refuse to intermix; and in consequence the bodies to which they adhere, recede from each other; as two cork-balls suspended near each other, and electrised both with vitreous or both with resinous ether, repel each other; or as the extremities of two needles magnetised both with arctic, or both with antarctic ether, repel each other; or as oil and water surrounded both with their masculine, or both with their feminine ethers, repel each other without touching; so light is believed to be reflected from a mirror without touching its surface, and to be bent towards the edge of a knife, or refracted by its approach from a rarer medium into a denser one, by the repulsive ether of the mirror, and the attractive ones of the knife-edge, and of the denser medium. thus a polished tea-cup slips on the polished saucer probably without their actual contact with each other, till a few drops of water are interposed between them by capillary attraction, and prevent its sliding by their tenacity. and so, lastly, one hard body in motion pushes another hard body out of its place by their repulsive ethers without being in contact; as appears from their not adhering to each other, which all bodies in real contact are believed to do. whence also may be inferred the reason why bodies have been supposed to repel at one distance and attract at another, because they attract when their particles are in contact with each other, and either attract or repel when at a distance by the intervention of their attractive or repulsive ethers. thus have i endeavoured to take one step further back into the mystery of the gravitation and repulsion of bodies, which appeared to be distant from each other, as of the sun and planets, as i before endeavoured to take one step further back into the mysteries of generation in my account of the production of the buds of vegetables in phytologia. with what success these have been attended i now leave to the judgment of philosophical readers, from which i can make no appeal. additional notes. xiii. analysis of taste. fond fancy's eye recalls the form divine, and taste sits smiling upon beauty's shrine. canto iii. l. . the word taste in its extensive application may express the pleasures received by any of our senses, when excited into action by the stimulus of external objects; as when odours stimulate the nostrils, or flavours the palate; or when smoothness, or softness, are perceived by the touch, or warmth by its adapted organ of sense. the word taste is also used to signify the pleasurable trains of ideas suggested by language, as in the compositions of poetry and oratory. but the pleasures, consequent to the exertions of our sense of vision only, are designed here to be treated of, with occasional references to those of the ear, when they elucidate each other. when any of our organs of sense are excited into their due quantity of action, a pleasurable sensation succeeds, as shown in zoonomia, vol. i. sect. iv. these are simply the pleasures attending perception, and not those which are termed the pleasures of taste; which consist of additional pleasures arising from the peculiar forms or colours of objects, or of their peculiar combinations or successions, or from other agreeable trains of ideas previously associated with them. there are four sources of pleasure attendant on the excitation of the nerves of vision by light and colours, besides that simply of perception above mentioned; the first is derived from a degree of novelty of the forms, colours, numbers, combinations, or successions, and visible objects. the second is derived from a degree of repetition of their forms, colours, numbers, combinations, or successions. where these two circumstances exist united in certain quantities, and compose the principal part of a landscape, it is termed picturesque by modern writers. the third source of pleasure from the perception of the visible world may be termed the melody of colours, which will be shown to coincide with melody of sounds: this circumstance may also accompany the picturesque, and will add to the pleasure it affords. the fourth source of pleasure from the perception of visible objects is derived from the previous association of other pleasurable trains of ideas with certain forms, colours, combinations, or successions of them. whence the beautiful, sublime, romantic, melancholic, and other emotions, which have not acquired names to express them. we may add, that all these four sources of pleasure from perceptions are equally applicable to those of sounds as of sights. i. _novelty or infrequency of visible objects._ the first circumstance, which suggests an additional pleasure in the contemplation of visible objects, besides that of simple perception, arises from their novelty or infrequency; that is from the unusual combinations or successions of their forms or colours. from this source is derived the perpetual cheerfulness of youth, and the want of it is liable to add a gloom to the countenance of age. it is this which produces variety in landscape compared with the common course of nature, an intricacy which incites investigation, and a curiosity which leads to explore the works of nature. those who travel into foreign regions instigated by curiosity, or who examine and unfold the intricacies of sciences at home, are led by novelty; which not only supplies ornament to beauty or to grandeur, but adds agreeable surprise to the point of the epigram, and to the double meaning of the pun, and is courted alike by poets and philosophers. it should be here premised, that the word novelty, as used in these pages, admits of degrees or quantities, some objects, or the ideas excited by them, possessing more or less novelty, as they are more or less unusual. which the reader will please to attend to, as we have used the word infrequency of objects, or of the ideas excited by them, to express the degrees or quantities of their novelty. the source, from which is derived the pleasure of novelty, is a metaphysical inquiry of great curiosity, and will on that account excuse my here introducing it. in our waking hours whenever an idea occurs, which is incongruous to our former experience, we instantly dissever the train of imagination by the power of volition; and compare the incongruous idea with our previous knowledge of nature, and reject it. this operation of the mind has not yet acquired a specific name, though it is exerted every minute of our waking hours, unless it may be termed intuitive analogy. it is an act of reasoning of which we are unconscious except by its effects in preserving the congruity of our ideas; zoonomia, vol. i. sect. xvii. . . in our sleep as the power of volition is suspended, and consequently that of reason, when any incongruous ideas occur in the trains of imagination, which compose our dreams; we cannot compare them with our previous knowledge of nature and reject them; whence arises the perpetual inconsistency of our sleeping trains of ideas; and whence in our dreams we never feel the sentiment of novelty; however different the ideas, which present themselves, may be from the usual course of nature. but in our waking hours, whenever any object occurs which does not accord with the usual course of nature, we immediately and unconsciously exert our voluntary power, and examine it by intuitive analogy, comparing it with our previous knowledge of nature. this exertion of our volition excites many other ideas, and is attended with pleasurable sensation; which constitutes the sentiment of novelty. but when the object of novelty stimulates us so forcibly as suddenly to disunite our passing trains of ideas, as if a pistol be unexpectedly discharged, the emotion of surprise is experienced; which by exciting violent irritation and violent sensation, employs for a time the whole sensorial energy, and thus dissevers the passing trains of ideas; before the power of volition has time to compare them with the usual phenomena of nature; but as the painful emotion of fear is then generally added to that of surprise, as every one experiences, who hears a noise in the dark, which he cannot immediately account for; this great degree of novelty, when it produces much surprise, generally ceases to be pleasurable, and does not then belong to objects of taste. in its less degree surprise is generally agreeable, as it simply expresses the sentiment occasioned by the novelty of our ideas; as in common language we say, we are agreeably surprised at the unexpected meeting with a friend, which not only expresses the sentiment of novelty, but also the pleasure from other agreeable ideas associated with the object of it. it must appear from hence, that different persons must be affected more or less agreeably by different degrees or quantities of novelty in the objects of taste; according to their previous knowledge of nature, or their previous habits or opportunities of attending to the fine arts. thus before its nativity the fetus experiences the perceptions of heat and cold, of hardness and softness, of motion and rest, with those perhaps of hunger and repletion, sleeping and waking, pain and pleasure; and perhaps some other perceptions, which may at this early time of its existence have occasioned perpetual trains of ideas. on its arrival into the world the perceptions of light and sound must by their novelty at first dissever its usual trains of ideas and occasion great surprise; which after a few repetitions will cease to be disagreeable, and only excite the emotion from novelty, which has not acquired a separate name, but is in reality a less degree of surprise; and by further experience the sentiment of novelty, or any degree of surprise, will cease to be excited by the sounds or sights, which at first excited perhaps a painful quantity of surprise. it should here be observed, that as the pleasure of novelty is produced by the exertion of our voluntary power in comparing uncommon objects with those which are more usually exhibited; this sentiment of novelty is less perceived by those who do not readily use the faculty of volition, or who have little previous knowledge of nature, as by very ignorant or very stupid people, or by brute animals; and that therefore to be affected with this circumstance of the objects of taste requires some previous knowledge of-such kinds of objects, and some degree of mental exertion. hence when a greater variety of objects than usual is presented to the eye, or when some intricacy of forms, colours, or reciprocal locality more than usual accompanies them, it is termed novelty if it only excites the exertion of intuitive comparison with the usual order of nature, and affects us with pleasurable sensation; but is termed surprise, if it suddenly dissevers our accustomed habits of motion, and is then more generally attended with disagreeable sensation. to this circumstance attending objects of taste is to be referred what is termed wild and irregular in landscapes, in contradistinction to the repetition of parts or uniformity spoken of below. we may add, that novelty of notes and tones in music, or of their combinations or successions, are equally agreeable to the ear, as the novelty of forms and colours, and of their combinations or successions are to the eye; but that the greater quantity or degree of novelty, the sentiment of which is generally termed surprise, is more frequently excited by unusual or unexpected sounds; which are liable to alarm us with fear, as well as surprise us with novelty. ii. _repetition of visible objects._ the repeated excitement of the same or similar ideas with certain intervals of time, or distances of space between them, is attended with agreeable sensations, besides that simply of perception; and, though it appears to be diametrically opposite to the pleasure arising from the novelty of objects above treated of, enters into the compositions of all the agreeable arts. the pleasure arising from the repetition of similar ideas with certain intervals of time or distances of space between them is a subject of great metaphysical curiosity, as well as the source of the pleasure derived from novelty, which will i hope excuse its introduction in this place. the repetitions of motions may be at first produced either by volition, or by sensation, or by irritation, but they soon become easier to perform than any other kinds of action, because they soon become associated together; and thus their frequency of repetition, if as much sensorial power be produced during every reiteration, as is expended, adds to the facility of their production. if a stimulus be repeated at uniform intervals of time, the action, whether of our muscles or organs of sense, is produced with still greater facility or energy; because the sensorial power of association, mentioned above, is combined with the sensorial power of irritation; that is in common language, the acquired habit assists the power of the stimulus. this not only obtains in the annual, lunar, and diurnal catenations of animal motions, as explained in zoonomia, sect. xxxvi. which are thus performed with great facility and energy; but in every less circle of actions or ideas, as in the burden of a song, or the reiterations of a dance. to the facility and distinctness, with which we hear sounds at repeated intervals, we owe the pleasure, which we receive from musical time, and from poetic time, as described in botanic garden, v. ii. interlude iii. and to this the pleasure we receive from the rhimes and alliterations of modern versification; the source of which without this key would be difficult to discover. there is no variety of notes referable to the gamut in the beating of a drum, yet if it be performed in musical time, it is agreeable to our ears; and therefore this pleasurable sensation must be owing to the repetition of the divisions of the sounds at certain intervals of time, or musical bars. whether these times or bars are distinguished by a pause, or by an emphasis, or accent, certain it is, that this distinction is perpetually repeated; otherwise the ear could not determine instantly, whether the successions of sound were in common or in triple time. but besides these little circles of musical time, there are the greater returning periods, and the still more distinct choruses; which, like the rhimes at the end of verses, owe their beauty to repetition; that is, to the facility and distinctness with which we perceive sounds, which we expect to perceive or have perceived before; or in the language of this work, to the greater ease and energy with which our organ is excited by the combined sensorial powers of association and irritation, than by the latter singly. this kind of pleasure arising from repetition, that is from the facility and distinctness with which we perceive and understand repeated sensations, enters into all the agreeable arts; and when it is carried to excess is termed formality. the art of dancing like that of music depends for a great part of the pleasure, it affords, on repetition; architecture, especially the grecian, consists of one part being a repetition of another, and hence the beauty of the pyramidal outline in landscape-painting; where one side of the picture may be said in some measure to balance the other. so universally does repetition contribute to our pleasure in the fine arts, that beauty itself has been defined by some writers to consist in a due combination of uniformity and variety: zoonomia, vol. i. sect. xxii. . . where these repetitions of form, and reiterations of colour, are produced in a picture or a natural landscape, in an agreeable quantity, it is termed simplicity, or unity of character; where the repetition principally is seen in the disposition or locality of the divisions, it is called symmetry, proportion, or grouping the separate parts; where this repetition is most conspicuous in the forms of visible objects, it is called regularity or uniformity; and where it affects the colouring principally, the artists call it breadth of colour. there is nevertheless, an excess of the repetition of the same or similar ideas, which ceases to please, and must therefore be excluded from compositions of taste in painted landscapes, or in ornamented gardens; which is then called formality, monotony, or insipidity. why the excitation of ideas should give additional pleasure by the facility and distinctness of their production for a certain time, and then cease to give additional pleasure; and gradually to give less pleasure than that, which attends simple exertion of them; is another curious metaphysical problem, and deserves investigation. in our waking hours a perpetual voluntary exertion, of which we are unconscious, attends all our new trains of ideas, whether those of imagination or of perception; which by comparing them with our former experience preserves the consistency of the former, by rejecting such as are incongruous; and adds to the credibility of the latter, by their analogy to objects of our previous knowledge: and this exertion is attended with pleasurable sensation. after very frequent repetition these trains of ideas do not excite the exertion of this intuitive analogy, and in consequence are not attended with additional pleasure to that simply of perception; and by continued repetition they at length lose even the pleasure simply of perception, and thence finally cease to be excited; whence one cause of the torpor of old age, and of death, as spoken of in additional note, no. vii. . of this work. when there exists in any landscape a certain number and diversity of forms and colours, or of their combinations or successions, so as to produce a degree of novelty; and that with a certain repetition, or arrangement of parts, so as to render them gradually comprehensible or easily compared with the usual course of nature; if this agreeable combination of visible objects be on a moderate scale, in respect to magnitude, and form the principal part of the landscape, it is termed picturesque by modern artists; and when such a combination of forms and colours contains many easy flowing curves and smooth surfaces, the delightful sentiment of beauty becomes added to the pleasure of the picturesque. if the above agreeable combination of novelty and repetition exists on a larger scale with more projecting rocks, and deeper dells, and perhaps with a somewhat greater proportion of novelty than repetition, the landscape assumes the name of romantic; and if some of these forms or combinations are much above the usual magnitude of similar objects, the more interesting sentiment of sublimity becomes mixed with the pleasure of the romantic. iii. _melody of colours._ a third source of pleasure arising from the inspection of visible objects, besides that of simple perception, arises from what may be termed melody of colours, as certain colours are more agreeable, when they succeed each other; or when they are disposed in each other's vicinity, so as successively to affect the organ of vision. in a paper on the colours seen in the eye after looking for some time on luminous objects, published by dr. darwin of shrewsbury in the philos. trans. vol. , it is evidently shown, that we see certain colours not only with greater ease and distinctness, but with relief and pleasure, after having for some time inspected other certain colours; as green after red, or red after green; orange after blue, or blue after orange; yellow after violet, or violet after yellow; this, he shows, arises from the ocular spectrum of the colour last viewed coinciding with the irritation of the colour now under contemplation. thus if you make a dot with ink in the centre of a circle of red silk the size of a letter-wafer, and place it on a sheet of white paper, and look on it for a minute without moving your eyes; and then gently turn them on the white paper in its vicinity, or gently close them, and hold one hand an inch or two before them, to prevent too much light from passing through the eyelids, a circular spot of pale green will be seen on the white paper, or in the closed eye; which is called the ocular spectrum of the red silk, and is formed as dr. darwin shows by the pandiculation or stretching of the fine fibrils, which constitute the extremities of the optic nerve, in a direction contrary to that, in which they have been excited by previously looking at a luminous object, till they become fatigued; like the yawning or stretching of the larger muscles after acting long in one direction. if at this time the eye, fatigued by looking long at the centre of the red silk, be turned on paper previously coloured with pale green; the circular spot or ocular spectrum will appear of a much darker green; as now the irritation from the pale green paper coincides with the pale green spectrum remaining in the eye, and thus excites those fibres of the retina into stronger action; on this account some colours are seen more distinctly, and consequently more agreeably after others; or when placed in the vicinity of others; thus if orange-coloured letters are painted on a blue ground, they may be read at as great distance as black on white, perhaps at a greater. the colours, which are thus more distinct when seen in succession are called opposite colours by sir isaac newton in his optics, book i. part , and may be easily discovered by any one, by the method above described; that is by laying a coloured circle of paper or silk on a sheet of white paper, and inspecting it some time with steady eyes, and then either gently closing them, or removing them on another part of the white paper, and the ocular spectrum or opposite colour becomes visible in the eye. sir isaac newton has observed, that the breadths of the seven primary colours in the sun's image refracted by a prism, are proportioned to the seven musical notes of the gamut; or to the intervals of the eight sounds contained in an octave. from this curious coincidence, it has been proposed to produce a luminous music, consisting of successions or combinations of colours, analogous to a tune in respect to the proportions above mentioned. this might be performed by a strong light, made by means of mr. argand's lamps, passing through coloured glasses, and falling on a defined part of the wall, with moveable blinds before them, which might communicate with the keys of a harpsichord, and thus produce at the same time visible and audible music in unison with each other. now as the pleasure we receive from the sensation of melodious notes, independent of musical time, and of the previous associations of agreeable ideas with them, must arise from our hearing some proportions of sounds after others more easily, distinctly, or agreeably; and as there is a coincidence between the proportions of the primary colours, and the primary sounds, if they may be so called; the same laws must probably govern the sensations of both. in this circumstance therefore consists the sisterhood of music and painting; and hence they claim a right to borrow metaphors from each other: musicians to speak of the brilliancy of sounds, and the light and shade of a concerto; and painters of the harmony of colours, and the tone of a picture. this source of pleasure received from the melodious succession of colours or of sounds must not be confounded with the pleasure received from the repetition of them explained above, though the repetition, or division of musical notes into bars, so as to produce common or triple time, contributes much to the pleasure of music; but in viewing a fixed landscape nothing like musical time exists; and the pleasure received therefore from certain successions of colours must depend only on the more easy or distinct action of the retina in perceiving some colours after others, or in their vicinity, like the facility or even pleasure with which we act with contrary muscles in yawning or stretching after having been fatigued with a long previous exertion in the contrary direction. hence where colours are required to be distinct, those which are opposite to each other, should be brought into succession or vicinity; as red and green, orange and blue, yellow and violet; but where colours are required to intermix imperceptibly, or slide into each other, these should not be chosen; as they might by contrast appear too glaring or tawdry. these gradations and contrasts of colours have been practically employed both by the painters of landscape, and by the planters of ornamental gardens; though the theory of this part of the pleasure derived from visible objects was not explained before the publication of the paper on ocular spectra above mentioned; which is reprinted at the end of the first part of zoonomia, and has thrown great light on the actions of the nerves of sense in consequence of the stimulus of external bodies. iv. _association of agreeable sentiments with visible objects._ besides the pleasure experienced simply by the perception of visible objects, it has been already shown, that there is an additional pleasure arising from the inspection of those, which possess novelty, or some degree of it; a second additional pleasure from those, which possess in some degree a repetition of their parts; and a third from those, which possess a succession of particular colours, which either contrast or slide into each other, and which we have termed melody of colours. we now step forward to the fourth source of the pleasures arising from the contemplation of visible objects besides that simply of perception, which consists in our previous association of some agreeable sentiment with certain forms or combinations of them. these four kinds of pleasure singly or in combination constitute what is generally understood by the word taste in respect to the visible world; and by parity of reasoning it is probable, that the pleasurable ideas received by the other senses, or which are associated with language, may be traced to similar sources. it has been shown by bishop berkeley in his ingenious essay on vision, that the eye only acquaints us with the perception of light and colours; and that our idea of the solidity of the bodies, which reflect them, is learnt by the organ of touch: he therefore calls our vision the language of touch, observing that certain gradations of the shades of colour, by our previous experience of having examined similar bodies by our hands or lips, suggest our ideas of solidity, and of the forms of solid bodies; as when we view a tree, it would otherwise appear to us a flat green surface, but by association of ideas we know it to be a cylindrical stem with round branches. this association of the ideas acquired by the sense of touch with those of vision, we do not allude to in the following observations, but to the agreeable trains or tribes of ideas and sentiments connected with certain kinds of visible objects. v. _sentiment of beauty._ of these catenations of sentiments with visible objects, the first is the sentiment of beauty or loveliness; which is suggested by easy-flowing curvatures of surface, with smoothness; as is so well illustrated in mr. burke's essay on the sublime and beautiful, and in mr. hogarth's analysis of beauty; a new edition of which is much wanted separate from his other works. the sentiment of beauty appears to be attached from our cradles to the easy curvatures of lines, and smooth surfaces of visible objects, and to have been derived from the form of the female bosom; as spoken of in zoonomia, vol. i. section xvi. on instinct. sentimental love, as distinguished from the animal passion of that name, with which it is frequently accompanied, consists in the desire or sensation of beholding, embracing, and saluting, a beautiful object. the characteristic of beauty therefore is that it is the object of love; and though many other objects are in common language called beautiful, yet they are only called so metaphorically, and ought to be termed agreeable. a grecian temple may give us the pleasurable idea of sublimity; a gothic temple may give us the pleasurable idea of variety; and a modern house the pleasurable idea of utility; music and poetry may inspire our love by association of ideas; but none of these, except metaphorically, can be termed beautiful; as we have no wish to embrace or salute them. our perception of beauty consists in our recognition by the sense of vision of those objects, first which have before inspired our love by the pleasure, which they have afforded to many of our senses: as to our sense of warmth, of touch, of smell, of taste, hunger and thirst; and secondly, which bear any analogy of form to such objects. when the babe, soon after it is born into this cold world, is applied to its mother's bosom, its sense of perceiving warmth is first agreeably affected; next its sense of smell is delighted with the odour of her milk; then its taste is gratified by the flavour of it, afterwards the appetites of hunger and of thirst afford pleasure by the possession of their objects, and by the subsequent digestion of the aliment; and lastly, the sense of touch is delighted by the softness and smoothness of the milky fountain, the source of such variety of happiness. additional notes. xiv. the theory and structure of language next to each thought associate sound accords, and forms the dulcet symphony of words. canto iii. l. . ideas consist of synchronous motions or configurations of the extremities of the organs of sense; these when repeated by sensation, volition, or association, are either simple or complex, as they were first excited by irritation; or have afterwards some parts abstracted from them, or some parts added to them. language consists of words, which are the names or symbols of ideas. words are therefore properly all of them nouns or names of things. little had been done in the investigation of the theory of language from the time of aristotle to the present æra, till mr. horne tooke, the ingenious and learned author of the diversions of purley, explained those undeclined words of all languages, which had puzzled the grammarians, and evinced from their etymology, that they were abbreviations of other modes of expression. mr. tooke observes, that the first aim of language was to communicate our thoughts, and the second to do it with dispatch; and hence he divides words into those, which were necessary to express our thoughts, and those which are abbreviations of the former; which he ingeniously styles the wings of hermes. for the greater dispatch of conversation many words suggest more than one idea; i shall therefore arrange them according to the number and kinds of ideas, which they suggest; and am induced to do this, as a new distribution of the objects of any science may advance the knowledge of it by developing another analogy of its constituent parts. and in thus endeavouring to analyze the theory of language i mean to speak primarily of the english, and occasionally to add what may occur concerning the structure of the greek and latin. i. _conjunctions and prepositions._ the first class of words consists of those, which suggest but one idea, and suffer no change of termination; which have been termed by grammarians conjunctions and prepositions; the former of which connect sentences, and the latter words. both which have been ingeniously explained by mr. horne tooke from their etymology to be abbreviations of other modes of expression. . thus the conjunction _if_ and _an_, are shown by mr. tooke to be derived from the imperative mood of the verbs to give and to grant; but both of these conjunctions by long use appear to have become the name of a more abstracted idea, than the words give or grant suggest, as they do not now express any ideas of person, or of number, or of time; all which are generally attendant upon the meaning of a verb; and perhaps all the words of this class are the names of ideas much abstracted, which has caused the difficulty of explaining them. . the number of prepositions is very great in the english language, as they are used before the cases of nouns, and the infinitive mood of verbs, instead of the numerous changes of termination of the nouns and verbs of the greek and latin; which gives greater simplicity to our language, and greater facility of acquiring it. the prepositions, as well as the preceding conjunctions, have been well explained by mr. horne tooke; who has developed the etymology of many of them. as the greatest number of the ideas, we receive from external objects, are complex ones, the names of these constitute a great part of language, as the proper names of persons and places; which are complex terms. now as these complex terms do not always exactly suggest the quantity of combined ideas we mean to express, some of the prepositions are prefixed to them to add or to deduct something, or to limit their general meaning; as a house with a party wall, or a house without a roof. these words are also derived by mr. tooke, as abbreviations of the imperative moods of verbs; but which appear now to suggest ideas further abstracted than those generally suggested by verbs, and are all of them properly nouns, or names of ideas. ii. _nouns substantive._ the second class of words consists of those, which in their simplest state suggest but one idea, as the word man; but which by two changes of termination in our language suggest one secondary idea of number, as the word men; or another secondary idea of the genitive case, as man's mind, or the mind of man. these words by other changes of termination in the greek and latin languages suggest many other secondary ideas, as of gender, as well as of number, and of all the other cases described in their grammars; which in english are expressed by prepositions. this class of words includes the nouns substantive, or names of things, of common grammars, and may be conveniently divided into three kinds. . those which suggest the ideas of things believed to possess hardness and figure, as a house or a horse. . those which suggest the ideas of things, which are not supposed to possess hardness and figure, except metaphorically, as virtue, wisdom; which have therefore been termed abstracted ideas. . those which have been called by metaphysical writers reflex ideas, and mean those of the operations of the mind, as sensation, volition, association. another convenient division of these nouns substantive or names of things may be first into general terms, or the names of classes of ideas, as man, quadruped, bird, fish, animal. . into the names of complex ideas, as this house, that dog. . into the names of simple ideas, as whiteness, sweetness. a third convenient division of the names of things may be into the names of intire things, whether of real or imaginary being; these are the nouns substantive of grammars. . into the names of the qualities or properties of the former; these are the nouns adjective of grammars. . the names of more abstracted ideas as the conjunctions and prepositions of grammarians. these nouns substantive, or names of intire things, suggest but one idea in their simplest form, as in the nominative case singular of grammars. as the word a stag is the name of a single complex idea; but the word stags by a change of termination adds to this a secondary idea of number; and the word stag's, with a comma before the final s, suggests, in english, another secondary idea of something appertaining to the stag, as a stag's horn; which is, however, in our language, as frequently expressed by the preposition _of_, as the horn of a stag. in the greek and latin languages an idea of gender is joined with the names of intire things, as well as of number; but in the english language the nouns, which express inanimate objects, have no genders except metaphorically; and even the sexes of many animals have names so totally different from each other, that they rather give an idea of the individual creature than of the sex, as bull and cow, horse and mare, boar and sow, dog and bitch. this constitutes another circumstance, which renders our language more simple, and more easy to acquire; and at the same time contributes to the poetic excellence of it; as by adding a masculine or feminine pronoun, as he, or she, other nouns substantive are so readily personified. in the latin language there are five cases besides the nominative, or original word, and in the greek four. whence the original noun substantive by change of its termination suggests a secondary idea either corresponding with the genitive, dative, accusative, vocative, or ablative cases, besides the secondary ideas of number and gender above mentioned. the ideas suggested by these changes of termination, which are termed cases, are explained in the grammars of these languages, and are expressed in ours by prepositions, which are called the signs of those cases. thus the word domini, of the lord, suggests beside the primary idea a secondary one of something appertaining to it, as templum domini, the temple of the lord, or the lord's temple; which in english is either effected by an addition of the letter s, with a comma before it, or by the preposition _of_. this genitive case is said to be expressed in the hebrew language simply by the locality of the words in succession to each other; which must so far add to the conciseness of that language. thus the word domino, in the dative case, to the lord, suggests besides the primary idea a secondary one of something being added to the primary one; which is effected in english by the preposition _to_. the accusative case, or dominum, besides the primary idea implies something having acted upon the object of that primary idea; as felis edit murem, the cat eats the mouse. this is thus effected in the greek and latin by a change of termination of the noun acted upon, but is managed in a more concise way in our language by its situation in the sentence, as it follows the verb. thus if the mouse in the above sentence was placed before the verb, and the cat after it, in english the sense would be inverted, but not so in latin; this necessity of generally placing the accusative case after the verb is inconvenient in poetry; though it adds to the conciseness and simplicity of our language, as it saves the intervention of a preposition, or of a change of termination. the vocative case of the latin language, or domine, besides the primary idea suggests a secondary one of appeal, or address; which in our language is either marked by its situation in the sentence, or by the preposition o preceding it. whence this interjection o conveys the idea of appeal joined to the subsequent noun, and is therefore properly another noun, or name of an idea, preceding the principal one like other prepositions. the ablative case in the latin language, as domino, suggests a secondary idea of something being deducted from or by the primary one. which is perhaps more distinctly expressed by one of those prepositions in our language; which, as it suggests somewhat concerning the adjoined noun, is properly another noun, or name of an idea, preceding the principal one. when to these variations of the termination of nouns in the singular number are added those equally numerous of the plural, and the great variety of these terminations correspondent to the three genders, it is evident that the prepositions of our own and other modern languages instead of the changes of termination add to the simplicity of these languages, and to the facility of acquiring them. hence in the latin language, besides the original or primary idea suggested by each noun substantive, or name of an entire thing, there attends an additional idea of number, another of gender, and another suggested by each change of termination, which constitutes the cases; so that in this language four ideas are suggested at the same time by one word; as the primary idea, its gender, number, and case; the latter of which has also four or five varieties. these nouns therefore may properly be termed the abbreviation of sentences; as the conjunctions and prepositions are termed by mr. tooke the abbreviation of words; and if the latter are called the wings affixed to the feet of hermes, the former may be called the wings affixed to his cap. iii. _adjectives, articles, participles, adverbs._ . the third class of words consists of those, which in their simplest form suggest two ideas; one of them is an abstracted idea of the quality of an object, but not of the object itself; and the other is an abstracted idea of its appertaining to some other noun called a substantive, or a name of an entire thing. these words are termed adjectives, are undeclined in our language in respect to cases, number, or gender; but by three changes of termination they suggest the secondary ideas of greater, greatest, and of less; as the word sweet changes into sweeter, sweetest, and sweetish; which may be termed three degrees of comparison besides the positive meaning of the word; which terminations of _er_ and _est_ are seldom added to words of more than two syllables; as those degrees are then most frequently denoted by the prepositions more and most. adjectives seem originally to have been derived from nouns substantive, of which they express a quality, as a musky rose, a beautiful lady, a stormy day. some of them are formed from the correspondent substantive by adding the syllable _ly_, or _like_, as a lovely child, a warlike countenance; and in our language it is frequently only necessary to put a hyphen between two nouns substantive for the purpose of converting the former one into an adjective, as an eagle-eye, a mayday. and many of our adjectives are substantives unchanged, and only known by their situation in a sentence, as a german, or a german gentleman. adjectives therefore are names of qualities, or parts of things; as substantives are the names of entire things. in the latin and greek languages these adjectives possess a great variety of terminations; which suggest occasionally the ideas of number, gender, and the various cases, agreeing in all these with the substantive, to which they belong; besides the two original or primary ideas of quality, and of their appertaining to some other word, which must be adjoined to make them sense. insomuch that some of these adjectives, when declined through all their cases, and genders, and numbers, in their positive, comparative, and superlative degrees, enumerate fifty or sixty terminations. all which to one, who wishes to learn these languages, are so many new words, and add much to the difficulty of acquiring them. though the english adjectives are undeclined, having neither case, gender, nor number; and with this simplicity of form possess a degree of comparison by the additional termination of ish, more than the generality of latin or greek adjectives, yet are they less adapted to poetic measure, as they must accompany their corresponding substantives; from which they are perpetually separated in greek and latin poetry. . there is a second kind of adjectives, which abound in our language, and in the greek, but not in the latin, which are called articles by the writers of grammar, as the letter _a_, and the word _the_. these, like the adjectives above described, suggest two primary ideas, and suffer no change of termination in our language, and therefore suggest no secondary ideas. mr. locke observes, that languages consist principally of general terms; as it would have been impossible to give a name to every individual object, so as to communicate an idea of it to others; it would be like reciting the name of every individual soldier of an army, instead of using the general term, army. now the use of the article _a_, and _the_ in english, and _o_ in greek, converts general terms into particular ones; this idea of particularity as a quality, or property of a noun, is one of the primary ideas suggested by these articles; and the other is, that of its appertaining to some particular noun substantive, without which it is not intelligible. in both these respects these articles correspond with adjectives; to which may be added, that our article _a_ may be expressed by the adjective one or any; and that the greek article _o_ is declined like other adjectives. the perpetual use of the article, besides its converting general terms into particular ones, contributes much to the force and beauty of our language from another circumstance, that abstracted ideas become so readily personified simply by the omission of it; which perhaps renders the english language better adapted to poetry than any other ancient or modern: the following prosopopoeia from shakspeare is thus beautiful. she let concealment like a worm i' th' bud feed on her damask cheek. and the following line, translated from juvenal by dr. johnson, is much superior to the original, owing to the easy personification of worth and poverty, and to the consequent conciseness of it. difficile emergunt, quorum virtutibus obstat res angusta domi. slow rises worth by poverty depress'd. . a third class of adjectives includes what are termed participles, which are allied to the infinitive moods of verbs, and are formed in our language by the addition only of the syllable _ing_ or _ed_; and are of two kinds, active and passive, as loving, loved, from the verb to love. the verbs suggest an idea of the noun, or thing spoken of; and also of its manner of existence, whether at rest, in action, or in being acted upon; as i lie still, or i whip, or i am whipped; and, lastly, another idea of the time of resting, acting, or suffering; but these adjectives called participles, suggest only two primary ideas, one of the noun, or thing spoken of, and another of the mode of existence, but not a third idea of time; and in this respect participles differ from the verbs, from which they originate, or which originated from them, except in their infinitive moods. nor do they resemble adjectives only in their suggesting but two primary ideas; but in the latin and greek languages they are declined through all the cases, genders, and numbers, like other adjectives; and change their terminations in the degrees of comparison. in our language the participle passive, joined to the verb _to be_, for the purpose of adding to it the idea of time, forms the whole of the passive voice; and is frequently used in a similar manner in the latin language, as i am loved is expressed either by amor, or amatus sum. the construction of the whole passive voice from the verb _to be_ and the participles passive of other verbs, contributes much to the simplicity of our language, and the ease of acquiring it; but renders it less concise than perhaps it might have been by some simple variations of termination, as in the active voice of it. . a fourth kind of adjective is called by the grammarians an adverb; which has generally been formed from the first kind of adjectives, as these were frequently formed from correspondent substantives; or it has been formed from the third kind of adjectives, called participles; and this is effected in both cases by the addition, of the syllable _ly_, as wisely, charmingly. this kind of adjective suggests two primary ideas, like the adjectives, and participles, from which they are derived; but differ from them in this curious circumstance, that the other adjectives relate to substantives, and are declined like them in the latin and greek languages, as a lovely boy, a warlike countenance; but these relate to verbs, and are therefore undeclined, as to act boldly, to suffer patiently. iv. _verbs._ the fourth class of words consists of those which are termed verbs, and which in their simplest state suggest three ideas; first an idea of the noun, or name of the thing spoken of, as a whip. . an idea of its mode of existence, whether at rest, or in action, or in being acted upon. . an idea of the time of its existence. thus "the beadle whipped the beggar," in prolix language might be expressed, the beadle with a whip struck in time past the beggar. which three ideas are suggested by the one word whipped. verbs are therefore nouns, or names of intire ideas, with the additional ideas of their mode of existence and of time; but the participles suggest only the noun, and the mode of existence, without any idea of time; as whipping, or whipped. the infinitive moods of verbs correspond in their signification with the participles; as they also suggest only the noun, or name of the thing spoken of, and an idea of its mode of existence, excluding the idea of time; which is expressed by all the other moods and tenses; whence it appears, that the infinitive mood, as well as the participle, is not truly a part of the verb; but as the participle resembles the adjective in its construction; so the infinitive mood may be said to resemble the substantive, and it is often used as a nominative case to another verb. thus in the words "a charming lady with a smiling countenance," the participle acts as an adjective; and in the words "to talk well commands attention," the infinitive mood acts as the nominative case of a noun substantive; and their respective significations are also very similar, as whipping, or to whip, mean the existence of a person acting with a whip. in the latin language the verb in its simplest form, except the infinitive mood, and the participle, both which we mean to exclude from complete verbs, suggests four primary ideas, as amo, suggests the pronoun i, the noun love, its existence in its active state, and the present time; which verbs in the greek and latin undergo an uncounted variation of termination, suggesting so many different ideas in addition to the four primary ones. we do not mean to assert, that all verbs are literally derived from nouns in any language; because all languages have in process of time undergone such great variation; many nouns having become obsolete or have perished, and new verbs have been imported from foreign languages, or transplanted from ancient ones; but that this has originally been the construction of all verbs, as well as those to whip and to love above mentioned, and innumerable others. thus there may appear some difficulty in analyzing from what noun substantive were formed the verbs to stand or to lie; because we have not properly the name of the abstract ideas from which these verbs arose, except we use the same word for the participle and the noun substantive, as standing, lying. but the verbs, to sit, and to walk, are less difficult to trace to their origin; as we have names for the nouns substantive, a seat, and a walk. but there is another verb of great consequence in all languages, which would appear, in its simplest form in our language to suggest but two primary ideas, as the verb _to be_, but that it suggests three primary ideas like other verbs maybe understood, if we use the synonymous term to exist instead of to be. thus "i exist" suggests first the abstract idea of existence, not including the mode of existence, whether at rest, or in action, or in suffering; secondly it adds to that abstracted idea of existence its real state, or actual resting, acting, or suffering, existence; and thirdly the idea of the present time: thus the infinitive mood _to be_, and the participle, _being_, suggest both the abstract idea of existence, and the actual state of it, but not the time. the verb _to be_ is also used irregularly to designate the parts of time and actual existence; and is then applied to either the active or passive participles of other verbs, and called an auxiliary verb; while the mode of existence, whether at rest, or in action, or being acted upon, is expressed by the participle, as "i am loving" is nearly the same as "i love," amo; and "i am loved," amatus sum, is nearly the same as amor. this mode of application of the verb _to be_ is used in french as well as in english, and in the passive voice of the latin, and perhaps in many other languages; and is by its perpetual use in conversation rendered irregular in them all, as i am, thou art, he is, would not seem to belong to the infinitive mood _to be_, any more than sum, fui, sunt, fuerunt, appear to belong to esse. the verb _to have_ affords another instance of irregular application; the word means in its regular sense to possess, and then suggests three ideas like the above verb of existence: first the abstracted idea of the thing spoken of, or possession; secondly, the actual existence of possession, and lastly the time, as i have or possess. this verb _to have_ like the verb _to be_ is also used irregularly to denote parts of past time, and is then joined to the passive participles alone, as i have eaten; or it is accompanied with the passive participle of the verb _to be_, and then with the active participle of another verb, as i have been eating. there is another word _will_ used in the same irregular manner to denote the parts of future time, which is derived from the verb _to will_; which in its regular use signifies to exert our volition. there are other words used to express other circumstances attending upon verbs, as may, can, shall, all which are probably the remains of verbs otherwise obsolete. lastly, when we recollect, that in the moods and tenses of verbs one word expresses never less than three ideas in our language, and many more in the greek and latin; as besides those three primary ideas the idea of person, and of number, are always expressed in the indicative mood, and other ideas suggested in the other moods, we cannot but admire what excellent abbreviations of language are thus achieved; and when we observe the wonderful intricacy and multiplicity of sounds in those languages, especially in the greek verbs, which change both the beginning and ending of the original word through three voices, and three numbers, with uncounted variations of dialect; we cannot but admire the simplicity of modern languages compared to these ancient ones; and must finally perceive, that all language consists simply of nouns, or names of ideas, disposed in succession or in combination, all of which are expressed by separate words, or by various terminations of the same word. _conclusion._ the theory of the progressive production of language in the early times of society, and its gradual improvements in the more civilized ones, may be readily induced from the preceding pages. in the commencement of society the names of the ideas of entire things, which, it was necessary most frequently to communicate, would first be invented, as the names of individual persons, or places, fire, water, this berry, that root; as it was necessary perpetually to announce, whether one or many of such external things existed, it was soon found more convenient to add this idea of number by a change of termination of the word, than by the addition of another word. as many of these nouns soon became general terms, as bird, beast, fish, animal; it was next convenient to distinguish them when used for an individual, from the same word used as a general term; whence the two articles _a_ and _the_, in our language, derive their origin. next to these names of the ideas of entire things, the words most perpetually wanted in conversation would probably consist of the names of the ideas of the parts or properties of things; which might be derived from the names of some things, and applied to others which in these respects resembled them; these are termed adjectives, as rosy cheek, manly voice, beastly action; and seem at first to have been formed simply by a change of termination of their correspondent substantives. the comparative degrees of greater and less were found so frequently necessary to be suggested, that a change of termination even in our language for this purpose was produced; and is as frequently used as an additional word, as wiser or more wise. the expression of general similitude, as well as partial similitude, becomes so frequently used in conversation, that another kind of adjective, called an adverb, was expressed by a change of termination, or addition of the syllable ly or like; and as adjectives of the former kind are applied to substantives, and express a partial similitude, these are applied to verbs and express a general similitude, as to act heroically, to speak boldly, to think freely. the perpetual chain of causes and effects, which constitute the motions, or changing configurations, of the universe, are so conveniently divided into active and passive, for expressing the exertions or purposes of common life, that it became particularly convenient in all languages to substitute changes of termination, instead of additional nouns, to express, whether the thing spoken of was in a state of acting or of being acted upon. this change of termination betokening action or suffering constitutes the participle, as loving, loved; which, as it expresses a property of bodies, is classed amongst adjectives in the preceding pages. besides the perpetual allusions to the active or passive state of things, the comparative times of these motions, or changes, were also perpetually required to be expressed; it was therefore found convenient in all languages to suggest them by changes of terminations in preference to doing it by additional nouns. at the same time the actual or real existence of the thing spoken of was perpetually required, as well as the times of their existence, and the active or passive state of that existence. and as no conversation could be carried on without unceasingly alluding to these circumstances, they became in all languages suggested by changes of termination; which are termed moods and tenses in grammars, and convert the participle above mentioned into a verb; as that participle had originally been formed by adding a termination to a noun, as chaining, and chained, from chain. the great variety of changes of termination in all languages consists therefore of abbreviations used instead of additional words; and adds much to the conciseness of language, and the quickness with which we are enabled to communicate our ideas; and may be said to add unnumbered wings to every limb of the god of eloquence. additional notes. xv. analysis of articulate sounds. the tongue, the lips articulate; the throat with soft vibration modulates the note. canto iii. l. . having explained in the preceding account of the theory of language that it consists solely of nouns, or the names of ideas, disposed in succession or combination; i shall now attempt to investigate the number of the articulate sounds, which constitute those names of ideas by their successions and combinations; and to show by what parts of the organs of speech they are modulated and articulated; whence may be deduced the precise number of letters or symbols necessary to suggest those sounds, and form an alphabet, which may spell with accuracy the words of all languages. i. _imperfections of the present alphabet._ it is much to be lamented, that the alphabet, which has produced and preserved almost all the improvements in other arts and sciences, should have itself received no improvement in modern times; which have added so much elucidation to almost every branch of knowledge, that can meliorate the condition of humanity. thus in our present alphabets many letters are redundant, others are wanted; some simple articulate sounds have two letters to suggest them; and in other instances two articulate sounds are suggested by one letter. some of these imperfections in the alphabet of our own language shall be enumerated. x. thus the letter x is compounded of ks, or of gz, as in the words excellent, example: eksellent, egzample. c. is sometimes k, at other times s, as in the word access. g. is a single letter in go; and suggests the letters d and the french j in pigeon. qu is kw, as quality is kwality. ng in the words long and in king is a simple sound like the french n, and wants a new character. sh is a simple sound, and wants a new character. th is either sibilant as in thigh; or semivocal as in thee; both of which are simple sounds, and want two new characters. j french exists in our words confu_si_on, and conclusion, judge, pigeon, and wants a character. j consonant, in our language, expresses the letters d, and the french j conjoined, as in john, djon. ch is either k as in arch-angel, or is used for a sound compounded of tsh, as in children, tshildren. gl is dl, as glove is pronounced by polite people dlove. cl is tl, as cloe is pronounced by polite speakers tloe. the spelling of our language in respect to the pronunciation is also wonderfully defective, though perhaps less so than that of the french; as the words slaughter and laughter are pronounced totally different, though spelt alike. the word sough, now pronounced suff, was formerly called sow; whence the iron fused and received into a sough acquired the name of sowmetal; and that received into less soughs from the former one obtained the name of pigs of iron or of lead; from the pun on the word sough, into sow and pigs. our word jealousies contains all the vowels, though three of them only were necessary; nevertheless in the two words abstemiously and facetiously the vowels exist all of them in their usual order, and are pronounced in their most usual manner. some of the vowels of our language are diphthongs, and consist of two vocal sounds, or vowels, pronounced in quick succession; these diphthongs are discovered by prolonging the sound, and observing, if the ending of it be different from the beginning; thus the vowel i in in our language, as in the word high, if drawn put ends in the sound of the letter e as used in english; which is expressed by the letter i in most other languages: and the sound of this vowel i begins with ah, and consists therefore of ah and ee. whilst the diphthong on in our language, as in the word how, begins with ah also and ends in oo, and the vowel u of our language, as in the word use, is likewise a diphthong; which begins with e and ends with oo, as eoo. the french u is also a diphthong compounded of a and oo, as aoo. and many other defects and redundancies in our alphabet will be seen by perusing the subsequent structure of a more perfect one. ii. _production of sounds._ by our organ of hearing we perceive the vibrations of the air; which vibrations are performed in more or in less time, which constitutes high or low notes in respect to the gammut; but the tone depends on the kind of instrument which produces them. in speaking of articulate sounds they may be conveniently divided first into clear continued sounds, expressed by the letters called vowels; secondly, into hissing sounds, expressed by the letters called sibilants; thirdly, into semivocal sounds, which consist of a mixture of the two former; and, lastly, into interrupted sounds, represented by the letters properly termed consonants. the clear continued sounds are produced by the streams of air passing from the lungs in respiration through the larynx; which is furnished with many small muscles, which by their action give a proper tension to the extremity of this tube; and the sounds, i suppose, are produced by the opening and closing of its aperture; something like the trumpet stop of an organ, as may be observed by blowing through the wind-pipe of a dead goose. these sounds would all be nearly similar except in their being an octave or two higher or lower; but they are modulated again, or acquire various tones, in their passage through the mouth; which thus converts them into eight vowels, as will be explained below. the hissing sounds are produced by air forcibly pushed through certain passages of the mouth without being previously rendered sonorous by the larynx; and obtain their sibilancy from their slower vibrations, occasioned by the mucous membrane, which lines those apertures or passages, being less tense than that of the larynx. i suppose the stream of air is in both cases frequently interrupted by the closing of the sides or mouth of the passages or aperture; but that this is performed much slower in the production of sibilant sounds, than in the production of clear ones. the semivocal sounds are produced by the stream of air having received quick vibrations, or clear sound, in passing through the larynx, or in the cavity of the mouth; but apart of it, as the outsides of this sonorous current of air, afterwards receives slower vibrations, or hissing sound, from some other passages of the lips or mouth, through which it then flows. lastly the stops, or consonants, impede the current of air, whether sonorous or sibilant, for a perceptible time; and probably produce some change of tone in the act of opening and closing their apertures. there are other clear sounds besides those formed by the larynx; some of them are formed in the mouth, as may be heard previous to the enunciation of the letters b, and d, and ga; or during the pronunciation of the semivocal letters, v. z. j. and others in sounding the liquid letters r and l; these sounds we shall term orisonance. the other clear sounds are formed in the nostrils, as in pronouncing the liquid letters m, n, and ng, these we shall term narisonance. thus the clear sounds, except those above mentioned, are formed in the larynx along with the musical height or lowness of note; but receive afterward a variation of tone from the various passages of the mouth: add to these that as the sibilant sounds consist of vibrations slower than those formed by the larynx, so a whistling through the lips consists of vibrations quicker than those formed by the larynx. as all sound consists in the vibrations of the air, it may not be disagreeable to the reader to attend to the immediate causes of those vibrations. when any sudden impulse is given to an elastic fluid like the air, it acquires a progressive motion of the whole, and a condensation of the constituent particles, which first receive the impulse; on this account the currents of the atmosphere in stormy seasons are never regular, but blow and cease to blow by intervals; as a part of the moving stream is condensed by the projectile force; and the succeeding part, being consequently rarefied, requires some time to recover its density, and to follow the former part: this elasticity of the air is likewise the cause of innumerable eddies in it; which are much more frequent than in streams of water; as when it is impelled against any oblique plane, it results with its elastic force added to its progressive one. hence when a vacuum is formed in the atmosphere, the sides of the cavity forcibly rush together both by the general pressure of the superincumbent air, and by the expansion of the elastic particles of it; and thus produce a vibration of the atmosphere to a considerable distance: this occurs, whether this vacuity of air be occasioned by the discharge of cannon, in which the air is displaced by the sudden evolution of heat, which as suddenly vanishes; or whether the vacuity be left by a vibrating string, as it returns from each side of the arc, in which it vibrates; or whether it be left under the lid of the valve in the trumpet stop of an organ, or of a child's play trumpet, which continues perpetually to open and close, when air is blown through it; which is caused by the elasticity of the currents, as it occasions the pausing gusts of wind mentioned above. hence when a quick current of air is suddenly broken by any intervening body, a vacuum is produced by the momentum of the proceeding current, between it and the intervening body; as beneath the valve of the trumpet-stop above mentioned; and a vibration is in consequence produced; which with the great facility, which elastic fluids possess of forming eddies, may explain the production of sounds by blowing through a fissure upon a sharp edge in a common organ-pipe or child's whistle; which has always appeared difficult to resolve; for the less vibration an organ-pipe itself possesses, the more agreeable, i am informed, is the tone; as the tone is produced by the vibration of the air in the organ pipe, and not by that of the sides of it; though the latter, when it exists, may alter the tone though, not the note, like the belly of a harpsichord, or violin. when a stream of air is blown on the edge of the aperture of an organ-pipe about two thirds of it are believed to pass on the outside of this edge, and one third to pass on the inside of it; but this current of air on the inside forms an eddy, whether the bottom of the pipe be closed or not; which eddy returns upwards, and strikes by quick intervals against the original stream of air, as it falls on the edge of the aperture, and forces outwards this current of air with quick repetitions, so as to make more than two thirds of it, and less than two thirds alternately pass on the outside; whence a part of this stream of air, on each side of the edge of the aperture is perpetually stopped by that edge; and thus a vacuum and vibration in consequence, are reciprocally produced on each side of the edge of the aperture. the quickness or slowness of these vibrations constitute the higher and lower notes of music, but they all of them are propagated to distant places in the same time; as the low notes of a distant ring of bells are heard in equal times with the higher ones: hence in speaking at a distance from the auditors, the clear sounds produced in the larynx by the quick vibrations of its aperture, which form the vowels; the tremulous sounds of the l. r. m. n. ng. which are owing to vibrations of certain apertures of the mouth and nose, and are so slow, that the intervals between them are perceived; the sibilant sounds, which i suppose are occasioned by the air not rushing into a complete vacuum, whence the vibrations produced are defective in velocity; and lastly the very high notes made by the quickest vibrations of the lips in whistling; are all heard in due succession without confusion; as the progressive motions of all sounds i believe travel with equal velocity, notwithstanding the greater or less quickness of their vibrations. iii. structure of the alphabet. _mute and antesonant consonants, and nasal liquids._ p. if the lips be pressed close together and some air be condensed in the mouth behind them, on opening the lips the mute consonant p begins a syllable; if the lips be closed suddenly during the passage of a current of air through them, the air becomes condensed in the mouth behind them, and the mute consonant p terminates a syllable. b. if in the above situation of the lips a sound is previously produced in the mouth, which may be termed orisonance, the semisonant consonant b is produced, which like the letter p above described may begin or terminate a syllable. m. in the above situation of the lips, if a sound is produced through the nostrils, which sound is termed narisonance, the nasal letter m is formed; the sound of which may be lengthened in pronunciation like those of the vowels. t. if the point of the tongue be applied to the forepart of the palate, at the roots of the upper teeth, and some air condensed in the mouth behind, on withdrawing the tongue downwards the mute consonant t is formed; which may begin or terminate a syllable. d. if the tongue be placed as above described, and a sound be previously produced in the mouth, the semisonant consonant d is formed, which may begin or terminate a syllable. n. if in the above situation of the tongue and palate a sound be produced through the nostrils, the nasal letter n is formed, the sound of which may be elongated like those of the vowels. k. if the point of the tongue be retracted, and applied to the middle part of the palate; and some air condensed in the mouth behind; on withdrawing the tongue downwards the mute consonant k is produced, which may begin or terminate a syllable. ga. if in the above situation of the tongue and palate a sound be previously produced in the mouth behind, the semisonant consonant g is formed, as pronounced in the word go, and may begin or terminate a syllable. ng. if in the above situation of the tongue and palate a sound be produced through the nostrils; the nasal letter ng is produced, as in king and throng; which is the french n, the sound of which may be elongated like a vowel; and should have an appropriated character, as thus _v_. three of these letters, p, t, k, are stops to the stream of vocal air, and are called mutes by grammarians; three, b, d, ga, are preceded by a little orisonance; and three, m, n, ng, possess continued narisonance, and have been called liquids by grammarians. _sibilants and sonisibilants._ w. of the germans; if the lips be appressed together, as informing the letter p; and air from the mouth be forced between them; the w sibilant is produced, as pronounced by the germans, and by some of the inferiour people of london, and ought to have an appropriated character as thus m.[tn: upside down w.] w. if in the above situation of the lips a sound be produced in the mouth, as in the letter b, and the sonorous air be forced between them; the sonisibilant letter w is produced; which is the common w of our language. f. if the lower lip be appressed to the edges of the upper teeth, and air from the mouth be forced between them, the sibilant letter f is formed. v. if in the above situation of the lip and teeth a sound be produced in the mouth, and the sonorous air be forced between them, the sonisibilant letter v is formed. th. sibilant. if the point of the tongue be placed between the teeth, and air from the mouth be forced between them, the th sibilant is produced, as in thigh, and should have a proper character, as [tn: looks like the greek 'phi']. th. sonisibilant. if in the above situation of the tongue and teeth a sound be produced in the mouth, and the sonorous air be forced between them, the sonisibilant th is formed, as in thee; and should have an appropriated character as [tn: looks like the greek 'theta']. s. if the point of the tongue be appressed to the forepart of the palate, as in forming the letter t, and air from the mouth be forced between them, the sibilant letter s is produced. z. if in the above situation of the tongue and palate a sound be produced in the mouth, as in the letter d, and the sonorous air be forced between them, the sonisibilant letter z is formed. sh. if the point of the tongue be retracted and applied to the middle part of the palate, as in forming the letter k, and air from the mouth be forced between them, the letter sh is produced, which is a simple sound and ought to have a single character, thus [tn: looks like the greek 'lambda']. j. french. if in the above situation of the tongue and palate a sound be produced in the mouth, as in the letter ga; and the sonorous air be forced between them; the j consonant of the french is formed; which is a sonisibilant letter, as in the word conclusion, confusion, pigeon; it should be called je, and should have a different character from the vowel i, with which it has an analogy, as thus _v_. h. if the back part of the tongue be appressed to the pendulous curtain of the palate and uvula; and air from behind be forced between them; the sibilant letter h is produced. ch spanish. if in the above situation of the tongue and palate a sound be produced behind; and the sonorous air be forced between them; the ch spanish is formed; which is a sonisibilant letter, the same as the ch scotch in the words bu_ch_anan and lo_ch_: it is also perhaps the welsh guttural expressed by their double l as in lloyd, lluellen; it is a simple sound, and ought to have a single character as [tn: looks like an h on its side]. the sibilant and sonisibilant letters may be elongated in pronunciation like the vowels; the sibilancy is probably occasioned by the vibrations of the air being slower than those of the lowest musical notes. i have preferred the word sonisibilants to the word semivocal sibilants; as the sounds of these sonisibilants are formed in different apertures of the mouth, and not in the larynx like the vowels. _orisonant liquids._ r. if the point of the tongue be appressed to the forepart of the palate, as in forming the letters t, d, n, s, z, and air be pushed between them so as to produce continued sound, the letter r is formed. l. if the retracted tongue be appressed to the middle of the palate, as in forming the letters k, ga, ng, sh, j french, and air be pushed over its edges so as to produce continued sound, the letter l is formed. the nasal letters m, n, and ng, are clear tremulous sounds like r and l, and have all of them been called liquids by grammarians. besides the r and l, above described, there is another orisonant sound produced by the lips in whistling; which is not used in this country as a part of language, and has therefore obtained no character, but is analogous to the r and l; it is also possible, that another orisonant letter may be formed by the back part of the tongue and back part of the palate, as in pronouncing h and ch, which may perhaps be the welch ll in lloyd, lluellin. _four pairs of vowels._ a pronounced like au, as in the word call. if the aperture, made by approximating the back part of the tongue to the uvula and pendulous curtain of the palate, as in forming the sibilant letter h, and the sonisibilant letter ch spanish, be enlarged just so much as to prevent sibilancy; and a continued sound produced by the larynx be modulated in passing through it; the letter a is formed, as in ball, wall, which is sounded like aw in the word awkward; and is the most usual sound of the letter a in foreign languages; and to distinguish it from the succeeding a might be called a micron; as the aperture of the fauces, where it is produced, is less than in the next a. a pronounced like ah, as in the word hazard. if the aperture of the fauces above described, between the back part of the tongue and the back part of the palate, be enlarged as much as convenient, and a continued sound, produced in the larynx, be modulated in passing through it; the letter a is formed, as in animal, army, and ought to have an appropriated character in our language, as thus [tn: looks like an a on its head]. as this letter a is formed by a larger aperture than the former one, it may be called a mega. a pronounced as in the words cake, ale. if the retracted tongue by approximation to the middle part of the palate, as in forming the letters r, ga, ng, sh, j french, l, leaves an aperture just so large as to prevent sibilancy, and sonorous air from the larynx be modulated in passing through it; the letter a is produced, as pronounced in the words whale, sale, and ought to have an appropriated character in our language, as thus [tn: looks like a handwritten ]; this is expressed by the letter e in some modern languages, and might be termed e micron; as it is formed by a less aperture of the mouth than the succeeding e. e pronounced like the vowel a, when short, as in the words emblem, dwelling. if the aperture above described between the retracted tongue and the middle of the palate be enlarged as much as convenient, and sonorous air from the larynx be modulated in passing through it, the letter e is formed, as in the words egg, herring; and as it is pronounced in most foreign languages, and might be called e mega to distinguish it from the preceding e. i pronounced like e in keel. if the point of the tongue by approximation to the forepart of the palate, as in forming the letters t, d, n, s, z, r, leaves an aperture just so large as to prevent sibilancy, and sonorous air from the larynx be modulated in passing through it; the vowel i is produced, which is in our language generally represented by e when long, as in the word keel; and by i when, short, as in the word it, which is the sound of this letter in most foreign languages; and may be called e micron to distinguish it from the succeeding e or y. y, when it begins a word, as in youth. if the aperture above described between the point of the tongue, and the forepart of the palate be enlarged as much as convenient, and sonorous air from the larynx be modulated in passing through it, the letter y is formed; which, when it begins a word, has been called y consonant by some, and by others has been thought only a quick pronunciation of our e, or the i of foreign languages; as in the word year, yellow; and may be termed e mega, as it is formed by a larger aperture than the preceding e or i. o pronounced like oo, as in the word fool. if the lips by approximation to each other, as in forming the letters p, b, m, w sibilant, w sonisibilant, leave an aperture just so wide as to prevent sibilancy; and sonorous air from the larynx be modulated in passing through it; the letter o is formed, as in the words cool, school, and ought to have an appropriated character as thus [tn: looks like the infinity symbol], and may be termed o micron to distinguish it from the succeeding o. o pronounced as in the word cold. if the aperture above described between the approximated lips be enlarged as much as convenient; and sonorous air from the larynx be modulated in passing through it, the letter o is formed, as in sole, coal, which may be termed o mega, as it is formed in a larger aperture than the preceding one. _conclusion._ the alphabet appears from this analysis of it to consist of thirty-one letters, which spell all european languages. three mute consonants, p, t, k. three antesonant consonants, b, d, ga. three narisonant liquids, m, n, ng. six sibilants, w german, f, th, s, sh, h. six sonisibilants, w, v, th, z, j french, ch spanish. two orisonant liquids, r, l. eight vowels, aw, ah, a, e, i, y, oo, o. to these thirty-one characters might perhaps be added one for the welsh l, and another for whistling with the lips; and it is possible, that some savage nations, whose languages are said to abound with gutturals, may pronounce a mute consonant, as well as an antesonant one, and perhaps another narisonant letter, by appressing the back part of the tongue to the back part of the palate, as in pronouncing the h, and ch spanish. the philosophical reader will perceive that these thirty-one sounds might be expressed by fewer characters referring to the manner of their production. as suppose one character was to express the antesonance of b, d, ga; another the orisonance of r, l; another the sibilance of w, s, sh, h; another the sonisibilance of w, z, j french, ch spanish; another to express the more open vowels; another the less open vowels; for which the word micron is here used, and for which the word mega is here used. then the following characters only might be necessary to express them all; p alone, or with antesonance b; with narisonance m; with sibilance w german; with sonisibilance w; with vocality, termed micron oo; with vocality, termed mega o. t alone, or with the above characters added to it, would in the same manner suggest d, n, s, z, ee, y, and r with a mark for orisonance. k alone, or with the additional characters, would suggest ga, ng, sh, j french, a, e, and l, with a mark for orisonance. f alone, or with a mark for sonisibilance, v. th alone, or with a mark for sonisibilance, th. h alone, or with a mark for sonisibilance, ch spanish, and with a mark for less open vocality, aw, with another for more open vocality ah. whence it appears that six single characters, for the letters p, t, k, f, th, h, with seven additional marks joined to them for antesonance, narisonance, orisonance, sibilance, sonisibilance, less open vocality, and more open vocality; being in all but thirteen characters, may spell all the european languages. i have found more difficulty in analyzing the vowels than the other letters; as the apertures, through which they are modulated, do not close; and it was therefore less easy to ascertain exactly, in what part of the mouth they were modulated; but recollecting that those parts of the mouth must be more ready to use for the purpose of forming the vowels, which were in the habit of being exerted in forming the other letters; i rolled up some tin foil into cylinders about the size of my finger; and speaking the vowels separately through them, found by the impressions made on them, in what part of the mouth each of the vowels was formed with somewhat greater accuracy, but not so as perfectly to satisfy myself. the parts of the mouth appeared to me to be those in which the letters p, i, k, and h, are produced; as those, where the letters f and th are formed, do not suit the production of mute or antesonant consonants; as the interstices of the teeth would occasion some sibilance; and these apertures are not adapted to the formation of vowels on the same account. the two first vowels aw and ah being modulated in the back part of the mouth, it is necessary to open wide the lips and other passages of the mouth in pronouncing them; that those passages may not again alter their tone; and that more so in pronouncing ah, than aw; as the aperture of the fauces is opened wider, where it is formed, and from the greater or less size of these apertures used in forming the vowels by different persons, the tone of all of them may be somewhat altered as spoken by different orators. i have treated with greater confidence on the formation of articulate sounds, as i many years ago gave considerable attention to this subject for the purpose of improving shorthand; at that time i contrived a wooden mouth with lips of soft leather, and with a valve over the back part of it for nostrils, both which could be quickly opened or closed by the pressure of the fingers, the vocality was given by a silk ribbon about an inch long and a quarter of an inch wide stretched between two bits of smooth wood a little hollowed; so that when a gentle current of air from bellows was blown on the edge of the ribbon, it gave an agreeable tone, as it vibrated between the wooden sides, much like a human voice. this head pronounced the p, b, m, and the vowel a, with so great nicety as to deceive all who heard it unseen, when it pronounced the words mama, papa, map, and pam; and had a most plaintive tone, when the lips were gradually closed. my other occupations prevented me from proceeding in the further construction of this machine; which might have required but thirteen movements, as shown in the above analysis, unless some variety of musical note was to be added to the vocality produced in the larynx; all of which movements might communicate with the keys of a harpsichord or forte piano, and perform the song as well as the accompaniment; or which if built in a gigantic form, might speak so loud as to command an army or instruct a crowd. i conclude this with an agreeable hope, that now war is ceased, the active and ingenious of all nations will attend again to those sciences, which better the condition of human nature; and that the alphabet will undergo a perfect reformation, which may indeed make it more difficult to trace the etymologies of words, but will much facilitate the acquisition of modern languages; which as science improves and becomes more generally diffused, will gradually become more distinct and accurate than the ancient ones; as metaphors will cease to be necessary in conversation, and only be used as the ornaments of poetry. the end. contents of the additional notes. note i. spontaneous vitality of microscopic animals. i. spontaneous vital production not contrary to scripture; to be looked for only in the simplest organic beings; supposed want of analogy no argument against it, as this equally applies to all new discoveries. ii. the power of reproduction distinguishes organic beings; which are gradually enlarged and improved by it. iii. microscopic animals produced from all vegetable and animal infusions; generate others like themselves by solitary reproduction; not produced from eggs; conferva fontinalis; mucor. iv. theory of spontaneous vitality. animal nutrition; vegetable; some organic particles have appetencies to unite, others propensities to be united; buds of trees; sexual reproduction: analogy between generation and nutrition; laws of elasticity not understood; dead animalcules recover life by heat and moisture; chaos redivivum; vorticella; shell-snails; eggs and seeds: hydra. classes of microscopic animals; general remarks. note ii. faculties of the sensorium. fibres possess a power of contraction; spirit of animation immediate cause of their contracting; stimulus of external bodies the remote cause; stimulus produces irritation; due contraction occasions pleasure; too much, or too little, pain; sensation produces desire or aversion, which constitute volition: associated motions; irritation; sensation; volition; association; sensorium. note iii. volcanoes. their explosions occasioned by water falling on boiling lava; primeval earthquakes of great extent; more elastic vapours might raise islands and continents, or even throw the moon from the earth; stones falling from the sky; earthquake at, lisbon; subterraneous fires under this island. note iv. musquito. the larva lives chiefly in water; it may be driven away by smoke; gnats; libelulla; æstros bovis; bolts: musca chamæleon; vomitoria. note v. amphibious animals. diodon has both lungs and gills; some amphibious quadrupeds have the foramen ovale open; perhaps it may be kept open in dogs by frequent immersion so as to render them amphibious; pearl divers; distinctions of amphibious animals; lamprey, leech; remora; whale. note vi. hieroglyphic characters. used by the magi of egypt to record discoveries in science, and historical events; astrology an early superstition; universal characters desirable; grey's memoria technica; bergeret's botanical nomenclature; bishop wilkins's real character and philosophical language. note vii. old age and death. i. immediate cause of the infirmities of age not yet well ascertained; must be sought in the laws of animal excitability; debility induced by inactivity of many parts of the system; organs of sense become less excitable; this ascribed to habit; may arise from deficient secretion of sensorial power; all parts of the system not changed as we advance in life. ii. means of preventing old age; warm bath; fishes; cold-blooded amphibious animals; fermented liquors injurious; also want of heat, food, and fresh air; variation of stimuli; volition; activity. iii. theory of the approach of age; surprise: novelty; why contagious diseases affect a person but once; debility; death. note viii. reproduction. i. distinguishes animation from mechanism; solitary and sexual; buds and bulbs; aphises; tenia; volvox; polypus; oyster; eel; hermaphrodites. ii. sexual. iii. inferior vegetables and animals propagate by solitary generation only; next order by both; superior by sexual generation alone. iv. animals are improved by reproduction; contagious diseases; reproduction a mystery. note ix. storge. pelicans; pigeons; instincts of animals acquired by a previous state, and transmitted by tradition; parental love originates from pleasure. note x. eve from adam's rib. mosaic history of paradise supposed by some to be an allegory; egyptian philosophers, and others, supposed mankind to have been originally of both sexes united. note xi. hereditary diseases. most affect the offspring of solitary reproduction: grafted trees, strawberries, potatoes; changing seed; intermarriages; hereditary diseases owing to indulgence in fermented liquors; immoderate use of common salt; improvement of progeny; hazardous to marry an heiress. note xii. chemical theory of electricity and magnetism. i. attraction and repulsion. ii. two kinds of electric ether; atmospheres of electricity surround all separate bodies; atmospheres of similar kinds repel, of different kinds attract each other strongly; explode on uniting; nonconductors; imperfect conductors; perfect conductors; torpedo, gymnotus, galvanism. iii. effect of metallic points. iv. accumulation of electric ethers by contact. v. by vicinity; volta's electrophorus and rennet's doubler. vi. by heat and by decomposition; the tourmalin; cats; galvanic pile; evaporation of water. vii. the spark from the conductor; electric light; not accounted for by franklin's theory. viii. shock from a coated jar; perhaps an unrestrainable ethereal fluid yet unobserved; electric condensation. ix. galvanic electricity. x. two magnetic ethers; analogy between magnetism and electricity; differences between them. xi. conclusion. note xiii. analysis of taste. taste may signify the pleasures received by any of the senses, but not those which simply attend perception; four sources of pleasure in vision. i. novelty or infrequency of visible objects; surprise. ii. repetition; beating of a drum; dancing; architecture; landscapes; picturesque; beautiful; romantic; sublime. iii. melody of colours. iv. association of agreeable sentiments with visible objects; vision the language of touch; sentiment of beauty. note xiv. theory and structure of language. ideas; words the names or symbols of ideas. i. conjunctions and prepositions; abbreviations of other words. ii. nouns substantive. iii. adjectives, articles; participles, adverbs. iv. verbs; progressive production of language. note xv. analysis of articulate sounds. i. imperfections of the present alphabet; of our orthography. ii. production of sounds. iii. structure of the alphabet; mute and antesonant consonants, and nasal liquids; sibilants and sonisibilants; orisonant liquids; four pairs of vowels; alphabet consists of thirty-one letters; speaking figure. erratum. additional notes, p. , l. , for canto ii, l. , read canto ii, l. . t. bensley, printer, bolt court; fleet street, london. timaeus by plato translated by benjamin jowett introduction and analysis. of all the writings of plato the timaeus is the most obscure and repulsive to the modern reader, and has nevertheless had the greatest influence over the ancient and mediaeval world. the obscurity arises in the infancy of physical science, out of the confusion of theological, mathematical, and physiological notions, out of the desire to conceive the whole of nature without any adequate knowledge of the parts, and from a greater perception of similarities which lie on the surface than of differences which are hidden from view. to bring sense under the control of reason; to find some way through the mist or labyrinth of appearances, either the highway of mathematics, or more devious paths suggested by the analogy of man with the world, and of the world with man; to see that all things have a cause and are tending towards an end--this is the spirit of the ancient physical philosopher. he has no notion of trying an experiment and is hardly capable of observing the curiosities of nature which are 'tumbling out at his feet,' or of interpreting even the most obvious of them. he is driven back from the nearer to the more distant, from particulars to generalities, from the earth to the stars. he lifts up his eyes to the heavens and seeks to guide by their motions his erring footsteps. but we neither appreciate the conditions of knowledge to which he was subjected, nor have the ideas which fastened upon his imagination the same hold upon us. for he is hanging between matter and mind; he is under the dominion at the same time both of sense and of abstractions; his impressions are taken almost at random from the outside of nature; he sees the light, but not the objects which are revealed by the light; and he brings into juxtaposition things which to us appear wide as the poles asunder, because he finds nothing between them. he passes abruptly from persons to ideas and numbers, and from ideas and numbers to persons,--from the heavens to man, from astronomy to physiology; he confuses, or rather does not distinguish, subject and object, first and final causes, and is dreaming of geometrical figures lost in a flux of sense. he contrasts the perfect movements of the heavenly bodies with the imperfect representation of them (rep.), and he does not always require strict accuracy even in applications of number and figure (rep.). his mind lingers around the forms of mythology, which he uses as symbols or translates into figures of speech. he has no implements of observation, such as the telescope or microscope; the great science of chemistry is a blank to him. it is only by an effort that the modern thinker can breathe the atmosphere of the ancient philosopher, or understand how, under such unequal conditions, he seems in many instances, by a sort of inspiration, to have anticipated the truth. the influence with the timaeus has exercised upon posterity is due partly to a misunderstanding. in the supposed depths of this dialogue the neo-platonists found hidden meanings and connections with the jewish and christian scriptures, and out of them they elicited doctrines quite at variance with the spirit of plato. believing that he was inspired by the holy ghost, or had received his wisdom from moses, they seemed to find in his writings the christian trinity, the word, the church, the creation of the world in a jewish sense, as they really found the personality of god or of mind, and the immortality of the soul. all religions and philosophies met and mingled in the schools of alexandria, and the neo-platonists had a method of interpretation which could elicit any meaning out of any words. they were really incapable of distinguishing between the opinions of one philosopher and another-- between aristotle and plato, or between the serious thoughts of plato and his passing fancies. they were absorbed in his theology and were under the dominion of his name, while that which was truly great and truly characteristic in him, his effort to realize and connect abstractions, was not understood by them at all. yet the genius of plato and greek philosophy reacted upon the east, and a greek element of thought and language overlaid and partly reduced to order the chaos of orientalism. and kindred spirits, like st. augustine, even though they were acquainted with his writings only through the medium of a latin translation, were profoundly affected by them, seeming to find 'god and his word everywhere insinuated' in them (august. confess.) there is no danger of the modern commentators on the timaeus falling into the absurdities of the neo-platonists. in the present day we are well aware that an ancient philosopher is to be interpreted from himself and by the contemporary history of thought. we know that mysticism is not criticism. the fancies of the neo-platonists are only interesting to us because they exhibit a phase of the human mind which prevailed widely in the first centuries of the christian era, and is not wholly extinct in our own day. but they have nothing to do with the interpretation of plato, and in spirit they are opposed to him. they are the feeble expression of an age which has lost the power not only of creating great works, but of understanding them. they are the spurious birth of a marriage between philosophy and tradition, between hellas and the east--(greek) (rep.). whereas the so-called mysticism of plato is purely greek, arising out of his imperfect knowledge and high aspirations, and is the growth of an age in which philosophy is not wholly separated from poetry and mythology. a greater danger with modern interpreters of plato is the tendency to regard the timaeus as the centre of his system. we do not know how plato would have arranged his own dialogues, or whether the thought of arranging any of them, besides the two 'trilogies' which he has expressly connected; was ever present to his mind. but, if he had arranged them, there are many indications that this is not the place which he would have assigned to the timaeus. we observe, first of all, that the dialogue is put into the mouth of a pythagorean philosopher, and not of socrates. and this is required by dramatic propriety; for the investigation of nature was expressly renounced by socrates in the phaedo. nor does plato himself attribute any importance to his guesses at science. he is not at all absorbed by them, as he is by the idea of good. he is modest and hesitating, and confesses that his words partake of the uncertainty of the subject (tim.). the dialogue is primarily concerned with the animal creation, including under this term the heavenly bodies, and with man only as one among the animals. but we can hardly suppose that plato would have preferred the study of nature to man, or that he would have deemed the formation of the world and the human frame to have the same interest which he ascribes to the mystery of being and not-being, or to the great political problems which he discusses in the republic and the laws. there are no speculations on physics in the other dialogues of plato, and he himself regards the consideration of them as a rational pastime only. he is beginning to feel the need of further divisions of knowledge; and is becoming aware that besides dialectic, mathematics, and the arts, there is another field which has been hitherto unexplored by him. but he has not as yet defined this intermediate territory which lies somewhere between medicine and mathematics, and he would have felt that there was as great an impiety in ranking theories of physics first in the order of knowledge, as in placing the body before the soul. it is true, however, that the timaeus is by no means confined to speculations on physics. the deeper foundations of the platonic philosophy, such as the nature of god, the distinction of the sensible and intellectual, the great original conceptions of time and space, also appear in it. they are found principally in the first half of the dialogue. the construction of the heavens is for the most part ideal; the cyclic year serves as the connection between the world of absolute being and of generation, just as the number of population in the republic is the expression or symbol of the transition from the ideal to the actual state. in some passages we are uncertain whether we are reading a description of astronomical facts or contemplating processes of the human mind, or of that divine mind (phil.) which in plato is hardly separable from it. the characteristics of man are transferred to the world-animal, as for example when intelligence and knowledge are said to be perfected by the circle of the same, and true opinion by the circle of the other; and conversely the motions of the world-animal reappear in man; its amorphous state continues in the child, and in both disorder and chaos are gradually succeeded by stability and order. it is not however to passages like these that plato is referring when he speaks of the uncertainty of his subject, but rather to the composition of bodies, to the relations of colours, the nature of diseases, and the like, about which he truly feels the lamentable ignorance prevailing in his own age. we are led by plato himself to regard the timaeus, not as the centre or inmost shrine of the edifice, but as a detached building in a different style, framed, not after the socratic, but after some pythagorean model. as in the cratylus and parmenides, we are uncertain whether plato is expressing his own opinions, or appropriating and perhaps improving the philosophical speculations of others. in all three dialogues he is exerting his dramatic and imitative power; in the cratylus mingling a satirical and humorous purpose with true principles of language; in the parmenides overthrowing megarianism by a sort of ultra-megarianism, which discovers contradictions in the one as great as those which have been previously shown to exist in the ideas. there is a similar uncertainty about the timaeus; in the first part he scales the heights of transcendentalism, in the latter part he treats in a bald and superficial manner of the functions and diseases of the human frame. he uses the thoughts and almost the words of parmenides when he discourses of being and of essence, adopting from old religion into philosophy the conception of god, and from the megarians the idea of good. he agrees with empedocles and the atomists in attributing the greater differences of kinds to the figures of the elements and their movements into and out of one another. with heracleitus, he acknowledges the perpetual flux; like anaxagoras, he asserts the predominance of mind, although admitting an element of necessity which reason is incapable of subduing; like the pythagoreans he supposes the mystery of the world to be contained in number. many, if not all the elements of the pre-socratic philosophy are included in the timaeus. it is a composite or eclectic work of imagination, in which plato, without naming them, gathers up into a kind of system the various elements of philosophy which preceded him. if we allow for the difference of subject, and for some growth in plato's own mind, the discrepancy between the timaeus and the other dialogues will not appear to be great. it is probable that the relation of the ideas to god or of god to the world was differently conceived by him at different times of his life. in all his later dialogues we observe a tendency in him to personify mind or god, and he therefore naturally inclines to view creation as the work of design. the creator is like a human artist who frames in his mind a plan which he executes by the help of his servants. thus the language of philosophy which speaks of first and second causes is crossed by another sort of phraseology: 'god made the world because he was good, and the demons ministered to him.' the timaeus is cast in a more theological and less philosophical mould than the other dialogues, but the same general spirit is apparent; there is the same dualism or opposition between the ideal and actual--the soul is prior to the body, the intelligible and unseen to the visible and corporeal. there is the same distinction between knowledge and opinion which occurs in the theaetetus and republic, the same enmity to the poets, the same combination of music and gymnastics. the doctrine of transmigration is still held by him, as in the phaedrus and republic; and the soul has a view of the heavens in a prior state of being. the ideas also remain, but they have become types in nature, forms of men, animals, birds, fishes. and the attribution of evil to physical causes accords with the doctrine which he maintains in the laws respecting the involuntariness of vice. the style and plan of the timaeus differ greatly from that of any other of the platonic dialogues. the language is weighty, abrupt, and in some passages sublime. but plato has not the same mastery over his instrument which he exhibits in the phaedrus or symposium. nothing can exceed the beauty or art of the introduction, in which he is using words after his accustomed manner. but in the rest of the work the power of language seems to fail him, and the dramatic form is wholly given up. he could write in one style, but not in another, and the greek language had not as yet been fashioned by any poet or philosopher to describe physical phenomena. the early physiologists had generally written in verse; the prose writers, like democritus and anaxagoras, as far as we can judge from their fragments, never attained to a periodic style. and hence we find the same sort of clumsiness in the timaeus of plato which characterizes the philosophical poem of lucretius. there is a want of flow and often a defect of rhythm; the meaning is sometimes obscure, and there is a greater use of apposition and more of repetition than occurs in plato's earlier writings. the sentences are less closely connected and also more involved; the antecedents of demonstrative and relative pronouns are in some cases remote and perplexing. the greater frequency of participles and of absolute constructions gives the effect of heaviness. the descriptive portion of the timaeus retains traces of the first greek prose composition; for the great master of language was speaking on a theme with which he was imperfectly acquainted, and had no words in which to express his meaning. the rugged grandeur of the opening discourse of timaeus may be compared with the more harmonious beauty of a similar passage in the phaedrus. to the same cause we may attribute the want of plan. plato had not the command of his materials which would have enabled him to produce a perfect work of art. hence there are several new beginnings and resumptions and formal or artificial connections; we miss the 'callida junctura' of the earlier dialogues. his speculations about the eternal, his theories of creation, his mathematical anticipations, are supplemented by desultory remarks on the one immortal and the two mortal souls of man, on the functions of the bodily organs in health and disease, on sight, hearing, smell, taste, and touch. he soars into the heavens, and then, as if his wings were suddenly clipped, he walks ungracefully and with difficulty upon the earth. the greatest things in the world, and the least things in man, are brought within the compass of a short treatise. but the intermediate links are missing, and we cannot be surprised that there should be a want of unity in a work which embraces astronomy, theology, physiology, and natural philosophy in a few pages. it is not easy to determine how plato's cosmos may be presented to the reader in a clearer and shorter form; or how we may supply a thread of connexion to his ideas without giving greater consistency to them than they possessed in his mind, or adding on consequences which would never have occurred to him. for he has glimpses of the truth, but no comprehensive or perfect vision. there are isolated expressions about the nature of god which have a wonderful depth and power; but we are not justified in assuming that these had any greater significance to the mind of plato than language of a neutral and impersonal character... with a view to the illustration of the timaeus i propose to divide this introduction into sections, of which the first will contain an outline of the dialogue: ( ) i shall consider the aspects of nature which presented themselves to plato and his age, and the elements of philosophy which entered into the conception of them: ( ) the theology and physics of the timaeus, including the soul of the world, the conception of time and space, and the composition of the elements: ( ) in the fourth section i shall consider the platonic astronomy, and the position of the earth. there will remain, ( ) the psychology, ( ) the physiology of plato, and ( ) his analysis of the senses to be briefly commented upon: ( ) lastly, we may examine in what points plato approaches or anticipates the discoveries of modern science. section . socrates begins the timaeus with a summary of the republic. he lightly touches upon a few points,--the division of labour and distribution of the citizens into classes, the double nature and training of the guardians, the community of property and of women and children. but he makes no mention of the second education, or of the government of philosophers. and now he desires to see the ideal state set in motion; he would like to know how she behaved in some great struggle. but he is unable to invent such a narrative himself; and he is afraid that the poets are equally incapable; for, although he pretends to have nothing to say against them, he remarks that they are a tribe of imitators, who can only describe what they have seen. and he fears that the sophists, who are plentifully supplied with graces of speech, in their erratic way of life having never had a city or house of their own, may through want of experience err in their conception of philosophers and statesmen. 'and therefore to you i turn, timaeus, citizen of locris, who are at once a philosopher and a statesman, and to you, critias, whom all athenians know to be similarly accomplished, and to hermocrates, who is also fitted by nature and education to share in our discourse.' hermocrates: 'we will do our best, and have been already preparing; for on our way home, critias told us of an ancient tradition, which i wish, critias, that you would repeat to socrates.' 'i will, if timaeus approves.' 'i approve.' listen then, socrates, to a tale of solon's, who, being the friend of dropidas my great-grandfather, told it to my grandfather critias, and he told me. the narrative related to ancient famous actions of the athenian people, and to one especially, which i will rehearse in honour of you and of the goddess. critias when he told this tale of the olden time, was ninety years old, i being not more than ten. the occasion of the rehearsal was the day of the apaturia called the registration of youth, at which our parents gave prizes for recitation. some poems of solon were recited by the boys. they had not at that time gone out of fashion, and the recital of them led some one to say, perhaps in compliment to critias, that solon was not only the wisest of men but also the best of poets. the old man brightened up at hearing this, and said: had solon only had the leisure which was required to complete the famous legend which he brought with him from egypt he would have been as distinguished as homer and hesiod. 'and what was the subject of the poem?' said the person who made the remark. the subject was a very noble one; he described the most famous action in which the athenian people were ever engaged. but the memory of their exploits has passed away owing to the lapse of time and the extinction of the actors. 'tell us,' said the other, 'the whole story, and where solon heard the story.' he replied--there is at the head of the egyptian delta, where the river nile divides, a city and district called sais; the city was the birthplace of king amasis, and is under the protection of the goddess neith or athene. the citizens have a friendly feeling towards the athenians, believing themselves to be related to them. hither came solon, and was received with honour; and here he first learnt, by conversing with the egyptian priests, how ignorant he and his countrymen were of antiquity. perceiving this, and with the view of eliciting information from them, he told them the tales of phoroneus and niobe, and also of deucalion and pyrrha, and he endeavoured to count the generations which had since passed. thereupon an aged priest said to him: 'o solon, solon, you hellenes are ever young, and there is no old man who is a hellene.' 'what do you mean?' he asked. 'in mind,' replied the priest, 'i mean to say that you are children; there is no opinion or tradition of knowledge among you which is white with age; and i will tell you why. like the rest of mankind you have suffered from convulsions of nature, which are chiefly brought about by the two great agencies of fire and water. the former is symbolized in the hellenic tale of young phaethon who drove his father's horses the wrong way, and having burnt up the earth was himself burnt up by a thunderbolt. for there occurs at long intervals a derangement of the heavenly bodies, and then the earth is destroyed by fire. at such times, and when fire is the agent, those who dwell by rivers or on the seashore are safer than those who dwell upon high and dry places, who in their turn are safer when the danger is from water. now the nile is our saviour from fire, and as there is little rain in egypt, we are not harmed by water; whereas in other countries, when a deluge comes, the inhabitants are swept by the rivers into the sea. the memorials which your own and other nations have once had of the famous actions of mankind perish in the waters at certain periods; and the rude survivors in the mountains begin again, knowing nothing of the world before the flood. but in egypt the traditions of our own and other lands are by us registered for ever in our temples. the genealogies which you have recited to us out of your own annals, solon, are a mere children's story. for in the first place, you remember one deluge only, and there were many of them, and you know nothing of that fairest and noblest race of which you are a seed or remnant. the memory of them was lost, because there was no written voice among you. for in the times before the great flood athens was the greatest and best of cities and did the noblest deeds and had the best constitution of any under the face of heaven.' solon marvelled, and desired to be informed of the particulars. 'you are welcome to hear them,' said the priest, 'both for your own sake and for that of the city, and above all for the sake of the goddess who is the common foundress of both our cities. nine thousand years have elapsed since she founded yours, and eight thousand since she founded ours, as our annals record. many laws exist among us which are the counterpart of yours as they were in the olden time. i will briefly describe them to you, and you shall read the account of them at your leisure in the sacred registers. in the first place, there was a caste of priests among the ancient athenians, and another of artisans; also castes of shepherds, hunters, and husbandmen, and lastly of warriors, who, like the warriors of egypt, were separated from the rest, and carried shields and spears, a custom which the goddess first taught you, and then the asiatics, and we among asiatics first received from her. observe again, what care the law took in the pursuit of wisdom, searching out the deep things of the world, and applying them to the use of man. the spot of earth which the goddess chose had the best of climates, and produced the wisest men; in no other was she herself, the philosopher and warrior goddess, so likely to have votaries. and there you dwelt as became the children of the gods, excelling all men in virtue, and many famous actions are recorded of you. the most famous of them all was the overthrow of the island of atlantis. this great island lay over against the pillars of heracles, in extent greater than libya and asia put together, and was the passage to other islands and to a great ocean of which the mediterranean sea was only the harbour; and within the pillars the empire of atlantis reached in europe to tyrrhenia and in libya to egypt. this mighty power was arrayed against egypt and hellas and all the countries bordering on the mediterranean. then your city did bravely, and won renown over the whole earth. for at the peril of her own existence, and when the other hellenes had deserted her, she repelled the invader, and of her own accord gave liberty to all the nations within the pillars. a little while afterwards there were great earthquakes and floods, and your warrior race all sank into the earth; and the great island of atlantis also disappeared in the sea. this is the explanation of the shallows which are found in that part of the atlantic ocean.' such was the tale, socrates, which critias heard from solon; and i noticed when listening to you yesterday, how close the resemblance was between your city and citizens and the ancient athenian state. but i would not speak at the time, because i wanted to refresh my memory. i had heard the old man when i was a child, and though i could not remember the whole of our yesterday's discourse, i was able to recall every word of this, which is branded into my mind; and i am prepared, socrates, to rehearse to you the entire narrative. the imaginary state which you were describing may be identified with the reality of solon, and our antediluvian ancestors may be your citizens. 'that is excellent, critias, and very appropriate to a panathenaic festival; the truth of the story is a great advantage.' then now let me explain to you the order of our entertainment; first, timaeus, who is a natural philosopher, will speak of the origin of the world, going down to the creation of man, and then i shall receive the men whom he has created, and some of whom will have been educated by you, and introduce them to you as the lost athenian citizens of whom the egyptian record spoke. as the law of solon prescribes, we will bring them into court and acknowledge their claims to citizenship. 'i see,' replied socrates, 'that i shall be well entertained; and do you, timaeus, offer up a prayer and begin.' timaeus: all men who have any right feeling, at the beginning of any enterprise, call upon the gods; and he who is about to speak of the origin of the universe has a special need of their aid. may my words be acceptable to them, and may i speak in the manner which will be most intelligible to you and will best express my own meaning! first, i must distinguish between that which always is and never becomes and which is apprehended by reason and reflection, and that which always becomes and never is and is conceived by opinion with the help of sense. all that becomes and is created is the work of a cause, and that is fair which the artificer makes after an eternal pattern, but whatever is fashioned after a created pattern is not fair. is the world created or uncreated?--that is the first question. created, i reply, being visible and tangible and having a body, and therefore sensible; and if sensible, then created; and if created, made by a cause, and the cause is the ineffable father of all things, who had before him an eternal archetype. for to imagine that the archetype was created would be blasphemy, seeing that the world is the noblest of creations, and god is the best of causes. and the world being thus created according to the eternal pattern is the copy of something; and we may assume that words are akin to the matter of which they speak. what is spoken of the unchanging or intelligible must be certain and true; but what is spoken of the created image can only be probable; being is to becoming what truth is to belief. and amid the variety of opinions which have arisen about god and the nature of the world we must be content to take probability for our rule, considering that i, who am the speaker, and you, who are the judges, are only men; to probability we may attain but no further. socrates: excellent, timaeus, i like your manner of approaching the subject--proceed. timaeus: why did the creator make the world?...he was good, and therefore not jealous, and being free from jealousy he desired that all things should be like himself. wherefore he set in order the visible world, which he found in disorder. now he who is the best could only create the fairest; and reflecting that of visible things the intelligent is superior to the unintelligent, he put intelligence in soul and soul in body, and framed the universe to be the best and fairest work in the order of nature, and the world became a living soul through the providence of god. in the likeness of what animal was the world made?--that is the third question...the form of the perfect animal was a whole, and contained all intelligible beings, and the visible animal, made after the pattern of this, included all visible creatures. are there many worlds or one only?--that is the fourth question...one only. for if in the original there had been more than one they would have been the parts of a third, which would have been the true pattern of the world; and therefore there is, and will ever be, but one created world. now that which is created is of necessity corporeal and visible and tangible,--visible and therefore made of fire,--tangible and therefore solid and made of earth. but two terms must be united by a third, which is a mean between them; and had the earth been a surface only, one mean would have sufficed, but two means are required to unite solid bodies. and as the world was composed of solids, between the elements of fire and earth god placed two other elements of air and water, and arranged them in a continuous proportion-- fire:air::air:water, and air:water::water:earth, and so put together a visible and palpable heaven, having harmony and friendship in the union of the four elements; and being at unity with itself it was indissoluble except by the hand of the framer. each of the elements was taken into the universe whole and entire; for he considered that the animal should be perfect and one, leaving no remnants out of which another animal could be created, and should also be free from old age and disease, which are produced by the action of external forces. and as he was to contain all things, he was made in the all-containing form of a sphere, round as from a lathe and every way equidistant from the centre, as was natural and suitable to him. he was finished and smooth, having neither eyes nor ears, for there was nothing without him which he could see or hear; and he had no need to carry food to his mouth, nor was there air for him to breathe; and he did not require hands, for there was nothing of which he could take hold, nor feet, with which to walk. all that he did was done rationally in and by himself, and he moved in a circle turning within himself, which is the most intellectual of motions; but the other six motions were wanting to him; wherefore the universe had no feet or legs. and so the thought of god made a god in the image of a perfect body, having intercourse with himself and needing no other, but in every part harmonious and self-contained and truly blessed. the soul was first made by him--the elder to rule the younger; not in the order in which our wayward fancy has led us to describe them, but the soul first and afterwards the body. god took of the unchangeable and indivisible and also of the divisible and corporeal, and out of the two he made a third nature, essence, which was in a mean between them, and partook of the same and the other, the intractable nature of the other being compressed into the same. having made a compound of all the three, he proceeded to divide the entire mass into portions related to one another in the ratios of , , , , , , , and proceeded to fill up the double and triple intervals thus-- - over , / , / , - over , / , , - over , / , , - over : - over , / , , - over , / , , - over , / , , - over ; in which double series of numbers are two kinds of means; the one exceeds and is exceeded by equal parts of the extremes, e.g. , / , ; the other kind of mean is one which is equidistant from the extremes-- , , . in this manner there were formed intervals of thirds, : , of fourths, : , and of ninths, : . and next he filled up the intervals of a fourth with ninths, leaving a remnant which is in the ratio of : . the entire compound was divided by him lengthways into two parts, which he united at the centre like the letter x, and bent into an inner and outer circle or sphere, cutting one another again at a point over against the point at which they cross. the outer circle or sphere was named the sphere of the same--the inner, the sphere of the other or diverse; and the one revolved horizontally to the right, the other diagonally to the left. to the sphere of the same which was undivided he gave dominion, but the sphere of the other or diverse was distributed into seven unequal orbits, having intervals in ratios of twos and threes, three of either sort, and he bade the orbits move in opposite directions to one another--three of them, the sun, mercury, venus, with equal swiftness, and the remaining four--the moon, saturn, mars, jupiter, with unequal swiftness to the three and to one another, but all in due proportion. when the creator had made the soul he made the body within her; and the soul interfused everywhere from the centre to the circumference of heaven, herself turning in herself, began a divine life of rational and everlasting motion. the body of heaven is visible, but the soul is invisible, and partakes of reason and harmony, and is the best of creations, being the work of the best. and being composed of the same, the other, and the essence, these three, and also divided and bound in harmonical proportion, and revolving within herself--the soul when touching anything which has essence, whether divided or undivided, is stirred to utter the sameness or diversity of that and some other thing, and to tell how and when and where individuals are affected or related, whether in the world of change or of essence. when reason is in the neighbourhood of sense, and the circle of the other or diverse is moving truly, then arise true opinions and beliefs; when reason is in the sphere of thought, and the circle of the same runs smoothly, then intelligence is perfected. when the father who begat the world saw the image which he had made of the eternal gods moving and living, he rejoiced; and in his joy resolved, since the archetype was eternal, to make the creature eternal as far as this was possible. wherefore he made an image of eternity which is time, having an uniform motion according to number, parted into months and days and years, and also having greater divisions of past, present, and future. these all apply to becoming in time, and have no meaning in relation to the eternal nature, which ever is and never was or will be; for the unchangeable is never older or younger, and when we say that he 'was' or 'will be,' we are mistaken, for these words are applicable only to becoming, and not to true being; and equally wrong are we in saying that what has become is become and that what becomes is becoming, and that the non-existent is non-existent...these are the forms of time which imitate eternity and move in a circle measured by number. thus was time made in the image of the eternal nature; and it was created together with the heavens, in order that if they were dissolved, it might perish with them. and god made the sun and moon and five other wanderers, as they are called, seven in all, and to each of them he gave a body moving in an orbit, being one of the seven orbits into which the circle of the other was divided. he put the moon in the orbit which was nearest to the earth, the sun in that next, the morning star and mercury in the orbits which move opposite to the sun but with equal swiftness--this being the reason why they overtake and are overtaken by one another. all these bodies became living creatures, and learnt their appointed tasks, and began to move, the nearer more swiftly, the remoter more slowly, according to the diagonal movement of the other. and since this was controlled by the movement of the same, the seven planets in their courses appeared to describe spirals; and that appeared fastest which was slowest, and that which overtook others appeared to be overtaken by them. and god lighted a fire in the second orbit from the earth which is called the sun, to give light over the whole heaven, and to teach intelligent beings that knowledge of number which is derived from the revolution of the same. thus arose day and night, which are the periods of the most intelligent nature; a month is created by the revolution of the moon, a year by that of the sun. other periods of wonderful length and complexity are not observed by men in general; there is moreover a cycle or perfect year at the completion of which they all meet and coincide...to this end the stars came into being, that the created heaven might imitate the eternal nature. thus far the universal animal was made in the divine image, but the other animals were not as yet included in him. and god created them according to the patterns or species of them which existed in the divine original. there are four of them: one of gods, another of birds, a third of fishes, and a fourth of animals. the gods were made in the form of a circle, which is the most perfect figure and the figure of the universe. they were created chiefly of fire, that they might be bright, and were made to know and follow the best, and to be scattered over the heavens, of which they were to be the glory. two kinds of motion were assigned to them--first, the revolution in the same and around the same, in peaceful unchanging thought of the same; and to this was added a forward motion which was under the control of the same. thus then the fixed stars were created, being divine and eternal animals, revolving on the same spot, and the wandering stars, in their courses, were created in the manner already described. the earth, which is our nurse, clinging around the pole extended through the universe, he made to be the guardian and artificer of night and day, first and eldest of gods that are in the interior of heaven. vain would be the labour of telling all the figures of them, moving as in dance, and their juxta-positions and approximations, and when and where and behind what other stars they appear to disappear--to tell of all this without looking at a plan of them would be labour in vain. the knowledge of the other gods is beyond us, and we can only accept the traditions of the ancients, who were the children of the gods, as they said; for surely they must have known their own ancestors. although they give no proof, we must believe them as is customary. they tell us that oceanus and tethys were the children of earth and heaven; that phoreys, cronos, and rhea came in the next generation, and were followed by zeus and here, whose brothers and children are known to everybody. when all of them, both those who show themselves in the sky, and those who retire from view, had come into being, the creator addressed them thus:--'gods, sons of gods, my works, if i will, are indissoluble. that which is bound may be dissolved, but only an evil being would dissolve that which is harmonious and happy. and although you are not immortal you shall not die, for i will hold you together. hear me, then:--three tribes of mortal beings have still to be created, but if created by me they would be like gods. do ye therefore make them; i will implant in them the seed of immortality, and you shall weave together the mortal and immortal, and provide food for them, and receive them again in death.' thus he spake, and poured the remains of the elements into the cup in which he had mingled the soul of the universe. they were no longer pure as before, but diluted; and the mixture he distributed into souls equal in number to the stars, and assigned each to a star--then having mounted them, as in a chariot, he showed them the nature of the universe, and told them of their future birth and human lot. they were to be sown in the planets, and out of them was to come forth the most religious of animals, which would hereafter be called man. the souls were to be implanted in bodies, which were in a perpetual flux, whence, he said, would arise, first, sensation; secondly, love, which is a mixture of pleasure and pain; thirdly, fear and anger, and the opposite affections: and if they conquered these, they would live righteously, but if they were conquered by them, unrighteously. he who lived well would return to his native star, and would there have a blessed existence; but, if he lived ill, he would pass into the nature of a woman, and if he did not then alter his evil ways, into the likeness of some animal, until the reason which was in him reasserted her sway over the elements of fire, air, earth, water, which had engrossed her, and he regained his first and better nature. having given this law to his creatures, that he might be guiltless of their future evil, he sowed them, some in the earth, some in the moon, and some in the other planets; and he ordered the younger gods to frame human bodies for them and to make the necessary additions to them, and to avert from them all but self-inflicted evil. having given these commands, the creator remained in his own nature. and his children, receiving from him the immortal principle, borrowed from the world portions of earth, air, fire, water, hereafter to be returned, which they fastened together, not with the adamantine bonds which bound themselves, but by little invisible pegs, making each separate body out of all the elements, subject to influx and efflux, and containing the courses of the soul. these swelling and surging as in a river moved irregularly and irrationally in all the six possible ways, forwards, backwards, right, left, up and down. but violent as were the internal and alimentary fluids, the tide became still more violent when the body came into contact with flaming fire, or the solid earth, or gliding waters, or the stormy wind; the motions produced by these impulses pass through the body to the soul and have the name of sensations. uniting with the ever-flowing current, they shake the courses of the soul, stopping the revolution of the same and twisting in all sorts of ways the nature of the other, and the harmonical ratios of twos and threes and the mean terms which connect them, until the circles are bent and disordered and their motion becomes irregular. you may imagine a position of the body in which the head is resting upon the ground, and the legs are in the air, and the top is bottom and the left right. and something similar happens when the disordered motions of the soul come into contact with any external thing; they say the same or the other in a manner which is the very opposite of the truth, and they are false and foolish, and have no guiding principle in them. and when external impressions enter in, they are really conquered, though they seem to conquer. by reason of these affections the soul is at first without intelligence, but as time goes on the stream of nutriment abates, and the courses of the soul regain their proper motion, and apprehend the same and the other rightly, and become rational. the soul of him who has education is whole and perfect and escapes the worst disease, but, if a man's education be neglected, he walks lamely through life and returns good for nothing to the world below. this, however, is an after-stage--at present, we are only concerned with the creation of the body and soul. the two divine courses were encased by the gods in a sphere which is called the head, and is the god and lord of us. and to this they gave the body to be a vehicle, and the members to be instruments, having the power of flexion and extension. such was the origin of legs and arms. in the next place, the gods gave a forward motion to the human body, because the front part of man was the more honourable and had authority. and they put in a face in which they inserted organs to minister in all things to the providence of the soul. they first contrived the eyes, into which they conveyed a light akin to the light of day, making it flow through the pupils. when the light of the eye is surrounded by the light of day, then like falls upon like, and they unite and form one body which conveys to the soul the motions of visible objects. but when the visual ray goes forth into the darkness, then unlike falls upon unlike--the eye no longer sees, and we go to sleep. the fire or light, when kept in by the eyelids, equalizes the inward motions, and there is rest accompanied by few dreams; only when the greater motions remain they engender in us corresponding visions of the night. and now we shall be able to understand the nature of reflections in mirrors. the fires from within and from without meet about the smooth and bright surface of the mirror; and because they meet in a manner contrary to the usual mode, the right and left sides of the object are transposed. in a concave mirror the top and bottom are inverted, but this is no transposition. these are the second causes which god used as his ministers in fashioning the world. they are thought by many to be the prime causes, but they are not so; for they are destitute of mind and reason, and the lover of mind will not allow that there are any prime causes other than the rational and invisible ones--these he investigates first, and afterwards the causes of things which are moved by others, and which work by chance and without order. of the second or concurrent causes of sight i have already spoken, and i will now speak of the higher purpose of god in giving us eyes. sight is the source of the greatest benefits to us; for if our eyes had never seen the sun, stars, and heavens, the words which we have spoken would not have been uttered. the sight of them and their revolutions has given us the knowledge of number and time, the power of enquiry, and philosophy, which is the great blessing of human life; not to speak of the lesser benefits which even the vulgar can appreciate. god gave us the faculty of sight that we might behold the order of the heavens and create a corresponding order in our own erring minds. to the like end the gifts of speech and hearing were bestowed upon us; not for the sake of irrational pleasure, but in order that we might harmonize the courses of the soul by sympathy with the harmony of sound, and cure ourselves of our irregular and graceless ways. thus far we have spoken of the works of mind; and there are other works done from necessity, which we must now place beside them; for the creation is made up of both, mind persuading necessity as far as possible to work out good. before the heavens there existed fire, air, water, earth, which we suppose men to know, though no one has explained their nature, and we erroneously maintain them to be the letters or elements of the whole, although they cannot reasonably be compared even to syllables or first compounds. i am not now speaking of the first principles of things, because i cannot discover them by our present mode of enquiry. but as i observed the rule of probability at first, i will begin anew, seeking by the grace of god to observe it still. in our former discussion i distinguished two kinds of being--the unchanging or invisible, and the visible or changing. but now a third kind is required, which i shall call the receptacle or nurse of generation. there is a difficulty in arriving at an exact notion of this third kind, because the four elements themselves are of inexact natures and easily pass into one another, and are too transient to be detained by any one name; wherefore we are compelled to speak of water or fire, not as substances, but as qualities. they may be compared to images made of gold, which are continually assuming new forms. somebody asks what they are; if you do not know, the safest answer is to reply that they are gold. in like manner there is a universal nature out of which all things are made, and which is like none of them; but they enter into and pass out of her, and are made after patterns of the true in a wonderful and inexplicable manner. the containing principle may be likened to a mother, the source or spring to a father, the intermediate nature to a child; and we may also remark that the matter which receives every variety of form must be formless, like the inodorous liquids which are prepared to receive scents, or the smooth and soft materials on which figures are impressed. in the same way space or matter is neither earth nor fire nor air nor water, but an invisible and formless being which receives all things, and in an incomprehensible manner partakes of the intelligible. but we may say, speaking generally, that fire is that part of this nature which is inflamed, water that which is moistened, and the like. let me ask a question in which a great principle is involved: is there an essence of fire and the other elements, or are there only fires visible to sense? i answer in a word: if mind is one thing and true opinion another, then there are self-existent essences; but if mind is the same with opinion, then the visible and corporeal is most real. but they are not the same, and they have a different origin and nature. the one comes to us by instruction, the other by persuasion, the one is rational, the other is irrational; the one is movable by persuasion, the other immovable; the one is possessed by every man, the other by the gods and by very few men. and we must acknowledge that as there are two kinds of knowledge, so there are two kinds of being corresponding to them; the one uncreated, indestructible, immovable, which is seen by intelligence only; the other created, which is always becoming in place and vanishing out of place, and is apprehended by opinion and sense. there is also a third nature--that of space, which is indestructible, and is perceived by a kind of spurious reason without the help of sense. this is presented to us in a dreamy manner, and yet is said to be necessary, for we say that all things must be somewhere in space. for they are the images of other things and must therefore have a separate existence and exist in something (i.e. in space). but true reason assures us that while two things (i.e. the idea and the image) are different they cannot inhere in one another, so as to be one and two at the same time. to sum up: being and generation and space, these three, existed before the heavens, and the nurse or vessel of generation, moistened by water and inflamed by fire, and taking the forms of air and earth, assumed various shapes. by the motion of the vessel, the elements were divided, and like grain winnowed by fans, the close and heavy particles settled in one place, the light and airy ones in another. at first they were without reason and measure, and had only certain faint traces of themselves, until god fashioned them by figure and number. in this, as in every other part of creation, i suppose god to have made things, as far as was possible, fair and good, out of things not fair and good. and now i will explain to you the generation of the world by a method with which your scientific training will have made you familiar. fire, air, earth, and water are bodies and therefore solids, and solids are contained in planes, and plane rectilinear figures are made up of triangles. of triangles there are two kinds; one having the opposite sides equal (isosceles), the other with unequal sides (scalene). these we may fairly assume to be the original elements of fire and the other bodies; what principles are prior to these god only knows, and he of men whom god loves. next, we must determine what are the four most beautiful figures which are unlike one another and yet sometimes capable of resolution into one another...of the two kinds of triangles the equal-sided has but one form, the unequal-sided has an infinite variety of forms; and there is none more beautiful than that which forms the half of an equilateral triangle. let us then choose two triangles; one, the isosceles, the other, that form of scalene which has the square of the longer side three times as great as the square of the lesser side; and affirm that, out of these, fire and the other elements have been constructed. i was wrong in imagining that all the four elements could be generated into and out of one another. for as they are formed, three of them from the triangle which has the sides unequal, the fourth from the triangle which has equal sides, three can be resolved into one another, but the fourth cannot be resolved into them nor they into it. so much for their passage into one another: i must now speak of their construction. from the triangle of which the hypotenuse is twice the lesser side the three first regular solids are formed--first, the equilateral pyramid or tetrahedron; secondly, the octahedron; thirdly, the icosahedron; and from the isosceles triangle is formed the cube. and there is a fifth figure (which is made out of twelve pentagons), the dodecahedron--this god used as a model for the twelvefold division of the zodiac. let us now assign the geometrical forms to their respective elements. the cube is the most stable of them because resting on a quadrangular plane surface, and composed of isosceles triangles. to the earth then, which is the most stable of bodies and the most easily modelled of them, may be assigned the form of a cube; and the remaining forms to the other elements,--to fire the pyramid, to air the octahedron, and to water the icosahedron,--according to their degrees of lightness or heaviness or power, or want of power, of penetration. the single particles of any of the elements are not seen by reason of their smallness; they only become visible when collected. the ratios of their motions, numbers, and other properties, are ordered by the god, who harmonized them as far as necessity permitted. the probable conclusion is as follows:--earth, when dissolved by the more penetrating element of fire, whether acting immediately or through the medium of air or water, is decomposed but not transformed. water, when divided by fire or air, becomes one part fire, and two parts air. a volume of air divided becomes two of fire. on the other hand, when condensed, two volumes of fire make a volume of air; and two and a half parts of air condense into one of water. any element which is fastened upon by fire is cut by the sharpness of the triangles, until at length, coalescing with the fire, it is at rest; for similars are not affected by similars. when two kinds of bodies quarrel with one another, then the tendency to decomposition continues until the smaller either escapes to its kindred element or becomes one with its conqueror. and this tendency in bodies to condense or escape is a source of motion...where there is motion there must be a mover, and where there is a mover there must be something to move. these cannot exist in what is uniform, and therefore motion is due to want of uniformity. but then why, when things are divided after their kinds, do they not cease from motion? the answer is, that the circular motion of all things compresses them, and as 'nature abhors a vacuum,' the finer and more subtle particles of the lighter elements, such as fire and air, are thrust into the interstices of the larger, each of them penetrating according to their rarity, and thus all the elements are on their way up and down everywhere and always into their own places. hence there is a principle of inequality, and therefore of motion, in all time. in the next place, we may observe that there are different kinds of fire--( ) flame, ( ) light that burns not, ( ) the red heat of the embers of fire. and there are varieties of air, as for example, the pure aether, the opaque mist, and other nameless forms. water, again, is of two kinds, liquid and fusile. the liquid is composed of small and unequal particles, the fusile of large and uniform particles and is more solid, but nevertheless melts at the approach of fire, and then spreads upon the earth. when the substance cools, the fire passes into the air, which is displaced, and forces together and condenses the liquid mass. this process is called cooling and congealment. of the fusile kinds the fairest and heaviest is gold; this is hardened by filtration through rock, and is of a bright yellow colour. a shoot of gold which is darker and denser than the rest is called adamant. another kind is called copper, which is harder and yet lighter because the interstices are larger than in gold. there is mingled with it a fine and small portion of earth which comes out in the form of rust. these are a few of the conjectures which philosophy forms, when, leaving the eternal nature, she turns for innocent recreation to consider the truths of generation. water which is mingled with fire is called liquid because it rolls upon the earth, and soft because its bases give way. this becomes more equable when separated from fire and air, and then congeals into hail or ice, or the looser forms of hoar frost or snow. there are other waters which are called juices and are distilled through plants. of these we may mention, first, wine, which warms the soul as well as the body; secondly, oily substances, as for example, oil or pitch; thirdly, honey, which relaxes the contracted parts of the mouth and so produces sweetness; fourthly, vegetable acid, which is frothy and has a burning quality and dissolves the flesh. of the kinds of earth, that which is filtered through water passes into stone; the water is broken up by the earth and escapes in the form of air--this in turn presses upon the mass of earth, and the earth, compressed into an indissoluble union with the remaining water, becomes rock. rock, when it is made up of equal particles, is fair and transparent, but the reverse when of unequal. earth is converted into pottery when the watery part is suddenly drawn away; or if moisture remains, the earth, when fused by fire, becomes, on cooling, a stone of a black colour. when the earth is finer and of a briny nature then two half-solid bodies are formed by separating the water,--soda and salt. the strong compounds of earth and water are not soluble by water, but only by fire. earth itself, when not consolidated, is dissolved by water; when consolidated, by fire only. the cohesion of water, when strong, is dissolved by fire only; when weak, either by air or fire, the former entering the interstices, the latter penetrating even the triangles. air when strongly condensed is indissoluble by any power which does not reach the triangles, and even when not strongly condensed is only resolved by fire. compounds of earth and water are unaffected by water while the water occupies the interstices in them, but begin to liquefy when fire enters into the interstices of the water. they are of two kinds, some of them, like glass, having more earth, others, like wax, having more water in them. having considered objects of sense, we now pass on to sensation. but we cannot explain sensation without explaining the nature of flesh and of the mortal soul; and as we cannot treat of both together, in order that we may proceed at once to the sensations we must assume the existence of body and soul. what makes fire burn? the fineness of the sides, the sharpness of the angles, the smallness of the particles, the quickness of the motion. moreover, the pyramid, which is the figure of fire, is more cutting than any other. the feeling of cold is produced by the larger particles of moisture outside the body trying to eject the smaller ones in the body which they compress. the struggle which arises between elements thus unnaturally brought together causes shivering. that is hard to which the flesh yields, and soft which yields to the flesh, and these two terms are also relative to one another. the yielding matter is that which has the slenderest base, whereas that which has a rectangular base is compact and repellent. light and heavy are wrongly explained with reference to a lower and higher in place. for in the universe, which is a sphere, there is no opposition of above or below, and that which is to us above would be below to a man standing at the antipodes. the greater or less difficulty in detaching any element from its like is the real cause of heaviness or of lightness. if you draw the earth into the dissimilar air, the particles of earth cling to their native element, and you more easily detach a small portion than a large. there would be the same difficulty in moving any of the upper elements towards the lower. the smooth and the rough are severally produced by the union of evenness with compactness, and of hardness with inequality. pleasure and pain are the most important of the affections common to the whole body. according to our general doctrine of sensation, parts of the body which are easily moved readily transmit the motion to the mind; but parts which are not easily moved have no effect upon the patient. the bones and hair are of the latter kind, sight and hearing of the former. ordinary affections are neither pleasant nor painful. the impressions of sight afford an example of these, and are neither violent nor sudden. but sudden replenishments of the body cause pleasure, and sudden disturbances, as for example cuttings and burnings, have the opposite effect. >from sensations common to the whole body, we proceed to those of particular parts. the affections of the tongue appear to be caused by contraction and dilation, but they have more of roughness or smoothness than is found in other affections. earthy particles, entering into the small veins of the tongue which reach to the heart, when they melt into and dry up the little veins are astringent if they are rough; or if not so rough, they are only harsh, and if excessively abstergent, like potash and soda, bitter. purgatives of a weaker sort are called salt and, having no bitterness, are rather agreeable. inflammatory bodies, which by their lightness are carried up into the head, cutting all that comes in their way, are termed pungent. but when these are refined by putrefaction, and enter the narrow veins of the tongue, and meet there particles of earth and air, two kinds of globules are formed--one of earthy and impure liquid, which boils and ferments, the other of pure and transparent water, which are called bubbles; of all these affections the cause is termed acid. when, on the other hand, the composition of the deliquescent particles is congenial to the tongue, and disposes the parts according to their nature, this remedial power in them is called sweet. smells are not divided into kinds; all of them are transitional, and arise out of the decomposition of one element into another, for the simple air or water is without smell. they are vapours or mists, thinner than water and thicker than air: and hence in drawing in the breath, when there is an obstruction, the air passes, but there is no smell. they have no names, but are distinguished as pleasant and unpleasant, and their influence extends over the whole region from the head to the navel. hearing is the effect of a stroke which is transmitted through the ears by means of the air, brain, and blood to the soul, beginning at the head and extending to the liver. the sound which moves swiftly is acute; that which moves slowly is grave; that which is uniform is smooth, and the opposite is harsh. loudness depends on the quantity of the sound. of the harmony of sounds i will hereafter speak. colours are flames which emanate from all bodies, having particles corresponding to the sense of sight. some of the particles are less and some larger, and some are equal to the parts of the sight. the equal particles appear transparent; the larger contract, and the lesser dilate the sight. white is produced by the dilation, black by the contraction, of the particles of sight. there is also a swifter motion of another sort of fire which forces a way through the passages of the eyes, and elicits from them a union of fire and water which we call tears. the inner fire flashes forth, and the outer finds a way in and is extinguished in the moisture, and all sorts of colours are generated by the mixture. this affection is termed by us dazzling, and the object which produces it is called bright. there is yet another sort of fire which mingles with the moisture of the eye without flashing, and produces a colour like blood--to this we give the name of red. a bright element mingling with red and white produces a colour which we call auburn. the law of proportion, however, according to which compound colours are formed, cannot be determined scientifically or even probably. red, when mingled with black and white, gives a purple hue, which becomes umber when the colours are burnt and there is a larger admixture of black. flame-colour is a mixture of auburn and dun; dun of white and black; yellow of white and auburn. white and bright meeting, and falling upon a full black, become dark blue; dark blue mingling with white becomes a light blue; the union of flame-colour and black makes leek-green. there is no difficulty in seeing how other colours are probably composed. but he who should attempt to test the truth of this by experiment, would forget the difference of the human and divine nature. god only is able to compound and resolve substances; such experiments are impossible to man. these are the elements of necessity which the creator received in the world of generation when he made the all-sufficient and perfect creature, using the secondary causes as his ministers, but himself fashioning the good in all things. for there are two sorts of causes, the one divine, the other necessary; and we should seek to discover the divine above all, and, for their sake, the necessary, because without them the higher cannot be attained by us. having now before us the causes out of which the rest of our discourse is to be framed, let us go back to the point at which we began, and add a fair ending to our tale. as i said at first, all things were originally a chaos in which there was no order or proportion. the elements of this chaos were arranged by the creator, and out of them he made the world. of the divine he himself was the author, but he committed to his offspring the creation of the mortal. from him they received the immortal soul, but themselves made the body to be its vehicle, and constructed within another soul which was mortal, and subject to terrible affections--pleasure, the inciter of evil; pain, which deters from good; rashness and fear, foolish counsellors; anger hard to be appeased; hope easily led astray. these they mingled with irrational sense and all-daring love according to necessary laws and so framed man. and, fearing to pollute the divine element, they gave the mortal soul a separate habitation in the breast, parted off from the head by a narrow isthmus. and as in a house the women's apartments are divided from the men's, the cavity of the thorax was divided into two parts, a higher and a lower. the higher of the two, which is the seat of courage and anger, lies nearer to the head, between the midriff and the neck, and assists reason in restraining the desires. the heart is the house of guard in which all the veins meet, and through them reason sends her commands to the extremity of her kingdom. when the passions are in revolt, or danger approaches from without, then the heart beats and swells; and the creating powers, knowing this, implanted in the body the soft and bloodless substance of the lung, having a porous and springy nature like a sponge, and being kept cool by drink and air which enters through the trachea. the part of the soul which desires meat and drink was placed between the midriff and navel, where they made a sort of manger; and here they bound it down, like a wild animal, away from the council-chamber, and leaving the better principle undisturbed to advise quietly for the good of the whole. for the creator knew that the belly would not listen to reason, and was under the power of idols and fancies. wherefore he framed the liver to connect with the lower nature, contriving that it should be compact, and bright, and sweet, and also bitter and smooth, in order that the power of thought which originates in the mind might there be reflected, terrifying the belly with the elements of bitterness and gall, and a suffusion of bilious colours when the liver is contracted, and causing pain and misery by twisting out of its place the lobe and closing up the vessels and gates. and the converse happens when some gentle inspiration coming from intelligence mirrors the opposite fancies, giving rest and sweetness and freedom, and at night, moderation and peace accompanied with prophetic insight, when reason and sense are asleep. for the authors of our being, in obedience to their father's will and in order to make men as good as they could, gave to the liver the power of divination, which is never active when men are awake or in health; but when they are under the influence of some disorder or enthusiasm then they receive intimations, which have to be interpreted by others who are called prophets, but should rather be called interpreters of prophecy; after death these intimations become unintelligible. the spleen which is situated in the neighbourhood, on the left side, keeps the liver bright and clean, as a napkin does a mirror, and the evacuations of the liver are received into it; and being a hollow tissue it is for a time swollen with these impurities, but when the body is purged it returns to its natural size. the truth concerning the soul can only be established by the word of god. still, we may venture to assert what is probable both concerning soul and body. the creative powers were aware of our tendency to excess. and so when they made the belly to be a receptacle for food, in order that men might not perish by insatiable gluttony, they formed the convolutions of the intestines, in this way retarding the passage of food through the body, lest mankind should be absorbed in eating and drinking, and the whole race become impervious to divine philosophy. the creation of bones and flesh was on this wise. the foundation of these is the marrow which binds together body and soul, and the marrow is made out of such of the primary triangles as are adapted by their perfection to produce all the four elements. these god took and mingled them in due proportion, making as many kinds of marrow as there were hereafter to be kinds of souls. the receptacle of the divine soul he made round, and called that portion of the marrow brain, intending that the vessel containing this substance should be the head. the remaining part he divided into long and round figures, and to these as to anchors, fastening the mortal soul, he proceeded to make the rest of the body, first forming for both parts a covering of bone. the bone was formed by sifting pure smooth earth and wetting it with marrow. it was then thrust alternately into fire and water, and thus rendered insoluble by either. of bone he made a globe which he placed around the brain, leaving a narrow opening, and around the marrow of the neck and spine he formed the vertebrae, like hinges, which extended from the head through the whole of the trunk. and as the bone was brittle and liable to mortify and destroy the marrow by too great rigidity and susceptibility to heat and cold, he contrived sinews and flesh--the first to give flexibility, the second to guard against heat and cold, and to be a protection against falls, containing a warm moisture, which in summer exudes and cools the body, and in winter is a defence against cold. having this in view, the creator mingled earth with fire and water and mixed with them a ferment of acid and salt, so as to form pulpy flesh. but the sinews he made of a mixture of bone and unfermented flesh, giving them a mean nature between the two, and a yellow colour. hence they were more glutinous than flesh, but softer than bone. the bones which have most of the living soul within them he covered with the thinnest film of flesh, those which have least of it, he lodged deeper. at the joints he diminished the flesh in order not to impede the flexure of the limbs, and also to avoid clogging the perceptions of the mind. about the thighs and arms, which have no sense because there is little soul in the marrow, and about the inner bones, he laid the flesh thicker. for where the flesh is thicker there is less feeling, except in certain parts which the creator has made solely of flesh, as for example, the tongue. had the combination of solid bone and thick flesh been consistent with acute perceptions, the creator would have given man a sinewy and fleshy head, and then he would have lived twice as long. but our creators were of opinion that a shorter life which was better was preferable to a longer which was worse, and therefore they covered the head with thin bone, and placed the sinews at the extremity of the head round the neck, and fastened the jawbones to them below the face. and they framed the mouth, having teeth and tongue and lips, with a view to the necessary and the good; for food is a necessity, and the river of speech is the best of rivers. still, the head could not be left a bare globe of bone on account of the extremes of heat and cold, nor be allowed to become dull and senseless by an overgrowth of flesh. wherefore it was covered by a peel or skin which met and grew by the help of the cerebral humour. the diversity of the sutures was caused by the struggle of the food against the courses of the soul. the skin of the head was pierced by fire, and out of the punctures came forth a moisture, part liquid, and part of a skinny nature, which was hardened by the pressure of the external cold and became hair. and god gave hair to the head of man to be a light covering, so that it might not interfere with his perceptions. nails were formed by combining sinew, skin, and bone, and were made by the creators with a view to the future when, as they knew, women and other animals who would require them would be framed out of man. the gods also mingled natures akin to that of man with other forms and perceptions. thus trees and plants were created, which were originally wild and have been adapted by cultivation to our use. they partake of that third kind of life which is seated between the midriff and the navel, and is altogether passive and incapable of reflection. when the creators had furnished all these natures for our sustenance, they cut channels through our bodies as in a garden, watering them with a perennial stream. two were cut down the back, along the back bone, where the skin and flesh meet, one on the right and the other on the left, having the marrow of generation between them. in the next place, they divided the veins about the head and interlaced them with each other in order that they might form an additional link between the head and the body, and that the sensations from both sides might be diffused throughout the body. in the third place, they contrived the passage of liquids, which may be explained in this way:--finer bodies retain coarser, but not the coarser the finer, and the belly is capable of retaining food, but not fire and air. god therefore formed a network of fire and air to irrigate the veins, having within it two lesser nets, and stretched cords reaching from both the lesser nets to the extremity of the outer net. the inner parts of the net were made by him of fire, the lesser nets and their cavities of air. the two latter he made to pass into the mouth; the one ascending by the air-pipes from the lungs, the other by the side of the air-pipes from the belly. the entrance to the first he divided into two parts, both of which he made to meet at the channels of the nose, that when the mouth was closed the passage connected with it might still be fed with air. the cavity of the network he spread around the hollows of the body, making the entire receptacle to flow into and out of the lesser nets and the lesser nets into and out of it, while the outer net found a way into and out of the pores of the body, and the internal heat followed the air to and fro. these, as we affirm, are the phenomena of respiration. and all this process takes place in order that the body may be watered and cooled and nourished, and the meat and drink digested and liquefied and carried into the veins. the causes of respiration have now to be considered. the exhalation of the breath through the mouth and nostrils displaces the external air, and at the same time leaves a vacuum into which through the pores the air which is displaced enters. also the vacuum which is made when the air is exhaled through the pores is filled up by the inhalation of breath through the mouth and nostrils. the explanation of this double phenomenon is as follows:--elements move towards their natural places. now as every animal has within him a fountain of fire, the air which is inhaled through the mouth and nostrils, on coming into contact with this, is heated; and when heated, in accordance with the law of attraction, it escapes by the way it entered toward the place of fire. on leaving the body it is cooled and drives round the air which it displaces through the pores into the empty lungs. this again is in turn heated by the internal fire and escapes, as it entered, through the pores. the phenomena of medical cupping-glasses, of swallowing, and of the hurling of bodies, are to be explained on a similar principle; as also sounds, which are sometimes discordant on account of the inequality of them, and again harmonious by reason of equality. the slower sounds reaching the swifter, when they begin to pause, by degrees assimilate with them: whence arises a pleasure which even the unwise feel, and which to the wise becomes a higher sense of delight, being an imitation of divine harmony in mortal motions. streams flow, lightnings play, amber and the magnet attract, not by reason of attraction, but because 'nature abhors a vacuum,' and because things, when compounded or dissolved, move different ways, each to its own place. i will now return to the phenomena of respiration. the fire, entering the belly, minces the food, and as it escapes, fills the veins by drawing after it the divided portions, and thus the streams of nutriment are diffused through the body. the fruits or herbs which are our daily sustenance take all sorts of colours when intermixed, but the colour of red or fire predominates, and hence the liquid which we call blood is red, being the nurturing principle of the body, whence all parts are watered and empty places filled. the process of repletion and depletion is produced by the attraction of like to like, after the manner of the universal motion. the external elements by their attraction are always diminishing the substance of the body: the particles of blood, too, formed out of the newly digested food, are attracted towards kindred elements within the body and so fill up the void. when more is taken away than flows in, then we decay; and when less, we grow and increase. the young of every animal has the triangles new and closely locked together, and yet the entire frame is soft and delicate, being newly made of marrow and nurtured on milk. these triangles are sharper than those which enter the body from without in the shape of food, and therefore they cut them up. but as life advances, the triangles wear out and are no longer able to assimilate food; and at length, when the bonds which unite the triangles of the marrow become undone, they in turn unloose the bonds of the soul; and if the release be according to nature, she then flies away with joy. for the death which is natural is pleasant, but that which is caused by violence is painful. every one may understand the origin of diseases. they may be occasioned by the disarrangement or disproportion of the elements out of which the body is framed. this is the origin of many of them, but the worst of all owe their severity to the following causes: there is a natural order in the human frame according to which the flesh and sinews are made of blood, the sinews out of the fibres, and the flesh out of the congealed substance which is formed by separation from the fibres. the glutinous matter which comes away from the sinews and the flesh, not only binds the flesh to the bones, but nourishes the bones and waters the marrow. when these processes take place in regular order the body is in health. but when the flesh wastes and returns into the veins there is discoloured blood as well as air in the veins, having acid and salt qualities, from which is generated every sort of phlegm and bile. all things go the wrong way and cease to give nourishment to the body, no longer preserving their natural courses, but at war with themselves and destructive to the constitution of the body. the oldest part of the flesh which is hard to decompose blackens from long burning, and from being corroded grows bitter, and as the bitter element refines away, becomes acid. when tinged with blood the bitter substance has a red colour, and this when mixed with black takes the hue of grass; or again, the bitter substance has an auburn colour, when new flesh is decomposed by the internal flame. to all which phenomena some physician or philosopher who was able to see the one in many has given the name of bile. the various kinds of bile have names answering to their colours. lymph or serum is of two kinds: first, the whey of blood, which is gentle; secondly, the secretion of dark and bitter bile, which, when mingled under the influence of heat with salt, is malignant and is called acid phlegm. there is also white phlegm, formed by the decomposition of young and tender flesh, and covered with little bubbles, separately invisible, but becoming visible when collected. the water of tears and perspiration and similar substances is also the watery part of fresh phlegm. all these humours become sources of disease when the blood is replenished in irregular ways and not by food or drink. the danger, however, is not so great when the foundation remains, for then there is a possibility of recovery. but when the substance which unites the flesh and bones is diseased, and is no longer renewed from the muscles and sinews, and instead of being oily and smooth and glutinous becomes rough and salt and dry, then the fleshy parts fall away and leave the sinews bare and full of brine, and the flesh gets back again into the circulation of the blood, and makes the previously mentioned disorders still greater. there are other and worse diseases which are prior to these; as when the bone through the density of the flesh does not receive sufficient air, and becomes stagnant and gangrened, and crumbling away passes into the food, and the food into the flesh, and the flesh returns again into the blood. worst of all and most fatal is the disease of the marrow, by which the whole course of the body is reversed. there is a third class of diseases which are produced, some by wind and some by phlegm and some by bile. when the lung, which is the steward of the air, is obstructed, by rheums, and in one part no air, and in another too much, enters in, then the parts which are unrefreshed by air corrode, and other parts are distorted by the excess of air; and in this manner painful diseases are produced. the most painful are caused by wind generated within the body, which gets about the great sinews of the shoulders--these are termed tetanus. the cure of them is difficult, and in most cases they are relieved only by fever. white phlegm, which is dangerous if kept in, by reason of the air bubbles, is not equally dangerous if able to escape through the pores, although it variegates the body, generating diverse kinds of leprosies. if, when mingled with black bile, it disturbs the courses of the head in sleep, there is not so much danger; but if it assails those who are awake, then the attack is far more dangerous, and is called epilepsy or the sacred disease. acid and salt phlegm is the source of catarrh. inflammations originate in bile, which is sometimes relieved by boils and swellings, but when detained, and above all when mingled with pure blood, generates many inflammatory disorders, disturbing the position of the fibres which are scattered about in the blood in order to maintain the balance of rare and dense which is necessary to its regular circulation. if the bile, which is only stale blood, or liquefied flesh, comes in little by little, it is congealed by the fibres and produces internal cold and shuddering. but when it enters with more of a flood it overcomes the fibres by its heat and reaches the spinal marrow, and burning up the cables of the soul sets her free from the body. when on the other hand the body, though wasted, still holds out, then the bile is expelled, like an exile from a factious state, causing associating diarrhoeas and dysenteries and similar disorders. the body which is diseased from the effects of fire is in a continual fever; when air is the agent, the fever is quotidian; when water, the fever intermits a day; when earth, which is the most sluggish element, the fever intermits three days and is with difficulty shaken off. of mental disorders there are two sorts, one madness, the other ignorance, and they may be justly attributed to disease. excessive pleasures or pains are among the greatest diseases, and deprive men of their senses. when the seed about the spinal marrow is too abundant, the body has too great pleasures and pains; and during a great part of his life he who is the subject of them is more or less mad. he is often thought bad, but this is a mistake; for the truth is that the intemperance of lust is due to the fluidity of the marrow produced by the loose consistency of the bones. and this is true of vice in general, which is commonly regarded as disgraceful, whereas it is really involuntary and arises from a bad habit of the body and evil education. in like manner the soul is often made vicious by the influence of bodily pain; the briny phlegm and other bitter and bilious humours wander over the body and find no exit, but are compressed within, and mingle their own vapours with the motions of the soul, and are carried to the three places of the soul, creating infinite varieties of trouble and melancholy, of rashness and cowardice, of forgetfulness and stupidity. when men are in this evil plight of body, and evil forms of government and evil discourses are superadded, and there is no education to save them, they are corrupted through two causes; but of neither of them are they really the authors. for the planters are to blame rather than the plants, the educators and not the educated. still, we should endeavour to attain virtue and avoid vice; but this is part of another subject. enough of disease--i have now to speak of the means by which the mind and body are to be preserved, a higher theme than the other. the good is the beautiful, and the beautiful is the symmetrical, and there is no greater or fairer symmetry than that of body and soul, as the contrary is the greatest of deformities. a leg or an arm too long or too short is at once ugly and unserviceable, and the same is true if body and soul are disproportionate. for a strong and impassioned soul may 'fret the pigmy body to decay,' and so produce convulsions and other evils. the violence of controversy, or the earnestness of enquiry, will often generate inflammations and rheums which are not understood, or assigned to their true cause by the professors of medicine. and in like manner the body may be too much for the soul, darkening the reason, and quickening the animal desires. the only security is to preserve the balance of the two, and to this end the mathematician or philosopher must practise gymnastics, and the gymnast must cultivate music. the parts of the body too must be treated in the same way--they should receive their appropriate exercise. for the body is set in motion when it is heated and cooled by the elements which enter in, or is dried up and moistened by external things; and, if given up to these processes when at rest, it is liable to destruction. but the natural motion, as in the world, so also in the human frame, produces harmony and divides hostile powers. the best exercise is the spontaneous motion of the body, as in gymnastics, because most akin to the motion of mind; not so good is the motion of which the source is in another, as in sailing or riding; least good when the body is at rest and the motion is in parts only, which is a species of motion imparted by physic. this should only be resorted to by men of sense in extreme cases; lesser diseases are not to be irritated by medicine. for every disease is akin to the living being and has an appointed term, just as life has, which depends on the form of the triangles, and cannot be protracted when they are worn out. and he who, instead of accepting his destiny, endeavours to prolong his life by medicine, is likely to multiply and magnify his diseases. regimen and not medicine is the true cure, when a man has time at his disposal. enough of the nature of man and of the body, and of training and education. the subject is a great one and cannot be adequately treated as an appendage to another. to sum up all in a word: there are three kinds of soul located within us, and any one of them, if remaining inactive, becomes very weak; if exercised, very strong. wherefore we should duly train and exercise all three kinds. the divine soul god lodged in the head, to raise us, like plants which are not of earthly origin, to our kindred; for the head is nearest to heaven. he who is intent upon the gratification of his desires and cherishes the mortal soul, has all his ideas mortal, and is himself mortal in the truest sense. but he who seeks after knowledge and exercises the divine part of himself in godly and immortal thoughts, attains to truth and immortality, as far as is possible to man, and also to happiness, while he is training up within him the divine principle and indwelling power of order. there is only one way in which one person can benefit another; and that is by assigning to him his proper nurture and motion. to the motions of the soul answer the motions of the universe, and by the study of these the individual is restored to his original nature. thus we have finished the discussion of the universe, which, according to our original intention, has now been brought down to the creation of man. completeness seems to require that something should be briefly said about other animals: first of women, who are probably degenerate and cowardly men. and when they degenerated, the gods implanted in men the desire of union with them, creating in man one animate substance and in woman another in the following manner:--the outlet for liquids they connected with the living principle of the spinal marrow, which the man has the desire to emit into the fruitful womb of the woman; this is like a fertile field in which the seed is quickened and matured, and at last brought to light. when this desire is unsatisfied the man is over-mastered by the power of the generative organs, and the woman is subjected to disorders from the obstruction of the passages of the breath, until the two meet and pluck the fruit of the tree. the race of birds was created out of innocent, light-minded men, who thought to pursue the study of the heavens by sight; these were transformed into birds, and grew feathers instead of hair. the race of wild animals were men who had no philosophy, and never looked up to heaven or used the courses of the head, but followed only the influences of passion. naturally they turned to their kindred earth, and put their forelegs to the ground, and their heads were crushed into strange oblong forms. some of them have four feet, and some of them more than four,--the latter, who are the more senseless, drawing closer to their native element; the most senseless of all have no limbs and trail their whole body on the ground. the fourth kind are the inhabitants of the waters; these are made out of the most senseless and ignorant and impure of men, whom god placed in the uttermost parts of the world in return for their utter ignorance, and caused them to respire water instead of the pure element of air. such are the laws by which animals pass into one another. and so the world received animals, mortal and immortal, and was fulfilled with them, and became a visible god, comprehending the visible, made in the image of the intellectual, being the one perfect only-begotten heaven. section . nature in the aspect which she presented to a greek philosopher of the fourth century before christ is not easily reproduced to modern eyes. the associations of mythology and poetry have to be added, and the unconscious influence of science has to be subtracted, before we can behold the heavens or the earth as they appeared to the greek. the philosopher himself was a child and also a man--a child in the range of his attainments, but also a great intelligence having an insight into nature, and often anticipations of the truth. he was full of original thoughts, and yet liable to be imposed upon by the most obvious fallacies. he occasionally confused numbers with ideas, and atoms with numbers; his a priori notions were out of all proportion to his experience. he was ready to explain the phenomena of the heavens by the most trivial analogies of earth. the experiments which nature worked for him he sometimes accepted, but he never tried experiments for himself which would either prove or disprove his theories. his knowledge was unequal; while in some branches, such as medicine and astronomy, he had made considerable proficiency, there were others, such as chemistry, electricity, mechanics, of which the very names were unknown to him. he was the natural enemy of mythology, and yet mythological ideas still retained their hold over him. he was endeavouring to form a conception of principles, but these principles or ideas were regarded by him as real powers or entities, to which the world had been subjected. he was always tending to argue from what was near to what was remote, from what was known to what was unknown, from man to the universe, and back again from the universe to man. while he was arranging the world, he was arranging the forms of thought in his own mind; and the light from within and the light from without often crossed and helped to confuse one another. he might be compared to a builder engaged in some great design, who could only dig with his hands because he was unprovided with common tools; or to some poet or musician, like tynnichus (ion), obliged to accommodate his lyric raptures to the limits of the tetrachord or of the flute. the hesiodic and orphic cosmogonies were a phase of thought intermediate between mythology and philosophy and had a great influence on the beginnings of knowledge. there was nothing behind them; they were to physical science what the poems of homer were to early greek history. they made men think of the world as a whole; they carried the mind back into the infinity of past time; they suggested the first observation of the effects of fire and water on the earth's surface. to the ancient physics they stood much in the same relation which geology does to modern science. but the greek was not, like the enquirer of the last generation, confined to a period of six thousand years; he was able to speculate freely on the effects of infinite ages in the production of physical phenomena. he could imagine cities which had existed time out of mind (states.; laws), laws or forms of art and music which had lasted, 'not in word only, but in very truth, for ten thousand years' (laws); he was aware that natural phenomena like the delta of the nile might have slowly accumulated in long periods of time (hdt.). but he seems to have supposed that the course of events was recurring rather than progressive. to this he was probably led by the fixedness of egyptian customs and the general observation that there were other civilisations in the world more ancient than that of hellas. the ancient philosophers found in mythology many ideas which, if not originally derived from nature, were easily transferred to her--such, for example, as love or hate, corresponding to attraction or repulsion; or the conception of necessity allied both to the regularity and irregularity of nature; or of chance, the nameless or unknown cause; or of justice, symbolizing the law of compensation; are of the fates and furies, typifying the fixed order or the extraordinary convulsions of nature. their own interpretations of homer and the poets were supposed by them to be the original meaning. musing in themselves on the phenomena of nature, they were relieved at being able to utter the thoughts of their hearts in figures of speech which to them were not figures, and were already consecrated by tradition. hesiod and the orphic poets moved in a region of half-personification in which the meaning or principle appeared through the person. in their vaster conceptions of chaos, erebus, aether, night, and the like, the first rude attempts at generalization are dimly seen. the gods themselves, especially the greater gods, such as zeus, poseidon, apollo, athene, are universals as well as individuals. they were gradually becoming lost in a common conception of mind or god. they continued to exist for the purposes of ritual or of art; but from the sixth century onwards or even earlier there arose and gained strength in the minds of men the notion of 'one god, greatest among gods and men, who was all sight, all hearing, all knowing' (xenophanes). under the influence of such ideas, perhaps also deriving from the traditions of their own or of other nations scraps of medicine and astronomy, men came to the observation of nature. the greek philosopher looked at the blue circle of the heavens and it flashed upon him that all things were one; the tumult of sense abated, and the mind found repose in the thought which former generations had been striving to realize. the first expression of this was some element, rarefied by degrees into a pure abstraction, and purged from any tincture of sense. soon an inner world of ideas began to be unfolded, more absorbing, more overpowering, more abiding than the brightest of visible objects, which to the eye of the philosopher looking inward, seemed to pale before them, retaining only a faint and precarious existence. at the same time, the minds of men parted into the two great divisions of those who saw only a principle of motion, and of those who saw only a principle of rest, in nature and in themselves; there were born heracliteans or eleatics, as there have been in later ages born aristotelians or platonists. like some philosophers in modern times, who are accused of making a theory first and finding their facts afterwards, the advocates of either opinion never thought of applying either to themselves or to their adversaries the criterion of fact. they were mastered by their ideas and not masters of them. like the heraclitean fanatics whom plato has ridiculed in the theaetetus, they were incapable of giving a reason of the faith that was in them, and had all the animosities of a religious sect. yet, doubtless, there was some first impression derived from external nature, which, as in mythology, so also in philosophy, worked upon the minds of the first thinkers. though incapable of induction or generalization in the modern sense, they caught an inspiration from the external world. the most general facts or appearances of nature, the circle of the universe, the nutritive power of water, the air which is the breath of life, the destructive force of fire, the seeming regularity of the greater part of nature and the irregularity of a remnant, the recurrence of day and night and of the seasons, the solid earth and the impalpable aether, were always present to them. the great source of error and also the beginning of truth to them was reasoning from analogy; they could see resemblances, but not differences; and they were incapable of distinguishing illustration from argument. analogy in modern times only points the way, and is immediately verified by experiment. the dreams and visions, which pass through the philosopher's mind, of resemblances between different classes of substances, or between the animal and vegetable world, are put into the refiner's fire, and the dross and other elements which adhere to them are purged away. but the contemporary of plato and socrates was incapable of resisting the power of any analogy which occurred to him, and was drawn into any consequences which seemed to follow. he had no methods of difference or of concomitant variations, by the use of which he could distinguish the accidental from the essential. he could not isolate phenomena, and he was helpless against the influence of any word which had an equivocal or double sense. yet without this crude use of analogy the ancient physical philosopher would have stood still; he could not have made even 'one guess among many' without comparison. the course of natural phenomena would have passed unheeded before his eyes, like fair sights or musical sounds before the eyes and ears of an animal. even the fetichism of the savage is the beginning of reasoning; the assumption of the most fanciful of causes indicates a higher mental state than the absence of all enquiry about them. the tendency to argue from the higher to the lower, from man to the world, has led to many errors, but has also had an elevating influence on philosophy. the conception of the world as a whole, a person, an animal, has been the source of hasty generalizations; yet this general grasp of nature led also to a spirit of comprehensiveness in early philosophy, which has not increased, but rather diminished, as the fields of knowledge have become more divided. the modern physicist confines himself to one or perhaps two branches of science. but he comparatively seldom rises above his own department, and often falls under the narrowing influence which any single branch, when pursued to the exclusion of every other, has over the mind. language, two, exercised a spell over the beginnings of physical philosophy, leading to error and sometimes to truth; for many thoughts were suggested by the double meanings of words (greek), and the accidental distinctions of words sometimes led the ancient philosopher to make corresponding differences in things (greek). 'if they are the same, why have they different names; or if they are different, why have they the same name?'--is an argument not easily answered in the infancy of knowledge. the modern philosopher has always been taught the lesson which he still imperfectly learns, that he must disengage himself from the influence of words. nor are there wanting in plato, who was himself too often the victim of them, impressive admonitions that we should regard not words but things (states.). but upon the whole, the ancients, though not entirely dominated by them, were much more subject to the influence of words than the moderns. they had no clear divisions of colours or substances; even the four elements were undefined; the fields of knowledge were not parted off. they were bringing order out of disorder, having a small grain of experience mingled in a confused heap of a priori notions. and yet, probably, their first impressions, the illusions and mirages of their fancy, created a greater intellectual activity and made a nearer approach to the truth than any patient investigation of isolated facts, for which the time had not yet come, could have accomplished. there was one more illusion to which the ancient philosophers were subject, and against which plato in his later dialogues seems to be struggling--the tendency to mere abstractions; not perceiving that pure abstraction is only negation, they thought that the greater the abstraction the greater the truth. behind any pair of ideas a new idea which comprehended them--the (greek), as it was technically termed--began at once to appear. two are truer than three, one than two. the words 'being,' or 'unity,' or essence,' or 'good,' became sacred to them. they did not see that they had a word only, and in one sense the most unmeaning of words. they did not understand that the content of notions is in inverse proportion to their universality--the element which is the most widely diffused is also the thinnest; or, in the language of the common logic, the greater the extension the less the comprehension. but this vacant idea of a whole without parts, of a subject without predicates, a rest without motion, has been also the most fruitful of all ideas. it is the beginning of a priori thought, and indeed of thinking at all. men were led to conceive it, not by a love of hasty generalization, but by a divine instinct, a dialectical enthusiasm, in which the human faculties seemed to yearn for enlargement. we know that 'being' is only the verb of existence, the copula, the most general symbol of relation, the first and most meagre of abstractions; but to some of the ancient philosophers this little word appeared to attain divine proportions, and to comprehend all truth. being or essence, and similar words, represented to them a supreme or divine being, in which they thought that they found the containing and continuing principle of the universe. in a few years the human mind was peopled with abstractions; a new world was called into existence to give law and order to the old. but between them there was still a gulf, and no one could pass from the one to the other. number and figure were the greatest instruments of thought which were possessed by the greek philosopher; having the same power over the mind which was exerted by abstract ideas, they were also capable of practical application. many curious and, to the early thinker, mysterious properties of them came to light when they were compared with one another. they admitted of infinite multiplication and construction; in pythagorean triangles or in proportions of : : : and : : : , or compounds of them, the laws of the world seemed to be more than half revealed. they were also capable of infinite subdivision--a wonder and also a puzzle to the ancient thinker (rep.). they were not, like being or essence, mere vacant abstractions, but admitted of progress and growth, while at the same time they confirmed a higher sentiment of the mind, that there was order in the universe. and so there began to be a real sympathy between the world within and the world without. the numbers and figures which were present to the mind's eye became visible to the eye of sense; the truth of nature was mathematics; the other properties of objects seemed to reappear only in the light of number. law and morality also found a natural expression in number and figure. instruments of such power and elasticity could not fail to be 'a most gracious assistance' to the first efforts of human intelligence. there was another reason why numbers had so great an influence over the minds of early thinkers--they were verified by experience. every use of them, even the most trivial, assured men of their truth; they were everywhere to be found, in the least things and the greatest alike. one, two, three, counted on the fingers was a 'trivial matter (rep.), a little instrument out of which to create a world; but from these and by the help of these all our knowledge of nature has been developed. they were the measure of all things, and seemed to give law to all things; nature was rescued from chaos and confusion by their power; the notes of music, the motions of the stars, the forms of atoms, the evolution and recurrence of days, months, years, the military divisions of an army, the civil divisions of a state, seemed to afford a 'present witness' of them--what would have become of man or of the world if deprived of number (rep.)? the mystery of number and the mystery of music were akin. there was a music of rhythm and of harmonious motion everywhere; and to the real connexion which existed between music and number, a fanciful or imaginary relation was superadded. there was a music of the spheres as well as of the notes of the lyre. if in all things seen there was number and figure, why should they not also pervade the unseen world, with which by their wonderful and unchangeable nature they seemed to hold communion? two other points strike us in the use which the ancient philosophers made of numbers. first, they applied to external nature the relations of them which they found in their own minds; and where nature seemed to be at variance with number, as for example in the case of fractions, they protested against her (rep.; arist. metaph.). having long meditated on the properties of : : : , or : : : , or of , , , they discovered in them many curious correspondences and were disposed to find in them the secret of the universe. secondly, they applied number and figure equally to those parts of physics, such as astronomy or mechanics, in which the modern philosopher expects to find them, and to those in which he would never think of looking for them, such as physiology and psychology. for the sciences were not yet divided, and there was nothing really irrational in arguing that the same laws which regulated the heavenly bodies were partially applied to the erring limbs or brain of man. astrology was the form which the lively fancy of ancient thinkers almost necessarily gave to astronomy. the observation that the lower principle, e.g. mechanics, is always seen in the higher, e.g. in the phenomena of life, further tended to perplex them. plato's doctrine of the same and the other ruling the courses of the heavens and of the human body is not a mere vagary, but is a natural result of the state of knowledge and thought at which he had arrived. when in modern times we contemplate the heavens, a certain amount of scientific truth imperceptibly blends, even with the cursory glance of an unscientific person. he knows that the earth is revolving round the sun, and not the sun around the earth. he does not imagine the earth to be the centre of the universe, and he has some conception of chemistry and the cognate sciences. a very different aspect of nature would have been present to the mind of the early greek philosopher. he would have beheld the earth a surface only, not mirrored, however faintly, in the glass of science, but indissolubly connected with some theory of one, two, or more elements. he would have seen the world pervaded by number and figure, animated by a principle of motion, immanent in a principle of rest. he would have tried to construct the universe on a quantitative principle, seeming to find in endless combinations of geometrical figures or in the infinite variety of their sizes a sufficient account of the multiplicity of phenomena. to these a priori speculations he would add a rude conception of matter and his own immediate experience of health and disease. his cosmos would necessarily be imperfect and unequal, being the first attempt to impress form and order on the primaeval chaos of human knowledge. he would see all things as in a dream. the ancient physical philosophers have been charged by dr. whewell and others with wasting their fine intelligences in wrong methods of enquiry; and their progress in moral and political philosophy has been sometimes contrasted with their supposed failure in physical investigations. 'they had plenty of ideas,' says dr. whewell, 'and plenty of facts; but their ideas did not accurately represent the facts with which they were acquainted.' this is a very crude and misleading way of describing ancient science. it is the mistake of an uneducated person--uneducated, that is, in the higher sense of the word--who imagines every one else to be like himself and explains every other age by his own. no doubt the ancients often fell into strange and fanciful errors: the time had not yet arrived for the slower and surer path of the modern inductive philosophy. but it remains to be shown that they could have done more in their age and country; or that the contributions which they made to the sciences with which they were acquainted are not as great upon the whole as those made by their successors. there is no single step in astronomy as great as that of the nameless pythagorean who first conceived the world to be a body moving round the sun in space: there is no truer or more comprehensive principle than the application of mathematics alike to the heavenly bodies, and to the particles of matter. the ancients had not the instruments which would have enabled them to correct or verify their anticipations, and their opportunities of observation were limited. plato probably did more for physical science by asserting the supremacy of mathematics than aristotle or his disciples by their collections of facts. when the thinkers of modern times, following bacon, undervalue or disparage the speculations of ancient philosophers, they seem wholly to forget the conditions of the world and of the human mind, under which they carried on their investigations. when we accuse them of being under the influence of words, do we suppose that we are altogether free from this illusion? when we remark that greek physics soon became stationary or extinct, may we not observe also that there have been and may be again periods in the history of modern philosophy which have been barren and unproductive? we might as well maintain that greek art was not real or great, because it had nihil simile aut secundum, as say that greek physics were a failure because they admire no subsequent progress. the charge of premature generalization which is often urged against ancient philosophers is really an anachronism. for they can hardly be said to have generalized at all. they may be said more truly to have cleared up and defined by the help of experience ideas which they already possessed. the beginnings of thought about nature must always have this character. a true method is the result of many ages of experiment and observation, and is ever going on and enlarging with the progress of science and knowledge. at first men personify nature, then they form impressions of nature, at last they conceive 'measure' or laws of nature. they pass out of mythology into philosophy. early science is not a process of discovery in the modern sense; but rather a process of correcting by observation, and to a certain extent only, the first impressions of nature, which mankind, when they began to think, had received from poetry or language or unintelligent sense. of all scientific truths the greatest and simplest is the uniformity of nature; this was expressed by the ancients in many ways, as fate, or necessity, or measure, or limit. unexpected events, of which the cause was unknown to them, they attributed to chance (thucyd.). but their conception of nature was never that of law interrupted by exceptions,--a somewhat unfortunate metaphysical invention of modern times, which is at variance with facts and has failed to satisfy the requirements of thought. section . plato's account of the soul is partly mythical or figurative, and partly literal. not that either he or we can draw a line between them, or say, 'this is poetry, this is philosophy'; for the transition from the one to the other is imperceptible. neither must we expect to find in him absolute consistency. he is apt to pass from one level or stage of thought to another without always making it apparent that he is changing his ground. in such passages we have to interpret his meaning by the general spirit of his writings. to reconcile his inconsistencies would be contrary to the first principles of criticism and fatal to any true understanding of him. there is a further difficulty in explaining this part of the timaeus--the natural order of thought is inverted. we begin with the most abstract, and proceed from the abstract to the concrete. we are searching into things which are upon the utmost limit of human intelligence, and then of a sudden we fall rather heavily to the earth. there are no intermediate steps which lead from one to the other. but the abstract is a vacant form to us until brought into relation with man and nature. god and the world are mere names, like the being of the eleatics, unless some human qualities are added on to them. yet the negation has a kind of unknown meaning to us. the priority of god and of the world, which he is imagined to have created, to all other existences, gives a solemn awe to them. and as in other systems of theology and philosophy, that of which we know least has the greatest interest to us. there is no use in attempting to define or explain the first god in the platonic system, who has sometimes been thought to answer to god the father; or the world, in whom the fathers of the church seemed to recognize 'the firstborn of every creature.' nor need we discuss at length how far plato agrees in the later jewish idea of creation, according to which god made the world out of nothing. for his original conception of matter as something which has no qualities is really a negation. moreover in the hebrew scriptures the creation of the world is described, even more explicitly than in the timaeus, not as a single act, but as a work or process which occupied six days. there is a chaos in both, and it would be untrue to say that the greek, any more than the hebrew, had any definite belief in the eternal existence of matter. the beginning of things vanished into the distance. the real creation began, not with matter, but with ideas. according to plato in the timaeus, god took of the same and the other, of the divided and undivided, of the finite and infinite, and made essence, and out of the three combined created the soul of the world. to the soul he added a body formed out of the four elements. the general meaning of these words is that god imparted determinations of thought, or, as we might say, gave law and variety to the material universe. the elements are moving in a disorderly manner before the work of creation begins; and there is an eternal pattern of the world, which, like the 'idea of good,' is not the creator himself, but not separable from him. the pattern too, though eternal, is a creation, a world of thought prior to the world of sense, which may be compared to the wisdom of god in the book of ecclesiasticus, or to the 'god in the form of a globe' of the old eleatic philosophers. the visible, which already exists, is fashioned in the likeness of this eternal pattern. on the other hand, there is no truth of which plato is more firmly convinced than of the priority of the soul to the body, both in the universe and in man. so inconsistent are the forms in which he describes the works which no tongue can utter--his language, as he himself says, partaking of his own uncertainty about the things of which he is speaking. we may remark in passing, that the platonic compared with the jewish description of the process of creation has less of freedom or spontaneity. the creator in plato is still subject to a remnant of necessity which he cannot wholly overcome. when his work is accomplished he remains in his own nature. plato is more sensible than the hebrew prophet of the existence of evil, which he seeks to put as far as possible out of the way of god. and he can only suppose this to be accomplished by god retiring into himself and committing the lesser works of creation to inferior powers. (compare, however, laws for another solution of the difficulty.) nor can we attach any intelligible meaning to his words when he speaks of the visible being in the image of the invisible. for how can that which is divided be like that which is undivided? or that which is changing be the copy of that which is unchanging? all the old difficulties about the ideas come back upon us in an altered form. we can imagine two worlds, one of which is the mere double of the other, or one of which is an imperfect copy of the other, or one of which is the vanishing ideal of the other; but we cannot imagine an intellectual world which has no qualities--'a thing in itself'--a point which has no parts or magnitude, which is nowhere, and nothing. this cannot be the archetype according to which god made the world, and is in reality, whether in plato or in kant, a mere negative residuum of human thought. there is another aspect of the same difficulty which appears to have no satisfactory solution. in what relation does the archetype stand to the creator himself? for the idea or pattern of the world is not the thought of god, but a separate, self-existent nature, of which creation is the copy. we can only reply, ( ) that to the mind of plato subject and object were not yet distinguished; ( ) that he supposes the process of creation to take place in accordance with his own theory of ideas; and as we cannot give a consistent account of the one, neither can we of the other. he means ( ) to say that the creation of the world is not a material process of working with legs and arms, but ideal and intellectual; according to his own fine expression, 'the thought of god made the god that was to be.' he means ( ) to draw an absolute distinction between the invisible or unchangeable which is or is the place of mind or being, and the world of sense or becoming which is visible and changing. he means ( ) that the idea of the world is prior to the world, just as the other ideas are prior to sensible objects; and like them may be regarded as eternal and self-existent, and also, like the idea of good, may be viewed apart from the divine mind. there are several other questions which we might ask and which can receive no answer, or at least only an answer of the same kind as the preceding. how can matter be conceived to exist without form? or, how can the essences or forms of things be distinguished from the eternal ideas, or essence itself from the soul? or, how could there have been motion in the chaos when as yet time was not? or, how did chaos come into existence, if not by the will of the creator? or, how could there have been a time when the world was not, if time was not? or, how could the creator have taken portions of an indivisible same? or, how could space or anything else have been eternal when time is only created? or, how could the surfaces of geometrical figures have formed solids? we must reply again that we cannot follow plato in all his inconsistencies, but that the gaps of thought are probably more apparent to us than to him. he would, perhaps, have said that 'the first things are known only to god and to him of men whom god loves.' how often have the gaps in theology been concealed from the eye of faith! and we may say that only by an effort of metaphysical imagination can we hope to understand plato from his own point of view; we must not ask for consistency. everywhere we find traces of the platonic theory of knowledge expressed in an objective form, which by us has to be translated into the subjective, before we can attach any meaning to it. and this theory is exhibited in so many different points of view, that we cannot with any certainty interpret one dialogue by another; e.g. the timaeus by the parmenides or phaedrus or philebus. the soul of the world may also be conceived as the personification of the numbers and figures in which the heavenly bodies move. imagine these as in a pythagorean dream, stripped of qualitative difference and reduced to mathematical abstractions. they too conform to the principle of the same, and may be compared with the modern conception of laws of nature. they are in space, but not in time, and they are the makers of time. they are represented as constantly thinking of the same; for thought in the view of plato is equivalent to truth or law, and need not imply a human consciousness, a conception which is familiar enough to us, but has no place, hardly even a name, in ancient greek philosophy. to this principle of the same is opposed the principle of the other--the principle of irregularity and disorder, of necessity and chance, which is only partially impressed by mathematical laws and figures. (we may observe by the way, that the principle of the other, which is the principle of plurality and variation in the timaeus, has nothing in common with the 'other' of the sophist, which is the principle of determination.) the element of the same dominates to a certain extent over the other--the fixed stars keep the 'wanderers' of the inner circle in their courses, and a similar principle of fixedness or order appears to regulate the bodily constitution of man. but there still remains a rebellious seed of evil derived from the original chaos, which is the source of disorder in the world, and of vice and disease in man. but what did plato mean by essence, (greek), which is the intermediate nature compounded of the same and the other, and out of which, together with these two, the soul of the world is created? it is difficult to explain a process of thought so strange and unaccustomed to us, in which modern distinctions run into one another and are lost sight of. first, let us consider once more the meaning of the same and the other. the same is the unchanging and indivisible, the heaven of the fixed stars, partaking of the divine nature, which, having law in itself, gives law to all besides and is the element of order and permanence in man and on the earth. it is the rational principle, mind regarded as a work, as creation--not as the creator. the old tradition of parmenides and of the eleatic being, the foundation of so much in the philosophy of greece and of the world, was lingering in plato's mind. the other is the variable or changing element, the residuum of disorder or chaos, which cannot be reduced to order, nor altogether banished, the source of evil, seen in the errors of man and also in the wanderings of the planets, a necessity which protrudes through nature. of this too there was a shadow in the eleatic philosophy in the realm of opinion, which, like a mist, seemed to darken the purity of truth in itself.--so far the words of plato may perhaps find an intelligible meaning. but when he goes on to speak of the essence which is compounded out of both, the track becomes fainter and we can only follow him with hesitating steps. but still we find a trace reappearing of the teaching of anaxagoras: 'all was confusion, and then mind came and arranged things.' we have already remarked that plato was not acquainted with the modern distinction of subject and object, and therefore he sometimes confuses mind and the things of mind--(greek) and (greek). by (greek) he clearly means some conception of the intelligible and the intelligent; it belongs to the class of (greek). matter, being, the same, the eternal,--for any of these terms, being almost vacant of meaning, is equally suitable to express indefinite existence,--are compared or united with the other or diverse, and out of the union or comparison is elicited the idea of intelligence, the 'one in many,' brighter than any promethean fire (phil.), which co-existing with them and so forming a new existence, is or becomes the intelligible world...so we may perhaps venture to paraphrase or interpret or put into other words the parable in which plato has wrapped up his conception of the creation of the world. the explanation may help to fill up with figures of speech the void of knowledge. the entire compound was divided by the creator in certain proportions and reunited; it was then cut into two strips, which were bent into an inner circle and an outer, both moving with an uniform motion around a centre, the outer circle containing the fixed, the inner the wandering stars. the soul of the world was diffused everywhere from the centre to the circumference. to this god gave a body, consisting at first of fire and earth, and afterwards receiving an addition of air and water; because solid bodies, like the world, are always connected by two middle terms and not by one. the world was made in the form of a globe, and all the material elements were exhausted in the work of creation. the proportions in which the soul of the world as well as the human soul is divided answer to a series of numbers , , , , , , , composed of the two pythagorean progressions , , , and , , , , of which the number represents a point, and lines, and , and the squares and cubes respectively of and . this series, of which the intervals are afterwards filled up, probably represents ( ) the diatonic scale according to the pythagoreans and plato; ( ) the order and distances of the heavenly bodies; and ( ) may possibly contain an allusion to the music of the spheres, which is referred to in the myth at the end of the republic. the meaning of the words that 'solid bodies are always connected by two middle terms' or mean proportionals has been much disputed. the most received explanation is that of martin, who supposes that plato is only speaking of surfaces and solids compounded of prime numbers (i.e. of numbers not made up of two factors, or, in other words, only measurable by unity). the square of any such number represents a surface, the cube a solid. the squares of any two such numbers (e.g. squared, squared = , ), have always a single mean proportional (e.g. and have the single mean ), whereas the cubes of primes (e.g. cubed and cubed) have always two mean proportionals (e.g. : : : ). but to this explanation of martin's it may be objected, ( ) that plato nowhere says that his proportion is to be limited to prime numbers; ( ) that the limitation of surfaces to squares is also not to be found in his words; nor ( ) is there any evidence to show that the distinction of prime from other numbers was known to him. what plato chiefly intends to express is that a solid requires a stronger bond than a surface; and that the double bond which is given by two means is stronger than the single bond given by one. having reflected on the singular numerical phenomena of the existence of one mean proportional between two square numbers are rather perhaps only between the two lowest squares; and of two mean proportionals between two cubes, perhaps again confining his attention to the two lowest cubes, he finds in the latter symbol an expression of the relation of the elements, as in the former an image of the combination of two surfaces. between fire and earth, the two extremes, he remarks that there are introduced, not one, but two elements, air and water, which are compared to the two mean proportionals between two cube numbers. the vagueness of his language does not allow us to determine whether anything more than this was intended by him. leaving the further explanation of details, which the reader will find discussed at length in boeckh and martin, we may now return to the main argument: why did god make the world? like man, he must have a purpose; and his purpose is the diffusion of that goodness or good which he himself is. the term 'goodness' is not to be understood in this passage as meaning benevolence or love, in the christian sense of the term, but rather law, order, harmony, like the idea of good in the republic. the ancient mythologers, and even the hebrew prophets, had spoken of the jealousy of god; and the greek had imagined that there was a nemesis always attending the prosperity of mortals. but plato delights to think of god as the author of order in his works, who, like a father, lives over again in his children, and can never have too much of good or friendship among his creatures. only, as there is a certain remnant of evil inherent in matter which he cannot get rid of, he detaches himself from them and leaves them to themselves, that he may be guiltless of their faults and sufferings. between the ideal and the sensible plato interposes the two natures of time and space. time is conceived by him to be only the shadow or image of eternity which ever is and never has been or will be, but is described in a figure only as past or future. this is one of the great thoughts of early philosophy, which are still as difficult to our minds as they were to the early thinkers; or perhaps more difficult, because we more distinctly see the consequences which are involved in such an hypothesis. all the objections which may be urged against kant's doctrine of the ideality of space and time at once press upon us. if time is unreal, then all which is contained in time is unreal--the succession of human thoughts as well as the flux of sensations; there is no connecting link between (greek) and (greek). yet, on the other hand, we are conscious that knowledge is independent of time, that truth is not a thing of yesterday or tomorrow, but an 'eternal now.' to the 'spectator of all time and all existence' the universe remains at rest. the truths of geometry and arithmetic in all their combinations are always the same. the generations of men, like the leaves of the forest, come and go, but the mathematical laws by which the world is governed remain, and seem as if they could never change. the ever-present image of space is transferred to time--succession is conceived as extension. (we remark that plato does away with the above and below in space, as he has done away with the absolute existence of past and future.) the course of time, unless regularly marked by divisions of number, partakes of the indefiniteness of the heraclitean flux. by such reflections we may conceive the greek to have attained the metaphysical conception of eternity, which to the hebrew was gained by meditation on the divine being. no one saw that this objective was really a subjective, and involved the subjectivity of all knowledge. 'non in tempore sed cum tempore finxit deus mundum,' says st. augustine, repeating a thought derived from the timaeus, but apparently unconscious of the results to which his doctrine would have led. the contradictions involved in the conception of time or motion, like the infinitesimal in space, were a source of perplexity to the mind of the greek, who was driven to find a point of view above or beyond them. they had sprung up in the decline of the eleatic philosophy and were very familiar to plato, as we gather from the parmenides. the consciousness of them had led the great eleatic philosopher to describe the nature of god or being under negatives. he sings of 'being unbegotten and imperishable, unmoved and never-ending, which never was nor will be, but always is, one and continuous, which cannot spring from any other; for it cannot be said or imagined not to be.' the idea of eternity was for a great part a negation. there are regions of speculation in which the negative is hardly separable from the positive, and even seems to pass into it. not only buddhism, but greek as well as christian philosophy, show that it is quite possible that the human mind should retain an enthusiasm for mere negations. in different ages and countries there have been forms of light in which nothing could be discerned and which have nevertheless exercised a life-giving and illumining power. for the higher intelligence of man seems to require, not only something above sense, but above knowledge, which can only be described as mind or being or truth or god or the unchangeable and eternal element, in the expression of which all predicates fail and fall short. eternity or the eternal is not merely the unlimited in time but the truest of all being, the most real of all realities, the most certain of all knowledge, which we nevertheless only see through a glass darkly. the passionate earnestness of parmenides contrasts with the vacuity of the thought which he is revolving in his mind. space is said by plato to be the 'containing vessel or nurse of generation.' reflecting on the simplest kinds of external objects, which to the ancients were the four elements, he was led to a more general notion of a substance, more or less like themselves, out of which they were fashioned. he would not have them too precisely distinguished. thus seems to have arisen the first dim perception of (greek) or matter, which has played so great a part in the metaphysical philosophy of aristotle and his followers. but besides the material out of which the elements are made, there is also a space in which they are contained. there arises thus a second nature which the senses are incapable of discerning and which can hardly be referred to the intelligible class. for it is and it is not, it is nowhere when filled, it is nothing when empty. hence it is said to be discerned by a kind of spurious or analogous reason, partaking so feebly of existence as to be hardly perceivable, yet always reappearing as the containing mother or nurse of all things. it had not that sort of consistency to plato which has been given to it in modern times by geometry and metaphysics. neither of the greek words by which it is described are so purely abstract as the english word 'space' or the latin 'spatium.' neither plato nor any other greek would have spoken of (greek) or (greek) in the same manner as we speak of 'time' and 'space.' yet space is also of a very permanent or even eternal nature; and plato seems more willing to admit of the unreality of time than of the unreality of space; because, as he says, all things must necessarily exist in space. we, on the other hand, are disposed to fancy that even if space were annihilated time might still survive. he admits indeed that our knowledge of space is of a dreamy kind, and is given by a spurious reason without the help of sense. (compare the hypotheses and images of rep.) it is true that it does not attain to the clearness of ideas. but like them it seems to remain, even if all the objects contained in it are supposed to have vanished away. hence it was natural for plato to conceive of it as eternal. we must remember further that in his attempt to realize either space or matter the two abstract ideas of weight and extension, which are familiar to us, had never passed before his mind. thus far god, working according to an eternal pattern, out of his goodness has created the same, the other, and the essence (compare the three principles of the philebus--the finite, the infinite, and the union of the two), and out of them has formed the outer circle of the fixed stars and the inner circle of the planets, divided according to certain musical intervals; he has also created time, the moving image of eternity, and space, existing by a sort of necessity and hardly distinguishable from matter. the matter out of which the world is formed is not absolutely void, but retains in the chaos certain germs or traces of the elements. these plato, like empedocles, supposed to be four in number--fire, air, earth, and water. they were at first mixed together; but already in the chaos, before god fashioned them by form and number, the greater masses of the elements had an appointed place. into the confusion (greek) which preceded plato does not attempt further to penetrate. they are called elements, but they are so far from being elements (greek) or letters in the higher sense that they are not even syllables or first compounds. the real elements are two triangles, the rectangular isosceles which has but one form, and the most beautiful of the many forms of scalene, which is half of an equilateral triangle. by the combination of these triangles which exist in an infinite variety of sizes, the surfaces of the four elements are constructed. that there were only five regular solids was already known to the ancients, and out of the surfaces which he has formed plato proceeds to generate the four first of the five. he perhaps forgets that he is only putting together surfaces and has not provided for their transformation into solids. the first solid is a regular pyramid, of which the base and sides are formed by four equilateral or twenty-four scalene triangles. each of the four solid angles in this figure is a little larger than the largest of obtuse angles. the second solid is composed of the same triangles, which unite as eight equilateral triangles, and make one solid angle out of four plane angles--six of these angles form a regular octahedron. the third solid is a regular icosahedron, having twenty triangular equilateral bases, and therefore rectangular scalene triangles. the fourth regular solid, or cube, is formed by the combination of four isosceles triangles into one square and of six squares into a cube. the fifth regular solid, or dodecahedron, cannot be formed by a combination of either of these triangles, but each of its faces may be regarded as composed of thirty triangles of another kind. probably plato notices this as the only remaining regular polyhedron, which from its approximation to a globe, and possibly because, as plutarch remarks, it is composed of x = scalene triangles (platon. quaest.), representing thus the signs and degrees of the zodiac, as well as the months and days of the year, god may be said to have 'used in the delineation of the universe.' according to plato earth was composed of cubes, fire of regular pyramids, air of regular octahedrons, water of regular icosahedrons. the stability of the last three increases with the number of their sides. the elements are supposed to pass into one another, but we must remember that these transformations are not the transformations of real solids, but of imaginary geometrical figures; in other words, we are composing and decomposing the faces of substances and not the substances themselves--it is a house of cards which we are pulling to pieces and putting together again (compare however laws). yet perhaps plato may regard these sides or faces as only the forms which are impressed on pre-existent matter. it is remarkable that he should speak of each of these solids as a possible world in itself, though upon the whole he inclines to the opinion that they form one world and not five. to suppose that there is an infinite number of worlds, as democritus (hippolyt. ref. haer. i.) had said, would be, as he satirically observes, 'the characteristic of a very indefinite and ignorant mind.' the twenty triangular faces of an icosahedron form the faces or sides of two regular octahedrons and of a regular pyramid ( = x + ); and therefore, according to plato, a particle of water when decomposed is supposed to give two particles of air and one of fire. so because an octahedron gives the sides of two pyramids ( = x ), a particle of air is resolved into two particles of fire. the transformation is effected by the superior power or number of the conquering elements. the manner of the change is ( ) a separation of portions of the elements from the masses in which they are collected; ( ) a resolution of them into their original triangles; and ( ) a reunion of them in new forms. plato himself proposes the question, why does motion continue at all when the elements are settled in their places? he answers that although the force of attraction is continually drawing similar elements to the same spot, still the revolution of the universe exercises a condensing power, and thrusts them again out of their natural places. thus want of uniformity, the condition of motion, is produced. in all such disturbances of matter there is an alternative for the weaker element: it may escape to its kindred, or take the form of the stronger--becoming denser, if it be denser, or rarer if rarer. this is true of fire, air, and water, which, being composed of similar triangles, are interchangeable; earth, however, which has triangles peculiar to itself, is capable of dissolution, but not of change. of the interchangeable elements, fire, the rarest, can only become a denser, and water, the densest, only a rarer: but air may become a denser or a rarer. no single particle of the elements is visible, but only the aggregates of them are seen. the subordinate species depend, not upon differences of form in the original triangles, but upon differences of size. the obvious physical phenomena from which plato has gathered his views of the relations of the elements seem to be the effect of fire upon air, water, and earth, and the effect of water upon earth. the particles are supposed by him to be in a perpetual process of circulation caused by inequality. this process of circulation does not admit of a vacuum, as he tells us in his strange account of respiration. of the phenomena of light and heavy he speaks afterwards, when treating of sensation, but they may be more conveniently considered by us in this place. they are not, he says, to be explained by 'above' and 'below,' which in the universal globe have no existence, but by the attraction of similars towards the great masses of similar substances; fire to fire, air to air, water to water, earth to earth. plato's doctrine of attraction implies not only ( ) the attraction of similar elements to one another, but also ( ) of smaller bodies to larger ones. had he confined himself to the latter he would have arrived, though, perhaps, without any further result or any sense of the greatness of the discovery, at the modern doctrine of gravitation. he does not observe that water has an equal tendency towards both water and earth. so easily did the most obvious facts which were inconsistent with his theories escape him. the general physical doctrines of the timaeus may be summed up as follows: ( ) plato supposes the greater masses of the elements to have been already settled in their places at the creation: ( ) they are four in number, and are formed of rectangular triangles variously combined into regular solid figures: ( ) three of them, fire, air, and water, admit of transformation into one another; the fourth, earth, cannot be similarly transformed: ( ) different sizes of the same triangles form the lesser species of each element: ( ) there is an attraction of like to like--smaller masses of the same kind being drawn towards greater: ( ) there is no void, but the particles of matter are ever pushing one another round and round (greek). like the atomists, plato attributes the differences between the elements to differences in geometrical figures. but he does not explain the process by which surfaces become solids; and he characteristically ridicules democritus for not seeing that the worlds are finite and not infinite. section . the astronomy of plato is based on the two principles of the same and the other, which god combined in the creation of the world. the soul, which is compounded of the same, the other, and the essence, is diffused from the centre to the circumference of the heavens. we speak of a soul of the universe; but more truly regarded, the universe of the timaeus is a soul, governed by mind, and holding in solution a residuum of matter or evil, which the author of the world is unable to expel, and of which plato cannot tell us the origin. the creation, in plato's sense, is really the creation of order; and the first step in giving order is the division of the heavens into an inner and outer circle of the other and the same, of the divisible and the indivisible, answering to the two spheres, of the planets and of the world beyond them, all together moving around the earth, which is their centre. to us there is a difficulty in apprehending how that which is at rest can also be in motion, or that which is indivisible exist in space. but the whole description is so ideal and imaginative, that we can hardly venture to attribute to many of plato's words in the timaeus any more meaning than to his mythical account of the heavens in the republic and in the phaedrus. (compare his denial of the 'blasphemous opinion' that there are planets or wandering stars; all alike move in circles--laws.) the stars are the habitations of the souls of men, from which they come and to which they return. in attributing to the fixed stars only the most perfect motion--that which is on the same spot or circulating around the same--he might perhaps have said that to 'the spectator of all time and all existence,' to borrow once more his own grand expression, or viewed, in the language of spinoza, 'sub specie aeternitatis,' they were still at rest, but appeared to move in order to teach men the periods of time. although absolutely in motion, they are relatively at rest; or we may conceive of them as resting, while the space in which they are contained, or the whole anima mundi, revolves. the universe revolves around a centre once in twenty-four hours, but the orbits of the fixed stars take a different direction from those of the planets. the outer and the inner sphere cross one another and meet again at a point opposite to that of their first contact; the first moving in a circle from left to right along the side of a parallelogram which is supposed to be inscribed in it, the second also moving in a circle along the diagonal of the same parallelogram from right to left; or, in other words, the first describing the path of the equator, the second, the path of the ecliptic. the motion of the second is controlled by the first, and hence the oblique line in which the planets are supposed to move becomes a spiral. the motion of the same is said to be undivided, whereas the inner motion is split into seven unequal orbits--the intervals between them being in the ratio of two and three, three of either:--the sun, moving in the opposite direction to mercury and venus, but with equal swiftness; the remaining four, moon, saturn, mars, jupiter, with unequal swiftness to the former three and to one another. thus arises the following progression:--moon , sun , venus , mercury , mars , jupiter , saturn . this series of numbers is the compound of the two pythagorean ratios, having the same intervals, though not in the same order, as the mixture which was originally divided in forming the soul of the world. plato was struck by the phenomenon of mercury, venus, and the sun appearing to overtake and be overtaken by one another. the true reason of this, namely, that they lie within the circle of the earth's orbit, was unknown to him, and the reason which he gives--that the two former move in an opposite direction to the latter--is far from explaining the appearance of them in the heavens. all the planets, including the sun, are carried round in the daily motion of the circle of the fixed stars, and they have a second or oblique motion which gives the explanation of the different lengths of the sun's course in different parts of the earth. the fixed stars have also two movements--a forward movement in their orbit which is common to the whole circle; and a movement on the same spot around an axis, which plato calls the movement of thought about the same. in this latter respect they are more perfect than the wandering stars, as plato himself terms them in the timaeus, although in the laws he condemns the appellation as blasphemous. the revolution of the world around earth, which is accomplished in a single day and night, is described as being the most perfect or intelligent. yet plato also speaks of an 'annus magnus' or cyclical year, in which periods wonderful for their complexity are found to coincide in a perfect number, i.e. a number which equals the sum of its factors, as = + + . this, although not literally contradictory, is in spirit irreconcilable with the perfect revolution of twenty-four hours. the same remark may be applied to the complexity of the appearances and occultations of the stars, which, if the outer heaven is supposed to be moving around the centre once in twenty-four hours, must be confined to the effects produced by the seven planets. plato seems to confuse the actual observation of the heavens with his desire to find in them mathematical perfection. the same spirit is carried yet further by him in the passage already quoted from the laws, in which he affirms their wanderings to be an appearance only, which a little knowledge of mathematics would enable men to correct. we have now to consider the much discussed question of the rotation or immobility of the earth. plato's doctrine on this subject is contained in the following words:--'the earth, which is our nurse, compacted (or revolving) around the pole which is extended through the universe, he made to be the guardian and artificer of night and day, first and eldest of gods that are in the interior of heaven'. there is an unfortunate doubt in this passage ( ) about the meaning of the word (greek), which is translated either 'compacted' or 'revolving,' and is equally capable of both explanations. a doubt ( ) may also be raised as to whether the words 'artificer of day and night' are consistent with the mere passive causation of them, produced by the immobility of the earth in the midst of the circling universe. we must admit, further, ( ) that aristotle attributed to plato the doctrine of the rotation of the earth on its axis. on the other hand it has been urged that if the earth goes round with the outer heaven and sun in twenty-four hours, there is no way of accounting for the alternation of day and night; since the equal motion of the earth and sun would have the effect of absolute immobility. to which it may be replied that plato never says that the earth goes round with the outer heaven and sun; although the whole question depends on the relation of earth and sun, their movements are nowhere precisely described. but if we suppose, with mr. grote, that the diurnal rotation of the earth on its axis and the revolution of the sun and outer heaven precisely coincide, it would be difficult to imagine that plato was unaware of the consequence. for though he was ignorant of many things which are familiar to us, and often confused in his ideas where we have become clear, we have no right to attribute to him a childish want of reasoning about very simple facts, or an inability to understand the necessary and obvious deductions from geometrical figures or movements. of the causes of day and night the pre-socratic philosophers, and especially the pythagoreans, gave various accounts, and therefore the question can hardly be imagined to have escaped him. on the other hand it may be urged that the further step, however simple and obvious, is just what plato often seems to be ignorant of, and that as there is no limit to his insight, there is also no limit to the blindness which sometimes obscures his intelligence (compare the construction of solids out of surfaces in his account of the creation of the world, or the attraction of similars to similars). further, mr. grote supposes, not that (greek) means 'revolving,' or that this is the sense in which aristotle understood the word, but that the rotation of the earth is necessarily implied in its adherence to the cosmical axis. but (a) if, as mr grote assumes, plato did not see that the rotation of the earth on its axis and of the sun and outer heavens around the earth in equal times was inconsistent with the alternation of day and night, neither need we suppose that he would have seen the immobility of the earth to be inconsistent with the rotation of the axis. and (b) what proof is there that the axis of the world revolves at all? (c) the comparison of the two passages quoted by mr grote (see his pamphlet on 'the rotation of the earth') from aristotle de coelo, book ii (greek) clearly shows, although this is a matter of minor importance, that aristotle, as proclus and simplicius supposed, understood (greek) in the timaeus to mean 'revolving.' for the second passage, in which motion on an axis is expressly mentioned, refers to the first, but this would be unmeaning unless (greek) in the first passage meant rotation on an axis. ( ) the immobility of the earth is more in accordance with plato's other writings than the opposite hypothesis. for in the phaedo the earth is described as the centre of the world, and is not said to be in motion. in the republic the pilgrims appear to be looking out from the earth upon the motions of the heavenly bodies; in the phaedrus, hestia, who remains immovable in the house of zeus while the other gods go in procession, is called the first and eldest of the gods, and is probably the symbol of the earth. the silence of plato in these and in some other passages (laws) in which he might be expected to speak of the rotation of the earth, is more favourable to the doctrine of its immobility than to the opposite. if he had meant to say that the earth revolves on its axis, he would have said so in distinct words, and have explained the relation of its movements to those of the other heavenly bodies. ( ) the meaning of the words 'artificer of day and night' is literally true according to plato's view. for the alternation of day and night is not produced by the motion of the heavens alone, or by the immobility of the earth alone, but by both together; and that which has the inherent force or energy to remain at rest when all other bodies are moving, may be truly said to act, equally with them. ( ) we should not lay too much stress on aristotle or the writer de caelo having adopted the other interpretation of the words, although alexander of aphrodisias thinks that he could not have been ignorant either of the doctrine of plato or of the sense which he intended to give to the word (greek). for the citations of plato in aristotle are frequently misinterpreted by him; and he seems hardly ever to have had in his mind the connection in which they occur. in this instance the allusion is very slight, and there is no reason to suppose that the diurnal revolution of the heavens was present to his mind. hence we need not attribute to him the error from which we are defending plato. after weighing one against the other all these complicated probabilities, the final conclusion at which we arrive is that there is nearly as much to be said on the one side of the question as on the other, and that we are not perfectly certain, whether, as bockh and the majority of commentators, ancient as well as modern, are inclined to believe, plato thought that the earth was at rest in the centre of the universe, or, as aristotle and mr. grote suppose, that it revolved on its axis. whether we assume the earth to be stationary in the centre of the universe, or to revolve with the heavens, no explanation is given of the variation in the length of days and nights at different times of the year. the relations of the earth and heavens are so indistinct in the timaeus and so figurative in the phaedo, phaedrus and republic, that we must give up the hope of ascertaining how they were imagined by plato, if he had any fixed or scientific conception of them at all. section . the soul of the world is framed on the analogy of the soul of man, and many traces of anthropomorphism blend with plato's highest flights of idealism. the heavenly bodies are endowed with thought; the principles of the same and other exist in the universe as well as in the human mind. the soul of man is made out of the remains of the elements which had been used in creating the soul of the world; these remains, however, are diluted to the third degree; by this plato expresses the measure of the difference between the soul human and divine. the human soul, like the cosmical, is framed before the body, as the mind is before the soul of either--this is the order of the divine work--and the finer parts of the body, which are more akin to the soul, such as the spinal marrow, are prior to the bones and flesh. the brain, the containing vessel of the divine part of the soul, is (nearly) in the form of a globe, which is the image of the gods, who are the stars, and of the universe. there is, however, an inconsistency in plato's manner of conceiving the soul of man; he cannot get rid of the element of necessity which is allowed to enter. he does not, like kant, attempt to vindicate for men a freedom out of space and time; but he acknowledges him to be subject to the influence of external causes, and leaves hardly any place for freedom of the will. the lusts of men are caused by their bodily constitution, though they may be increased by bad education and bad laws, which implies that they may be decreased by good education and good laws. he appears to have an inkling of the truth that to the higher nature of man evil is involuntary. this is mixed up with the view which, while apparently agreeing with it, is in reality the opposite of it, that vice is due to physical causes. in the timaeus, as well as in the laws, he also regards vices and crimes as simply involuntary; they are diseases analogous to the diseases of the body, and arising out of the same causes. if we draw together the opposite poles of plato's system, we find that, like spinoza, he combines idealism with fatalism. the soul of man is divided by him into three parts, answering roughly to the charioteer and steeds of the phaedrus, and to the (greek) of the republic and nicomachean ethics. first, there is the immortal nature of which the brain is the seat, and which is akin to the soul of the universe. this alone thinks and knows and is the ruler of the whole. secondly, there is the higher mortal soul which, though liable to perturbations of her own, takes the side of reason against the lower appetites. the seat of this is the heart, in which courage, anger, and all the nobler affections are supposed to reside. there the veins all meet; it is their centre or house of guard whence they carry the orders of the thinking being to the extremities of his kingdom. there is also a third or appetitive soul, which receives the commands of the immortal part, not immediately but mediately, through the liver, which reflects on its surface the admonitions and threats of the reason. the liver is imagined by plato to be a smooth and bright substance, having a store of sweetness and also of bitterness, which reason freely uses in the execution of her mandates. in this region, as ancient superstition told, were to be found intimations of the future. but plato is careful to observe that although such knowledge is given to the inferior parts of man, it requires to be interpreted by the superior. reason, and not enthusiasm, is the true guide of man; he is only inspired when he is demented by some distemper or possession. the ancient saying, that 'only a man in his senses can judge of his own actions,' is approved by modern philosophy too. the same irony which appears in plato's remark, that 'the men of old time must surely have known the gods who were their ancestors, and we should believe them as custom requires,' is also manifest in his account of divination. the appetitive soul is seated in the belly, and there imprisoned like a wild beast, far away from the council chamber, as plato graphically calls the head, in order that the animal passions may not interfere with the deliberations of reason. though the soul is said by him to be prior to the body, yet we cannot help seeing that it is constructed on the model of the body--the threefold division into the rational, passionate, and appetitive corresponding to the head, heart and belly. the human soul differs from the soul of the world in this respect, that it is enveloped and finds its expression in matter, whereas the soul of the world is not only enveloped or diffused in matter, but is the element in which matter moves. the breath of man is within him, but the air or aether of heaven is the element which surrounds him and all things. pleasure and pain are attributed in the timaeus to the suddenness of our sensations--the first being a sudden restoration, the second a sudden violation, of nature (phileb.). the sensations become conscious to us when they are exceptional. sight is not attended either by pleasure or pain, but hunger and the appeasing of hunger are pleasant and painful because they are extraordinary. section . i shall not attempt to connect the physiological speculations of plato either with ancient or modern medicine. what light i can throw upon them will be derived from the comparison of them with his general system. there is no principle so apparent in the physics of the timaeus, or in ancient physics generally, as that of continuity. the world is conceived of as a whole, and the elements are formed into and out of one another; the varieties of substances and processes are hardly known or noticed. and in a similar manner the human body is conceived of as a whole, and the different substances of which, to a superficial observer, it appears to be composed--the blood, flesh, sinews--like the elements out of which they are formed, are supposed to pass into one another in regular order, while the infinite complexity of the human frame remains unobserved. and diseases arise from the opposite process--when the natural proportions of the four elements are disturbed, and the secondary substances which are formed out of them, namely, blood, flesh, sinews, are generated in an inverse order. plato found heat and air within the human frame, and the blood circulating in every part. he assumes in language almost unintelligible to us that a network of fire and air envelopes the greater part of the body. this outer net contains two lesser nets, one corresponding to the stomach, the other to the lungs; and the entrance to the latter is forked or divided into two passages which lead to the nostrils and to the mouth. in the process of respiration the external net is said to find a way in and out of the pores of the skin: while the interior of it and the lesser nets move alternately into each other. the whole description is figurative, as plato himself implies when he speaks of a 'fountain of fire which we compare to the network of a creel.' he really means by this what we should describe as a state of heat or temperature in the interior of the body. the 'fountain of fire' or heat is also in a figure the circulation of the blood. the passage is partly imagination, partly fact. he has a singular theory of respiration for which he accounts solely by the movement of the air in and out of the body; he does not attribute any part of the process to the action of the body itself. the air has a double ingress and a double exit, through the mouth or nostrils, and through the skin. when exhaled through the mouth or nostrils, it leaves a vacuum which is filled up by other air finding a way in through the pores, this air being thrust out of its place by the exhalation from the mouth and nostrils. there is also a corresponding process of inhalation through the mouth or nostrils, and of exhalation through the pores. the inhalation through the pores appears to take place nearly at the same time as the exhalation through the mouth; and conversely. the internal fire is in either case the propelling cause outwards--the inhaled air, when heated by it, having a natural tendency to move out of the body to the place of fire; while the impossibility of a vacuum is the propelling cause inwards. thus we see that this singular theory is dependent on two principles largely employed by plato in explaining the operations of nature, the impossibility of a vacuum and the attraction of like to like. to these there has to be added a third principle, which is the condition of the action of the other two,--the interpenetration of particles in proportion to their density or rarity. it is this which enables fire and air to permeate the flesh. plato's account of digestion and the circulation of the blood is closely connected with his theory of respiration. digestion is supposed to be effected by the action of the internal fire, which in the process of respiration moves into the stomach and minces the food. as the fire returns to its place, it takes with it the minced food or blood; and in this way the veins are replenished. plato does not enquire how the blood is separated from the faeces. of the anatomy and functions of the body he knew very little,--e.g. of the uses of the nerves in conveying motion and sensation, which he supposed to be communicated by the bones and veins; he was also ignorant of the distinction between veins and arteries;--the latter term he applies to the vessels which conduct air from the mouth to the lungs;--he supposes the lung to be hollow and bloodless; the spinal marrow he conceives to be the seed of generation; he confuses the parts of the body with the states of the body--the network of fire and air is spoken of as a bodily organ; he has absolutely no idea of the phenomena of respiration, which he attributes to a law of equalization in nature, the air which is breathed out displacing other air which finds a way in; he is wholly unacquainted with the process of digestion. except the general divisions into the spleen, the liver, the belly, and the lungs, and the obvious distinctions of flesh, bones, and the limbs of the body, we find nothing that reminds us of anatomical facts. but we find much which is derived from his theory of the universe, and transferred to man, as there is much also in his theory of the universe which is suggested by man. the microcosm of the human body is the lesser image of the macrocosm. the courses of the same and the other affect both; they are made of the same elements and therefore in the same proportions. both are intelligent natures endued with the power of self-motion, and the same equipoise is maintained in both. the animal is a sort of 'world' to the particles of the blood which circulate in it. all the four elements entered into the original composition of the human frame; the bone was formed out of smooth earth; liquids of various kinds pass to and fro; the network of fire and air irrigates the veins. infancy and childhood is the chaos or first turbid flux of sense prior to the establishment of order; the intervals of time which may be observed in some intermittent fevers correspond to the density of the elements. the spinal marrow, including the brain, is formed out of the finest sorts of triangles, and is the connecting link between body and mind. health is only to be preserved by imitating the motions of the world in space, which is the mother and nurse of generation. the work of digestion is carried on by the superior sharpness of the triangles forming the substances of the human body to those which are introduced into it in the shape of food. the freshest and acutest forms of triangles are those that are found in children, but they become more obtuse with advancing years; and when they finally wear out and fall to pieces, old age and death supervene. as in the republic, plato is still the enemy of the purgative treatment of physicians, which, except in extreme cases, no man of sense will ever adopt. for, as he adds, with an insight into the truth, 'every disease is akin to the nature of the living being and is only irritated by stimulants.' he is of opinion that nature should be left to herself, and is inclined to think that physicians are in vain (laws--where he says that warm baths would be more beneficial to the limbs of the aged rustic than the prescriptions of a not over-wise doctor). if he seems to be extreme in his condemnation of medicine and to rely too much on diet and exercise, he might appeal to nearly all the best physicians of our own age in support of his opinions, who often speak to their patients of the worthlessness of drugs. for we ourselves are sceptical about medicine, and very unwilling to submit to the purgative treatment of physicians. may we not claim for plato an anticipation of modern ideas as about some questions of astronomy and physics, so also about medicine? as in the charmides he tells us that the body cannot be cured without the soul, so in the timaeus he strongly asserts the sympathy of soul and body; any defect of either is the occasion of the greatest discord and disproportion in the other. here too may be a presentiment that in the medicine of the future the interdependence of mind and body will be more fully recognized, and that the influence of the one over the other may be exerted in a manner which is not now thought possible. section . in plato's explanation of sensation we are struck by the fact that he has not the same distinct conception of organs of sense which is familiar to ourselves. the senses are not instruments, but rather passages, through which external objects strike upon the mind. the eye is the aperture through which the stream of vision passes, the ear is the aperture through which the vibrations of sound pass. but that the complex structure of the eye or the ear is in any sense the cause of sight and hearing he seems hardly to be aware. the process of sight is the most complicated (rep.), and consists of three elements--the light which is supposed to reside within the eye, the light of the sun, and the light emitted from external objects. when the light of the eye meets the light of the sun, and both together meet the light issuing from an external object, this is the simple act of sight. when the particles of light which proceed from the object are exactly equal to the particles of the visual ray which meet them from within, then the body is transparent. if they are larger and contract the visual ray, a black colour is produced; if they are smaller and dilate it, a white. other phenomena are produced by the variety and motion of light. a sudden flash of fire at once elicits light and moisture from the eye, and causes a bright colour. a more subdued light, on mingling with the moisture of the eye, produces a red colour. out of these elements all other colours are derived. all of them are combinations of bright and red with white and black. plato himself tells us that he does not know in what proportions they combine, and he is of opinion that such knowledge is granted to the gods only. to have seen the affinity of them to each other and their connection with light, is not a bad basis for a theory of colours. we must remember that they were not distinctly defined to his, as they are to our eyes; he saw them, not as they are divided in the prism, or artificially manufactured for the painter's use, but as they exist in nature, blended and confused with one another. we can hardly agree with him when he tells us that smells do not admit of kinds. he seems to think that no definite qualities can attach to bodies which are in a state of transition or evaporation; he also makes the subtle observation that smells must be denser than air, though thinner than water, because when there is an obstruction to the breathing, air can penetrate, but not smell. the affections peculiar to the tongue are of various kinds, and, like many other affections, are caused by contraction and dilation. some of them are produced by rough, others by abstergent, others by inflammatory substances,--these act upon the testing instruments of the tongue, and produce a more or less disagreeable sensation, while other particles congenial to the tongue soften and harmonize them. the instruments of taste reach from the tongue to the heart. plato has a lively sense of the manner in which sensation and motion are communicated from one part of the body to the other, though he confuses the affections with the organs. hearing is a blow which passes through the ear and ends in the region of the liver, being transmitted by means of the air, the brain, and the blood to the soul. the swifter sound is acute, the sound which moves slowly is grave. a great body of sound is loud, the opposite is low. discord is produced by the swifter and slower motions of two sounds, and is converted into harmony when the swifter motions begin to pause and are overtaken by the slower. the general phenomena of sensation are partly internal, but the more violent are caused by conflict with external objects. proceeding by a method of superficial observation, plato remarks that the more sensitive parts of the human frame are those which are least covered by flesh, as is the case with the head and the elbows. man, if his head had been covered with a thicker pulp of flesh, might have been a longer-lived animal than he is, but could not have had as quick perceptions. on the other hand, the tongue is one of the most sensitive of organs; but then this is made, not to be a covering to the bones which contain the marrow or source of life, but with an express purpose, and in a separate mass. section . we have now to consider how far in any of these speculations plato approximated to the discoveries of modern science. the modern physical philosopher is apt to dwell exclusively on the absurdities of ancient ideas about science, on the haphazard fancies and a priori assumptions of ancient teachers, on their confusion of facts and ideas, on their inconsistency and blindness to the most obvious phenomena. he measures them not by what preceded them, but by what has followed them. he does not consider that ancient physical philosophy was not a free enquiry, but a growth, in which the mind was passive rather than active, and was incapable of resisting the impressions which flowed in upon it. he hardly allows to the notions of the ancients the merit of being the stepping-stones by which he has himself risen to a higher knowledge. he never reflects, how great a thing it was to have formed a conception, however imperfect, either of the human frame as a whole, or of the world as a whole. according to the view taken in these volumes the errors of ancient physicists were not separable from the intellectual conditions under which they lived. their genius was their own; and they were not the rash and hasty generalizers which, since the days of bacon, we have been apt to suppose them. the thoughts of men widened to receive experience; at first they seemed to know all things as in a dream: after a while they look at them closely and hold them in their hands. they begin to arrange them in classes and to connect causes with effects. general notions are necessary to the apprehension of particular facts, the metaphysical to the physical. before men can observe the world, they must be able to conceive it. to do justice to the subject, we should consider the physical philosophy of the ancients as a whole; we should remember, ( ) that the nebular theory was the received belief of several of the early physicists; ( ) that the development of animals out of fishes who came to land, and of man out of the animals, was held by anaximander in the sixth century before christ (plut. symp. quaest; plac. phil.); ( ) that even by philolaus and the early pythagoreans, the earth was held to be a body like the other stars revolving in space around the sun or a central fire; ( ) that the beginnings of chemistry are discernible in the 'similar particles' of anaxagoras. also they knew or thought ( ) that there was a sex in plants as well as in animals; ( ) they were aware that musical notes depended on the relative length or tension of the strings from which they were emitted, and were measured by ratios of number; ( ) that mathematical laws pervaded the world; and even qualitative differences were supposed to have their origin in number and figure; ( ) the annihilation of matter was denied by several of them, and the seeming disappearance of it held to be a transformation only. for, although one of these discoveries might have been supposed to be a happy guess, taken together they seem to imply a great advance and almost maturity of natural knowledge. we should also remember, when we attribute to the ancients hasty generalizations and delusions of language, that physical philosophy and metaphysical too have been guilty of similar fallacies in quite recent times. we by no means distinguish clearly between mind and body, between ideas and facts. have not many discussions arisen about the atomic theory in which a point has been confused with a material atom? have not the natures of things been explained by imaginary entities, such as life or phlogiston, which exist in the mind only? has not disease been regarded, like sin, sometimes as a negative and necessary, sometimes as a positive or malignant principle? the 'idols' of bacon are nearly as common now as ever; they are inherent in the human mind, and when they have the most complete dominion over us, we are least able to perceive them. we recognize them in the ancients, but we fail to see them in ourselves. such reflections, although this is not the place in which to dwell upon them at length, lead us to take a favourable view of the speculations of the timaeus. we should consider not how much plato actually knew, but how far he has contributed to the general ideas of physics, or supplied the notions which, whether true or false, have stimulated the minds of later generations in the path of discovery. some of them may seem old-fashioned, but may nevertheless have had a great influence in promoting system and assisting enquiry, while in others we hear the latest word of physical or metaphysical philosophy. there is also an intermediate class, in which plato falls short of the truths of modern science, though he is not wholly unacquainted with them. ( ) to the first class belongs the teleological theory of creation. whether all things in the world can be explained as the result of natural laws, or whether we must not admit of tendencies and marks of design also, has been a question much disputed of late years. even if all phenomena are the result of natural forces, we must admit that there are many things in heaven and earth which are as well expressed under the image of mind or design as under any other. at any rate, the language of plato has been the language of natural theology down to our own time, nor can any description of the world wholly dispense with it. the notion of first and second or co-operative causes, which originally appears in the timaeus, has likewise survived to our own day, and has been a great peace-maker between theology and science. plato also approaches very near to our doctrine of the primary and secondary qualities of matter. ( ) another popular notion which is found in the timaeus, is the feebleness of the human intellect--'god knows the original qualities of things; man can only hope to attain to probability.' we speak in almost the same words of human intelligence, but not in the same manner of the uncertainty of our knowledge of nature. the reason is that the latter is assured to us by experiment, and is not contrasted with the certainty of ideal or mathematical knowledge. but the ancient philosopher never experimented: in the timaeus plato seems to have thought that there would be impiety in making the attempt; he, for example, who tried experiments in colours would 'forget the difference of the human and divine natures.' their indefiniteness is probably the reason why he singles them out, as especially incapable of being tested by experiment. (compare the saying of anaxagoras--sext. pyrrh.--that since snow is made of water and water is black, snow ought to be black.) the greatest 'divination' of the ancients was the supremacy which they assigned to mathematics in all the realms of nature; for in all of them there is a foundation of mechanics. even physiology partakes of figure and number; and plato is not wrong in attributing them to the human frame, but in the omission to observe how little could be explained by them. thus we may remark in passing that the most fanciful of ancient philosophies is also the most nearly verified in fact. the fortunate guess that the world is a sum of numbers and figures has been the most fruitful of anticipations. the 'diatonic' scale of the pythagoreans and plato suggested to kepler that the secret of the distances of the planets from one another was to be found in mathematical proportions. the doctrine that the heavenly bodies all move in a circle is known by us to be erroneous; but without such an error how could the human mind have comprehended the heavens? astronomy, even in modern times, has made far greater progress by the high a priori road than could have been attained by any other. yet, strictly speaking--and the remark applies to ancient physics generally--this high a priori road was based upon a posteriori grounds. for there were no facts of which the ancients were so well assured by experience as facts of number. having observed that they held good in a few instances, they applied them everywhere; and in the complexity, of which they were capable, found the explanation of the equally complex phenomena of the universe. they seemed to see them in the least things as well as in the greatest; in atoms, as well as in suns and stars; in the human body as well as in external nature. and now a favourite speculation of modern chemistry is the explanation of qualitative difference by quantitative, which is at present verified to a certain extent and may hereafter be of far more universal application. what is this but the atoms of democritus and the triangles of plato? the ancients should not be wholly deprived of the credit of their guesses because they were unable to prove them. may they not have had, like the animals, an instinct of something more than they knew? besides general notions we seem to find in the timaeus some more precise approximations to the discoveries of modern physical science. first, the doctrine of equipoise. plato affirms, almost in so many words, that nature abhors a vacuum. whenever a particle is displaced, the rest push and thrust one another until equality is restored. we must remember that these ideas were not derived from any definite experiment, but were the original reflections of man, fresh from the first observation of nature. the latest word of modern philosophy is continuity and development, but to plato this is the beginning and foundation of science; there is nothing that he is so strongly persuaded of as that the world is one, and that all the various existences which are contained in it are only the transformations of the same soul of the world acting on the same matter. he would have readily admitted that out of the protoplasm all things were formed by the gradual process of creation; but he would have insisted that mind and intelligence--not meaning by this, however, a conscious mind or person--were prior to them, and could alone have created them. into the workings of this eternal mind or intelligence he does not enter further; nor would there have been any use in attempting to investigate the things which no eye has seen nor any human language can express. lastly, there remain two points in which he seems to touch great discoveries of modern times--the law of gravitation, and the circulation of the blood. ( ) the law of gravitation, according to plato, is a law, not only of the attraction of lesser bodies to larger ones, but of similar bodies to similar, having a magnetic power as well as a principle of gravitation. he observed that earth, water, and air had settled down to their places, and he imagined fire or the exterior aether to have a place beyond air. when air seemed to go upwards and fire to pierce through air--when water and earth fell downward, they were seeking their native elements. he did not remark that his own explanation did not suit all phenomena; and the simpler explanation, which assigns to bodies degrees of heaviness and lightness proportioned to the mass and distance of the bodies which attract them, never occurred to him. yet the affinities of similar substances have some effect upon the composition of the world, and of this plato may be thought to have had an anticipation. he may be described as confusing the attraction of gravitation with the attraction of cohesion. the influence of such affinities and the chemical action of one body upon another in long periods of time have become a recognized principle of geology. ( ) plato is perfectly aware--and he could hardly be ignorant--that blood is a fluid in constant motion. he also knew that blood is partly a solid substance consisting of several elements, which, as he might have observed in the use of 'cupping-glasses', decompose and die, when no longer in motion. but the specific discovery that the blood flows out on one side of the heart through the arteries and returns through the veins on the other, which is commonly called the circulation of the blood, was absolutely unknown to him. a further study of the timaeus suggests some after-thoughts which may be conveniently brought together in this place. the topics which i propose briefly to reconsider are (a) the relation of the timaeus to the other dialogues of plato and to the previous philosophy; (b) the nature of god and of creation (c) the morality of the timaeus:-- (a) the timaeus is more imaginative and less scientific than any other of the platonic dialogues. it is conjectural astronomy, conjectural natural philosophy, conjectural medicine. the writer himself is constantly repeating that he is speaking what is probable only. the dialogue is put into the mouth of timaeus, a pythagorean philosopher, and therefore here, as in the parmenides, we are in doubt how far plato is expressing his own sentiments. hence the connexion with the other dialogues is comparatively slight. we may fill up the lacunae of the timaeus by the help of the republic or phaedrus: we may identify the same and other with the (greek) of the philebus. we may find in the laws or in the statesman parallels with the account of creation and of the first origin of man. it would be possible to frame a scheme in which all these various elements might have a place. but such a mode of proceeding would be unsatisfactory, because we have no reason to suppose that plato intended his scattered thoughts to be collected in a system. there is a common spirit in his writings, and there are certain general principles, such as the opposition of the sensible and intellectual, and the priority of mind, which run through all of them; but he has no definite forms of words in which he consistently expresses himself. while the determinations of human thought are in process of creation he is necessarily tentative and uncertain. and there is least of definiteness, whenever either in describing the beginning or the end of the world, he has recourse to myths. these are not the fixed modes in which spiritual truths are revealed to him, but the efforts of imagination, by which at different times and in various manners he seeks to embody his conceptions. the clouds of mythology are still resting upon him, and he has not yet pierced 'to the heaven of the fixed stars' which is beyond them. it is safer then to admit the inconsistencies of the timaeus, or to endeavour to fill up what is wanting from our own imagination, inspired by a study of the dialogue, than to refer to other platonic writings,--and still less should we refer to the successors of plato,--for the elucidation of it. more light is thrown upon the timaeus by a comparison of the previous philosophies. for the physical science of the ancients was traditional, descending through many generations of ionian and pythagorean philosophers. plato does not look out upon the heavens and describe what he sees in them, but he builds upon the foundations of others, adding something out of the 'depths of his own self-consciousness.' socrates had already spoken of god the creator, who made all things for the best. while he ridiculed the superficial explanations of phenomena which were current in his age, he recognised the marks both of benevolence and of design in the frame of man and in the world. the apparatus of winds and waters is contemptuously rejected by him in the phaedo, but he thinks that there is a power greater than that of any atlas in the 'best' (phaedo; arist. met.). plato, following his master, affirms this principle of the best, but he acknowledges that the best is limited by the conditions of matter. in the generation before socrates, anaxagoras had brought together 'chaos' and 'mind'; and these are connected by plato in the timaeus, but in accordance with his own mode of thinking he has interposed between them the idea or pattern according to which mind worked. the circular impulse (greek) of the one philosopher answers to the circular movement (greek) of the other. but unlike anaxagoras, plato made the sun and stars living beings and not masses of earth or metal. the pythagoreans again had framed a world out of numbers, which they constructed into figures. plato adopted their speculations and improved upon them by a more exact knowledge of geometry. the atomists too made the world, if not out of geometrical figures, at least out of different forms of atoms, and these atoms resembled the triangles of plato in being too small to be visible. but though the physiology of the timaeus is partly borrowed from them, they are either ignored by plato or referred to with a secret contempt and dislike. he looks with more favour on the pythagoreans, whose intervals of number applied to the distances of the planets reappear in the timaeus. it is probable that among the pythagoreans living in the fourth century b.c., there were already some who, like plato, made the earth their centre. whether he obtained his circles of the same and other from any previous thinker is uncertain. the four elements are taken from empedocles; the interstices of the timaeus may also be compared with his (greek). the passage of one element into another is common to heracleitus and several of the ionian philosophers. so much of a syncretist is plato, though not after the manner of the neoplatonists. for the elements which he borrows from others are fused and transformed by his own genius. on the other hand we find fewer traces in plato of early ionic or eleatic speculation. he does not imagine the world of sense to be made up of opposites or to be in a perpetual flux, but to vary within certain limits which are controlled by what he calls the principle of the same. unlike the eleatics, who relegated the world to the sphere of not-being, he admits creation to have an existence which is real and even eternal, although dependent on the will of the creator. instead of maintaining the doctrine that the void has a necessary place in the existence of the world, he rather affirms the modern thesis that nature abhors a vacuum, as in the sophist he also denies the reality of not-being (aristot. metaph.). but though in these respects he differs from them, he is deeply penetrated by the spirit of their philosophy; he differs from them with reluctance, and gladly recognizes the 'generous depth' of parmenides (theaet.). there is a similarity between the timaeus and the fragments of philolaus, which by some has been thought to be so great as to create a suspicion that they are derived from it. philolaus is known to us from the phaedo of plato as a pythagorean philosopher residing at thebes in the latter half of the fifth century b.c., after the dispersion of the original pythagorean society. he was the teacher of simmias and cebes, who became disciples of socrates. we have hardly any other information about him. the story that plato had purchased three books of his writings from a relation is not worth repeating; it is only a fanciful way in which an ancient biographer dresses up the fact that there was supposed to be a resemblance between the two writers. similar gossiping stories are told about the sources of the republic and the phaedo. that there really existed in antiquity a work passing under the name of philolaus there can be no doubt. fragments of this work are preserved to us, chiefly in stobaeus, a few in boethius and other writers. they remind us of the timaeus, as well as of the phaedrus and philebus. when the writer says (stob. eclog.) that all things are either finite (definite) or infinite (indefinite), or a union of the two, and that this antithesis and synthesis pervades all art and nature, we are reminded of the philebus. when he calls the centre of the world (greek), we have a parallel to the phaedrus. his distinction between the world of order, to which the sun and moon and the stars belong, and the world of disorder, which lies in the region between the moon and the earth, approximates to plato's sphere of the same and of the other. like plato (tim.), he denied the above and below in space, and said that all things were the same in relation to a centre. he speaks also of the world as one and indestructible: 'for neither from within nor from without does it admit of destruction' (tim). he mentions ten heavenly bodies, including the sun and moon, the earth and the counter-earth (greek), and in the midst of them all he places the central fire, around which they are moving--this is hidden from the earth by the counter-earth. of neither is there any trace in plato, who makes the earth the centre of his system. philolaus magnifies the virtues of particular numbers, especially of the number (stob. eclog.), and descants upon odd and even numbers, after the manner of the later pythagoreans. it is worthy of remark that these mystical fancies are nowhere to be found in the writings of plato, although the importance of number as a form and also an instrument of thought is ever present to his mind. both philolaus and plato agree in making the world move in certain numerical ratios according to a musical scale: though bockh is of opinion that the two scales, of philolaus and of the timaeus, do not correspond...we appear not to be sufficiently acquainted with the early pythagoreans to know how far the statements contained in these fragments corresponded with their doctrines; and we therefore cannot pronounce, either in favour of the genuineness of the fragments, with bockh and zeller, or, with valentine rose and schaarschmidt, against them. but it is clear that they throw but little light upon the timaeus, and that their resemblance to it has been exaggerated. that there is a degree of confusion and indistinctness in plato's account both of man and of the universe has been already acknowledged. we cannot tell (nor could plato himself have told) where the figure or myth ends and the philosophical truth begins; we cannot explain (nor could plato himself have explained to us) the relation of the ideas to appearance, of which one is the copy of the other, and yet of all things in the world they are the most opposed and unlike. this opposition is presented to us in many forms, as the antithesis of the one and many, of the finite and infinite, of the intelligible and sensible, of the unchangeable and the changing, of the indivisible and the divisible, of the fixed stars and the planets, of the creative mind and the primeval chaos. these pairs of opposites are so many aspects of the great opposition between ideas and phenomena--they easily pass into one another; and sometimes the two members of the relation differ in kind, sometimes only in degree. as in aristotle's matter and form the connexion between them is really inseparable; for if we attempt to separate them they become devoid of content and therefore indistinguishable; there is no difference between the idea of which nothing can be predicated, and the chaos or matter which has no perceptible qualities--between being in the abstract and nothing. yet we are frequently told that the one class of them is the reality and the other appearance; and one is often spoken of as the double or reflection of the other. for plato never clearly saw that both elements had an equal place in mind and in nature; and hence, especially when we argue from isolated passages in his writings, or attempt to draw what appear to us to be the natural inferences from them, we are full of perplexity. there is a similar confusion about necessity and free-will, and about the state of the soul after death. also he sometimes supposes that god is immanent in the world, sometimes that he is transcendent. and having no distinction of objective and subjective, he passes imperceptibly from one to the other; from intelligence to soul, from eternity to time. these contradictions may be softened or concealed by a judicious use of language, but they cannot be wholly got rid of. that an age of intellectual transition must also be one of inconsistency; that the creative is opposed to the critical or defining habit of mind or time, has been often repeated by us. but, as plato would say, 'there is no harm in repeating twice or thrice' (laws) what is important for the understanding of a great author. it has not, however, been observed, that the confusion partly arises out of the elements of opposing philosophies which are preserved in him. he holds these in solution, he brings them into relation with one another, but he does not perfectly harmonize them. they are part of his own mind, and he is incapable of placing himself outside of them and criticizing them. they grow as he grows; they are a kind of composition with which his own philosophy is overlaid. in early life he fancies that he has mastered them: but he is also mastered by them; and in language (sophist) which may be compared with the hesitating tone of the timaeus, he confesses in his later years that they are full of obscurity to him. he attributes new meanings to the words of parmenides and heracleitus; but at times the old eleatic philosophy appears to go beyond him; then the world of phenomena disappears, but the doctrine of ideas is also reduced to nothingness. all of them are nearer to one another than they themselves supposed, and nearer to him than he supposed. all of them are antagonistic to sense and have an affinity to number and measure and a presentiment of ideas. even in plato they still retain their contentious or controversial character, which was developed by the growth of dialectic. he is never able to reconcile the first causes of the pre-socratic philosophers with the final causes of socrates himself. there is no intelligible account of the relation of numbers to the universal ideas, or of universals to the idea of good. he found them all three, in the pythagorean philosophy and in the teaching of socrates and of the megarians respectively; and, because they all furnished modes of explaining and arranging phenomena, he is unwilling to give up any of them, though he is unable to unite them in a consistent whole. lastly, plato, though an idealist philosopher, is greek and not oriental in spirit and feeling. he is no mystic or ascetic; he is not seeking in vain to get rid of matter or to find absorption in the divine nature, or in the soul of the universe. and therefore we are not surprised to find that his philosophy in the timaeus returns at last to a worship of the heavens, and that to him, as to other greeks, nature, though containing a remnant of evil, is still glorious and divine. he takes away or drops the veil of mythology, and presents her to us in what appears to him to be the form-fairer and truer far--of mathematical figures. it is this element in the timaeus, no less than its affinity to certain pythagorean speculations, which gives it a character not wholly in accordance with the other dialogues of plato. (b) the timaeus contains an assertion perhaps more distinct than is found in any of the other dialogues (rep.; laws) of the goodness of god. 'he was good himself, and he fashioned the good everywhere.' he was not 'a jealous god,' and therefore he desired that all other things should be equally good. he is the idea of good who has now become a person, and speaks and is spoken of as god. yet his personality seems to appear only in the act of creation. in so far as he works with his eye fixed upon an eternal pattern he is like the human artificer in the republic. here the theory of platonic ideas intrudes upon us. god, like man, is supposed to have an ideal of which plato is unable to tell us the origin. he may be said, in the language of modern philosophy, to resolve the divine mind into subject and object. the first work of creation is perfected, the second begins under the direction of inferior ministers. the supreme god is withdrawn from the world and returns to his own accustomed nature (tim.). as in the statesman, he retires to his place of view. so early did the epicurean doctrine take possession of the greek mind, and so natural is it to the heart of man, when he has once passed out of the stage of mythology into that of rational religion. for he sees the marks of design in the world; but he no longer sees or fancies that he sees god walking in the garden or haunting stream or mountain. he feels also that he must put god as far as possible out of the way of evil, and therefore he banishes him from an evil world. plato is sensible of the difficulty; and he often shows that he is desirous of justifying the ways of god to man. yet on the other hand, in the tenth book of the laws he passes a censure on those who say that the gods have no care of human things. the creation of the world is the impression of order on a previously existing chaos. the formula of anaxagoras--'all things were in chaos or confusion, and then mind came and disposed them'--is a summary of the first part of the timaeus. it is true that of a chaos without differences no idea could be formed. all was not mixed but one; and therefore it was not difficult for the later platonists to draw inferences by which they were enabled to reconcile the narrative of the timaeus with the mosaic account of the creation. neither when we speak of mind or intelligence, do we seem to get much further in our conception than circular motion, which was deemed to be the most perfect. plato, like anaxagoras, while commencing his theory of the universe with ideas of mind and of the best, is compelled in the execution of his design to condescend to the crudest physics. (c) the morality of the timaeus is singular, and it is difficult to adjust the balance between the two elements of it. the difficulty which plato feels, is that which all of us feel, and which is increased in our own day by the progress of physical science, how the responsibility of man is to be reconciled with his dependence on natural causes. and sometimes, like other men, he is more impressed by one aspect of human life, sometimes by the other. in the republic he represents man as freely choosing his own lot in a state prior to birth--a conception which, if taken literally, would still leave him subject to the dominion of necessity in his after life; in the statesman he supposes the human race to be preserved in the world only by a divine interposition; while in the timaeus the supreme god commissions the inferior deities to avert from him all but self-inflicted evils--words which imply that all the evils of men are really self-inflicted. and here, like plato (the insertion of a note in the text of an ancient writer is a literary curiosity worthy of remark), we may take occasion to correct an error. for we too hastily said that plato in the timaeus regarded all 'vices and crimes as involuntary.' but the fact is that he is inconsistent with himself; in one and the same passage vice is attributed to the relaxation of the bodily frame, and yet we are exhorted to avoid it and pursue virtue. it is also admitted that good and evil conduct are to be attributed respectively to good and evil laws and institutions. these cannot be given by individuals to themselves; and therefore human actions, in so far as they are dependent upon them, are regarded by plato as involuntary rather than voluntary. like other writers on this subject, he is unable to escape from some degree of self-contradiction. he had learned from socrates that vice is ignorance, and suddenly the doctrine seems to him to be confirmed by observing how much of the good and bad in human character depends on the bodily constitution. so in modern times the speculative doctrine of necessity has often been supported by physical facts. the timaeus also contains an anticipation of the stoical life according to nature. man contemplating the heavens is to regulate his erring life according to them. he is to partake of the repose of nature and of the order of nature, to bring the variable principle in himself into harmony with the principle of the same. the ethics of the timaeus may be summed up in the single idea of 'law.' to feel habitually that he is part of the order of the universe, is one of the highest ethical motives of which man is capable. something like this is what plato means when he speaks of the soul 'moving about the same in unchanging thought of the same.' he does not explain how man is acted upon by the lesser influences of custom or of opinion; or how the commands of the soul watching in the citadel are conveyed to the bodily organs. but this perhaps, to use once more expressions of his own, 'is part of another subject' or 'may be more suitably discussed on some other occasion.' there is no difficulty, by the help of aristotle and later writers, in criticizing the timaeus of plato, in pointing out the inconsistencies of the work, in dwelling on the ignorance of anatomy displayed by the author, in showing the fancifulness or unmeaningness of some of his reasons. but the timaeus still remains the greatest effort of the human mind to conceive the world as a whole which the genius of antiquity has bequeathed to us. ***** one more aspect of the timaeus remains to be considered--the mythological or geographical. is it not a wonderful thing that a few pages of one of plato's dialogues have grown into a great legend, not confined to greece only, but spreading far and wide over the nations of europe and reaching even to egypt and asia? like the tale of troy, or the legend of the ten tribes (ewald, hist. of isr.), which perhaps originated in a few verses of ii esdras, it has become famous, because it has coincided with a great historical fact. like the romance of king arthur, which has had so great a charm, it has found a way over the seas from one country and language to another. it inspired the navigators of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries; it foreshadowed the discovery of america. it realized the fiction so natural to the human mind, because it answered the enquiry about the origin of the arts, that there had somewhere existed an ancient primitive civilization. it might find a place wherever men chose to look for it; in north, south, east, or west; in the islands of the blest; before the entrance of the straits of gibraltar, in sweden or in palestine. it mattered little whether the description in plato agreed with the locality assigned to it or not. it was a legend so adapted to the human mind that it made a habitation for itself in any country. it was an island in the clouds, which might be seen anywhere by the eye of faith. it was a subject especially congenial to the ponderous industry of certain french and swedish writers, who delighted in heaping up learning of all sorts but were incapable of using it. m. martin has written a valuable dissertation on the opinions entertained respecting the island of atlantis in ancient and modern times. it is a curious chapter in the history of the human mind. the tale of atlantis is the fabric of a vision, but it has never ceased to interest mankind. it was variously regarded by the ancients themselves. the stronger heads among them, like strabo and longinus, were as little disposed to believe in the truth of it as the modern reader in gulliver or robinson crusoe. on the other hand there is no kind or degree of absurdity or fancy in which the more foolish writers, both of antiquity and of modern times, have not indulged respecting it. the neo-platonists, loyal to their master, like some commentators on the christian scriptures, sought to give an allegorical meaning to what they also believed to be an historical fact. it was as if some one in our own day were to convert the poems of homer into an allegory of the christian religion, at the same time maintaining them to be an exact and veritable history. in the middle ages the legend seems to have been half-forgotten until revived by the discovery of america. it helped to form the utopia of sir thomas more and the new atlantis of bacon, although probably neither of those great men were at all imposed upon by the fiction. it was most prolific in the seventeenth or in the early part of the eighteenth century, when the human mind, seeking for utopias or inventing them, was glad to escape out of the dulness of the present into the romance of the past or some ideal of the future. the later forms of such narratives contained features taken from the edda, as well as from the old and new testament; also from the tales of missionaries and the experiences of travellers and of colonists. the various opinions respecting the island of atlantis have no interest for us except in so far as they illustrate the extravagances of which men are capable. but this is a real interest and a serious lesson, if we remember that now as formerly the human mind is liable to be imposed upon by the illusions of the past, which are ever assuming some new form. when we have shaken off the rubbish of ages, there remain one or two questions of which the investigation has a permanent value:-- . did plato derive the legend of atlantis from an egyptian source? it may be replied that there is no such legend in any writer previous to plato; neither in homer, nor in pindar, nor in herodotus is there any mention of an island of atlantis, nor any reference to it in aristotle, nor any citation of an earlier writer by a later one in which it is to be found. nor have any traces been discovered hitherto in egyptian monuments of a connexion between greece and egypt older than the eighth or ninth century b.c. it is true that proclus, writing in the fifth century after christ, tells us of stones and columns in egypt on which the history of the island of atlantis was engraved. the statement may be false--there are similar tales about columns set up 'by the canaanites whom joshua drove out' (procop.); but even if true, it would only show that the legend, years after the time of plato, had been transferred to egypt, and inscribed, not, like other forgeries, in books, but on stone. probably in the alexandrian age, when egypt had ceased to have a history and began to appropriate the legends of other nations, many such monuments were to be found of events which had become famous in that or other countries. the oldest witness to the story is said to be crantor, a stoic philosopher who lived a generation later than plato, and therefore may have borrowed it from him. the statement is found in proclus; but we require better assurance than proclus can give us before we accept this or any other statement which he makes. secondly, passing from the external to the internal evidence, we may remark that the story is far more likely to have been invented by plato than to have been brought by solon from egypt. that is another part of his legend which plato also seeks to impose upon us. the verisimilitude which he has given to the tale is a further reason for suspecting it; for he could easily 'invent egyptian or any other tales' (phaedrus). are not the words, 'the truth of the story is a great advantage,' if we read between the lines, an indication of the fiction? it is only a legend that solon went to egypt, and if he did he could not have conversed with egyptian priests or have read records in their temples. the truth is that the introduction is a mosaic work of small touches which, partly by their minuteness, and also by their seeming probability, win the confidence of the reader. who would desire better evidence than that of critias, who had heard the narrative in youth when the memory is strongest at the age of ten from his grandfather critias, an old man of ninety, who in turn had heard it from solon himself? is not the famous expression--'you hellenes are ever children and there is no knowledge among you hoary with age,' really a compliment to the athenians who are described in these words as 'ever young'? and is the thought expressed in them to be attributed to the learning of the egyptian priest, and not rather to the genius of plato? or when the egyptian says--'hereafter at our leisure we will take up the written documents and examine in detail the exact truth about these things'--what is this but a literary trick by which plato sets off his narrative? could any war between athens and the island of atlantis have really coincided with the struggle between the greeks and persians, as is sufficiently hinted though not expressly stated in the narrative of plato? and whence came the tradition to egypt? or in what does the story consist except in the war between the two rival powers and the submersion of both of them? and how was the tale transferred to the poem of solon? 'it is not improbable,' says mr. grote, 'that solon did leave an unfinished egyptian poem' (plato). but are probabilities for which there is not a tittle of evidence, and which are without any parallel, to be deemed worthy of attention by the critic? how came the poem of solon to disappear in antiquity? or why did plato, if the whole narrative was known to him, break off almost at the beginning of it? while therefore admiring the diligence and erudition of m. martin, we cannot for a moment suppose that the tale was told to solon by an egyptian priest, nor can we believe that solon wrote a poem upon the theme which was thus suggested to him--a poem which disappeared in antiquity; or that the island of atlantis or the antediluvian athens ever had any existence except in the imagination of plato. martin is of opinion that plato would have been terrified if he could have foreseen the endless fancies to which his island of atlantis has given occasion. rather he would have been infinitely amused if he could have known that his gift of invention would have deceived m. martin himself into the belief that the tradition was brought from egypt by solon and made the subject of a poem by him. m. martin may also be gently censured for citing without sufficient discrimination ancient authors having very different degrees of authority and value. . it is an interesting and not unimportant question which is touched upon by martin, whether the atlantis of plato in any degree held out a guiding light to the early navigators. he is inclined to think that there is no real connexion between them. but surely the discovery of the new world was preceded by a prophetic anticipation of it, which, like the hope of a messiah, was entering into the hearts of men? and this hope was nursed by ancient tradition, which had found expression from time to time in the celebrated lines of seneca and in many other places. this tradition was sustained by the great authority of plato, and therefore the legend of the island of atlantis, though not closely connected with the voyages of the early navigators, may be truly said to have contributed indirectly to the great discovery. the timaeus of plato, like the protagoras and several portions of the phaedrus and republic, was translated by cicero into latin. about a fourth, comprehending with lacunae the first portion of the dialogue, is preserved in several mss. these generally agree, and therefore may be supposed to be derived from a single original. the version is very faithful, and is a remarkable monument of cicero's skill in managing the difficult and intractable greek. in his treatise de natura deorum, he also refers to the timaeus, which, speaking in the person of velleius the epicurean, he severely criticises. the commentary of proclus on the timaeus is a wonderful monument of the silliness and prolixity of the alexandrian age. it extends to about thirty pages of the book, and is thirty times the length of the original. it is surprising that this voluminous work should have found a translator (thomas taylor, a kindred spirit, who was himself a neo-platonist, after the fashion, not of the fifth or sixteenth, but of the nineteenth century a.d.). the commentary is of little or no value, either in a philosophical or philological point of view. the writer is unable to explain particular passages in any precise manner, and he is equally incapable of grasping the whole. he does not take words in their simple meaning or sentences in their natural connexion. he is thinking, not of the context in plato, but of the contemporary pythagorean philosophers and their wordy strife. he finds nothing in the text which he does not bring to it. he is full of porphyry, iamblichus and plotinus, of misapplied logic, of misunderstood grammar, and of the orphic theology. although such a work can contribute little or nothing to the understanding of plato, it throws an interesting light on the alexandrian times; it realizes how a philosophy made up of words only may create a deep and widespread enthusiasm, how the forms of logic and rhetoric may usurp the place of reason and truth, how all philosophies grow faded and discoloured, and are patched and made up again like worn-out garments, and retain only a second-hand existence. he who would study this degeneracy of philosophy and of the greek mind in the original cannot do better than devote a few of his days and nights to the commentary of proclus on the timaeus. a very different account must be given of the short work entitled 'timaeus locrus,' which is a brief but clear analysis of the timaeus of plato, omitting the introduction or dialogue and making a few small additions. it does not allude to the original from which it is taken; it is quite free from mysticism and neo-platonism. in length it does not exceed a fifth part of the timaeus. it is written in the doric dialect, and contains several words which do not occur in classical greek. no other indication of its date, except this uncertain one of language, appears in it. in several places the writer has simplified the language of plato, in a few others he has embellished and exaggerated it. he generally preserves the thought of the original, but does not copy the words. on the whole this little tract faithfully reflects the meaning and spirit of the timaeus. from the garden of the timaeus, as from the other dialogues of plato, we may still gather a few flowers and present them at parting to the reader. there is nothing in plato grander and simpler than the conversation between solon and the egyptian priest, in which the youthfulness of hellas is contrasted with the antiquity of egypt. here are to be found the famous words, 'o solon, solon, you hellenes are ever young, and there is not an old man among you'--which may be compared to the lively saying of hegel, that 'greek history began with the youth achilles and left off with the youth alexander.' the numerous arts of verisimilitude by which plato insinuates into the mind of the reader the truth of his narrative have been already referred to. here occur a sentence or two not wanting in platonic irony (greek--a word to the wise). 'to know or tell the origin of the other divinities is beyond us, and we must accept the traditions of the men of old time who affirm themselves to be the offspring of the gods--that is what they say--and they must surely have known their own ancestors. how can we doubt the word of the children of the gods? although they give no probable or certain proofs, still, as they declare that they are speaking of what took place in their own family, we must conform to custom and believe them.' 'our creators well knew that women and other animals would some day be framed out of men, and they further knew that many animals would require the use of nails for many purposes; wherefore they fashioned in men at their first creation the rudiments of nails.' or once more, let us reflect on two serious passages in which the order of the world is supposed to find a place in the human soul and to infuse harmony into it. 'the soul, when touching anything that has essence, whether dispersed in parts or undivided, is stirred through all her powers to declare the sameness or difference of that thing and some other; and to what individuals are related, and by what affected, and in what way and how and when, both in the world of generation and in the world of immutable being. and when reason, which works with equal truth, whether she be in the circle of the diverse or of the same,--in voiceless silence holding her onward course in the sphere of the self-moved,--when reason, i say, is hovering around the sensible world, and when the circle of the diverse also moving truly imparts the intimations of sense to the whole soul, then arise opinions and beliefs sure and certain. but when reason is concerned with the rational, and the circle of the same moving smoothly declares it, then intelligence and knowledge are necessarily perfected;' where, proceeding in a similar path of contemplation, he supposes the inward and the outer world mutually to imply each other. 'god invented and gave us sight to the end that we might behold the courses of intelligence in the heaven, and apply them to the courses of our own intelligence which are akin to them, the unperturbed to the perturbed; and that we, learning them and partaking of the natural truth of reason, might imitate the absolutely unerring courses of god and regulate our own vagaries.' or let us weigh carefully some other profound thoughts, such as the following. 'he who neglects education walks lame to the end of his life, and returns imperfect and good for nothing to the world below.' 'the father and maker of all this universe is past finding out; and even if we found him, to tell of him to all men would be impossible.' 'let me tell you then why the creator made this world of generation. he was good, and the good can never have jealousy of anything. and being free from jealousy, he desired that all things should be as like himself as they could be. this is in the truest sense the origin of creation and of the world, as we shall do well in believing on the testimony of wise men: god desired that all things should be good and nothing bad, so far as this was attainable.' this is the leading thought in the timaeus, just as the idea of good is the leading thought of the republic, the one expression describing the personal, the other the impersonal good or god, differing in form rather than in substance, and both equally implying to the mind of plato a divine reality. the slight touch, perhaps ironical, contained in the words, 'as we shall do well in believing on the testimony of wise men,' is very characteristic of plato. ***** timaeus. persons of the dialogue: socrates, critias, timaeus, hermocrates. socrates: one, two, three; but where, my dear timaeus, is the fourth of those who were yesterday my guests and are to be my entertainers to-day? timaeus: he has been taken ill, socrates; for he would not willingly have been absent from this gathering. socrates: then, if he is not coming, you and the two others must supply his place. timaeus: certainly, and we will do all that we can; having been handsomely entertained by you yesterday, those of us who remain should be only too glad to return your hospitality. socrates: do you remember what were the points of which i required you to speak? timaeus: we remember some of them, and you will be here to remind us of anything which we have forgotten: or rather, if we are not troubling you, will you briefly recapitulate the whole, and then the particulars will be more firmly fixed in our memories? socrates: to be sure i will: the chief theme of my yesterday's discourse was the state--how constituted and of what citizens composed it would seem likely to be most perfect. timaeus: yes, socrates; and what you said of it was very much to our mind. socrates: did we not begin by separating the husbandmen and the artisans from the class of defenders of the state? timaeus: yes. socrates: and when we had given to each one that single employment and particular art which was suited to his nature, we spoke of those who were intended to be our warriors, and said that they were to be guardians of the city against attacks from within as well as from without, and to have no other employment; they were to be merciful in judging their subjects, of whom they were by nature friends, but fierce to their enemies, when they came across them in battle. timaeus: exactly. socrates: we said, if i am not mistaken, that the guardians should be gifted with a temperament in a high degree both passionate and philosophical; and that then they would be as they ought to be, gentle to their friends and fierce with their enemies. timaeus: certainly. socrates: and what did we say of their education? were they not to be trained in gymnastic, and music, and all other sorts of knowledge which were proper for them? timaeus: very true. socrates: and being thus trained they were not to consider gold or silver or anything else to be their own private property; they were to be like hired troops, receiving pay for keeping guard from those who were protected by them--the pay was to be no more than would suffice for men of simple life; and they were to spend in common, and to live together in the continual practice of virtue, which was to be their sole pursuit. timaeus: that was also said. socrates: neither did we forget the women; of whom we declared, that their natures should be assimilated and brought into harmony with those of the men, and that common pursuits should be assigned to them both in time of war and in their ordinary life. timaeus: that, again, was as you say. socrates: and what about the procreation of children? or rather was not the proposal too singular to be forgotten? for all wives and children were to be in common, to the intent that no one should ever know his own child, but they were to imagine that they were all one family; those who were within a suitable limit of age were to be brothers and sisters, those who were of an elder generation parents and grandparents, and those of a younger, children and grandchildren. timaeus: yes, and the proposal is easy to remember, as you say. socrates: and do you also remember how, with a view of securing as far as we could the best breed, we said that the chief magistrates, male and female, should contrive secretly, by the use of certain lots, so to arrange the nuptial meeting, that the bad of either sex and the good of either sex might pair with their like; and there was to be no quarrelling on this account, for they would imagine that the union was a mere accident, and was to be attributed to the lot? timaeus: i remember. socrates: and you remember how we said that the children of the good parents were to be educated, and the children of the bad secretly dispersed among the inferior citizens; and while they were all growing up the rulers were to be on the look-out, and to bring up from below in their turn those who were worthy, and those among themselves who were unworthy were to take the places of those who came up? timaeus: true. socrates: then have i now given you all the heads of our yesterday's discussion? or is there anything more, my dear timaeus, which has been omitted? timaeus: nothing, socrates; it was just as you have said. socrates: i should like, before proceeding further, to tell you how i feel about the state which we have described. i might compare myself to a person who, on beholding beautiful animals either created by the painter's art, or, better still, alive but at rest, is seized with a desire of seeing them in motion or engaged in some struggle or conflict to which their forms appear suited; this is my feeling about the state which we have been describing. there are conflicts which all cities undergo, and i should like to hear some one tell of our own city carrying on a struggle against her neighbours, and how she went out to war in a becoming manner, and when at war showed by the greatness of her actions and the magnanimity of her words in dealing with other cities a result worthy of her training and education. now i, critias and hermocrates, am conscious that i myself should never be able to celebrate the city and her citizens in a befitting manner, and i am not surprised at my own incapacity; to me the wonder is rather that the poets present as well as past are no better--not that i mean to depreciate them; but every one can see that they are a tribe of imitators, and will imitate best and most easily the life in which they have been brought up; while that which is beyond the range of a man's education he finds hard to carry out in action, and still harder adequately to represent in language. i am aware that the sophists have plenty of brave words and fair conceits, but i am afraid that being only wanderers from one city to another, and having never had habitations of their own, they may fail in their conception of philosophers and statesmen, and may not know what they do and say in time of war, when they are fighting or holding parley with their enemies. and thus people of your class are the only ones remaining who are fitted by nature and education to take part at once both in politics and philosophy. here is timaeus, of locris in italy, a city which has admirable laws, and who is himself in wealth and rank the equal of any of his fellow-citizens; he has held the most important and honourable offices in his own state, and, as i believe, has scaled the heights of all philosophy; and here is critias, whom every athenian knows to be no novice in the matters of which we are speaking; and as to hermocrates, i am assured by many witnesses that his genius and education qualify him to take part in any speculation of the kind. and therefore yesterday when i saw that you wanted me to describe the formation of the state, i readily assented, being very well aware, that, if you only would, none were better qualified to carry the discussion further, and that when you had engaged our city in a suitable war, you of all men living could best exhibit her playing a fitting part. when i had completed my task, i in return imposed this other task upon you. you conferred together and agreed to entertain me to-day, as i had entertained you, with a feast of discourse. here am i in festive array, and no man can be more ready for the promised banquet. hermocrates: and we too, socrates, as timaeus says, will not be wanting in enthusiasm; and there is no excuse for not complying with your request. as soon as we arrived yesterday at the guest-chamber of critias, with whom we are staying, or rather on our way thither, we talked the matter over, and he told us an ancient tradition, which i wish, critias, that you would repeat to socrates, so that he may help us to judge whether it will satisfy his requirements or not. critias: i will, if timaeus, who is our other partner, approves. timaeus: i quite approve. critias: then listen, socrates, to a tale which, though strange, is certainly true, having been attested by solon, who was the wisest of the seven sages. he was a relative and a dear friend of my great-grandfather, dropides, as he himself says in many passages of his poems; and he told the story to critias, my grandfather, who remembered and repeated it to us. there were of old, he said, great and marvellous actions of the athenian city, which have passed into oblivion through lapse of time and the destruction of mankind, and one in particular, greater than all the rest. this we will now rehearse. it will be a fitting monument of our gratitude to you, and a hymn of praise true and worthy of the goddess, on this her day of festival. socrates: very good. and what is this ancient famous action of the athenians, which critias declared, on the authority of solon, to be not a mere legend, but an actual fact? critias: i will tell an old-world story which i heard from an aged man; for critias, at the time of telling it, was, as he said, nearly ninety years of age, and i was about ten. now the day was that day of the apaturia which is called the registration of youth, at which, according to custom, our parents gave prizes for recitations, and the poems of several poets were recited by us boys, and many of us sang the poems of solon, which at that time had not gone out of fashion. one of our tribe, either because he thought so or to please critias, said that in his judgment solon was not only the wisest of men, but also the noblest of poets. the old man, as i very well remember, brightened up at hearing this and said, smiling: yes, amynander, if solon had only, like other poets, made poetry the business of his life, and had completed the tale which he brought with him from egypt, and had not been compelled, by reason of the factions and troubles which he found stirring in his own country when he came home, to attend to other matters, in my opinion he would have been as famous as homer or hesiod, or any poet. and what was the tale about, critias? said amynander. about the greatest action which the athenians ever did, and which ought to have been the most famous, but, through the lapse of time and the destruction of the actors, it has not come down to us. tell us, said the other, the whole story, and how and from whom solon heard this veritable tradition. he replied:--in the egyptian delta, at the head of which the river nile divides, there is a certain district which is called the district of sais, and the great city of the district is also called sais, and is the city from which king amasis came. the citizens have a deity for their foundress; she is called in the egyptian tongue neith, and is asserted by them to be the same whom the hellenes call athene; they are great lovers of the athenians, and say that they are in some way related to them. to this city came solon, and was received there with great honour; he asked the priests who were most skilful in such matters, about antiquity, and made the discovery that neither he nor any other hellene knew anything worth mentioning about the times of old. on one occasion, wishing to draw them on to speak of antiquity, he began to tell about the most ancient things in our part of the world--about phoroneus, who is called 'the first man,' and about niobe; and after the deluge, of the survival of deucalion and pyrrha; and he traced the genealogy of their descendants, and reckoning up the dates, tried to compute how many years ago the events of which he was speaking happened. thereupon one of the priests, who was of a very great age, said: o solon, solon, you hellenes are never anything but children, and there is not an old man among you. solon in return asked him what he meant. i mean to say, he replied, that in mind you are all young; there is no old opinion handed down among you by ancient tradition, nor any science which is hoary with age. and i will tell you why. there have been, and will be again, many destructions of mankind arising out of many causes; the greatest have been brought about by the agencies of fire and water, and other lesser ones by innumerable other causes. there is a story, which even you have preserved, that once upon a time paethon, the son of helios, having yoked the steeds in his father's chariot, because he was not able to drive them in the path of his father, burnt up all that was upon the earth, and was himself destroyed by a thunderbolt. now this has the form of a myth, but really signifies a declination of the bodies moving in the heavens around the earth, and a great conflagration of things upon the earth, which recurs after long intervals; at such times those who live upon the mountains and in dry and lofty places are more liable to destruction than those who dwell by rivers or on the seashore. and from this calamity the nile, who is our never-failing saviour, delivers and preserves us. when, on the other hand, the gods purge the earth with a deluge of water, the survivors in your country are herdsmen and shepherds who dwell on the mountains, but those who, like you, live in cities are carried by the rivers into the sea. whereas in this land, neither then nor at any other time, does the water come down from above on the fields, having always a tendency to come up from below; for which reason the traditions preserved here are the most ancient. the fact is, that wherever the extremity of winter frost or of summer sun does not prevent, mankind exist, sometimes in greater, sometimes in lesser numbers. and whatever happened either in your country or in ours, or in any other region of which we are informed--if there were any actions noble or great or in any other way remarkable, they have all been written down by us of old, and are preserved in our temples. whereas just when you and other nations are beginning to be provided with letters and the other requisites of civilized life, after the usual interval, the stream from heaven, like a pestilence, comes pouring down, and leaves only those of you who are destitute of letters and education; and so you have to begin all over again like children, and know nothing of what happened in ancient times, either among us or among yourselves. as for those genealogies of yours which you just now recounted to us, solon, they are no better than the tales of children. in the first place you remember a single deluge only, but there were many previous ones; in the next place, you do not know that there formerly dwelt in your land the fairest and noblest race of men which ever lived, and that you and your whole city are descended from a small seed or remnant of them which survived. and this was unknown to you, because, for many generations, the survivors of that destruction died, leaving no written word. for there was a time, solon, before the great deluge of all, when the city which now is athens was first in war and in every way the best governed of all cities, is said to have performed the noblest deeds and to have had the fairest constitution of any of which tradition tells, under the face of heaven. solon marvelled at his words, and earnestly requested the priests to inform him exactly and in order about these former citizens. you are welcome to hear about them, solon, said the priest, both for your own sake and for that of your city, and above all, for the sake of the goddess who is the common patron and parent and educator of both our cities. she founded your city a thousand years before ours (observe that plato gives the same date ( years ago) for the foundation of athens and for the repulse of the invasion from atlantis (crit.).), receiving from the earth and hephaestus the seed of your race, and afterwards she founded ours, of which the constitution is recorded in our sacred registers to be years old. as touching your citizens of years ago, i will briefly inform you of their laws and of their most famous action; the exact particulars of the whole we will hereafter go through at our leisure in the sacred registers themselves. if you compare these very laws with ours you will find that many of ours are the counterpart of yours as they were in the olden time. in the first place, there is the caste of priests, which is separated from all the others; next, there are the artificers, who ply their several crafts by themselves and do not intermix; and also there is the class of shepherds and of hunters, as well as that of husbandmen; and you will observe, too, that the warriors in egypt are distinct from all the other classes, and are commanded by the law to devote themselves solely to military pursuits; moreover, the weapons which they carry are shields and spears, a style of equipment which the goddess taught of asiatics first to us, as in your part of the world first to you. then as to wisdom, do you observe how our law from the very first made a study of the whole order of things, extending even to prophecy and medicine which gives health, out of these divine elements deriving what was needful for human life, and adding every sort of knowledge which was akin to them. all this order and arrangement the goddess first imparted to you when establishing your city; and she chose the spot of earth in which you were born, because she saw that the happy temperament of the seasons in that land would produce the wisest of men. wherefore the goddess, who was a lover both of war and of wisdom, selected and first of all settled that spot which was the most likely to produce men likest herself. and there you dwelt, having such laws as these and still better ones, and excelled all mankind in all virtue, as became the children and disciples of the gods. many great and wonderful deeds are recorded of your state in our histories. but one of them exceeds all the rest in greatness and valour. for these histories tell of a mighty power which unprovoked made an expedition against the whole of europe and asia, and to which your city put an end. this power came forth out of the atlantic ocean, for in those days the atlantic was navigable; and there was an island situated in front of the straits which are by you called the pillars of heracles; the island was larger than libya and asia put together, and was the way to other islands, and from these you might pass to the whole of the opposite continent which surrounded the true ocean; for this sea which is within the straits of heracles is only a harbour, having a narrow entrance, but that other is a real sea, and the surrounding land may be most truly called a boundless continent. now in this island of atlantis there was a great and wonderful empire which had rule over the whole island and several others, and over parts of the continent, and, furthermore, the men of atlantis had subjected the parts of libya within the columns of heracles as far as egypt, and of europe as far as tyrrhenia. this vast power, gathered into one, endeavoured to subdue at a blow our country and yours and the whole of the region within the straits; and then, solon, your country shone forth, in the excellence of her virtue and strength, among all mankind. she was pre-eminent in courage and military skill, and was the leader of the hellenes. and when the rest fell off from her, being compelled to stand alone, after having undergone the very extremity of danger, she defeated and triumphed over the invaders, and preserved from slavery those who were not yet subjugated, and generously liberated all the rest of us who dwell within the pillars. but afterwards there occurred violent earthquakes and floods; and in a single day and night of misfortune all your warlike men in a body sank into the earth, and the island of atlantis in like manner disappeared in the depths of the sea. for which reason the sea in those parts is impassable and impenetrable, because there is a shoal of mud in the way; and this was caused by the subsidence of the island. i have told you briefly, socrates, what the aged critias heard from solon and related to us. and when you were speaking yesterday about your city and citizens, the tale which i have just been repeating to you came into my mind, and i remarked with astonishment how, by some mysterious coincidence, you agreed in almost every particular with the narrative of solon; but i did not like to speak at the moment. for a long time had elapsed, and i had forgotten too much; i thought that i must first of all run over the narrative in my own mind, and then i would speak. and so i readily assented to your request yesterday, considering that in all such cases the chief difficulty is to find a tale suitable to our purpose, and that with such a tale we should be fairly well provided. and therefore, as hermocrates has told you, on my way home yesterday i at once communicated the tale to my companions as i remembered it; and after i left them, during the night by thinking i recovered nearly the whole of it. truly, as is often said, the lessons of our childhood make a wonderful impression on our memories; for i am not sure that i could remember all the discourse of yesterday, but i should be much surprised if i forgot any of these things which i have heard very long ago. i listened at the time with childlike interest to the old man's narrative; he was very ready to teach me, and i asked him again and again to repeat his words, so that like an indelible picture they were branded into my mind. as soon as the day broke, i rehearsed them as he spoke them to my companions, that they, as well as myself, might have something to say. and now, socrates, to make an end of my preface, i am ready to tell you the whole tale. i will give you not only the general heads, but the particulars, as they were told to me. the city and citizens, which you yesterday described to us in fiction, we will now transfer to the world of reality. it shall be the ancient city of athens, and we will suppose that the citizens whom you imagined, were our veritable ancestors, of whom the priest spoke; they will perfectly harmonize, and there will be no inconsistency in saying that the citizens of your republic are these ancient athenians. let us divide the subject among us, and all endeavour according to our ability gracefully to execute the task which you have imposed upon us. consider then, socrates, if this narrative is suited to the purpose, or whether we should seek for some other instead. socrates: and what other, critias, can we find that will be better than this, which is natural and suitable to the festival of the goddess, and has the very great advantage of being a fact and not a fiction? how or where shall we find another if we abandon this? we cannot, and therefore you must tell the tale, and good luck to you; and i in return for my yesterday's discourse will now rest and be a listener. critias: let me proceed to explain to you, socrates, the order in which we have arranged our entertainment. our intention is, that timaeus, who is the most of an astronomer amongst us, and has made the nature of the universe his special study, should speak first, beginning with the generation of the world and going down to the creation of man; next, i am to receive the men whom he has created, and of whom some will have profited by the excellent education which you have given them; and then, in accordance with the tale of solon, and equally with his law, we will bring them into court and make them citizens, as if they were those very athenians whom the sacred egyptian record has recovered from oblivion, and thenceforward we will speak of them as athenians and fellow-citizens. socrates: i see that i shall receive in my turn a perfect and splendid feast of reason. and now, timaeus, you, i suppose, should speak next, after duly calling upon the gods. timaeus: all men, socrates, who have any degree of right feeling, at the beginning of every enterprise, whether small or great, always call upon god. and we, too, who are going to discourse of the nature of the universe, how created or how existing without creation, if we be not altogether out of our wits, must invoke the aid of gods and goddesses and pray that our words may be acceptable to them and consistent with themselves. let this, then, be our invocation of the gods, to which i add an exhortation of myself to speak in such manner as will be most intelligible to you, and will most accord with my own intent. first then, in my judgment, we must make a distinction and ask, what is that which always is and has no becoming; and what is that which is always becoming and never is? that which is apprehended by intelligence and reason is always in the same state; but that which is conceived by opinion with the help of sensation and without reason, is always in a process of becoming and perishing and never really is. now everything that becomes or is created must of necessity be created by some cause, for without a cause nothing can be created. the work of the creator, whenever he looks to the unchangeable and fashions the form and nature of his work after an unchangeable pattern, must necessarily be made fair and perfect; but when he looks to the created only, and uses a created pattern, it is not fair or perfect. was the heaven then or the world, whether called by this or by any other more appropriate name--assuming the name, i am asking a question which has to be asked at the beginning of an enquiry about anything--was the world, i say, always in existence and without beginning? or created, and had it a beginning? created, i reply, being visible and tangible and having a body, and therefore sensible; and all sensible things are apprehended by opinion and sense and are in a process of creation and created. now that which is created must, as we affirm, of necessity be created by a cause. but the father and maker of all this universe is past finding out; and even if we found him, to tell of him to all men would be impossible. and there is still a question to be asked about him: which of the patterns had the artificer in view when he made the world--the pattern of the unchangeable, or of that which is created? if the world be indeed fair and the artificer good, it is manifest that he must have looked to that which is eternal; but if what cannot be said without blasphemy is true, then to the created pattern. every one will see that he must have looked to the eternal; for the world is the fairest of creations and he is the best of causes. and having been created in this way, the world has been framed in the likeness of that which is apprehended by reason and mind and is unchangeable, and must therefore of necessity, if this is admitted, be a copy of something. now it is all-important that the beginning of everything should be according to nature. and in speaking of the copy and the original we may assume that words are akin to the matter which they describe; when they relate to the lasting and permanent and intelligible, they ought to be lasting and unalterable, and, as far as their nature allows, irrefutable and immovable--nothing less. but when they express only the copy or likeness and not the eternal things themselves, they need only be likely and analogous to the real words. as being is to becoming, so is truth to belief. if then, socrates, amid the many opinions about the gods and the generation of the universe, we are not able to give notions which are altogether and in every respect exact and consistent with one another, do not be surprised. enough, if we adduce probabilities as likely as any others; for we must remember that i who am the speaker, and you who are the judges, are only mortal men, and we ought to accept the tale which is probable and enquire no further. socrates: excellent, timaeus; and we will do precisely as you bid us. the prelude is charming, and is already accepted by us--may we beg of you to proceed to the strain? timaeus: let me tell you then why the creator made this world of generation. he was good, and the good can never have any jealousy of anything. and being free from jealousy, he desired that all things should be as like himself as they could be. this is in the truest sense the origin of creation and of the world, as we shall do well in believing on the testimony of wise men: god desired that all things should be good and nothing bad, so far as this was attainable. wherefore also finding the whole visible sphere not at rest, but moving in an irregular and disorderly fashion, out of disorder he brought order, considering that this was in every way better than the other. now the deeds of the best could never be or have been other than the fairest; and the creator, reflecting on the things which are by nature visible, found that no unintelligent creature taken as a whole was fairer than the intelligent taken as a whole; and that intelligence could not be present in anything which was devoid of soul. for which reason, when he was framing the universe, he put intelligence in soul, and soul in body, that he might be the creator of a work which was by nature fairest and best. wherefore, using the language of probability, we may say that the world became a living creature truly endowed with soul and intelligence by the providence of god. this being supposed, let us proceed to the next stage: in the likeness of what animal did the creator make the world? it would be an unworthy thing to liken it to any nature which exists as a part only; for nothing can be beautiful which is like any imperfect thing; but let us suppose the world to be the very image of that whole of which all other animals both individually and in their tribes are portions. for the original of the universe contains in itself all intelligible beings, just as this world comprehends us and all other visible creatures. for the deity, intending to make this world like the fairest and most perfect of intelligible beings, framed one visible animal comprehending within itself all other animals of a kindred nature. are we right in saying that there is one world, or that they are many and infinite? there must be one only, if the created copy is to accord with the original. for that which includes all other intelligible creatures cannot have a second or companion; in that case there would be need of another living being which would include both, and of which they would be parts, and the likeness would be more truly said to resemble not them, but that other which included them. in order then that the world might be solitary, like the perfect animal, the creator made not two worlds or an infinite number of them; but there is and ever will be one only-begotten and created heaven. now that which is created is of necessity corporeal, and also visible and tangible. and nothing is visible where there is no fire, or tangible which has no solidity, and nothing is solid without earth. wherefore also god in the beginning of creation made the body of the universe to consist of fire and earth. but two things cannot be rightly put together without a third; there must be some bond of union between them. and the fairest bond is that which makes the most complete fusion of itself and the things which it combines; and proportion is best adapted to effect such a union. for whenever in any three numbers, whether cube or square, there is a mean, which is to the last term what the first term is to it; and again, when the mean is to the first term as the last term is to the mean--then the mean becoming first and last, and the first and last both becoming means, they will all of them of necessity come to be the same, and having become the same with one another will be all one. if the universal frame had been created a surface only and having no depth, a single mean would have sufficed to bind together itself and the other terms; but now, as the world must be solid, and solid bodies are always compacted not by one mean but by two, god placed water and air in the mean between fire and earth, and made them to have the same proportion so far as was possible (as fire is to air so is air to water, and as air is to water so is water to earth); and thus he bound and put together a visible and tangible heaven. and for these reasons, and out of such elements which are in number four, the body of the world was created, and it was harmonized by proportion, and therefore has the spirit of friendship; and having been reconciled to itself, it was indissoluble by the hand of any other than the framer. now the creation took up the whole of each of the four elements; for the creator compounded the world out of all the fire and all the water and all the air and all the earth, leaving no part of any of them nor any power of them outside. his intention was, in the first place, that the animal should be as far as possible a perfect whole and of perfect parts: secondly, that it should be one, leaving no remnants out of which another such world might be created: and also that it should be free from old age and unaffected by disease. considering that if heat and cold and other powerful forces which unite bodies surround and attack them from without when they are unprepared, they decompose them, and by bringing diseases and old age upon them, make them waste away--for this cause and on these grounds he made the world one whole, having every part entire, and being therefore perfect and not liable to old age and disease. and he gave to the world the figure which was suitable and also natural. now to the animal which was to comprehend all animals, that figure was suitable which comprehends within itself all other figures. wherefore he made the world in the form of a globe, round as from a lathe, having its extremes in every direction equidistant from the centre, the most perfect and the most like itself of all figures; for he considered that the like is infinitely fairer than the unlike. this he finished off, making the surface smooth all round for many reasons; in the first place, because the living being had no need of eyes when there was nothing remaining outside him to be seen; nor of ears when there was nothing to be heard; and there was no surrounding atmosphere to be breathed; nor would there have been any use of organs by the help of which he might receive his food or get rid of what he had already digested, since there was nothing which went from him or came into him: for there was nothing beside him. of design he was created thus, his own waste providing his own food, and all that he did or suffered taking place in and by himself. for the creator conceived that a being which was self-sufficient would be far more excellent than one which lacked anything; and, as he had no need to take anything or defend himself against any one, the creator did not think it necessary to bestow upon him hands: nor had he any need of feet, nor of the whole apparatus of walking; but the movement suited to his spherical form was assigned to him, being of all the seven that which is most appropriate to mind and intelligence; and he was made to move in the same manner and on the same spot, within his own limits revolving in a circle. all the other six motions were taken away from him, and he was made not to partake of their deviations. and as this circular movement required no feet, the universe was created without legs and without feet. such was the whole plan of the eternal god about the god that was to be, to whom for this reason he gave a body, smooth and even, having a surface in every direction equidistant from the centre, a body entire and perfect, and formed out of perfect bodies. and in the centre he put the soul, which he diffused throughout the body, making it also to be the exterior environment of it; and he made the universe a circle moving in a circle, one and solitary, yet by reason of its excellence able to converse with itself, and needing no other friendship or acquaintance. having these purposes in view he created the world a blessed god. now god did not make the soul after the body, although we are speaking of them in this order; for having brought them together he would never have allowed that the elder should be ruled by the younger; but this is a random manner of speaking which we have, because somehow we ourselves too are very much under the dominion of chance. whereas he made the soul in origin and excellence prior to and older than the body, to be the ruler and mistress, of whom the body was to be the subject. and he made her out of the following elements and on this wise: out of the indivisible and unchangeable, and also out of that which is divisible and has to do with material bodies, he compounded a third and intermediate kind of essence, partaking of the nature of the same and of the other, and this compound he placed accordingly in a mean between the indivisible, and the divisible and material. he took the three elements of the same, the other, and the essence, and mingled them into one form, compressing by force the reluctant and unsociable nature of the other into the same. when he had mingled them with the essence and out of three made one, he again divided this whole into as many portions as was fitting, each portion being a compound of the same, the other, and the essence. and he proceeded to divide after this manner:--first of all, he took away one part of the whole ( ), and then he separated a second part which was double the first ( ), and then he took away a third part which was half as much again as the second and three times as much as the first ( ), and then he took a fourth part which was twice as much as the second ( ), and a fifth part which was three times the third ( ), and a sixth part which was eight times the first ( ), and a seventh part which was twenty-seven times the first ( ). after this he filled up the double intervals (i.e. between , , , ) and the triple (i.e. between , , , ) cutting off yet other portions from the mixture and placing them in the intervals, so that in each interval there were two kinds of means, the one exceeding and exceeded by equal parts of its extremes (as for example , / , , in which the mean / is one-third of more than , and one-third of less than ), the other being that kind of mean which exceeds and is exceeded by an equal number (e.g. - over , / , / , - over , / , , - over , / , , - over : and - over , / , , - over , / , , - over , / , , - over . where there were intervals of / and of / and of / , made by the connecting terms in the former intervals, he filled up all the intervals of / with the interval of / , leaving a fraction over; and the interval which this fraction expressed was in the ratio of to (e.g. : :: / : / :: / : :: / : / :: / : :: / : / :: / : . and thus the whole mixture out of which he cut these portions was all exhausted by him. this entire compound he divided lengthways into two parts, which he joined to one another at the centre like the letter x, and bent them into a circular form, connecting them with themselves and each other at the point opposite to their original meeting-point; and, comprehending them in a uniform revolution upon the same axis, he made the one the outer and the other the inner circle. now the motion of the outer circle he called the motion of the same, and the motion of the inner circle the motion of the other or diverse. the motion of the same he carried round by the side (i.e. of the rectangular figure supposed to be inscribed in the circle of the same) to the right, and the motion of the diverse diagonally (i.e. across the rectangular figure from corner to corner) to the left. and he gave dominion to the motion of the same and like, for that he left single and undivided; but the inner motion he divided in six places and made seven unequal circles having their intervals in ratios of two and three, three of each, and bade the orbits proceed in a direction opposite to one another; and three (sun, mercury, venus) he made to move with equal swiftness, and the remaining four (moon, saturn, mars, jupiter) to move with unequal swiftness to the three and to one another, but in due proportion. now when the creator had framed the soul according to his will, he formed within her the corporeal universe, and brought the two together, and united them centre to centre. the soul, interfused everywhere from the centre to the circumference of heaven, of which also she is the external envelopment, herself turning in herself, began a divine beginning of never-ceasing and rational life enduring throughout all time. the body of heaven is visible, but the soul is invisible, and partakes of reason and harmony, and being made by the best of intellectual and everlasting natures, is the best of things created. and because she is composed of the same and of the other and of the essence, these three, and is divided and united in due proportion, and in her revolutions returns upon herself, the soul, when touching anything which has essence, whether dispersed in parts or undivided, is stirred through all her powers, to declare the sameness or difference of that thing and some other; and to what individuals are related, and by what affected, and in what way and how and when, both in the world of generation and in the world of immutable being. and when reason, which works with equal truth, whether she be in the circle of the diverse or of the same--in voiceless silence holding her onward course in the sphere of the self-moved--when reason, i say, is hovering around the sensible world and when the circle of the diverse also moving truly imparts the intimations of sense to the whole soul, then arise opinions and beliefs sure and certain. but when reason is concerned with the rational, and the circle of the same moving smoothly declares it, then intelligence and knowledge are necessarily perfected. and if any one affirms that in which these two are found to be other than the soul, he will say the very opposite of the truth. when the father and creator saw the creature which he had made moving and living, the created image of the eternal gods, he rejoiced, and in his joy determined to make the copy still more like the original; and as this was eternal, he sought to make the universe eternal, so far as might be. now the nature of the ideal being was everlasting, but to bestow this attribute in its fulness upon a creature was impossible. wherefore he resolved to have a moving image of eternity, and when he set in order the heaven, he made this image eternal but moving according to number, while eternity itself rests in unity; and this image we call time. for there were no days and nights and months and years before the heaven was created, but when he constructed the heaven he created them also. they are all parts of time, and the past and future are created species of time, which we unconsciously but wrongly transfer to the eternal essence; for we say that he 'was,' he 'is,' he 'will be,' but the truth is that 'is' alone is properly attributed to him, and that 'was' and 'will be' are only to be spoken of becoming in time, for they are motions, but that which is immovably the same cannot become older or younger by time, nor ever did or has become, or hereafter will be, older or younger, nor is subject at all to any of those states which affect moving and sensible things and of which generation is the cause. these are the forms of time, which imitates eternity and revolves according to a law of number. moreover, when we say that what has become is become and what becomes is becoming, and that what will become is about to become and that the non-existent is non-existent--all these are inaccurate modes of expression (compare parmen.). but perhaps this whole subject will be more suitably discussed on some other occasion. time, then, and the heaven came into being at the same instant in order that, having been created together, if ever there was to be a dissolution of them, they might be dissolved together. it was framed after the pattern of the eternal nature, that it might resemble this as far as was possible; for the pattern exists from eternity, and the created heaven has been, and is, and will be, in all time. such was the mind and thought of god in the creation of time. the sun and moon and five other stars, which are called the planets, were created by him in order to distinguish and preserve the numbers of time; and when he had made their several bodies, he placed them in the orbits in which the circle of the other was revolving,--in seven orbits seven stars. first, there was the moon in the orbit nearest the earth, and next the sun, in the second orbit above the earth; then came the morning star and the star sacred to hermes, moving in orbits which have an equal swiftness with the sun, but in an opposite direction; and this is the reason why the sun and hermes and lucifer overtake and are overtaken by each other. to enumerate the places which he assigned to the other stars, and to give all the reasons why he assigned them, although a secondary matter, would give more trouble than the primary. these things at some future time, when we are at leisure, may have the consideration which they deserve, but not at present. now, when all the stars which were necessary to the creation of time had attained a motion suitable to them, and had become living creatures having bodies fastened by vital chains, and learnt their appointed task, moving in the motion of the diverse, which is diagonal, and passes through and is governed by the motion of the same, they revolved, some in a larger and some in a lesser orbit--those which had the lesser orbit revolving faster, and those which had the larger more slowly. now by reason of the motion of the same, those which revolved fastest appeared to be overtaken by those which moved slower although they really overtook them; for the motion of the same made them all turn in a spiral, and, because some went one way and some another, that which receded most slowly from the sphere of the same, which was the swiftest, appeared to follow it most nearly. that there might be some visible measure of their relative swiftness and slowness as they proceeded in their eight courses, god lighted a fire, which we now call the sun, in the second from the earth of these orbits, that it might give light to the whole of heaven, and that the animals, as many as nature intended, might participate in number, learning arithmetic from the revolution of the same and the like. thus then, and for this reason the night and the day were created, being the period of the one most intelligent revolution. and the month is accomplished when the moon has completed her orbit and overtaken the sun, and the year when the sun has completed his own orbit. mankind, with hardly an exception, have not remarked the periods of the other stars, and they have no name for them, and do not measure them against one another by the help of number, and hence they can scarcely be said to know that their wanderings, being infinite in number and admirable for their variety, make up time. and yet there is no difficulty in seeing that the perfect number of time fulfils the perfect year when all the eight revolutions, having their relative degrees of swiftness, are accomplished together and attain their completion at the same time, measured by the rotation of the same and equally moving. after this manner, and for these reasons, came into being such of the stars as in their heavenly progress received reversals of motion, to the end that the created heaven might imitate the eternal nature, and be as like as possible to the perfect and intelligible animal. thus far and until the birth of time the created universe was made in the likeness of the original, but inasmuch as all animals were not yet comprehended therein, it was still unlike. what remained, the creator then proceeded to fashion after the nature of the pattern. now as in the ideal animal the mind perceives ideas or species of a certain nature and number, he thought that this created animal ought to have species of a like nature and number. there are four such; one of them is the heavenly race of the gods; another, the race of birds whose way is in the air; the third, the watery species; and the fourth, the pedestrian and land creatures. of the heavenly and divine, he created the greater part out of fire, that they might be the brightest of all things and fairest to behold, and he fashioned them after the likeness of the universe in the figure of a circle, and made them follow the intelligent motion of the supreme, distributing them over the whole circumference of heaven, which was to be a true cosmos or glorious world spangled with them all over. and he gave to each of them two movements: the first, a movement on the same spot after the same manner, whereby they ever continue to think consistently the same thoughts about the same things; the second, a forward movement, in which they are controlled by the revolution of the same and the like; but by the other five motions they were unaffected, in order that each of them might attain the highest perfection. and for this reason the fixed stars were created, to be divine and eternal animals, ever-abiding and revolving after the same manner and on the same spot; and the other stars which reverse their motion and are subject to deviations of this kind, were created in the manner already described. the earth, which is our nurse, clinging (or 'circling') around the pole which is extended through the universe, he framed to be the guardian and artificer of night and day, first and eldest of gods that are in the interior of heaven. vain would be the attempt to tell all the figures of them circling as in dance, and their juxtapositions, and the return of them in their revolutions upon themselves, and their approximations, and to say which of these deities in their conjunctions meet, and which of them are in opposition, and in what order they get behind and before one another, and when they are severally eclipsed to our sight and again reappear, sending terrors and intimations of the future to those who cannot calculate their movements--to attempt to tell of all this without a visible representation of the heavenly system would be labour in vain. enough on this head; and now let what we have said about the nature of the created and visible gods have an end. to know or tell the origin of the other divinities is beyond us, and we must accept the traditions of the men of old time who affirm themselves to be the offspring of the gods--that is what they say--and they must surely have known their own ancestors. how can we doubt the word of the children of the gods? although they give no probable or certain proofs, still, as they declare that they are speaking of what took place in their own family, we must conform to custom and believe them. in this manner, then, according to them, the genealogy of these gods is to be received and set forth. oceanus and tethys were the children of earth and heaven, and from these sprang phorcys and cronos and rhea, and all that generation; and from cronos and rhea sprang zeus and here, and all those who are said to be their brethren, and others who were the children of these. now, when all of them, both those who visibly appear in their revolutions as well as those other gods who are of a more retiring nature, had come into being, the creator of the universe addressed them in these words: 'gods, children of gods, who are my works, and of whom i am the artificer and father, my creations are indissoluble, if so i will. all that is bound may be undone, but only an evil being would wish to undo that which is harmonious and happy. wherefore, since ye are but creatures, ye are not altogether immortal and indissoluble, but ye shall certainly not be dissolved, nor be liable to the fate of death, having in my will a greater and mightier bond than those with which ye were bound at the time of your birth. and now listen to my instructions:--three tribes of mortal beings remain to be created--without them the universe will be incomplete, for it will not contain every kind of animal which it ought to contain, if it is to be perfect. on the other hand, if they were created by me and received life at my hands, they would be on an equality with the gods. in order then that they may be mortal, and that this universe may be truly universal, do ye, according to your natures, betake yourselves to the formation of animals, imitating the power which was shown by me in creating you. the part of them worthy of the name immortal, which is called divine and is the guiding principle of those who are willing to follow justice and you--of that divine part i will myself sow the seed, and having made a beginning, i will hand the work over to you. and do ye then interweave the mortal with the immortal, and make and beget living creatures, and give them food, and make them to grow, and receive them again in death.' thus he spake, and once more into the cup in which he had previously mingled the soul of the universe he poured the remains of the elements, and mingled them in much the same manner; they were not, however, pure as before, but diluted to the second and third degree. and having made it he divided the whole mixture into souls equal in number to the stars, and assigned each soul to a star; and having there placed them as in a chariot, he showed them the nature of the universe, and declared to them the laws of destiny, according to which their first birth would be one and the same for all,--no one should suffer a disadvantage at his hands; they were to be sown in the instruments of time severally adapted to them, and to come forth the most religious of animals; and as human nature was of two kinds, the superior race would hereafter be called man. now, when they should be implanted in bodies by necessity, and be always gaining or losing some part of their bodily substance, then in the first place it would be necessary that they should all have in them one and the same faculty of sensation, arising out of irresistible impressions; in the second place, they must have love, in which pleasure and pain mingle; also fear and anger, and the feelings which are akin or opposite to them; if they conquered these they would live righteously, and if they were conquered by them, unrighteously. he who lived well during his appointed time was to return and dwell in his native star, and there he would have a blessed and congenial existence. but if he failed in attaining this, at the second birth he would pass into a woman, and if, when in that state of being, he did not desist from evil, he would continually be changed into some brute who resembled him in the evil nature which he had acquired, and would not cease from his toils and transformations until he followed the revolution of the same and the like within him, and overcame by the help of reason the turbulent and irrational mob of later accretions, made up of fire and air and water and earth, and returned to the form of his first and better state. having given all these laws to his creatures, that he might be guiltless of future evil in any of them, the creator sowed some of them in the earth, and some in the moon, and some in the other instruments of time; and when he had sown them he committed to the younger gods the fashioning of their mortal bodies, and desired them to furnish what was still lacking to the human soul, and having made all the suitable additions, to rule over them, and to pilot the mortal animal in the best and wisest manner which they could, and avert from him all but self-inflicted evils. when the creator had made all these ordinances he remained in his own accustomed nature, and his children heard and were obedient to their father's word, and receiving from him the immortal principle of a mortal creature, in imitation of their own creator they borrowed portions of fire, and earth, and water, and air from the world, which were hereafter to be restored--these they took and welded them together, not with the indissoluble chains by which they were themselves bound, but with little pegs too small to be visible, making up out of all the four elements each separate body, and fastening the courses of the immortal soul in a body which was in a state of perpetual influx and efflux. now these courses, detained as in a vast river, neither overcame nor were overcome; but were hurrying and hurried to and fro, so that the whole animal was moved and progressed, irregularly however and irrationally and anyhow, in all the six directions of motion, wandering backwards and forwards, and right and left, and up and down, and in all the six directions. for great as was the advancing and retiring flood which provided nourishment, the affections produced by external contact caused still greater tumult--when the body of any one met and came into collision with some external fire, or with the solid earth or the gliding waters, or was caught in the tempest borne on the air, and the motions produced by any of these impulses were carried through the body to the soul. all such motions have consequently received the general name of 'sensations,' which they still retain. and they did in fact at that time create a very great and mighty movement; uniting with the ever-flowing stream in stirring up and violently shaking the courses of the soul, they completely stopped the revolution of the same by their opposing current, and hindered it from predominating and advancing; and they so disturbed the nature of the other or diverse, that the three double intervals (i.e. between , , , ), and the three triple intervals (i.e. between , , , ), together with the mean terms and connecting links which are expressed by the ratios of : , and : , and of : --these, although they cannot be wholly undone except by him who united them, were twisted by them in all sorts of ways, and the circles were broken and disordered in every possible manner, so that when they moved they were tumbling to pieces, and moved irrationally, at one time in a reverse direction, and then again obliquely, and then upside down, as you might imagine a person who is upside down and has his head leaning upon the ground and his feet up against something in the air; and when he is in such a position, both he and the spectator fancy that the right of either is his left, and the left right. if, when powerfully experiencing these and similar effects, the revolutions of the soul come in contact with some external thing, either of the class of the same or of the other, they speak of the same or of the other in a manner the very opposite of the truth; and they become false and foolish, and there is no course or revolution in them which has a guiding or directing power; and if again any sensations enter in violently from without and drag after them the whole vessel of the soul, then the courses of the soul, though they seem to conquer, are really conquered. and by reason of all these affections, the soul, when encased in a mortal body, now, as in the beginning, is at first without intelligence; but when the flood of growth and nutriment abates, and the courses of the soul, calming down, go their own way and become steadier as time goes on, then the several circles return to their natural form, and their revolutions are corrected, and they call the same and the other by their right names, and make the possessor of them to become a rational being. and if these combine in him with any true nurture or education, he attains the fulness and health of the perfect man, and escapes the worst disease of all; but if he neglects education he walks lame to the end of his life, and returns imperfect and good for nothing to the world below. this, however, is a later stage; at present we must treat more exactly the subject before us, which involves a preliminary enquiry into the generation of the body and its members, and as to how the soul was created--for what reason and by what providence of the gods; and holding fast to probability, we must pursue our way. first, then, the gods, imitating the spherical shape of the universe, enclosed the two divine courses in a spherical body, that, namely, which we now term the head, being the most divine part of us and the lord of all that is in us: to this the gods, when they put together the body, gave all the other members to be servants, considering that it partook of every sort of motion. in order then that it might not tumble about among the high and deep places of the earth, but might be able to get over the one and out of the other, they provided the body to be its vehicle and means of locomotion; which consequently had length and was furnished with four limbs extended and flexible; these god contrived to be instruments of locomotion with which it might take hold and find support, and so be able to pass through all places, carrying on high the dwelling-place of the most sacred and divine part of us. such was the origin of legs and hands, which for this reason were attached to every man; and the gods, deeming the front part of man to be more honourable and more fit to command than the hinder part, made us to move mostly in a forward direction. wherefore man must needs have his front part unlike and distinguished from the rest of his body. and so in the vessel of the head, they first of all put a face in which they inserted organs to minister in all things to the providence of the soul, and they appointed this part, which has authority, to be by nature the part which is in front. and of the organs they first contrived the eyes to give light, and the principle according to which they were inserted was as follows: so much of fire as would not burn, but gave a gentle light, they formed into a substance akin to the light of every-day life; and the pure fire which is within us and related thereto they made to flow through the eyes in a stream smooth and dense, compressing the whole eye, and especially the centre part, so that it kept out everything of a coarser nature, and allowed to pass only this pure element. when the light of day surrounds the stream of vision, then like falls upon like, and they coalesce, and one body is formed by natural affinity in the line of vision, wherever the light that falls from within meets with an external object. and the whole stream of vision, being similarly affected in virtue of similarity, diffuses the motions of what it touches or what touches it over the whole body, until they reach the soul, causing that perception which we call sight. but when night comes on and the external and kindred fire departs, then the stream of vision is cut off; for going forth to an unlike element it is changed and extinguished, being no longer of one nature with the surrounding atmosphere which is now deprived of fire: and so the eye no longer sees, and we feel disposed to sleep. for when the eyelids, which the gods invented for the preservation of sight, are closed, they keep in the internal fire; and the power of the fire diffuses and equalizes the inward motions; when they are equalized, there is rest, and when the rest is profound, sleep comes over us scarce disturbed by dreams; but where the greater motions still remain, of whatever nature and in whatever locality, they engender corresponding visions in dreams, which are remembered by us when we are awake and in the external world. and now there is no longer any difficulty in understanding the creation of images in mirrors and all smooth and bright surfaces. for from the communion of the internal and external fires, and again from the union of them and their numerous transformations when they meet in the mirror, all these appearances of necessity arise, when the fire from the face coalesces with the fire from the eye on the bright and smooth surface. and right appears left and left right, because the visual rays come into contact with the rays emitted by the object in a manner contrary to the usual mode of meeting; but the right appears right, and the left left, when the position of one of the two concurring lights is reversed; and this happens when the mirror is concave and its smooth surface repels the right stream of vision to the left side, and the left to the right (he is speaking of two kinds of mirrors, first the plane, secondly the concave; and the latter is supposed to be placed, first horizontally, and then vertically.). or if the mirror be turned vertically, then the concavity makes the countenance appear to be all upside down, and the lower rays are driven upwards and the upper downwards. all these are to be reckoned among the second and co-operative causes which god, carrying into execution the idea of the best as far as possible, uses as his ministers. they are thought by most men not to be the second, but the prime causes of all things, because they freeze and heat, and contract and dilate, and the like. but they are not so, for they are incapable of reason or intellect; the only being which can properly have mind is the invisible soul, whereas fire and water, and earth and air, are all of them visible bodies. the lover of intellect and knowledge ought to explore causes of intelligent nature first of all, and, secondly, of those things which, being moved by others, are compelled to move others. and this is what we too must do. both kinds of causes should be acknowledged by us, but a distinction should be made between those which are endowed with mind and are the workers of things fair and good, and those which are deprived of intelligence and always produce chance effects without order or design. of the second or co-operative causes of sight, which help to give to the eyes the power which they now possess, enough has been said. i will therefore now proceed to speak of the higher use and purpose for which god has given them to us. the sight in my opinion is the source of the greatest benefit to us, for had we never seen the stars, and the sun, and the heaven, none of the words which we have spoken about the universe would ever have been uttered. but now the sight of day and night, and the months and the revolutions of the years, have created number, and have given us a conception of time, and the power of enquiring about the nature of the universe; and from this source we have derived philosophy, than which no greater good ever was or will be given by the gods to mortal man. this is the greatest boon of sight: and of the lesser benefits why should i speak? even the ordinary man if he were deprived of them would bewail his loss, but in vain. thus much let me say however: god invented and gave us sight to the end that we might behold the courses of intelligence in the heaven, and apply them to the courses of our own intelligence which are akin to them, the unperturbed to the perturbed; and that we, learning them and partaking of the natural truth of reason, might imitate the absolutely unerring courses of god and regulate our own vagaries. the same may be affirmed of speech and hearing: they have been given by the gods to the same end and for a like reason. for this is the principal end of speech, whereto it most contributes. moreover, so much of music as is adapted to the sound of the voice and to the sense of hearing is granted to us for the sake of harmony; and harmony, which has motions akin to the revolutions of our souls, is not regarded by the intelligent votary of the muses as given by them with a view to irrational pleasure, which is deemed to be the purpose of it in our day, but as meant to correct any discord which may have arisen in the courses of the soul, and to be our ally in bringing her into harmony and agreement with herself; and rhythm too was given by them for the same reason, on account of the irregular and graceless ways which prevail among mankind generally, and to help us against them. thus far in what we have been saying, with small exception, the works of intelligence have been set forth; and now we must place by the side of them in our discourse the things which come into being through necessity--for the creation is mixed, being made up of necessity and mind. mind, the ruling power, persuaded necessity to bring the greater part of created things to perfection, and thus and after this manner in the beginning, when the influence of reason got the better of necessity, the universe was created. but if a person will truly tell of the way in which the work was accomplished, he must include the other influence of the variable cause as well. wherefore, we must return again and find another suitable beginning, as about the former matters, so also about these. to which end we must consider the nature of fire, and water, and air, and earth, such as they were prior to the creation of the heaven, and what was happening to them in this previous state; for no one has as yet explained the manner of their generation, but we speak of fire and the rest of them, whatever they mean, as though men knew their natures, and we maintain them to be the first principles and letters or elements of the whole, when they cannot reasonably be compared by a man of any sense even to syllables or first compounds. and let me say thus much: i will not now speak of the first principle or principles of all things, or by whatever name they are to be called, for this reason--because it is difficult to set forth my opinion according to the method of discussion which we are at present employing. do not imagine, any more than i can bring myself to imagine, that i should be right in undertaking so great and difficult a task. remembering what i said at first about probability, i will do my best to give as probable an explanation as any other--or rather, more probable; and i will first go back to the beginning and try to speak of each thing and of all. once more, then, at the commencement of my discourse, i call upon god, and beg him to be our saviour out of a strange and unwonted enquiry, and to bring us to the haven of probability. so now let us begin again. this new beginning of our discussion of the universe requires a fuller division than the former; for then we made two classes, now a third must be revealed. the two sufficed for the former discussion: one, which we assumed, was a pattern intelligible and always the same; and the second was only the imitation of the pattern, generated and visible. there is also a third kind which we did not distinguish at the time, conceiving that the two would be enough. but now the argument seems to require that we should set forth in words another kind, which is difficult of explanation and dimly seen. what nature are we to attribute to this new kind of being? we reply, that it is the receptacle, and in a manner the nurse, of all generation. i have spoken the truth; but i must express myself in clearer language, and this will be an arduous task for many reasons, and in particular because i must first raise questions concerning fire and the other elements, and determine what each of them is; for to say, with any probability or certitude, which of them should be called water rather than fire, and which should be called any of them rather than all or some one of them, is a difficult matter. how, then, shall we settle this point, and what questions about the elements may be fairly raised? in the first place, we see that what we just now called water, by condensation, i suppose, becomes stone and earth; and this same element, when melted and dispersed, passes into vapour and air. air, again, when inflamed, becomes fire; and again fire, when condensed and extinguished, passes once more into the form of air; and once more, air, when collected and condensed, produces cloud and mist; and from these, when still more compressed, comes flowing water, and from water comes earth and stones once more; and thus generation appears to be transmitted from one to the other in a circle. thus, then, as the several elements never present themselves in the same form, how can any one have the assurance to assert positively that any of them, whatever it may be, is one thing rather than another? no one can. but much the safest plan is to speak of them as follows:--anything which we see to be continually changing, as, for example, fire, we must not call 'this' or 'that,' but rather say that it is 'of such a nature'; nor let us speak of water as 'this'; but always as 'such'; nor must we imply that there is any stability in any of those things which we indicate by the use of the words 'this' and 'that,' supposing ourselves to signify something thereby; for they are too volatile to be detained in any such expressions as 'this,' or 'that,' or 'relative to this,' or any other mode of speaking which represents them as permanent. we ought not to apply 'this' to any of them, but rather the word 'such'; which expresses the similar principle circulating in each and all of them; for example, that should be called 'fire' which is of such a nature always, and so of everything that has generation. that in which the elements severally grow up, and appear, and decay, is alone to be called by the name 'this' or 'that'; but that which is of a certain nature, hot or white, or anything which admits of opposite qualities, and all things that are compounded of them, ought not to be so denominated. let me make another attempt to explain my meaning more clearly. suppose a person to make all kinds of figures of gold and to be always transmuting one form into all the rest;--somebody points to one of them and asks what it is. by far the safest and truest answer is, that is gold; and not to call the triangle or any other figures which are formed in the gold 'these,' as though they had existence, since they are in process of change while he is making the assertion; but if the questioner be willing to take the safe and indefinite expression, 'such,' we should be satisfied. and the same argument applies to the universal nature which receives all bodies--that must be always called the same; for, while receiving all things, she never departs at all from her own nature, and never in any way, or at any time, assumes a form like that of any of the things which enter into her; she is the natural recipient of all impressions, and is stirred and informed by them, and appears different from time to time by reason of them. but the forms which enter into and go out of her are the likenesses of real existences modelled after their patterns in a wonderful and inexplicable manner, which we will hereafter investigate. for the present we have only to conceive of three natures: first, that which is in process of generation; secondly, that in which the generation takes place; and thirdly, that of which the thing generated is a resemblance. and we may liken the receiving principle to a mother, and the source or spring to a father, and the intermediate nature to a child; and may remark further, that if the model is to take every variety of form, then the matter in which the model is fashioned will not be duly prepared, unless it is formless, and free from the impress of any of those shapes which it is hereafter to receive from without. for if the matter were like any of the supervening forms, then whenever any opposite or entirely different nature was stamped upon its surface, it would take the impression badly, because it would intrude its own shape. wherefore, that which is to receive all forms should have no form; as in making perfumes they first contrive that the liquid substance which is to receive the scent shall be as inodorous as possible; or as those who wish to impress figures on soft substances do not allow any previous impression to remain, but begin by making the surface as even and smooth as possible. in the same way that which is to receive perpetually and through its whole extent the resemblances of all eternal beings ought to be devoid of any particular form. wherefore, the mother and receptacle of all created and visible and in any way sensible things, is not to be termed earth, or air, or fire, or water, or any of their compounds or any of the elements from which these are derived, but is an invisible and formless being which receives all things and in some mysterious way partakes of the intelligible, and is most incomprehensible. in saying this we shall not be far wrong; as far, however, as we can attain to a knowledge of her from the previous considerations, we may truly say that fire is that part of her nature which from time to time is inflamed, and water that which is moistened, and that the mother substance becomes earth and air, in so far as she receives the impressions of them. let us consider this question more precisely. is there any self-existent fire? and do all those things which we call self-existent exist? or are only those things which we see, or in some way perceive through the bodily organs, truly existent, and nothing whatever besides them? and is all that which we call an intelligible essence nothing at all, and only a name? here is a question which we must not leave unexamined or undetermined, nor must we affirm too confidently that there can be no decision; neither must we interpolate in our present long discourse a digression equally long, but if it is possible to set forth a great principle in a few words, that is just what we want. thus i state my view:--if mind and true opinion are two distinct classes, then i say that there certainly are these self-existent ideas unperceived by sense, and apprehended only by the mind; if, however, as some say, true opinion differs in no respect from mind, then everything that we perceive through the body is to be regarded as most real and certain. but we must affirm them to be distinct, for they have a distinct origin and are of a different nature; the one is implanted in us by instruction, the other by persuasion; the one is always accompanied by true reason, the other is without reason; the one cannot be overcome by persuasion, but the other can: and lastly, every man may be said to share in true opinion, but mind is the attribute of the gods and of very few men. wherefore also we must acknowledge that there is one kind of being which is always the same, uncreated and indestructible, never receiving anything into itself from without, nor itself going out to any other, but invisible and imperceptible by any sense, and of which the contemplation is granted to intelligence only. and there is another nature of the same name with it, and like to it, perceived by sense, created, always in motion, becoming in place and again vanishing out of place, which is apprehended by opinion and sense. and there is a third nature, which is space, and is eternal, and admits not of destruction and provides a home for all created things, and is apprehended without the help of sense, by a kind of spurious reason, and is hardly real; which we beholding as in a dream, say of all existence that it must of necessity be in some place and occupy a space, but that what is neither in heaven nor in earth has no existence. of these and other things of the same kind, relating to the true and waking reality of nature, we have only this dreamlike sense, and we are unable to cast off sleep and determine the truth about them. for an image, since the reality, after which it is modelled, does not belong to it, and it exists ever as the fleeting shadow of some other, must be inferred to be in another (i.e. in space), grasping existence in some way or other, or it could not be at all. but true and exact reason, vindicating the nature of true being, maintains that while two things (i.e. the image and space) are different they cannot exist one of them in the other and so be one and also two at the same time. thus have i concisely given the result of my thoughts; and my verdict is that being and space and generation, these three, existed in their three ways before the heaven; and that the nurse of generation, moistened by water and inflamed by fire, and receiving the forms of earth and air, and experiencing all the affections which accompany these, presented a strange variety of appearances; and being full of powers which were neither similar nor equally balanced, was never in any part in a state of equipoise, but swaying unevenly hither and thither, was shaken by them, and by its motion again shook them; and the elements when moved were separated and carried continually, some one way, some another; as, when grain is shaken and winnowed by fans and other instruments used in the threshing of corn, the close and heavy particles are borne away and settle in one direction, and the loose and light particles in another. in this manner, the four kinds or elements were then shaken by the receiving vessel, which, moving like a winnowing machine, scattered far away from one another the elements most unlike, and forced the most similar elements into close contact. wherefore also the various elements had different places before they were arranged so as to form the universe. at first, they were all without reason and measure. but when the world began to get into order, fire and water and earth and air had only certain faint traces of themselves, and were altogether such as everything might be expected to be in the absence of god; this, i say, was their nature at that time, and god fashioned them by form and number. let it be consistently maintained by us in all that we say that god made them as far as possible the fairest and best, out of things which were not fair and good. and now i will endeavour to show you the disposition and generation of them by an unaccustomed argument, which i am compelled to use; but i believe that you will be able to follow me, for your education has made you familiar with the methods of science. in the first place, then, as is evident to all, fire and earth and water and air are bodies. and every sort of body possesses solidity, and every solid must necessarily be contained in planes; and every plane rectilinear figure is composed of triangles; and all triangles are originally of two kinds, both of which are made up of one right and two acute angles; one of them has at either end of the base the half of a divided right angle, having equal sides, while in the other the right angle is divided into unequal parts, having unequal sides. these, then, proceeding by a combination of probability with demonstration, we assume to be the original elements of fire and the other bodies; but the principles which are prior to these god only knows, and he of men who is the friend of god. and next we have to determine what are the four most beautiful bodies which are unlike one another, and of which some are capable of resolution into one another; for having discovered thus much, we shall know the true origin of earth and fire and of the proportionate and intermediate elements. and then we shall not be willing to allow that there are any distinct kinds of visible bodies fairer than these. wherefore we must endeavour to construct the four forms of bodies which excel in beauty, and then we shall be able to say that we have sufficiently apprehended their nature. now of the two triangles, the isosceles has one form only; the scalene or unequal-sided has an infinite number. of the infinite forms we must select the most beautiful, if we are to proceed in due order, and any one who can point out a more beautiful form than ours for the construction of these bodies, shall carry off the palm, not as an enemy, but as a friend. now, the one which we maintain to be the most beautiful of all the many triangles (and we need not speak of the others) is that of which the double forms a third triangle which is equilateral; the reason of this would be long to tell; he who disproves what we are saying, and shows that we are mistaken, may claim a friendly victory. then let us choose two triangles, out of which fire and the other elements have been constructed, one isosceles, the other having the square of the longer side equal to three times the square of the lesser side. now is the time to explain what was before obscurely said: there was an error in imagining that all the four elements might be generated by and into one another; this, i say, was an erroneous supposition, for there are generated from the triangles which we have selected four kinds--three from the one which has the sides unequal; the fourth alone is framed out of the isosceles triangle. hence they cannot all be resolved into one another, a great number of small bodies being combined into a few large ones, or the converse. but three of them can be thus resolved and compounded, for they all spring from one, and when the greater bodies are broken up, many small bodies will spring up out of them and take their own proper figures; or, again, when many small bodies are dissolved into their triangles, if they become one, they will form one large mass of another kind. so much for their passage into one another. i have now to speak of their several kinds, and show out of what combinations of numbers each of them was formed. the first will be the simplest and smallest construction, and its element is that triangle which has its hypotenuse twice the lesser side. when two such triangles are joined at the diagonal, and this is repeated three times, and the triangles rest their diagonals and shorter sides on the same point as a centre, a single equilateral triangle is formed out of six triangles; and four equilateral triangles, if put together, make out of every three plane angles one solid angle, being that which is nearest to the most obtuse of plane angles; and out of the combination of these four angles arises the first solid form which distributes into equal and similar parts the whole circle in which it is inscribed. the second species of solid is formed out of the same triangles, which unite as eight equilateral triangles and form one solid angle out of four plane angles, and out of six such angles the second body is completed. and the third body is made up of triangular elements, forming twelve solid angles, each of them included in five plane equilateral triangles, having altogether twenty bases, each of which is an equilateral triangle. the one element (that is, the triangle which has its hypotenuse twice the lesser side) having generated these figures, generated no more; but the isosceles triangle produced the fourth elementary figure, which is compounded of four such triangles, joining their right angles in a centre, and forming one equilateral quadrangle. six of these united form eight solid angles, each of which is made by the combination of three plane right angles; the figure of the body thus composed is a cube, having six plane quadrangular equilateral bases. there was yet a fifth combination which god used in the delineation of the universe. now, he who, duly reflecting on all this, enquires whether the worlds are to be regarded as indefinite or definite in number, will be of opinion that the notion of their indefiniteness is characteristic of a sadly indefinite and ignorant mind. he, however, who raises the question whether they are to be truly regarded as one or five, takes up a more reasonable position. arguing from probabilities, i am of opinion that they are one; another, regarding the question from another point of view, will be of another mind. but, leaving this enquiry, let us proceed to distribute the elementary forms, which have now been created in idea, among the four elements. to earth, then, let us assign the cubical form; for earth is the most immoveable of the four and the most plastic of all bodies, and that which has the most stable bases must of necessity be of such a nature. now, of the triangles which we assumed at first, that which has two equal sides is by nature more firmly based than that which has unequal sides; and of the compound figures which are formed out of either, the plane equilateral quadrangle has necessarily a more stable basis than the equilateral triangle, both in the whole and in the parts. wherefore, in assigning this figure to earth, we adhere to probability; and to water we assign that one of the remaining forms which is the least moveable; and the most moveable of them to fire; and to air that which is intermediate. also we assign the smallest body to fire, and the greatest to water, and the intermediate in size to air; and, again, the acutest body to fire, and the next in acuteness to air, and the third to water. of all these elements, that which has the fewest bases must necessarily be the most moveable, for it must be the acutest and most penetrating in every way, and also the lightest as being composed of the smallest number of similar particles: and the second body has similar properties in a second degree, and the third body in the third degree. let it be agreed, then, both according to strict reason and according to probability, that the pyramid is the solid which is the original element and seed of fire; and let us assign the element which was next in the order of generation to air, and the third to water. we must imagine all these to be so small that no single particle of any of the four kinds is seen by us on account of their smallness: but when many of them are collected together their aggregates are seen. and the ratios of their numbers, motions, and other properties, everywhere god, as far as necessity allowed or gave consent, has exactly perfected, and harmonized in due proportion. from all that we have just been saying about the elements or kinds, the most probable conclusion is as follows:--earth, when meeting with fire and dissolved by its sharpness, whether the dissolution take place in the fire itself or perhaps in some mass of air or water, is borne hither and thither, until its parts, meeting together and mutually harmonising, again become earth; for they can never take any other form. but water, when divided by fire or by air, on re-forming, may become one part fire and two parts air; and a single volume of air divided becomes two of fire. again, when a small body of fire is contained in a larger body of air or water or earth, and both are moving, and the fire struggling is overcome and broken up, then two volumes of fire form one volume of air; and when air is overcome and cut up into small pieces, two and a half parts of air are condensed into one part of water. let us consider the matter in another way. when one of the other elements is fastened upon by fire, and is cut by the sharpness of its angles and sides, it coalesces with the fire, and then ceases to be cut by them any longer. for no element which is one and the same with itself can be changed by or change another of the same kind and in the same state. but so long as in the process of transition the weaker is fighting against the stronger, the dissolution continues. again, when a few small particles, enclosed in many larger ones, are in process of decomposition and extinction, they only cease from their tendency to extinction when they consent to pass into the conquering nature, and fire becomes air and air water. but if bodies of another kind go and attack them (i.e. the small particles), the latter continue to be dissolved until, being completely forced back and dispersed, they make their escape to their own kindred, or else, being overcome and assimilated to the conquering power, they remain where they are and dwell with their victors, and from being many become one. and owing to these affections, all things are changing their place, for by the motion of the receiving vessel the bulk of each class is distributed into its proper place; but those things which become unlike themselves and like other things, are hurried by the shaking into the place of the things to which they grow like. now all unmixed and primary bodies are produced by such causes as these. as to the subordinate species which are included in the greater kinds, they are to be attributed to the varieties in the structure of the two original triangles. for either structure did not originally produce the triangle of one size only, but some larger and some smaller, and there are as many sizes as there are species of the four elements. hence when they are mingled with themselves and with one another there is an endless variety of them, which those who would arrive at the probable truth of nature ought duly to consider. unless a person comes to an understanding about the nature and conditions of rest and motion, he will meet with many difficulties in the discussion which follows. something has been said of this matter already, and something more remains to be said, which is, that motion never exists in what is uniform. for to conceive that anything can be moved without a mover is hard or indeed impossible, and equally impossible to conceive that there can be a mover unless there be something which can be moved--motion cannot exist where either of these are wanting, and for these to be uniform is impossible; wherefore we must assign rest to uniformity and motion to the want of uniformity. now inequality is the cause of the nature which is wanting in uniformity; and of this we have already described the origin. but there still remains the further point--why things when divided after their kinds do not cease to pass through one another and to change their place--which we will now proceed to explain. in the revolution of the universe are comprehended all the four elements, and this being circular and having a tendency to come together, compresses everything and will not allow any place to be left void. wherefore, also, fire above all things penetrates everywhere, and air next, as being next in rarity of the elements; and the two other elements in like manner penetrate according to their degrees of rarity. for those things which are composed of the largest particles have the largest void left in their compositions, and those which are composed of the smallest particles have the least. and the contraction caused by the compression thrusts the smaller particles into the interstices of the larger. and thus, when the small parts are placed side by side with the larger, and the lesser divide the greater and the greater unite the lesser, all the elements are borne up and down and hither and thither towards their own places; for the change in the size of each changes its position in space. and these causes generate an inequality which is always maintained, and is continually creating a perpetual motion of the elements in all time. in the next place we have to consider that there are divers kinds of fire. there are, for example, first, flame; and secondly, those emanations of flame which do not burn but only give light to the eyes; thirdly, the remains of fire, which are seen in red-hot embers after the flame has been extinguished. there are similar differences in the air; of which the brightest part is called the aether, and the most turbid sort mist and darkness; and there are various other nameless kinds which arise from the inequality of the triangles. water, again, admits in the first place of a division into two kinds; the one liquid and the other fusile. the liquid kind is composed of the small and unequal particles of water; and moves itself and is moved by other bodies owing to the want of uniformity and the shape of its particles; whereas the fusile kind, being formed of large and uniform particles, is more stable than the other, and is heavy and compact by reason of its uniformity. but when fire gets in and dissolves the particles and destroys the uniformity, it has greater mobility, and becoming fluid is thrust forth by the neighbouring air and spreads upon the earth; and this dissolution of the solid masses is called melting, and their spreading out upon the earth flowing. again, when the fire goes out of the fusile substance, it does not pass into a vacuum, but into the neighbouring air; and the air which is displaced forces together the liquid and still moveable mass into the place which was occupied by the fire, and unites it with itself. thus compressed the mass resumes its equability, and is again at unity with itself, because the fire which was the author of the inequality has retreated; and this departure of the fire is called cooling, and the coming together which follows upon it is termed congealment. of all the kinds termed fusile, that which is the densest and is formed out of the finest and most uniform parts is that most precious possession called gold, which is hardened by filtration through rock; this is unique in kind, and has both a glittering and a yellow colour. a shoot of gold, which is so dense as to be very hard, and takes a black colour, is termed adamant. there is also another kind which has parts nearly like gold, and of which there are several species; it is denser than gold, and it contains a small and fine portion of earth, and is therefore harder, yet also lighter because of the great interstices which it has within itself; and this substance, which is one of the bright and denser kinds of water, when solidified is called copper. there is an alloy of earth mingled with it, which, when the two parts grow old and are disunited, shows itself separately and is called rust. the remaining phenomena of the same kind there will be no difficulty in reasoning out by the method of probabilities. a man may sometimes set aside meditations about eternal things, and for recreation turn to consider the truths of generation which are probable only; he will thus gain a pleasure not to be repented of, and secure for himself while he lives a wise and moderate pastime. let us grant ourselves this indulgence, and go through the probabilities relating to the same subjects which follow next in order. water which is mingled with fire, so much as is fine and liquid (being so called by reason of its motion and the way in which it rolls along the ground), and soft, because its bases give way and are less stable than those of earth, when separated from fire and air and isolated, becomes more uniform, and by their retirement is compressed into itself; and if the condensation be very great, the water above the earth becomes hail, but on the earth, ice; and that which is congealed in a less degree and is only half solid, when above the earth is called snow, and when upon the earth, and condensed from dew, hoar-frost. then, again, there are the numerous kinds of water which have been mingled with one another, and are distilled through plants which grow in the earth; and this whole class is called by the name of juices or saps. the unequal admixture of these fluids creates a variety of species; most of them are nameless, but four which are of a fiery nature are clearly distinguished and have names. first, there is wine, which warms the soul as well as the body: secondly, there is the oily nature, which is smooth and divides the visual ray, and for this reason is bright and shining and of a glistening appearance, including pitch, the juice of the castor berry, oil itself, and other things of a like kind: thirdly, there is the class of substances which expand the contracted parts of the mouth, until they return to their natural state, and by reason of this property create sweetness;--these are included under the general name of honey: and, lastly, there is a frothy nature, which differs from all juices, having a burning quality which dissolves the flesh; it is called opos (a vegetable acid). as to the kinds of earth, that which is filtered through water passes into stone in the following manner:--the water which mixes with the earth and is broken up in the process changes into air, and taking this form mounts into its own place. but as there is no surrounding vacuum it thrusts away the neighbouring air, and this being rendered heavy, and, when it is displaced, having been poured around the mass of earth, forcibly compresses it and drives it into the vacant space whence the new air had come up; and the earth when compressed by the air into an indissoluble union with water becomes rock. the fairer sort is that which is made up of equal and similar parts and is transparent; that which has the opposite qualities is inferior. but when all the watery part is suddenly drawn out by fire, a more brittle substance is formed, to which we give the name of pottery. sometimes also moisture may remain, and the earth which has been fused by fire becomes, when cool, a certain stone of a black colour. a like separation of the water which had been copiously mingled with them may occur in two substances composed of finer particles of earth and of a briny nature; out of either of them a half-solid-body is then formed, soluble in water--the one, soda, which is used for purging away oil and earth, the other, salt, which harmonizes so well in combinations pleasing to the palate, and is, as the law testifies, a substance dear to the gods. the compounds of earth and water are not soluble by water, but by fire only, and for this reason:--neither fire nor air melt masses of earth; for their particles, being smaller than the interstices in its structure, have plenty of room to move without forcing their way, and so they leave the earth unmelted and undissolved; but particles of water, which are larger, force a passage, and dissolve and melt the earth. wherefore earth when not consolidated by force is dissolved by water only; when consolidated, by nothing but fire; for this is the only body which can find an entrance. the cohesion of water again, when very strong, is dissolved by fire only--when weaker, then either by air or fire--the former entering the interstices, and the latter penetrating even the triangles. but nothing can dissolve air, when strongly condensed, which does not reach the elements or triangles; or if not strongly condensed, then only fire can dissolve it. as to bodies composed of earth and water, while the water occupies the vacant interstices of the earth in them which are compressed by force, the particles of water which approach them from without, finding no entrance, flow around the entire mass and leave it undissolved; but the particles of fire, entering into the interstices of the water, do to the water what water does to earth and fire to air (the text seems to be corrupt.), and are the sole causes of the compound body of earth and water liquefying and becoming fluid. now these bodies are of two kinds; some of them, such as glass and the fusible sort of stones, have less water than they have earth; on the other hand, substances of the nature of wax and incense have more of water entering into their composition. i have thus shown the various classes of bodies as they are diversified by their forms and combinations and changes into one another, and now i must endeavour to set forth their affections and the causes of them. in the first place, the bodies which i have been describing are necessarily objects of sense. but we have not yet considered the origin of flesh, or what belongs to flesh, or of that part of the soul which is mortal. and these things cannot be adequately explained without also explaining the affections which are concerned with sensation, nor the latter without the former: and yet to explain them together is hardly possible; for which reason we must assume first one or the other and afterwards examine the nature of our hypothesis. in order, then, that the affections may follow regularly after the elements, let us presuppose the existence of body and soul. first, let us enquire what we mean by saying that fire is hot; and about this we may reason from the dividing or cutting power which it exercises on our bodies. we all of us feel that fire is sharp; and we may further consider the fineness of the sides, and the sharpness of the angles, and the smallness of the particles, and the swiftness of the motion--all this makes the action of fire violent and sharp, so that it cuts whatever it meets. and we must not forget that the original figure of fire (i.e. the pyramid), more than any other form, has a dividing power which cuts our bodies into small pieces (kepmatizei), and thus naturally produces that affection which we call heat; and hence the origin of the name (thepmos, kepma). now, the opposite of this is sufficiently manifest; nevertheless we will not fail to describe it. for the larger particles of moisture which surround the body, entering in and driving out the lesser, but not being able to take their places, compress the moist principle in us; and this from being unequal and disturbed, is forced by them into a state of rest, which is due to equability and compression. but things which are contracted contrary to nature are by nature at war, and force themselves apart; and to this war and convulsion the name of shivering and trembling is given; and the whole affection and the cause of the affection are both termed cold. that is called hard to which our flesh yields, and soft which yields to our flesh; and things are also termed hard and soft relatively to one another. that which yields has a small base; but that which rests on quadrangular bases is firmly posed and belongs to the class which offers the greatest resistance; so too does that which is the most compact and therefore most repellent. the nature of the light and the heavy will be best understood when examined in connexion with our notions of above and below; for it is quite a mistake to suppose that the universe is parted into two regions, separate from and opposite to each other, the one a lower to which all things tend which have any bulk, and an upper to which things only ascend against their will. for as the universe is in the form of a sphere, all the extremities, being equidistant from the centre, are equally extremities, and the centre, which is equidistant from them, is equally to be regarded as the opposite of them all. such being the nature of the world, when a person says that any of these points is above or below, may he not be justly charged with using an improper expression? for the centre of the world cannot be rightly called either above or below, but is the centre and nothing else; and the circumference is not the centre, and has in no one part of itself a different relation to the centre from what it has in any of the opposite parts. indeed, when it is in every direction similar, how can one rightly give to it names which imply opposition? for if there were any solid body in equipoise at the centre of the universe, there would be nothing to draw it to this extreme rather than to that, for they are all perfectly similar; and if a person were to go round the world in a circle, he would often, when standing at the antipodes of his former position, speak of the same point as above and below; for, as i was saying just now, to speak of the whole which is in the form of a globe as having one part above and another below is not like a sensible man. the reason why these names are used, and the circumstances under which they are ordinarily applied by us to the division of the heavens, may be elucidated by the following supposition:--if a person were to stand in that part of the universe which is the appointed place of fire, and where there is the great mass of fire to which fiery bodies gather--if, i say, he were to ascend thither, and, having the power to do this, were to abstract particles of fire and put them in scales and weigh them, and then, raising the balance, were to draw the fire by force towards the uncongenial element of the air, it would be very evident that he could compel the smaller mass more readily than the larger; for when two things are simultaneously raised by one and the same power, the smaller body must necessarily yield to the superior power with less reluctance than the larger; and the larger body is called heavy and said to tend downwards, and the smaller body is called light and said to tend upwards. and we may detect ourselves who are upon the earth doing precisely the same thing. for we often separate earthy natures, and sometimes earth itself, and draw them into the uncongenial element of air by force and contrary to nature, both clinging to their kindred elements. but that which is smaller yields to the impulse given by us towards the dissimilar element more easily than the larger; and so we call the former light, and the place towards which it is impelled we call above, and the contrary state and place we call heavy and below respectively. now the relations of these must necessarily vary, because the principal masses of the different elements hold opposite positions; for that which is light, heavy, below or above in one place will be found to be and become contrary and transverse and every way diverse in relation to that which is light, heavy, below or above in an opposite place. and about all of them this has to be considered:--that the tendency of each towards its kindred element makes the body which is moved heavy, and the place towards which the motion tends below, but things which have an opposite tendency we call by an opposite name. such are the causes which we assign to these phenomena. as to the smooth and the rough, any one who sees them can explain the reason of them to another. for roughness is hardness mingled with irregularity, and smoothness is produced by the joint effect of uniformity and density. the most important of the affections which concern the whole body remains to be considered--that is, the cause of pleasure and pain in the perceptions of which i have been speaking, and in all other things which are perceived by sense through the parts of the body, and have both pains and pleasures attendant on them. let us imagine the causes of every affection, whether of sense or not, to be of the following nature, remembering that we have already distinguished between the nature which is easy and which is hard to move; for this is the direction in which we must hunt the prey which we mean to take. a body which is of a nature to be easily moved, on receiving an impression however slight, spreads abroad the motion in a circle, the parts communicating with each other, until at last, reaching the principle of mind, they announce the quality of the agent. but a body of the opposite kind, being immobile, and not extending to the surrounding region, merely receives the impression, and does not stir any of the neighbouring parts; and since the parts do not distribute the original impression to other parts, it has no effect of motion on the whole animal, and therefore produces no effect on the patient. this is true of the bones and hair and other more earthy parts of the human body; whereas what was said above relates mainly to sight and hearing, because they have in them the greatest amount of fire and air. now we must conceive of pleasure and pain in this way. an impression produced in us contrary to nature and violent, if sudden, is painful; and, again, the sudden return to nature is pleasant; but a gentle and gradual return is imperceptible and vice versa. on the other hand the impression of sense which is most easily produced is most readily felt, but is not accompanied by pleasure or pain; such, for example, are the affections of the sight, which, as we said above, is a body naturally uniting with our body in the day-time; for cuttings and burnings and other affections which happen to the sight do not give pain, nor is there pleasure when the sight returns to its natural state; but the sensations are clearest and strongest according to the manner in which the eye is affected by the object, and itself strikes and touches it; there is no violence either in the contraction or dilation of the eye. but bodies formed of larger particles yield to the agent only with a struggle; and then they impart their motions to the whole and cause pleasure and pain--pain when alienated from their natural conditions, and pleasure when restored to them. things which experience gradual withdrawings and emptyings of their nature, and great and sudden replenishments, fail to perceive the emptying, but are sensible of the replenishment; and so they occasion no pain, but the greatest pleasure, to the mortal part of the soul, as is manifest in the case of perfumes. but things which are changed all of a sudden, and only gradually and with difficulty return to their own nature, have effects in every way opposite to the former, as is evident in the case of burnings and cuttings of the body. thus have we discussed the general affections of the whole body, and the names of the agents which produce them. and now i will endeavour to speak of the affections of particular parts, and the causes and agents of them, as far as i am able. in the first place let us set forth what was omitted when we were speaking of juices, concerning the affections peculiar to the tongue. these too, like most of the other affections, appear to be caused by certain contractions and dilations, but they have besides more of roughness and smoothness than is found in other affections; for whenever earthy particles enter into the small veins which are the testing instruments of the tongue, reaching to the heart, and fall upon the moist, delicate portions of flesh--when, as they are dissolved, they contract and dry up the little veins, they are astringent if they are rougher, but if not so rough, then only harsh. those of them which are of an abstergent nature, and purge the whole surface of the tongue, if they do it in excess, and so encroach as to consume some part of the flesh itself, like potash and soda, are all termed bitter. but the particles which are deficient in the alkaline quality, and which cleanse only moderately, are called salt, and having no bitterness or roughness, are regarded as rather agreeable than otherwise. bodies which share in and are made smooth by the heat of the mouth, and which are inflamed, and again in turn inflame that which heats them, and which are so light that they are carried upwards to the sensations of the head, and cut all that comes in their way, by reason of these qualities in them, are all termed pungent. but when these same particles, refined by putrefaction, enter into the narrow veins, and are duly proportioned to the particles of earth and air which are there, they set them whirling about one another, and while they are in a whirl cause them to dash against and enter into one another, and so form hollows surrounding the particles that enter--which watery vessels of air (for a film of moisture, sometimes earthy, sometimes pure, is spread around the air) are hollow spheres of water; and those of them which are pure, are transparent, and are called bubbles, while those composed of the earthy liquid, which is in a state of general agitation and effervescence, are said to boil or ferment--of all these affections the cause is termed acid. and there is the opposite affection arising from an opposite cause, when the mass of entering particles, immersed in the moisture of the mouth, is congenial to the tongue, and smooths and oils over the roughness, and relaxes the parts which are unnaturally contracted, and contracts the parts which are relaxed, and disposes them all according to their nature;--that sort of remedy of violent affections is pleasant and agreeable to every man, and has the name sweet. but enough of this. the faculty of smell does not admit of differences of kind; for all smells are of a half-formed nature, and no element is so proportioned as to have any smell. the veins about the nose are too narrow to admit earth and water, and too wide to detain fire and air; and for this reason no one ever perceives the smell of any of them; but smells always proceed from bodies that are damp, or putrefying, or liquefying, or evaporating, and are perceptible only in the intermediate state, when water is changing into air and air into water; and all of them are either vapour or mist. that which is passing out of air into water is mist, and that which is passing from water into air is vapour; and hence all smells are thinner than water and thicker than air. the proof of this is, that when there is any obstruction to the respiration, and a man draws in his breath by force, then no smell filters through, but the air without the smell alone penetrates. wherefore the varieties of smell have no name, and they have not many, or definite and simple kinds; but they are distinguished only as painful and pleasant, the one sort irritating and disturbing the whole cavity which is situated between the head and the navel, the other having a soothing influence, and restoring this same region to an agreeable and natural condition. in considering the third kind of sense, hearing, we must speak of the causes in which it originates. we may in general assume sound to be a blow which passes through the ears, and is transmitted by means of the air, the brain, and the blood, to the soul, and that hearing is the vibration of this blow, which begins in the head and ends in the region of the liver. the sound which moves swiftly is acute, and the sound which moves slowly is grave, and that which is regular is equable and smooth, and the reverse is harsh. a great body of sound is loud, and a small body of sound the reverse. respecting the harmonies of sound i must hereafter speak. there is a fourth class of sensible things, having many intricate varieties, which must now be distinguished. they are called by the general name of colours, and are a flame which emanates from every sort of body, and has particles corresponding to the sense of sight. i have spoken already, in what has preceded, of the causes which generate sight, and in this place it will be natural and suitable to give a rational theory of colours. of the particles coming from other bodies which fall upon the sight, some are smaller and some are larger, and some are equal to the parts of the sight itself. those which are equal are imperceptible, and we call them transparent. the larger produce contraction, the smaller dilation, in the sight, exercising a power akin to that of hot and cold bodies on the flesh, or of astringent bodies on the tongue, or of those heating bodies which we termed pungent. white and black are similar effects of contraction and dilation in another sphere, and for this reason have a different appearance. wherefore, we ought to term white that which dilates the visual ray, and the opposite of this is black. there is also a swifter motion of a different sort of fire which strikes and dilates the ray of sight until it reaches the eyes, forcing a way through their passages and melting them, and eliciting from them a union of fire and water which we call tears, being itself an opposite fire which comes to them from an opposite direction--the inner fire flashes forth like lightning, and the outer finds a way in and is extinguished in the moisture, and all sorts of colours are generated by the mixture. this affection is termed dazzling, and the object which produces it is called bright and flashing. there is another sort of fire which is intermediate, and which reaches and mingles with the moisture of the eye without flashing; and in this, the fire mingling with the ray of the moisture, produces a colour like blood, to which we give the name of red. a bright hue mingled with red and white gives the colour called auburn (greek). the law of proportion, however, according to which the several colours are formed, even if a man knew he would be foolish in telling, for he could not give any necessary reason, nor indeed any tolerable or probable explanation of them. again, red, when mingled with black and white, becomes purple, but it becomes umber (greek) when the colours are burnt as well as mingled and the black is more thoroughly mixed with them. flame-colour (greek) is produced by a union of auburn and dun (greek), and dun by an admixture of black and white; pale yellow (greek), by an admixture of white and auburn. white and bright meeting, and falling upon a full black, become dark blue (greek), and when dark blue mingles with white, a light blue (greek) colour is formed, as flame-colour with black makes leek green (greek). there will be no difficulty in seeing how and by what mixtures the colours derived from these are made according to the rules of probability. he, however, who should attempt to verify all this by experiment, would forget the difference of the human and divine nature. for god only has the knowledge and also the power which are able to combine many things into one and again resolve the one into many. but no man either is or ever will be able to accomplish either the one or the other operation. these are the elements, thus of necessity then subsisting, which the creator of the fairest and best of created things associated with himself, when he made the self-sufficing and most perfect god, using the necessary causes as his ministers in the accomplishment of his work, but himself contriving the good in all his creations. wherefore we may distinguish two sorts of causes, the one divine and the other necessary, and may seek for the divine in all things, as far as our nature admits, with a view to the blessed life; but the necessary kind only for the sake of the divine, considering that without them and when isolated from them, these higher things for which we look cannot be apprehended or received or in any way shared by us. seeing, then, that we have now prepared for our use the various classes of causes which are the material out of which the remainder of our discourse must be woven, just as wood is the material of the carpenter, let us revert in a few words to the point at which we began, and then endeavour to add on a suitable ending to the beginning of our tale. as i said at first, when all things were in disorder god created in each thing in relation to itself, and in all things in relation to each other, all the measures and harmonies which they could possibly receive. for in those days nothing had any proportion except by accident; nor did any of the things which now have names deserve to be named at all--as, for example, fire, water, and the rest of the elements. all these the creator first set in order, and out of them he constructed the universe, which was a single animal comprehending in itself all other animals, mortal and immortal. now of the divine, he himself was the creator, but the creation of the mortal he committed to his offspring. and they, imitating him, received from him the immortal principle of the soul; and around this they proceeded to fashion a mortal body, and made it to be the vehicle of the soul, and constructed within the body a soul of another nature which was mortal, subject to terrible and irresistible affections,--first of all, pleasure, the greatest incitement to evil; then, pain, which deters from good; also rashness and fear, two foolish counsellors, anger hard to be appeased, and hope easily led astray;--these they mingled with irrational sense and with all-daring love according to necessary laws, and so framed man. wherefore, fearing to pollute the divine any more than was absolutely unavoidable, they gave to the mortal nature a separate habitation in another part of the body, placing the neck between them to be the isthmus and boundary, which they constructed between the head and breast, to keep them apart. and in the breast, and in what is termed the thorax, they encased the mortal soul; and as the one part of this was superior and the other inferior they divided the cavity of the thorax into two parts, as the women's and men's apartments are divided in houses, and placed the midriff to be a wall of partition between them. that part of the inferior soul which is endowed with courage and passion and loves contention they settled nearer the head, midway between the midriff and the neck, in order that it might be under the rule of reason and might join with it in controlling and restraining the desires when they are no longer willing of their own accord to obey the word of command issuing from the citadel. the heart, the knot of the veins and the fountain of the blood which races through all the limbs, was set in the place of guard, that when the might of passion was roused by reason making proclamation of any wrong assailing them from without or being perpetrated by the desires within, quickly the whole power of feeling in the body, perceiving these commands and threats, might obey and follow through every turn and alley, and thus allow the principle of the best to have the command in all of them. but the gods, foreknowing that the palpitation of the heart in the expectation of danger and the swelling and excitement of passion was caused by fire, formed and implanted as a supporter to the heart the lung, which was, in the first place, soft and bloodless, and also had within hollows like the pores of a sponge, in order that by receiving the breath and the drink, it might give coolness and the power of respiration and alleviate the heat. wherefore they cut the air-channels leading to the lung, and placed the lung about the heart as a soft spring, that, when passion was rife within, the heart, beating against a yielding body, might be cooled and suffer less, and might thus become more ready to join with passion in the service of reason. the part of the soul which desires meats and drinks and the other things of which it has need by reason of the bodily nature, they placed between the midriff and the boundary of the navel, contriving in all this region a sort of manger for the food of the body; and there they bound it down like a wild animal which was chained up with man, and must be nourished if man was to exist. they appointed this lower creation his place here in order that he might be always feeding at the manger, and have his dwelling as far as might be from the council-chamber, making as little noise and disturbance as possible, and permitting the best part to advise quietly for the good of the whole. and knowing that this lower principle in man would not comprehend reason, and even if attaining to some degree of perception would never naturally care for rational notions, but that it would be led away by phantoms and visions night and day,--to be a remedy for this, god combined with it the liver, and placed it in the house of the lower nature, contriving that it should be solid and smooth, and bright and sweet, and should also have a bitter quality, in order that the power of thought, which proceeds from the mind, might be reflected as in a mirror which receives likenesses of objects and gives back images of them to the sight; and so might strike terror into the desires, when, making use of the bitter part of the liver, to which it is akin, it comes threatening and invading, and diffusing this bitter element swiftly through the whole liver produces colours like bile, and contracting every part makes it wrinkled and rough; and twisting out of its right place and contorting the lobe and closing and shutting up the vessels and gates, causes pain and loathing. and the converse happens when some gentle inspiration of the understanding pictures images of an opposite character, and allays the bile and bitterness by refusing to stir or touch the nature opposed to itself, but by making use of the natural sweetness of the liver, corrects all things and makes them to be right and smooth and free, and renders the portion of the soul which resides about the liver happy and joyful, enabling it to pass the night in peace, and to practise divination in sleep, inasmuch as it has no share in mind and reason. for the authors of our being, remembering the command of their father when he bade them create the human race as good as they could, that they might correct our inferior parts and make them to attain a measure of truth, placed in the liver the seat of divination. and herein is a proof that god has given the art of divination not to the wisdom, but to the foolishness of man. no man, when in his wits, attains prophetic truth and inspiration; but when he receives the inspired word, either his intelligence is enthralled in sleep, or he is demented by some distemper or possession. and he who would understand what he remembers to have been said, whether in a dream or when he was awake, by the prophetic and inspired nature, or would determine by reason the meaning of the apparitions which he has seen, and what indications they afford to this man or that, of past, present or future good and evil, must first recover his wits. but, while he continues demented, he cannot judge of the visions which he sees or the words which he utters; the ancient saying is very true, that 'only a man who has his wits can act or judge about himself and his own affairs.' and for this reason it is customary to appoint interpreters to be judges of the true inspiration. some persons call them prophets; they are quite unaware that they are only the expositors of dark sayings and visions, and are not to be called prophets at all, but only interpreters of prophecy. such is the nature of the liver, which is placed as we have described in order that it may give prophetic intimations. during the life of each individual these intimations are plainer, but after his death the liver becomes blind, and delivers oracles too obscure to be intelligible. the neighbouring organ (the spleen) is situated on the left-hand side, and is constructed with a view of keeping the liver bright and pure,--like a napkin, always ready prepared and at hand to clean the mirror. and hence, when any impurities arise in the region of the liver by reason of disorders of the body, the loose nature of the spleen, which is composed of a hollow and bloodless tissue, receives them all and clears them away, and when filled with the unclean matter, swells and festers, but, again, when the body is purged, settles down into the same place as before, and is humbled. concerning the soul, as to which part is mortal and which divine, and how and why they are separated, and where located, if god acknowledges that we have spoken the truth, then, and then only, can we be confident; still, we may venture to assert that what has been said by us is probable, and will be rendered more probable by investigation. let us assume thus much. the creation of the rest of the body follows next in order, and this we may investigate in a similar manner. and it appears to be very meet that the body should be framed on the following principles:-- the authors of our race were aware that we should be intemperate in eating and drinking, and take a good deal more than was necessary or proper, by reason of gluttony. in order then that disease might not quickly destroy us, and lest our mortal race should perish without fulfilling its end--intending to provide against this, the gods made what is called the lower belly, to be a receptacle for the superfluous meat and drink, and formed the convolution of the bowels, so that the food might be prevented from passing quickly through and compelling the body to require more food, thus producing insatiable gluttony, and making the whole race an enemy to philosophy and music, and rebellious against the divinest element within us. the bones and flesh, and other similar parts of us, were made as follows. the first principle of all of them was the generation of the marrow. for the bonds of life which unite the soul with the body are made fast there, and they are the root and foundation of the human race. the marrow itself is created out of other materials: god took such of the primary triangles as were straight and smooth, and were adapted by their perfection to produce fire and water, and air and earth--these, i say, he separated from their kinds, and mingling them in due proportions with one another, made the marrow out of them to be a universal seed of the whole race of mankind; and in this seed he then planted and enclosed the souls, and in the original distribution gave to the marrow as many and various forms as the different kinds of souls were hereafter to receive. that which, like a field, was to receive the divine seed, he made round every way, and called that portion of the marrow, brain, intending that, when an animal was perfected, the vessel containing this substance should be the head; but that which was intended to contain the remaining and mortal part of the soul he distributed into figures at once round and elongated, and he called them all by the name 'marrow'; and to these, as to anchors, fastening the bonds of the whole soul, he proceeded to fashion around them the entire framework of our body, constructing for the marrow, first of all a complete covering of bone. bone was composed by him in the following manner. having sifted pure and smooth earth he kneaded it and wetted it with marrow, and after that he put it into fire and then into water, and once more into fire and again into water--in this way by frequent transfers from one to the other he made it insoluble by either. out of this he fashioned, as in a lathe, a globe made of bone, which he placed around the brain, and in this he left a narrow opening; and around the marrow of the neck and back he formed vertebrae which he placed under one another like pivots, beginning at the head and extending through the whole of the trunk. thus wishing to preserve the entire seed, he enclosed it in a stone-like casing, inserting joints, and using in the formation of them the power of the other or diverse as an intermediate nature, that they might have motion and flexure. then again, considering that the bone would be too brittle and inflexible, and when heated and again cooled would soon mortify and destroy the seed within--having this in view, he contrived the sinews and the flesh, that so binding all the members together by the sinews, which admitted of being stretched and relaxed about the vertebrae, he might thus make the body capable of flexion and extension, while the flesh would serve as a protection against the summer heat and against the winter cold, and also against falls, softly and easily yielding to external bodies, like articles made of felt; and containing in itself a warm moisture which in summer exudes and makes the surface damp, would impart a natural coolness to the whole body; and again in winter by the help of this internal warmth would form a very tolerable defence against the frost which surrounds it and attacks it from without. he who modelled us, considering these things, mixed earth with fire and water and blended them; and making a ferment of acid and salt, he mingled it with them and formed soft and succulent flesh. as for the sinews, he made them of a mixture of bone and unfermented flesh, attempered so as to be in a mean, and gave them a yellow colour; wherefore the sinews have a firmer and more glutinous nature than flesh, but a softer and moister nature than the bones. with these god covered the bones and marrow, binding them together by sinews, and then enshrouded them all in an upper covering of flesh. the more living and sensitive of the bones he enclosed in the thinnest film of flesh, and those which had the least life within them in the thickest and most solid flesh. so again on the joints of the bones, where reason indicated that no more was required, he placed only a thin covering of flesh, that it might not interfere with the flexion of our bodies and make them unwieldy because difficult to move; and also that it might not, by being crowded and pressed and matted together, destroy sensation by reason of its hardness, and impair the memory and dull the edge of intelligence. wherefore also the thighs and the shanks and the hips, and the bones of the arms and the forearms, and other parts which have no joints, and the inner bones, which on account of the rarity of the soul in the marrow are destitute of reason--all these are abundantly provided with flesh; but such as have mind in them are in general less fleshy, except where the creator has made some part solely of flesh in order to give sensation,--as, for example, the tongue. but commonly this is not the case. for the nature which comes into being and grows up in us by a law of necessity, does not admit of the combination of solid bone and much flesh with acute perceptions. more than any other part the framework of the head would have had them, if they could have co-existed, and the human race, having a strong and fleshy and sinewy head, would have had a life twice or many times as long as it now has, and also more healthy and free from pain. but our creators, considering whether they should make a longer-lived race which was worse, or a shorter-lived race which was better, came to the conclusion that every one ought to prefer a shorter span of life, which was better, to a longer one, which was worse; and therefore they covered the head with thin bone, but not with flesh and sinews, since it had no joints; and thus the head was added, having more wisdom and sensation than the rest of the body, but also being in every man far weaker. for these reasons and after this manner god placed the sinews at the extremity of the head, in a circle round the neck, and glued them together by the principle of likeness and fastened the extremities of the jawbones to them below the face, and the other sinews he dispersed throughout the body, fastening limb to limb. the framers of us framed the mouth, as now arranged, having teeth and tongue and lips, with a view to the necessary and the good contriving the way in for necessary purposes, the way out for the best purposes; for that is necessary which enters in and gives food to the body; but the river of speech, which flows out of a man and ministers to the intelligence, is the fairest and noblest of all streams. still the head could neither be left a bare frame of bones, on account of the extremes of heat and cold in the different seasons, nor yet be allowed to be wholly covered, and so become dull and senseless by reason of an overgrowth of flesh. the fleshy nature was not therefore wholly dried up, but a large sort of peel was parted off and remained over, which is now called the skin. this met and grew by the help of the cerebral moisture, and became the circular envelopment of the head. and the moisture, rising up under the sutures, watered and closed in the skin upon the crown, forming a sort of knot. the diversity of the sutures was caused by the power of the courses of the soul and of the food, and the more these struggled against one another the more numerous they became, and fewer if the struggle were less violent. this skin the divine power pierced all round with fire, and out of the punctures which were thus made the moisture issued forth, and the liquid and heat which was pure came away, and a mixed part which was composed of the same material as the skin, and had a fineness equal to the punctures, was borne up by its own impulse and extended far outside the head, but being too slow to escape, was thrust back by the external air, and rolled up underneath the skin, where it took root. thus the hair sprang up in the skin, being akin to it because it is like threads of leather, but rendered harder and closer through the pressure of the cold, by which each hair, while in process of separation from the skin, is compressed and cooled. wherefore the creator formed the head hairy, making use of the causes which i have mentioned, and reflecting also that instead of flesh the brain needed the hair to be a light covering or guard, which would give shade in summer and shelter in winter, and at the same time would not impede our quickness of perception. from the combination of sinew, skin, and bone, in the structure of the finger, there arises a triple compound, which, when dried up, takes the form of one hard skin partaking of all three natures, and was fabricated by these second causes, but designed by mind which is the principal cause with an eye to the future. for our creators well knew that women and other animals would some day be framed out of men, and they further knew that many animals would require the use of nails for many purposes; wherefore they fashioned in men at their first creation the rudiments of nails. for this purpose and for these reasons they caused skin, hair, and nails to grow at the extremities of the limbs. and now that all the parts and members of the mortal animal had come together, since its life of necessity consisted of fire and breath, and it therefore wasted away by dissolution and depletion, the gods contrived the following remedy: they mingled a nature akin to that of man with other forms and perceptions, and thus created another kind of animal. these are the trees and plants and seeds which have been improved by cultivation and are now domesticated among us; anciently there were only the wild kinds, which are older than the cultivated. for everything that partakes of life may be truly called a living being, and the animal of which we are now speaking partakes of the third kind of soul, which is said to be seated between the midriff and the navel, having no part in opinion or reason or mind, but only in feelings of pleasure and pain and the desires which accompany them. for this nature is always in a passive state, revolving in and about itself, repelling the motion from without and using its own, and accordingly is not endowed by nature with the power of observing or reflecting on its own concerns. wherefore it lives and does not differ from a living being, but is fixed and rooted in the same spot, having no power of self-motion. now after the superior powers had created all these natures to be food for us who are of the inferior nature, they cut various channels through the body as through a garden, that it might be watered as from a running stream. in the first place, they cut two hidden channels or veins down the back where the skin and the flesh join, which answered severally to the right and left side of the body. these they let down along the backbone, so as to have the marrow of generation between them, where it was most likely to flourish, and in order that the stream coming down from above might flow freely to the other parts, and equalize the irrigation. in the next place, they divided the veins about the head, and interlacing them, they sent them in opposite directions; those coming from the right side they sent to the left of the body, and those from the left they diverted towards the right, so that they and the skin might together form a bond which should fasten the head to the body, since the crown of the head was not encircled by sinews; and also in order that the sensations from both sides might be distributed over the whole body. and next, they ordered the water-courses of the body in a manner which i will describe, and which will be more easily understood if we begin by admitting that all things which have lesser parts retain the greater, but the greater cannot retain the lesser. now of all natures fire has the smallest parts, and therefore penetrates through earth and water and air and their compounds, nor can anything hold it. and a similar principle applies to the human belly; for when meats and drinks enter it, it holds them, but it cannot hold air and fire, because the particles of which they consist are smaller than its own structure. these elements, therefore, god employed for the sake of distributing moisture from the belly into the veins, weaving together a network of fire and air like a weel, having at the entrance two lesser weels; further he constructed one of these with two openings, and from the lesser weels he extended cords reaching all round to the extremities of the network. all the interior of the net he made of fire, but the lesser weels and their cavity, of air. the network he took and spread over the newly-formed animal in the following manner:--he let the lesser weels pass into the mouth; there were two of them, and one he let down by the air-pipes into the lungs, the other by the side of the air-pipes into the belly. the former he divided into two branches, both of which he made to meet at the channels of the nose, so that when the way through the mouth did not act, the streams of the mouth as well were replenished through the nose. with the other cavity (i.e. of the greater weel) he enveloped the hollow parts of the body, and at one time he made all this to flow into the lesser weels, quite gently, for they are composed of air, and at another time he caused the lesser weels to flow back again; and the net he made to find a way in and out through the pores of the body, and the rays of fire which are bound fast within followed the passage of the air either way, never at any time ceasing so long as the mortal being holds together. this process, as we affirm, the name-giver named inspiration and expiration. and all this movement, active as well as passive, takes place in order that the body, being watered and cooled, may receive nourishment and life; for when the respiration is going in and out, and the fire, which is fast bound within, follows it, and ever and anon moving to and fro, enters through the belly and reaches the meat and drink, it dissolves them, and dividing them into small portions and guiding them through the passages where it goes, pumps them as from a fountain into the channels of the veins, and makes the stream of the veins flow through the body as through a conduit. let us once more consider the phenomena of respiration, and enquire into the causes which have made it what it is. they are as follows:--seeing that there is no such thing as a vacuum into which any of those things which are moved can enter, and the breath is carried from us into the external air, the next point is, as will be clear to every one, that it does not go into a vacant space, but pushes its neighbour out of its place, and that which is thrust out in turn drives out its neighbour; and in this way everything of necessity at last comes round to that place from whence the breath came forth, and enters in there, and following the breath, fills up the vacant space; and this goes on like the rotation of a wheel, because there can be no such thing as a vacuum. wherefore also the breast and the lungs, when they emit the breath, are replenished by the air which surrounds the body and which enters in through the pores of the flesh and is driven round in a circle; and again, the air which is sent away and passes out through the body forces the breath inwards through the passage of the mouth and the nostrils. now the origin of this movement may be supposed to be as follows. in the interior of every animal the hottest part is that which is around the blood and veins; it is in a manner an internal fountain of fire, which we compare to the network of a creel, being woven all of fire and extended through the centre of the body, while the outer parts are composed of air. now we must admit that heat naturally proceeds outward to its own place and to its kindred element; and as there are two exits for the heat, the one out through the body, and the other through the mouth and nostrils, when it moves towards the one, it drives round the air at the other, and that which is driven round falls into the fire and becomes warm, and that which goes forth is cooled. but when the heat changes its place, and the particles at the other exit grow warmer, the hotter air inclining in that direction and carried towards its native element, fire, pushes round the air at the other; and this being affected in the same way and communicating the same impulse, a circular motion swaying to and fro is produced by the double process, which we call inspiration and expiration. the phenomena of medical cupping-glasses and of the swallowing of drink and of the projection of bodies, whether discharged in the air or bowled along the ground, are to be investigated on a similar principle; and swift and slow sounds, which appear to be high and low, and are sometimes discordant on account of their inequality, and then again harmonical on account of the equality of the motion which they excite in us. for when the motions of the antecedent swifter sounds begin to pause and the two are equalized, the slower sounds overtake the swifter and then propel them. when they overtake them they do not intrude a new and discordant motion, but introduce the beginnings of a slower, which answers to the swifter as it dies away, thus producing a single mixed expression out of high and low, whence arises a pleasure which even the unwise feel, and which to the wise becomes a higher sort of delight, being an imitation of divine harmony in mortal motions. moreover, as to the flowing of water, the fall of the thunderbolt, and the marvels that are observed about the attraction of amber and the heraclean stones,--in none of these cases is there any attraction; but he who investigates rightly, will find that such wonderful phenomena are attributable to the combination of certain conditions--the non-existence of a vacuum, the fact that objects push one another round, and that they change places, passing severally into their proper positions as they are divided or combined. such as we have seen, is the nature and such are the causes of respiration,--the subject in which this discussion originated. for the fire cuts the food and following the breath surges up within, fire and breath rising together and filling the veins by drawing up out of the belly and pouring into them the cut portions of the food; and so the streams of food are kept flowing through the whole body in all animals. and fresh cuttings from kindred substances, whether the fruits of the earth or herb of the field, which god planted to be our daily food, acquire all sorts of colours by their inter-mixture; but red is the most pervading of them, being created by the cutting action of fire and by the impression which it makes on a moist substance; and hence the liquid which circulates in the body has a colour such as we have described. the liquid itself we call blood, which nourishes the flesh and the whole body, whence all parts are watered and empty places filled. now the process of repletion and evacuation is effected after the manner of the universal motion by which all kindred substances are drawn towards one another. for the external elements which surround us are always causing us to consume away, and distributing and sending off like to like; the particles of blood, too, which are divided and contained within the frame of the animal as in a sort of heaven, are compelled to imitate the motion of the universe. each, therefore, of the divided parts within us, being carried to its kindred nature, replenishes the void. when more is taken away than flows in, then we decay, and when less, we grow and increase. the frame of the entire creature when young has the triangles of each kind new, and may be compared to the keel of a vessel which is just off the stocks; they are locked firmly together and yet the whole mass is soft and delicate, being freshly formed of marrow and nurtured on milk. now when the triangles out of which meats and drinks are composed come in from without, and are comprehended in the body, being older and weaker than the triangles already there, the frame of the body gets the better of them and its newer triangles cut them up, and so the animal grows great, being nourished by a multitude of similar particles. but when the roots of the triangles are loosened by having undergone many conflicts with many things in the course of time, they are no longer able to cut or assimilate the food which enters, but are themselves easily divided by the bodies which come in from without. in this way every animal is overcome and decays, and this affection is called old age. and at last, when the bonds by which the triangles of the marrow are united no longer hold, and are parted by the strain of existence, they in turn loosen the bonds of the soul, and she, obtaining a natural release, flies away with joy. for that which takes place according to nature is pleasant, but that which is contrary to nature is painful. and thus death, if caused by disease or produced by wounds, is painful and violent; but that sort of death which comes with old age and fulfils the debt of nature is the easiest of deaths, and is accompanied with pleasure rather than with pain. now every one can see whence diseases arise. there are four natures out of which the body is compacted, earth and fire and water and air, and the unnatural excess or defect of these, or the change of any of them from its own natural place into another, or--since there are more kinds than one of fire and of the other elements--the assumption by any of these of a wrong kind, or any similar irregularity, produces disorders and diseases; for when any of them is produced or changed in a manner contrary to nature, the parts which were previously cool grow warm, and those which were dry become moist, and the light become heavy, and the heavy light; all sorts of changes occur. for, as we affirm, a thing can only remain the same with itself, whole and sound, when the same is added to it, or subtracted from it, in the same respect and in the same manner and in due proportion; and whatever comes or goes away in violation of these laws causes all manner of changes and infinite diseases and corruptions. now there is a second class of structures which are also natural, and this affords a second opportunity of observing diseases to him who would understand them. for whereas marrow and bone and flesh and sinews are composed of the four elements, and the blood, though after another manner, is likewise formed out of them, most diseases originate in the way which i have described; but the worst of all owe their severity to the fact that the generation of these substances proceeds in a wrong order; they are then destroyed. for the natural order is that the flesh and sinews should be made of blood, the sinews out of the fibres to which they are akin, and the flesh out of the clots which are formed when the fibres are separated. and the glutinous and rich matter which comes away from the sinews and the flesh, not only glues the flesh to the bones, but nourishes and imparts growth to the bone which surrounds the marrow; and by reason of the solidity of the bones, that which filters through consists of the purest and smoothest and oiliest sort of triangles, dropping like dew from the bones and watering the marrow. now when each process takes place in this order, health commonly results; when in the opposite order, disease. for when the flesh becomes decomposed and sends back the wasting substance into the veins, then an over-supply of blood of diverse kinds, mingling with air in the veins, having variegated colours and bitter properties, as well as acid and saline qualities, contains all sorts of bile and serum and phlegm. for all things go the wrong way, and having become corrupted, first they taint the blood itself, and then ceasing to give nourishment to the body they are carried along the veins in all directions, no longer preserving the order of their natural courses, but at war with themselves, because they receive no good from one another, and are hostile to the abiding constitution of the body, which they corrupt and dissolve. the oldest part of the flesh which is corrupted, being hard to decompose, from long burning grows black, and from being everywhere corroded becomes bitter, and is injurious to every part of the body which is still uncorrupted. sometimes, when the bitter element is refined away, the black part assumes an acidity which takes the place of the bitterness; at other times the bitterness being tinged with blood has a redder colour; and this, when mixed with black, takes the hue of grass; and again, an auburn colour mingles with the bitter matter when new flesh is decomposed by the fire which surrounds the internal flame;--to all which symptoms some physician perhaps, or rather some philosopher, who had the power of seeing in many dissimilar things one nature deserving of a name, has assigned the common name of bile. but the other kinds of bile are variously distinguished by their colours. as for serum, that sort which is the watery part of blood is innocent, but that which is a secretion of black and acid bile is malignant when mingled by the power of heat with any salt substance, and is then called acid phlegm. again, the substance which is formed by the liquefaction of new and tender flesh when air is present, if inflated and encased in liquid so as to form bubbles, which separately are invisible owing to their small size, but when collected are of a bulk which is visible, and have a white colour arising out of the generation of foam--all this decomposition of tender flesh when intermingled with air is termed by us white phlegm. and the whey or sediment of newly-formed phlegm is sweat and tears, and includes the various daily discharges by which the body is purified. now all these become causes of disease when the blood is not replenished in a natural manner by food and drink but gains bulk from opposite sources in violation of the laws of nature. when the several parts of the flesh are separated by disease, if the foundation remains, the power of the disorder is only half as great, and there is still a prospect of an easy recovery; but when that which binds the flesh to the bones is diseased, and no longer being separated from the muscles and sinews, ceases to give nourishment to the bone and to unite flesh and bone, and from being oily and smooth and glutinous becomes rough and salt and dry, owing to bad regimen, then all the substance thus corrupted crumbles away under the flesh and the sinews, and separates from the bone, and the fleshy parts fall away from their foundation and leave the sinews bare and full of brine, and the flesh again gets into the circulation of the blood and makes the previously-mentioned disorders still greater. and if these bodily affections be severe, still worse are the prior disorders; as when the bone itself, by reason of the density of the flesh, does not obtain sufficient air, but becomes mouldy and hot and gangrened and receives no nutriment, and the natural process is inverted, and the bone crumbling passes into the food, and the food into the flesh, and the flesh again falling into the blood makes all maladies that may occur more virulent than those already mentioned. but the worst case of all is when the marrow is diseased, either from excess or defect; and this is the cause of the very greatest and most fatal disorders, in which the whole course of the body is reversed. there is a third class of diseases which may be conceived of as arising in three ways; for they are produced sometimes by wind, and sometimes by phlegm, and sometimes by bile. when the lung, which is the dispenser of the air to the body, is obstructed by rheums and its passages are not free, some of them not acting, while through others too much air enters, then the parts which are unrefreshed by air corrode, while in other parts the excess of air forcing its way through the veins distorts them and decomposing the body is enclosed in the midst of it and occupies the midriff; thus numberless painful diseases are produced, accompanied by copious sweats. and oftentimes when the flesh is dissolved in the body, wind, generated within and unable to escape, is the source of quite as much pain as the air coming in from without; but the greatest pain is felt when the wind gets about the sinews and the veins of the shoulders, and swells them up, and so twists back the great tendons and the sinews which are connected with them. these disorders are called tetanus and opisthotonus, by reason of the tension which accompanies them. the cure of them is difficult; relief is in most cases given by fever supervening. the white phlegm, though dangerous when detained within by reason of the air-bubbles, yet if it can communicate with the outside air, is less severe, and only discolours the body, generating leprous eruptions and similar diseases. when it is mingled with black bile and dispersed about the courses of the head, which are the divinest part of us, the attack if coming on in sleep, is not so severe; but when assailing those who are awake it is hard to be got rid of, and being an affection of a sacred part, is most justly called sacred. an acid and salt phlegm, again, is the source of all those diseases which take the form of catarrh, but they have many names because the places into which they flow are manifold. inflammations of the body come from burnings and inflamings, and all of them originate in bile. when bile finds a means of discharge, it boils up and sends forth all sorts of tumours; but when imprisoned within, it generates many inflammatory diseases, above all when mingled with pure blood; since it then displaces the fibres which are scattered about in the blood and are designed to maintain the balance of rare and dense, in order that the blood may not be so liquefied by heat as to exude from the pores of the body, nor again become too dense and thus find a difficulty in circulating through the veins. the fibres are so constituted as to maintain this balance; and if any one brings them all together when the blood is dead and in process of cooling, then the blood which remains becomes fluid, but if they are left alone, they soon congeal by reason of the surrounding cold. the fibres having this power over the blood, bile, which is only stale blood, and which from being flesh is dissolved again into blood, at the first influx coming in little by little, hot and liquid, is congealed by the power of the fibres; and so congealing and made to cool, it produces internal cold and shuddering. when it enters with more of a flood and overcomes the fibres by its heat, and boiling up throws them into disorder, if it have power enough to maintain its supremacy, it penetrates the marrow and burns up what may be termed the cables of the soul, and sets her free; but when there is not so much of it, and the body though wasted still holds out, the bile is itself mastered, and is either utterly banished, or is thrust through the veins into the lower or upper belly, and is driven out of the body like an exile from a state in which there has been civil war; whence arise diarrhoeas and dysenteries, and all such disorders. when the constitution is disordered by excess of fire, continuous heat and fever are the result; when excess of air is the cause, then the fever is quotidian; when of water, which is a more sluggish element than either fire or air, then the fever is a tertian; when of earth, which is the most sluggish of the four, and is only purged away in a four-fold period, the result is a quartan fever, which can with difficulty be shaken off. such is the manner in which diseases of the body arise; the disorders of the soul, which depend upon the body, originate as follows. we must acknowledge disease of the mind to be a want of intelligence; and of this there are two kinds; to wit, madness and ignorance. in whatever state a man experiences either of them, that state may be called disease; and excessive pains and pleasures are justly to be regarded as the greatest diseases to which the soul is liable. for a man who is in great joy or in great pain, in his unreasonable eagerness to attain the one and to avoid the other, is not able to see or to hear anything rightly; but he is mad, and is at the time utterly incapable of any participation in reason. he who has the seed about the spinal marrow too plentiful and overflowing, like a tree overladen with fruit, has many throes, and also obtains many pleasures in his desires and their offspring, and is for the most part of his life deranged, because his pleasures and pains are so very great; his soul is rendered foolish and disordered by his body; yet he is regarded not as one diseased, but as one who is voluntarily bad, which is a mistake. the truth is that the intemperance of love is a disease of the soul due chiefly to the moisture and fluidity which is produced in one of the elements by the loose consistency of the bones. and in general, all that which is termed the incontinence of pleasure and is deemed a reproach under the idea that the wicked voluntarily do wrong is not justly a matter for reproach. for no man is voluntarily bad; but the bad become bad by reason of an ill disposition of the body and bad education, things which are hateful to every man and happen to him against his will. and in the case of pain too in like manner the soul suffers much evil from the body. for where the acid and briny phlegm and other bitter and bilious humours wander about in the body, and find no exit or escape, but are pent up within and mingle their own vapours with the motions of the soul, and are blended with them, they produce all sorts of diseases, more or fewer, and in every degree of intensity; and being carried to the three places of the soul, whichever they may severally assail, they create infinite varieties of ill-temper and melancholy, of rashness and cowardice, and also of forgetfulness and stupidity. further, when to this evil constitution of body evil forms of government are added and evil discourses are uttered in private as well as in public, and no sort of instruction is given in youth to cure these evils, then all of us who are bad become bad from two causes which are entirely beyond our control. in such cases the planters are to blame rather than the plants, the educators rather than the educated. but however that may be, we should endeavour as far as we can by education, and studies, and learning, to avoid vice and attain virtue; this, however, is part of another subject. there is a corresponding enquiry concerning the mode of treatment by which the mind and the body are to be preserved, about which it is meet and right that i should say a word in turn; for it is more our duty to speak of the good than of the evil. everything that is good is fair, and the fair is not without proportion, and the animal which is to be fair must have due proportion. now we perceive lesser symmetries or proportions and reason about them, but of the highest and greatest we take no heed; for there is no proportion or disproportion more productive of health and disease, and virtue and vice, than that between soul and body. this however we do not perceive, nor do we reflect that when a weak or small frame is the vehicle of a great and mighty soul, or conversely, when a little soul is encased in a large body, then the whole animal is not fair, for it lacks the most important of all symmetries; but the due proportion of mind and body is the fairest and loveliest of all sights to him who has the seeing eye. just as a body which has a leg too long, or which is unsymmetrical in some other respect, is an unpleasant sight, and also, when doing its share of work, is much distressed and makes convulsive efforts, and often stumbles through awkwardness, and is the cause of infinite evil to its own self--in like manner we should conceive of the double nature which we call the living being; and when in this compound there is an impassioned soul more powerful than the body, that soul, i say, convulses and fills with disorders the whole inner nature of man; and when eager in the pursuit of some sort of learning or study, causes wasting; or again, when teaching or disputing in private or in public, and strifes and controversies arise, inflames and dissolves the composite frame of man and introduces rheums; and the nature of this phenomenon is not understood by most professors of medicine, who ascribe it to the opposite of the real cause. and once more, when a body large and too strong for the soul is united to a small and weak intelligence, then inasmuch as there are two desires natural to man,--one of food for the sake of the body, and one of wisdom for the sake of the diviner part of us--then, i say, the motions of the stronger, getting the better and increasing their own power, but making the soul dull, and stupid, and forgetful, engender ignorance, which is the greatest of diseases. there is one protection against both kinds of disproportion:--that we should not move the body without the soul or the soul without the body, and thus they will be on their guard against each other, and be healthy and well balanced. and therefore the mathematician or any one else whose thoughts are much absorbed in some intellectual pursuit, must allow his body also to have due exercise, and practise gymnastic; and he who is careful to fashion the body, should in turn impart to the soul its proper motions, and should cultivate music and all philosophy, if he would deserve to be called truly fair and truly good. and the separate parts should be treated in the same manner, in imitation of the pattern of the universe; for as the body is heated and also cooled within by the elements which enter into it, and is again dried up and moistened by external things, and experiences these and the like affections from both kinds of motions, the result is that the body if given up to motion when in a state of quiescence is overmastered and perishes; but if any one, in imitation of that which we call the foster-mother and nurse of the universe, will not allow the body ever to be inactive, but is always producing motions and agitations through its whole extent, which form the natural defence against other motions both internal and external, and by moderate exercise reduces to order according to their affinities the particles and affections which are wandering about the body, as we have already said when speaking of the universe, he will not allow enemy placed by the side of enemy to stir up wars and disorders in the body, but he will place friend by the side of friend, so as to create health. now of all motions that is the best which is produced in a thing by itself, for it is most akin to the motion of thought and of the universe; but that motion which is caused by others is not so good, and worst of all is that which moves the body, when at rest, in parts only and by some external agency. wherefore of all modes of purifying and re-uniting the body the best is gymnastic; the next best is a surging motion, as in sailing or any other mode of conveyance which is not fatiguing; the third sort of motion may be of use in a case of extreme necessity, but in any other will be adopted by no man of sense: i mean the purgative treatment of physicians; for diseases unless they are very dangerous should not be irritated by medicines, since every form of disease is in a manner akin to the living being, whose complex frame has an appointed term of life. for not the whole race only, but each individual--barring inevitable accidents--comes into the world having a fixed span, and the triangles in us are originally framed with power to last for a certain time, beyond which no man can prolong his life. and this holds also of the constitution of diseases; if any one regardless of the appointed time tries to subdue them by medicine, he only aggravates and multiplies them. wherefore we ought always to manage them by regimen, as far as a man can spare the time, and not provoke a disagreeable enemy by medicines. enough of the composite animal, and of the body which is a part of him, and of the manner in which a man may train and be trained by himself so as to live most according to reason: and we must above and before all provide that the element which is to train him shall be the fairest and best adapted to that purpose. a minute discussion of this subject would be a serious task; but if, as before, i am to give only an outline, the subject may not unfitly be summed up as follows. i have often remarked that there are three kinds of soul located within us, having each of them motions, and i must now repeat in the fewest words possible, that one part, if remaining inactive and ceasing from its natural motion, must necessarily become very weak, but that which is trained and exercised, very strong. wherefore we should take care that the movements of the different parts of the soul should be in due proportion. and we should consider that god gave the sovereign part of the human soul to be the divinity of each one, being that part which, as we say, dwells at the top of the body, and inasmuch as we are a plant not of an earthly but of a heavenly growth, raises us from earth to our kindred who are in heaven. and in this we say truly; for the divine power suspended the head and root of us from that place where the generation of the soul first began, and thus made the whole body upright. when a man is always occupied with the cravings of desire and ambition, and is eagerly striving to satisfy them, all his thoughts must be mortal, and, as far as it is possible altogether to become such, he must be mortal every whit, because he has cherished his mortal part. but he who has been earnest in the love of knowledge and of true wisdom, and has exercised his intellect more than any other part of him, must have thoughts immortal and divine, if he attain truth, and in so far as human nature is capable of sharing in immortality, he must altogether be immortal; and since he is ever cherishing the divine power, and has the divinity within him in perfect order, he will be perfectly happy. now there is only one way of taking care of things, and this is to give to each the food and motion which are natural to it. and the motions which are naturally akin to the divine principle within us are the thoughts and revolutions of the universe. these each man should follow, and correct the courses of the head which were corrupted at our birth, and by learning the harmonies and revolutions of the universe, should assimilate the thinking being to the thought, renewing his original nature, and having assimilated them should attain to that perfect life which the gods have set before mankind, both for the present and the future. thus our original design of discoursing about the universe down to the creation of man is nearly completed. a brief mention may be made of the generation of other animals, so far as the subject admits of brevity; in this manner our argument will best attain a due proportion. on the subject of animals, then, the following remarks may be offered. of the men who came into the world, those who were cowards or led unrighteous lives may with reason be supposed to have changed into the nature of women in the second generation. and this was the reason why at that time the gods created in us the desire of sexual intercourse, contriving in man one animated substance, and in woman another, which they formed respectively in the following manner. the outlet for drink by which liquids pass through the lung under the kidneys and into the bladder, which receives and then by the pressure of the air emits them, was so fashioned by them as to penetrate also into the body of the marrow, which passes from the head along the neck and through the back, and which in the preceding discourse we have named the seed. and the seed having life, and becoming endowed with respiration, produces in that part in which it respires a lively desire of emission, and thus creates in us the love of procreation. wherefore also in men the organ of generation becoming rebellious and masterful, like an animal disobedient to reason, and maddened with the sting of lust, seeks to gain absolute sway; and the same is the case with the so-called womb or matrix of women; the animal within them is desirous of procreating children, and when remaining unfruitful long beyond its proper time, gets discontented and angry, and wandering in every direction through the body, closes up the passages of the breath, and, by obstructing respiration, drives them to extremity, causing all varieties of disease, until at length the desire and love of the man and the woman, bringing them together and as it were plucking the fruit from the tree, sow in the womb, as in a field, animals unseen by reason of their smallness and without form; these again are separated and matured within; they are then finally brought out into the light, and thus the generation of animals is completed. thus were created women and the female sex in general. but the race of birds was created out of innocent light-minded men, who, although their minds were directed toward heaven, imagined, in their simplicity, that the clearest demonstration of the things above was to be obtained by sight; these were remodelled and transformed into birds, and they grew feathers instead of hair. the race of wild pedestrian animals, again, came from those who had no philosophy in any of their thoughts, and never considered at all about the nature of the heavens, because they had ceased to use the courses of the head, but followed the guidance of those parts of the soul which are in the breast. in consequence of these habits of theirs they had their front-legs and their heads resting upon the earth to which they were drawn by natural affinity; and the crowns of their heads were elongated and of all sorts of shapes, into which the courses of the soul were crushed by reason of disuse. and this was the reason why they were created quadrupeds and polypods: god gave the more senseless of them the more support that they might be more attracted to the earth. and the most foolish of them, who trail their bodies entirely upon the ground and have no longer any need of feet, he made without feet to crawl upon the earth. the fourth class were the inhabitants of the water: these were made out of the most entirely senseless and ignorant of all, whom the transformers did not think any longer worthy of pure respiration, because they possessed a soul which was made impure by all sorts of transgression; and instead of the subtle and pure medium of air, they gave them the deep and muddy sea to be their element of respiration; and hence arose the race of fishes and oysters, and other aquatic animals, which have received the most remote habitations as a punishment of their outlandish ignorance. these are the laws by which animals pass into one another, now, as ever, changing as they lose or gain wisdom and folly. we may now say that our discourse about the nature of the universe has an end. the world has received animals, mortal and immortal, and is fulfilled with them, and has become a visible animal containing the visible--the sensible god who is the image of the intellectual, the greatest, best, fairest, most perfect--the one only-begotten heaven. this ebook was produced by adam kane. man or matter introduction to a spiritual understanding of nature on the basis of goethe's method of training observation and thought by ernst lehrs ph. d. part i science at the threshold i. introductory the author's search for a way of extending the boundaries of scientific understanding. a meeting with rudolf steiner, and with the work arising from his teachings. ii. where do we stand to-day? the self-restriction of scientific inquiry to one-eyed colourblind observation. its effect: the lack of a true conception of 'force'. iii. the onlooker's philosophic malady thought - the sole reality and yet a pure non-entity for the modern spectator. descartes and hume. robert hooke's 'proof' of the non-reality of conceptual thinking. the modern principle of indeterminacy - a sign that science is still dominated by the humean way of thinking. iv. the country that is not ours electricity, man's competitor in modern civilization. the onlooker in search of the soul of nature. galvani and crookes. paradoxes in the discovery of electricity. 'something unknown is doing we don't know what.' part ii goetheanism - whence and whither v. the adventure of reason kant and goethe. goethe's study of the plant - a path toward seeing with the eye-of-the-spirit. nature a script that asks to be read. vi. except we become ... spiritual kinsmen of goethe in the british sphere of human culture. thomas reid's philosophic discovery, its significance for the overcoming of the onlooker-standpoint in science. the picture of man inherent in reid's philosophy. man's original gift of remembering his pre-earthly life. the disappearance of this memory in the past, and its re-appearance in modern times. pelagius versus augustine. wordsworth and traherne. traherne, a 'reidean before reid was born'. vii. 'always stand by form' ruskin and howard - two readers in the book of nature. goethe's meteorological ideas. his conception of the urphenomenon. goethe and howard. viii. dynamics versus kinetics the onlooker science - by necessity a 'pointer-reading' science. the onlooker's misjudgment of the cognitive value of the impressions conveyed by the senses. the parallelogram of forces - its fallacious kinematic and its true dynamic interpretation. the roots in man of his concepts 'mass' and 'force'. the formula f=ma. the origin of man's faculty of mathematical thinking. ix. pro levitate (a) alertness contra inertness limitations of the validity of the concept 'inertia'. restatement of newton's first law. introduction of the term 'magical' as opposed to mechanical. the phenomenon of the rising arm. introduction of the term 'alertness' as opposed to 'inertness' (inertia). van helmont's discovery of the gaseous state of matter. the four elements. the old concept of 'chaos'. young and old matter. the natural facts behind the ancient fire rites. the event on mount sinai. (b) levity contra gravity the contra levitatem maxim of the florentine academicians. ruskin's warning against science as an interpreter of its own observations. how man's inner nature and the outer universe interpret one another. the solfatara phenomenon. the super-physical character of levity. x. the fourth state of matter the need of raising scientific inquiry to nature's upper border. the laws of conservation, their origin and their validity. joule and mayer. extension of the field-concept from the central to the peripheral field-type. natural phenomena brought about by the suctional effect of the earth's levity-field. the different conditions of matter seen in the light of the levity-gravity polarity. heat, the fourth state of matter. procreation of physical substance - a natural fact. the case of tillandsia. the problem of the trace-elements. homeopathy, an example of the effect of dematerialized matter. the meteorological circuit of water. the nature of lightning. xi. matter as part of nature's alphabet the origin of the scientific conception of the chemical element. study of some prototypes of physical substances in the light of the levity-gravity polarity. the functional concept of matter. the complete order of polarities - cold-warm, dry-moist - in the doctrine of the four elements. the position of sulphur and phosphorus in this respect. vulcanism and snow-formation as manifestations of functional sulphur and phosphorus respectively. the process of crystallization. carbon as a mediator between sulphur and phosphorus. the alchemical triad. xii. space and counter-space geometrical considerations required by the recognition of levity. the value in this respect of projective geometrical thinking. geometrical polarities of the first and second order. xiii. 'radiant matter' electricity and magnetism as manifestations of interacting levity and gravity. electricity - a product of disintegrating matter. modern physics, no longer a 'natural' science. eddington's question,' manufacture or discovery?' man's enhanced responsibility in the age of physical science. xiv. colours as 'deeds and sufferings of light' goethe's farbenlehre - the foundation of an optical science based on the colour-seeing faculty of the eye. the modern physicist's view of the newtonian interpretation of the spectrum. a short history of goethe's search for a satisfactory conception of light and colour. his discovery of newton's cardinal error. first results of his own studies. the 'negative' spectrum. xv. seeing as 'deed' - i goethe's way of studying the totality of the act of seeing. the 'inner light'. xvi. seeing as 'deed' - ii extension of goethe's inquiry to a pursuit of the act of seeing beyond the boundaries of the body. xvii. optics of the doer purging optics from its onlooker-concepts. the role of foregone conclusions in the physical conception of light. the true aspect of the so-called velocity of light. xviii. the spectrum as a script of the spirit evaluation of the foregoing studies for a new understanding of the prismatic phenomenon. the secret of the rainbow. intimation of new possibilities of experimental research guided by the new conception of the spectrum. part iii towards a new cosmology xix. the country in which man is not a stranger (a) introductory note from goethe's seeing with the eye-of-the-spirit to spiritual imagination. levity (ether) as revealed to spiritual imagination. (b) - (e) warmth light sound life the four modifications of ether. their relation to the four elements. xx. pro anima (a) the well-springs of nature's deeds and sufferings the sentient (astral) forces of the cosmos as governors of the various interactions between levity and gravity. the astral aspect of the planetary system. its reflexion in earthly substances. beginnings of an astral conception of the human organism in modern physiology. (b) hearing as deed a goetheanistic study of acoustic phenomena and of the sense of hearing. from hearing with the ear-of-the-spirit to spiritual inspiration. (c) kepler and the 'music of the spheres' goethe's view of kepler. kepler's third law - a revelation of the musical order of the universe. xxi. know thyself index illustrations in colour a the relation of the electrical polarity to levity and gravity b the spectrum phenomenon as conceived by goethe c light under the action of a transverse field-gradient monochrome i. robert hooke's 'proof' of the non-reality of human concepts ii. leaf-metamorphosis iii. leaf-metamorphosis iv. goethe's sketch of a cloud-formation v. a snow-crystal vi. a cluster of calcite crystals vii. various species of bacteria viii. various species of fresh-water algae author's note the author makes grateful acknowledgment of the help he has gained from other works in the wide field opened up by rudolf steiner, and of his debt to the friends who in various ways assisted him in preparing his manuscript. quotations have been made from the following books by kind permission of their respective publishers: the life of sir william crookes by e. e. fournier d'albe (messrs. ernest benn ltd.); man the unknown by a. carrel (messrs. hamish hamilton ltd.); the philosophy of physical science and the nature of the physical worldly a.. eddington (university press, cambridge); science and the human temperament by e. schrödinger (messrs. george allen and unwin ltd.); centuries of meditations and poetical works by th. traherne (messrs. p. j. and a. e. dobell). preface in this book the reader will find expounded a method of investigating nature by means of which scientific understanding can be carried across the boundaries of the physical-material to the supersensible sources of all natural events, and thereby into the realm where is rooted the true being of man. the beginnings of this method were worked out by goethe more than years ago. the nineteenth century, however, failed to provide any fertile ground for the development of the seeds thus sown. it was left to rudolf steiner, shortly before the end of the century, to recognize the significance of 'goetheanism' for the future development not only of science but of human culture in general. it is to him, also, that we owe the possibility of carrying on goethe's efforts in the way required by the needs of our own time. the following pages contain results of the author's work along the path thus opened up by goethe and rudolf steiner - a work begun twenty-seven years ago, soon after he had made the acquaintance of rudolf steiner. with the publication of these results he addresses himself to everyone - with or without a specialized scientific training - who is concerned with the fate of man's powers of cognition in the present age. * the reader may welcome a remark as to the way in which this book needs to be read. it has not been the author's intention to provide an encyclopaedic collection of new conceptions in various fields of natural observation. rather did he wish, as the sub-title of the book indicates, to offer a new method of training both mind and eye (and other senses as well), by means of which our modern 'onlooking' consciousness can be transformed into a new kind of 'participating' consciousness. hence it would be of no avail to pick out one chapter or another for first reading, perhaps because of some special interest in its subject-matter. the chapters are stages on a road which has to be travelled, and each stage is necessary for reaching the next. it is only through thus accepting the method with which the book has been written that the reader will be able to form a competent judgment of its essential elements. e. l. hawkwood college easter part i science at the threshold chapter i introductory if i introduce this book by relating how i came to encounter rudolf steiner and his work, more than twenty-five years ago, and what decided me not only to make his way of knowledge my own, but also to enter professionally into an activity inspired by his teachings, it is because in this way i can most directly give the reader an impression of the kind of spirit out of which i have written. i am sure, too, that although what i have to say in this chapter is personal in content, it is characteristic of many in our time. when i first made acquaintance with rudolf steiner and his work, i was finishing my academic training as an electrical engineer. at the end of the - war my first thought had been to take up my studies from where i had let them drop, four years earlier. the war seemed to imply nothing more than a passing interruption of them. this, at any rate, was the opinion of my former teachers; the war had made no difference whatever to their ideas, whether on the subject-matter of their teaching or on its educational purpose. i myself, however, soon began to feel differently. it became obvious to me that my relationship to my subject, and therefore to those teaching it, had completely changed. what i had experienced through the war had awakened in me a question of which i had previously been unaware; now i felt obliged to put it to everything i came across. as a child of my age i had grown up in the conviction that it was within the scope of man to shape his life according to the laws of reason within him; his progress, in the sense in which i then understood it, seemed assured by his increasing ability to determine his own outer conditions with the help of science. indeed, it was the wish to take an active part in this progress that had led me to choose my profession. now, however, the war stood there as a gigantic social deed which i could in no way regard as reasonably justified. how, in an age when the logic of science was supreme, was it possible that a great part of mankind, including just those peoples to whom science had owed its origin and never-ceasing expansion, could act in so completely unscientific a way? where lay the causes of the contradiction thus revealed between human thinking and human doing? pursued by these questions, i decided after a while to give my studies a new turn. the kind of training then provided in germany at the so-called technische hochschulen was designed essentially to give students a close practical acquaintance with all sorts of technical appliances; it included only as much theory as was wanted for understanding the mathematical calculations arising in technical practice. it now seemed to me necessary to pay more attention to theoretical considerations, so as to gain a more exact knowledge of the sources from which science drew its conception of nature. accordingly i left the hochschule for a course in mathematics and physics at a university, though without abandoning my original idea of preparing for a career in the field of electrical engineering. it was with this in mind that i later chose for my ph.d. thesis a piece of experimental research on the uses of high-frequency electric currents. during my subsequent years of stuffy, however, i found myself no nearer an answer to the problem that haunted me. all that i experienced, in scientific work as in life generally, merely gave it an even sharper edge. everywhere i saw an abyss widening between human knowing and human action. how often was i not bitterly disillusioned by the behaviour of men for whose ability to think through the most complicated scientific questions i had the utmost admiration! on all sides i found this same bewildering gulf between scientific achievement and the way men conducted their own lives and influenced the lives of others. i was forced to the conclusion that human thinking, at any rate in its modern form, was either powerless to govern human actions, or at least unable to direct them towards right ends. in fact, where scientific thinking had done most to change the practical relations of human life, as in the mechanization of economic production, conditions had arisen which made it more difficult, not less, for men to live in a way worthy of man. at a time when humanity was equipped as never before to investigate the order of the universe, and had achieved triumphs of design in mechanical constructions, human life was falling into ever wilder chaos. why was this? the fact that most of my contemporaries were apparently quite unaware of the problem that stirred me so deeply could not weaken my sense of its reality. this slumber of so many souls in face of the vital questions of modern life seemed to me merely a further symptom of the sickness of our age. nor could i think much better of those who, more sensitive to the contradictions in and around them, sought refuge in art or religion. the catastrophe of the war had shown me that this departmentalizing of life, which at one time i had myself considered a sort of ideal, was quite inconsistent with the needs of to-day. to make use of art or religion as a refuge was a sign of their increasing separation from the rest of human culture. it implied a cleavage between the different spheres of society which ruled out any genuine solution of social problems. i knew from history that religion and art had once exercised a function which is to-day reserved for science, for they had given guidance in even the most practical activities of human society. and in so doing they had enhanced the quality of human living, whereas the influence of science has had just the opposite effect. this power of guidance, however, they had long since lost, and in view of this fact i came to the conclusion that salvation must be looked for in the first place from science. here, in the thinking and knowing of man, was the root of modern troubles; here must come a drastic revision, and here, if possible, a completely new direction must be found. such views certainly flew in the face of the universal modern conviction that the present mode of knowledge, with whose help so much insight into the natural world has been won, is the only one possible, given once for all to man in a form never to be changed. but is there any need, i asked myself, to cling to this purely static notion of man's capacity for gaining knowledge? among the greatest achievements of modern science, does not the conception of evolution take a foremost place? and does not this teach us that the condition of a living organism at any time is the result of the one preceding it, and that the transition implies a corresponding functional enhancement? but if we have once recognized this as an established truth, why should we apply it to organisms at every stage of development except the .highest, namely the human, where the organic form reveals and serves the self-conscious spirit? putting the question thus, i was led inevitably to a conclusion which science itself had failed to draw from its idea of evolution. whatever the driving factor in evolution may be, it is clear that in the kingdoms of nature leading up to man this factor has always worked on the evolving organisms from outside. the moment we come to man himself, however, and see how evolution has flowered in his power of conscious thought, we have to reckon with a fundamental change. once a being has recognized itself as a product of evolution, it immediately ceases to be that and nothing more. with its very first act of self-knowledge it transcends its previous limits, and must in future rely on its own conscious actions for the carrying on of its development. for me, accordingly, the concept of evolution, when thought through to the end, began to suggest the possibility of further growth in man's spiritual capacities. but i saw also that this growth could no longer be merely passive, and the question which now beset me was: by what action of his own can man break his way into this new phase of evolution? i saw that this action must not consist merely in giving outer effect to the natural powers of human thinking; that was happening everywhere in the disordered world around me. the necessary action must have inner effects; indeed, it had to be one whereby the will was turned upon the thinking-powers themselves, entirely transforming them, and so removing the discrepancy between the thinker and the doer in modern man. thus far i could go through my own observation and reflexion, but no further. to form a general idea of the deed on which everything else depended was one thing; it was quite another to know how to perform the deed, and above all where to make a start with it. anyone intending to make a machine must first learn something of mechanics; in the same way, anyone setting out to do something constructive in the sphere of human consciousness - and this, for me, was the essential point - must begin by learning something of the laws holding sway in that sphere. but who could give me this knowledge? physiology, psychology and philosophy in their ordinary forms were of no use to me, for they were themselves part and parcel of just that kind of knowing which had to be overcome. in their various accounts of man there was no vantage point from which the deed i had in mind could be accomplished, for none of them looked beyond the ordinary powers of knowledge. it was the same with the accepted theory of evolution; as a product of the current mode of thinking it could be applied to everything except the one essential - this very mode of thinking. obviously, the laws of the development of human consciousness cannot be discovered from a standpoint within the modern form of that consciousness. but how could one find a viewpoint outside, as it were, this consciousness, from which to discover its laws with the same scientific objectivity which it had itself applied to discovering the laws of physical nature? it was when this question stood before me in all clarity that destiny led me to rudolf steiner and his work. the occasion was a conference held in in stuttgart by the anthroposophical movement; it was one of several arranged during the years - especially for teachers and students at the hochschulen and universities. what chiefly moved me to attend this particular conference was the title of a lecture to be given by one of the pupils and co-workers of rudolf steiner - 'the overcoming of einstein's theory of relativity'. the reader will readily appreciate what this title meant for me. in the circles where my work lay, an intense controversy was just then raging round einstein's ideas. i usually took sides with the supporters of einstein, for it seemed to me that einstein had carried the existing mode of scientific thinking to its logical conclusions, whereas i missed this consistency among his opponents. at the same time i found that the effect of this theory, when its implications were fully developed, was to make everything seem so 'relative' that no reliable world-outlook was left. this was proof for me that our age was in need of an altogether different form of scientific thinking, equally consistent in itself, but more in tune with man's own being. what appealed to me in the lecture-title was simply this, that whereas everyone else sought to prove einstein right or wrong, here was someone who apparently intended, not merely to add another proof for or against his theory-there were plenty of those already - but to take some steps to overcome it. from the point of view of orthodox science, of course, it was absurd to speak of 'overcoming' a theory, as though it were an accomplished fact, but to me this title suggested exactly what i was looking for. although it was the title of this lecture that drew me to the stuttgart conference (circumstances prevented me from hearing just this lecture), it was the course given there by rudolf steiner himself which was to prove the decisive experience of my life. it comprised eight lectures, under the title: 'mathematics, scientific experiment and observation, and epistemological results from the standpoint of anthroposophy'; what they gave me answered my question beyond all expectation. in the course of a comprehensive historical survey the lecturer characterized, in a way i found utterly convincing, the present mathematical interpretation of nature as a transitional stage of human consciousness - a kind of knowing which is on the way from a past pre-mathematical to a future post-mathematical form of cognition. the importance of mathematics, whether as a discipline of the human spirit or as an instrument of natural science, was not for a moment undervalued. on the contrary, what rudolf steiner said about projective (synthetic) geometry, for instance, its future possibilities and its role as a means of understanding higher processes of nature than had hitherto been accessible to science, clearly explained the positive feelings i myself had experienced - without knowing why - when i had studied the subject. through his lectures and his part in the discussions - they were held daily by the various speakers and ranged over almost every field of modern knowledge - i gradually realized that rudolf steiner was in possession of unique powers. not only did he show himself fully at home in all these fields; he was able to connect them with each other, and with the nature and being of man, in such a way that an apparent chaos of unrelated details was wrought into a higher synthesis. moreover, it became clear to me that one who could speak as he did about the stages of human consciousness past, present and future, must have full access to all of them at will, and be able to make each of them an object of exact observation. i saw a thinker who was himself sufficient proof that man can find within the resources of his own spirit the vantage-ground for the deed which i had dimly surmised, and by which alone true civilization could be saved. through all these things i knew that i had found the teacher i had been seeking. thus i was fully confirmed in my hopes of the conference; but i was also often astonished at what i heard. not least among my surprises was rudolf steiner's presentation of goethe as the herald of the new form of scientific knowledge which he himself was expounding. i was here introduced to a side of goethe which was as completely unknown to me as to so many others among my contemporaries, who had not yet come into touch with anthroposophy. for me, as for them, goethe had always been the great thinker revealing his thoughts through poetry. indeed, only shortly before my meeting with rudolf steiner it was in his poetry that goethe had become newly alive to me as a helper in my search for a fuller human experience of nature and my fellow-men. but despite all my goethe studies i had been quite unaware that more than a century earlier he had achieved something in the field of science, organic and inorganic alike, which could help modern man towards the new kind of knowledge so badly needed to-day. this was inevitable for me, since i shared the modern conviction that art and science were fields of activity essentially strange to one another. and so it was again rudolf steiner who opened the way for me to goethe as botanist, physicist and the like. i must mention another aspect of the stuttgart conference which belongs to this picture of my first encounter with anthroposophy, and gave it special weight for anyone in my situation at that period. in stuttgart there were many different activities concerned with the practical application of rudolf steiner's teachings, and so one could become acquainted with teachings and applications at the same time. there was the waldorf school, founded little more than a year before, with several hundred pupils already. it was the first school to undertake the transformation of anthroposophical knowledge of man into educational practice; later it was followed by others, in germany and elsewhere. there was one of the clinics, where qualified doctors were applying the same knowledge to the study of illness and the action of medicaments. in various laboratories efforts were made to develop new methods of experimental research in physics, chemistry, biology and other branches of science. further, a large business concern had been founded in stuttgart in an attempt to embody some of rudolf steiner's ideas for the reform of social life. besides all this i could attend performances of the new art of movement, again the creation of rudolf steiner and called by him 'eurhythmy', in which the astounded eye could see how noble a speech can be uttered by the human body when its limbs are moved in accordance with its inherent spiritual laws. thus, in all the many things that were going on besides the lectures, one could find direct proof of the fruitfulness of what one heard in them. under the impression of this conference i soon began to study the writings of rudolf steiner. not quite two years later, i decided to join professionally with those who were putting anthroposophy into outer practice. because it appeared to me as the most urgent need of the time to prepare the new generation for the tasks awaiting it through an education shaped on the entire human being, i turned to rudolf steiner with the request to be taken into the stuttgart school as teacher of natural science. on this occasion i told him of my general scientific interests, and how i hoped to follow them up later on. i spoke of my intended educational activity as something which might help me at the same time to prepare myself for this other task. anyone who learns so to see nature that his ideas can be taken up and understood by the living, lively soul of the growing child will thereby be training himself, i thought, in just that kind of observation and thinking which the new science of nature demands. rudolf steiner agreed with this, and it was not long afterwards that i joined the school where i was to work for eleven years as a science master in the senior classes, which activity i have since continued outside germany in a more or less similar form. this conversation with rudolf steiner took place in a large hall where, while we were talking, over a thousand people were assembling to discuss matters of concern to the anthroposophical movement. this did not prevent him from asking me about the details of my examination work, in which i was still engaged at that time; he always gave himself fully to whatever claimed his attention at the moment. i told him of my experimental researches in electrical high-frequency phenomena, briefly introducing the particular problem with which i was occupied. i took it for granted that a question from such a specialized branch of physics would not be of much interest to him. judge of my astonishment when he at once took out of his pocket a note-book and a huge carpenter's pencil, made a sketch and proceeded to speak of the problem as one fully conversant with it, and in such a way that he gave me the starting point for an entirely new conception of electricity. it was instantly borne in on me that if electricity came to be understood in this sense, results would follow which in the end would lead to a quite new technique in the use of it. from that moment it became one of my life's aims to contribute whatever my circumstances and powers would allow to the development of an understanding of nature of this kind. the speaker was the late dr. elizabeth vreede, for some years leader of the mathematical-astronomical section at the goetheanum, dornach, switzerland. the activities mentioned above do not exhaust the practical possibilities of spiritual science. at that time ( ) rudolf steiner had not yet given his indications for the treatment of children needing special care of soul and body, or for the renewal of the art of acting, or for the conquest of materialistic methods in agricultural practice. nor did there yet exist the movement for religious renewal which dr. fr. rittelmeyer later founded, with the help and advice of rudolf steiner. chapter ii where do we stand to-day? in the year , when the world celebrated the hundredth anniversary of goethe's death, professor w. heisenberg, one of the foremost thinkers in the field of modern physics, delivered a speech before the saxon academy of science which may be regarded as symptomatic of the need in recent science to investigate critically the foundations of its own efforts to know nature. in this speech heisenberg draws a picture of the progress of science which differs significantly from the one generally known. instead of giving the usual description of this progress as 'a chain of brilliant and surprising discoveries', he shows it as resting on the fact that, with the aim of continually simplifying and unifying the scientific conception of the world, human thinking, in course of time, has narrowed more and more the scope of its inquiries into outer nature. 'almost every scientific advance is bought at the cost of renunciation, almost every gain in knowledge sacrifices important standpoints and established modes of thought. as facts and knowledge accumulate, the claim of the scientist to an understanding of the world in a certain sense diminishes.' our justifiable admiration for the success with which the unending multiplicity of natural occurrences on earth and in the stars has been reduced to so simple a scheme of laws - heisenberg implies - must therefore not make us forget that these attainments are bought at the price 'of renouncing the aim of bringing the phenomena of nature to our thinking in an immediate and living way'. in the course of his exposition, heisenberg also speaks of goethe, in whose scientific endeavours he perceives a noteworthy attempt to set scientific understanding upon a path other than that of progressive self-restriction. 'the renouncing of life and immediacy, which was the premise for the progress of natural science since newton, formed the real basis for the bitter struggle which goethe waged against the physical optics of newton. it would be superficial to dismiss this struggle as unimportant: there is much significance in one of the most outstanding men directing all his efforts to fighting against the development of newtonian optics.' there is only one thing for which heisenberg criticizes goethe: 'if one should wish to reproach goethe, it could only be for not going far enough - that is, for having attacked the views of newton instead of declaring that the whole of newtonian physics-optics, mechanics and the law of gravitation - were from the devil.' although the full significance of heisenberg's remarks on goethe will become apparent only at a later stage of our discussion, they have been quoted here because they form part of the symptom we wish to characterize. only this much may be pointed out immediately, that goethe - if not in the scientific then indeed in the poetical part of his writings - did fulfil what heisenberg rightly feels to have been his true task. we mentioned heisenberg's speech as a symptom of a certain tendency, characteristic of the latest phase in science, to survey critically its own epistemological foundations. a few years previous to heisenberg's speech, the need of such a survey found an eloquent advocate in the late professor a. n. whitehead, in his book science and the modern world, where, in view of the contradictory nature of modern physical theories, he insists that 'if science is not to degenerate into a medley of ad hoc hypotheses, it must become philosophical and enter upon a thorough criticism of its own foundations'. among the scientists who have felt this need, and who have taken pains to fulfil it, the late professor a. eddington obtains an eminent position. among his relevant utterances we will quote here the following, because it contains a concrete statement concerning the field of external observation which forms the basis for the modern scientific world-picture. in his philosophy of physical science we find him stating that 'ideally, all our knowledge of the universe could have been reached by visual sensation alone - in fact by the simplest form of visual sensation, colourless and non-stereoscopic'. in other words, in order to obtain scientific cognition of the physical world, man has felt constrained to surrender the use of all his senses except the sense of sight, and to limit even the act of seeing to the use of a single, colour-blind eye. let us listen to yet another voice from the ranks of present-day science, expressing a criticism which is symptomatic of our time. it comes from the late physiologist, professor a, carrel, who, concerning the effect which scientific research has had on man's life in general, says in his book, man the unknown: 'the sciences of inert matter have led us into a country that is not ours. ... man is a stranger in the world he has created.' of these utterances, eddington's is at the present point of our discussion of special interest for us; for he outlines in it the precise field of sense-perception into which science has withdrawn in the course of that general retreat towards an ever more restricted questioning of nature which was noted by heisenberg. the pertinence of eddington's statement is shown immediately one considers what a person would know of the world if his only source of experience were the sense of sight, still further limited in the way eddington describes. out of everything that the world brings to the totality of our senses, there remains nothing more than mere movements, with certain changes of rate, direction, and so on. the picture of the world received by such an observer is a purely kinematic one. and this is, indeed, the character of the world-picture of modern physical science. for in the scientific treatment of natural phenomena all the qualities brought to us by our other senses, such as colour, tone, warmth, density and even electricity and magnetism, are reduced to mere movement-changes. as a result, modern science is prevented from conceiving any valid idea of 'force'. in so far as the concept 'force' appears in scientific considerations, it plays the part of an 'auxiliary concept', and what man naively conceives as force has come to be defined as merely a 'descriptive law of behaviour'. we must leave it for later considerations to show how the scientific mind of man has created for itself the conviction that the part of science occupied with the actions of force in nature can properly be treated with purely kinematic concepts. it is the fact itself which concerns us here. in respect of it, note as a characteristic of modern text-books that they often simply use the term 'kinetics' (a shortening of kinematics) to designate the science of 'dynamics'. in the course of our investigations we shall discover the peculiarity in human nature which - during the first phase, now ended, of man's struggle towards scientific awareness - has caused this renunciation of all sense-experiences except those which come to man through the sight of a single colour-blind eye. it will then also become clear out of what historic necessity this self-restriction of scientific inquiry arose. the acknowledgment of this necessity, however, must not prevent us from recognizing the fact that, as a result of this restriction, modern scientific research, which has penetrated far into the dynamic substrata of nature, finds itself in the peculiar situation that it is not at all guided by its own concepts, but by the very forces it tries to detect. and in this fact lies the root of the danger which besets the present age. he who recognizes this, therefore, feels impelled to look for a way which leads beyond a one-eyed, colour-blind conception of the world. it is the aim of this book to show that such a way exists and how it can be followed. proof will thereby be given that along this way not only is a true understanding achieved of the forces already known to science (though not really understood by it), but also that other forces, just as active in nature as for example electricity and magnetism, come within reach of scientific observation and understanding. and it will be shown that these other forces are of a kind that requires to be known to-day if we are to restore the lost balance to human civilization. * there is a rule known to physicians that 'a true diagnosis of a case contains in itself the therapy'. no true diagnosis is possible, however, without investigation of the 'history' of the case. applied to our task, this means that we must try to find an aspect of human development, both individual and historical, which will enable us to recognize in man's own being the cause responsible for the peculiar narrowing of the scope of scientific inquiry, as described by the scientists cited above. a characteristic of scientific inquiry, distinguishing it from man's earlier ways of solving the riddles of the world, is that it admits as instruments of knowledge exclusively those activities of the human soul over which we have full control because they take place in the full light of consciousness. this also explains why there has been no science, in the true sense of the word, prior to the beginning of the era commonly called 'modern' - that is, before the fifteenth century. for the consciousness on which man's scientific striving is based is itself an outcome of human evolution. this evolution, therefore, needs to be considered in such a way that we understand the origin of modern man's state of mind, and in particular why this state of mind cannot of itself have any other relationship to the world than that of a spectator. for let us be clear that this peculiar relationship by no means belongs only to the scientifically engaged mind. every adult in our age is, by virtue of his psycho-physical structure, more or less a world-spectator. what distinguishes the state of man's mind when engaged in scientific observation is that it is restricted to a one-eyed colour-blind approach. * 'death is the price man has to pay for his brain and his personality' - this is how a modern physiologist (a. carrel in his aforementioned book, man the unknown) describes the connexion between man's bodily functions and his waking consciousness. it is characteristic of the outlook prevailing in the nineteenth century that thinking was regarded as the result of the life of the body; that is, of the body's matter-building processes. hence no attention was paid at that time to the lonely voice of the german philosopher, c. fortlage ( - ), who in his system of psychology as empirical science suggested that consciousness is really based on death processes in the body. from this fact he boldly drew the conclusion (known to us today to be true) that if 'partial death' gave rise to ordinary consciousness, then 'total death' must result in an extraordinary enhancement of consciousness. again, when in our century rudolf steiner drew attention to the same fact, which he had found along his own lines of investigation, showing thereby the true role of the nervous system in regard to the various activities of the soul, official science turned a deaf ear to his pronouncement. to-day the scientist regards it as forming part of 'unknown man' that life must recede - in other words, that the organ-building processes of the body must come to a standstill - if consciousness is to come into its own. with the recognition of a death process in the nervous system as the bodily foundation of consciousness, and particularly of man's conceptual activities, the question arises as to the nature of those activities which have their foundation in other systems, such as that of the muscles, where life, not death, prevails. here an answer must be given which will surprise the reader acquainted with modern theories of psycho-physical interaction; but if he meets it with an open mind he will not find it difficult to test. just as the conceptual activity has as its bodily foundation the brain, with the nervous appendages, so it is volitional activity which is based on processes taking place in the muscular region of the body and in those organs which provide the body's metabolism. a statement which says that man's will is as directly based on the metabolic processes of the body, both inside and outside the muscles, as is his perceiving and thought-forming mind on a process in the nerves, is bound to cause surprise. firstly, it seems to leave out the role commonly ascribed to the so-called motoric part of the nervous system in bringing about bodily action; and secondly, the acknowledgment of the dependence of consciousness on corporeal 'dying' implies that willing is an unconscious activity because of its being based on life processes of the body. the first of these two problems will find its answer at a later stage of our discussion when we shall see what entitles us to draw a direct connexion between volition and muscular action. to answer the second problem, simple self-observation is required. this tells us that, when we move a limb, all that we know of is the intention (in its conceptual form) which rouses the will and gives it its direction, and the fact of the completed deed. in between, we accompany the movement with a dim awareness of the momentary positions of the parts of the body involved, so that we know whether or not they are moving in the intended manner. this awareness is due to a particular sense, the 'sense of movement' or 'muscular sense' - one of those senses whose existence physiology has lately come to acknowledge. nothing, however, is known to us of all the complex changes which are set into play within the muscles themselves in order to carry out some intended movement. and it is these that are the direct outcome of the activity of our will. regarding man's psycho-physical organization thus, we come to see in it a kind of polarity - a death-pole, as it were, represented by the nerves including their extension into the senses, and a life-pole, represented by the metabolic and muscular systems; and connected with them a pole of consciousness and one of unconsciousness - or as we can also say, of waking and sleeping consciousness. for the degree of consciousness on the side of the life-pole is not different from the state in which the entire human being dwells during sleep. it is by thus recognizing the dependence of consciousness on processes of bodily disintegration that we first come to understand why consciousness, once it has reached a certain degree of brightness, is bound to suffer repeated interruptions. every night, when we sleep, our nervous system becomes alive (though with gradually decreasing intensity) in order that what has been destroyed during the day may be restored. while the system is kept in this condition, no consciousness can obtain in it. in between the two polarically opposite systems there is a third, again of clearly distinct character, which functions as a mediator between the two. here all processes are of a strictly rhythmic nature, as is shown by the process of breathing and the pulsation of the blood. this system, too, provides the foundation for a certain type of psychological process, namely feeling. that feeling is an activity of the soul distinct from both thinking and willing, and that it has its direct counterpart in the rhythmic processes of the body, can be most easily tested through observing oneself when listening to music. as one might expect from its median position, the feeling sphere of the soul is characterized by a degree of consciousness half-way between waking and sleeping. of our feelings we are not more conscious than of our dreams; we are as little detached from them as from our dream experiences while these last; what remains in our memory of past feelings is usually not more than what we remember of past dreams. this picture of the threefold psycho-physical structure of man will now enable us to understand the evolution of consciousness both in individual life and in the life of mankind. to furnish the foundation of waking consciousness, parts of the body must become divorced from life. this process, however, is one which, if we take the word in its widest sense, we may call, ageing. all organic bodies, and equally that of man, are originally traversed throughout by life. only gradually certain parts of such an organism become precipitated, as it were, from the general organic structure, and they do so increasingly towards the end of that organism's life-span. in the human body this separation sets in gently during the later stages of embryonic development and brings about the first degree of independence of bones and nerves from the rest of the organism. the retreat of life continues after birth, reaching a certain climax in the nervous system at about the twenty-first year. in the body of a small child there is still comparatively little contrast between living and non-living organs. there is equally little contrast between sleeping and waking condition in its soul. and the nature of the soul at this stage is volition throughout. never, in fact, does man's soul so intensively will as in the time when it is occupied in bringing the body into an upright position, and never again does it exert its strength with the same unconsciousness of the goal to which it strives. what, then, is the soul's characteristic relationship to the world around at this stage? the following observations will enable us to answer this question. it is well known that small children often angrily strike an object against which they have stumbled. this has been interpreted as 'animism', by which it is meant that the child, by analogy with his experience of himself as a soul-filled body, imagines the things in his surroundings to be similarly ensouled. anyone who really observes the child's mode of experience (of which we as adults, indeed, keep something in our will-life) is led to a quite different interpretation of such a phenomenon. for he realizes that the child neither experiences himself as soul-entity distinct from his body, nor faces the content of the world in so detached a manner as to be in need of using his imagination to read into it any soul-entities distinct from his own. in this early period of his life the human being still feels the world as part of himself, and himself as part of the world. consequently, his relation to the objects around him and to his own body is one and the same. to the example of the child beating the external object he has stumbled against, there belongs the complementary picture of the child who beats himself because he has done something which makes him angry with himself. in sharp contrast to this state of oneness of the child's soul, in regard both to its own body and to the surrounding world, there stands the separatedness of the adult's intellectual consciousness, severed from both body and world. what happens to this part of the soul during its transition from one condition to the other may be aptly described by using a comparison from another sphere of natural phenomena. (later descriptions in this book will show that a comparison such as the one used here is more than a mere external analogy.) let us think of water in which salt has been dissolved. in this state the salt is one with its solvent; there is no visible distinction between them. the situation changes when part of the salt crystallizes. by this process the part of the salt substance concerned loses its connexion with the liquid and contracts into individually outlined and spatially defined pieces of solid matter. it thereby becomes optically distinguishable from its environment. something similar happens to the soul within the region of the nervous system. what keeps the soul in a state of unconsciousness as long as the body, in childhood, is traversed by life throughout, and what continues to keep it in this condition in the parts which remain alive after the separation of the nerves, is the fact that in these parts - to maintain the analogy - the soul is dissolved in the body. with the growing independence of the nerves, the soul itself gains independence from the body. at the same time it undergoes a process similar to contraction whereby it becomes discernible to itself as an entity distinguished from the surrounding world. in this way the soul is enabled, eventually, to meet the world from outside as a self-conscious onlooker. * what we have here described as the emergence of an individual's intellectual consciousness from the original, purely volitional condition of the soul is nothing but a replica of a greater process through which mankind as a whole, or more exactly western mankind, has gone in the course of its historical development. man was not always the 'brain-thinker' he is to-day. directly the separation of the nerve system was completed, and thereby the full clarity of the brain-bound consciousness achieved, man began to concern himself with science in the modern sense. to understand why this science became restricted to one-eyed, colour-blind observation we need only apply to the human sense system, in particular, what we have learnt concerning man's threefold being. sharply distinguished by their respective modes of functioning though they are, the three bodily systems are each spread out through the whole body and are thus to be found everywhere adjacent to each other. hence, the corresponding three states of consciousness, the sleeping, dreaming and waking, are also everywhere adjacent and woven into one another. it is the predominance of one or other which imparts a particular quality of soul to one or other region of the body. this is clearly shown within the realm of sense activity, itself the most conscious part of the human being. it is sufficient to compare, say, the senses of sight and smell, and to notice in what different degree we are conscious of the impressions they convey, and how differently the corresponding elements of conception, feeling and willing are blended in each. we never turn away as instinctively from objectionable colour arrangement as from an unpleasant smell. how small a part, on the other hand, do the representations of odours play in our recollection of past experiences, compared with those of sight. the same is valid in descending measure for all other senses. of all senses, the sense of sight has in greatest measure the qualities of a 'conceptual sense'. the experiences which it brings, and these alone, were suitable as a basis for the new science, and even so a further limitation was necessary. for in spite of the special quality of the sense of sight, it is still not free from certain elements of feeling and will - that is, from elements with the character of dream or sleep. the first plays a part in our perception of colour; the second, in observing the forms and perspective ordering of objects we look at. here is repeated in a special way the threefold organization of man, for the seeing of colour depends on an organic process apart from the nerve processes and similar to that which takes place between heart and lungs, whilst the seeing of forms and spatial vision depend upon certain movements of the eyeball (quick traversing of the outline of the viewed object with the line of sight, alteration of the angle between the two axes of sight according to distance), in which the eye is active as a sort of outer limb of the body, an activity which enters our consciousness as little as does that of our limbs. it now becomes clear that no world-content obtained in such more or less unconscious ways could be made available for the building of a new scientific world-conception. only as much as man experiences through the sight of a single, colour-blind eye, could be used. * if we would understand the role of science in the present phase of human development, we must be ready to apply two entirely different and seemingly contradictory judgments to one and the same historical phenomenon. the fact that something has occurred out of historical necessity - that is, a necessity springing from the very laws of cosmic evolution - does not save it from having a character which, in view of its consequences, must needs be called tragic. in this era of advanced intellectualism, little understanding of the existence of true tragedy in human existence has survived. as a result, the word 'tragedy' itself has deteriorated in its meaning and is nowadays used mostly as a synonym for 'sad event', 'calamity' 'serious event', even 'crime' (oxford diet.). in its original meaning, however, springing from the dramatic poetry of ancient greece, the word combines the concept of calamity with that of inevitability; the author of the destructive action was not held to be personally responsible for it, since he was caught up in a nexus of circumstances which he could not change. this is not the place to discuss why tragedy in this sense forms part of man's existence. it suffices to acknowledge that it does and, where it occurs, to observe it with scientific objectivity. our considerations, starting from certain statements made by some leading scientific thinkers of our time, have helped us not only to confirm the truth inherent in these statements, but to recognize the facts stated by them as being the outcome of certain laws of evolution and thereby having an historic necessity. this, however, does not mean that man's scientific labours, carried out under the historically given restrictions, great and successful as these labours were and are, have not led to calamitous effects such as we found indicated by professor carrel. the sciences of matter have led man into a country that is not his, and the world which he has created by means of scientific research is not only one in which he is a stranger but one which threatens to-day to deprive him of his own existence. the reason is that this world is essentially a world of active forces, and the true nature of these is something which modern man, restricted to his onlooker-consciousness, is positively unable to conceive. we have taken a first step in diagnosing man's present spiritual condition. a few more steps are required to lead us to the point where we can conceive the therapy he needs. this address and another by the same author are published together under the common title, wandlungen in den grundlagen der naturwissenschaft ('changes in the foundations of natural science'). heisenberg's name has become known above all by his formulation of the so-called principle of indeterminacy. see, in this respect, faust's dispute with mephistopheles on the causes responsible for the geological changes of the earth. (faust ii, act ) see also eddington's more elaborate description of this fact in his new pathways in science. the above statement, like others of eddington's, has been contested from the side of professional philosophy as logically untenable. our own further discussion will show that it accords with the facts. both words, kinematics and kinetics, are derivatives of the greek word kinein, to move. the term 'kinematic' is used when motion is considered abstractly without reference to force or mass. kinetics is applied kinematics, or, as pointed out above, dynamics treated with kinematic concepts. these last statements will find further illustration in the next two chapters. first published in in his book von seelenrätseln. homer's men still think with the diaphragm (phrenes). similarly, the ancient practice of yoga, as a means of acquiring knowledge, shows that at the time when it flourished man's conceptual activity was felt to be seated elsewhere than in the head. this must not be confused with the fact that a smell may evoke other memories by way of association. for one who endeavours to observe historical facts in the manner here described, it is no mere play of chance that the father of scientific atomism, john dalton, was by nature colour blind. in fact, colour blindness was known, for a considerable time during the last century, as 'daltonism', since it was through the publication of dalton's self-observations that for the first time general attention was drawn to this phenomenon. chapter iii the onlooker's philosophic malady in his isolation as world spectator, the modern philosopher was bound to reach two completely opposite views regarding the objective value of human thought. one of these was given expression in descartes' famous words: cogito ergo sum ('i think, therefore i am'). descartes ( - ), rightly described as the inaugurator of modern philosophy, thus held the view that only in his own thought-activity does man find a guarantee of his own existence. in coming to this view, descartes took as his starting-point his experience that human consciousness contains only the thought pictures evoked by sense-perception, and yet knows nothing of the how and why of the things responsible for such impressions. he thus found himself compelled, in the first place, to doubt whether any of these things had any objective existence, at all. hence, there remained over for him only one indubitable item in the entire content of the universe - his own thinking; for were he to doubt even this, he could do so only by again making use of it. from the 'i doubt, therefore i am', he was led in this way to the 'i think, therefore i am'. the other conception of human thought reached by the onlooker-consciousness was diametrically opposed to that of descartes, and entirely cancelled its conceptual significance. it was put forward - not long afterwards - by robert hooke ( - ), the first scientist to make systematic use of the newly invented microscope by means of which he made the fundamental discovery of the cellular structure of plant tissues. it was, indeed, on the strength of his microscopic studies that he boldly undertook to determine the relationship of human thought to objective reality. he published his views in the introduction to his micrographia, the great work in which, with the lavish help of carefully executed copper engravings, he made his microscopic observations known to the world. hooke's line of thought is briefly as follows: in past ages men subscribed to the naive belief that what they have in their consciousness as thought pictures of the world, actually reproduces the real content of that world. the microscope now demonstrates, however, how much the familiar appearance of the world depends on the structure of our sense apparatus; for it reveals a realm just as real as that already known to us, but hitherto concealed from us because it is not accessible to the natural senses. accordingly, if the microscope can penetrate through the veil of illusion which normally hides a whole world of potentially visible phenomena, it may be that it can even teach us something about the ideas we have hitherto formed concerning the nature of things. perhaps it can bring us a step nearer the truth in the sphere of thought, as it so obviously has done in that of observation. of all the ideas that human reason can form, hooke considered the simplest and the most fundamental to be the geometrical concepts of point and straight line. undoubtedly we are able to think these, but the naïve consciousness takes for granted that it also perceives them as objective realities outside itself, so that thoughts and facts correspond to each other. we must now ask, however, if this belief is not due to an optical deception. let us turn to the microscope and see what point and line in the external world look like through it. for his investigation hooke chose the point of a needle and a knife-edge, as providing the best representatives among physical objects of point and straight line. in the sketches here reproduced we may see how hooke made clear to his readers how little these two things, when observed through the microscope, resemble what is seen by the unaided eye. this fact convinced hooke that the apparent agreement between the world of perception and the world of ideas rests on nothing more solid than an optical limitation (plate i). compared with the more refined methods of present-day thought, hooke's procedure may strike us as somewhat primitive. actually he did nothing more than has since been done times without number; for the scientist has become more and more willing to allow artificially evoked sense-perceptions to dictate the thoughts he uses in forming a scientific picture of the world. in the present context we are concerned with the historical import of hooke's procedure. this lies in the fact that, immediately after descartes had satisfied himself that in thinking man had the one sure guarantee of his own existence, hooke proved in a seemingly indubitable manner that thinking was entirely divorced from reality. it required only another century for philosophy to draw from this the unavoidable consequence. it appeared in the form of hume's philosophic system, the outcome of which was universal scepticism. as we shall see in due course, hume's mode of reasoning continues to rule scientific thought even to-day, quite irrespective of the fact that science itself claims to have its philosophical parent in kant, the very thinker who devoted his life's work to the refutation of hume. * on the basis of his investigations into human consciousness hume felt obliged to reason thus: my consciousness, as i know it, has no contact with the external world other than that of a mere outside onlooker. what it wins for its own content from the outer world is in the nature of single, mutually unrelated parts. whatever may unite these parts into an objective whole within the world itself can never enter my consciousness; and any such unifying factor entertained by my thought can be only a self-constructed, hypothetical picture. hume summed up his view in two axioms which he himself described as the alpha and omega of his whole philosophy. the first runs: 'all our distinct perceptions are distinct existences.' the other: 'the mind never perceives any real connexions between distinct existences.' (treatise of human nature.) if once we agree that we can know of nothing but unrelated thought pictures, because our consciousness is not in a position to relate these pictures to a unifying reality, then we have no right to ascribe, with descartes and his school, an objective reality to the self. even though the self may appear to us as the unifying agent among our thoughts, it must itself be a mental picture among mental pictures ; and man can have no knowledge of any permanent reality outside this fluctuating picture-realm. so, with hume, the onlooker-consciousness came to experience its own utter inability to achieve a knowledge of the objective existence either of a material world be - behind all external phenomena, or of a spiritual self behind all the details of its own internal content. accordingly, human consciousness found itself hurled into the abyss of universal scepticism. hume himself suffered unspeakably under the impact of what he considered inescapable ideas - rightly described from another side as the 'suicide of human intelligence' - and his philosophy often seemed to him like a malady, as he himself called it, against whose grip he could see no remedy. the only thing left to him, if he was to prevent philosophical suicide from ending in physical suicide, was to forget in daily life his own conclusions as far as possible. what hume experienced as his philosophical malady, however, was the result not of a mental abnormality peculiar to himself, but of that modern form of consciousness which still prevails in general today. this explains why, despite all attempts to disprove hume's philosophy, scientific thought has not broken away from its alpha and omega in the slightest degree. a proof of this is to be found, for example, in the principle of indeterminacy which has arisen in modern physics. * the conception of indeterminacy as an unavoidable consequence of the latest phase of physical research is due to professor w. heisenberg. originally this conception forced itself upon heisenberg as a result of experimental research. in the meantime the same idea has received its purely philosophical foundation. we shall here deal with both lines of approach. after the discovery by galileo of the parallelogram of forces, it became the object of classical physics - unexpressed, indeed, until newton wrote his principia - to bring the unchanging laws ruling nature into the light of human consciousness, and to give them conceptual expression in the language of mathematical formulae. since, however, science was obliged to restrict itself to what could be observed with a single, colour-blind eye, physics has taken as its main object of research the spatio-temporal relationships, and their changes, between discrete, ideally conceived, point-like particles. accordingly, the mathematically formulable laws holding sway in nature came to mean the laws according to which the smallest particles in the material foundation of the world change their position with regard to each other. a science of this kind could logically maintain that, if ever it succeeded in defining both the position and the state of motion, in one single moment, of the totality of particles composing the universe, it would have discovered the law on which universal existence depends. this necessarily rested on the presupposition that it really was the ultimate particles of the physical world which were under observation. in the search for these, guided chiefly by the study of electricity, the physicists tracked down ever smaller and smaller units; and along this path scientific research has arrived at the following peculiar situation. to observe any object in the sense world we need an appropriate medium of observation. for ordinary things, light provides this. in the sense in which light is understood to-day, this is possible because the spatial extension of the single light impulses, their so-called wavelength, is immeasurably smaller than the average magnitude of all microscopically visible objects. this ensures that they can be observed clearly by the human eye. much smaller objects, however, will require a correspondingly shorter wave-length in the medium of observation. now shorter wave-lengths than those of visible light have been found in ultra-violet light and in x-rays; and these, accordingly, are now often used for minute physical research. in this way, however, we are led by nature to a definite boundary; for we now find ourselves in a realm where the dimensions of the observation medium and the observed object are more or less the same. the result, unfortunately, is that when the 'light' meets the object, it changes the latter's condition of movement. on the other hand, if a 'light' is used whose wave-length is too big to have any influence on the object's condition of movement, it precludes any exact determination of the object's location. thus, having arrived at the very ground of the world - that is, where the cosmic laws might be expected to reveal themselves directly - the scientist finds himself in the remarkable situation of only being able to determine accurately either the position of an observed object and not its state of motion, or its state of motion and not its position. the law he seeks, however, requires that both should be known at the same time. nor is this situation due to the imperfection of the scientific apparatus employed, but to its very perfection, so that it appears to arise from the nature of the foundation of the world - in so far, at least, as modern science is bound to conceive it. if it is true that a valid scientific knowledge of nature is possible only in the sphere open to a single-eyed, colour-blind observation, and if it is true - as a science of this kind, at any rate, is obliged to believe - that all processes within the material foundation of the world depend on nothing but the movements of certain elementary particles of extremely small size, then the fact must be faced that the very nature of these processes rules out the discovery of any stable ordering of things in the sense of mathematically formulable laws. the discovery of such laws will then always be the last step but one in scientific investigation; the last will inevitably be the dissolution of such laws into chaos. for a consistent scientific thinking that goes this way, therefore, nothing is left but to recognize chaos as the only real basis of an apparently ordered world, a chaos on whose surface the laws that seem to hold sway are only the illusory picturings of the human mind. this, then, is the principle of indeterminacy as it has been encountered in the course of practical investigation into the electrical processes within physical matter. in the following way professor schrödinger, another leading thinker among modern theoretical physicists, explains the philosophical basis for the principle of indeterminacy, which scientists have established in the meantime: 'every quantitative observation, every observation making use of measurement, is by nature discontinuous. ... however far we go in the pursuit of accuracy we shall never get anything other than a finite series of discrete results. ... the raw material of our quantitative cognition of nature will always have this primitive and discontinuous character. ... it is possible that a physical system might be so simple that this meagre information would suffice to settle its fate; in that case nature would not be more complicated than a game of chess. to determine a position of a game of chess thirty-three facts suffice. ... if nature is more complicated than a game of chess, a belief to which one tends to incline, then a physical system cannot be determined by a finite number of observations. but in practice a finite number of observations is all that we could make.' classical physics, the author goes on to show, held that it was possible to gain a real insight into the laws of the universe, because in principle an infinite number of such discrete observations would enable us to fill in the gaps sufficiently to allow us to determine the system of the physical world. against this assumption modern physics must hold the view that an infinite number of observations cannot in any case be carried out in practice, and that nothing compels us to assume that even this would suffice to furnish us with the means for a complete determination, which alone would allow us to speak of 'law' in nature. 'this is the direction in which modern physics has led us without really intending it.' what we have previously said will make it clear enough that in these words of a modern physicist we meet once more the two fundamentals of hume's philosophy. it is just as obvious, however, that the very principle thus re-affirmed at the latest stage of modern physical science was already firmly established by hooke, when he sought to prove to his contemporaries the unreality of human ideas. let us recall hooke's motives and results. the human reason discovers that certain law-abiding forms of thought dwell within itself; these are the rules of mathematical thinking. the eye informs the reason that the same kind of law and order is present also in the outer world. the mind can think point and line; the eye reports that the same forms exist in nature outside. (hooke could just as well have taken as his examples the apex and edge of a crystal.) the reason mistrusts the eye, however, and with the help of the microscope 'improves' on it. what hitherto had been taken for a compact, regulated whole now collapses into a heap of unordered parts; behind the illusion of law a finer observation detects the reality of chaos! had science in its vehement career from discovery to discovery not forgotten its own beginnings so completely, it would not have needed its latest researches to bring out a principle which it had in fact been following from the outset - a principle which philosophy had already recognized, if not in quite the same formulation, in the eighteenth century. indeterminacy, as we have just seen it explained by schrödinger, is nothing but the exact continuation of humean scepticism. in his book, science and the human temperament (dublin, ). chapter iv the country that is not ours the last two chapters have served to show the impasse into which human perception and thinking have come - in so far as they have been used for scientific purposes - by virtue of the relationship to the world in which man's consciousness found itself when it awoke to itself at the beginning of modern times. now although the onlooker in man, especially in the earliest stage of our period, gave itself up to the conviction that a self-contained picture of the universe could be formed out of the kind of materials available to it, it nevertheless had a dim inkling that this picture, because it lacked all dynamic content, had no bearing on the real nature of the universe. unable to find this reality within himself, the world-onlooker set about searching in his own way for what was missing, and turned to the perceptible world outside man. here he came, all unexpectedly, upon ... electricity. scarcely was electricity discovered than it drew human scientific thinking irresistibly into its own realm. thereby man found himself, with a consciousness completely blind to dynamics, within a sphere of only too real dynamic forces. the following description will show what results this has had for man and his civilization. * first, let us recall how potent a role electricity has come to play in social life through the great discoveries which began at the end of the eighteenth century. to do this we need only compare the present relationship between production and consumption in the economic sphere with what it was before the power-machine, and especially the electrically driven machine, had been invented. consider some major public undertaking in former times - say the construction of a great mediaeval cathedral. almost all the work was done by human beings, with some help, of course, from domesticated animals. under these circumstances the entire source of productive power lay in the will-energies of living beings, whose bodies had to be supplied with food, clothing and housing; and to provide these, other productive powers of a similar kind were required near the same place. accordingly, since each of the power units employed in the work was simultaneously both producer and consumer, a certain natural limit was placed on the accumulation of productive forces in any one locality. this condition of natural balance between production and consumption was profoundly disturbed by the introduction of the steam engine; but even so there were still some limits, though of a quite different kind, to local concentrations of productive power. for steam engines require water and coal at the scene of action, and these take up space and need continual shifting and replenishing. owing to the very nature of physical matter, it cannot be heaped up where it is required in unlimited quantities. all this changed directly man succeeded in producing energy electro-magnetically by the mere rotation of material masses, and in using the water-power of the earth - itself ultimately derived from the cosmic energies of the sun - for driving his dynamos. not only is the source of energy thus tapped practically inexhaustible, but the machines produce it without consuming on their own account, apart from wear and tear, and so make possible the almost limitless accumulation of power in one place. for electricity is distinguished from all other power-supplying natural forces, living or otherwise, precisely in this, that it can be concentrated spatially with the aid of a physical carrier whose material bulk is insignificant compared with the energy supplied. through this property of electricity it has been possible for man to extend the range of his activity in all directions, far and near. so the balance between production and consumption, which in previous ages was more or less adequately maintained by natural conditions, has been entirely destroyed, and a major social-economic problem created. in yet another way, and through quite another of its properties, electricity plays an important part in modern life. not only does it compete with the human will; it also makes possible automatically intelligent operations quite beyond anything man can do on his own. there are innumerable examples of this in modern electrical technology; we need mention here only the photo-electric cell and the many devices into which it enters. to an ever-increasing, quite uncontrolled degree - for to the mind of present-day man it is only natural to translate every new discovery into practice as soon and as extensively as possible - electricity enters decisively into our modern existence. if we take all its activities into account, we see arising amongst humanity a vast realm of labour units, possessed in their own way not only of will but of the sharpest imaginable intelligence. although they are wholly remote from man's own nature, he more and more subdues his thoughts and actions to theirs, allowing them to take rank as guides and shapers of his civilization. turning to the sphere of scientific research, we find electricity playing a role in the development of modern thinking remarkably similar to its part as a labour-force in everyday life. we find it associated with phenomena which, in professor heisenberg's words, expose their mutual connexions to exact mathematical thinking more readily than do any other facts of nature; and yet the way in which these phenomena have become known has played fast and loose with mathematical thinking to an unparalleled degree. to recognize that in this sphere modern science owes its triumphs to a strange and often paradoxical mixture of outer accident and error in human thought, we need only review the history of the subject without prejudice. * the discovery of electricity has so far been accomplished in four clearly distinct stages. the first extends from the time when men first knew of electrical phenomena to the beginning of the natural scientific age; the second includes the seventeenth and the greater part of the eighteenth centuries; the third begins with galvani's discovery and closes with the first observations of radiant electricity; and the fourth brings us to our own day. we shall here concern ourselves with a few outstanding features of each phase, enough to characterize the strange path along which man has been led by the discovery of electricity. until the beginning of modern times, nothing more was known about electricity, or of its sister force, magnetism, than what we find in pliny's writings. there, without recognizing a qualitative distinction between them, he refers to the faculty of rubbed amber and of certain pieces of iron to attract other small pieces of matter. it required the awakening of that overruling interest in material nature, characteristic of our own age, for the essential difference between electric and magnetic attraction to be recognized. the first to give a proper description of this was queen elizabeth's doctor, gilbert. his discovery was soon followed by the construction of the first electrical machine by the german guericke (also known through his invention of the air pump) which opened the way for the discovery that electricity could be transmitted from one place to another. it was not, however, until the beginning of the eighteenth century that the crop of electrical discoveries began to increase considerably: among these was the recognition of the dual nature of electricity, by the frenchman, dufais, and the chance invention of the leyden jar (made simultaneously by the german, von kleist, and two dutchmen, musschenbroek and cunaeus). the leyden jar brought electrical effects of quite unexpected intensity within reach. stimulated by what could be done with electricity in this form, more and more people now busied themselves in experimenting with so fascinating a force of nature, until in the second third of the century a whole army of observers was at work, whether by way of profession or of hobby, finding out ever new manifestations of its powers. the mood that prevailed in those days among men engaged in electrical research is well reflected in a letter written by the englishman, walsh, after he had established the electric nature of the shocks given by certain fishes, to benjamin franklin, who shortly before had discovered the natural occurrence of electricity in the atmosphere: 'i rejoice in addressing these communications to you. he, who predicted and shewed that electricity wings the formidable bolt of the atmosphere, will hear with attention that in the deep it speeds a humbler bolt, silent and invisible; he, who analysed the electrical phial, will hear with pleasure that its laws prevail in animate phials; he, who by reason became an electrician, will hear with reverence of an instinctive electrician, gifted in his birth with a wonderful apparatus, and with the skill to use it.' (phil. trans. .) dare one believe that in electricity the soul of nature had been discovered? this was the question which at that time stirred the hearts of very many in europe. doctors had already sought to arouse new vitality in their patients by the use of strong electric shocks; attempts had even been made to bring the dead back to life by such means. . in a time like ours, when we are primarily concerned with the practical application of scientific discoveries, we are mostly accustomed to regard such flights of thought from a past age as nothing but the unessential accompaniment of youthful, immature science, and to smile at them accordingly as historical curiosities. this is a mistake, for we then overlook how within them was hidden an inkling of the truth, however wrongly conceived at the time, and we ignore the role which such apparently fantastic hopes have played in connexion with the entry of electricity into human civilization. (nor are such hopes confined to the eighteenth century; as we shall see, the same impulse urged crookes a hundred years later to that decisive discovery which was to usher in the latest phase in the history of science, a phase in which the investigating human spirit has been led to that boundary of the physical-material world where the transition takes place from inert matter into freely working energy.) if there was any doubt left as to whether in nature the same power was at work which, in animal and man, was hidden away within the soul, this doubt seemed finally to have been dispelled through galvani's discovery that animal limbs could be made to move electrically through being touched by two bits of different metals. no wonder that 'the storm which was loosed in the world of the physicists, the physiologists and the doctors through galvani's publication can only be compared with the one crossing the political horizon of europe at the same time. wherever there happened to be frogs and two pieces of different metals available, everyone sought proof with his own eyes that the severed limbs could be marvellously re-enlivened.' like many of his contemporaries, galvani was drawn by the fascinating behaviour of the new force of nature to carry on electrical experiments as a hobby alongside his professional work, anatomical research. for his experiments he used the room where his anatomical specimens were set out. so it happened that his electrical machine stood near some frogs' legs, prepared for dissection. by a further coincidence his assistant, while playing with the machine, released a few sparks just when some of the specimens were in such contact with the surface beneath them that they were bound to react to the sudden alteration of the electric field round the machine caused by its discharge. at each spark the frogs' legs twitched. what galvani saw with his own eyes seemed to be no less than the union of two phenomena, one observed by franklin in the heights of the atmosphere, the other by walsh in the depths of the sea. galvani, as he himself describes, proceeded with immense enthusiasm to investigate systematically what accident had thus put into his hands. he wanted first to see whether changes occurring naturally in the electrical condition of the atmosphere would call forth the same reaction in his specimens. for this purpose he fastened one end of an iron wire to a point high up outside his house; the lower end he connected with the nervous substance of a limb from one of his specimens, and to the foot of this he attached a second wire whose other end he submerged in a well. the specimen itself was either enclosed in a glass flask in order to insulate it, or simply left lying on a table near the well. and all this he did whenever a thunderstorm was threatening. as he himself reported: 'all took place as expected. whenever the lightning flashed, all the muscles simultaneously came into repeated and violent twitchings, so that the movements of the muscles, like the flash of the lightning, always preceded the thunder, and thus, as it were, heralded its coming.' we can have some idea of what went on in galvani's mind during these experiments if we picture vividly to ourselves the animal limbs twitching about every time the lightning flashed, as if a revitalizing force of will had suddenly taken possession of them. in the course of his investigations - he carried them on for a long time - galvani was astonished to observe that some of his specimens, which he had hung on to an iron railing by means of brass hooks, sometimes fell to twitching even when the sky was quite clear and there was no sign of thunder. his natural conclusion was that this must be due to hitherto unnoticed electrical changes in the atmosphere. observations maintained for hours every day, however, led to no conclusive result; when twitchings did occur it was only with some of the specimens, and even then there was no discoverable cause. then it happened one day that galvani, 'tired out with fruitless watching', took hold of one of the brass hooks by which the specimens were hung, and pressed it more strongly than usual against the iron railing. immediately a twitching took place. 'i was almost at the point of ascribing the occurrence to atmospheric electricity,' galvani tells us. all the same he took one of the specimens, a frog, into his laboratory and there subjected it to similar conditions by putting it on an iron plate, and pressing against this with the hook that was stuck through its spinal cord. immediately the twitching occurred again. he tried with other metals and, for checking purposes, with non-metals as well. with some ingenuity he fixed up an arrangement, rather like that of an electric bell, whereby the limbs in contracting broke contact and in relaxing restored it, and so he managed to keep the frog in continuous rhythmical movement. whereas galvani had been rightly convinced by his earlier observations that the movement in the specimens represented a reaction to an electric stimulus from outside, he now changed his mind. in the very moment of his really significant discovery he succumbed to the error that he had to do with an effect of animal electricity located somewhere in the dead creature itself, perhaps in the fashion of what had been observed in the electric fishes. he decided that the metal attachment served merely to set in motion the electricity within the animal. whilst galvani persisted in this mistake until his death, volta realized that the source of the electric force, as in the first of galvani's observations, must still be sought outside the specimens, and himself rightly attributed it to the contacting metals. guided by this hypothesis, volta started systematic research into the galvanic properties of metals, and presently succeeded in producing electricity once more from purely mineral substances, namely from two different metals in contact with a conductive liquid. this mode of producing electricity, however, differed from any previously known in allowing for the first time the production of continuous electrical effects. it is this quality of the cells and piles constructed by volta that laid open the road for electric force to assume that role in human civilization which we have already described. that volta himself was aware of this essentially new factor in the galvanic production of electricity is shown by his own report to the royal society: 'the chief of my results, and which comprehends nearly all the others, is the construction of an apparatus which resembles in its effects, viz. such as giving shocks to the arms, &c, the leyden phial, and still better electric batteries weakly charged; . . . but which infinitely surpasses the virtue and power of these same batteries; as it has no need, like them, of being charged beforehand, by means of a foreign electricity; and as it is capable of giving the usual commotion as often as ever it is properly touched.' whilst volta's success was based on avoiding galvani's error, his apparatus nevertheless turned out inadvertently to be a close counterpart of precisely that animal organ which galvani had in mind when misinterpreting his own discoveries! that volta himself realized this is clear from the concluding words in his letter: 'this apparatus, as it resembles more the natural organ of the torpedo, or of the electrical eel, than the leyden phial or the ordinary electric batteries, i may call an artificial electric organ.' this new method of producing continuous electrical effects had far-reaching results, one of which was the discovery of the magnetic properties of the electric current by the dane, oersted - once again a purely accidental discovery, moving directly counter to the assumptions of the discoverer himself. about to leave the lecture room where he had just been trying to prove the non-existence of such magnetic properties (an attempt seemingly crowned with success), oersted happened to glance once more at his demonstration bench. to his astonishment he noticed that one of his magnetic needles was out of alignment; evidently it was attracted by a magnetic field created by the current running through a wire he had just been using, which was still in circuit. thus what had escaped oersted throughout his planned researches - namely, that the magnetic force which accompanies an electric current must be sought in a direction at right angles to the current - a fortuitous event enabled him to detect. these repeated strokes of chance and frequently mistaken interpretations of the phenomenon thus detected show that men were exploring the electrical realm as it were in the dark; it was a realm foreign to their ordinary ideas and they had not developed the forms of thought necessary for understanding it. (and this, as our further survey will show, is still true, even to-day.) in our historical survey we come next to the researches of faraday and maxwell. faraday was convinced that if electrical processes are accompanied by magnetic forces, as oersted had shown, the reverse must also be true - magnetism must be accompanied by electricity. he was led to this correct conviction by his belief in the qualitative unity of all the forces of nature - a reflexion, as his biography shows, of his strongly monotheistic, old testament faith. precisely this view, however - which since faraday natural science has quite consciously adopted as a leading principle - will reveal itself to us as a fundamental error. it seems paradoxical to assert that the more consistently human thought has followed this error, the greater have been the results of the scientific investigation of electricity. precisely this paradox, however, is characteristic of the realm of nature to which electricity belongs; and anyone earnestly seeking to overcome the illusions of our age will have to face the fact that the immediate effectiveness of an idea in practice is no proof of its ultimate truth. another eloquent example of the strange destiny of human thought in connexion with electricity is to be found in the work of clark maxwell, who, starting from faraday's discoveries, gave the theory of electricity its mathematical basis. along his purely theoretical line of thought he was led to the recognition of the existence of a form of electrical activity hitherto undreamt of - electro-magnetic vibrations. stimulated by maxwell's mathematical conclusions, hertz and marconi were soon afterwards able to demonstrate those phenomena which have led on the one hand to the electro-magnetic theory of light, and on the other to the practical achievements of wireless communication. once again, there is the paradoxical fact that this outcome of maxwell's labours contradicts the very foundation on which he had built his theoretical edifice. for his starting-point had been to form a picture of the electro-magnetic field of force to which he could apply certain well-known formulae of mechanics. this he did by comparing the behaviour of the electrical force to the currents of an elastic fluid - that is, of a material substance. it is true that both he and his successors rightly emphasized that such a picture was not in any way meant as an explanation of electricity, but merely as an auxiliary concept in the form of a purely external analogy. nevertheless, it was in the guise of a material fluid that he thought of this force, and that he could submit it to mathematical calculation. yet the fact is that from this starting-point the strict logic of mathematics led him to the discovery that electricity is capable of behaviour which makes it appear qualitatively similar to ... light! whilst practical men were turning the work of faraday and maxwell to account by exploiting the mechanical working of electricity in power-production, and its similarity to light in the wireless communication of thought, a new field of research, with entirely new practical possibilities, was suddenly opened up in the last third of the nineteenth century through the discovery of how electricity behaves in rarefied air. this brings us to the discovery of cathode rays and the phenomena accompanying them, from which the latest stage in the history of electricity originated. and here once more, as in the history of galvani's discoveries, we encounter certain undercurrents of longing and expectation in the human soul which seemed to find an answer through this sudden, great advance in the knowledge of electricity - an advance which has again led to practical applications of the utmost significance for human society, though not at all in the way first hoped for. interest in the phenomena arising when electricity passes through gases with reduced pressure had simultaneously taken hold of several investigators in the seventies of the nineteenth century. but the decisive step in this sphere of research was taken by the english physicist, william crookes. he was led on by a line of thought which seems entirely irrelevant; yet it was this which first directed his interest to the peculiar phenomena accompanying cathode rays; and they proved to be the starting-point of the long train of inquiry which has now culminated in the release of atomic energy. in the midst of his many interests and activities, crookes was filled from his youth with a longing to find by empirical means the bridge leading from the world of physical effects to that of superphysical causes. he himself tells how this longing was awakened in him by the loss of a much-beloved brother. before the dead body he came to the question, which thereafter was never to leave him, whether there was a land where the human individuality continues after it has laid aside its bodily sheath, and how that land was to be found. seeing that scientific research was the instrument which modern man had forged to penetrate through the veil of external phenomena to the causes producing them, it was natural for crookes to turn to it in seeking the way from the one world into the other. it was after meeting with a man able to produce effects within the corporeal world by means of forces quite different from those familiar to science, that crookes decided to devote himself to this scientific quest. thus he first came into touch with that sphere of phenomena which is known as spiritualism, or perhaps more suitably, spiritism. crookes now found himself before a special order of happenings which seemed to testify to a world other than that open to our senses; physical matter here showed itself capable of movement in defiance of gravity, manifestations of light and sound appeared without a physical source to produce them. through becoming familiar with such things at seances arranged by his mediumistic acquaintance, he began to hope that he had found the way by which scientific research could overstep the limits of the physical world. accordingly, he threw himself eagerly into the systematic investigation of his new experiences, and so became the father of modern scientific spiritism. crookes had hoped that the scientists of his day would be positively interested in his researches. but his first paper in this field, 'on phenomena called spiritual', was at once and almost unanimously rejected by his colleagues, and as long as he concerned himself with such matters he suffered through their opposition. it passed his understanding as a scientist why anything should be regarded in advance as outside the scope of scientific research. after several years of fruitless struggle he broke off his investigations into spiritism, deeply disillusioned at his failure to interest official science in it. his own partiality for it continued, however (he served as president of the society for psychical research from - ), and he missed no opportunity of confessing himself a pioneer in the search for the boundary-land between the worlds of matter and spirit. through all his varied scientific work the longing persisted to know more of this land. just as crookes had once sought to investigate spiritism scientifically, so in his subsequent scientific inquiries he was always something of a spiritist. he admitted, indeed, that he felt specially attracted by the strange light effects arising when electricity passes through rarefied gases, because they reminded him of certain luminous phenomena he had observed during his spiritistic investigations. besides this, there was the fact that light here showed itself susceptible to the magnetic force in a way otherwise characteristic only of certain material substances. accordingly, everything combined to suggest to crookes that here, if anywhere, he was at the boundary between the physical and the superphysical worlds. no wonder that he threw himself into the study of these phenomena with enthusiasm. he soon succeeded in evoking striking effects - light and heat, and also mechanical - along the path of electricity passing invisibly through the tube later named after him. thus he proved for the first time visibly, so to say, the double nature - material and supermaterial - of electricity. what crookes himself thought about these discoveries in the realm of the cathode rays we may judge from the title, 'radiant matter', or 'the fourth state of matter', which he gave to his first publication about them. and so he was only being consistent when, in his lectures before the royal institution in london, and the british association in sheffield in , after showing to an amazed scientific audience the newly discovered properties of electricity, he came to the climax of his exposition by saying: 'we have seen that in some of its properties radiant matter is as material as this table, whilst in other properties it almost assumes the character of radiant energy. we have actually touched here the borderland where matter and force seem to merge into one another, the shadowy realm between known and unknown, which for me has always had peculiar temptations.' and in boldly prophetic words, which time has partly justified, he added, 'i venture to think that the greatest scientific problems of the future will find their solution in this borderland, and even beyond; here, it seems to me, lie ultimate realities, subtle, far-reaching, wonderful.' no one can read these words of crookes without hearing again, as an undertone, the question which had forced itself on him at the bedside of his dead brother, long before. all that is left of the human being whom death has taken is a heap of substances, deserted by the force which had used them as the instrument of its own activity. whither vanishes this force when it leaves the body, and is there any possibility of its revealing itself even without occupying such a body? stirred by this question, the young crookes set out to find a world of forces which differ from the usual mechanical ones exercised by matter on matter, in that they are autonomous, superior to matter in its inert conglomeration, yet capable of using matter, just as the soul makes use of the body so long as it dwells within it. his aim was to secure proof that such forces exist, or, at any rate, to penetrate into the realm where the transition from matter to pure, matter-free force takes place. and once again, as in galvani's day, electricity fascinated the eyes of a man who was seeking for the land of the soul. what spiritism denied, electricity seemed to grant. the aversion to spiritism which crookes met with in contemporary science was, from the standpoint of such a science, largely justified. science, in the form in which crookes himself conceived it, took for granted that the relationship of human consciousness to the world was that of external onlooking. accordingly, if the scientist remained within the limits thus prescribed for consciousness, it was only consistent to refuse to make anything beyond these limits an object of scientific research. on the other hand, it says much for the courage and open mindedness of crookes that he refused to be held back from what was for him the only possible way of extending the boundaries of science beyond the given physical world. moreover, it was only natural that in his search for a world of a higher order than the physical he should, as a man of his time, first turn his attention to spiritistic occurrences, for spiritism, as it had come over to europe from america in the middle of the nineteenth century, was nothing but an attempt by the onlooker-consciousness to learn something in its own way about the supersensible world. the spiritist expects the spirit to reveal itself in outwardly perceptible phenomena as if it were part of the physical world. towards the end of his life crookes confessed that if he were able to begin again he would prefer to study telepathic phenomena - the direct transference of thought from one person to another - rather than the purely mechanical, or so-called telekinetic, expressions of psychic forces. but although his interest was thus turning towards a more interior field of psychic investigation, he remained true to his times in still assuming that knowledge about the world, whatever it might be, could be won only by placing oneself as a mere onlooker outside the object of research. * the stream of new discoveries which followed crookes's work justified his conviction that in cathode ray phenomena we have to do with a frontier region of physical nature. still, the land that lies on the other side of this frontier is not the one crookes had been looking for throughout his life. for, instead of finding the way into the land whither man's soul disappears at death, crookes had inadvertently crossed the border into another land - a land which the twentieth-century scientist is impelled to call 'the country that is not ours'. the realm thrown open to science by crookes's observations, which human knowledge now entered as if taking it by storm, was that of the radioactive processes of the mineral stratum of the earth. many new and surprising properties of electricity were discovered there - yet the riddle of electricity itself, instead of coming nearer, withdrew into ever deeper obscurity. the very first step into this newly discovered territory made the riddle still more bewildering. as we have said, maxwell's use of a material analogy as a means of formulating mathematically the properties of electro-magnetic fields of force had led to results which brought electricity into close conjunction with light. in his own way crookes focused, to begin with, his attention entirely on the light-like character of electric effects in a vacuum. it was precisely these observations, however, as continued by lenard and others, which presently made it necessary to see in electricity nothing else than a special manifestation of inert mass. the developments leading up to this stage are recent and familiar enough to be briefly summarized. the first step was once more an accident, when röntgen (or rather one of his assistants) noticed that a bunch of keys, laid down by chance on top of an unopened box of photographic plates near a cathode tube, had produced an inexplicable shadow-image of itself on one of the plates. the cathode tube was apparently giving off some hitherto unknown type of radiation, capable of penetrating opaque substances. röntgen was an experimentalist, not a theorist; his pupils used to say privately that in publishing this discovery of x-rays he attempted a theoretical explanation for the first and only time in his life - and got it wrong! however, this accidental discovery had far-reaching consequences. it drew attention to the fluorescence of minerals placed in the cathode tube; this inspired becquerel to inquire whether naturally fluorescent substances gave off anything like x-rays, and eventually - yet again by accident - he came upon certain uranium compounds. these were found to give off a radiation similar to x-rays, and to give it off naturally and all the time. soon afterwards the curies succeeded in isolating the element, radium, an element which was found to be undergoing a continuous natural disintegration. the way was now clear for that long series of experiments on atomic disintegration which led finally to the splitting of the nucleus and the construction of the atomic bomb. * a typical modern paradox emerges from these results. by restricting his cognitive powers to a field of experience in which the concept of force as an objective reality was unthinkable, man has been led on a line of practical investigation the pursuit of which was bound to land him amongst the force-activities of the cosmos. for what distinguishes electric and sub-electric activities from all other forces of physical nature so far known to science, is that for their operation they have no need of the resistance offered by space-bound material bodies; they represent a world of pure dynamics into which spatial limitations do not enter. equally paradoxical is the situation of theoretical thinking in face of that realm of natural being which practical research has lately entered. we have seen that this thinking, by virtue of the consciousness on which it is founded, is impelled always to clothe its ideas in spatial form. wherever anything in the pure spatial adjacency of physical things remains inexplicable, resort is had to hypothetical pictures whose content consists once more of nothing but spatially extended and spatially adjacent items. in this way matter came to be seen as consisting of molecules, molecules of atoms, and atoms of electrons, protons, neutrons, and so forth. in so far as scientific thought has held to purely spatial conceptions, it has been obliged to concentrate on ever smaller and smaller spatial sizes, so that the spatially conceived atom-picture has finally to reckon with dimensions wherein the old concept of space loses validity. when once thinking had started in this direction, it was electricity which once more gave it the strongest impulse to go even further along the same lines. where we have arrived along this path is brought out in a passage in eddington's the nature of the physical world. there, after describing the modern picture of electrons dancing round the atomic nucleus, he says: 'this spectacle is so fascinating that we have perhaps forgotten that there was a time when we wanted to be told what an electron is. this question was never answered. no familiar conceptions can be woven round the electron; it belongs to the waiting list.' the only thing we can say about the electron, if we are not to deceive ourselves, eddington concludes, is: 'something unknown is doing we don't know what.' let us add a further detail from this picture of the atom, as given in eddington's philosophy of physical science. referring to the so-called positron, the positive particle regarded as the polar opposite of the negative electron, he remarks: 'a positron is a hole from which an electron has been removed; it is a bung-hole which would be evened up with its surroundings if an electron were inserted. ... you will see that the physicist allows himself even greater liberty than the sculptor. the sculptor removes material to obtain the form he desires. the physicist goes further and adds material if necessary - an operation which he describes as removing negative material. he fills up a bung-hole, saying he is removing a positron.' eddington thus shows to what paradoxical ideas the scientist is driven, when with his accustomed forms of thought he ventures into regions where the conditions necessary for such forms no longer exist; and he concludes his remarks with the following caution: 'once again i would remind you that objective truth is not the point at issue.' by this reminder eddington shows how far science has reconciled itself to the philosophic scepticism at which man's thinking had arrived in the days of hume. in so far as the above remark was intended to be a consolation for the bewildered student, it is poor comfort in the light of the actions which science has let loose with the help of those unknown entities. for it is just this resignation of human thought which renders it unable to cope with the flood of phenomena springing from the sub-material realm of nature, and has allowed scientific research to outrun scientific understanding. e. du bois-raymond: investigations into animal electricity ( ). galvani published his discovery when the french revolution had reached its zenith and napoleon was climbing to power. the above account follows a. j. von oettingen's edition of galvani's monograph, de viribus electricitatis in motu musculari. for what follows see the life of sir william crookes, by e. e. fournier d'albe (london, ). eddington's italics. see also, in this respect, professor white head's criticism of the hypothetical picture of the electron and its behaviour. part ii goetheanism - whence and whither? chapter v the adventure of reason in , a year before galvani's monograph, concerning the forces of electricity, appeared, goethe published his metamorphosis of plants, which represents the first step towards the practical overcoming of the limitations of the onlooker-consciousness in science. goethe's paper was not destined to raise such a storm as soon followed galvani's publication. and yet the fruit of goethe's endeavours is not less significant than galvani's discovery, for the progress of mankind. for in goethe's achievement lay the seed of that form of knowing which man requires, if in the age of the electrification of civilization he is to remain master of his existence. * among the essays in which goethe in later years gave out some of the results of his scientific observation in axiomatic form, is one called 'intuitive judgment' ('anschauende urteilskraft'), in which he maintains that he has achieved in practice what kant had declared to be for ever beyond the scope of the human mind. goethe refers to a passage in the critique of judgment, where kant defines the limits of human cognitional powers as he had observed them in his study of the peculiar nature of the human reason. we must first go briefly into kant's own exposition of the matter. kant distinguishes between two possible forms of reason, the intellectus archetypus and the intellectus ectypus. by the first he means a reason 'which being, not like ours, discursive, but intuitive, proceeds from the synthetic universal (the intuition of the whole as such) to the particular, that is, from the whole to the parts'. according to kant, such a reason lies outside human possibilities. in contrast to it, the intellectus ectypus peculiar to man is restricted to taking in through the senses the single details of the world as such; with these it can certainly construct pictures of their totalities, but these pictures never have more than a hypothetical character and can claim no reality for themselves. above all, it is not given to such a thinking to think 'wholes' in such a way that through an act of thought alone the single items contained in them can be conceived as parts springing from them by necessity. (to illustrate this, we may say that, according to kant, we can certainly comprehend the parts of an organism, say of a plant, and out of its components make a picture of the plant as a whole; but we are not in a position to think that 'whole' of the plant which conditions the existence of its organism and brings forth its parts by necessity.) kant expresses this in the following way: 'for external objects as phenomena an adequate ground related to purposes cannot be met with; this, although it lies in nature, must be sought only in the supersensible substrata of nature, from all possible insight into which we are cut off. our understanding has then this peculiarity as concerns the judgment, that in cognitive understanding the particular is not determined by the universal and cannot therefore be derived from it.' the attempt to prove whether or not another form of reason than this (the intellectus archetypus) is possible - even though declared to be beyond man - kant regarded as superfluous, because the fact was enough for him 'that we are led to the idea of it - which contains no contradiction - in contrast to our discursive understanding, which has need of images (intellectus ectypus), and to the contingency of its constitution'. kant here brings forward two reasons why it is permissible to conceive of the existence of an extra-human, archetypal reason. on the one hand he admits that the existence of our own reason in its present condition is of a contingent order, and thus does not exclude the possible existence of a reason differently constituted. on the other hand, he allows that we can think of a form of reason which in every respect is the opposite of our own, without meeting any logical inconsistency. from these definitions emerges a conception of the properties of man's cognitional powers which agrees exactly with those on which, as we have seen, hume built up his whole philosophy. both allow to the reason a knowledge-material consisting only of pictures - that is, of pictures evoked in consciousness through sense-perception, and received by it from the outer world in the form of disconnected units, whilst denying it all powers, as hume expressed it, ever 'to perceive any real connections between distinct existences'. this agreement between kant and hume must at first sight surprise us, when we recall that, as already mentioned, kant worked out his philosophy precisely to protect the cognizing being of man from the consequences of hume's thought. for, as he himself said, it was his becoming acquainted with hume's treatise that 'roused him out of his dogmatic slumber' and obliged him to reflect on the foundations of human knowing. we shall understand this apparent paradox, however, if we take it as a symptom of humanity's close imprisonment in recent centuries within the limits of its onlooker-consciousness. in his struggle against hume, kant was not concerned to challenge his opponent's definition of man's reasoning power. his sole object was to show that, if one accepted this definition, one must not go as far as hume in the application of this power. all that kant could aspire to do was to protect the ethical from attack by the intellectual part of man, and to do this by proving that the former belongs to a world into which the latter has no access. for with his will man belongs to a world of purposeful doing, whereas the reason, as our quotations have shown, is incapable even in observing external nature, of comprehending the wholes within nature which determine natural ends. still less can it do this in regard to man, a being who in his actions is integrated into higher purposes. kant's deed is significant in that it correctly drew attention to that polar division in human nature which, after all, was already established in kant's own time. kant demonstrated also that to win insight into the ethical nature of man with the aid of the isolated intellect alone implied a trespass beyond permissible limits. in order to give the doing part of the human being its necessary anchorage, however, kant assigned it to a moral world-order entirely external to man, to which it could be properly related only through obedient submission. in this way kant became the philosopher of that division between knowledge and faith which to this day is upheld in both the ecclesiastical and scientific spheres of our civilization. nevertheless, he did not succeed in safeguarding humanity from the consequences of hume's philosophy; for man cannot live indefinitely in the belief that with the two parts of his own being he is bound up with two mutually unrelated worlds. the time when this was feasible is already over, as may be seen from the fact that ever greater masses of men wish to determine their behaviour according to their own ideas, and as they see no alternative in the civilization around them but to form ideas by means of the discursive reason which inevitably leads to agnosticism, they determine their actions accordingly. meanwhile, the ethical life as viewed by kant accordingly shrinks ever further into a powerless, hole-and-corner existence. * it is goethe's merit to have first shown that there is a way out of this impasse. he had no need to argue theoretically with kant as to the justification of denying man any power of understanding apart from the discursive, and of leaving the faculty of intuitive knowledge to a divinity somewhere outside the world of man. for goethe was his own witness that kant was mistaken in regarding man's present condition as his lasting nature. let us hear how he expresses himself on this fact at the beginning of his essay written as an answer to kant's statement: 'it is true, the author here seems to be pointing to an intellect not human but divine. and yet, if in the moral sphere we are supposed to lift ourselves up to a higher region through faith in god, virtue and immortality, so drawing nearer to the primal being, why should it not be likewise in the intellectual? by contemplation (anschauen) of an ever-creative nature, may we not make ourselves worthy to be spiritual sharers in her productions? i at first, led by an inner urge that would not rest, had quite unconsciously been seeking for the realm of type and archetype, and my attempt had been rewarded: i had been able to build up a description, in conformity with nature herself. now therefore nothing more could hinder me from braving what the old man of the king's hill himself calls the adventure of reason.' goethe started from the conviction that our senses as well as our intellect are gifts of nature, and that, if at any given moment they prove incapable through their collaboration of solving a riddle of nature, we must ask her to help us to develop this collaboration adequately. thus there was no question for him of any restriction of sense-perception in order to bring the latter in line with the existing power of the intellect, but rather to learn to make an ever fuller use of the senses and to bring our intellect into line with what they tell. 'the senses do not deceive, but the judgment deceives', is one of his basic utterances concerning their respective roles in our quest for knowledge and understanding. as to the senses themselves, he was sure that 'the human being is adequately equipped for all true earthly requirements if he trusts his senses, and so develops them as to make them worthy of trust'. there is no contradiction in the statement that we have to trust our senses, and that we have to develop them to make them trustworthy. for, 'nature speaks upwards to the known senses of man, downwards to unknown senses of his'. goethe's path was aimed at wakening faculties, both perceptual and conceptual, which lay dormant in himself. his experience showed him that 'every process in nature, rightly observed, wakens in us a new organ of cognition'. right observation, in this respect, consisted in a form of contemplating nature which he called a 're-creating (creating in the wake) of an ever-creative nature' (nachschaffen einer immer schaffenden natur). * we should do goethe an injustice if we measured the value of his scientific work by the amount of factual knowledge he contributed to one or other sphere of research. although goethe did bring many new things to light, as has been duly recognized in the scientific fields concerned, it cannot be gainsaid that other scientists in his own day, working along the usual lines, far exceeded his total of discoveries. nor can it be denied that, as critics have pointed out, he occasionally went astray in reporting his observations. these things, however, do not determine the value or otherwise of his scientific labours. his work draws its significance not so much from the 'what', to use a goethean expression, as from the 'how' of his observations, that is, from his way of investigating nature. having once developed this method in the field of plant observation, goethe was able, with its aid, to establish a new view of animal nature, to lay the basis for a new meteorology, and, by creating his theory of light and colour, to provide a model for a research in the field of physics, free from onlooker-restrictions. in the scientific work of goethe his botanical studies have a special place. as a living organism, the plant is involved in an endless process of becoming. it shares this characteristic, of course, with the higher creatures of nature, and yet between it and them there is an essential difference. whereas in animal and man a considerable part of the life-processes conceal themselves within the organism, in order to provide a basis for inner soul processes, the plant brings its inner life into direct and total outer manifestation. hence the plant, better than anything, could become goethe's first teacher in his exercise of re-creating nature. it is for the same reason that we shall here use the plant for introducing goethe's method. the following exposition, however, does not aim at rendering in detail goethe's own botanical researches, expounded by him in two extensive essays, morphology and the metamorphosis of plants, as well as in a series of smaller writings. there are several excellent translations of the chief paper, the metamorphosis, from which the english-speaking reader can derive sufficient insight into goethe's way of expressing his ideas; a pleasure as well as a profit which he should not deny himself. our own way of procedure will have to be such that goethe's method, and its fruitfulness for the general advance of science, come as clearly as possible into view. botanical details will be referred to only as far as seems necessary for this purpose. the data for observation, from which in goethe's own fashion we shall start, have been selected as best for our purpose, quite independently of the data used by goethe himself. our choice was determined by the material available when these pages were being written. the reader is free to supplement our studies by his own observation of other plants. * plates ii and iii show two series of leaves which are so arranged as to represent definite stages in the growth-process of the plant concerned. in each sequence shown the leaves have been taken from a single plant, in which each leaf-form was repeated, perhaps several times, before it passed over into the next stage. the leaves on plate ii come from a sidalcea (of the mallow family), those on plate iii from a delphinium. we will describe the forms in sequence, so that we may grasp as clearly as possible the transition from one to another as presented to the eye. starting with the right-hand leaf at the bottom of plate ii, we let our eye and mind be impressed by its characteristic form, seeking to take hold of the pattern after which it is shaped. its edge bears numerous incisions of varying depths which, however, do not disturb the roundness of the leaf as a whole. if we re-create in our imagination the 'becoming' of such a leaf, that is, its gradual growth in all directions, we receive an impression of these incisions as 'negative' forms, because, at the points where they occur, the multiplication of the cells resulting from the general growth has been retarded. we observe that this holding back follows a certain order. we now proceed to the next leaf on the same plate and observe that, whilst the initial plan is faithfully maintained, the ratio between the positive and negative forms has changed. a number of incisions, hardly yet indicated in the first leaf, have become quite conspicuous. the leaf begins to look as if it were breaking up into a number of subdivisions. in the next leaf we find this process still further advanced. the large incisions have almost reached the centre, while a number of smaller ones at the periphery have also grown deeper into the leaf. the basic plan of the total leaf is still maintained, but the negative forms have so far got the upper hand that the original roundness is no longer obvious. the last leaf shows the process in its extreme degree. as we glance back and along the whole series of development, we recognize that the form of the last leaf is already indicated in that of the first. it appears as if the form has gradually come to the fore through certain forces which have increasingly prevented the leaf from filling in the whole of its ground-plan with matter. in the last leaf the common plan is still visible in the distribution of the veins, but the fleshy part of the leaf has become restricted to narrow strips along these veins. the metamorphosis of the delphinium leaf (plate iii) is of a different character. here the plant begins with a highly elaborate form of the leaf, while in the end nothing remains but the barest indication of it. the impression received from this series of leaves is that of a gradual withdrawal of the magnificent form, revealed in its fullness only in the first leaf. a more intense impression of what these metamorphoses actually mean is achieved by altering our mode of contemplation in the following way. after repeated and careful observation of the different forms on either of the plates, we build up inwardly, as a memory picture, the shape of the first leaf, and then transform this mental image successively into the images of the ensuing forms until we reach the final stage. the same process can also be tried retrogressively, and so repeated forward and backward. this is how goethe studied the doing of the plant, and it is by this method that he discovered the spiritual principle of all plant life, and succeeded also in throwing a first light on the inner life-principle of animals. * we chose the transformation of leaf forms into one another as the starting-point of our observations, because the principle of metamorphosis appears here in a most conspicuous manner. this principle, however, is not confined to this part of the plant's organism. in fact, all the different organs which the plant produces within its life cycle - foliage, calyx, corolla, organs of fertilization, fruit and seed - are metamorphoses of one and the same organ. man has long learnt to make use of this law of metamorphosis in the plant for what is called doubling the flower of a certain species. such a flower crowds many additional petals within its original circle, and these petals are nothing but metamorphosed stamens; this, for instance, is the difference between the wild and the cultivated rose. the multitude of petals in the latter is obtained by the transformation of a number of the former's innumerable stamens. (note the intermediate stages between the two, often found inside the flower of such plants.) this falling back from the stage of an organ of fertilization to that of a petal shows that the plant is capable of regressive metamorphosis, and we may conclude from this that in the normal sequence the different organs are transformed from one another by way of progressive metamorphosis. it is evident that the regressive type occurs only as an abnormality, or as a result of artificial cultivation. plants once brought into this condition frequently show a general state of unrest, so that other organs also are inclined to fall back to a lower level. thus we may come across a rose, an outer petal of which appears in the form of a leaf of the calyx (sepal), or one of the sepals is found to have grown into an ordinary rose leaf. we now extend our mental exercise to the plant's whole organism. by a similar mental effort as applied to the leaf-formations we strive to build up a complete plant. we start with the seed, from which we first imagine the cotyledons unfolding, letting this be followed by the gradual development of the entire green part of the plant, its stem and leaves, until the final leaves change into the sepals of the calyx. these again we turn into the petals of the flower, until via pistil and stamens the fruit and seed are formed. by pursuing in this way the living doing of the plant from stage to stage we become aware of a significant rhythm in its total life cycle. this, when first discovered by goethe, gave him the key to an understanding of nature's general procedure in building living organisms, and in maintaining life in them. the plant clearly divides into three major parts: firstly, the one that extends from the cotyledons to the calyx, the green part of the plant, that is, where the life principle is most active; secondly, the one comprising the flower itself with the organs of fertilization, where the vitality of the plant gives way to other principles; and lastly, the fruit and seed, which are destined to be discharged from the mother organism. each of these three contains two kinds of organs: first, organs with the tendency to grow into width-leaf, flower and fruit; second, organs which are outwardly smaller and simpler, but have the function of preparing the decisive leaps in the plant's development: these are the calyx, the stamens, etc., and the seed. in this succession, goethe recognized a certain rhythm of expansion and contraction, and he found that the plant passes through it three times during any one cycle of its life. in the foliage the plant expands, in the calyx it contracts; it expands again in the flower and contracts in the pistil and stamens; finally, it expands in the fruit and contracts in the seed. the deeper meaning of this threefold rhythm will become clear when we consider it against the background of what we observed in the metamorphosis of the leaf. take the mallow leaf; its metamorphosis shows a step-wise progression from coarser to finer forms, whereby the characteristic plan of the leaf comes more and more into view, so that in the topmost leaf it reaches a certain stage of perfection. now we observe that in the calyx this stage is not improved on, but that the plant recurs to a much simpler formation. whilst in the case of the mallow the withdrawal from the stage of the leaf into that of the calyx occurs with a sudden leap, we observe that the delphinium performs this process by degrees. whilst the mallow reaches the highly elaborate form of the leaf only in the final stage, the delphinium leaps forth at the outset, as it were, with the fully accomplished leaf, and then protracts its withdrawal into the calyx over a number of steps, so that this process can be watched with our very eyes. in this type of metamorphosis the last leaf beneath the calyx shows a form that differs little from that of a calyx itself, with its simple sepals. only in its general geometrical arrangement does it still remind us of the original pattern. in a case like this, the stem-leaves, to use goethe's expression, 'softly steal into the calyx stage'. in the topmost leaf the plant has already achieved something which, along the other line of metamorphosis, is tackled only after the leaf plan itself has been gradually executed. in this case the calyx stage, we may say, is attained at one leap. whatever type of metamorphosis is followed by a plant (and there are others as well, so that we may even speak of metamorphoses between different types of metamorphosis!) they all obey the same basic rule, namely, that before proceeding to the next higher stage of the cycle, the plant sacrifices something already achieved in a preceding one. behind the inconspicuous sheath of the calyx we see the plant preparing itself for a new creation of an entirely different order. as successor to the leaf, the flower appears to us time and again as a miracle. nothing in the lower realm of the plant predicts the form, colour, scent and all the other properties of the new organ produced at this stage. the completed leaf, preceding the plant's withdrawal into the calyx, represents a triumph of structure over matter. now, in the flower, matter is overcome to a still higher degree. it is as if the material substance here becomes transparent, so that what is immaterial in the plant may shine through its outer surface. * in this 'climbing up the spiritual ladder' goethe learned to recognize one of nature's basic principles. he termed it steigerung (heightening). thus he saw the plant develop through metamorphosis and heightening towards its consummation. implicit in the second of these two principles, however, there is yet another natural principle for which goethe did not coin a specific term, although he shows through other utterances that he was well aware of it, and of its universal significance for all life. we propose to call it here the principle of renunciation. in the life of the plant this principle shows itself most conspicuously where the green leaf is heightened into the flower. while progressing from leaf to flower the plant undergoes a decisive ebb in its vitality. compared with the leaf, the flower is a dying organ. this dying, however, is of a kind we may aptly call a 'dying into being'. life in its mere vegetative form is here seen withdrawing in order that a higher manifestation of the spirit may take place. the same principle can be seen at work in the insect kingdom, when the caterpillar's tremendous vitality passes over into the short-lived beauty of the butterfly. in the human being it is responsible for that metamorphosis of organic processes which occurs on the path from the metabolic to the nervous system, and which we came to recognize as the precondition for the appearance of consciousness within the organism. what powerful forces must be at work in the plant organism at this point of transition from its green to its coloured parts! they enforce a complete halt upon the juices that rise up right into the calyx, so that these bring nothing of their life-bearing activity into the formation of the flower, but undergo a complete transmutation, not gradually, but with a sudden leap. after achieving its masterpiece in the flower, the plant once more goes through a process of withdrawal, this time into the tiny organs of fertilization. (we shall return later to this essential stage in the life cycle of the plant, and shall then clear up the misinterpretation put upon it ever since scientific biology began.) after fertilization, the fruit begins to swell; once more the plant produces an organ with a more or less conspicuous spatial extension. this is followed by a final and extreme contraction in the forming of the seed inside the fruit. in the seed the plant gives up all outer appearance to such a degree that nothing seems to remain but a small, insignificant speck of organized matter. yet this tiny, inconspicuous thing bears in it the power of bringing forth a whole new plant. in these three successive rhythms of expansion and contraction the plant reveals to us the basic rule of its existence. during each expansion, the active principle of the plant presses forth into visible appearance; during each contraction it withdraws from outer embodiment into what we may describe as a more or less pure state of being. we thus find the spiritual principle of the plant engaged in a kind of breathing rhythm, now appearing, now disappearing, now assuming power over matter, now withdrawing from it again. in the fully developed plant this rhythm repeats itself three times in succession and at ever higher levels, so that the plant, in climbing from stage to stage, each time goes through a process of withdrawal before appearing at the next. the greater the creative power required at a certain stage, the more nearly complete must be the withdrawal from outer appearance. this is why the most extreme withdrawal of the plant into the state of being takes place in the seed, when the plant prepares itself for its transition from one generation to another. even earlier, the flower stands towards the leaves as something like a new generation springing from the small organ of the calyx, as does the fruit to the flower when it arises from the tiny organs of reproduction. in the end, however, nothing appears outwardly so unlike the actual plant as the little seed which, at the expense of all appearance, has the power to renew the whole cycle. through studying the plant in this way goethe grew aware also of the significance of the nodes and eyes which the plant develops as points where its vital energy is specially concentrated; not only the seed, but the eye also, is capable of producing a new, complete plant. in each of these eyes, formed in the axils of the leaves, the power of the plant is present in its entirety, very much as in each single seed. in other ways, too, the plant shows its capacity to act as a whole at various places of its organism. otherwise, no plant could be propagated by cuttings; in any little twig cut from a parent plant, all the manifold forces operative in the gathering, transmuting, forming of matter, that are necessary for the production of root, leaf, flower, fruit, etc., are potentially present, ready to leap into action provided we give it suitable outer conditions. other plants, such as gloxinia and begonia, are known to have the power of bringing forth a new, complete plant from each of their leaves. from a small cut applied to a vein in a leaf, which is then embedded in earth, a root will soon be seen springing downward, and a stalk with leaves rising upward. a particular observation made by goethe in this respect is of interest for methodological reasons. in the introduction to his treatise metamorphosis of plants, when referring to the regressive metamorphosis of stamens into petals as an example of an irregular metamorphosis, he remarks that 'experiences of this kind of metamorphosis will enable us to disclose what is hidden from us in the regular way of development, and to see clearly and visibly what we should otherwise only be able to infer'. in this remark goethe expresses a truth that is valid in many spheres of life, both human and natural. it is frequently a pathological aberration in an organic entity that allows us to see in physical appearance things that do not come outwardly to the fore in the more balanced condition of normal development, although they are equally part of the regular organic process. an enlightening experience of this kind came to goethe's aid when one day he happened to see a 'proliferated' rose (durchgewachsene rose), that is, a rose from whose centre a whole new plant had sprung. instead of the contracted seed-pod, with the attached, equally contracted, organs of fertilization, there appeared a continuation of the stalk, half red and half green, bearing in succession a number of small reddish petals with traces of anthers. thorns could be seen appearing further up, petals half-turned into leaves, and even a number of fresh nodes from which little imperfect flowers were budding. the whole phenomenon, in all its irregularity, was one more proof for goethe that the plant in its totality is potentially present at each point of its organism. * goethe's observation of the single plant in statu agendi had trained him to recognize things of quite different outer appearance as identical in their inner nature. leaf, sepal, petal, etc., much as they differ outwardly, yet showed themselves to him as manifestations of one and the same spiritual archetype. his idea of metamorphosis enabled him to reduce what in outer appearance seems incompatibly different to its common formative principle. his next step was to observe the different appearances of one and the same species in different regions of the earth, and thus to watch the capacity of the species to respond in a completely flexible way to the various climatic conditions, yet without concealing its inner identity in the varying outer forms. his travels in switzerland and italy gave him opportunity for such observations, and in the alpine regions especially he was delighted at the variations in the species which he already knew so well from his home in weimar. he saw their proportions, the distances between the single parts, the degree of lignification, the intensity of colour, etc., varying with the varied conditions, yet never concealing the identity of the species. having once advanced in his investigations from metamorphosis in the parts of the single plant to metamorphosis among different representatives of single plant species, goethe had to take only one further, entirely decisive, step in order to recognize how every member of the plant kingdom is the manifestation of a single formative principle common to them all. he was thus faced with the momentous task of preparing his spirit to think an idea from which the plant world in its entire variety could be derived. goethe did not take such a step easily, for it was one of his scientific principles never to think out an idea prematurely. he was well aware that he who aspires to recognize and to express in idea the spirit which reveals itself through the phenomena of the sense-world must develop the art of waiting - of waiting, however, in a way intensely active, whereby one looks again and yet again, until what one looks at begins to speak and the day at last dawns when, through tireless 're-creation of an ever-creating nature', one has grown ripe to express her secrets openly. goethe was a master in this art of active waiting. * it was in the very year that galvani, through his chance discovery, opened the way to the overwhelming invasion of mankind by the purely physical forces of nature, that goethe came clearly to see that he had achieved the goal of his labours. we can form some picture of the decisive act in the drama of his seeking and finding from letters written during the years - . in the spring of he writes to a friend in a way that shows him fully aware of his new method of studying nature, which he recognized was a reading of her phenomena: 'i can't tell you how the book of nature is becoming readable to me. my long practice in spelling has helped me; it now suddenly works, and my quiet joy is inexpressible.' again in the summer of the following year: 'it is a growing aware of the form with which again and again nature plays, and, in playing, brings forth manifold life.' then goethe went on his famous journey to italy which was to bear such significant fruit for his inner life, both in art and in science. at michaelmas, , he reports from his visit to the botanical garden in padua that 'the thought becomes more and more living that it may be possible out of one form to develop all plant forms'. at this moment goethe felt so near to the basic conception of the plant for which he was seeking, that he already christened it with a special name. the term he coined for it is urpflanze, literally rendered archetypal plant, or ur-plant, as we propose quite simply to call it. it was the rich tropical and sub-tropical vegetation in the botanical gardens in palermo that helped goethe to his decisive observations. the peculiar nature of the warmer regions of the earth enables the spirit to reveal itself more intensively than is possible in the temperate zone. thus in tropical vegetation many things come before the eye which otherwise remain undisclosed, and then can be detected only through an effort of active thought. from this point of view, tropical vegetation is 'abnormal' in the same sense as was the proliferated rose which confirmed for goethe's physical perception that inner law of plant-growth which had already become clear to his mind. during his sojourn in palermo in the spring of goethe writes in his notebook: 'there must be one (ur-plant): how otherwise could we recognize this or that formation to be a plant unless they were all formed after one pattern?' soon after this, he writes in a letter to the poet herder, one of his friends in weimar: 'further, i must confide to you that i am quite close to the secret of plant creation, and that it is the simplest thing imaginable. the ur-plant will be the strangest creature in the world, for which nature herself should envy me. with this model and the key to it one will be able to invent plants ad infinitum; they would be consistent; that is to say, though non-existing, they would be capable of existing, being no shades or semblances of the painter or poet, but possessing truth and necessity. the same law will be capable of extension to all living things.' * to become more familiar with the conception of the ur-plant, let us bring the life-cycle of the plant before our inner eye once again. there, all the different organs of the plant-leaf, blossom, fruit, etc. - appear as the metamorphic revelations of the one, identical active principle, a principle which gradually manifests itself to us by way of successive heightening from the cotyledons to the perfected glory of the flower. amongst all the forms which thus appear in turn, that of the leaf has a special place; for the leaf is that organ of the plant in which the ground-plan of all plant existence comes most immediately to expression. not only do all the different leaf forms arise, through endless changing, out of each other, but the leaf, in accordance with the same principle, also changes itself into all the other organs which the plant produces in the course of its growth. it is by precisely the same principle that the ur-plant reveals itself in the plant kingdom as a whole. just as in the single plant organism the different parts are a graduated revelation of the ur-plant, so are the single kinds and species within the total plant world. as we let our glance range over all its ranks and stages (from the single-celled, almost formless alga to the rose and beyond to the tree), we are following, step by step, the revelation of the ur-plant. barely hinting at itself in the lowest vegetable species, it comes in the next higher stages into ever clearer view, finally streaming forth in full glory in the magnificence of the manifold blossoming plants. then, as its highest creation, it brings forth the tree, which, itself a veritable miniature earth, becomes the basis for innumerable single plant growths. it has struck biologists of goethe's own and later times that contrary to their method he did not build up his study of the plant by starting with its lowest form, and so the reproach has been levelled against him of having unduly neglected the latter. because of this, the views he had come to were regarded as scientifically unfounded. goethe's note-books prove that there is no justification for such a reproach. he was in actual fact deeply interested in the lower plants, but he realized that they could not contribute anything fundamental to the spiritual image of the plant as such which he was seeking to attain. to understand the plant he found himself obliged to pay special attention to examples in which it came to its most perfect expression. for what was hidden in the alga was made manifest in the rose. to demand of goethe that in accordance with ordinary science he should have explained nature 'from below upwards' is to misunderstand the methodological basis of all his investigations. seen with goethe's eyes, the plant kingdom as a whole appears to be a single mighty plant. in it the ur-plant, while pressing into appearance, is seen to observe the very rule which we have found governing its action in the single plant - that of repeated expansion and contraction. taking the tree in the sense already indicated, as the state of highest expansion along the ur-plant's way of entering into spatial manifestation, we note that tree-formation occurs successively at four different levels - as fern-tree (also the extinct tree-form of the horsetail) among the cryptogams, as coniferous tree among the gymnosperms, as palm-tree among the monocotyledons, and lastly in the form of the manifold species of the leaf-trees at the highest level of the plant kingdom, the dicotyledons. all these levels have come successively into existence, as geological research has shown; the ur-plant achieved these various tree-formations successively, thus giving up again its state of expansion each time after having reached it at a particular level. from the concept of the ur-plant goethe soon learned to develop another concept which was to express the spiritual principle working in a particular plant species, just as the ur-plant was the spiritual principle covering the plant kingdom as a whole. he called it the type. in the manifold types which are thus seen active in the plant world we meet offsprings, as it were, of the mother, the 'ur-plant', which in them assumes differentiated modes of action. the present part of our discussion may be concluded by the introduction of a concept which goethe formed for the organ of cognition attained through contemplating nature in the state of becoming, as the plant had taught him to do. let us look back once again on the way in which we first tried to build up the picture of leaf metamorphosis. there we made use, first of all, of exact sense-perceptions to which we applied the power of memory in its function as their keeper. we then endeavoured to transform within our mind the single memory pictures (leaf forms) into one another. by doing so we applied to them the activity of mobile fantasy. in this way we actually endowed, on the one hand, objective memory, which by nature is static, with the dynamic properties of fantasy, and, on the other hand, mobile fantasy, which by nature is subjective, with the objective character of memory. now, for the new organ of cognition arising from the union of these two polar faculties of the soul, goethe coined the significant expression, exact sensorial fantasy. in terms of our knowledge of man's psycho-physical make-up, acquired earlier, we can say that, just as the nervous system forms the basis for memory, and the blood the basis for fantasy, so the 'exact sensorial fantasy' is based on a newly created collaboration of the two. * our observations have reached a point where we may consider that stage in the life cycle of the single plant where, by means of the process of pollination, the seed acquires the capacity to produce out of itself a new example of the species. our discussion of this will bring home the fundamental difference in idea that arises when, instead of judging a process from the standpoint of the mere onlooker, we try to comprehend it through re-creating it inwardly. biological science of our day takes it for granted that the process uniting pollen with seed in the plant is an act of fertilization analogous to that which occurs among the higher organisms of nature. now it is not to be gainsaid that to external observation this comparison seems obvious, and that it is therefore only natural to speak of the pollen as the male, and of the ovule as the female, element, and of their union as entirely parallel to that between the sexes in the higher kingdoms of nature. goethe confesses that at first he himself 'had credulously put up with the ruling dogma of sexuality'. he was first made aware of the invalidity of this analogy by professor schelver who, as superintendent of the jena botanical institute, was working under goethe's direction and had trained himself in goethe's method of observing plants. this man had come to see that if one held strictly to the goethean practice of using nothing for the explanation of the plant but what one could read from the plant itself, one must not ascribe to it any sexual process. he was convinced that for a goethean kind of biology it must be possible to find, even for the process of pollination, an idea derived from nothing but the two principles of plant life: growth and formation. goethe immediately recognized the tightness of this thought, and set about the task of relating the pollination process to the picture of the plant which his investigations had already yielded. his way of reporting the result shows how fully conscious he was of its revolutionary nature. nor was he in any doubt as to the kind of reception it would be given by official biology. in observing the growth of the plant, goethe had perceived that this proceeds simultaneously according to two different principles. on the one hand the plant grows in an axial direction and thereby produces its main and side stems. to this growth principle goethe gave the name 'vertical tendency'. were the plant to follow this principle only, its lateral shoots would all stand vertically one above the other. but observation shows that the different plant species obey very different laws in this respect, as may be seen if one links up all the leaf buds along any plant stem; they form a line which winds spiral fashion around it. each plant family is distinguishable by its own characteristic spiral, which can be represented either geometrically by a diagram, or arithmetically by a fraction. if, for example, the leaves are so arranged in a plant that every fifth leaf recurs on the same side of the stem, while the spiral connecting the five successive leaf-buds winds twice round the stem, this is expressed in botany by the fraction / . to distinguish this principle of plant growth from the vertical tendency, goethe used the term 'spiral tendency'. to help towards a clear understanding of both tendencies, goethe describes an exercise which is characteristic of his way of schooling himself in what he called exact sensorial fantasy. he first looks out for a phenomenon in which the 'secret' of the spiral tendency is made 'open'. this he finds in such a plant as the convolvulus; in this kind of plant the vertical tendency is lacking, and the spiral principle comes obviously into outer view. accordingly, the convolvulus requires an external support, around which it can wind itself. goethe now suggests that after looking at a convolvulus as it grows upwards around its support, one should first make this clearly present to one's inner eye, and then again picture the plant's growth without the vertical support, allowing instead the upward-growing plant inwardly to produce a vertical support for itself. by way of inward re-creation (which the reader should not fail to carry out himself) goethe attained a clear experience of how, in all those plants which in growing upwards produce their leaves spiral-wise around the stem, the vertical and spiral tendencies work together. in following the two growth-principles, goethe saw that the vertical comes to a halt in the blossom; the straight line here shrinks together, so to say, into a point, surviving only in the ovary and pistil as continuations of the plant's stalk. the spiral tendency, on the other hand, is to be found in the circle of the stamens arranged around these; the process which in the leaves strove outwards in spiral succession around a straight line is now telescoped on to a single plane. in other words, the vertical-spiral growth of the plant here separates into its two components. and when a pollen grain lands on a pistil and joins with the ovule prepared in the ovary, the two components are united again. out of the now complete seed a new and complete plant can arise. goethe understood that he would be taught a correct conception of this process only by the plant itself. accordingly, he asked himself where else in the growing plant something like separation and reunion could be seen. this he found in the branching and reuniting of the veins in the leaves, known as anastomosis. in the dividing of the two growth-principles in the plant through the formation of carpel and pistil, on the one hand, and the pollen-bearing stamens on the other, and in their reunion through the coming together of the pollen with the seed, goethe recognized a metamorphosis of the process of anastomosis at a higher level. his vision of it caused him to term it 'spiritual anastomosis'. goethe held a lofty and comprehensive view of the significance of the male and female principles as spiritual opposites in the cosmos. among the various manifestations of this polarity in earthly nature he found one, but one only, in the duality of the sexes as characteristic of man and animal. nothing compelled him, therefore, to ascribe it in the same form to the plant. this enabled him to discover how the plant bore the same polarity in plant fashion. in the neighbourhood of weimar, goethe often watched a vine slinging its foliaged stem about the trunk and branches of an elm tree. in this impressive sight nature offered him a picture of 'the female and male, the one that needs and the one that gives, side by side in the vertical and spiral directions'. thus his artist's eye clearly detected in the upward striving of the plant a decisively masculine principle, and in its spiral winding an equally definite feminine principle. since in the normal plant both principles are inwardly connected, 'we can represent vegetation as a whole as being in a secret androgynous union from the root up. from this union, through the changes of growth, both systems break away into open polarity and so stand in decisive opposition to each other, only to unite again in a higher sense.' thus goethe found himself led to ideas regarding the male and female principles in the plant, which were the exact opposite of those one obtains if, in trying to explain the process of pollination, one does not keep to the plant itself but imports an analogy from another kingdom of nature. for in continuance of the vertical principle of the plant, the pistil and carpel represent the male aspect in the process of spiritual anastomosis, and the mobile, wind- or insect-borne pollen, in continuing the spiral principle, represents the female part. if the process of pollination is what the plant tells us it is, then the question arises as to the reason for the occurrence of such a process in the life cycle of the fully developed plant. goethe himself has not expressed himself explicitly on this subject. but his term 'spiritual anastomosis' shows that he had some definite idea about it. let us picture in our mind what happens physically in the plant as a result of pollination and then try to read from this picture, as from a hieroglyph, what act of the spiritual principle in the plant comes to expression through it. without pollination there is no ripening of the seed. ripening means for the seed its acquisition of the power to bring forth a new and independent plant organism through which the species continues its existence within nature. in the life cycle of the plant this event takes place after the organism has reached its highest degree of physical perfection. when we now read these facts in the light of the knowledge that they are deeds of the activity of the type, we may describe them as follows: stage by stage the type expends itself in ever more elaborate forms of appearance, until in the blossom a triumph of form over matter is reached. a mere continuation of this path could lead to nothing but a loss of all connexion between the plant's superphysical and physical component parts. thus, to guarantee for the species its continuation in a new generation, the formative power of the type must find a way of linking itself anew to some part of the plant's materiality. this is achieved by the plant's abandoning the union between its two polar growth-principles and re-establishing it again, which in the majority of cases takes place even in such a way that the bearers of the two principles originate from two different organisms. by picturing the process in this way we are brought face to face with a rule of nature which, once we have recognized it, proves to hold sway at all levels of organic nature. in general terms it may be expressed as follows: in order that spiritual continuity may be maintained within the coming and going multitude of nature's creations, the physical stream must suffer discontinuity at certain intervals. in the case of the plant this discontinuity is achieved by the breaking asunder of the male and female growth-principles. when they have reunited, the type begins to abandon either the entire old plant or at least part of it, according to whether the species is an annual or a perennial one, in order to concentrate on the tiny seed, setting, as it were, its living seal on it. this is as far as we can go in describing this mysterious process, at least at the present stage of our considerations. * our pursuit of goethe's way of observing the life of the plant has brought us to a point where it becomes possible to rectify a widespread error concerning his position as an evolutionary theorist. goethe has been honourably mentioned as a predecessor of darwin. the truth is, that the idea of evolution emerging from goethe's mode of regarding nature is the exact opposite of the one held by darwin and - in whatever modified form - by his followers. a brief consideration of the darwinian concepts of inheritance and adaptation will show this. goethe's approach to his conception of the type is clear evidence that he did not undervalue the factor of adaptation as a formative element in nature; we have seen that he became acquainted with it in studying the same plant species under different climatic conditions. in his view, however, adaptation appears not as the passive effect of a blindly working, external cause, but as the response of the spiritual type to the conditions meeting it from outside. the same applies to the concept of inheritance. through inheritance goethe saw single, accessory characteristics of a species being carried over from one generation to the next; but never could the reappearance of the basic features of the species itself be explained in this way. he was sufficiently initiated into nature's methods to know that she was not in need of a continuity of the stream of physical substance, in the sense of the theory of inheritance, to guarantee a continuance of the features of the species through successive generations, but that it was her craft to achieve such continuance by means of physical discontinuity. * goethe was not temperamentally given to reflecting deliberately about his own cognitional processes. moreover, the excess of reflexion going on around him in the intellectual life of his younger days inclined him to guard himself with a certain anxiety against philosophical cogitations. his words to a friend - 'dear friend, i have done it well, and never reflected about thinking' - bring this home to us. if in his later years goethe could become to some degree epistemologically conscious of his spiritual achievements, as, for instance, his essay on intuitive judgment shows, he owed this to his friendship with schiller, who became for him a kind of soul mirror, in which he could see the reflexion of his own processes of consciousness. indeed, at their first personal encounter, significant as it was for their whole later relationship, schiller - though all unconsciously - performed a decisive service of this kind for him. goethe himself speaks of the occasion in his essay happy encounter (gliickliches ereignis), written twelve years after schiller's death. the occasion was, outwardly regarded, fortuitous: both men were leaving a lecture on natural science at the university of jena, schiller having been present as professor of history in the university, and goethe as its patron and as a weimar minister of state. they met at the door of the lecture hall and went out into the street together. schiller, who had been wanting to come into closer contact with goethe for a long time, used the opportunity to begin a conversation. he opened with a comment on the lecture they had just heard, saying that such a piecemeal way of handling nature could not bring the layman any real satisfaction. goethe, to whom this remark was heartily welcome, replied that such a style of scientific observation 'was uncanny even for the initiated, and that there must certainly be another way altogether, which did not treat of nature as divided and in pieces, but presented her as working and alive, striving out of the whole into the parts'. schiller's interest was at once aroused by this remark, although as a thorough kantian he could not conceal his doubts whether the kind of thing indicated by goethe was within human capacity. goethe began to explain himself further, and so the discussion proceeded, until the speakers arrived at schiller's house. quite absorbed in his description of plant metamorphosis, goethe went in with schiller and climbed the stairs to the latter's study. once there, he seized pen and paper from schiller's writing desk, and to bring his conception of the ur-plant vividly before his companion's eyes he made 'a symbolic plant appear with many a characteristic stroke of the pen'. although schiller had listened up to this point 'with great interest and definite understanding', he shook his head as goethe finished, and said - kantian that he was at that time: 'that is no experience, that is an idea.' these words were very disappointing to goethe. at once his old antipathy towards schiller rose up, an antipathy caused by much in schiller's public utterances which he had found distasteful. once again he felt that schiller and he were 'spiritual antipodes, removed from each other by more than an earth diameter'. however, goethe restrained his rising annoyance, and answered schiller in a tranquil but determined manner: 'i am glad to have ideas without knowing it, and to see them with my very eyes.' although at this meeting goethe and schiller came to no real agreement, the personal relationship formed through it did not break off; both had become aware of the value of each to the other. for goethe his first meeting with schiller had the significant result of showing him that 'thinking about thought' could be fruitful. for schiller this significance consisted in his having met in goethe a human intellect which, simply by its existing properties, invalidated kant's philosophy. for him goethe's mind became an object of empirical study on which he based the beginnings of a new philosophy free from onlooker-restrictions. an essay, written by goethe about the same time as the one just quoted, shows how he came to think at a later date about the raising of human perception into the realm of ideas. in this essay, entitled discovery of an excellent predecessor, goethe comments on certain views of the botanist, k. f. wolff, regarding the relationships between the different plant organs, which seemed to be similar to his own, and at which wolff had arrived in his own way. wolff had risen up as an opponent of the so-called preformation theory, still widespread at that time, according to which the entire plant with all its different parts is already present in embryonic physical form in the seed, and simply grows out into space through physical enlargement. such a mode of thought seemed inadmissible to wolff, for it made use of an hypothesis 'resting on an extra-sensible conception, which was held to be thinkable, although it could never be demonstrated from the sense world. wolff laid it down as a fundamental principle of all research that 'nothing may be assumed, admitted or asserted that has not been actually seen and cannot be made similarly visible to others'. thus in wolff we meet with a phenomenologist who in his way tried to oppose certain trends of contemporary biological thinking. as such, wolff had made certain observations which caused him to ascribe to the plant features quite similar to those which goethe had grasped under the conception of progressive and regressive metamorphosis. in this way wolff had grown convinced that all plant organs are transformed leaves. true to his own principle, he had then turned to the microscope for his eyes to confirm what his mind had already recognized. the microscope gave him the confirmation he expected by showing that all the different organs of the plant develop out of identical embryonic beginnings. in his absolute reliance on physical observation, however, he tried to go further than this and to detect in this way the reason why the plant does not always bring forth the same organ. he saw that the vegetative strength in the plant diminishes in proportion as its organism enters upon its later stages. he therefore attributed the differentiated evolution of plant organs from identical beginnings to an ever weaker process of development in them. despite his joy in wolff as someone who in his own fashion had arrived at certain truths which he himself had also discovered, and despite his agreement with wolff's phenomenalistic principle, goethe could in no way accept his explanation of why metamorphosis took place in plants. he said: 'in plant metamorphosis wolff saw how the same organ continuously draws together, makes itself smaller; he did not see that this contraction alternates with an expansion. he saw that the organ diminishes in volume, but not that at the same time it ennobles itself, and so, against reason, he attributed decline to the path towards perfection.' what was it, then, which had prevented wolff from seeing things aright? 'however admirable may be wolff's method, through which he has achieved so much, the excellent man never thought that there may be a difference between seeing and seeing, that the eyes of the spirit have to work in perpetual living connection with those of the body, for one otherwise risks seeing and yet seeing past a thing (zu sehen und doch vorbeizusehen).' wolff's case was to goethe a symptom of the danger which he saw arising for science from the rapidly increasing use of the microscope (and similarly the telescope), if thinking was not developed correspondingly but left at the mercy of these instruments. his concern over the state of affairs speaks from his utterance: 'microscopes and telescopes, in actual fact, confuse man's innate clarity of mind.' when we follow goethe in this way he comes before us in characteristic contrast to robert hooke. we remember hooke's microscopic 'proof of the unrelatedness of human thought to outer reality (chapter iii). there can be no doubt how goethe, if the occasion had arisen, would have commented on hooke's procedure. he would have pointed out that there would be no such thing as a knife with its line-like edge unless man were able to think the concept 'line', nor a needle with its point-like end unless he were able to think the concept 'point'. in fact, knife and needle are products of a human action which is guided by these two concepts respectively. as such they are embodiments, though more or less imperfect ones, of these concepts. here too, therefore, just as goethe had discovered it through his way of observing the plant, we see ideas with our very eyes. what distinguishes objects of this kind from organic entities, such as the plant, is the different relationship between object and idea. whereas in the case of an organism the idea actively indwells the object, its relationship to a man-made thing (and similarly to nature's mineral entities) is a purely external one. hooke, so goethe would have argued, allowed the microscope to confuse his common sense. he would have seen in him an example confirming his verdict that he who fails to let the eye of the spirit work in union with the eye of the body 'risks seeing yet seeing past the thing'. * 'thus not through an extraordinary spiritual gift, not through momentary inspiration, unexpected and unique, but through consistent work did i eventually achieve such satisfactory results.' these words of goethe - they occur in his essay, history of my botanical studies, which he wrote in later life as an account of his labours in this field of science - show how anxious he was that it should be rightly understood that the faculty of reading in the book of nature, as he knew it, was the result of a systematic training of his mind. it is important for our further studies to make clear to ourselves at this point the nature of the change which man must bring to pass within himself in order to brave kant's 'adventure of reason'. goethe's concept for the newly acquired faculty of cognition, exact sensorial fantasy, can give us the lead. we remember that, to form this faculty, two existing functions of the soul, as such polarically opposite, had to be welded together - memory based on exact sense-perception and the freely working fantasy; one connected with the nervous system of the body, the other with the blood. we also know from earlier considerations (chapter ii) that in the little child there is not yet any such polarization, in body or soul, as there is in man's later life. thus we see that training on goethe's lines aims at nothing less than restoring within oneself a condition which is natural in early childhood. in saying this we touch on the very foundations of the new pathway to science discovered by goethe. we shall hear more of it in the following chapter. critique of judgment, ii, , . goethe chose the title of his essay so as to refute kant by its very wording. kant, through his inquiry into man's urteilskraft, arrived at the conclusion that man is denied the power of anschauung (intuition). against this, goethe puts his anschauende urteilskraft. 'der alte vom königsberge' - a play upon words with the name of kant's native town, königsberg. it is naturally to be expected that new light will also be thrown on the various realms of knowledge as such dealt with in these pages. delphinium, in particular, has the peculiarity (which it shares with a number of other species) that its calyx appears in the guise of a flower, whilst the actual flower is quite inconspicuous. goethe also describes a proliferated pink. the terms 'primeval' or 'primordial' sometimes suggested for rendering the prefix 'ur' are unsuitable in a case like this. 'primeval plant', for instance, used by some translators of goethe, raises the misunderstanding - to which goethe's concept has anyhow been subject from the side of scientific botany - that by his ur-plant he had in mind some primitive, prehistoric plant, the hypothetical ancestor in the darwinian sense of the present-day plant kingdom. the following observation is not one made by goethe himself. it is presented here by the author as an example of the heuristic value of goethe's method of pictorial-dynamic contemplation of the sense-world. 'exakte sinnliche phantasie.' entdeckung eines trefflichen vorarbeiters. chapter vi except we become ... in this chapter we shall concern ourselves with a number of personalities from the more or less recent past of the cultural life of britain, each of whom was a spiritual kinsman of goethe, and so a living illustration of the fact that the true source of knowledge in man must be sought, and can be found, outside the limits of his modern adult consciousness. whilst none of them was a match for goethe as regards universality and scientific lucidity, they are all characteristic of an immediacy of approach to certain essential truths, which in the sense we mean is not found in goethe. it enabled them to express one or the other of these truths in a form that makes them suitable as sign-posts on our own path of exploration. we shall find repeated opportunity in the later pages of this book to remember just what these men saw and thought. * * * the first is thomas reid ( - ), the scottish philosopher and advocate of common sense as the root of philosophy. after having served for some years as a minister in the church of scotland, reid became professor of philosophy at the university of aberdeen, whence he was called to glasgow as the successor of adam smith. through his birth in strachan, kincardine, he belonged to the same part of scotland from which kant's ancestors had come. two brief remarks of goethe show that he knew of the scotsman's philosophy, and that he appreciated his influence on contemporary philosophers. reid, like his contemporary kant, felt his philosophical conscience stirred by hume's treatise of human nature, and, like kant, set himself the task of opposing it. unlike kant, however, whose philosophic system was designed to arrest man's reason before the abyss into which hume threatened to cast it, reid contrives to detect the bridge that leads safely across this abyss. even though it was not granted to him actually to set foot on this bridge (this, in his time, only goethe managed to do), he was able to describe it in a manner especially helpful for our own purpose. the first of the three books in which reid set out the results of his labours appeared in under the title, inquiry into the human mind on the principles of common sense. the other two, essays on the intellectual powers of man and essays on the active powers of man, appeared twenty years later. in these books reid had in view a more all-embracing purpose than in his first work. the achievement of this purpose, however, required a greater spiritual power than was granted to him. comparing his later with his earlier work, reid's biographer, a. campbell fraser, says: 'reid's essays form, as it were, the inner court of the temple of which the aberdonian inquiry is the vestibule. but the vestibule is a more finished work of constructive skill than the inner court, for the aged architect appears at last as if embarrassed by accumulated material. the essays, greater in bulk, perhaps less deserve a place among modern philosophical classics than the inquiry, notwithstanding its narrower scope, confined as it is to man's perception of the extended world, as an object lesson on the method of appeal to common sense.' whilst the ideas of kant, by which he tried in his way to oppose hume's philosophy, have become within a short space of time the common possession of men's minds, it was the fate of reid's ideas to find favour among only a restricted circle of friends. moreover, they suffered decisive misunderstanding and distortion through the efforts of well-meaning disciples. this was because kant's work was a late fruit of an epoch of human development which had lasted for centuries and in his time began to draw to its close, while reid's work represents a seed of a new epoch yet to come. here lies the reason also for his failure to develop his philosophy beyond the achievements contained in his first work. it is on the latter, therefore, that we shall chiefly draw for presenting reid's thoughts. * the convincing nature of hume's argumentation, together with the absurdity of the conclusions to which it led, aroused in reid a suspicion that the premises on which hume's thoughts were built, and which he, in company with all his predecessors, had assumed quite uncritically, contained some fundamental error. for both as a christian, a philosopher, and a man in possession of common sense, reid had no doubt as to the absurdity and destructiveness of the conclusions to which hume's reasoning had led him. 'for my own satisfaction, i entered into a serious examination of the principles upon which this sceptical system is built; and was not a little surprised to find that it leans with its whole weight upon a hypothesis, which is ancient indeed, and hath been very generally received by philosophers, but of which i could find no solid proof. the hypothesis i mean is, that nothing is perceived but what is in the mind which perceives it: that we do not really perceive the things that are external, but only certain images and pictures of them imprinted upon the mind, which are called impressions and ideas. 'if this be true, supposing certain impressions and ideas to exist presently in my mind, i cannot, from their existence, infer the existence of anything else; my impressions and ideas are the only existences of which i can have any knowledge or conception; and they are such fleeting and transitory beings, that they can have no existence at all, any longer than i am conscious of them. so that, upon this hypothesis, the whole universe about me, bodies and spirits, sun, moon, stars, and earth, friends and relations, all things without exception, which i imagined to have a permanent existence whether i thought of them or not vanish at once: 'and, like the baseless fabric of this vision ... leave not a rack behind. 'i thought it unreasonable, upon the authority of philosophers, to admit a hypothesis which, in my opinion, overturns all philosophy, all religion and virtue, and all common sense: and finding, that all the systems which i was acquainted with, were built upon this hypothesis, i resolved to enquire into this subject anew, without regard to any hypothesis.' the following passage from the first chapter of the inquiry reveals reid as a personality who was not dazzled to the same extent as were his contemporaries by the brilliance of the onlooker-consciousness: 'if it [the mind] is indeed what the treatise of human nature makes it, i find i have been only in an enchanted castle, imposed upon by spectres and apparitions. i blush inwardly to think how have been deluded; i am ashamed of my frame, and can hardly forbear expostulating with my destiny: is this thy pastime, o nature, to put such tricks upon a silly creature, and then to take off the mask, and show him how he hath been befooled? if this is the philosophy of human nature, my soul enter thou not into her secrets. it is surely the forbidden tree of knowledge; i no sooner taste it, than i perceive myself naked, and stript of all things - yea even of my very self. i see myself, and the whole frame of nature, shrink into fleeting ideas, which, like epicurus's atoms, dance about in emptiness. 'but what if these profound disquisitions into the first principles of human nature, do naturally and necessarily plunge a man into this abyss of scepticism? may we not reasonably judge from what hath happened? des cartes no sooner began to dig in this mine, than scepticism was ready to break in upon him. he did what he could to shut it out. malebranche and locke, who dug deeper, found the difficulty of keeping out this enemy still to increase; but they laboured honestly in the design. then berkeley, who carried on the work, despairing of securing all, bethought himself of an expedient: by giving up the material world, which he thought might be spared without loss, and even with advantage, he hoped by an impregnable partition to secure the world of spirits. but, alas! the treatise of human nature wantonly sapped the foundation of this partition and drowned all in one universal deluge.' (chapter i, sections vi-vii.) what reid so pertinently describes here as the 'enchanted castle' is nothing else than the human head, which knows of no occurrence beyond its boundaries, because it has forgotten that it is only the end-product of a living existence outside of, and beyond, itself. we see here that reid is gifted with the faculty of entering this castle without forfeiting his memory of the world outside; and so even from within its walls, he could recognize its true nature. to a high degree this helped him to keep free of those deceptions to which the majority of his contemporaries fell victim, and to which so many persons are still subject to-day. it is in this way that reid could make it one of the cardinal principles of his observations to test all that the head thinks by relating it to the rest of human nature and to allow nothing to stand, which does not survive this test. in this respect the argument he sets over against the cartesian, 'cogito ergo sum' is characteristic: ' "i am thinking," says he, "therefore i am": and is it not as good reasoning to say, i am sleeping, therefore i am? if a body moves, it must exist, no doubt; but if it is at rest, it must exist likewise.' the following summarizes the position to which reid is led when he includes the whole human being in his philosophical inquiries. reid admits that, when the consciousness that has become aware of itself surveys that which lies within its own horizon, it finds nothing else there but transient pictures. these pictures in themselves bring to the mind no experience of a lasting existence outside itself. there is no firm evidence of the existence of either an outer material world to which these pictures can be related, or of an inner spiritual entity which is responsible for them. to be able to speak of an existence in either realm is impossible for a philosophy which confines its attention solely to the mere picture-content of the waking consciousness. but man is not only a percipient being; he is also a being of will, and as such he comes into a relationship with the world which can be a source of rich experience. if one observes this relationship, one is bound to notice that it is based on the self-evident assumption that one possesses a lasting individuality, whose actions deal with a lasting material world. any other way of behaviour would contradict the common sense of man; where we meet with it we are faced with a lunatic. thus philosophy and common sense seem to stand in irreconcilable opposition to each other. but this opposition is only apparent. it exists so long as philosophy thinks it is able to come to valid conclusions without listening to the voice of common sense, believing itself to be too exalted to need to do so. philosophy, then, does not realize 'that it has no other root but the principles of common sense; it grows out of them, and draws its nourishment from them: severed from this root, its honours wither, its sap is dried up, it dies and rots.' (i, .) at the moment when the philosophical consciousness ceases to regard itself as the sole foundation of its existence and recognizes that it can say nothing about itself without considering the source from which it has evolved, it attains the possibility of seeing the content of its experience in a new light. for it is no longer satisfied with considering this content in the completed form in which it presents itself. rather does it feel impelled to investigate the process which gives rise to this content as an end-product (the 'impressions' and 'ideas' of hume and his predecessors). reid has faith in the fact - for his common sense assures him of it - that a lasting substantiality lies behind the world of the senses, even if for human consciousness it exists only so long as impressions of it are received via the bodily senses. similarly, he has faith in the fact that his consciousness, although existing but intermittently, has as its bearer a lasting self. instead of allowing this intuitively given knowledge to be shaken by a mere staring at fugitive pictures, behind which the real existence of self and world is hidden, he seeks instead in both directions for the origin of the pictures and will not rest until he has found the lasting causes of their transient appearances. in one direction reid finds himself led to the outer boundary of the body, where sense perception has its origin. this prompts him to investigate the perceptions of the five known senses: smelling, tasting, hearing, touching and seeing, which he discusses in this order. in the other direction he finds himself led - and here we meet with a special attribute of reid's whole philosophical outlook - to the realm of human speech. for speech depends upon an inner, intelligent human activity, which, once learnt, becomes a lasting part of man's being, quite outside the realm of his philosophizing consciousness, and yet forming an indispensable instrument for this consciousness. the simplest human reasoning, prompted only by common sense, and the subtlest philosophical thought, both need language for their expression. through his ability to speak, man lifts himself above an instinctive animal existence, and yet he develops this ability at an infantile stage, when, in so far as concerns the level of his consciousness and his relationship to the world, he hardly rises above the level of the animal. it requires a highly developed intelligence to probe the intricacies of language, yet complicated tongues were spoken in human history long before man awoke to his own individual intelligence. just as each man learns to think through speaking, so did humanity as a whole. thus speech can become a means for acquiring insight into the original form of human intelligence. for in speech the common sense of man, working unconsciously within him, meets the fully awakened philosophical consciousness. the way in which the two paths of observation have here been set out must not give rise to the expectation that they are discussed by reid in a similarly systematic form. for this, reid lacked the sufficient detachment from his own thoughts. as he presents his observations in the inquiry they seem to be nothing but a systematic description of the five senses, broken into continually by linguistic considerations of the kind indicated above. so, for example, many of his more important statements about language are found in his chapter on 'hearing'. our task will be to summarize reid's work, taking from his description, so often full of profound observations, only what is essential to illustrate his decisive discoveries. this requires that (keeping to mr. eraser's picture) we consider separately the two pillars supporting the roof of the temple's forecourt: speech and sense-impressions. we will start with speech. * reid notes as a fundamental characteristic of human language that it includes two distinct elements: first, the purely acoustic element, represented by the sheer succession of sounds, and secondly the variety of meanings represented by various groups of sounds, meanings which seem to have nothing to do with the sounds as such. this state of language, where the sound-value of the word and its value as a sign to denote a thing signified by it, have little or nothing to do with one another, is certainly not the primeval one. in the contemporary state of language, which reid calls artificial language, we must see a development from a former condition, which reid calls natural language. so long as this latter condition obtained, man expressed in the sound itself what he felt impelled to communicate to his fellows. in those days sound was not merely an abstract sign, but a gesture, which moreover was accompanied and supported by the gestures of the limbs. even to-day man, at the beginning of his life, still finds himself in that relationship to language which was natural to all men in former times. the little child acquires the ability to speak through the imitation of sounds, becoming aware of them long before it understands the meaning accorded to the various groups of sounds in the artificial state of contemporary adult speech. that the child's attention should be directed solely to the sound, and not to the abstract meaning of the individual words, is indeed the prerequisite of learning to speak. if, says reid, the child were to understand immediately the conceptual content of the words it hears, it would never learn to speak at all. when the adult of to-day uses language in its artificial state, words are only signs for things signified by them. as he speaks, his attention is directed exclusively towards this side of language; the pure sound of the words he uses remains outside the scope of his awareness. the little child, on the other hand, has no understanding of the meaning of words and therefore lives completely in the experience of pure sound. in the light of this, reid comes to the conclusion, so important for what follows, that with the emergence of a certain form of consciousness, in this case that of the intellectual content of words, another form submerges, a form in which the experience of the pure sound of words prevails. the adult, while in one respect ahead of the child, yet in another is inferior, for the effect of this change is a definite impoverishment in soul-experience. reid puts this as follows: 'it is by natural signs chiefly that we give force and energy to language; and the less language has of them, it is the less expressive and persuasive. ... artificial signs signify, but they do not express; they speak to the understanding, as algebraic characters may do, but the passions and the affections and the will hear them not: these continue dormant and inactive, till we speak to them in the language of nature, to which they are all attention and obedience.' we have followed reid so far in his study of language, because it is along this way that he came to form the concepts that were to serve him as a key for his all-important findings in the realm of sense-experience. these are the concepts which bear on the connexion between the sign and the thing signified; the distinction between the artificial and the natural state of language; and the disappearance of certain primeval human capacities for experience, of which reid says that they are brought by the child into the world, but fade as his intellectual capacities develop. * as soon as one begins to study reid's observations in the realm of sense-experience, one meets with a certain difficulty, noticeable earlier but not so strikingly. the source of it is that reid was obliged to relate the results of his observations only to the five senses known in his day, whereas in fact his observations embrace a far greater field of human sense-perception. thus a certain disharmony creeps into his descriptions and makes his statements less convincing, especially for someone who does not penetrate to its real cause. however this may be, it need not concern us here; what matter to us are reid's actual observations. for these led him to the important distinction between two factors in our act of acquiring knowledge of the outer world, each of which holds an entirely different place in ordinary consciousness. reid distinguishes them as 'sensation' and 'perception'. it is through the latter that we become aware of the object as such. but we are mistaken if we regard the content of this perception as identical with the sum total of the sensations which are caused in our consciousness by the particular object. for these sensations are qualitatively something quite different, and, although without them no perception of the object is possible, they do not by themselves convey a knowledge of the thing perceived. only, because our attention is so predominantly engaged by the object under perception, we pay no heed to the content of our sensation. to take an example, the impressions of roundness, angularity, smoothness, roughness, colour, etc., of a table contain, all told, nothing that could assure us of the existence of the object 'table' as the real content of an external world. how, then, do we receive the conviction of the latter's existence? reid's answer is, by entering into an immediate intuitive relationship with it. it is true that to establish this relationship we need the stimuli coming from the impressions which our mind receives through the various senses. yet this must not induce us to confuse the two. when nature speaks to man through his senses, something occurs exactly analogous to the process when man communicates with man through the spoken word. in both cases the perception, that is, the result of the process of perception, is something quite other than the sum of sensations underlying it. per-ceiving by means of the senses is none other than a re-ceiving of nature's language; and this language, just like human language, bears two entirely different elements within it. according as one or the other element prevails in man's intercourse with nature, this intercourse will be either 'natural' or 'artificial' - to use the terms by which reid distinguished the two stages of human speech. just as every human being must once have listened only to the pure sound of the spoken word on a wholly sentient level in order to acquire the faculty of speaking, so also, in order to learn nature's language, the soul must once have been totally surrendered to the pure impressions of the senses. and just as with time the spoken word becomes a symbol for that which is signified by it, the consciousness turning to the latter and neglecting the actual sound-content of the word, so also in its intercourse with nature the soul, with its growing interest in the thing signified, turns its attention more and more away from the actual experiences of the senses. from this it follows that a philosophy which seeks to do justice to man's whole being must not be satisfied with examining the given content of human consciousness, but must strive to observe the actual process to which this content owes its emergence. in practice this means that a philosopher who understands his task aright must strive to reawaken in himself a mode of experience which is naturally given to man in his early childhood. reid expresses this in the inquiry in the following way: 'when one is learning a language, he attends to the sounds, but when he is master of it, he attends only to the sense of what he would express. if this is the case, we must become as little children again, if we will be philosophers: we must overcome habits which have been gathering strength ever since we began to think; habits, the usefulness of which atones for the difficulty it creates for the philosopher in discovering the first principles of the human mind.' 'we must become as little children again, if we will be philosophers!' the phrase appears here almost in passing, and reid never came back to it again. and yet in it is contained the open sesame which gives access to the hidden spirit-treasures of the world. in this unawareness of reid's of the importance of what he thus had found we must see the reason for his incapacity to develop his philosophy beyond its first beginnings. this handicap arose from the fact that in all his thinking he was guided by a picture of the being of man which - as a child of his time, dominated by the contemporary religious outlook - he could never realize distinctly. yet without a clear conception of this picture no justice can be done to reid's concept of common sense. our next task, therefore, must be to evoke this picture as clearly as we can * * * the following passage in reid's inquiry provides a key for the understanding of his difficulty in conceiving an adequate picture of man's being. in this passage reid maintains that all art is based on man's experience of the natural language of things, and that in every human being there lives an inborn artist who is more or less crippled by man's growing accustomed to the state of artificial language in his intercourse with the world. in continuation of the passage quoted on page reid says: 'it were easy to show, that the fine arts of the musician, the painter, the actor, and the orator, so far as they are expressive; although the knowledge of them requires in us a delicate taste, a nice judgment, and much study and practice; yet they are nothing else but the language of nature, which we brought into the world with us, but have unlearned by disuse and so find the greatest difficulty in recovering it. 'abolish the use of articulate sounds and writing among mankind for a century, and every man would be a painter, an actor, and an orator. we mean not to affirm that such an expedient is practicable; or if it were, that the advantage would counterbalance the loss; but that, as men are led by nature and necessity to converse together they will use every means in their power to make themselves understood; and where they cannot do this by artificial signs, they will do it as far as possible by natural ones: and he that understands perfectly the use of natural signs, must be the best judge in all expressive arts.' when reid says that there are certain characteristics - and these just of the kind whose development truly ennobles human life - which the soul brings with it into the world, a picture of man is evoked in us in which the supersensible part of his being appears as an entity whose existence reaches further back than the moment of birth and even the first beginnings of the body. now such a conception of man is in no way foreign to humanity, in more ancient times it was universally prevalent, and it still lives on to-day, if merely traditionally, in the eastern part of the world. it is only in the west that from a certain period it ceased to be held. this was the result of a change which entered into human memory in historical times, just as the re-dawning of the old knowledge of man's pre-existence, of which reid is a symptom, is a result of another corresponding alteration in the memory-powers of man in modern times. for men of old it was characteristic that alongside the impressions they received in earthly life through the senses (which in any case were far less intense than they are to-day), they remembered experiences of a purely supersensible kind, which gave them assurance that before the soul was knit together with a physical body it had existed in a cosmic state purely spiritual in nature. the moment in history when this kind of memory disappeared is that of the transition from the philosophy of plato to that of aristotle. whereas plato was convinced by clear knowledge that the soul possesses characteristics implanted in it before conception, aristotle recognized a bodiless state of the soul only in the life after death. for him the beginning of the soul's existence was identical with that of the body. the picture of man, taught for the first time by aristotle, still required about twice four hundred years - from the fourth pre-christian to the fourth post-christian century - before it became so far the common possession of men that the church father augustine ( - ) could base his teaching on it - a teaching which moulded man's outlook on himself for the coming centuries right up to our own time. the following passage from augustine's confessions shows clearly how he was compelled to think about the nature of the little child: 'this age, whereof i have no remembrance, which i take on others' words, and guess from other infants that i have passed, true though the guess be, i am yet loath to count in this life of mine which i live in this world. for no less than that which i lived in my mother's womb, is it hid from me in the shadows of forgetfulness. but if i was shapen in iniquity and in sin my mother did conceive me, where, i beseech thee, o my god, where, lord, or when, was i thy servant guiltless? but lo! that period i pass by; and what have i to do with that of which i can recall no vestige?' on the grounds of such experience, augustine was unable to picture man's being in any other way than by seeing him, from the first moment of his life, as subject to the condition of the human race which resulted from the fall. thus he exclaims in his confessions: 'before thee, o god, no-one is free from sin, not even the child which has lived but a single day on the earth.' in so far as there was any question of the soul's arising from this fallen state, it was deemed unable to attain this by any effort of its own, but to depend on the gifts of grace which the church was able to dispense through the sacraments. compare with this the present-day scientific conception of human nature, as it dominates the thought of specialist and layman alike. here man appears, both in body and soul, as a sum of inherited characteristics, of characteristics, that is to say, which have been passed on by way of sexual propagation and gradually emerge into full manifestation as the individual grows up. apart from this inherited predestination the soul is held to present itself, in locke's classical phrase, as a tabula rasa upon which are stamped all manner of external impressions. the similarity between this modern picture of man and the earlier theological one is striking. in both cases the central assumption is that human development from child to man consists in the unfolding of certain inherited characteristics which are capable of further specific modification under influences proceeding from outside. the only difference between the two pictures is that in the modern one the concepts of heredity and adaptation have been formed without special application to the ethical characteristics of the soul. it is clear that from both augustine's and the modern scientific viewpoint there is no sense in requiring - as reid did - those who seek the truth about themselves and the world to recover a condition which had been theirs as children. nor from this point of view is there any justification to call on a common sense, innate in man, to sit in judgment on the philosophical efforts of the adult reason. * that even in the days of augustine the original conception of human nature had not disappeared entirely, is shown by the appearance of augustine's opponent pelagius, called the 'arch-heretic'. to consider him at this point in our discussion will prove helpful for our understanding of reid's historic position in the modern age. what interests us here in pelagius's doctrine (leaving aside all questions concerning the meaning of the sacraments, etc.), is the picture of man which must have lived in him for him to teach as he did. leaving his irish-scottish homeland and arriving about the year in rome, where on account of the unusual purity of his being he soon came to be held in the highest esteem, pelagius found himself obliged to come out publicly against augustine, for he felt that augustine's teachings denied all free will to man. in the purely passive surrender of man to the will of god, as augustine taught it, he could not but see danger for the future development of christian humanity. how radically he diverged from augustine in his view of man we may see from such of his leading thoughts as follow: 'each man begins his life in the same condition as adam.' 'all good or evil for which in life we are deserving of praise or blame is done by ourselves and is not born with us.' 'before the personal will of man comes into action there is nothing in him but what god has placed there.' 'it is therefore left to the free will of man whether he falls into sin, as also whether through following christ he raises himself out of it again.' pelagius could think in this way because he came from a part of europe where the older form of human memory, already at that time almost extinct in the south, was in some degree still active. for him it was therefore a matter of direct experience that the development of man from childhood onwards was connected with a diminution of certain original capacities of the soul. yet he was so far a child of his age as to be no longer capable of seeing whence these capacities originated. to provide the necessary corrective to augustine's doctrine of inheritance, pelagius would have had to be able to see in the first years of life both a beginning of the earthly and a termination of the pre-earthly existence of the soul. the imperfections of his picture of man, however, led him to underestimate, even to deny, the significance of heredity and so of original sin in human life. for an age which no longer had any direct experience of the soul's pre-natal life, the doctrines of augustine were undoubtedly more appropriate than those of pelagius; augustine was in fact the more modern of the two. and now, if we move forward a dozen centuries and compare thomas reid and immanuel kant from this same point of view, we find the same conception of man again triumphant. but there is an essential difference: kant carried all before him because he based himself on an age-old view of human nature, whereas reid, uncomprehended up to our own day, pointed to a picture of man only just then dawning on the horizon of the future. just as through pelagius there sounded something like a last call to european humanity not to forget the cosmic nature of the soul, so through reid the memory of this nature announced its first faint renewal. it is common to both that their voices lacked the clarity to make themselves heard among the other voices of their times; and with both the reason was the same: neither could perceive in fullness - the one no longer, the other not yet - the picture of man which ensouled their ideas. the certainty of reid's philosophical instinct, if such an expression be allowed, and at the same time his tragic limitations, due to an inability fully to understand the origin of this instinct, come out clearly in the battle he waged against the 'idea' as his immediate predecessors understood it. we know that plato introduced this word into the philosophical language of mankind. in greek ιδέα (from ιδεá¿�ν, to see) means something of which one knows that it exists, because one sees it. it was therefore possible to use the word 'to see' as plato did, because in his day it covered both sensible and supersensible perception. for plato, knowing consisted in the soul's raising itself to perceiving the objective, world-forming ideas, and this action comprised at the same time a recollection of what the soul had seen while it lived, as an idea among ideas, before its appearance on earth. as long as plato's philosophy continued to shape their thought, men went on speaking more or less traditionally of ideas as real supersensible beings. when, however, the aristotelian mode of thinking superseded the platonic, the term 'idea' ceased to be used in its original sense; so much so that, when locke and other modern philosophers resorted to it in order to describe the content of the mind, they did so in complete obliviousness of its first significance. it is thus that in modern philosophy, and finally in ordinary modern usage, 'idea' came to be a word with many meanings. sometimes it signifies a sense-impression, sometimes a mental representation, sometimes the thought, concept or essential nature of a thing. the only thing common to these various meanings is an underlying implication that an idea is a purely subjective item in human consciousness, without any assured correspondence to anything outside. it was against this view of the idea that reid took the field, going so far as to label the philosophy holding it the 'ideal system'. he failed to see, however, that in attacking the abstract use of the term he was actually in a position to restore to it its original, genuine meaning. if, instead of simply throwing the word overboard, he had been able to make use of it in its real meaning, he would have expressed himself with far greater exactitude and consistency. he was prevented from doing this by his apparent ignorance of the earlier greek philosophers, plato included. all he seems to have known of their teachings came from inferior, second-hand reports of a later and already decadent period. * * * there are two historic personalities, both in england, who witness to the fact that the emergence of reid's philosophy on the stage of history was by no means an accidental event but that it represents a symptom of a general reappearance of the long-forgotten picture of man, in which birth no more than death sets up an absolute limit to human existence. they are thomas traherne ( - ) and william wordsworth ( - ). wordsworth's work and character are so well known that there is no need to speak of them here in detail. for our purpose we shall pay special attention only to his ode on intimations of immortality from recollections of early childhood, where he shows himself in possession of a memory (at any rate at the time when he wrote the poem) of the pre-natal origin of the soul, and of a capacity for experiencing, at certain moments, the frontier which the soul crosses at birth. if, despite the widespread familiarity of the ode, we here quote certain passages from it, we do so because, like many similar things, it has fallen a victim to the intellectualism of our time in being regarded merely as a piece of poetic fantasy. we shall take the poet's words as literally as he himself uttered them. we read: 'our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting: the soul that rises with us, our life's star, hath had elsewhere its setting, and cometh from afar: not in entire forgetfulness, and not in utter nakedness, but trailing clouds of glory do we come from god who is our home: heaven lies about us in our infancy! shades of the prison house begin to close upon the growing boy. but he beholds the light, and whence it flows, he sees it in his joy; the youth, who daily farther from the east must travel, still is nature's priest, and by the vision splendid is on his way attended." and later: 'hence in a season of calm weather though inland far we be, our souls have sight of that immortal sea which brought us hither, can in a moment travel thither, and see the children sport upon the shore, and hear the mighty waters rolling evermore.'' the fact that wordsworth in his later years gave no further indication of such experiences need not prevent us from taking quite literally what he says here. the truth is that an original faculty faded away with increasing age, somewhat as happened with reid when he could no longer continue his philosophical work along its original lines. wordsworth's ode is the testament of the childhood forces still persisting but already declining within him; it is significant that he set it down in about the same year of life (his thirty-sixth) as that in which traherne died and in which goethe, seeking renewal of his being, took flight to italy. * of traherne, too, we shall say here only as much as our present consideration and the further aims of this book require. we cannot concern ourselves with the remarkable events which led, half a century ago, to the discovery and identification of his long-lost writings by bertram dobell. nor can we deal with the details of the eventful life and remarkable spiritual development of this contemporary of the civil war. these matters are dealt with in dobell's introduction to his edition of traherne's poems, as also by gladys i. wade in her work, thomas traherne. our gratitude for the labours of these two writers by which they have provided mankind with the knowledge of the character and the work of this unique personality cannot hinder us, however, from stating that both were prevented by the premises of their own view of the world from rightly estimating that side of traherne which is important for us in this book, and with which we shall specially concern ourselves in the following pages. later in this chapter we shall discuss dobell's philosophical misinterpretation of traherne, to which he fell victim because he maintained his accustomed spectator standpoint in regard to his object of study. miss wade has, indeed, been able to pay the right tribute to traherne, the mystic, whose inner (and also outer) biography she was able to detect by taking seriously traherne's indications concerning his mystical development. her mind, however, was too rigidly focused on this side of traherne's life - his self-training by an iron inner discipline and his toilsome ascent from the experience of nothingness to a state of beatific vision. this fact, combined with her disinclination to overcome the augustinian picture of man in herself, prevented her from taking traherne equally seriously where he speaks as one who is endowed with a never interrupted memory of his primeval cosmic consciousness - notwithstanding the fact that traherne himself has pointed to this side of his nature as the most significant for his fellow-men. of the two works of traherne which dobell rescued from oblivion, on both of which we shall draw for our exposition, one contains his poems, the other his prose writings. the title of the latter is centuries of meditations. the title page of one of the two manuscripts containing the collection of the poetical writings introduces these as poems of felicity, containing divine reflections on the native objects of an infant-eye. as regards the title 'centuries of meditations' we are ignorant of the meaning traherne may have attached to it, and what he meant by calling the four parts of the book, 'first', 'second', etc., century. the book itself represents a manual of devotion for meditative study by the reader. let our first quotation be one from the opening paragraph of the third 'century' in which traherne introduces himself as the bearer of certain uncommon powers of memory and, arising from these powers, a particular mission as a teacher: 'those pure and virgin apprehensions i had from the womb, and that divine light wherewith i was born are the best unto this day, wherein i can see the universe. by the gift of god they attended me into the world, and by his special favour i remember them till now. verily they seem the greatest gifts his wisdom could bestow, for without them all other gifts had been dead and vain. they are unattainable by books, and therefore i will teach them by experience.' (ill, .) the picture thus remaining with him of his nature of soul in his earliest years on earth he describes as follows: 'certainly adam in paradise had not more sweet and curious apprehensions of the world, than i when i was a child. all appeared new, and strange at first, inexpressibly rare and delightful and beautiful. i was a little stranger, which at my entrance into the world was saluted and surrounded with innumerable joys. my knowledge was divine. i knew by intuition those things which since my apostacy, i collected again by the highest reason. i was entertained like an angel with the works of god in their splendour and glory, i saw all in the peace of eden; heaven and earth did sing my creator's praises, and could not make more melody to adam, than to me. all time was eternity, and a perpetual sabbath. is it not strange, that an infant should be the heir of the whole world, and see those mysteries which the books of the learned never unfold?' (ill, , .) in a different form the same experience comes to expression in the opening lines of traherne's poem, wonder: 'how like an angel came i down! how bright are all things here i when first among his works i did appear o how their glory did me crown! the world resembled his eternitie, in which my soul did walk; and evry thing that i did see did with me talk.' the picture of man thus sketched by traherne is as close to reid's as it is remote from augustine's. this remoteness comes plainly to expression in the way traherne and augustine regard the summons of christ to his disciples to become as little children, a summons to which reid was led, as we have seen, on purely philosophical grounds. let us first of all recall the words of christ as recorded by matthew in his th and th chapters: 'and jesus called a little child unto him, and set him in the midst of them, and said: verily i say unto you, except ye be converted, and become as little children, ye shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven. whosoever therefore shall humble himself as this little child, the same is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven.' (xviii, - .) 'suffer the little children and forbid them not to come unto me: for of such is the kingdom of heaven.' (xix, .) augustine refers to these words when he concludes that examination of his childhood memories which he undertook in order to prove the depravity of the soul from its first day on earth. he says: 'in the littleness of children didst thou, our king, give us a symbol of humility when thou didst say: of such is the kingdom of heaven.' if we glance back from what augustine says here to the original passages in the gospel just quoted, we see what a remarkable alteration he makes. of the first passage only the last sentence is taken, and this in augustine's mind is fused into one with the second passage. thereby the admonition of christ through one's own effort to become as one once was as a child disappears completely. the whole passage thus takes on a meaning corresponding to that passive attitude to the divine will inculcated by augustine and opposed by pelagius, and it is in this sense that the words of christ have sunk into the consciousness of western christianity and are usually taken to-day. we may see how differently this injunction of christ lived in traherne's consciousness from the following passage out of his centuries: 'our saviour's meaning, when he said, ye must be born again and become a little child that will enter into the kingdom of heaven, is deeper far than is generally believed. it is not only in a careless reliance upon divine providence, that we are to become little children, or in the feebleness and shortness of our anger and simplicity of our passions, but in the peace and purity of all our soul. which purity also is a deeper thing than is commonly apprehended.' (ill, .) with traherne also the passage in question has been fused together with another utterance of christ, from john's account of christ's conversation with nicodemus: 'verily, verily i say unto you, except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of god.' (john iii, .) what conception of the infant condition of man must have existed in a soul for it to unite these two passages from the gospels in this way? whereas for augustine it is because of its small stature and helplessness that the child becomes a symbol for the spiritual smallness and helplessness of man as such, compared with the overwhelming power of the divine king, for traherne it is the child's nearness to god which is most present to him, and which must be regained by the man who strives for inner perfection. traherne could bear in himself such a picture of man's infancy because, as he himself emphasizes, he was in possession of an unbroken memory of the experiences which the soul enjoys before it awakens to earthly sense-perception. the following passage from the poem, my spirit, gives a detailed picture of the early state in which the soul has experiences and perceptions quite different from those of its later life. (we may recall reid's indication of how the child receives the natural language of things.) 'an object, if it were before mine ey, was by dame nature's law within my soul: her store was all at once within me; all her treasures were my immediat and internal pleasures; substantial joys, which did inform my mind. '... i could not tell whether the things did there themselvs appear, which in my spirit truly seem'd to dwell: or whether my conforming mind were not ev'n all that therein shin'd.' further detail is added to this picture by the description, given in the poem the praeparative, of the soul's non-experience of the body at that early stage. the description is unmistakably one of an experience during the time between conception and birth. 'my body being dead, my limbs unknown; before i skill'd to prize those living stars, mine eys; before or tongue or cheeks i call'd mine own, before i knew these hands were mine, or that my sinews did my members join; when neither nostril, foot, nor ear, as yet could be discerned or did appear; i was within a house i knew not; newly cloath'd with skin. then was my soul my only all to me, a living endless ey, scarce bounded with the sky, whose power, and act, and essence was to see; i was an inward sphere of light, or an interminable orb of sight, exceeding that which makes the days, a vital sun that shed abroad its rays: all life, all sense, a naked, simple, pure intelligence.'' in the stanza following upon this, traherne makes a statement which is of particular importance in the context of our present discussion. after some additional description of the absence of all bodily needs he says: 'without disturbance then i did receiv the tru ideas of all things' the manuscript of this poem shows a small alteration in traherne's hand in the second of these two lines. where we now read 'true ideas', there originally stood 'fair ideas'. 'fair' described traherne's experience as he immediately remembered it; the later alteration to 'true' shows how well aware he was that his contemporaries might miss what he meant by 'idea', through taking it in the sense that had already become customary in his time, namely, as a mere product of man's own mental activity. this precaution, however, has not saved traherne from being misinterpreted in our own day in precisely the way he feared - indeed, by no less a person than his own discoverer, dobell. it is the symptomatic character of this misinterpretation which prompts us to deal with it here. * in his attempt to classify the philosophical mode of thought behind traherne's writings, dobell, to his own amazement, comes to the conclusion that traherne had anticipated bishop berkeley ( - ). they seemed to him so alike that he does not hesitate to call traherne a 'berkeleyan before berkeley was born'. in proof of this he refers to the poems, the praeparative and my spirit, citing from the latter the passage given above (page ), and drawing special attention to its two concluding lines. regarding this he says: 'i am much mistaken if the theory of non-existence of independent matter, which is the essence of berkeley's system, is not to be found in this poem. the thought that the whole exterior universe is not really a thing apart from and independent of man's consciousness of it, but something which exists only as it is perceived, is undeniably found in my spirit: the reader who has followed our exposition in the earlier parts of this chapter can be in no doubt that, to find a philosophy similar to traherne's, he must look for it in reid and not in berkeley. reid himself rightly placed berkeley amongst the representatives of the 'ideal system' of thought. for berkeley's philosophy represents an effort of the onlooker-consciousness, unable as it was to arrive at certainty regarding the objective existence of a material world outside itself, to secure recognition for an objective self behind the flux of mental phenomena. berkeley hoped to do this by supposing that the world, including god, consists of nothing but 'idea'-creating minds, operating like the human mind as man himself perceives it. his world picture, based (as is well known) entirely on optical experiences, is the perfect example of a philosophy contrived by the one-eyed, colourblind world-spectator. we shall understand what in traherne's descriptions reminded dobell of berkeley, if we take into account the connexion of the soul with the body at the time when, according to traherne, it still enjoys the untroubled perception of the true, the light-filled, ideas of things. in this condition the soul has only a dim and undifferentiated awareness of its connexion with a spatially limited body ('i was within a house i knew not, newly clothed with skin') and it certainly knows nothing at all of the body as an instrument, through which the will can be exercised in an earthly-spatial way ('my body being dead, my limbs unknown'). instead of this, the soul experiences itself simply as a supersensible sense-organ and as such united with the far spaces of the universe ('before i skilled to prize those living stars, mine eyes. ... then was my soul my only all to me, a living endless eye, scarce bounded with the sky'). at the time when the soul has experiences of the kind described by traherne, it is in a condition in which, as yet, no active contact has been established between itself and the physical matter of the body and thereby with gravity. hence there is truth in the picture which traherne thus sketches from actual memory. the same cannot be said of berkeley's world-picture. the fact that both resemble each other in certain features need not surprise us, seeing that berkeley's picture is, in its own way, a pure 'eye-picture' of the world. as such, however, it is an illusion - for it is intended for a state of man for which it is not suited, namely for adult man going upright on the earth, directing his deeds within its material realm, and in this way fashioning his own destiny. indeed, compared with berkeley's eye-picture of the world, that of reid is in every respect a 'limb-picture'. for where he seeks for the origin of our naïve assurance that a real material world exists, there he reverts - guided by his common sense - to the experiences available to the soul through the fact that the limbs of the body meet with the resistant matter of the world. and whenever he turns to the various senses in his search, it is always the will-activity of the soul within the sense he is investigating - and so the limb-nature within it - to which he first turns his attention. because, unlike berkeley, he takes into account the experiences undergone by the soul when it leaves behind its primal condition, reid does not fall into illusion, but discovers a fundamental truth concerning the nature of the world-picture experienced by man in his adult age. this, in turn, enables him to discover the nature of man's world picture in early childhood and to recognize the importance of recovering it in later life as a foundation for a true philosophy. assuredly, the philosopher who discovered that we must become as little children again if we would be philosophers, is the one to whom we may relate traherne, but not berkeley. and if we wish to speak of traherne, as dobell tried to do, we speak correctly only if we call him a 'reidean before reid was born'. * * * a little more than a hundred years after thomas traherne taught his fellow-men 'from experience' that there is an original condition of man's soul, before it is yet able to prize 'those living stars, mine eyes', in which it is endowed with the faculty to see 'the true (fair) ideas of all things', goethe was led to the realization that he had achieved the possibility of 'seeing ideas with the very eyes'. although he was himself not aware of it, the conception of the idea was at this moment restored through him to its true and original platonic significance. the present chapter has shown us how this conception of the idea is bound up with the view that is held of the relationship between human nature in early childhood and human nature in later life. we have seen that, when plato introduced the term idea as an expression for spiritual entities having a real and independent existence, men were still in possession of some recollection of their own pre-earthly existence. we then found traherne saying from his recollections that in the original form of man's consciousness his soul is endowed with the faculty of seeing 'true' ideas, and we found reid on similar grounds fighting the significance which the term 'idea' had assumed under his predecessors. by their side we see goethe as one in whom the faculty of seeing ideas appears for the first time in adult man as a result of a systematic training of observation and thought. if our view of the interdependence of the platonic conception of the idea with the picture man has of himself is seen rightly, then goethe must have been the bearer of such a picture. our expectation is shown to be right by the following two passages from goethe's autobiography, truth and fiction. in that part of his life story where goethe concludes the report of the first period of his childhood (book ii), he writes: 'who is able to speak worthily of the fullness of childhood? we cannot behold the little creatures which flit about before us otherwise than with delight, nay, with admiration; for they generally promise more than they perform and it seems that nature, among the other roguish tricks that she plays us, here also especially designs to make sport of us. the first organs she bestows upon children coming into the world, are adapted to the nearest immediate condition of the creature, which, unassuming and artless, makes use of them in the readiest way for its present purposes. the child, considered in and for itself, with its equals, and in relations suited to its powers, seems so intelligent and rational, and at the same time so easy, cheerful and clever, that one can hardly wish it further cultivation. if children grew up according to early indications, we should have nothing but geniuses.' we find further evidence in goethe's account of an event in his seventh year, which shows how deeply his soul was filled at that time with the knowledge of its kinship with the realm from which nature herself receives its existence. this knowledge led him to approach the 'great god of nature' through an act of ritual conceived by himself. the boy took a four-sectioned music stand and arranged on it all kinds of natural specimens, minerals and the like, until the whole formed a kind of pyramidal altar. on the top of this pyramid he placed some fumigating candles, the burning of which was to represent the 'upward yearning of the soul for its god'. in order to give nature herself an active part in the ritual, he contrived to kindle the candles by focusing upon them through a magnifying-glass the light of the rising sun. before this symbol of the unity of the soul with the divine in nature the boy then paid his devotions. 'unity of the soul with the divine in nature' - this was what lived vividly as a conviction in the seven-year-old boy, impelling him to act as 'nature's priest' (wordsworth). the same impulse, in a metamorphosed form, impelled the adult to go out in quest of an understanding of nature which, as traherne put it, was to bring back through highest reason what once had been his by way of primeval intuition. the present writer's interest in reid was first aroused by a remark of rudolf steiner, in his book a theory of 'knowledge according to goethe's world conception. in a comment on a letter carlyle had written to him, and in a note dealing with the contemporary philosophy in germany. this observation of reid's shows that the origin of language is very different from what the evolutionists since darwin have imagined it to be. confessions, book i, chapter . as we have seen, the word had better luck with goethe. wordsworth, with all his limitations, had a real affinity with goethe in his view of nature. mr. norman lacey gives some indication of this in his recent book, wordsworth's view of nature. this same period of life played a decisive part in the spiritual evolution of rudolf steiner, as may be seen in his autobiography, the story of my life. the difference in spelling between the prose and poetry excerpts arises from the fact that whereas we can draw on miss wade's new edition of the poems for traherne's original spelling, we have as yet only dobell's edition of the centuries, in which the spelling is modernized. oxenford's translation. chapter vii 'always stand by form' immediacy of approach to certain essentials of nature as a result of their religious or artistic experience of the sense-world, is the characteristic of two more representatives of british cultural life. they are luke howard ( - ) and john ruskin ( - ), both true readers in the book of nature. like those discussed in the previous chapter they can be of especial help to us in our attempt to establish an up-to-date method of apprehending nature's phenomena through reading them. at the same time we shall find ourselves led into another sphere of goethe's scientific work. for we cannot properly discuss howard without recognizing the importance of his findings for goethe's meteorological studies or without referring to the personal connexion between the two men arising out of their common interest and similar approach to nature. we shall thus come as a matter of course to speak of goethe's thoughts about meteorology, and this again will give opportunity to introduce a leading concept of goethean science in addition to those brought forward already. of ruskin only so much will appear in the present chapter as is necessary to show him as an exemplary reader in the book of nature. he will then be a more or less permanent companion in our investigations. the following words of ruskin from the queen of the air reveal him at once as a true reader in the book of nature: 'over the entire surface of the earth and its waters, as influenced by the power of the air under solar light, there is developed a series of changing forms, in clouds, plants and animals, all of which have reference in their action, or nature, to the human intelligence that perceives them.' (ii, .) here ruskin in an entirely goethean way points to form in nature as the element in her that speaks to human intelligence - meaning by form, as other utterances of his show, all those qualities through which the natural object under observation reveals itself to our senses as a whole. by virtue of his pictorial-dynamic way of regarding nature, ruskin was quite clear that the scientists' one-sided seeking after external forces and the mathematically calculable interplay between them can never lead to a comprehension of life in nature. for in such a search man loses sight of the real signature of life: form as a dynamic element. accordingly, in his ethics of the dust, ruskin does not answer the question: 'what is life?' with a scientific explanation, but with the laconic injunction: 'always stand by form against force.' this he later enlarges pictorially in the words: 'discern the moulding hand of the potter commanding the clay from the merely beating foot as it turns the wheel.' (lect. x.) in thus opposing form and force to each other, ruskin is actually referring to two kinds of forces. there exist those forces which resemble the potter's foot in producing mere numerically regulated movements (so that this part of the potter's activity can be replaced by a power-machine), and others, which like the potter's hand, strive for a certain end and so in the process create definite forms. ruskin goes a step further still in the queen of the air, where he speaks of selective order as a mark of the spirit: 'it does not merely crystallize indefinite masses, but it gives to limited portions of matter the power of gathering, selectively, other elements proper to them, and binding these elements into their own peculiar and adopted form. ... 'for the mere force of junction is not spirit, but the power that catches out of chaos, charcoal, water, lime and what not, and fastens them into given form, is properly called "spirit"; and we shall not diminish, but strengthen our cognition of this creative energy by recognizing its presence in lower states of matter than our own.' (ii, .) when ruskin wrote this passage, he could count on a certain measure of agreement from his contemporaries that the essence of man himself is spirit, though certainly without any very exact notion being implied. this persuaded him to fight on behalf of the spirit, lest its activity on the lower levels of nature should not be duly acknowledged. to-day, when the purely physical conception of nature has laid hold of the entire man, ruskin might have given his thought the following turn: '... and we shall certainly attain to no real insight into this creative force (of the spirit) at the level of man, unless we win the capacity to recognize its activity in lower states of matter.' what ruskin is really pointing towards is the very thing for which goethe formed the concept 'type'. and just as ruskin, like goethe, recognized the signature of the spirit in the material processes which work towards a goal, so he counted as another such signature what goethe called steigerung, though certainly without forming such a universally valid idea of it: 'the spirit in the plant - that is to say, its power of gathering dead matter out of the wreck round it, and shaping it into its own chosen shape - is of course strongest in the moment of flowering, for it then not only gathers, but forms, with the greatest energy.' it is characteristic of ruskin's conception of the relationship between man's mind and nature that he added: 'and where this life is in it at full power, its form becomes invested with aspects that are chiefly delightful to our own senses.' (ii, .) obviously, a mind capable of looking at nature in this way could not accept such a picture of evolution as was put forward by ruskin's contemporary, darwin. so we find ruskin, in the queen of the air, opposing the darwinistic conception of the preservation of the species as the driving factor in the life of nature: 'with respect to plants as animals, we are wrong in speaking as if the object of life were only the bequeathing of itself. the flower is the end and proper object of the seeds, not the seed of the flower. the reason for the seed is that flowers may be, not the reason of flowers that seeds may be. the flower itself is the creature which the spirit makes; only, in connection with its perfectedness, is placed the giving birth to its successor.' (ii, .) for ruskin the true meaning of life in all its stages lay not in the maintenance of physical continuity from generation to generation, but in the ever-renewed, ever more enhanced revelation of the spirit. he was never for a moment in doubt regarding the inevitable effect of such an evolutionary theory as darwin's on the general social attitude of humanity. men would be led, he realized, to see themselves as the accidental products of an animal nature based on the struggle for existence and the preservation of the species. enough has been said to stamp ruskin as a reader in the book of nature, capable of deciphering the signature of the spirit in the phenomena of the sense-world. * outwardly different from ruskin's and yet spiritually comparable, is the contribution made by his older contemporary, luke howard, to the foundation of a science of nature based on intuition. whereas ruskin throws out a multitude of aphoristic utterances about many different aspects of nature, which will provide us with further starting-points for our own observation and thought, howard is concerned with a single sphere of phenomena, that of cloud formation. on the other hand, his contribution consists of a definite discovery which he himself methodically and consciously achieved, and it is the content of this discovery, together with the method of research leading to it, which will supply us ever and again with a model for our own procedure. at the same time, as we have indicated, he will help us to become familiar with another side of goethe, and to widen our knowledge of the basic scientific concepts formed by him. anyone interested to-day in weather phenomena is acquainted with the terms used in cloud classification - cirrus, cumulus, stratus, and nimbus. these have come so far into general use that it is not easy to realize that, until howard's paper, on the modification of clouds, appeared in , no names for classifying clouds were available. superficially, it may seem that howard had done nothing more than science has so often done in grouping and classifying and naming the contents of nature. in fact, however, he did something essentially different. in the introduction to his essay, howard describes the motives which led him to devote himself to a study of meteorological phenomena: 'it is the frequent observation of the countenance of the sky, and of its connexion with the present and ensuing phenomena, that constitutes the ancient and popular meteorology. the want of this branch of knowledge renders the prediction of the philosopher (who in attending his instruments may be said to examine the pulse of the atmosphere), less generally successful than those of the weather-wise mariners and husbandmen.' when he thus speaks of studying 'the countenance of the sky', howard is not using a mere form of speech; he is exactly describing his own procedure, as he shows when he proceeds to justify it as a means to scientific knowledge. the clouds with their ever-moving, ever-changing forms are not, he says, to be regarded as the mere 'sport of the winds', nor is their existence 'the mere result of the condensation of vapour in the masses of the atmosphere which they occupy'. what comes to view in them is identical, in its own realm, with what the changing expression of the human face reveals of 'a person's state of mind or body'. it would hardly be possible to represent oneself more clearly as a genuine reader in the book of nature than by such words. what is it but ruskin's 'stand by form against force' that howard is here saying in his own way? * before entering into a further description of howard's system, we must make clear why we disregard the fact that modern meteorology has developed the scale of cloud-formation far beyond howard, and why we shall keep to his own fourfold scale. it is characteristic of goethe that, on becoming acquainted with howard's work, he at once gave a warning against subdividing his scale without limit. goethe foresaw that the attempt to insert too many transitory forms between howard's chief types would result only in obscuring that view of the essentials which howard's original classification had opened up. obviously, for a science based on mere onlooking there is no objection to breaking up an established system into ever more subdivisions in order to keep it in line with an increasingly detailed outer observation. this, indeed, modern meteorology has done with howard's system, with the result that, to-day, the total scale is made up of ten different stages of cloud-formation. valuable as this tenfold scale may be for certain practical purposes, it must be ignored by one who realizes that through howard's fourfold scale nature herself speaks to man's intuitive judgment. let us, therefore, turn to howard's discovery, undisturbed by the extension to which modern meteorology has subjected it. luke howard, a chemist by profession, knew well how to value the results of scientific knowledge above traditional folk-knowledge. he saw the superiority of scientifically acquired knowledge in the fact that it was universally communicable, whereas folk-wisdom is bound up with the personality of its bearer, his individual observations and his memory of them. nevertheless, the increasing mathematizing of science, including his own branch of it, gave him great concern, for he could not regard it as helpful in the true progress of man's understanding of nature. accordingly, he sought for a method of observation in which the practice of 'the weatherwise mariner and husbandman' could be raised to the level of scientific procedure. to this end he studied the changing phenomena of the sky for many years, until he was able so to read its play of features that it disclosed to him the archetypal forms of cloud-formation underlying all change. to these he gave the now well-known names (in latin, so that they might be internationally comprehensible): cirrus: parallel, flexuous or divergent fibres extensible in any and all directions. cumulus: convex or conical heaps, increasing upwards from a horizontal base. stratus: a widely extended, continuous, horizontal sheet, increasing from below. nimbus: the rain cloud. let us, on the background of howard's brief definitions, try to form a more exact picture of the atmospheric dynamics at work in each of the stages he describes. among the three formations of cirrus, cumulus and stratus, the cumulus has a special place as representing in the most actual sense what is meant by the term 'cloud'. the reason is that both cirrus and stratus have characteristics which in one or the other direction tend away from the pure realm of atmospheric cloud-formation. in the stratus, the atmospheric vapour is gathered into a horizontal, relatively arched layer around the earth, and so anticipates the actual water covering below which extends spherically around the earth's centre. thus the stratus arranges itself in a direction which is already conditioned by the earth's field of gravity. in the language of physics, the stratus forms an equipotential surface in the gravitational field permeating the earth's atmosphere. as the exact opposite of this we have the cirrus. if in the stratus the form ceases to consist of distinct particulars, because the entire cloud-mass runs together into a single layer, in the cirrus the form begins to vanish before our eyes, because it dissolves into the surrounding atmospheric space. in the cirrus there is present a tendency to expand; in the stratus to contract. between the two, the cumulus, even viewed simply as a form-type, represents an exact mean. in how densely mounded a shape does the majestically towering cumulus appear before us, and yet how buoyantly it hovers aloft in the heights! if one ever comes into the midst of a cumulus cloud in the mountains, one sees how its myriads of single particles are in ceaseless movement. and yet the whole remains stationary, on windless days preserving its form unchanged for hours. more recent meteorological research has established that in many cumulus forms the entire mass is in constant rotation, although seen from outside, it appears as a stable, unvarying shape. nowhere in nature may the supremacy of form over matter be so vividly observed as in the cumulus cloud. and the forms of the cumuli themselves tell us in manifold metamorphoses of a state of equilibrium between expansive and contractive tendencies within the atmosphere. our description of the three cloud-types of cirrus, cumulus and stratus, makes it clear that we have to do with a self-contained symmetrical system of forms, within which the two outer, dynamically regarded, represent the extreme tendencies of expansion and contraction, whilst in the middle forms these are held more or less in balance. by adding howard's nimbus formation to this system, we destroy its symmetry. actually, in the nimbus we have cloud in such a condition that it ceases to be an atmospheric phenomenon in any real sense of the word; for it now breaks up into single drops of water, each of which, under the pull of gravity, makes its own independent way to the earth. (the symmetry is restored as soon as we realize that the nimbus, as a frontier stage below the stratus, has a counterpart in a corresponding frontier stage above the cirrus. to provide insight into this upper frontier stage, of which neither howard nor goethe was at that time in a position to develop a clear enough conception to deal with it scientifically, is one of the aims of this book.) * in order to understand what prompted goethe to accept, as he did, howard's classification and terminology at first glance, and what persuaded him to make himself its eloquent herald, we must note from what point goethe's labours for a natural understanding of nature had originated. in his history of my botanical studies goethe mentions, besides shakespeare and spinoza, linnaeus as one who had most influenced his own development. concerning linnaeus, however, this is to be understood in a negative sense. for when goethe, himself searching for a way of bringing the confusing multiplicity of plant phenomena into a comprehensive system, met with the linnaean system, he was, despite his admiration for the thoroughness and ingenuity of linnaeus's work, repelled by his method. thus by way of reaction, his thought was brought into its own creative movement: 'as i sought to take in his acute, ingenious analysis, his apt, appropriate, though often arbitrary laws, a cleft was set up in my inner nature: what he sought to hold forcibly apart could not but strive for union according to the inmost need of my own being.' linnaeus's system agonized goethe because it demanded from him 'to memorize a ready-made terminology, to hold in readiness a certain number of nouns and adjectives, so as to be able, whenever any form was in question, to employ them in apt and skilful selection, and so to give it its characteristic designation and appropriate position.' such a procedure appeared to goethe as a kind of mosaic, in which one ready-made piece is set next to another in order to produce out of a thousand details the semblance of a picture; and this was 'in a certain way repugnant' to him. what goethe awoke to when he met linnaeus's attempt at systematizing the plant kingdom was the old problem of whether the study of nature should proceed from the parts to the whole or from the whole to the parts. seeing, therefore, how it became a question for goethe, at the very beginning of his scientific studies, whether a natural classification of nature's phenomena could be achieved, we can understand why he was so overjoyed when, towards the end of his life, in a field of observation which had meanwhile caught much of his interest, he met with a classification which showed, down to the single names employed, that it had been read off from reality. * the following is a comprehensive description of goethe's meteorological views, which he gave a few years before his death in one of his conversations with his secretary, eckermann: 'i compare the earth and her hygrosphere to a great living being perpetually inhaling and exhaling. if she inhales, she draws the hygrosphere to her, so that, coming near her surface, it is condensed to clouds and rain. this state i call water-affirmative (wasserbejahung). should it continue for an indefinite period, the earth would be drowned. this the earth does not allow, but exhales again, and sends the watery vapours upwards, when they are dissipated through the whole space of the higher atmosphere. these become so rarefied that not only does the sun penetrate them with its brilliancy, but the eternal darkness of infinite space is seen through them as a fresh blue. this state of the atmosphere i call water-negative (wasserverneinung). for just as, under the contrary influence, not only does water come profusely from above, but also the moisture of the earth cannot be dried and dissipated - so, on the contrary, in this state not only does no moisture come from above, but the damp of the earth itself flies upwards; so that, if this should continue for an indefinite period, the earth, even if the sun did not shine, would be in danger of drying up.' (llth april .) goethe's notes of the results of his meteorological observations show how in them, too, he followed his principle of keeping strictly to the phenomenon. his first concern is to bring the recorded measurements of weather phenomena into their proper order of significance. to this end he compares measurements of atmospheric temperature and local density with barometric measurements. he finds that the first two, being of a more local and accidental nature, have the value of 'derived' phenomena, whereas the variations in the atmosphere revealed by the barometer are the same over wide areas and therefore point to fundamental changes in the general conditions of the earth. measurements made regularly over long periods of time finally lead him to recognize in the barometric variations of atmospheric pressure the basic meteorological phenomenon. in all this we find goethe carefully guarding himself against 'explaining' these atmospheric changes by assuming some kind of purely mechanical cause, such as the accumulation of air-masses over a certain area or the like. just as little would he permit himself lightly to assume influences of an extra-terrestrial nature, such as those of the moon. not that he would have had anything against such things, if they had rested on genuine observation. but his own observations, as far as he was able to carry them, told him simply that the atmosphere presses with greater or lesser intensity on the earth in more or less regular rhythms. he was not abandoning the phenomenal sphere, however, when he said that these changes are results of the activity of earthly gravity, or when he concluded from this that barometric variations were caused by variations in the intensity of the field of terrestrial gravity, whereby the earth sometimes drew the atmosphere to it with a stronger, and sometimes with a weaker, pull. he was again not departing from the realm of the phenomenal when he looked round for other indications in nature of such an alternation of drawing in and letting forth of air, and found them in the respiratory processes of animated beings. (to regard the earth as a merely physical structure was impossible for goethe, for he could have done this only by leaving out of account the life visibly bound up with it.) accordingly, barometric measurements became for him the sign of a breathing process carried out by the earth. alongside the alternating phases of contraction and expansion within the atmosphere, goethe placed the fact that atmospheric density decreases with height. observation of differences in cloud formation at different levels, of the boundary of snow formation, etc., led him to speak of different 'atmospheres', or of atmospheric circles or spheres, which when undisturbed are arranged concentrically round the earth. here also he saw, in space, phases of contraction alternating with phases of expansion. * at this point in our discussion it is necessary to introduce another leading concept of goethean nature-observation, which was for him - as it will be for us - of particular significance for carrying over the goethean method of research from the organic into the inorganic realm of nature. this is the concept of the ur-phenomenon (urphänomen). in this latter realm, nature no longer brings forth related phenomena in the ordering proper to them; hence we are obliged to acquire the capacity of penetrating to this ordering by means of our own realistically trained observation and thought. from among the various utterances of goethe regarding his general conception of the ur-phenomenon, we here select a passage from that part of the historical section of his theory of colour where he discusses the method of investigation introduced into science by bacon. he says: 'in the range of phenomena all had equal value in bacon's eyes. for although he himself always points out that one should collect the particulars only to select from them and to arrange them, in order finally to attain to universals, yet too much privilege is granted to the single facts; and before it becomes possible to attain to simplification and conclusion by means of induction (the very way he recommends), life vanishes and forces get exhausted. he who cannot realize that one instance is often worth a thousand, bearing all within itself; he who proves unable to comprehend and esteem what we called ur-phenomena, will never be in a position to advance anything, either to his own or to others' joy and profit.' what goethe says here calls for the following comparison. we can say that nature seen through bacon's eyes appears as if painted on a two-dimensional surface, so that all its facts are seen alongside each other at exactly the same distance from the observer. goethe, on the other hand, ascribed to the human spirit the power of seeing the phenomenal world in all its three-dimensional multiplicity; that is, of seeing it in perspective and distinguishing between foreground and background. things in the foreground he called ur-phenomena. here the idea creatively determining the relevant field of facts comes to its purest expression. the sole task of the investigator of nature, he considered, was to seek for the ur-phenomena and to bring all other phenomena into relation with them; and in the fulfilment of this task he saw the means of fully satisfying the human mind's need to theorize. he expressed this in the words, 'every fact is itself already theory'. in goethe's meteorological studies we have a lucid example of how he sought and found the relevant ur-phenomenon. it is the breathing-process of the earth as shown by the variations of barometric pressure. * once again we find thomas reid, along his line of intuitively guided observation, coming quite close to goethe where he deals with the question of the apprehension of natural law by the human mind. he, too, was an opponent of the method of 'explaining' phenomena by means of abstract theories spun out of sheer thinking, and more than once in his writings he inveighs against it in his downright, humorous way. his conviction that human thinking ought to remain within the realm of directly experienced observation is shown in the following words: 'in the solution of natural phenomena, all the length that the human faculties can carry us is only this, that from particular phenomena, we may, by induction, trace out general phenomena, of which all the particular ones are necessary consequences.' as an example of this he takes gravity, leading the reader from one phenomenon to the next without ever abandoning them, and concluding the journey by saying: 'the most general phenomena we can reach are what we call laws of nature. so that the laws of nature are nothing else but the most general facts relating to the operations of nature, which include a great many particular facts under them.' * it was while on his way with the grand duke of weimar to visit a newly erected meteorological observatory that goethe, in the course of informing his companion of his own meteorological ideas, first heard of howard's writings about the formation of clouds. the duke had read a report of them in a german scientific periodical, and it seemed to him that howard's cloud system corresponded with what he now heard of goethe's thoughts about the force relationships working in the different atmospheric levels. he had made no mistake. goethe, who immediately obtained howard's essay, recognized at first glance in howard's cloud scale the law of atmospheric changes which he himself had discovered. he found here, what he had always missed in the customary practice of merely tabulating the results of scientific measurements. and so he took hold of the howard system with delight, for it 'provided him with a thread which had hitherto been lacking'. moreover, in the names which howard had chosen for designating the basic cloud forms, goethe saw the dynamic element in each of them coming to immediate expression in human speech. he therefore always spoke of howard's system as a 'welcome terminology'. all this inspired goethe to celebrate howard's personality and his work in a number of verses in which he gave a description of these dynamic elements and a paraphrase of the names, moulding them together into an artistic unity. in a few accompanying verses he honoured howard as the first to 'distinguish and suitably name' the clouds. the reason why goethe laid so much stress on howard's terminology was because he was very much aware of the power of names to help or hinder men in their quest for knowledge. he himself usually waited a long time before deciding on a name for a natural phenomenon or a connexion between phenomena which he had discovered. the idea which his spiritual eye had observed had first to appear so clearly before him that he could clothe it in a thought-form proper to it. seeing in the act of name - giving an essential function of man (we are reminded of what in this respect the biblical story of creation says of adam), goethe called man 'the first conversation which nature conducts with god'. it is characteristic of goethe that he did not content himself with knowing the truth which someone had brought forward in a field of knowledge in which he himself was interested, but that he felt his acquaintance with this truth to be complete only when he also knew something about the personality of the man himself. so he introduces his account of his endeavours to know more about howard, the man, with the following words: 'increasingly convinced that everything occurring through man should be regarded in an ethical sense, and that moral value is to be estimated only from a man's way of life, i asked a friend in london to find out if possible something about howard's life, if only the simplest facts.' goethe was uncertain whether the englishman was still alive, so his delight and surprise were considerable when from howard himself he received an answer in the form of a short autobiographical sketch, which fully confirmed his expectations regarding howard's ethical personality. howard's account of himself is known to us, as goethe included a translation of it in the collection of his own meteorological studies. howard in a modest yet dignified way describes his christian faith, his guide through all his relationships, whether to other men or to nature. a man comes before us who, untroubled by the prevailing philosophy of his day, was able to advance to the knowledge of an objective truth in nature, because he had the ability to carry religious experience even into his observation of the sense-world. * in view of all this, it is perhaps not too much to say that in the meeting between howard and goethe by way of the spiritual bridge of the clouds, something happened that was more than a mere event in the personal history of these two men. these words should be weighed with the fact in mind that they were written at the time when crookes was intent on finding the unknown land of the spirit by means of just such 'a mere force of junction'. see also goethe's sketch of the basic cloud forms on plate iv. goethe's dunstkreis - meaning the humidity contained in the air and, as such, spherically surrounding the earth. i had to make up the word 'hygrosphere' (after hygrometer, etc.) to keep clear the distinction from both atmosphere and hydrosphere. except for this term in the first two sentences, the above follows oxenford's translation (who, following the dictionaries, has rendered goethe's term inadequately by 'atmosphere'). we may here recall eddington's statement concerning the restriction of scientific observation to 'non-stereoscopic vision'. an example of this is reid's commentary on existing theories about sight as a mere activity of the optic nerve. (inq., vi, .) see inq., vi, . this is precisely what kant had declared to be outside human possibility. stratus means layer, cumulus - heap, cirrus - curl. there exists no adequate translation of these verses. genesis ii, , . a fact which howard did not mention, and which presumably remained unknown to goethe, was the work he had done as chairman of a relief committee for the parts of germany devastated by the napoleonic wars. for this work howard received a series of public honours. chapter viii dynamics versus kinetics at the present time the human mind is in danger of confusing the realm of dynamic events, into which modern atomic research has penetrated, with the world of the spirit; that is, the world whence nature is endowed with intelligent design, and of which human thinking is an expression in terms of consciousness. if a view of nature as a manifestation of spirit, such as goethe and kindred minds conceived it, is to be of any significance in our time, it must include a conception of matter which shows as one of its attributes its capacity to serve form (in the sense in which ruskin spoke of it in opposition to mere force) as a means of manifestation. the present part of this book, comprising chapters viii-xi, will be devoted to working out such a conception of matter. an example will thereby be given of how goethe's method of acquiring understanding of natural phenomena through reading the phenomena themselves may be carried beyond his own field of observation. there are, however, certain theoretical obstacles, erected by the onlooker-consciousness, which require to be removed before we can actually set foot on the new path. the present chapter will in particular serve this purpose. * science, since galileo, has been rooted in the conviction that the logic of mathematics is a means of expressing the behaviour of natural events. the material for the mathematical treatment of sense data is obtained through measurement. the actual thing, therefore, in which the scientific observer is interested in each case, is the position of some kind of pointer. in fact, physical science is essentially, as professor eddington put it, a 'pointer-reading science'. looking at this fact in our way we can say that all pointer instruments which man has constructed ever since the beginning of science, have as their model man himself, restricted to colourless, non-stereoscopic observation. for all that is left to him in this condition is to focus points in space and register changes of their positions. indeed, the perfect scientific observer is himself the arch-pointer-instrument. the birth of the method of pointer-reading is marked by galileo's construction of the first thermometer (actually, a thermoscope). the conviction of the applicability of mathematical concepts to the description of natural events is grounded in his discovery of the so-called parallelogram of forces. it is with these two innovations that we shall concern ourselves in this chapter. let it be said at once that our investigations will lead to the unveiling of certain illusions which the spectator-consciousness has woven round these two gifts of galileo. this does not mean that their significance as fundamentals of science will be questioned. nor will the practical uses to which they have been put with so much success be criticized in any way. but there are certain deceptive ideas which became connected with them, and the result is that to-day, when man is in need of finding new epistemological ground under his feet, he is entangled in a network of conceptual illusions which prevent him from using his reason with the required freedom. a special word is necessary at this point regarding the term illusion, as it is used here and elsewhere. in respect of this, it will be well to remember what was pointed out earlier in connexion with the term 'tragedy' (chapter ii). in speaking of 'illusion', we neither intend to cast any blame on some person or another who took part in weaving the illusion, nor to suggest that the emergence of it should be thought of as an avoidable calamity. rather should illusion be thought of as something which man has been allowed to weave because only by his own active overcoming of it can he fulfil his destiny as the bearer of truth in freedom. illusion, in the sense used here, belongs to those things in man's existence which are truly to be called tragic. it loses this quality, and assumes a quite different one, only when man, once the time has come for overcoming an illusion, insists on clinging to it. as our further studies will show, the criticism to be applied here does not only leave the validity of measurement and the mathematical treatment of the data thus obtained fully intact, but by giving them their appropriate place in a wider conception of nature it opens the way to an ever more firmly grounded and, at the same time, enhanced application of both. * our primary knowledge of the existence of something we call 'warmth' or 'heat' is due to a particular sense of warmth which modern research has recognized as a clearly definable sense. naturally, seen from the spectator-standpoint, the experiences of this sense appear to be of purely subjective value and therefore useless for obtaining an objective insight into the nature of warmth and its effects in the physical world. in order to learn about these, resort is had to certain instruments which, through the change of the spatial position of a point, allow the onlooker-observer to register changes in the thermal condition of a physical object. an instrument of this kind is the thermometer. in the following way an indubitable proof seems to be given of the correctness of the view concerning the subjectivity of the impressions obtained through the sense of warmth, and of the objectivity of thermometrical measurement. a description of it is frequently given in physical textbooks as an introduction to the chapter on heat. to begin with, the well-known fact is cited that if one plunges one's hands first into two different bowls, one filled with hot water and the other with cold, and then plunges them together into a bowl of tepid water, this will feel cold to the hand coming from the hot water and warm to the hand coming from the cold. next, it is pointed out that two thermometers which are put through the same procedure will register an equal degree of temperature for the tepid water. in this way the student is given a lasting impression of the superiority of the 'objective' recording of the instrument over the 'subjective' character of the experiences mediated by his sense of warmth. let us now test this procedure by carrying out the same experiment with the help of thermometrical instruments in their original form, that is, the form in which galileo first applied them. by doing so we proceed in a truly goethean manner, because we divest the experiment of all accessories which prevent the phenomenon from appearing in its primary form. to turn a modern thermometer into a thermoscope we need only remove the figures from its scale. if we make the experiment with two such thermoscopes we at once become aware of something which usually escapes us, our attention being fixed on the figures recorded by the two instruments. for we now notice that the two instruments, when transferred from the hot and cold water into the tepid water, behave quite differently. in one the column will fall, in the other it will rise. it is important to note that by this treatment of the two instruments we have not changed the way in which they usually indicate temperature. for thermometrical measurement is in actual fact never anything else than a recording of the movement of the indicator from one level to another. we choose merely to take a certain temperature level - that of melting ice or something else - as a fixed point of reference and mark it once for all on the instrument. because we find this mark clearly distinguished on our thermometers, and the scales numbered accordingly, we fail to notice what lies ideally behind this use of the same zero for every new operation we undertake. what the zero signifies becomes clear directly we start to work with thermometers not marked with scales. for in order to be used in this form as real thermometers, they must be exposed on each occasion first of all to some zero level of temperature, say, that of melting ice. if we then take them into the region of temperature we want to measure, we shall discern the difference of levels through the corresponding movement of the column. the final position of the column tells us nothing in itself. it is always the change from one level to another that the thermometer registers - precisely as does the sense of warmth in our hands in the experiment just described. hence we see that in the ordinary operation with the thermometers, and when we use our hands in the prescribed manner, we are dealing with the zero level in two quite different ways. while in the/two instruments the zero level is the same, in accordance with the whole idea of thermometric measurement, we make a special arrangement so as to expose our hands to two different levels. so we need not be surprised if these two ways yield different results. if, after placing two thermometers without scales in hot and cold water, we were to assign to each its own zero in accordance with the respective height of its column, and then graduate them from this reference point, they would necessarily record different levels when exposed to the tepid water, in just the same way as the hands do. our two hands, moreover, will receive the same sense-impression from the tepid water, if we keep them in it long enough. seen in this light, the original experiment, designed to show the subjective character of the impressions gained through the sense of warmth, reveals itself as a piece of self-deception by the onlooker-consciousness. the truth of the matter is that, in so far as there is any subjective element in the experience and measurement of heat, it does not lie on the side of our sense of warmth, but in our judgment of the significance of thermometrical readings. in fact, our test of the alleged proof of the absolute superiority of pointer-readings over the impressions gained by our senses gives us proof of the correctness of goethe's statement, quoted earlier, that the senses do not deceive, but the judgment deceives. let it be repeated here that what we have found in this way does not lead to any depreciation of the method of pointer-reading. for the direct findings of the senses cannot be compared quantitatively. the point is that the idea of the absolute superiority of physical measurement as a means of scientific knowledge, in all circumstances, must be abandoned as false. * we now turn to galileo's discovery known as the theorem of the parallelogram of forces. the illusion which has been woven round this theorem expresses itself in the way it is described as being connected ideally with another theorem, outwardly similar in character, known as the theorem of the parallelogram of movements (or velocities), by stating that the former follows logically from the latter. this statement is to be found in every textbook on physics at the outset of the chapter on dynamics (kinetics), where it serves to establish the right to treat the dynamic occurrences in nature in a purely kinematic fashion, true to the requirements of the onlooker-consciousness. the following description will show that, directly we free ourselves from the onlooker-limitations of our consciousness in the way shown by goethe - and, in respect of the present problem, in particular also by reid - the ideal relationship between the two theorems is seen to be precisely the opposite to the one expressed in the above statement. the reason why we take pains to show this at the present point of our discussion is that only through replacing the fallacious conception by the correct one, do we open the way for forming a concrete concept of force and thereby for establishing a truly dynamic conception of nature. * let us begin by describing briefly the content of the two theorems in question. in fig. , a diagrammatical representation is given of the parallelogram of movements. it sets out to show that when a point moves with a certain velocity in the direction indicated by the arrow a, so that in a certain time it passes from p to a, and when it simultaneously moves with a second velocity in the direction indicated by b, through which alone it would pass to b in the same time, its actual movement is indicated by c, the diagonal in the parallelogram formed by a and b. an example of the way in which this theorem is practically applied is the well-known case of a rower who sets out from p in order to cross at right angles a river indicated by the parallel lines. he has to overcome the velocity a of the water of the river flowing to the right by steering obliquely left towards b in order to arrive finally at c. it is essential to observe that the content of this theorem does not need the confirmation of any outer experience for its discovery, or to establish its truth. even though the recognition of the fact which it expresses may have first come to men through practical observation, yet the content of this theorem can be discovered and proved by purely logical means. in this respect it resembles any purely geometrical statement such as, that the sum of the angles of a triangle is two right angles ( °). even though this too may have first been learnt through outer observation, yet it remains true that for the discovery of the fact expressed by it - valid for all plane triangles - no outer experience is needed. in both cases we find ourselves in the domain of pure geometric conceptions (length and direction of straight lines, movement of a point along these), whose reciprocal relationships are ordered by the laws of pure geometric logic. so in the theorem of the parallelogram of velocities we have a strictly geometrical theorem, whose content is in the narrowest sense kinematic. in fact, it is the basic theorem of kinematics. we now turn to the second theorem which speaks of an outwardly similar relationship between forces. as is well nown, this states that two forces of different magnitude and direction, when they apply at the same point, act together in the manner of a single force whose magnitude and direction may be represented by the diagonal of a parallelogram whose sides express in extent and direction the first two forces. thus in fig. , r exercises upon p the same effect as f and f together. expressed in another way, a force of this magnitude working in the reverse direction (r') will establish an equilibrium with the other two forces. in technical practice, as is well known, this theorem is used for countless calculations, in both statics and dynamics, and indeed more frequently not in the form given here but in the converse manner, when a single known force is resolved into two component forces. (distribution of a pressure along frameworks, of air pressure along moving surfaces, etc.) it will now be our task to examine the logical link which is believed to connect one theorem with the other. this link is found in the well-known definition of physical force as a product of 'mass' and 'acceleration' - in algebraic symbols f=ma. we will discuss the implications of this definition in more detail later on. let us first see how it is used as a foundation for the above assertion. the conception of 'force' as the product of 'mass' and 'acceleration' is based on the fact - easily experienced by anyone who cycles along a level road - that it is not velocity itself which requires the exertion of force, but the change of velocity - that is, acceleration or retardation ('negative acceleration' in the sense of mathematical physics); also that in the case of equal accelerations, the force depends upon the mass of the accelerated object. the more massive the object, the greater will be the force necessary for accelerating it. this mass, in turn, reveals itself in the resistance a particular object offers to any change of its state of motion. where different accelerations and the same mass are considered, the factor m in the above formula remains constant, and force and acceleration are directly proportional to each other. thus in the acceleration is discovered a measure for the magnitude of the force which thereby acts. now it is logically evident that the theorem of the parallelogram of velocities is equally valid for movements with constant or variable velocities. even though it is somewhat more difficult to perceive mentally the movement of a point in two different directions with two differently accelerated motions, and to form an inner conception of the resulting movement, we are nevertheless still within a domain which may be fully embraced by thought. thus accelerated movements and movements under constant velocity can be resolved and combined according to the law of the parallelogram of movements, a law which is fully attainable by means of logical thought. with the help of the definition of force as the product of mass and acceleration it seems possible, indeed, to derive the parallelogram of forces from that of accelerations in a purely logical manner. for it is necessary only to extend all sides of an a parallelogram by means of the same factor m in order to turn it into an f parallelogram. a single geometrical figure on paper can represent both cases, since only the scale needs to be altered in order that the same geometrical length should represent at one time the magnitude a and on another occasion ma. it is in this way that present-day scientific thought keeps itself convinced that the parallelogram of forces follows with logical evidence from the parallelogram of accelerations, and that the discovery of the former is therefore due to a purely mental process. since the parallelogram of forces is the prototype of each further mathematical representation of physical force-relationships in nature, the conceptual link thus forged between it and the basic theorem of kinematics has led to the conviction that the fact that natural events can be expressed in terms of mathematics could be, and actually has been, discovered through pure logical reasoning, and thus by the brain-bound, day-waking consciousness 'of the world-spectator. justification thereby seemed to be given for the building of a valid scientific world-picture, purely kinematic in character. * the line of consideration we shall now have to enter upon for carrying out our own examination of what is believed to be the link between the two theorems may seem to the scientifically trained reader to be of an all too elementary kind compared with the complexities of thought in which he is used to engage in order to settle a scientific problem. it is therefore necessary to state here that anyone who wishes to help to overcome the tangle of modern theoretical science must not be shy in applying thoughts and observations of seemingly so simple a nature as those used both here and on other occasions. some readiness, in fact, is required to play where necessary the part of the child in hans andersen's fairy-story of the emperor's new clothes, where all the people are loud in praise of the magnificent robes of the emperor, who is actually passing through the streets with no clothes on at all, and a single child's voice exclaims the truth that 'the emperor has nothing on'. there will repeatedly be occasion to adopt the role of this child in the course of our own studies. * in the scientific definition of force given above force appears as the result of a multiplication of two other magnitudes. now as is well known, it is essential for the operation of multiplication that of the two factors forming the product at least one should exhibit the properties of a pure number. for two pure numbers may be multiplied together - e.g. and - and a number of concrete things can be multiplied by a pure number - e. g. apples and the number - but no sense can be attached to the multiplication of apples by apples, let alone by pears! the result of multiplication is therefore always either itself a pure number, when both factors have this property; or when one of the two factors is of the nature of a concrete object, the result is of the same quality as the latter. an apple will always remain an apple after multiplication, and what distinguishes the final product (apples) from the original factor (apples) is only a pure number. if we take seriously what this simple consideration tells us of the nature of multiplication, and if we do not allow ourselves to deviate from it for whatever purpose we make use of this algebraic operation, then the various concepts we connect with the basic measurements in physics undergo a considerable change of meaning. let us test, in this respect, the well-known formula which, in the conceptual language of physics, connects 'distance' (s), 'time' (t), and 'velocity' (c). it is written c = s / t, or s = ct. in this formula, s has most definitely the meaning of a 'thing', for it represents measured spatial distance. of the two factors on the other side of the second equation, one must needs have the same quality as s: this is c. thus for the other factor, t, there remains the property of a pure number. we are, therefore, under an illusion if we assume the factor c to represent anything of what velocity implies in outer cosmic reality. the truth is that c represents a spatial distance just as s does, with the difference only that it is a certain unit-distance. just as little does real time enter into this formula - nor does it into any other formula of mathematical physics. 'time', in physics, is always a pure number without any cosmic quality. indeed, how could it be otherwise for a purely kinematic world-observation? we now submit the formula f=ma to the same scrutiny. if we attach to the factor a on the right side of the equation a definite quality, namely an observable acceleration, the other factor in the product is permitted to have only the properties of a pure number; f, therefore, can be only of the same nature as a and must itself be an acceleration. were it otherwise, then the equation f=ma could certainly not serve as a logical link between the velocity and force parallelograms. our present investigation has done no more than grant us an insight into the process of thought whereby the consciousness limited to a purely kinematic experience has deprived the concept of force of any real content. let us look at the equation f=ma as a means of splitting of the magnitude f into two components m and a. the equation then tells us that f is reduced to the nature of pure acceleration, for that which resides in the force as a factor not observable by kinematic vision has been split away from it as the factor m. for this factor, however, as we have seen, nothing remains over but the property of a pure number. let us note here that the first thinker to concern himself with a comprehensive world-picture in which the non-existence of a real concept of force is taken in earnest-namely, albert einstein - was also the first to consider mass as a form of energy and even to predict correctly, as was proved later, the amount of energy represented by the unit of mass, thereby encouraging decisively the new branch of experimental research which has led to the freeing of the so-called atomic energy. is it then possible that pure numbers can effect what took place above and within nagasaki, hiroshima, etc.? here we are standing once again before one of the paradoxes of modern science which we have found to play so considerable a part in its development. to find an interpretation of the formula f=ma, which is free from illusion, we must turn our attention first of all to the concepts 'force' and 'mass' themselves. the fact that men have these two words in their languages shows that the concepts expressed by them must be based on some experience that has been man's long before he was capable of any scientific reflexion. let us ask what kind of experience this is and by what part of his being he gathers it. the answer is, as simple self-observation will show, that we know of the existence of force through the fact that we ourselves must exert it in order to move our own body. thus it is the resistance of our body against any alteration of its state of motion, as a result of its being composed of inert matter, which gives us the experience of force both as a possession of our own and as a property of the outer world. all other references to force, in places where it cannot be immediately experienced, arise by way of analogy based on the similarity of the content of our observation to that which springs from the exertion of force in our own bodies. as we see, in this experience of force that of mass is at once implied. still, we can strengthen the latter by experimenting with some outer physical object. take a fairly heavy object in your hand, stretch out your arm lightly and move it slowly up and down, watching intently the sensation this operation rouses in you. evidently the experience of mass outside ourselves, as with that of our own body, comes to us through the experience of the force which we ourselves must exert in order to overcome some resisting force occasioned by the mass. already this simple observation - as such made by means of the sense of movement and therefore outside the frontiers of the onlooker-consciousness - tells us that mass is nothing but a particular manifestation of force. seen in the light of this experience, the equation f=ma requires to be interpreted in a manner quite different from that to which scientific logic has submitted it. for if we have to ascribe to f and m the same quality, then the rule of multiplication allows us to ascribe to a nothing but the character of a pure number. this implies that there is no such thing as acceleration as a self-contained entity, merely attached to mass in an external way. what we designate as acceleration, and measure as such, is nothing else than a numerical factor comparing two different conditions of force within the physical-material world. only when we give the three factors in our equation this meaning, does it express some concrete outer reality. at the same time it forbids the use of this equation for a logical derivation of the parallelogram of forces from that of pure velocities. * the same method which has enabled us to restore its true meaning to the formula connecting mass and force will serve to find the true source of man's knowledge of the parallelogram of forces. accordingly, our procedure will be as follows. we shall engage two other persons, together with whom we shall try to discover by means of our respective experiences of force the law under which three forces applying at a common point may hold themselves in equilibrium. our first step will consist in grasping each other by the hand and in applying various efforts of our wills to draw one another in different directions, seeing to it that we do this in such a way that the three joined hands remain undisturbed at the same place. by this means we can get as far as to establish that, when two persons maintain a steady direction and strength of pull, the third must alter his applied force with every change in his own direction in order to hold the two others in equilibrium. he will find that in some instances he must increase his pull and in other instances decrease it. this, however, is all that can be learnt in this way. no possibility arises at this stage of our investigation of establishing any exact quantitative comparison. for the forces which we have brought forth (and this is valid for forces in general, no matter of what kind they are) represent pure intensities, outwardly neither visible nor directly measurable. we can certainly tell whether we are intensifying or diminishing the application of our will, but a numerical comparison between different exertions of will is not possible. in order to make such a comparison, a further step is necessary. we must convey our effort to some pointer-instrument - for instance, a spiral spring which will respond to an exerted pressure or pull by a change in its spatial extension. (principle of the spring balance.) in this way, by making use of a certain property of matter - elasticity - the purely intensive magnitudes of the forces which we exert become extensively visible and can be presented geometrically. we shall therefore continue our investigation with the aid of three spring balances, which we hook together at one end while exposing them to the three pulls at the other. to mark the results of our repeated pulls of varying intensities and directions, we draw on the floor on which we stand three chalk lines outward from the point underneath the common point of the three instruments, each in the direction taken up by one of the three persons. along these lines we mark the extensions corresponding to those of the springs of the instruments. by way of this procedure we shall arrive at a sequence of figures such as is shown in fig. . this is all we can discover empirically regarding the mutual relationships of three forces engaging at a point. let us now heed the fact that nothing in this group of figures reveals that in each one of these trios of lines there resides a definite and identical geometrical order; nor do they convey anything that would turn our thoughts to the parallelogram of velocities with the effect of leading us to expect, by way of analogy, a similar order in these figures. and this result, we note, is quite independent of our particular way of procedure, whether we use, right from the start, a measuring instrument, or whether we proceed as described above. * having in this way removed the fallacious idea that the parallelogram of forces can, and therefore ever has been, conceived by way of logical derivation from the parallelogram of velocities, we must then ask ourselves what it was, if not any act of logical reason, that led galileo to discover it. history relates that on making the discovery he exclaimed: 'la natura è scritta in lingua matematica!' ('nature is recorded in the language of mathematics.') these words reveal his surprise when he realized the implication of his discovery. still, intuitively he must have known that using geometrical lengths to symbolize the measured magnitudes of forces would yield some valid result. whence came this intuition, as well as the other which led him to recognize from the figures thus obtained that in a parallelogram made up of any two of the three lines, the remaining line came in as its diagonal? and, quite apart from the particular event of the discovery, how can we account for the very fact that nature - at least on a certain level of her existence - exhibits rules of action expressible in terms of logical principles immanent in the human mind? * to find the answer to these questions we must revert to certain facts connected with man's psycho-physical make-up of which the considerations of chapter ii have already made us aware. let us, therefore, transpose ourselves once more into the condition of the child who is still entirely volition, and thus experiences himself as one with the world. let us consider, from the point of view of this condition, the process of lifting the body into the vertical position and the acquisition of the faculty of maintaining it in this position; and let us ask what the soul, though with no consciousness of itself, experiences in all this. it is the child's will which wrestles in this act with the dynamic structure of external space, and what his will experiences is accompanied by corresponding perceptions through the sense of movement and other related bodily senses. in this way the parallelogram of forces becomes an inner experience of our organism at the beginning of our earthly life. what we thus carry in the body's will-region in the form of experienced geometry - this, together with the freeing and crystallizing of part of our will-substance into our conceptual capacity, is transformed into our faculty of forming geometrical concepts, and among them the concept of the parallelogram of movements. looked at in this way, the true relationship between the two parallelogram-theorems is seen to be the very opposite of the one held with conviction by scientific thinking up to now. instead of the parallelogram of forces following from the parallelogram of movements, and the entire science of dynamics from that of kinematics, our very faculty of thinking in kinematic concepts is the evolutionary product of our previously acquired intuitive experience of the dynamic order of the world. if this is the truth concerning the origin of our knowledge of force and its behaviour on the one hand, and our capacity to conceive mathematical concepts in a purely ideal way on the other, what is it then that causes man to dwell in such illusion as regards the relationship between the two? from our account it follows that no illusion of this kind could arise if we were able to remember throughout life our experiences in early childhood. now we know from our considerations in chapter vi that in former times man had such a memory. in those times, therefore, he was under no illusion as to the reality of force in the world. in the working of outer forces he saw a manifestation of spiritual beings, just as in himself he experienced force as a manifestation of his own spiritual being. we have seen also that this form of memory had to fade away to enable man to find himself as a self-conscious personality between birth and death. as such a personality, galileo was able to think the parallelogram of forces, but he was unable to comprehend the origin of his faculty of mathematical thinking, or of his intuitive knowledge of the mathematical behaviour of nature in that realm of hers where she sets physical forces into action. deep below in galileo's soul there lived, as it does in every human being, the intuitive knowledge, acquired in early childhood, that part of nature's order is recordable in the conceptual language of mathematics. in order that this intuition should rise sufficiently far into his conscious mind to guide him, as it did, in his observations, the veil of oblivion which otherwise separates our waking consciousness from the experiences of earliest childhood must have been momentarily lightened. unaware of all this, galileo was duly surprised when in the onlooker-part of his being the truth of his intuition was confirmed in a way accessible to it, namely through outer experiment. yet with the veil immediately darkening again the onlooker soon became subject to the illusion that for his recognition of mathematics as a means of describing nature he was in need of nothing but what was accessible to him on the near side of the veil. thus it became man's fate in the first phase of science, which fills the period from galileo and his contemporaries up to the present time, that the very faculty which man needed for creating this science prevented him from recognizing its true foundations. restricted as he was to the building of a purely kinematic world-picture, he had to persuade himself that the order of interdependence of the two parallelogram-theorems was the opposite of the one which it really is. * the result of the considerations of this chapter is of twofold significance for our further studies. on the one hand, we have seen that there is a way out of the impasse into which modern scientific theory has got itself as a result of the lack of a justifiable concept of force, and that this way is the one shown by reid and travelled by goethe. 'we must become as little children again, if we will be philosophers', is as true for science as it is for philosophy. on the other hand, our investigation of the event which led galileo to the discovery that nature is recorded in the language of mathematics, has shown us that this discovery would not have been possible unless galileo had in a sense become, albeit unconsciously, a little child again. thus the event that gave science its first foundations is an occurrence in man himself of precisely the same character as the one which we have learnt to regard as necessary for building science's new foundations. the only difference is that we are trying to turn into a deliberate and consciously handled method something which once in the past happened to a man without his noticing it. need we wonder that we are challenged to do so in our day, when mankind is several centuries older than it was in the time of galileo? as to the terms 'kinetic' and 'kinematic', see chapter ii, page , footnote. for the sake of our later studies it is essential that the reader does not content himself with merely following the above description mentally, but that he carries out the experiment himself. chapter ix pro levitate (a) alertness contra inertness in the preceding chapter we gained a new insight into the relationship between mass and force. we have come to see that our concept of force is grounded on empirical observation in no less a degree than is usually assumed for our concept of number, or size, or position, provided we do not confine ourselves to non-stereoscopic, colourless vision for the forming of our scientific world-picture, but allow other senses to contribute to it. as to the concept mass, our discussion of the formula f=ma showed that force and mass, as they occur in it, are of identical nature, both having the quality of force. the factors f and m signify force in a different relationship to space (represented by the factor a). this latter fact now requires some further elucidation. in a science based on the goethean method of contemplating the world of the senses, concepts such as 'mass in rest' and 'mass in motion' lack any scientific meaning (though for another reason than in the theory of relativity). for in a science of this kind the universe - in the sense propounded lately by professor whitehead and others - appears as one integrated whole, whose parts must never be considered as independent entities unrelated to the whole. seen thus, there is no mass in the universe of which one could say with truth that it is ever in a state of rest. nor is there any condition of movement which could be rightly characterized by the attributes 'uniform' and 'straight line' in the sense of newton's first law. this does not mean that such conditions never occur in our field of observation. but as such they have significance only in relation to our immediate surroundings as a system of reference. even within such limits these conditions are not of a kind that would allow us to consider them as the basis of a scientific world-picture. for as such they occur naturally only as ultimate, never as primeval conditions. all masses are originally in a state of curvilinear movement whose rates change continuously. to picture a mass as being in a state of rest, or of uniform motion in a straight line, as the result of no force acting on it, and to picture it undergoing a change in the rate and direction of its motion as the result of some outer force working on it, is a sheer abstraction. in so far as mass appears in our field of observation as being in relative rest or motion of the kind described, this is always the effect of some secondary dynamic cause. if we wish to think with the course of the universe and not against it, we must not start our considerations with the state of (relative) rest or uniform motion in a straight line and derive our definition of force from the assumption that there is a primary 'force-free' state which is altered under the action of some force, but we must arrange our definitions in such a way that they end up with this state. thus newton's first law, for instance, would have to be restated somewhat as follows: no physical body is ever in a state of rest or uniform motion in a straight line, unless its natural condition is interfered with by the particular action of some force. seen dynamically, and from the aspect of the universe as an interrelated whole, all aggregations of mass are the manifestation of certain dynamic conditions within the universe, and what appears to us as a change of the state of motion of such a mass is nothing but a change in the dynamic relationship between this particular aggregation and the rest of the world. let us now see what causes of such a change occur within the field of our observation. * in modern textbooks the nature of the cause of physical movement is usually defined as follows: 'any change in the state of movement of a portion of matter is the result of the action on it of another portion of matter.' this represents a truth if it is taken to describe a certain kind of causation. in the axiomatic form in which it is given it is a fallacy. the kind of causation it describes is, indeed, the only one which has been taken into consideration by the scientific mind of man. we are wont to call it 'mechanical' causation. obviously, man's onlooker-consciousness is unable to conceive of any other kind of causation. for this consciousness is by its very nature confined to the contemplation of spatially apparent entities which for this reason can be considered only as existing spatially side by side. for the one-eyed, colour-blind spectator, therefore, any change in the state of movement of a spatially confined entity could be attributed only to the action of another such entity outside itself. such a world-outlook was bound to be a mechanistic one. we cannot rest content with this state of affairs if we are sincerely searching for an understanding of how spirit moves, forms, and transforms matter. we must learn to admit non-mechanical causes of physical effects, where such causes actually present themselves to our observation. in this respect our own body is again a particularly instructive object of study. for here mechanical and non-mechanical causation can be seen working side by side in closest conjunction. let us therefore ask what happens when we move, say, one of our limbs or a part of it. the movement of any part of our body is always effected in some way by the movement of the corresponding part of the skeleton. this in turn is set in motion by certain lengthenings and contractions of the appropriate part of the muscular system. now the way in which the muscles cause the bones to move falls clearly under the category of mechanical causation. certain portions of matter are caused to move by the movement of adjacent portions of matter. the picture changes when we look for the cause to which the muscles owe their movements. for the motion of the muscles is not the effect of any cause external to them, but is effected by the purely spiritual energy of our volition working directly into the physical substance of the muscles. what scientific measuring instruments have been able to register in the form of physical, chemical, electrical, etc., changes of the muscular substance is itself an effect of this interaction. to mark the fact that this type of causation is clearly distinguished from the type called mechanical, it will be well to give it a name of its own. if we look for a suitable term, the word 'magical' suggests itself. the fact that this word has gathered all sorts of doubtful associations must not hinder us from adopting it into the terminology of a science which aspires to understand the working of the supersensible in the world of the senses. the falling into disrepute of this word is characteristic of the onlooker-age. the way in which we suggest it should be used is in accord with its true and original meaning, the syllable 'mag' signifying power or might (sanskrit maha, greek megas, latin magnus, english might, much, also master). henceforth we shall distinguish between 'mechanical' and 'magical' causation, the latter being a characteristic of the majority of happenings in the human, animal and plant organisms. * our next step in building up a truly dynamic picture of matter must be to try to obtain a direct experience of the condition of matter when it is under the sway of magical causation. let us first remember what is the outstanding attribute with which matter responds to mechanical causation. this is known to be inertia. by this term we designate the tendency of physical matter to resist any outwardly impressed change of its existing state of movement. this property is closely linked up with another one, weight. the coincidence of the two has of late become a puzzle to science, and it was albert einstein who tried to solve it by establishing his general theory of relativity. the need to seek such solutions falls away in a science which extends scientific understanding to conditions of matter in which weight and inertia are no longer dominant characteristics. what becomes of inertia when matter is subject to magical causation can be brought to our immediate experience in the following way. (the reader, even if he is already familiar with this experiment, is again asked to carry it out for himself.) take a position close to a smooth wall, so that one arm and hand, which are left hanging down alongside the body, are pressed over their entire length between body and wall. try now to move the arm upward, pressing it against the wall as if you wanted to shift the latter. apply all possible effort to this attempt, and maintain the effort for about one minute. then step away quickly from the wall by more than the length of the arm, while keeping the arm hanging down by the side of the body in a state of complete relaxation. provided all conditions are properly fulfilled, the arm will be found rising by itself in accordance with the aim of the earlier effort, until it reaches the horizontal. if the arm is then lowered again and left to itself, it will at once rise again, though not quite so high as before. this can be repeated several times until the last vestige of the automatic movement has faded away. having thus ascertained by direct experience that there is a state of matter in which inertia is, to say the least, greatly diminished, we find ourselves in need of giving this state (which is present throughout nature wherever material changes are brought into existence magically) a name of its own, as we did with the two types of causation. a word suggests itself which, apart from expressing adequately the peculiar self-mobility which we have just brought to our experience, goes well alongside the word 'inert' by forming a kind of rhyme with it. this is the term 'alert'. with its help we shall henceforth distinguish between matter in the inert and alert conditions. we shall call the latter state 'alertness', and in order to have on the other side a word as similar as possible in outer form to alertness, we suggest replacing the usual term inertia by 'inertness'. thus we shall speak of matter as showing the attribute of 'inertness', when it is subject to mechanical causation, of 'alertness', when it is subject to magical causation. anyone who watches attentively the sensation produced by the rising arm in the above experiment will be duly impressed by the experience of the alertness prevailing in the arm as a result of the will's magical intervention. * in our endeavour to find a modern way of overcoming the conception of matter developed and held by science in the age of the onlooker-consciousness, we shall be helped by noticing how this conception first arose historically. of momentous significance in this respect is the discovery of the gaseous state of matter by the flemish physician and experimenter, joh. baptist van helmont ( - ). the fact that the existence of this state of ponderable matter was quite unknown up to such a relatively recent date has been completely forgotten to-day. moreover, it is so remote from current notions that anyone who now calls attention to van helmont's discovery is quite likely to be met with incredulity. as a result, there is no account of the event that puts it in its true setting. in what follows pains are taken to present the facts in the form in which one comes to know them through van helmont's own account, given in his ortus medicinae. for reasons which need not be described here, van helmont studied with particular interest the various modifications in which carbon is capable of occurring in nature - among them carbon's combustion product, carbon dioxide. it was his observations of carbon dioxide which made him aware of a condition of matter whose properties caused him the greatest surprise. for he found it to be, at the same time, 'much finer than vapour and much denser than air'. it appeared to him as a complete 'paradox', because it seemed to unite in itself two contradictory qualities, one appertaining to the realm of 'uncreated things', the other to the realm of 'created things'. unable to rank it with either 'vapour' or 'air' (we shall see presently what these terms meant in van helmont's terminology), he found himself in need of a special word to distinguish this new state from the other known states, both below and above it. since he could not expect any existing language to possess a suitable word, he felt he must create one. he therefore took, and changed slightly, a word signifying a particular cosmic condition which seemed to be imaged in the new condition he had just discovered. the word was chaos. by shortening it a little, he derived from it the new word gas. his own words explaining his choice are: 'halitum ilium gas vocavi non longe a chaos veterum secretum.' ('i have called this mist gas, owing to its resemblance to the chaos of the ancients.') van helmont's account brings us face to face with a number of riddles. certainly, there is nothing strange to us in his describing carbon dioxide gas as being 'finer than vapour and denser than air'; but why did he call this a 'paradox'? what prevented him from ranking it side by side with air? as to air itself, why should he describe it as belonging to the realm of the 'uncreated things'? what reason was there for giving 'vapour' the rank of a particular condition of matter? and last but not least, what was the ancient conception of chaos which led van helmont to choose this name as an archetype for the new word he needed? to appreciate van helmont's astonishment and his further procedure, we must first call to mind the meaning which, in accordance with the prevailing tradition, he attached to the term air. for van helmont, air was one of the four 'elements', earth, water, air, and fire. of these, the first two were held to constitute the realm of the 'created things', the other two that of the 'uncreated things'. a brief study of the old doctrine of the four elements is necessary at this point in order to understand the meaning of these concepts. * the first systematic teaching about the four elementary constituents of nature, as they were experienced by man of old, was given by empedocles in the fifth century b.c. it was elaborated by aristotle. in this form it was handed down and served to guide natural observation through more than a thousand years up to the time of van helmont. from our earlier descriptions of the changes in man's consciousness it is clear that the four terms, 'earth', 'water', 'air', 'fire', must have meant something different in former times. so 'water' did not signify merely the physical substance which modern chemistry defines by the formula h o; nor was 'air' the mixture of gases characteristic of the earth's atmosphere. man in those days, on account of his particular relationship with nature, was impressed in the first place by the various dynamic conditions, four in number, which he found prevailing both in his natural surroundings and in his own organism. with his elementary concepts he tried to express, therefore, the four basic conditions which he thus experienced. he saw physical substances as being carried up and down between these conditions. at first sight some relationship seems to exist between the concept 'element' in this older sense and the modern view of the different states of material aggregation, solid, liquid, aeriform. there is, however, nothing in this modern view that would correspond to the element fire. for heat in the sense of physical science is an immaterial energy which creates certain conditions in the three material states, but from these three to heat there is no transition corresponding to the transitions between themselves. heat, therefore, does not rank as a fourth condition by the side of the solid, liquid and aeriform states, in the way that fire ranks in the older conception by the side of earth, water and air. if we were to use the old terms for designating the three states of aggregation plus heat, as we know them to-day, we should say that there is a border-line dividing fire from the three lower elements. such a border-line existed in the older conception of the elements as well. only its position was seen to be elsewhere - between earth and water on the one hand, air and fire on the other. this was expressed by saying that the elements below this line constituted the realm of the 'created things', those above it that of the 'uncreated things'. another way of expressing this was by characterizing earth and water with the quality cold; air and fire with the quality warm. the two pairs of elements were thus seen as polar opposites of one another. the terms 'cold' and 'warm' must also be understood to have expressed certain qualitative experiences in which there was no distinction as yet between what is purely physical and what is purely spiritual. expressions such as 'a cold heart', 'a warm heart', to 'show someone the cold shoulder', etc., still witness to this way of experiencing the two polar qualities, cold and warm. quite generally we can say that, wherever man experienced some process of contraction, whether physical or non-physical, he designated it by the term 'cold', and where he experienced expansion, he called it 'warm'. in this sense he felt contractedness to be the predominant characteristic of earth and water, expansiveness that of air and fire. with the help of these qualitative concepts we are now in a position to determine more clearly still the difference between the older and the modern conceptions: in particular the difference between the aeriform condition of matter, as we conceive of it to-day, and the element air. contractedness manifests as material density, or the specific weight of a particular substance. we know that this characteristic of matter diminishes gradually with its transition from the solid to the liquid and aeriform states. we know also that this last state is characterized by a high degree of expansiveness, which is also the outstanding property of heat. thus there is reason to describe also from the modern point of view the solid and liquid states as essentially 'cold', and the aeriform state as 'warm'. but aeriform matter still has density and weight, and this means that matter in this state combines the two opposing qualities. contrary to this, air, as the second highest element in the old sense, is characterized by the pure quality, warm. thus, when man of old spoke of 'air', he had in mind something entirely free from material density and weight. by comparing in this way the older and newer conceptions of 'air', we come to realize that ancient man must have had a conception of gravity essentially different from ours. if we take gravity in the modern scientist's sense, as a 'descriptive law of behaviour', then this behaviour is designated in the older doctrine by the quality 'cold'. if, however, we look within the system of modern science for a law of behaviour that would correspond to the quality 'warm', we do so in vain. polarity concepts are certainly not foreign to the scientific mind, as the physics of electricity and magnetism show. yet there is no opposite pole to gravity, as there is negative opposite to positive electricity, etc. in the older conception, however, the gravitational behaviour 'cold' was seen to be counteracted by an autonomous anti-gravitational behaviour 'warm'. experience still supported the conviction that as a polar opposite to the world subject to gravity, there was another world subject to levity. we refrain at this point from discussing how far a science which aspires to a spiritual understanding of nature, including material processes, needs a revival - in modern form - of the old conception of levity. in our present context it suffices to realize that we understand man's earlier view of nature, and with it the one still held by van helmont, only by admitting levity equally with gravity into his world-picture. for the four elements, in particular, this meant that the two upper ones were regarded as representing levity, the two lower ones gravity. in close connexion with this polar conception of the two pairs of elements, there stands their differentiation into one realm of created, another of uncreated, things. to understand what these terms imply, we must turn to the ancient concept, chaos, borrowed by van helmont. to-day we take the word chaos to mean a condition of mere absence of order, mostly resulting from a destruction of existing forms, whether by nature or by the action of man. in its original sense the word meant the exact opposite. when in ancient times people spoke of chaos, they meant the womb of all being, the exalted realm of uncreated things, where indeed forms such as are evident to the eye in the created world are not to be found, but in place of them are the archetypes of all visible forms, as though nurtured in a spiritual seed-condition. it is the state which in the biblical narration of the creation of the world is described as 'without form and void'. from this chaos all the four elements are born, one by one, with the two upper ones retaining chaos's essential characteristic in that they are 'without form' and tend to be omnipresent, whilst the two lower ones constitute a realm in which things appear in more or less clearly outlined space-bound forms. this is what the terms 'uncreated' and 'created' imply. how strictly these two realms were distinguished can be seen by the occurrence of the concept 'vapour'. when with the increasing interest in the realm of created things - characteristic of the spectator-consciousness which, in view of our earlier description of it, we recognize as being itself a 'created thing' - the need arose for progressive differentiation within this realm, the simple division of it into 'earth' and 'water' was no longer felt to be satisfactory. after all, above the liquid state of matter there was another state, less dense than water and yet presenting itself through more or less clearly distinguishable space-bound objects, such as the mists arising from and spreading over ponds and meadows, and the clouds hovering in the sky. for this state of matter the term 'vapour' had become customary, and it was used by van helmont in this sense. by its very properties, vapour belonged to the realm of the created things, whereas air did not. it was the intermediary position of the newly discovered state of matter between vapour and air, that is, between the created and the uncreated world, which caused van helmont to call it a paradox; and it was its strange resemblance, despite its ponderable nature, to chaos, which prompted him to name it - gas. * since it could not have been the gaseous state of matter in the form discovered by van helmont, what particular condition of nature was it to which the ancients pointed when using the term air? let us see how the scriptures of past human cultures speak of air. in all older languages, the words used to designate the element bound up with breathing, or the act of breathing, served at the same time to express the relationship of man to the divine, or even the divine itself. one need think only of the words brahma and atma of the ancient indians, the pneuma of the greeks, the spiritus of the romans. the hebrews expressed the same idea when they said that jehovah had breathed the breath of life into man and that man in this way became a living soul. what lies behind all these words is the feeling familiar to man in those times, that breathing was not only a means of keeping the body alive, but that a spiritual essence streamed in with the breath. so long as this condition prevailed, people could expect that by changing their manner of breathing they had a means of bringing the soul into stronger relationship with spiritual powers, as is attempted in eastern yoga. remembering the picture of man's spiritual-physical evolution which we have gained from earlier chapters, we are not astonished to find how different this early experience of the breathing process was from our own. yet, together with the recognition of this difference there arises another question. even if we admit that man of old was so organized that the experience of his own breathing process was an overwhelmingly spiritual one, it was, after all, the gaseous substance of the earth's atmosphere which he inhaled, and exhaled again in a transformed condition. what then was it that prevented men - apparently right up to the time of van helmont - from gaining the slightest inkling of the materiality of this substance? to find an answer to this question, let us resort once more to our method of observing things genetically, combined with the principle of not considering parts without considering the whole to which they organically belong. in modern science the earth is regarded as a mineral body whereon the manifold forms of nature appear as mere additions, arising more or less by chance; one can very well imagine them absent without this having any essential influence on the earth's status in the universe. the truth is quite different. for the earth, with everything that exists on it, forms a single whole, just as each separate organism is in its own way a whole. this shows that we have no right to imagine the earth without men, and to suppose that its cosmic conditions of being would then remain unaltered - any more than we can imagine a human being deprived of some essential-organ and remaining human. mankind, and all the other kingdoms of nature, are bound up organically with the earth from the start of its existence. moreover, just as the highest plants, seen with goethe's eyes, are the spiritual originators of the whole realm of plants - the creative idea determining their evolution - so we see man, the highest product of earth evolution, standing behind this evolution as its idea from the first, and determining its course. the evolutionary changes which we observe in the earth and in man are in fact a single process, working through a variety of manifested forms. from this conception of the parallel evolution of earth and man light falls also on the historic event represented by van helmont's discovery. besides being a symptom of a revolution in man's way of experiencing the atmosphere, it speaks to us of some corresponding change in the spiritual-physical condition of the atmosphere itself. it was then that men not only came to think differently about air, but inhaled and exhaled an air that actually was different. to find out what kind of change this was, let us turn once more to man's own organism and see what it has to say concerning the condition under which matter is capable of being influenced by mechanical and magical causation respectively, in the sense already described. what is it in the nature of the bones that makes them accessible to mechanical causation only, and what is it in the muscles that allows our will to rouse them magically? bones and muscles stand in a definite genetic relationship to each other, the bones being, in relation to the muscles, a late product of organic development. this holds good equally for everything which in the body of living nature takes the form of mineralized deposits or coverings. every kind of organism consists in its early stages entirely of living substance; in the course of time a part of the organism separates off" and passes over into a more or less mineralized condition. seen in this light, the distinction between bones and muscles is that the bones have evolved out of a condition in which the muscles persist, though to a gradually waning degree, throughout the life-time of the body. the substance of the muscles, remaining more or less 'young', stands at the opposite pole from the 'aged' substance of the bones. hence it depends on the 'age' of a piece of matter whether it responds to magical or mechanical causation. let us state here at once, that this temporal distinction has an essential bearing on our understanding of evolutionary processes in general. for if mineral matter is a late product of evolution - and nothing in nature indicates the contrary - then to explain the origins of the world (as scientific theories have always done) with the aid of events similar in character to those which now occur in the mineral realm, means explaining them against nature's own evidence. to find pictures of past conditions of the earth in present-day nature, we must look in the regions where matter, because it is still 'youthful', is played through by the magical working of purposefully active spiritual forces. thus, instead of seeing in them the chance results of blind volcanic and similar forces, we must recognize in the formation and layout of land and sea an outcome of events more closely resembling those which occur during the embryonic development of a living organism. what, then, does van helmont's discovery of the gaseous state of matter tell us, if we regard it in the light of our newly acquired insight into the trend of evolution both within and without man? when, in the course of its growing older, mankind had reached the stage which is expressed by the emergence of the spectator-consciousness-consciousness, that is, based on a nervous system which has grown more or less independent of the life forces of the organism - the outer elements had, in their way, arrived at such a state that man began to inhale an air whose spiritual-physical constitution corresponded exactly to that of his nervous system: on either side, spirit and matter, in accordance with the necessities of cosmic evolution had lost their primeval union. * our extension of the concept of evolution to the very elements of nature, whether these are of material or non-material kind, and our recognition of this evolution as leading in general from a more alert to a more inert condition, at once open the possibility of including in our scientific world-picture certain facts which have hitherto resisted any inclusion. we mean those manifold events of 'miraculous' nature, of which the scriptures and the oral traditions of old are full. what is modern man to make of them? the doubts which have arisen concerning events of this kind have their roots on the one hand in the apparent absence of such occurrences in our day, on the other in the fact that the laws of nature derived by science from the present condition of the world seem to rule them out. in the light of the concept of the world's 'ageing' which we have tried to develop here, not only do the relevant reports become plausible, but it also becomes understandable why, if such events have taken place in the past, they fail to do so in our own time. to illustrate this, let us take a few instances which are symptomatic of the higher degree of youthfulness which was characteristic in former times in particular of the element of fire. the role which fire was capable of playing in man's life at a time when even this element, in itself the most youthful of all, was more susceptible to magic interference than of late, is shown by the manifold fire-rites of old. in those days, when no easy means of fire-lighting were available, it was usual for the needs of daily life to keen a fire burning all the time and to kindle other fires from it. only in cases of necessity was a new fire lit, and then the only way was by the tedious rubbing together of two pieces of dry wood. then both the maintenance of fires, and the deliberate kindling of a new fire, played quite a special role in the ceremonial ordering of human society. historically, much the best known is the roman usage in the temple of vesta. on the one hand, the unintentional extinction of the fire was regarded as a national calamity and as the gravest possible transgression on the part of the consecrated priestess charged with maintaining the fire. on the other hand, it was thought essential for this 'everlasting' fire to be newly kindled once a year. this took place with a special ritual at the beginning of the roman year ( st march). the conception behind such a ritual of fire-kindling will become clear if we compare with it certain other fire-rites which were practised in the northern parts of europe, especially in the british isles, until far on in the christian era. for example, if sickness broke out among the cattle, a widespread practice was to extinguish all the hearth-fires in the district and then to kindle with certain rites a new fire, from which all the local people lit their own fires once more. heavy penalties were prescribed for anyone who failed to extinguish his own fire - a failure usually indicated by the non-manifestation of the expected healing influence. in anglo-saxon speaking countries, fires of this kind were known as 'needfires'. the spiritual significance of these fires cannot be expressed better than by the meaning of the very term 'needfire'. this word does not derive, as was formerly believed, from the word 'need', meaning a 'fire kindled in a state of need', but, as recent etymological research has shown, from a root which appears in the german word nieten - to clinch or rivet. 'needfire' therefore means nothing less than a fire which was kindled for 'clinching' anew the bond between earthly life and the primal spiritual order at times when for one reason or another there was a call for this. this explanation of the 'needfire' throws light also on the roman custom of re-kindling annually the sacred fire in the temple of vesta. for the romans this was a means of reaffirming year by year the connexion of the nation with its spiritual leadership; accordingly, they chose the time when the sun in its yearly course restores - 're-clinches' - the union of the world-spirit with earthly nature, for the rebirth of the fire which throughout the rest of the year was carefully guarded against extinction. just as men saw in this fire-kindling a way of bringing humanity into active relation with spiritual powers, so on the other hand were these powers held to use the fire element in outer nature for the purpose of making themselves actively known to mankind. hence we find in the records of all ancient peoples a unanimous recognition of lightning and thunder on the one hand, and volcanic phenomena on the other, as means to which the deity resorts for intervening in human destiny. a well-known example is the account in the bible of the meeting of moses with god on mount sinai. as occurrence in the early history of the hebrews it gives evidence that even in historical times the fire element of the earth was sufficiently 'young' to serve the higher spiritual powers as an instrument for the direct expression of their will. * * * (b) levity contra gravity we said earlier in this chapter that a science which aspires to a spiritual understanding of the physical happenings in nature must give up the idea that inertness and weight are absolute properties of matter. we were able at once to tackle the question of inertness by bringing to our immediate observation matter in the state of diminished inertness, or, as we proposed to say, of alertness. we are now in a position to go into the other question, that of weight or gravity. just as we found inertness to have its counterpart in alertness, both being existing conditions of matter, so we shall now find in addition to the force of gravity another force which is the exact opposite of it, and to which therefore we can give no better name than 'levity'. * already, indeed, the picture of nature which we gained from following goethe's studies both of the plant and of meteorological happenings has brought us face to face with certain aspects of levity. for when goethe speaks of systole and diastole, as the plant first taught him to see them and as later he found them forming the basic factors of weather-formation, he is really speaking of the ancient concepts, 'cold' and 'warm'. goethe's way of observing nature is, in fact, a first step beyond the limits of a science which kept itself ignorant of levity as a cosmic counterpart to terrestrial gravity. to recognize the historical significance of this step, let us turn our glance to the moment when the human mind became aware that to lay a proper foundation for the science it was about to build, it had to exclude any idea of levity as something with a real existence. many a conception which is taken for granted by modern man, and is therefore assumed to have been always obvious, was in fact established quite deliberately at a definite historical moment. we have seen how this applies to our knowledge of the gaseous state of matter; it applies also to the idea of the uniqueness of gravity. about half a century after van helmont's discovery a treatise called contra levitatem was published in florence by the accademia del cimento. it declares that a science firmly based on observation has no right to speak of levity as something claiming equal rank with, and opposite to, gravity. this attitude was in accord with the state into which human consciousness had entered at that time. for a consciousness which is itself of the quality 'cold', because it is based on the contracting forces of the body, is naturally not in a position to take into consideration its very opposite. therefore, to speak of a force of levity as one felt able to speak of gravity was indeed without meaning. just as there was historical necessity in this banishing of levity from science at the beginning of the age of the spectator-consciousness, so was there historical necessity in a renewed awareness of it arising when the time came for man to overcome the limitations of his spectator - relationship to the world. we find this in goethe's impulse to search for the action of polarities in nature. as we shall see later, it comes to its clearest expression in goethe's optical conceptions. another witness to this fact is ruskin, through a remark which bears in more than one sense on our present subject. it occurs in his essay, the storm-cloud of the ninteenth century. in its context it is meant to warn the reader against treating science, which ruskin praises as a fact-finding instrument, as an interpreter of natural facts. ruskin takes newton's conception of gravity as the all-moving cause of the universe, and turns against it in the following words: 'take the very top and centre of scientific interpretation by the greatest of its masters: newton explained to you - or at least was once supposed to explain, why an apple fell; but he never thought of explaining the exact correlative but infinitely more difficult question, how the apple got up there.' this remark shows ruskin once again as a true reader in nature's book. looking with childlike openness and intensity of participation into the world of the senses, he allows nature's phenomena to impress themselves upon his mind without giving any preconceived preference to one kind or another. this enables him not to be led by the phenomenon of falling bodies to overlook the polarically opposite phenomenon of the upward movement of physical matter in the living plant. ruskin's remark points directly to the new world-conception which must be striven for to-day - the conception in which death is recognized as a secondary form of existence preceded by life; in which levity is given its rightful place as a force polar to gravity; and in which, because life is bound up with levity as death is with gravity, levity is recognized as being of more ancient rank than gravity. * in proceeding now to a study of levity we shall not start, as might be expected, with plants or other living forms. we are not yet equipped to understand the part played by levity in bringing about the processes of life; we shall come to this later. for our present purpose we shall look at certain macrotelluric events - events in which large areas of the earth are engaged - taking our examples from meteorology on the one hand and from seismic (volcanic) processes on the other. in pursuing this course we follow a method which belongs to the fundamentals of a goetheanistic science. a few words about this method may not be out of place. when we strive to read the book of nature as a script of the spirit we find ourselves drawn repeatedly towards two realms of natural phenomena. they are widely different in character, but studied together they render legible much that refuses to be deciphered in either realm alone. these realms are, on the one hand, the inner being of man, and, on the other, the phenomena of macrotelluric and cosmic character. the fruitfulness of linking together these two will become clear if we reflect on the following. the field of the inner life of man allows us, as nothing else does, to penetrate it with our own intuitive experience. for we ourselves are always in some sense the cause of the events that take place there. in order to make observations in this region, however, we need to bring about a certain awakening in a part of our being which - so long as we rely on the purely natural forces of our body - remains sunk in more or less profound unconsciousness. if this realm of events is more intimately related than any other to our intuitive experience, it has also the characteristic of remaining closed to any research by external means. much of what lies beyond the scope of external observation, however, reveals itself all the more clearly in the realms where nature is active on the widest scale. certainly, we must school ourselves to read aright the phenomena which come to light in those realms. and once more we must look to the way of introspection, previously mentioned, for aid in investing our gaze with the necessary intuitive force. if we succeed in this, then the heavens will become for us a text wherein secrets of human nature, hidden from mere introspection, can be read; while at the same time the introspective way enables us to experience things which we cannot uncover simply by observing the outer universe. apart from these methodological considerations, there is a further reason for our choice. among the instances mentioned earlier in this chapter as symptoms of a greater 'youthfulness' prevailing in nature, and particularly in the element fire, at a comparatively recent date, were the manifestations of the divine-spiritual world to man reported in the bible as the event on mount sinai. there, thunder and lightning from above and volcanic action from below form the setting for the intercourse of jehovah with moses. to-day the function of these types of phenomena, though metamorphosed by the altered conditions of the earth, is not essentially different. here, more than in any other sphere of her activities, nature manifests that side of her which we are seeking to penetrate with understanding. * let us start with an observation known to the present writer from a visit to the solfatara, a volcanic region near naples. the solfatara itself is a trough surrounded by hilly mounds; its smooth, saucepan-like bottom, covered with whitish pumice-sand, is pitted with craters containing violently boiling and fuming mud - the so-called fango, famous for its healing properties. all around sulphurous fumes issue from crevices in the rocks, and in one special place the solfatara reveals its subterranean activity by the emergence of fine, many-coloured sand, which oozes up like boiling liquid from the depths below. the whole region gives the impression of being in a state of labile balance. how true this is becomes apparent if one drops pieces of burning paper here and there on the ground: immediately a cloud of smoke and steam rises. the effect is even more intense if a burning torch is moved about over one of the boiling fango holes. then the deep answers instantly with an extraordinary intensification of the boiling process. the hot mud seems to be thrown into violent turmoil, emitting thick clouds of steam, which soon entirely envelop the spectator near the edge. the scientific mind is at first inclined to see in this phenomenon the mechanical effect of reduced air-pressure, due to the higher temperatures above the surface of the boiling mud, though doubts are raised by the unusual intensity of the reaction. the feeling that the physical explanation is inadequate is strengthened when the vapours have thinned out and one is surprised to see that every crack and cranny in the solfatara, right up to the top of the trough, shows signs of increased activity. certainly, this cannot be accounted for by a cause-and-effect nexus of the kind found in the realm of mechanical causation, where an effect is propagated from point to point and the total effect is the sum of a number of partial effects. it looks rather as if the impulse applied in one spot had called for a major impulse which was now acting on the solfatara as a whole. as observers who are trying to understand natural phenomena by recognizing their significance as letters in nature's script, we must look now for other phenomena which can be joined with this one to form the relevant 'word' we have set out to decipher. all scientific theories concerning the causes of seismic occurrences, both volcanic and tectonic, have been conceived as if the spatial motion of mineral matter were the only happening that had to be accounted for. no wonder that none of these theories has proved really satisfactory even to mechanistically orientated thinking. actually there are phenomena of a quite different kind connected with the earth's seismic activities, and these need to be taken into equal account. there is, for instance, the fact that animals often show a premonition of volcanic or tectonic disturbances. they become restive and hide, or, if domestic, seek the protection of man. apparently, they react in this way to changes in nature which precede the mechanical events by which man registers the seismic occurrence. another such phenomenon is the so-called earthquake-sky, which the present writer has had several occasions to witness. it consists of a peculiar, almost terrifying, intense discoloration of the sky, and, to those acquainted with it, is a sure sign of an imminent or actual earthquake somewhere in the corresponding region of the earth. this phenomenon teaches us that the change in the earth's condition which results in a violent movement of her crust, involves a region of her organism far greater than the subterranean layers where the cause of the purely mechanical events is usually believed to reside. that man himself is not excluded from experiencing directly the super-spatial nature of seismic disturbances is shown by an event in goethe's life, reported by his secretary eckermann, who himself learnt the story from an old man who had been goethe's valet at the time. this is what the old man, whom eckermann met by accident one day near weimar, told him: 'once goethe rang in the middle of the night and when i entered his room i found he had rolled his iron bed to the window and was lying there, gazing at the heavens. "have you seen nothing in the sky?" asked he, and when i answered "no", he begged me to run across to the sentry and inquire of the man on duty if he had seen nothing. he had not noticed anything and when i returned i found the master still in the same position, gazing at the sky. "listen," he said, "this is an important moment; there is now an earthquake or one is just going to take place." then he made me sit down on the bed and showed me by what signs he knew this.' when asked about the weather conditions, the old man said: 'it was very cloudy, very still and sultry.' to believe implicitly in goethe was for him a matter of course, 'for things always happened as he said they would'. when next day goethe related his observations at court, the women tittered: 'goethe dreams' ('goethe schwärmt'), but the duke and the other men present believed him. a few weeks later the news reached weimar that on that night ( th april, ) part of messina had been destroyed by an earthquake. there is no record by goethe himself of the nature of the phenomenon perceived by him during that night, except for a brief remark in a letter to mme de stein, written the following day, in which he claims to have seen a 'northern light in the south-east' the extraordinary character of which made him fear that an earthquake had taken place somewhere. the valet's report makes us inclined to think that there had been no outwardly perceptible phenomenon at all, but that what goethe believed he was seeing with his bodily eyes was the projection of a purely supersensible, but not for that reason any less objective, experience. in a picture of the seismic activities of the earth which is to comprise phenomena of this kind, the volcanic or tectonic effects cannot be attributed to purely local causes. for why, then, should the whole meteorological sphere be involved, and why should living beings react in the way described? clearly, we must look for the origin of the total disturbance not in the interior of the earth but in the expanse of surrounding space. indeed, the very phenomenon of the solfatara, if seen in this light, can reveal to us that at least the volcanic movements of the earth's crust are not caused by pressure from within, but by suction from without - that is, by an exceptional action of levity. we recall the fact that the whole solfatara phenomenon had its origin in a flame being swayed over one of the fango holes. although it remains true that the suction arising from the diminished air pressure over the hole cannot account for the intense increase of ebullition in the hole itself, not to speak of the participation of the entire region in this increase, there is the fact that the whole event starts with a suctional effect. as we shall see in the next chapter, any local production of heat interferes with the gravity conditions at that spot by shifting the balance to the side of levity. that the response in a place like the solfatara is what we have seen it to be, is the result of an extraordinary lability of the equilibrium between gravity and levity, a characteristic appertaining to the earth's volcanism in general. for the people living near the solfatara it is indeed common knowledge that there are times when this lability is so great that the slightest local disturbance of the kind we have described can provoke destructive eruptions of great masses of subterranean mud. (at such times access to the solfatara is prohibited.) we shall understand such an eruption rightly if we picture it as the counter-pole of an avalanche. the latter may be brought about by a fragment of matter on a snow-covered mountain, perhaps a little stone, breaking loose and in its descent bringing ever-accumulating masses of snow down with it. the levity-process polar to this demonstration of gravity is the production of a mightily growing 'negative avalanche' by comparatively weak local suction, caused by a small flame. * earlier in this chapter (page ) we said that if we want to understand how spirit moves, forms and transforms matter, we must recognize the existence of non-mechanical (magical) causes of physical effects. we have now found that the appearance of such effects in nature is due to the operations of a particular force, levity, polar to gravity. observation of a number of natural happenings has helped us to become familiar in a preliminary way with the character of this force. although these happenings were all physical in appearance, they showed certain definitely non-physical features, particularly through their peculiar relationship to three-dimensional space. more characteristics of this kind will appear in the following pages. in this way it will become increasingly clear that in levity we have to do with something which, despite its manifesting characteristics of a 'force' not unlike gravity and thereby resembling the latter, differs essentially from anything purely physical. it is only by its interactions with gravity that levity brings about events in the physical world-events, however, which are themselves partly of a physical, partly of a superphysical kind. seeing things in this aspect, we are naturally prompted to ask what causes there are in the world which make gravity and levity interact at all. this question will find its answer in due course. first, we must make ourselves more fully acquainted with the various appearances of the gravity-levity interplay in nature. in this sense ruskin's description of the working of the spirit in the plant as one that 'catches from chaos water, etc., etc., and fastens them into a given form' points to magical action. for van helmont, owing to the flemish pronunciation of the letter g, the two words sounded more alike than their spelling suggests. in a later chapter we shall have opportunity to determine what distinguishes air from fire, on the one hand, and water from earth on the other. it is this apparent uni-polarity of gravity which has given professor einstein so much trouble in his endeavour to create a purely gravitational world-picture with bipolar electricity and magnetism fitting into it mathematically. see the 'bishop barnes' controversy of recent date. to the same category belong the mighty thunderstorms which in some parts of the world are known to occur in conjunction with earthquakes. see goethe's conversations with eckermann (translated by j. oxenford), th november, . chapter x the fourth state of matter when william crookes chose as one of the titles of his paper on the newly discovered properties of electricity, 'the fourth state of matter', it was to express his belief that he had found a state of matter, additional to the three known ones, which represented 'the borderland where matter and force seem to merge into one another, the shadowy realm between known and unknown' for which his soul had been longing ever since the death of his beloved brother. all that has followed from his discovery, down to the transformation of matter itself into freely working energy, shows that he was right in thinking he had reached some borderland of nature. but the character of the forces which are thus liberated makes it equally clear that this is not the borderland he was looking for. nature - by which we mean physical nature - has in fact two borders, one touching the realm of the intramaterial energies which are liberated by disrupting the structure of atomic nuclei, the other leading over into creative chaos, the fountain-head of all that appears in nature as intelligent design. it was crookes's fate to open the road which has brought man to nature's lower border and even across it, although he himself was in search of her upper border. what he was denied, we are in a position to achieve to-day, provided we do not expect to succeed by methods similar to those of atomic physics, and do not look for similar results. to show that there is a fourth state of matter, rightly so called, which represents in actual fact the upper border of nature, and to point the way that leads to it and across it, is the purpose of this chapter. * from our previous comparison of the older conception of the four elementary conditions of nature with that now held of the three states of ponderable matter, we may expect that the fourth state will have something in common with heat. heat is indeed the energy which transforms matter by carrying it from the solid to the liquid and gaseous states. not so obvious is the fact that heat, apart from being an agent working at matter in this way, is the very essence underlying all material existence, out of which matter in its three ponderable states comes into being and into which it is capable of returning again. such a conception of matter was naturally absent from the age of the contra-levitatem orientation of the human mind. to create this conception, a new pro-levitate orientation is required. apart from producing liquefaction and vaporization, heat has also the property of acting on physical matter so that its volume increases. both facts are linked together by science through the thermodynamic conception of heat. as this conception firmly blocks the road to the recognition of the role of heat as the fourth state of matter, our first task will be to determine our own standpoint with regard to it. further obstacles on our way are the so-called laws of conservation, which state that no matter and no energy - which for present-day science have become one and the same thing - can ever disappear into 'nothing' or come into being out of 'nothing'. this idea, also, will therefore require our early attention. * in the light of our previous studies we shall not find it difficult to test the reality-value of the thermodynamic conception of heat. as we know of mass through a definite sense-perception, so we know of heat. in the latter case we rely on the sense of warmth. in chapter viii we took the opportunity to test the objectivity of the information received through this sense. still, one-eyed, colour-blind observation is naturally unable to take account of these sense-messages. to this kind of observation nothing is accessible, we know, except spatial displacements of single point-like entities. hence we find bacon and hooke already attributing the sensation of warmth to minute fast-moving particles of matter impinging on the skin. some time later we find locke taking up the same picture. we see from this how little the mechanical theory of heat owes to empirical facts. for even in locke's time the connexion between heat and mechanical action, as recognized to-day, was completely unknown. with this idea firmly rooted in his mind, modern man had no difficulty in using it to explain both thermal expansion and the effect of heat on the different states of matter, and so, finally, these states themselves. thermal expansion was thus attributed to an increase in the average distance between the assumed minute particles, caused by an increase in their rate of movement; the liquid state was held to differ from the solid, and similarly the gaseous from the liquid, by the interspaces between the particles becoming relatively so great that the gravitational pull between them became too weak to hold them together. tested from a view-point outside the onlooker-consciousness, this whole picture of the interaction between matter and heat appears to run counter to the cosmic order of things in a way typical of other spectator-theories. ancient man, if confronted with this picture, would have said that it means explaining the element fire by the quality cold. for each of those minute particles, in its solidity and state of spatial separation from the others, represents an effigy of the earth and thereby the element earth itself. he would be unable to understand why phenomena of the 'warm' element fire should be explained by its very opposite. moreover, fire forms part of the ever 'youthful' realm of the world, whereas anything which exists as a spatially discernible entity, capable of being moved about mechanically, must have grown cosmically 'old'. that ruskin was as much on the alert in regard to this theory as he was in regard to newton's theory of gravitation, is shown by the following utterance from his the queen of the air. obviously stirred by tyndall's newly published treatise, heat as a mode of motion, ruskin felt the need to criticize the endeavour of contemporary science 'to simplify the various forms of energy more and more into modes of one force, or finally into mere motion, communicable in various states, but not destructible', by declaring that he would himself 'like better in order of thought to consider motion as a mode of heat than heat as a mode of motion'. these words of ruskin touch also on the law of conservation of energy, of which we said that it also called for a preliminary examination. what we now have to find out is the factual basis on which this law rests. * the conception of the law of conservation of energy arose from the discovery of the constant numerical relation between heat and mechanical work, known as the mechanical equivalent of heat. this discovery was made at about the same time by joule in england and j. r. mayer in germany, although by entirely different routes. joule, a brewer, was a man of practical bent. trained by dalton, the founder of the atomic theory, in experimental research, he continued rumford's and davy's researches which they had undertaken to prove that heat is not, as it was for a time believed to be, a ponderable substance, but an imponderable agent. as a starting-point he took the heating effect of electric currents. the fact that these could be generated by turning a machine, that is, by the expenditure of mechanical energy, gave him the idea of determining the amount of work done by the machine and then comparing this with the amount of heat generated by the current. a number of ingenious experiments enabled him to determine with increasing exactitude the numerical relation between work and heat, as well as to establish the absolute constancy of the relation. this he regarded as proof of the mechanical theory of heat, which he had taken from rumford and davy. what simpler explanation could there be for the constant numerical relation between work and heat than the conception that transformation of one form of energy into another was simply a transmission of motion from one object to another? from the quantitative equality of expended and generated energy was it not natural to argue the qualitative similarity of the two forms of energy, which only externally seemed different? it was by quite a different path that the heilbronn doctor, mayer, arrived at his results. to escape from the narrowness of his south german home town, he went, while still a youth, as doctor to a dutch ship sailing to java. when in the tropics he treated a number of sailors by blood-letting, he observed that the venous blood was much nearer in colour to the paler arterial blood than was usual at home. this change in the colour he attributed to the diminished intensity of bodily combustion, due, he believed, to the higher temperature of the tropics. scarcely had this thought passed through his mind than it induced another - that of a universal interrelationship between all possible forms of energy. this last idea so took possession of him that during the return voyage, as he himself related, he could scarcely think of anything but how to prove the correctness of his idea and what the consequences would be for the general view of nature. from the moment of his return he devoted his life to practical research into the connexion between the various manifestations of energy. it was in this way that he was led to the determination of the so-called mechanical equivalent of heat, shortly before the same discovery was made in a quite different manner by joule. if one considers how slender a connexion there was between mayer's observation on the sailors in java and the idea of the quantitative equilibrium of all physical nature-forces, and if one contrasts this with the fanaticism he showed during the rest of his life in proving against all obstacles the correctness of his idea, one must feel that the origin of the thought in mayer's mind lay elsewhere than in mere physical observations and logical deductions. confirmation of this may be found in what mayer himself declared to be his view concerning the actual grounds for the existence of a constant numerical association between the various manifestations of natural energy. so far as science allowed mayer any credit for his work, this was based on the opinion that through his discovery he had provided the final vindication of the mechanical theory of heat. this judgment, however, was only piling one wrong upon another. mayer's destiny was truly tragic. when he began to publicize his conviction of the numerical equilibrium between spent and created energy, he met with so much scepticism, even derision, that from sheer despair his mind at times became clouded. when at last toward the end of his life he received the recognition his discovery deserved (not before being dragged through a painful priority dispute which joule forced upon him and lost), the scientists had begun to use his idea for bolstering up a hypothesis directly counter to the idea which had led him to his discovery, and for the sake of which he had accepted so much suffering. mayer's spiritual kin are not to be found among the heat-theorists of his time, such as helmholtz and others, but among thinkers of the stamp of goethe, howard and ruskin. his basic idea of the inner connexion between all forms of energy in nature corresponds entirely with goethe's idea of metamorphosis. just as goethe saw in the ur-plant the idea common to all plant-forms or, in the various plant-organs, the metamorphosis of one and the same ur-organ, so was mayer convinced of the existence of an ur-force which expressed itself in varying guises in the separate energy-forms of nature. in the picture of the physical universe which hovered before him, the transformation of one form of energy into another - such as mechanical energy into electrical, this into chemical and so on - was somewhat similar to goethe's picture of the organic life of the earth, in which the metamorphosis of one living form into another constantly occurred. 'there is in nature', said mayer, 'a specific dimension of immaterial constitution which preserves its value in all changes taking place among the objects observed, whereas its form of appearance alters in the most manifold ways.' for the physicist, accustomed to a purely quantitative observation of nature, it is difficult to comprehend that mayer could have arrived at the thought of a constant quantitative relation between the various manifestations of natural energy, without deriving from it the conviction of their qualitative indentity - i.e., without concluding from the existence of the mechanical heat - equivalent that heat is itself nothing else than a certain form of spatial movement. mayer actually had a picture directly contrary to the mechanistic conception. for him, the arising of heat represented a disappearance of mechanical energy. if this, then, was mayer's belief, what was it that convinced him of the existence of a numerical balance between appearing and vanishing energy, even before he had any experimental proof? later in this book there will be occasion to introduce a concept of number in tune with our qualitative world-outlook. what led mayer to look upon number as an expression of existing spiritual associations in nature will then become clear. let this much be said here, that number in the universe has quite different functions from that of serving merely as an expression for a total of calculable items, or as a means of comparing spatial distances. it is in the nature of the onlooker-consciousness that it is unable to interpret numerical equality between natural phenomena save as indicating the presence of an equal number of calculable objects or of spatial movements of equal magnitude. it was therefore consistent for such a consciousness to regard the discovery by mayer of the mechanical heat-equivalent as a confirmation of the existing mechanical conception of heat. for mayer such an interpretation was not necessary. his conviction of the existence of an ur-force, manifesting through metamorphosis in all natural forces, led him to expect a constant numerical relation amongst these, without requiring him to deny the objective existence of qualitative differences, as these displayed themselves in the field of phenomena. he was spiritually akin to goethe, also, in that he guarded himself strictly against substituting for the contents of our perception conveyed by nature purely hypothetical entities which, while fashioned after the world of the senses, are, in principle, imperceptible. mayer sought after a truly empirically founded concept of force, and his method was that of reading from all the various manifestations of force which were open to sense observation. one such manifestation, capable of empirical determination, was the balance between appearing and disappearing energy. science treated mayer in the same way as it treated howard. it took from him what it wanted for its purpose without concerning itself with the epistemological principle which had led him to his discovery. thus it was that mayer's discovery led to most important consequences for the development of modern technical devices, whereas it was the fate of his guiding idea to be first derided, then misunderstood and finally forgotten. the consequence was that the knowledge of the numerical equilibrium between created and expended energy in the economy of nature has widened more and more the abyss separating spirit and matter in human life, instead of leading, as indeed it might have done, to a bridging of the abyss. the thought, therefore, regarding the appearing and disappearing of measurable cosmic substance, to which we are led when following goethe's method of observing nature, stands in no sort of contradiction to what mayer himself conceived as the relation of the various forms of energy to one another, and the maintenance of the numerical balance between them. * having thus determined our standpoint with regard to the thermodynamic theory of heat and the law of conservation, we may proceed to the study, first of the phenomenon of thermal expansion, and then of the effect of heat on the various states of physical matter, by applying to them, unimpeded by any preconceived mechanistic idea, what we have learnt through our previous studies. we must start by developing a proper picture of the dynamic condition of matter in the solid state. in a solid body the material substance is centred on an inner point, the so-called centre of gravity - a characteristic which such a body shares with the earth as a whole. likewise, two such bodies exert on one another the same influence that the earth exerts on each of them: they try to assume the shortest possible distance from each other. since the days of faraday science has been accustomed to ascribe these phenomena to the existence of certain fields of force, connected with each body and working on one another through the intermediary space. it is to this concept of the field of force that we must now give special attention. for the field-concept, in the form introduced by faraday into scientific thinking, is one of the few scientific concepts which have been obtained by being 'read' from the corresponding phenomena themselves, and which therefore retain their validity in a science which is based on the method of reading. according to the field-concept, terrestrial manifestations of gravity are due to the earth's being the bearer of a gravitational field centred within the globe, and extending thence in all directions through space, across and beyond the earth's body. every point in space, both inside and outside the earth, is characterized by a definite intensity of this field, the so-called gravitational potential. this is subject to variations due to the presence of other physical masses, which carry their own fields of gravity. what happens between such masses and that of the earth, as well as mutually between such masses themselves, is brought about by the particular conditions in space resulting from the interpenetration of the various fields. it is essential to realize that all fields dealt with by physical science, the gravitational, electric, magnetic - however much they differ otherwise - have this one characteristic in common, that they have a centre where the field is at its highest intensity, diminishing as the distance from the centre increases. motion in such a field naturally takes place from regions of lower to those of higher intensity - in other words, it follows the rising potential of the field. this accounts for the tendency of physical masses to arrive at the shortest possible distance between them. it was natural for the modern mind to picture a dynamic condition of the kind just described, that is, one in which the centre and source, as it were, is a point round which the dynamic condition spreads with steadily diminishing strength as the distance from the point grows. for such is the condition of man's head-bound consciousness. the locus from which modern man watches the world is a point within the field of this consciousness, and the intensity with which the world acts on it diminishes with increasing spatial distance from this point. this is the reason why levity was banished from scientific inquiry, and why, when the field-concept was created by the genius of faraday, it did not occur to anyone that with it the way was opened to comprehend field-types other than the centric one characteristic of gravity and kindred forces. to make use of the field-concept in this other way is one of the tasks we have to undertake if we are to overcome the impasse in which present-day scientific cognition finds itself. to develop a picture of the type of field represented by levity, let us recall certain results from the observations of the last chapter. there the volcanic phenomenon, when taken in its wider implications, made us realize that the upward movement of physical masses, in itself part of the total phenomenon, is due to a dynamic cause which we had to describe, in contrast to centripetally working pressure, as peripherally working suction. of this concept of suction we must now observe that we may apply it with justification only if we realize that suction can be caused in two different ways. in the sense in which we are wont to use the term, suction is the result of a difference of pressure in adjacent parts of space, the action taking place in the direction of the minor pressure. apart from this, however, suction can occur also as a result of the outward-bound increase of the strength of a levity-field. it is in this sense that we may speak of the seismic movements of the earth as being caused by suction acting from without. in the same sense we may say that the upward movement of the saps in the plant (to which ruskin pointed as being responsible for the apple appearing at the top of the tree) and with it the entire growth-phenomenon in the plant world, is due to peripheral suction. considerations of this kind lead one to a picture in which the earth is seen to be surrounded and penetrated by a field of force which is in every respect the polar opposite of the earth's gravitational field. as the latter has its greatest intensity at its centre, which is identical with the centre of the earth's globe, so has the levitational field its greatest intensity at its circumference which is somewhere in the width of the universe. (later considerations will enable us to locate its position more precisely.) as the gravity-field decreases in strength with increasing distance from the centre of the field, that is, in the outward direction, so does the levity-field decrease in strength with increasing distance from its periphery, or in the inward direction. in both fields the direction of movement is from regions of lower to those of higher intensity. this is why things 'fall' under the influence of gravity and 'rise' under the influence of levity. * how does thermal expansion read as a letter in nature's script when seen in the light of the two contrasting field-concepts? let us, for simplicity's sake, imagine a spherically shaped metallic body, say, a ball of copper, which we expose to the influence of heat. as we have seen, it is the centrically orientated gravity-field which gives the ball its permanency of shape. consequently, the dynamic orientation of the material constituting its body is directed towards the interior of the body itself. now, the moment we bring heat to bear on the body we find its surface moving in the outward direction. the whole mass is clearly under the influence of some suction which is directed on to the body from outside. just as the plants grow in the anti-gravitational direction as a result of the suctional effect of levity (other factors which account for its growing into a particular shape, etc., being left out of consideration), so our copper ball grows in volume by being sucked away from its centre of gravity. it is the action of heat which has changed the ratio between gravity and levity at this spot in such a way as to allow levity to produce this effect. what we have thus found to be the true nature of the event perceived as a body's growth in volume under the influence of heat has a definite effect on our conception of spatially extended matter as such. for a physical body is always in some thermal state which may be regarded as higher than another, and it may therefore be regarded as being at all times thermally expanded to some extent. hence, it is all the time under the sway of both gravitational pressure and anti-gravitational suction. in fact, we may say ideally that, if there were no field working inwards from the cosmic periphery, the entire material content of the earthly realm would be reduced by gravitation to a spaceless point; just as under the sole influence of the peripheral field of levity it would dissipate into the universe. to ordinary scientific thinking this may sound paradoxical, but in reality it is not. observation of the nature of solid matter has led atomistic thought to regard a physical body as a heap of molecules so far apart that by far the greater part of the volume occupied by the body is just 'empty' space. in the scientific picture of molecules constituting a physical body, of atoms constituting the molecules, of electrons, protons, etc., constituting the atoms, all separated by spaces far exceeding the size of the elementary particles themselves, we find reflected, in a form comprehensible to the onlooker-consciousness, the fact that matter, even in the solid state, is kept in spatial extension by a field of force relating it to the cosmic periphery. * with this picture of solid matter as being held in spatial extension by its subjection to gravity and levity alike, we proceed to a study of the liquid and gaseous states of matter, while taking into account the role of heat in bringing these states about. following out our method of seeking to gain knowledge of a phenomenon by regarding it as part of a greater whole, let us ask what sort of change a portion of physical substance undergoes in its relation to the earth as a whole when, for instance, through the influence of heat, it passes from a solid to a liquid state. here we must keep in mind that it is part of the nature of a liquid to have no form of its own. the only natural boundary of a liquid substance is its upper surface. since this surface always lies parallel with the surface of the earth it forms part of a sphere, the centre point of which is identical with that of the gravitational centre of the earth. the passage of a portion of matter from solid to liquid thus signifies that it ceases to possess a centre of gravity of its own and is now merely obedient to the general gravity-field of the earth. we can thus speak of a transition of matter from the individual to the planetary condition. this is what heat brings about when a solid body melts. a large part of the heat used in melting is known to be absorbed by the substance during the process of melting. this is indicated by the thermometer remaining at the temperature of the melting-point once this has been reached, until the whole of the melting substance has liquefied. physics here speaks of 'free' heat becoming 'latent'. from the goethean point of view we see heat passing through a metamorphosis. whereas, previously, heat was perceptible to our sense of warmth, it now manifests as a gravity-denying property of matter. in order to obtain an idea of the liquid state of matter corresponding to reality, we must take into account yet another of its characteristics. when the heat becomes latent, it goes even further in contradicting gravity than by robbing matter of its own point of gravity and relating it to the earth's centre of gravity. this effect is shown in the well-known urge of all liquids to evaporate. hence we must say that even where matter in a liquid state preserves its own surface, this does not by any means represent an absolute boundary. above the surface there proceeds a continuous transition of substance into the next higher condition through evaporation. we see here the activity of heat going beyond the mere denial of gravity to a positive affirmation of levity. with the help of this conception of the integration of the liquid state within the polarity of gravity and levity, we are now able to draw a picture of the earth which, once obtained, answers many a question left unanswered by current scientific notions, among them the question why the earth's volcanic activity is confined to maritime regions. regarding the distribution of land and water on the earth's surface, we may say that to an observer in cosmic space the earth would not look at all like a solid body. rather would it appear as a gigantic 'drop' of water, its surface interspersed with solid formations, the continents and other land masses. moreover, the evidence assembled ever since professor a. wegener's first researches suggests that the continents are clod-like formations which 'float' on an underlying viscous substance and are able to move (very slowly) in both the vertical and horizontal directions. the oceanic waters are in fact separated from the viscous substratum by no more than a thin layer of solid earth, a mere skin in comparison with the size of the planet. further, this 'drop' of liquid which represents the earth is in constant communication with its environment through the perpetual evaporation from the ocean, as well as from every other body of water. this picture of the earth shows it lying under the twofold influence of the compressive force of gravity and the sucking force of levity. wherever land meets sea, there levity tends to prevail over gravity. it is in maritime regions, accordingly, that the inner strata of the earth succumb most readily to those sudden changes in the gravity-levity tension wherein we have recognized the origin of seismic occurrences. * turning to the gaseous condition, we realize that although even here matter retains traces of a connexion with terrestrial gravity, levity is now the dominant factor. there are three characteristics of the gaseous condition which bring this out. one is the extreme readiness of gases to expand when heated; we see here how much easier than with solid substances it is for heat to overcome the influence of gravity. the second characteristic is the property of gases, peculiar to them, of expanding spontaneously, even when not heated. here we find gaseous matter displaying a dynamic behaviour which at lower stages occurs only under the stimulus of heat. the third characteristic is shown by the fact that all gases, unlike solids or liquids, respond with the same increase of volume to a given rise of temperature, however diverse their other qualities may be. once gases are mixed, therefore, they cannot be separated merely by raising or lowering the temperature. here we find the unifying effect of the cosmic periphery prevailing over the differentiating effect of terrestrial gravity. at this point we may recall goethe's reply to the botanist, wolff, who had ascribed the metamorphosis of plant-organs from root to blossom to a gradual stunting or atrophy of their vegetative force, whereas it was clear to goethe that simultaneously with a physical retrogression, there is a spiritual progress in the development of the plant. the fact that all wolff's efforts to see clearly did not save him from 'seeing past the thing' seemed to goethe an inevitable result of wolff's failure to associate with the eyes of the body those of the spirit. exactly the same thing holds good for the sequence of physical states of matter which we are considering here. observation of this sequence with the bodily eyes alone will show nothing but a reduction of the specific gravity of the material concerned. he who is at pains to observe also with the eye of the spirit, however, is aware of a positive increase of lightness going hand in hand with a decrease of heaviness. regarded thus, the three ponderable conditions form what goethe would have called a 'spiritual ladder'. as 'rungs' of such a ladder they clearly point to a fourth rung - that is, a fourth state in which levity so far prevails over gravity that the substance no longer has any weight at all. this picture of the fourfold transformation of matter calls for an inquiry into the transition between the third and fourth states, corresponding to the well-known transitions between the three ponderable states. * our observations have led us to a concept of heat essentially different from that held by modern science. science looks on heat simply as a condition of ponderable matter. we, on the contrary, are led to recognize in heat a fourth condition into which matter may pass on leaving the three ponderable conditions, and out of which it may emerge on the way to ponderability. before showing that such transitions are actually known in nature, it may be well to discuss here an objection which the customary way of thinking might plausibly advance against our whole method. it could be said that to assume a continuation of the sequence of the three ponderable conditions in the manner suggested is justified only if, as solids can be turned into liquids and these into gases, so gases could be transformed into a fourth condition and, conversely, be produced from the latter. in reply it can be said that the fact of our not being able at present to change gases artificially into pure heat does not justify the conclusion that this is in principle impossible. we know from previous considerations that the earth has reached an evolutionary stage at which all elements, including fire, have in certain degree grown 'old'. this applies in quite a special degree to the manipulations to which man, led by his death-bound consciousness, has learnt to submit matter in his laboratories. to decide what is possible or not possible in nature, therefore, can by no means be left to the judgment of laboratory research. as is shown by the following instance, taken from the realm of vegetable life, a case of the creation of matter 'out of nothing' is already known to biology - though biology, bound in its concepts to the law of conservation, shows some natural reluctance to recognize the true significance of the phenomenon. the plant which performs this strange feat is the tillandsia usneoides, indigenous to tropical america, and generally known as 'spanish moss'. its peculiarity is that it grows and flourishes without taking from its support any material whatsoever for the building up of its substance. its natural habitat is the dry bark of virgin forest trees. since civilization invaded its home it has acquired the habit of growing even on telegraph wires, which has given it the popular name of 'telegraph tresses'. chemical analysis of this plant shows the presence of an average of per cent iron, per cent silicic acid and · per cent phosphoric acid. this applies to samples taken from districts where the rainwater - the only source from which the plant could extract these substances in physical form - contains at most · per cent iron, · per cent silicic acid and no phosphoric acid at all. the tillandsia phenomenon is to a certain extent reminiscent of another well-known plant activity. this is the process of assimilation of carbon from the carbon dioxide of the air. if we leave aside the change in the chemical combination which the carbon undergoes, there remains the picture of the plant drawing this matter to itself from its environment and at the same time subjecting it to a spatial condensation. a similar but even more far-reaching process is exhibited by the tillandsia as regards the three substances referred to above. from the conditions given, it follows that the plant cannot possibly get these substances elsewhere than out of the surrounding atmosphere, and that in drawing upon them it submits them to a high degree of condensation. a special role, however, is played by the phosphorus, which shows that the assimilative power of the plant is sufficient to transform phosphorus from a physically not traceable state into one of spatially bounded materiality. following goethe in his coining of the concept of 'spiritual anastomosis' for the pollinating process of plants, we can here speak of 'spiritual assimilation'. in this respect tillandsia provides an instance 'worth a thousand, bearing all within itself. for what nature here unmistakably demonstrates serves as an eye-opener to a universal fact of the plant kingdom and of nature in general. the problem of the so-called trace-elements may serve as an illustration of this. modern agricultural chemistry has found of a number of chemical elements that their presence in the soil in scarcely traceable amounts is necessary in order to enable the plant to unfold healthily its latent characteristics. all sorts of deficiencies in cultivated plants have led to a recognition that the soil is impoverished of certain elements by intensive modern cultivation, and that it is to the lack of these elements that the deficiencies are due. much work has meanwhile been done in classifying the various deficiencies and in devising ways of giving the soil chemical substitutes for what is lacking. a large part of the work here involved could be saved were it only to be acknowledged that the soil owes the natural occurrence of the proper elements to a process which the plants themselves bring about in the soil, if men refrain from hindering them by cleverly thought-out methods of cultivation which fail to reckon with the nature of a living organism. let us be clear what it is that occurs when a plant exhibits any of the observed abnormalities. expressed in a goethean manner, these are the consequence of an insufficient direction of the organic processes in the plant body by the spiritual plant-type underlying it. that which ruskin called the 'spirit' of the plant, and to which he drew attention in his aphorism 'stand by form against force' (by 'form' all the peculiar qualities of the plant are to be understood), is unable to express itself in full measure. now we know that, in order to unfold its activities on the physical plane, spirit requires 'young' matter - that is, matter which is either in, or has just emerged from, a purely dynamic state. normally a definite spiritual type co-ordinates the dynamic functions present in the superphysical sphere of nature in the manner required to give the plant-organism its appropriate form. as, through the action of the type, these functions are brought down from the sphere of levity into that of gravity, they condense to the corresponding material elements and thus reach the soil in material form via the physical organism of the plant. the pattern as usually seen is now reversed; the presence of the various elements in the soil no longer appears as the origin of one or another function in the building up of the plant-body, but quite the reverse. the functions appear now as the cause, and the soil-elements as the effect. we may thus recognize the value of the latter as symptoms from which we can read the existence of a healthy connexion between the plant and the corresponding form-creating functions working on it from its surroundings. with this reversal of the relationship between cause and effect it is not, however, intended to represent the commonly accepted order of things as entirely incorrect. in the realm of life, cause and effect are not so onesidedly fixed as in the realm of mechanical forces. we may therefore admit that a reverse effect of the soil-elements upon the plant does take place. this is plainly demonstrable in the case of phosphorus which, however, by reason of its appearance in the soil in proportions hardly to be called a mere 'trace', represents a borderline case. what may apply within limits to phosphorus is wholly valid for the trace-elements - namely, that they are playing their essential role while they are themselves about to assume ponderable form. it thus becomes clear how mistaken it is to attempt to cure deficiencies in plants by adding to the soil chemical substitutes for the trace-elements. in the condition in which this material is offered to the plant, it is truly 'old' material. in order to be able to use it functionally, the plant has first to convert it into the 'young' condition. this indeed happens whilst the material is rising in the plant combined with the juices drawn by the plant from the soil under the influence of levity-force. only when this has occurred are the chemical elements able to serve the plant functionally. thus, by trying to give help to the plant in this way, we injure it at the same time. for by forcing it to perform the operation described, its general life-forces are diminished. a seeming success brought about in this manner, therefore, will not last long. there is, nevertheless, a way of helping the plant by adding to the soil certain material substances, provided these are first brought into a purely dynamic condition. that this can be done is a fact long since known, even if not recognized in its true significance. so far then, as serves the purpose of this book, we shall deal with it here. * the method in question is associated with the school of medicine known as homoeopathy, founded by the german doctor, hahnemann. the word 'homoeopathy' means 'healing through like'; the basic principle is to treat disease symptoms with highly diluted substances which produce similar symptoms if ingested in normal quantity. experience has in fact shown that the physiological effect of a substance taken from external nature is reversed when the substance is highly diluted. the method of diluting, or 'potentizing', is as follows: a given volume of the material to be diluted is dissolved in nine times its volume of distilled water. the degree of dilution thus arrived at is : , usually symbolized as ix. a tenth part of this solution is again mixed with nine times its bulk of water. the degree of dilution is now : , or x. this process is continued as far as is found necessary for a given purpose. insoluble substances can be dealt with in the same manner by first grinding them together with corresponding quantities of a neutral powder, generally sugar of milk. after a certain number of stages the powder can be dissolved in water; the solution may then be diluted further in the manner described. here we have to do with transfer of the quality of a substance, itself insoluble, to the dissolving medium, and then with the further treatment of the latter as if it were the original bearer of the quality concerned. this fact alone shows that potentization leads into a realm of material effects at variance with the ordinary scientific conception of matter. moreover, we can carry the dilutions as far as we please without destroying the capacity of the substance to produce physiological reactions. on the contrary, as soon as its original capacity is reduced to a minimum by dilution, further dilution gives it the power to cause actually stronger reactions, of a different and usually opposite kind. this second capacity rises through stages to a variable maximum as dilution proceeds. a simple calculation shows - if we accept the ordinary scientific view as to the size of a molecule - that not a single molecule of the original substance will remain in the solution after a certain degree of dilution has been reached. yet the biological and other reactions continue long after this, and are even enhanced. what this potentizing process shows is that, by repeated expansions in space, a substance can be carried beyond the ponderable conditions of matter into the realm of pure functional effect. the potentizing of physical substances thus gains a significance far wider than that of its medical use. there opens up, for example, the possibility of stimulating deficient functions in the plant by giving it the corresponding elements in homoeopathic doses. by this means the plant is brought into direct connexion with the relevant spiritual energy, and then left to carry out for itself the necessary process of materialization, instead of being forced by mere chemical additions to the soil first to potentize the substance itself. the same principle holds good for man and beast. they also need 'young material' for their nourishment, so that the type active in them - which in animals is the group-soul of the species and in man is the single individual - can express its true form and character. (we saw earlier that the will requires 'young' material in order to penetrate into the material layers of the muscles, as happens when the limbs are set in motion). in this respect, the difference between ensouled creatures and plants is that, what is harmful to plants is natural for men and animals: when taking nourishment the latter are able to bring about quickly and purposefully a transformation of matter into the purely dynamic state. their metabolic system is designed to enable them to take alien material from outer nature and to transform it through the forces of the various digestive enzymes; in the course of this process the material passes through a condition of complete 'chaos'. * having in this way established the existence of certain processes of materialization and dematerialization in single organisms within the earth's vegetable and other kingdoms, we shall now turn to the earth as a whole to find out where - organic being that she herself is - she manipulates corresponding processes on a macrotelluric scale. in an age following van helmont's discovery of the gaseous state of matter and the statement of the contra levitatem maxim, men were bound to think that the circulation of atmospheric moisture was limited to the three stages of liquid, vaporous (peculiar to the clouds, etc.) and the invisible aeriform condition. yet the role played by clouds in the myths of early peoples shows that they were once given a quite different status, between the 'created' and 'uncreated' worlds. our observations lead to a corresponding conception, but along the path of knowledge, guided by sense-perception, as befits our own age. in discussing howard's discovery of the stages of cloud-formation we found something lacking, for it was clear that the three stages of cloud proper - stratus, cumulus and cirrus - have a symmetry which is disturbed by the addition of a fourth stage, represented by the nimbus. this showed that there was need for a fifth stage, at the top of the series, to establish a balanced polarity. we can now clear up this question of a fifth stage, as follows. in the three actual cloud-forms, gravity and levity are more or less in equilibrium, but in the nimbus gravity predominates, and the atmospheric vapour condenses accordingly into separate liquid bodies, the drops of rain. the polar opposite of this process must therefore be one in which cloud-vapour, under the dominating influence of levity, passes up through a transitional condition into a state of pure heat. such a conception by no means contradicts the findings of external research. for meteorology has come to know of a heat-mantle surrounding the earth's atmosphere for which various hypothetical explanations have been advanced. naturally, none of them envisages the possibility of atmospheric substance changing into the heat-condition and back again. but if we learn to look on the chain of cloud-forms as a 'spiritual ladder', then we must expect the chain to conclude with a stage of pure heat, lying above the cirrus-sphere. the line of consideration pursued in the last part of this chapter has led us from certain observations in the plant kingdom, concerning the coming into being of ponderable matter from 'nothing', to a corresponding picture of the earth's meteorological sphere. when discussing the plant in this respect we found as an instance 'worth a thousand, bearing all within itself the case of tillandsia and more particularly the surprising appearance of phosphorus in it. now, in the meteorological realm it is once more phosphorus which gives us an instance of this kind. for there is the well-known fact of the presence of phosphorus in conspicuous quantities in snow without a source being traceable in the atmosphere whence this substance can have originated in ponderable condition. the phosphorus appearing in snow, therefore, brings before our very eyes the fact that the heights of the atmosphere are a realm of procreation of matter. (in our next chapter we shall learn what it is in phosphorus that makes it play this particular role in both fields of nature. what interests us in the present context is the fact itself.) * the knowledge we have now gained concerning the disappearance and appearance of physical water in the heights of the atmosphere will enable us to shake off one of the most characteristic errors to which the onlooker-consciousness has succumbed in its estimation of nature. this is the interpretation of thunderstorms, and particularly of lightning, which has held sway since the days of benjamin franklin. before developing our own picture of a thunderstorm let us recognize that science has found it necessary to reverse the explanation so long in vogue. whereas it was formerly taken for granted - and the assumption was supposed to rest upon experimental proof - that the condensing of atmospheric vapour which accompanied lightning was the consequence of a release of electrical tension by the lightning, the view now held is that the electrical tension responsible for the occurrence of lightning is itself the effect of a sudden condensing process of atmospheric moisture. the reason for this uncertainty is that the physical conditions in the sphere where lightning occurs, according to other experiences of electric phenomena, actually exclude the formation of such high tensions as are necessary for the occurrence of discharges on the scale of lightning. if we look at this fact without scientific bias we are once again reminded of the hans andersen child. we cannot help wondering how this child would behave in a physics class if the teacher, after vainly trying to produce a lightning-flash in miniature with the help of an electrical machine, explained that the moisture prevalent in the air was responsible for the failure of the experiment, and that he would have to postpone it to a day when the air was drier. it would scarcely escape the hans andersen child that the conditions announced by the teacher as unfavourable to the production of an electric spark by the machine, prevail in a much higher degree exactly where lightning, as a supposed electric spark, actually does occur. to conclude from the presence of electric tensions in the earth's atmosphere as an accompaniment of lightning, in the way first observed by franklin, that lightning itself is an electrical process, is to be under the same kind of illusion that led men to attribute electrical characteristics to the human soul because its activity in the body was found to be accompanied by electrical processes in the latter. the identification of lightning with the electric spark is a case of a confusion between the upper and lower boundaries of nature, characteristic of the onlooker-consciousness. as such, it has stood in the way of a real understanding both of non-electrical natural phenomena and of electricity itself. what we observe in lightning is really an instantaneous execution of a process which runs its course continually in the atmosphere, quietly and unnoticed. it is the process by which water reverts from the imponderable to the ponderable condition, after having been converted to the former through levity set in action by the sun (as usually happens in a high degree just before a thunderstorm). we form a true picture of the course of a storm if we say that nature enables us to witness a sublime display of the sudden bringing to birth of matter in earthbound form. what falls to the ground as rain (or hail) is substantially identical with what was perceptible to the eye, a moment before, as a majestic light-phenomenon. the accompanying electrical occurrence is the appropriate counter-event at nature's lower boundary. since the two form part of a larger whole they necessarily occur together; but the electrical occurrence must not be identified with the event in the heavens. the reason for their conjunction will become clear later, when we shall show how electrical polarity arises from the polarity between gravity and levity. if one learns to view a thunderstorm in this way, its spiritual connexion with the earth's volcanic processes becomes manifest; there is in fact a polar relationship between them. for just as in volcanic activity heavy matter is suddenly and swiftly driven heavenwards under the influence of levity, so in a storm does light matter stream earthwards under the influence of gravity. it is this combination of kinship and polar opposition which led people of old to regard both lightning in the heights and seismic disturbances in the depths as signs of direct intervention by higher powers in the affairs of men. a trace of this old feeling lingers in the greek word θειον (theion), divine, which was used to denote both lightning and sulphur. influenced by the same conception, the romans regarded as holy a spot where lightning had struck the earth; they even fenced it off to protect it from human contact. note in this respect also the biblical report of the event on mount sinai, mentioned before, telling of an interplay of volcanic and meteorological phenomena as a sign of the direct intervention of the godhead. see chapter iv. the other title of the paper, 'radiant matter', will gain significance for us in a later context. since the above was written, certain conclusions drawn from modern subatomic research have led some astro-physicists to the idea that hydrogen is continuously created in the cosmos 'out of nothing'. this does not affect the considerations of the present chapter. note the expression! for a vivid description of the interplay of both types of force in nature, see e. carpenter's account of his experience of a tree in his pagan and christian creeds. note how this picture of thermal expansion fits in with the one obtained for the solfatara phenomenon when we took into account all that is implicit in the latter, this throws light also on the problem of the use of chemicals as artificial fertilizers. see l. kolisko: wirksamkeit kleinster entitäten ('effects of smallest entities'), stuttgart, , an account of a series of experiments undertaken by the author at the biological institute of the goetheanum following suggestions by rudolf steiner. her aim was to examine the behaviour of matter on the way to and beyond the boundary of its ponderable existence. instead of using the trace-elements in mineral form, it is still better to use parts of certain plants with a strong 'functional tendency', specially prepared. this is done in the so-called bio-dynamic method of farming and gardening, according to rudolf steiner's indications. note, in this respect, the close of goethe's poem dedicated to the cirrus-formation and the poem inspired by his sight of a waterfall in the bernese alps as indications of the fact that he was himself aware of the water-rejuvenating process in the higher reaches of the atmosphere. chapter xi matter as part of nature's alphabet in the preceding chapter we drew attention to the fact that any spatially extended mass is under the sway of both gravity and levity. we then saw that with the transition of matter from the solid via the liquid to the gaseous state, not only does the specific gravity of the substance decrease, but at the same time an increase takes place of what we might call 'specific levity'. in the gaseous state, therefore, we find gravity-bound matter becoming so far levity-bound that it assumes the property of actively expanding in space. having once adopted the goethean way of thinking-in-polarities, we may feel sure that there is somewhere in nature a phenomenon which represents the polar opposite of the levity-gravity relationship peculiar to the gaseous state. in this latter state we find ponderable matter so far brought under the sway of levity that its behaviour is of a kind which van helmont, when he first observed it, could not help describing as 'paradoxical'. where, we must now ask, do we find imponderable essence so much under the sway of gravity that it shows the correspondingly paradoxical features? in other words, where does nature show levity concentrated in a limited part of space - that is, in a condition characteristic of ponderable matter? such concentrations of levity do indeed exist in varied forms. one is the 'warmth-body' represented by the blood-heat of the higher animals and man. there is, however, an occurrence of this kind also on the purely mineral level of nature, and it is this which has particular significance for our present study of matter. we meet it in all physical substances which have the peculiarity of being combustible. our next task is to study certain fundamentals in regard to the different ways in which levity and gravity are found to be intertwined in combustible substances, manifesting through the difference of their relation to the process of combustion - that is, the process by which levity is restored to its original condition. it is the aim of the present chapter to show that by doing justice to the imponderable aspect of combustion, the way is opened to a view of the 'elements', as scientific chemistry understands them, which will be in line with our dynamic conception of matter. there is nothing surprising in the fact that a new conception of the chemical element can arise from a re-study of the process of combustion, if we remember that it was the picture of combustion, characteristic of the spectator-consciousness, which determined the conception of the chemical element as it prevails in modern science. let us see how this conception came to pass historically in order to find where we stand to-day. * with the establishment of the knowledge of a state of physical matter which, as the definition ran, 'neither results from a combination of other physical substances nor is resolvable into such', the conviction arose that man's searching mind had reached 'rock-bottom'. this conviction, however, was shaken when, with the discovery of radium, an element became known whose property it is to disintegrate into two other elements, helium and lead. although this did not force science to abandon the element-concept altogether, it became necessary to find a new definition for it. this definition was established by professor w. ostwald at the beginning of the present century, when he stated that the chemical element represents a condition of physical matter in which 'any chemical change results in an increase of weight'. in this way, the chemical concept of the element achieved a meaning which had actually been implicit in it from its first conception. for its very formation had been the outcome of the contra-levitatem maxim. the following glance over the history of chemistry will show this. the birth of chemistry as a science, in the modern sense, is closely connected with a revolutionary change in the conception of what can be called the chemical arch-process-combustion, or, to use a more scientific term, oxidation. this change arose out of the contra-levitatem maxim and the new conception of heat which this maxim required. in the old doctrine of the four elements, heat had been conceived as a manifestation of the element of fire, and so, together with air, as belonging to the realm of the 'uncreated things'. hence the release of heat from created substance was always felt to be a sacred act, as is shown by the fire rites of old. modern man's conception of the same process is revealed in the answer one invariably receives from both layman and scientist when they are asked what they understand by combustion. it is described as a process through which oxygen combines with the combustible substance. and yet this side of combustion, first observed by j. priestley ( ), is neither the one for the sake of which man produces combustion in the service of his everyday life, nor is it at all observed by ordinary sense-perception. nevertheless, to describe the obvious fact, that combustion is liberation of heat from the combustible substance, will hardly occur to anyone to-day. this shows to what extent even the scientifically untrained consciousness in our time turns instinctively to the tangible or weighable side of nature, so that some effort is required to confess simply to what the eye and the other senses perceive. during the first hundred years after the establishment of the contra-levitatem maxim, man's situation was in a certain sense the opposite of this. then, people were struggling hard to get away from the old concept which saw in combustion nothing but the liberation of a super-terrestrial element from earthly fetters. this struggle found expression in a theory of heat which at that time greatly occupied scientific thinking. it is the so-called phlogiston-theory first proposed by the chemist stahl ( - ). this theory reveals the great uncertainty into which man's thinking about the world of the senses had arrived at that time. clinging to ideas inherited from antiquity, man's consciousness was already so far restricted to the forming of pure matter-bound concepts that he was tempted to conceive heat as a material element. to this heat-substance the name 'phlogiston' was given. at the same time, under the contra-levitatem maxim, it was impossible to conceive of substance except as ponderable substance. this led to the conviction that whenever heat appears as a result of some treatment of matter (combustion or friction), the material substance subject to this treatment must lose weight. the experiments of lavoisier ( - ), which he undertook following priestley's discovery of the role of oxygen in combustion, put an end to this theory. these experiments are rightly regarded as the actual beginning of modern chemistry. in lavoisier we find an observer of nature who was predominantly interested in what the scales could tell about changes in substances. it was from this aspect that he investigated the process of oxidation. what had already been observed by a few others, though without being taken seriously by them, he found confirmed - that, contrary to the phlogiston - theory, matter does not lose weight through oxidation but gains weight. further experiments proved beyond doubt that in all chemical reactions the total weight of the components remained constant. however much the substance resulting from the chemical reaction of others might differ from these, its weight always proved to be the same as their total weight. what else could be concluded from the apparent unchangeability of weight throughout all the chemical happenings in nature than that the ponderable world-content was of eternal duration? we see here how much modern chemistry and its concept of the chemical element has been ruled right from the start by the one-sided gravity concept of the onlooker-consciousness. together with the overcoming of the fallacy that heat is a ponderable substance (full certainty was indeed established only some time later through the investigations of davy and rumford into heat generated by friction) - human thinking was led into a one-sided conception of combustion which was merely the opposite of the one held earlier. whereas formerly man's mind was pre-eminently occupied by the liberation of the imponderable element through combustion, it now turned entirely to what goes on in the ponderable realm. as we have seen, one outcome of this one-sided view of combustion was the modern concept of the chemical element. to-day our task is to overcome this concept by taking a step corresponding to the one that led to it, that is, by a study of combustibility which does justice to both sides of the process involved. * as objects of our observation we choose three chemical elements all of which have the property of combustibility: sulphur, phosphorus, and carbon. as will become clear, our choice of these three is determined by the fact that together they represent an instance 'worth a thousand, bearing all within itself. we begin by comparing sulphur and phosphorus. in their elementary state they have in common the fact that any chemical change is bound up with an increase in their weight. in this state both are combustible. apart from this similarity, there is a great difference between them, as the way of storing them illustrates. for while elementary sulphur needs only an ordinary container, phosphorus has to be kept under cover of water in order to prevent the atmospheric oxygen from touching it. the reason is that the combustible state is natural for sulphur, but not for phosphorus, the latter's natural state being the oxidized one. this different relationship of sulphur and phosphorus to the oxidizable (reduced) and the oxidized state manifests itself in all their chemical reactions. to object here that the different reactions of the two substances are due only to the difference of their respective temperatures of ignition, and that above these temperatures the difference will more or less disappear (all combustible substances at a sufficiently high temperature becoming more or less similar to phosphorus), would not meet the argument. for what matters here is just how the particular substance behaves at that level of temperature on which the earth unfolds her normal planetary activity. to ignore this would be to violate one of the principles we have adopted from goethe, which is never to derive fundamental concepts of nature from observations obtained under artificial conditions. sulphur and phosphorus are thus seen to represent two polarically opposite tendencies with regard to the levity-gravity coherence which breaks up when combustion occurs. in the case of sulphur, the ponderable and imponderable entities appear to cling together; in the case of phosphorus, they seem to be anxious to part. these two different tendencies - which are characteristic of many other substances and represent a basic factor in the chemical happenings of the earth - are in their own way a pair of opposites. since each of them represents in itself a relationship between two poles of a polarity-gravity and levity - so in their mutual relationship they represent a 'polarity of polarities'. in fig. an attempt has been made to represent this fact by a symbolic diagram. in this figure the shaded part represents the imponderable, the black part the ponderable entity. in the left-hand symbol both are shown in a relationship corresponding to the one characteristic of sulphur; in the right-hand figure the relationship is characteristic of phosphorus. here we have an instance of a kind of polarity which belongs to the fundamentals of nature as much as does the levity-gravity polarity itself. wherever two poles of a polarity meet, they have the possibility of being connected in two ways which in themselves are again polarically opposite. our further studies will bring up various other instances of this kind, and will show us that part of the epistemological trouble in which science finds itself to-day results from the fact that the scientific mind has been unable to distinguish between the two kinds of polarity - that is, as we shall say henceforth, between polarities of the first order (primary polarities) and polarities of the second order (secondary polarities). in actual fact, the distinction between the two orders of polarity has been implicit in the descriptions given in this book right from the start. remember, in this respect, how the picture of the threefold psycho-physical structure of man, which has proved a master-key for unlocking the most varied scientific problems, was first built up. there, 'body' and 'soul' represented a polarity which is obviously one of the first order. by our observation of the human organism, in relation both to the different functions of the soul and to the different main organic systems, we further recognized the fact that the ways in which body and soul are interrelated are polarically opposite in the region of the brain and nerves and in the region of the metabolic processes, which again results in two polarically opposite activities of the soul, mental on the one hand, and volitional on the other. in what we called the pole-of-consciousness and the pole-of-life we therefore have a clear polarity of the second order, and so in everything that is connected with these two, as our further discussions will show. remembering that our first occasion to concern ourselves overtly with the concept of polarity was in connexion with the four elements, we may now ask whether the old doctrine did not embrace some conception of secondary polarity as well as of primary polarity, and if so, whether this might not prove as helpful in clarifying our own conceptions as was the primary polarity, cold-warm. that this is indeed so, the following description will show. beside the two qualities cold and warm the doctrine of the four elements pointed to two further qualities forming in themselves a pair of opposites, namely, dry and moist. just as the four elements were seen as grouping themselves in two pairs, fire-air on the one hand, water-earth on the other, the first being characterized by the quality warm, the second by cold, so were they seen to form two opposing groups, fire-earth and air-water, of which one was characterized by the quality dry, the other by the quality moist. fig. shows how the four elements in their totality were seen to arise out of the various combinations of the four qualities. in this diagram the element earth appears as a combination of the qualities dry and cold; water of cold and moist; air of moist and warm; fire of warm and dry. as a result, earth and fire, besides representing opposite poles, are also neighbours in the diagram. here we encounter a picture characteristic of all earlier ways of looking at the world: the members of a system of phenomena, when ranked in due order of succession, were seen to turn back on themselves circle-wise - or, more precisely, spiral-wise. in what way do the qualities dry and moist form a polarity of the second order, and how do they represent the chemical polarity characteristic of sulphur and phosphorus as well as all the other secondary polarities dealt with in this book? to understand this we must submit the couple dry-moist to the same scrutiny as we applied to cold and warm in our earlier discussion of the four elements. it lies in the nature of things that we instinctively associate these qualities with the solid and liquid states of matter respectively. this certainly agrees with the diagram given above, where the elements earth and water are distinguished precisely by their connexion with these two characteristics. yet, in addition to this, the qualities dry and moist are found to be characteristic also of fire and air respectively, though with the difference that they are linked not with the quality cold, as in the case of the lower elements, but with the quality warm. so we see that the concepts dry and moist, as they lived in the old picturing of them, mean a good deal more than we understand by them to-day. that these two respective attributes do not belong exclusively to the solid and the liquid states of matter can be seen at once by observing the different reactions of certain liquids to a solid surface which they touch. one need only recall the difference between water and quicksilver. if water runs over a surface it leaves a trail; quicksilver does not. water clings to the side of a vessel; again, quicksilver does not. a well-known consequence of this difference is that in a narrow tube the surface of the liquid - the so-called meniscus - stands higher at the circumference than at the centre in the case of water; with quicksilver it is just the reverse. in the sense of the two qualities, dry and moist, water is a 'moist' liquid; quicksilver a 'dry' one. on the other hand, the quality of moistness in a solid substance appears in the adhesive power of glue. let us now see how, in accordance with the scheme given in fig. , the four qualities in their respective combinations constitute the four elements. from the description we shall give here it will be realized how little such ancient schemes were based on abstract thoughts, and how much they were read from the facts of the world. moreover, a comparison with our description of the four stages of matter, given in the previous chapter, would show how far the conceptual content of the old doctrine covers the corresponding facts when they are read by the eye of the modern reader in nature, notwithstanding the changes nature has undergone in the meantime. the element fire reveals its attributes of warm and dry in a behaviour which combines a tendency to dynamic expansion with a disinclination to enter into lasting combination with the other elements. correspondingly, the behaviour of the element earth unites a tendency to contraction with an inclination to fall out of conjunction with the other elements. thus the attribute, dry, belongs equally to pure flame and sheer dust, though for opposite reasons. distinct from both these elements are the middle elements water and air; with them the attribute, moist, comes to expression in their tendency both to interpenetrate mutually and to absorb their neighbours - the liquid element absorbing solid matter and the aeriform element taking up heat. what distinguishes them is that water has a 'cold' nature, from which it gains its density; while air has a 'warm' nature, to which it owes its tendency to expand. in the most general sense, the quality 'moist' applies wherever two different entities are drawn into some kind of intimate relationship with one another; 'dry' applies where no such relationship prevails. seen thus, they reveal themselves as a true polarity of the second order, for they describe the relationship between two entities which already exists, and, in the case of the four elements, are themselves a polarity. as such, they characterize precisely those polar relationships of the second order on which the threefold structure of man, we found, is based. for from the physical, as much as from the superphysical aspect the nerve-system represents the 'dry' part, and the metabolic system the 'moist' part of man's being. the same is true of the relationship between the soul and the surrounding world at both poles. here we have the antithesis between the 'dry' onlooker-relationship of the intellect to the world, conceived as a mere picture whose essence remains outside the boundaries of the soul, and the 'moist' intermingling of the will-force with the actual forces of the world. * it needs no further explanation to realize that sulphur and phosphorus, by the way in which levity and gravity are interlinked in each of them, are representatives of these very qualities 'moist' and 'dry'. as such they are universally active bearers of these qualities in every realm of nature's varied activities, as their physical presence in such cases confirms. consequently, sulphur is found in the protein-substances of the human body wherever they are bearers of metabolic processes, while the presence of phosphorus is characteristic of the nerves and bones. (although its full significance will become clear to us only later, the fact may here be mentioned that the composition of the bone-material in the different parts of man's skeleton, as scientific analysis has shown, is such that the content of phosphate of calcium in proportion to carbonate of calcium is higher in all those parts which are spherically shaped, such as the upper parts of the skull and the upper ends of the limb-bones.) in particular the plant reveals clearly the functional significance of phosphorus as the bearer of the quality 'dry'. for its healthy growth the plant needs the quality 'dry' in two places: at the root, where it unites with the element earth, and in the flower, where it opens itself to the fire element. root and flower as distinct from the middle parts of the plant are both 'dry' formations. in a still higher degree this applies to the seed, which must separate itself from the mother plant to produce a separate new organism. all these are functions in the plant which, as was mentioned in the last chapter, require phosphorus for their healthy performance. our examination of phosphorus and sulphur from the functional point of view throws light also on their effect on the alternating conditions of waking and sleeping, necessary for the life of the higher organisms. this rhythmic change, which affects especially the nervous system, is an alternation between the qualities dry and moist. disturbance of this alternation in one direction or the other makes it difficult for the organism to react in full wakefulness or normal sleep. it follows that treatment with phosphorus or sulphur in suitable preparations, according to the nature of the disturbance, can be beneficial. if we study the functional properties of such substances we see that they can teach us a rational understanding of therapeutic practices, which otherwise must remain mere results of trial and error. the same applies to phosphorus and sulphur treatment in cases where in the functionally 'dry' bone system or in the functionally 'moist' metabolic system of the organism the wrong quality predominates. if the bones remain too 'moist' there is a tendency to rickets; against this, certain fish-oils are a well-known remedy on account of their highly phosphoric nature. conversely, the application of sulphur can help where weakness of the metabolic forces produces rheumatic or gouty sediments in parts of the body whose function is to serve by their mobility the activities of the will. in this case the abnormal predominance of the quality 'dry' can be counteracted by the medical application of sulphur. * having observed the action of sulphur and phosphorus in the laboratory and in living organisms, we will now turn to phenomena of a macrotelluric nature which reveal the participation of sulphur and phosphorus. there, sulphur points unmistakably to the earth's volcanism. it is a fact that, wherever mineral sulphur occurs in the earth, there we find a spot of former or present volcanic activity. similarly, there is no such spot on the earth without sulphur being present in one form or another. hence the name solfatara for the fumarole described in chapter ix. once again it is the solfatara which offers us a phenomenon, this time in connexion with the special role sulphur plays in its activities, which, regarded with the eye of the spirit, assumes the significance of an instance 'worth a thousand'. in spite of the very high temperature of the sulphurous fumes emitted from various crevices on the edge of the solfatara, it is possible, thanks to the complete dryness of the fumes, to crawl a little way into the interior of these crevices. not far away from the opening of the crevice, where the hot fumes touch the cooler rock surface, one is met by a very beautiful spectacle - namely, the continual forming, out of nothing as it seems, of glittering yellow sulphur crystals, suspended in delicate chains from the ceiling. in this transformation of sulphurous substance from a higher material state, nearer to levity, to that of the solid crystal, we may behold an image of the generation of matter. for every physical substance and, therefore, every chemical element, exists originally as a pure function in the dynamic processes of the universe. wherever, as a result of the action of gravity, such a function congeals materially, there we meet it in the form of a physical-material substance. in the same sense, sulphur and phosphorus, in their real being, are pure functions, and where they occur as physical substances, there we meet these functions in their congealed state. one of the characteristics of the volcanic regions of the earth is the healing effect of substances found there. fango-mud, for instance, which was mentioned in the last chapter, is a much-used remedy against rheumatism. this is typical of functional sulphur. we may truly characterize the earth's volcanism as being qualitatively sulphurous. it is the sulphur-function coming to expression through a higher degree of 'moistness' in the relationship between gravity and levity which distinguishes volcanic regions from the rest of the otherwise 'dry' earth's crust. * to develop a corresponding picture of the function of phosphorus, we must try to find the macrotelluric sphere where this function operates similarly to that of sulphur in volcanism. from what has been said in the last chapter it will be evident that we must look to the atmosphere, as the site of snow-formation. it is this process which we must now examine more closely. in the atmosphere, to begin with, we find water in a state of vapour, in which the influence of the terrestrial gravity-field is comparatively weak. floating in this state, the vapour condenses and crystallization proceeds. obeying the pull of gravity, more and more crystals unite in their descent and gradually form flakes of varying sizes. the nearer they come to earth, the closer they fall, until at last on the ground they form an unbroken, more or less spherical, cover. imagine a snow-covered field glistening in the sun on a clear, quiet winter's day. as far as we can see, there is no sign of life, no movement. here water, which is normally fluid and, in its liquid state, serves the ever-changing life-processes, covers the earth in the form of millions of separate crystals shaped with mathematical exactitude, each of which breaks and reflects in a million rays the light from the sun (plate v). a contrast, indeed, between this quiet emergence of forms from levity into gravity, and the form-denying volcanism surging up out of gravity into levity, as shown by the ever-restless activity of the solfatara. as we found volcanism to be a macrotelluric manifestation of functional sulphur, we find in the process of snow-formation a corresponding manifestation of functional phosphorus. in the formation of snow, nature shows us in statu agendi a process which we otherwise meet in the earth only in its finished results, crystallization. we may, therefore, rightly look upon snow-formation as an ur-phenomenon in this sphere of nature's activities. as such it allows us to learn something concerning the origin in general of the crystalline realm of the earth; and, vice versa, our insight into the 'becoming' of this realm will enable us to see more clearly the universal function of which phosphorus is the main representative among the physical substances of the earth. it has puzzled many an observer that crystals occur in the earth with directions of their main axes entirely independent of the direction of the earthly pull of gravity. plate vi shows the photograph of a cluster of calcite crystals as an example of this phenomenon. it tells us that gravity can have no effect on the formation of the crystal itself. this riddle is solved by the phenomenon of snow-formation provided we allow it to speak to us as an ur-phenomenon. for it then tells us that matter must be in a state of transition from lightness into heaviness if it is to appear in crystalline form. the crystals in the earth, therefore, must have originated at a time when the relation between levity and gravity on the earth was different from what it is, in this sphere, to-day. the same language is spoken by the property of transparency which is so predominant among crystals. one of the fundamental characteristics of heavy solid matter is to resist light - in other words, to be opaque. exposed to heat, however, physical substance loses this feature to the extent that at the border of its ponderability all matter becomes pervious to light. now, in the transparent crystal matter retains this kinship to light even in its solid state. a similar message comes from the, often so mysterious, colouring of the crystals. here again nature offers us an instance which, 'worth a thousand', reveals a secret that would otherwise remain veiled. we refer to the pink crystals of tourmaline, whose colour comes from a small admixture of lithium. this element, which belongs to the group of the alkaline metals, does not form coloured salts (a property only shown by the heavier metals). if exposed to a flame, however, it endows it with a definite colour which is the same as that of the lithium-coloured tourmaline. read as a letter in nature's script, this fact tells us that precious stones with their flame-like colours are characterized by having kept something of the nature that was theirs before they coalesced into ponderable existence. in fact, they are 'frozen flames'. it is this fact, known from ancient intuitive experience, which prompted man of old to attribute particular spiritual significance to the various precious stones of the earth and to use them correspondingly in his rituals. crystallization, seen thus in its cosmic aspect, shows a dynamic orientation which is polarically opposite to that of the earth's seismic activities. just as in the latter we observe levity taking hold of ponderable matter and moving it in a direction opposite to the pull of gravity, so in crystallization we see imponderable matter passing over from levity into gravity. and just as we found in volcanism and related processes a field of activity of 'functional sulphur', so we found in snow-formation and related processes a field of activity of 'functional phosphorus'. both fields are characterized by an interaction between gravity and levity, this interaction being of opposite nature in each of them. here, again, sulphur and phosphorus appear as bearers of a polarity of the second order which springs from the two polarically opposite ways of interaction between the poles of the polarity of the first order: levity-gravity. * as in man there is a third system, mediating between the two polar systems of his organism, so between sulphur and phosphorus there is a third element which in all its characteristics holds a middle place between them and is the bearer of a corresponding function. this element is carbon. to see this we need only take into consideration carbon's relationship to oxidation and reduction respectively. as it is natural for sulphur to be in the reduced state, and for phosphorus to be in the oxidized state, so it is in the nature of carbon to be related to both states and therefore to oscillate between them. by its readiness to change over from the oxidized to the reduced state, it can serve the plant in the assimilation of light, while by its readiness to make the reverse change it serves man and animal in the breathing process. we breathe in oxygen from the air; the oxygen circulates through the blood-stream and passes out again in conjunction with carbon, as carbon dioxide, when we exhale. in the process whereby the plants reduce the carbon dioxide exhaled by man and animal, while the latter again absorb with their food the carbon produced in the form of organic matter by the plant, we see carbon moving to and fro between the oxidized and the reduced conditions. within the plant itself, too, carbon acts as functionary of the alternation between oxidation and reduction. during the first half of the year, when vegetation is unfolding, there is a great reduction process of oxidized carbon, while in the second half of the year, when the withering process prevails, a great deal of the previously reduced carbon passes into the oxidized condition. as this is connected with exhaling and inhaling of oxygen through carbon, carbon can be regarded as having the function of the lung-organ of the earth. logically enough, we find carbon playing the same role in the middle part of the threefold human organism. another indication of the midway position of carbon is its ability to combine as readily with hydrogen as with oxygen, and, in these polar combinations, even to combine with itself. in this latter form it provides the basis of the innumerable organic substances in nature, and serves as the 'building stones' of the body-substances of living organisms. among these, the carbohydrates produced by the plants show clearly the double function of carbon in the way it alternates between the states of starch and sugar. when the plant absorbs through its leaves carbonic acid from the air and condenses it into the multiple grains of starch with their peculiar structure characteristic for each plant species, we have a biological event which corresponds to the formation of snow in the meteorological realm. here we see carbon at work in a manner functionally akin to that of phosphorus. sugar, on the other hand, has its place in the saps of the plants which rise through the stems and carry up with them the mineral substances of the earth. here we find carbon acting in a way akin to the function of sulphur. this twofold nature of carbon makes itself noticeable down to the very mineral sphere of the earth. there we find it in the fact that carbon occurs both in the form of the diamond, the hardest of all mineral substances, and also in the form of the softest, graphite. here also, in the diamond's brilliant transparency, and in the dense blackness of graphite, carbon reveals its twofold relation to light. in fig. an attempt has been made to represent diagrammatically the function of carbon in a way corresponding to the previous representation of the functions of sulphur and phosphorus. * by adding carbon to our observations on the polarity of sulphur and phosphorus we have been led to a triad of functions each of which expresses a specific interplay of levity and gravity. that we encounter three such functions is not accidental or arbitrary. rather is it based on the fact that the interaction of forces emanating from a polarity of the first order, produces a polarity of the second order, whose poles establish between them a sphere of balance. through our study of levity and gravity in the matter-processes of the earth, a perspective thus opens up into a structural principle of nature which is actually not new to us. we encountered it at the very beginning of this book when we discussed the threefold psycho-physical order of man's being. in the days of an older intuitive nature-wisdom man knew of a basic triad of functions as well as he knew of the four elementary qualities. we hear a last echo of this in the middle ages, when people striving for a deeper understanding of nature spoke of the trinity of salt, mercury and sulphur. what the true alchemists, as these seekers of knowledge called themselves, meant by this was precisely the same as the conception we have here reached through our own way of studying matter ('salt' standing for 'functional phosphorus', 'mercury' for 'functional carbon'). only the alchemist's way was a different one. this is not the place to enter into a full examination of the meaning and value of alchemy in its original legitimate sense (which must not be confused with activities that later on paraded under the same name). only this we will say - that genuine alchemy owes its origin to an impulse which, at a time when the onlooker-consciousness first arose, led to the foundation of a school for the development of an intuitive relationship of the soul with the world of the senses. this was to enable man to resist the effects of the division which evolution was about to set up in his soul-life - the division which was to give him, on the one hand, an abstract experience of his own self, divorced from the outer world, and on the other a mere onlooker's experience of that outer world. as a result of these endeavours, concepts were formed which in their literal meaning seemed to apply merely to outwardly perceptible substances, while in truth they stood for the spiritual functions represented by those substances, both within and outside the human organism. thus the alchemist who used these concepts thought of them first as referring to his own soul, and to the inner organic processes corresponding to the various activities of his soul. when speaking of salt he meant the regulated formative activity of his thinking, based on the salt-forming process in his nervous system. when he spoke of mercury he meant the quickly changing emotional life of the soul and the corresponding activities of the rhythmic processes of the body. lastly, sulphur meant the will activities of his soul and the corresponding metabolic processes of the body. only through studying these functions within himself, and through re-establishing the harmony between them which had been theirs in the beginning, and from which, he felt, man had deviated in the course of time, did the alchemist hope to come to an understanding of their counterparts in the external cosmos. older alchemical writings, therefore, can be understood only if prescriptions which seem to signify certain chemical manipulations are read as instructions for certain exercises of the soul, or as advices for the redirection of corresponding processes in the body. for instance, if an alchemist gave directions for a certain treatment of sulphur, mercury and salt, with the assertion that by carrying out these directions properly, one would obtain aurum (gold), he really spoke of a method to direct the thinking, feeling and willing activities of the soul in such a way as to gain true wisdom. * as in the case of the concepts constituting the doctrine of the four elements, we have represented here the basic alchemical concepts not only because of their historical significance, but because, as ingredients of a still functional conception of nature, they assume new significance in a science which seeks to develop, though from different starting-points, a similar conception. as will be seen in our further studies, these concepts prove a welcome enrichment of the language in which we must try to express our readings in nature. roger bacon in the thirteenth, and berthold schwartz in the fourteenth century, are reputed to have carried out experiments by mixing physical salt (in the form of the chemically labile saltpetre) with physical sulphur and - after some initial attempts with various metals - with charcoal, and then exposing the mixture to the heat of physical fire. the outcome of this purely materialistic interpretation of the three alchemical concepts was not the acquisition of wisdom, or, as schwartz certainly had hoped, of gold, but of ... gunpowder! chapter xii space and counter-space with the introduction, in chapter x, of the peripheral type of force-field which appertains to levity as the usual central one does to gravity, we are compelled to revise our conception of space. for in a space of a kind we are accustomed to conceive, that is, the three-dimensional, euclidean space, the existence of such a field with its characteristic of increasing in strength in the outward direction is a paradox, contrary to mathematical logic. this task, which in view of our further observations of the actions of the levity-gravity polarity in nature we must now tackle, is, however, by no means insoluble. for in modern mathematics thought-forms are already present which make it possible to develop a space-concept adequate to levity. as referred to in chapter i, it was rudolf steiner who first pointed to the significance in this respect of the branch of modern mathematics known as projective geometry. he showed that projective geometry, if rightly used, carries over the mind from the customary abstract to a new concrete treatment of mathematical concepts. the following example will serve to explain, to start with, what we mean by saying that mathematics has hitherto been used abstractly. one of the reasons why the world-picture developed by einstein in his theory of relativity deserves to be acknowledged as a step forward in comparison with the picture drawn by classical physics, lies in the fact that the old conception of three-dimensional space as a kind of 'cosmic container', extending in all directions into infinity and filled, as it were, with the content of the physical universe, is replaced by a conception in which the structure of space results from the laws interrelating this content. our further discussion will show that this indeed is the way along which, to-day, mathematical thought must move in order to cope with universal reality. however, for reasons discussed earlier, einstein was forced to conceive all events in the universe after the model of gravity as observable on the earth. in this way he arrived at a space-structure which possesses neither the three-dimensionality nor the rectilinear character of so-called euclidean space - a space-picture which, though mathematically consistent, is incomprehensible by the human mind. for nothing exists in our mind that could enable us to experience as a reality a space-time continuum of three dimensions which is curved within a further dimension. this outcome of einstein's endeavours results from the fact that he tried by means of gravity-bound thought to comprehend universal happenings of which the true causes are non-gravitational. a thinking that has learnt to acknowledge the existence of levity must indeed pursue precisely the opposite direction. instead of freezing time down into spatial dimension, in order to make it fit into a world ruled by nothing but gravity, we must develop a conception of space sufficiently fluid to let true time have its place therein. we shall see how such a procedure will lead us to a space-concept thoroughly conceivable by human common sense, provided we are prepared to overcome the onlooker-standpoint in mathematics also. einstein owed the possibility of establishing his space-picture to a certain achievement of mathematical thinking in modern times. as we have seen, one of the peculiarities of the onlooker-consciousness consists in its being devoid of all connexion with reality. the process of thinking thereby gained a degree of freedom which did not exist in former ages. in consequence, mathematicians were enabled in the course of the nineteenth century to conceive the most varied space-systems which were all mathematically consistent and yet lacked all relation to external existence. a considerable number of space-systems have thus become established among which there is the system that served einstein to derive his space-time concept. some of them have been more or less fully worked out, while in certain instances all that has been done is to show that they are mathematically conceivable. among these there is one which in all its characteristics is polarically opposite to the euclidean system, and which is destined for this reason to become the space-system of levity. it is symptomatic of the remoteness from reality of mathematical thinking in the onlooker-age that precisely this system has so far received no special attention. for the purpose of this book it is not necessary to expound in detail why modern mathematical thinking has been led to look for thought-forms other than those of classical geometry. it is enough to remark that for quite a long time there had been an awareness of the fact that the consistency of euclid's definitions and proofs fails as soon as one has no longer to do with finite geometrical entities, but with figures which extend into infinity, as for instance when the properties of parallel straight lines come into question. for the concept of infinity was foreign to classical geometrical thinking. problems of the kind which had defeated euclidean thinking became soluble directly human thinking was able to handle the concept of infinity. we shall now indicate some of the lines of geometrical thought which follow from this. * let us consider a straight line extending without limits in either direction. projective geometry is able to state that a point moving along this line in one direction will eventually return from the other. to see this, we imagine two straight lines a and b intersecting at p. one of these lines is fixed (a); the other (b) rotates uniformly about c. fig. indicates the rotation of b by showing it in a number of positions with the respective positions of its point of intersection with a (p , p . . .). we observe this point moving along a, as a result of the rotation of b, until, when both lines are parallel, it reaches infinity. as a result of the continued rotation of b, however, p does not remain in infinity, but returns along a from the other side. we find here two forms of movement linked together - the rotational movement of a line (b) on a point (c), and the progressive movement of a point (p) along a line (a). the first movement is continuous, and observable throughout within finite space. therefore the second movement must be continuous as well, even though it partly escapes our observation. hence, when p disappears into infinity on one side of our own point of observation, it is at the same time in infinity on the other side. in order words, an unlimited straight line has only one point at infinity. it is clear that, in order to become familiar with this aspect of geometry, one must grow together in inward activity with the happening which is contained in the above description. what we therefore intend by giving such a description is to provide an opportunity for a particular mental exercise, just as when we introduced goethe's botany by describing a number of successive leaf-formations. here, as much as there, it is the act of 're-creating' that matters. the following exercise will help us towards further clarity concerning the nature of geometrical infinity. we imagine ourselves in the centre of a sphere which we allow to expand uniformly on all sides. whilst the inner wall of this sphere withdraws from us into ever greater distances, it grows flatter and flatter until, on reaching infinite distance, it turns into a plane. we thus find ourselves surrounded everywhere by a surface which, in the strict mathematical sense, is a plane, and is yet one and the same surface on all sides. this leads us to the conception of the plane at infinity as a self-contained entity although it expands infinitely in all directions. this property of a plane at infinity, however, is really a property of any plane. to realize this, we must widen our conception of infinity by freeing it from a certain one-sidedness still connected with it. this we do by transferring ourselves into the infinite plane and envisaging, not the plane from the point, but the point from the plane. this operation, however, implies something which is not obvious to a mind accustomed to the ordinary ways of mathematical reasoning. it therefore requires special explanation. in the sense of euclidean geometry, a plane is the sum-total of innumerable single points. to take up a position in a plane, therefore, means to imagine oneself at one point of the plane, with the latter extending around in all directions to infinity. hence the journey from any point in space to a plane is along a straight line from one point to another. in the case of the plane being at infinity, it would be a journey along a radius of the infinitely large sphere from its centre to a point at its circumference. in projective geometry the operation is of a different character. just as we arrived at the infinitely large sphere by letting a finite sphere grow, so must we consider any finite sphere as having grown from a sphere with infinitely small extension; that is, from a point. to travel from the point to the infinitely distant plane in the sense of projective geometry, therefore, means that we have first to identify ourselves with the point and 'become' the plane by a process of uniform expansion in all directions. as a result of this we do not arrive at one point in the plane, with the latter extending round us on all sides, but we are present in the plane as a whole everywhere. no point in it can be characterized as having any distance, whether finite or infinite, from us. nor is there any sense in speaking of the plane itself as being at infinity. for any plane will allow us to identify ourselves with it in this way. and any such plane can be given the character of a plane at infinity by relating it to a point infinitely far away from it (i.e. from us). having thus dropped the one-sided conception of infinity, we must look for another characterization of the relationship between a point and a plane which are infinitely distant from one another. this requires, first of all, a proper characterization of point and plane in themselves. conceived dynamically, as projective geometry requires, point and plane represent a pair of opposites, the point standing for utmost contraction, the plane for utmost expansion. as such, they form a polarity of the first order. both together constitute space. which sort of space this is, depends on the relationship in which they are envisaged. by positing the point as the unit from which to start, and deriving our conception of the plane from the point, we constitute euclidean space. by starting in the manner described above, with the plane as the unit, and conceiving the point from it, we constitute polar-euclidean space. the realization of the reversibility of the relationship between point and plane leads to a conception of space still free from any specific character. by g. adams this space has been appositely called archetypal space, or ur-space. both euclidean and polar-euclidean space are particular manifestations of it, their mutual relationship being one of metamorphosis in the goethean sense. through conceiving euclidean and polar-euclidean space in this manner it becomes clear that they are nothing else than the geometrical expression of the relationship between gravity and levity. for gravity, through its field spreading outward from an inner centre, establishes a point-to-point relation between all things under its sway; whereas levity draws all things within its domain into common plane-relations by establishing field-conditions wherein action takes place from the periphery towards the centre. what distinguishes in both cases the plane at infinity from all other planes may be best described by calling it the all-embracing plane; correspondingly the point at infinity may be best described as the all-relating point. in outer nature the all-embracing plane is as much the 'centre' of the earth's field of levity as the all-relating point is the centre of her field of gravity. all actions of dynamic entities, such as that of the ur-plant and its subordinate types, start from this plane. seeds, eye-formations, etc., are nothing but individual all-relating points in respect of this plane. all that springs from such points does so because of the point's relation to the all-embracing plane. this may suffice to show how realistic are the mathematical concepts which we have here tried to build up. * when we set out earlier in this book (chapter viii) to discover the source of galileo's intuition, by which he had been enabled to find the theorem of the parallelogram of forces, we were led to certain experiences through which all men go in early childhood by erecting their body and learning to walk. we were thereby led to realize that man's general capacity for thinking mathematically is the outcome of early experiences of this kind. it is evident that geometrical concepts arising in man's mind in this way must be those of euclidean geometry. for they are acquired by the will's struggle with gravity. the dynamic law discovered in this way by galileo was therefore bound to apply to the behaviour of mechanical forces - that is, of forces acting from points outward. in a similar way we can now seek to find the source of our capacity to form polar-euclidean concepts. as we were formerly led to experiences of man's early life on earth, so we are now led to his embryonic and even pre-embryonic existence. before man's supersensible part enters into a physical body there is no means of conveying to it experiences other than those of levity, and this condition prevails right through embryonic development. for while the body floats in the mother's foetal fluid it is virtually exempt from the influence of the earth's field of gravity. history has given us a source of information from these early periods of man's existence in traherne's recollections of the time when his soul was still in the state of cosmic consciousness. among his descriptions we may therefore expect to find a picture of levity-space which will confirm through immediate experience what we have arrived at along the lines of realistic mathematical reasoning. among poems quoted earlier, his the praeparative and my spirit do indeed convey this picture in the clearest possible way. the following are relevant passages from these two poems. in the first we read: 'then was my soul my only all to me, a living endless ey, scarce bounded with the sky whose power, and act, and essence was to see: i was an inward sphere of light, or an interminable orb of sight, exceeding that which makes the days . . .' in the second poem the same experience is expressed in richer detail. there he says of his own soul that it - ... being simple, like the deity, in its own centre is a sphere, not limited but everywhere. it acts not from a centre to its object, as remote; but present is, where it doth go to view the being it doth note ... a strange extended orb of joy proceeding from within, which did on ev'ry side display its force; and being nigh of kin to god, did ev'ry way dilate its self ev'n instantaneously, yet an indivisible centre stay, in it surrounding all eternity. 'twas not a sphere; yet did appear one infinite: 'twas somewhat everywhere.' observe the distinct description of how the relation between circumference and centre is inverted by the former becoming itself an 'indivisible centre'. in a space of this kind there is no here and there, as in euclidean space, for the consciousness is always and immediately at one with the whole space. motion is thus quite different from what it is in euclidean space. traherne himself italicized the word 'instantaneous', so important did he find this fact. (the quality of instantaneousness - equal from the physical point of view to a velocity of the value â�� - will occupy us more closely as a characteristic of the realm of levity when we come to discuss the apparent velocity of light in connexion with our optical studies.) by thus realizing the source in man of the polar-euclidean thought-forms, we see the discovery of projective geometry in a new light. for it now assumes the significance of yet another historical symptom of the modern re-awakening of man's capacity to remember his prenatal existence. * we know from our previous studies that the concept of polarity is not exhausted by conceiving the world as being constituted by polarities of one order only. besides primary polarities, there are secondary ones, the outcome of interaction between the primary poles. having conceived of point and plane as a geometrical polarity of the first order, we have therefore to ask what formative elements there are in geometry which represent the corresponding polarity of the second order. the following considerations will show that these are the radius, which arises from the point becoming related to the plane, and the spherically bent surface (for which we have no other name than that again of the sphere), arising from the plane becoming related to the point. in euclidean geometry the sphere is defined as 'the locus of all points which are equidistant from a given point'. to define the sphere in this way is in accord with our post-natal, gravity-bound consciousness. for in this state our mind can do no more than envisage the surface of the sphere point by point from its centre and recognize the equal distance of all these points from the centre. seen thus, the sphere arises as the sum-total of the end-points of all the straight lines of equal length which emerge from the centre-point in all directions. fig. indicates this schematically. here the radius, a straight line, is clearly the determining factor. we now move to the other pole of the primary polarity, that is to the plane, and let the sphere arise by imagining the plane approaching an infinitely distant point evenly from all sides. we view the process realistically only by imagining ourselves in the plane, so that we surround the point from all sides, with the distance between us and the point diminishing gradually. since we remain all the time on the surface, we have no reason to conceive any change in its original position; that is, we continue to think of it as an all-embracing plane with regard to the chosen point. the only way of representing the sphere diagrammatically, as a unit bearing in itself the character of the plane whence it sprang, is as shown in fig. , where a number of planes, functioning as tangential planes, are so related that together they form a surface which possesses everywhere the same distance from the all-relating point. since point and plane represent in the realm of geometrical concepts what in outer nature we find in the form of the gravity-levity polarity, we may expect to meet radius and sphere as actual formative elements in nature, wherever gravity and levity interact in one way or another. a few observations may suffice to give the necessary evidence. further confirmation will be furnished by the ensuing chapters. the radius-sphere antithesis appears most obviously in the human body, the radial element being represented by the limbs, the spherical by the skull. the limbs thus become the hieroglyph of a dynamic directed from the point to the plane, and the skull of the opposite. this indeed is in accord with the distribution in the organism of the sulphur-salt polarity, as we learnt from our physiological and psychological studies. inner processes and outer form thus reveal the same distribution of poles. in the plant the same polarity appears in stalk and leaf. obviously the stalk represents the radial pole. the connexion between leaf and sphere is not so clear: in order to recognize it we must appreciate that the single plant is not a self-contained entity to the same degree as is the human being. the equivalent of the single man is the entire vegetable covering of the earth. in man there is an individual centre round which the bones of his skull are curved; in the plant world the equivalent is the centre of the earth. it is in relation to this that we must conceive of the single leaves as parts of a greater sphere. in the plant, just as in man, the morphological polarity coincides with the biological. there is, on the one hand, the process of assimilation (photosynthesis), so characteristic of the leaf. through this process matter passes over from the aeriform condition into that of numerous separate, characteristically structured solid bodies - the starch grains. besides this kind of assimilation we have learnt to recognize a higher form which we called 'spiritual assimilation'. here, a transition of substance from the domain of levity to that of gravity takes place even more strikingly than in ordinary (physical) assimilation (chapter x). the corresponding process in the linear stalk is one which we may call 'sublimation' - again with its extension into 'spiritual sublimation'. through this process matter is carried in the upward direction towards ever less ponderable conditions, and finally into the formless state of pure 'chaos'. by this means the seed is prepared (as we have seen) with the help of the fire-bearing pollen, so that after it has fallen to the ground, it may serve as an all-relating point to which the plant's type can direct its activity from the universal circumference. in order to find the corresponding morphological polarity in the animal kingdom, we must realize that the animal, by having the main axis of its body in the horizontal direction, has a relationship to the gravity-levity fields of the earth different from those of both man and plant. as a result, the single animal body shows the sphere-radius polarity much less sharply. if we compare the different groups of the animal kingdom, however, we find that the animals, too, bear this polarity as a formative element. the birds represent the spherical (dry, saline) pole; the ruminants the linear (moist, sulphurous) pole. the carnivorous quadrupeds form the intermediary (mercurial) group. as ur-phenomenal types we may name among the birds the eagle, clothed in its dry, silicic plumage, hovering with far-spread wings in the heights of the atmosphere, united with the expanses of space through its far-reaching sight; among the ruminants, the cow, lying heavily on the ground of the earth, given over entirely to the immensely elaborated sulphurous process of its own digestion. between them comes the lion - the most characteristic animal for the preponderance of heart-and-lung activities in the body, with all the attributes resulting from that. within the scope of this book it can only be intimated briefly, but should not be left unmentioned for the sake of those interested in a further pursuit of these lines of thought, that the morphological mean between radius and sphere (corresponding to mercurius in the alchemical triad) is represented by a geometrical figure known as the 'lemniscate', a particular modification of the so-called cassinian curves. for further details, see the writings of g. adams and l. locher-ernst who, each in his own way, have made a beginning with applying projective geometry on the lines indicated by rudolf steiner. professor locher-ernst was the first to apply the term 'polar-euclidean' to the space-system corresponding to levity. for particulars of the lemniscate as the building plan of the middle part of man's skeleton, see k. könig, m.d.: beitrage zu einer reinen anatomic des menschlichen knochenskeletts in the periodical natura (dornach, - ). some projective-geometrical considerations concerning the lemniscate are to be found in the previously mentioned writings of g. adams and l. locher-ernst. chapter xiii 'radiant matter' when man in the state of world-onlooker undertook to form a dynamic picture of the nature of matter, it was inevitable that of all the qualities which belong to its existence he should be able to envisage only those pertaining to gravity and electricity. because his consciousness, at this stage of its evolution, was closely bound up with the force of gravity inherent in the human body, he was unable to form any conception of levity as a force opposite to gravity. yet, nature is built bipolarically, and polarity-concepts are therefore indispensable for developing a true understanding of her actions. this accounts for the fact that the unipolar concept of gravity had eventually to be supplemented by some kind of bipolar concept. now, the only sphere of nature-phenomena with a bipolar character accessible to the onlooker-consciousness 'was that of electricity. it was thus that man in this state of consciousness was compelled to picture the foundation of the physical universe as being made up of gravity and electricity, as we meet them in the modern picture of the atom, with its heavy electro-positive nucleus and the virtually weightless electro-negative electrons moving round it. once scientific observation and thought are freed from the limitations of the onlooker-consciousness, both gravity and electricity appear in a new perspective, though the change is different for each of them. gravity, while it becomes one pole of a polarity, with levity as the opposite pole, still retains its character as a fundamental force of the physical universe, the gravity-levity polarity being one of the first order. not so electricity. for, as the following discussion will show, the electrical polarity is one of the second order; moreover, instead of constituting matter as is usually believed, electricity turns out to be in reality a product of matter. * we follow goethe's line when, in order to answer the question, 'what is electricity?' we first ask, 'how does electricity arise?' instead of starting with phenomena produced by electricity when it is already in action, and deriving from them a hypothetical picture, we begin by observing the processes to which electricity owes its appearance. since there is significance in the historical order in which facts of nature have come to man's knowledge in the past, we choose as our starting-point, among the various modes of generating electricity, the one through which the existence of an electric force first became known. this is the rousing of the electric state in a body by rubbing it with another body of different material composition. originally, amber was rubbed with wool or fur. by picturing this process in our mind we become aware of a certain kinship of electricity with fire, since for ages the only known way of kindling fire was through friction. we notice that in both cases man had to resort to the will-power invested in his limbs for setting in motion two pieces of matter, so that, by overcoming their resistance to this motion, he released from them a certain force which he could utilize as a supplement to his own will. the similarity of the two processes may be taken as a sign that heat and electricity are related to each other in a certain way, the one being in some sense a metamorphosis of the other. our first task, therefore, will be to try to understand how it is that friction causes heat to appear in manifest form. there is no friction unless the surfaces of the rubbed bodies have a structure that is in some way interfered with by the rubbing, while at the same time they offer a certain resistance to the disturbance. this resistance is due to a characteristic of matter, commonly called cohesion. now we know that the inner coherence of a physical body is due to its point-relationship, that is to the gravitational force bound up with it. indeed, cohesion increases as we pass from the gaseous, through the liquid, to the solid state of matter. whilst a body's cohesion is due to gravity, its spatial extendedness is, as we have seen, due to levity. if we reduce the volume of a piece of physical matter by means of pressure, we therefore release levity-forces previously bound up in it, and these, as always happens in such cases, appear in the form of free heat. figuratively speaking, we may say that by applying pressure to matter, latent levity is pressed out of it, somewhat like water out of a wet sponge. the generation of free heat by friction rests on quite similar grounds. obviously, friction always requires a certain pressure. this alone, however, would not account for the amount of heat easily produced by friction. to the pressure there is in this case added a certain measure of encroachment upon the unity of the material substance. in the case of friction between two solid bodies, this may go so far that particles of matter are completely detached from the cohesive whole. the result is an increase in the number of single mass-centres on the earth, as against the all-embracing cosmic periphery. this diminishes the hold of levity on the total amount of physical matter present on the earth. again, the levity thus becoming free appears as external heat. (in the reverse case when, for instance through melting, a number of single physical bodies become one, free heat becomes latent.) both the diminishing of spatial extension and the breaking up of a whole into parts entail an increase in the quality 'dry'. this applies not only in the sense that the parts which have become independent units are 'dry' in relation to each other - formerly coherent matter being turned into dust - but also in the other sense, and one valid in both cases, that levity and gravity are losing part of their previous inter-connexion. if this twofold process of 'becoming dry' reaches a certain intensity, the substances concerned, provided they are inflammable, begin to burn, with the result that dry heat escapes and dry ash is formed. we note that in each case we are dealing with a change in the relationship between the poles of a polarity of the first order. we will now apply this picture of the process of friction to the instance when, as a result of this action, electricity appears. originally the evoking of the electric condition was ascribed solely to the nature of amber, the only substance known to possess this property. to-day we know that not the amber alone, but its coming together with another substance of different nature, in this instance an animal substance of the nature of hair or silk, is required. whatever substances we use for friction, they must always be different in nature, so as to allow both kinds of electricity to appear at once. which of the two kinds imposes its presence the more strongly upon the observer depends on purely extraneous conditions which have nothing to do with the process itself. obviously, if we wish to understand the qualitative difference between the two kinds of electricity, we must investigate the qualitative difference in the material substances, which give rise to electricity when they are rubbed together. we shall again follow the historical line by examining the two substances which first taught man the polar nature of electricity. they are glass and resin, after which, as we mentioned, the two electricities were even named in the beginning. our functional conception of matter, developed earlier (chapter xi), allows us to recognize in these two substances representatives of the salt-sulphur polarity. indeed, glass as a mineral substance, which actually owes its specific character to the presence of silicon in it, clearly stands on the phosphoric-crystalline side, while resin, being itself a sort of 'gum', on the sulphurous-volcanic side. in fact, sulphur itself was soon found to be a particularly suitable substance for producing 'resin'-electricity. now the usual way of producing one kind of electricity is by rubbing resin (or sulphur, or ebonite) with wool or fur, and the other by rubbing glass with leather. at first sight, it does not seem as if the two counter-substances represent the required alchemic counter-poles to resin and glass. for both hair and leather are animal products and therefore seem to be of like nature. closer inspection, however, shows that they do obey the rule. for hair, like all horny substances, is a dead product of external secretion by the animal organism. an ur-phenomenal example of it, showing its kinship to glass-like substances, is the transparent cornea of the eye, close to the crystal-lens. leather, on the other hand, is a product of the hypodermic part of the body and, as such, belongs to those parts of the organism which are filled with blood, and, therefore, permeated with life. (note as a characteristic of leather that it requires a special treatment, tanning, to make it as immune from decay as hair is by nature.) hair and leather, therefore, represent in themselves a salt-sulphur polarity, and thus fulfil the corresponding function when brought together with resin or glass respectively. what is true for the particular substances which originally led man to discover the dual nature of electricity, holds good equally for any pair of substances capable of assuming the electric state when rubbed against each other. if we examine from this point of view the series of such substances, as usually given in the textbooks on electricity, we shall always find a substance of extreme salt-character at the one end, and one of extreme sulphur-character at the other, the substances as a whole forming a gradual transition from one extreme to the other. which kind of electricity appears on each, when submitted to friction, depends on whether the counter-substance stands on its right or left, in the series. it is the particular relation between the two which makes them behave in one way or the other. there are cases which seem to elude this law, and investigation has shown that other characteristics of the rubbed bodies, such as surface quality, can have a modifying influence. for lack of a guiding idea they are treated in the textbooks as 'irregularities'. observation led by a true polarity concept shows that in these cases also the rule is not violated. in this respect, interesting information can be gained from the observations of j. w. ritter ( - ), an ingenious naturphilosoph from the circle round goethe, but to whom, also, physical science is indebted for his discovery of the ultra-violet part of the spectrum and of galvanic polarization. among his writings there is a treatise on electricity, giving many generally unknown instances of frictional electricity which are in good accord with our picture and well worth investigating. according to ritter, even two crystalline substances of different hardness, such as calcite and quartz, become electric when rubbed together, the softer playing the part of 'resin' and the harder that of 'glass'. these few facts connected with the generation of frictional electricity are enough to allow us to form a picture of the nature of the polarity represented by the two kinds of electricity. we remember that in the case of the generation of heat through friction, as a result of an encroachment upon the cohesion of the material body involved, the relationship between levity and gravity in it changes from 'moist' to 'dry' and that the effect of this is the appearance of 'fire' and 'dust' as poles of a primary polarity. this process, however, is altered when the bodies subjected to friction are opposed to each other in the sense of a salt-sulphur polarity. the effect then is that the liberated levity, under the influence of the peculiar tension between the two bodies, remains bound in the realm of substance and becomes itself split up polarically. clearly, then, in the case of electrical polarity we encounter a certain form of gravity-bound levity, and this in a twofold way. owing to the contrasting nature of the two bodies involved in the process, the coupling of gravity and levity is a polar one on both sides. the electrical polarity thus turns out to be itself of the nature of a secondary polarity. two more recently discovered means of evoking the electric condition in a piece of matter confirm this picture. they are the so-called piezo-electricity and pyro-electricity. both signify the occurrence of the electrical polarity at the two ends of an asymmetrically built (hemimorphous) crystal, as the result of changing the crystal's spatial condition. in piezo-electricity the change consists in a diminution of the crystal's volume through pressure; in pyro-electricity, in an increase of the crystal volume by raising its temperature. the asymmetry of the crystal, due to a one-sided working of the forces of crystallization, plays the same role here as does the alchemic opposition between the two bodies used for the production of frictional electricity. * it is typical of the scientist of the past that he was dependent on phenomena brought about by a highly developed experimental technique for becoming aware of certain properties of the electrical force, whereas for the realistic observer these properties are revealed at once by the most primitive electric phenomena. we remember eddington's description of the positron as 'negative material', and his subsequent remarks, which show the paradoxical nature of this concept if applied to the hypothetical interior of the atom (chapter iv). the quite primitive phenomenon of electrical repulsion and attraction shows us the same thing in a manner of which it is not difficult to form a conception. modern physics itself, with the help of faraday's field-concept, describes these phenomena as caused by pressure - resulting from the meeting in space of two similar electrical fields - and suction - resulting from the meeting of two dissimilar fields. in the first case the space between the two electrically charged bodies assumes a degree of density, as if it were filled with some elastic material. in the second instance the density of the space where the two fields intermingle is lower than that of its surroundings. here, clearly, we have a state of negative density which acts on the electrically charged bodies just as a lowering of pressure acts on a gas: in both cases movement occurs in the direction leading from the higher to the lower density. electricity thus shows itself capable of producing both gravity and levity effects, thereby once more confirming our picture of it. * our next task will be to examine the galvanic form of generating electricity, in order to gain further light on our picture of the electrical polarity. galvanism, as it became established through volta's work, rests on certain properties of the metallic substances of the earth. compared with the substances which may be used for producing electricity through friction, the metals hold a mid-position. they are all essentially mercurial substances. (in quicksilver, which for this reason was given the name 'mercury' by the alchemists, this fact comes to an ur-phenomenal appearance.) among the many facts proving the mercurial nature of the metals, there is one of particular interest to us. this is their peculiar relationship to the processes of oxidation and reduction. metals, in their metallic state, are bearers of latent levity, which can be set free either through combustion or through corrosion. they differ from one another by their relative degree of eagerness to enter into and remain in the metallic, that is, the reduced state, or to assume and keep the state of the oxide (in which form they are found in the various metallic oxides and salts). there are metals such as gold, silver, etc., for which the reduced state is more or less natural; others, such as potassium, sodium, etc., find the oxidized state natural and can be brought into and kept in the reduced state only by artificial means. between these extremes there are all possible degrees of transition, some metals more nearly resembling the 'noble', others more nearly the 'corrosive', metals. we remember that it was the different relationship of sulphur and phosphorus to reduction and oxidation which led us to envisage them as ur-phenomenal representatives of the alchemic polarity. we may therefore say that there are metals which from the alchemic point of view more nearly resemble sulphur, others more nearly phosphorus, whilst others again hold an intermediary position between the extremes. it is on these differences among the various metals that their galvanic properties are based. let us from this point of view contemplate the following series of chemical elements, which is a representation of the so-called voltaic series: graphite, platinum, gold, silver, copper, iron, tin, lead, zinc, aluminium, magnesium, sodium, potassium. any two of these metals constitute a voltaic cell. its electromotive force is determined by the distance in the series between the metals used. just as in the case of frictional electricity, the kind of electricity which is supplied by a certain metal depends on whether the other metal with which it is coupled stands to the right or to the left of it in the series. let us now see what happens in a galvanic cell when the two different metals are simultaneously exposed to the chemical action of the connecting fluid. each metal by itself would undergo oxidation with greater or less intensity, and the calorific energy hidden in it would become free in the form of heat. this process suffers a certain alteration through the presence of the second metal, which sets up an alchemic tension between the two. instead of a proper segregation of the primary polarity, heat-dust (in this case, heat-oxide), the heat remains matter-bound and appears on the surface of the two metals in a secondarily split form as positive and negative electricity. the similarity between this process and the frictional generation of electricity is evident. * our observations have shown that the emergence of the electric state, whether it be caused by friction or galvanically, depends on matter entering into a condition in which its cohesion is loosened - or, as we also put it, on its being turned into 'dust' - and this in such a way that the escaping levity remains dust-bound. this picture of electricity now enables us to give a realistic interpretation of certain phenomena which, in the interpretation which the physicist of the past was bound to give them, have contributed much to the tightening of the net of scientific illusion. some sixty years after dalton had established, purely hypothetically, the theory of the atomistic structure of matter, scientific research was led to the observation of actual atomistic phenomena. crookes found electricity appearing in his tubes in the form of discrete particles, with properties hitherto known only as appertaining to mass. what could be more natural than to take this as evidence that the method of thought developed during the past era of science was on the right course? the same phenomena appear in quite a different light when we view them against the background of the picture of electricity to which our observations have led. knowing that the appearance of electricity depends on a process of atomization of some sort, we shall expect that where electricity becomes freely observable, it will yield phenomena of an atomistic kind. the observations of electricity in a vacuum, therefore, yield no confirmation whatsoever of the atomistic view of matter. the same is true of the phenomena bound up with radioactivity, which were discovered in direct consequence of crookes's work. we know that the naturally radioactive elements are all in the group of those with the highest atomic weight. this fact, seen together with the characteristics of radioactivity, tells us that in such elements gravity has so far got the upper hand of levity that the physical substance is unable to persist as a spatially extended, coherent unit. it therefore falls asunder, with the liberated levity drawn into the process of dispersion. seen thus, radioactivity becomes a symptom of the earth's old age. * before entering into a discussion of the question, which naturally arises at this point, as to how levity and gravity by their two possible ways of interaction - 'sulphurous' or 'saline' - determine the properties of so-called positive and negative electricity, we shall first study the third mode of generating electricity, namely, by electromagnetic induction. along this way we shall arrive at a picture of the magnetic force which corresponds to the one already obtained of electricity. this will then lead us to a joint study of the nature of electric polarity and magnetic polarity. the discovery of the phenomena we call electromagnetic depended on the possibility of producing continuous electrical processes. this arose with volta's invention. when it became necessary to find a concept for the process which takes place in an electric conductor between the poles of a galvanic cell, the concept of the 'current', borrowed from hydrodynamics, suggested itself. ever since then it has been the rule to speak of the existence of a current within an electric circuit; its strength or intensity is measured in terms of a unit named in honour of ampere. this concept of the current has had a fate typical of the whole relation of human thought to the facts connected with electricity. long after it had been coined to cover phenomena which in themselves betray no movement of any kind between the electrical poles, other phenomena which do in fact show such movements became known through crookes's observations. just as in the case of atomism, they seemed to prove the validity of the preconceived idea of the current. soon, however, radiant electricity showed properties which contradicted the picture of something flowing from one pole to the other. the cathode rays, for instance, were found to shoot forth into space perpendicularly from the surface of the cathode, without regard to the position of the anode. at the same time maxwell's hydrodynamic analogy (as our historical survey has shown) led to a view of the nature of electricity by which this very analogy was put out of court. by predicting certain properties of electricity which come to the fore when its poles alternate rapidly, he seemed to bring electricity into close kinship with light. mathematical treatment then made it necessary to regard the essential energy process as occurring, not from one pole to the other, but at right angles to a line joining the poles (poynting's vector). this picture, however, satisfactory though it was in the realm of high frequency, failed as a means of describing so-called direct-current processes. as a result of all this the theory of electricity has fallen apart into several conceptual realms lying, as it were, alongside one another, each consistent in itself but lacking any logical connexion with the others. although the old concept of the electric current has long lost its validity, scientific thought (not to speak of the layman's) has not managed to discard it. to do this must therefore be our first task, if we want to attain to a realistic picture of electromagnetism. * while keeping strictly to the historical order of things, we shall try first to form a picture of what happens when we connect two electrically charged bodies by a conductor. we know that we rightly describe the change of the dynamic properties of the part of space, in which the two bodies are present, by saying that a certain electric field prevails in it. this field possesses different 'potentials' at its various points and so there exists a certain potential difference between the two electric charges. what then happens when a so-called 'conductor' is brought into such a field? from the point of view of the field-concept, conductivity consists in the property of a body not to allow any change of potential along its surface. such a surface, therefore, is always an equipotential. in the language of alchemy, conductivity is a mercurial property. in the presence of such a body, therefore, no salt-sulphur contrasts can obtain. in view of what we found above as the mean position of the metals in the alchemic triad, it is significant that they, precisely, should play so outstanding a role as electrical conductors. if we keep to pure observation, the only statement we can make concerning the effect produced by the introduction of such a body into the electric field is that this field suddenly disappears. we shall see later in which direction this vanishing occurs. for the present it is sufficient to have formed the picture of the disappearance of the electrical condition of space as a result of the presence of a body with certain mercurial properties. nothing else, indeed, happens when we make the process continuous by using a galvanic source of electricity. all that distinguishes a galvanic cell from the sources of electricity used before the time of volta is its faculty of immediately re-establishing the field which prevails between its poles, whenever this field becomes extinguished by the presence of a conductor. volta himself saw this quite correctly. in his first account of the new apparatus he describes it as 'leyden jars with a continuously re-established charge'. every enduring electrical process, indeed, consists in nothing but a vanishing and re-establishment of the electrical field with such rapidity that the whole process appears continuous. here, also, pure observation of the effect of a conductor in an electric field tells us that its action consists in the annihilation of the field. there is no phenomenon which allows us to state that this process takes place along the axis of the conductor. if we wish to obtain a picture of the true direction, we must consider the condition of space which arises in place of the electric condition that has disappeared. with the possibility of turning the cancellation of the electrical condition of space into a continuous process, it became possible to observe that the neutralization of electric charges entails the appearance of heat and magnetism. we must now ask which are the qualities of electricity on the one hand, and of heat and magnetism on the other, which account for the fact that where electricity disappears, the two latter forces are bound to appear. since magnetism is the still unknown entity among the three, we must now deal with it. * unlike electricity, magnetism was first known in the form of its natural occurrence, namely as a property of certain minerals. if we follow the same course which led us to start our study of electricity with the primitive process of generating it, we shall turn now to the basic phenomenon produced by a magnetic field already in existence. (only when we have learnt all we can from this, shall we proceed to ask how magnetism comes into being.) obviously, we shall find this basic phenomenon in the effect of a magnet on a heap of iron filings. let us, to begin with, compare a mass of solid iron with the same quantity of it in powdered form. the difference is that the powder lacks the binding force which holds the solid piece together. now lei us expose the powdered iron to the influence of a magnet. at once a certain ordering principle takes hold of the single particles. they no longer lie at random and unrelated, apart from the inconspicuous gravitational effect they exert on one another, but are drawn into a coherent whole, thus acquiring properties resembling those of an ordinary piece of solid matter. read thus, the phenomenon tells us that a part of space occupied by a magnetic field has qualities which are otherwise found only where a coherent solid mass is present. a magnetic piece of solid iron, therefore, differs from a non-magnetic piece by giving rise in its surroundings to dynamic conditions which would otherwise exist only in its interior. this picture of the relatedness of magnetism to solidity is confirmed by the fact that both are cancelled by heat, and increased by cold. by its magnetic properties iron thus reveals itself as a substance capable of assuming the condition of solid matter to a degree surpassing ordinary solidity. as an exceptional kind of metal it forms the counter-pole to mercury, in which the solid-fluid condition characteristic of all metallic matter is as much shifted towards the fluid as in iron it is to the solid. (note in this respect the peculiar resistance of iron to the liquefying effect which mercury has on the other metals.) this picture of magnetism enables us to understand at once why it must occur together with heat at the place where an electric polarity has been cancelled by the presence of a conductor. we have seen that electricity is levity coupled in a peculiar way with gravity; it is polarized levity (accompanied by a corresponding polarization of gravity). an electric field, therefore, always has both qualities, those of levity and of gravity. we saw a symptom of this in electrical attraction and repulsion, so called; the attraction, we found, was due to negative density, the repulsion to positive density, imparted to space by the electrical fields present there. now we see that when, through the presence of a conductor, the electrical field round the two opposing poles vanishes, in its place two other fields, a thermal and a magnetic, appear. clearly, one of them represents the levity-part, the other the gravity-part, of the vanished electric field. the whole process reminds one of combustion through which the ponderable and imponderable parts, combined in the combustible substance, fall apart and appear on the one hand as heat, and on the other as oxidized substance ('ash'). yet, between these two manifestations of heat there is an essential qualitative difference. although, from our view-point, magnetism represents only one 'half of a phenomenon, the other half of which is heat, we must not forget that it is itself a bipolar force. thus, despite its apparent relation to gravity it does not represent, as gravity does, one pole of a primary polarity, with heat as the other pole. rather must it carry certain qualities of levity which, together with those of gravity, appear in a polarically opposite manner at its two poles. (details of this will be shown later when we come to investigate the individual qualities of the two poles of magnetism and electricity.) hence the heat that forms the counterpart to magnetism cannot be pure levity either. as the result of a certain coupling with gravity, it too has somehow remained polarically split. this can easily be seen by considering the following. unlike the levity-gravity polarity, in which one pole is peripheral and the other point-centred, both doles of the electrical polarity are point-centred; both are located in physical space, and thereby determine a definite direction within this space. it is this direction which remains a characteristic of both the magnetic and the thermal fields. the direction of the thermal field as much as that of the magnetic is determined by its having as its axis the conductor joining the poles of the antecedent electrical field. both fields supplement each other in that the thermal radiation forms the radii which belong to the circular magnetic lines-of-force surrounding the conductor. our picture of the process which is commonly called an electric current is now sufficiently complete to allow us to make a positive statement concerning the direction in which it takes place. let us once more sum up: in order that this process may occur, there must be present in an electrically excited part of space a body which does not suffer the particular polarization of space bound up with such a field. as a result, the electrical field disappears, and in place of it appear a thermal field and a magnetic field, both having as their axis the line connecting the two poles. each of them spreads out in a direction at right angles to this fine. obviously, therefore, it is in this radial direction that the transformation of the electrical into the thermo-magnetic condition of space must take place. this picture of the electro-thermo-magnetic happening, as regards its direction, is in complete accord with the result obtained (as indicated earlier) by the mathematical treatment of high-frequency phenomena. once more we see that quite primitive observations, when properly read, lead to findings for which scientific thought had to wait until they were forced on it by the progress of experimental technique - as even then science was left without a uniformly valid picture of the dynamic behaviour of electricity. further, we can now see that when we apply electricity to practical purposes, we are in fact seldom using electricity itself, but other forces (that is, other combinations of gravity and levity) which we make effective by making electricity disappear. the same is true of most of the methods of measuring electricity. as a rule, the force which sets the instrument in motion is not electricity but another force (magnetism, heat, etc.) which appears in the place of the vanishing electricity. thus the so-called intensity of an electric current is actually the intensity with which the electricity in question disappears! electricity serves us in our machines in the same way that food serves a living organism: it gets itself digested, and what matters is the resulting secondary product. just as alterations in the electrical condition of space give rise to the appearance of a magnetic field, any alteration of the magnetic state of space gives rise to the appearance of an electrical field. this process is called electromagnetic induction. with its discovery, the generation of electricity through friction and in the galvanic way was supplemented by a third way. by this means the practical use of electricity on a large scale became possible for the first time. if our picture of the two earlier processes of generating electricity is correct, then this third way must also fit into the picture, although in this case we have no longer to do with any direct atomization of physical matter. our picture of magnetism will indeed enable us to recognize in electromagnetic induction the same principle on which we found the two other processes to rest. magnetism is polarized gravity. hence it has the same characteristic of tending always to maintain an existent condition. in bodies subject to gravity, this tendency reveals itself as their inertia. it is the inertia inherent in magnetism which we employ when using it to generate electricity. the simplest example is when, by interrupting a 'primary current', we induce a 'secondary current' in a neighbouring circuit. by the sudden alteration of the electric condition on the primary side, the magnetic condition of the surrounding space is exposed to a sudden corresponding change. against this the magnetic field 'puts up' a resistance by calling forth, on the secondary side, an electrical process of such direction and strength that the entire magnetic condition remains first unaltered and then, instead of changing suddenly, undergoes a gradual transformation which ideally needs an infinite time for its accomplishment (asymptotic course of the exponential curve). this principle rules every process of electromagnetic induction, whatever the cause and direction of the change of the magnetic field. we know that electromagnetic induction takes place also when a conductor is moved across a magnetic field in such a way that, as the technical term goes, it 'cuts' the field's lines of force. whereas the process discussed above is employed in the transformer, this latter process is used in generation of electricity by dynamo. we have seen that a magnetic field imparts to the relevant part of space qualities of density which otherwise prevail only in the interior of solid masses. we remember further that the appearance of electricity, in the two other modes of generating it, is caused by the loosening of the coherence of the material substance. a similar loosening of the coherence of the magnetic field takes place when its field-lines are cut by the movement of the conductor across it. just as heat occurs when we move a solid object through a liquid, electricity occurs when we move a conductor across a magnetic field. in each case we interfere with an existing levity-gravity relationship. * having established thus far the picture of both electricity and magnetism which shows each as an outcome of certain levity-gravity interactions, we now ask how, in particular, negative and positive electricity on the one hand and north and south magnetism on the other are determined by these interactions. let us again begin with electricity. we remember that galvani was led to his observations by the results of walsh's study of the electric fishes. while galvani clung to the view that in his own experiments the source of the electrical force lay within the animal bodies, volta saw the fallacy of that. he then conceived the idea of imitating with purely inorganic substances the set-up which galvani had come upon by accident. the paradoxical result - as he himself noticed with surprise - was that his apparatus turned out to be a close replica of the peculiar organ with which the electric fishes are endowed by nature. we must now take a closer view of this organ. the electric organ of such a fish consists of many thousands of little piles, each made up of a very great number of plates of two different kinds, arranged in alternating layers. the two kinds differ in substance: in one case the plate is made from a material similar to that present in the nervous system of animals; in the other the resemblance is to a substance present in the muscular system, though only when the muscles are in a state of decay. in this way the two opposing systems of the animal body' seem to be brought here into direct contact, repeated many thousands of times. in the electric fishes, accordingly, sensation and will are brought into a peculiar interrelation. for the will-pole is related to its bodily foundation in a manner which otherwise obtains only between the nervous system and the psychological processes co-ordinated with it. these fishes then have the capacity to send out force-currents which produce in other animals and in man 'concussion of the limbs', or in extreme cases paralysis and even death. through describing the process in this way we realize that electricity appears here as metamorphosed animal will, which takes this peculiar form because part of the animal's volitional system is assimilated to its sensory system in an exceptional manner. it is known to-day that what nature reveals so strikingly in the case of the electric fish, is nothing but the manifestation of a principle at work in the bodies of all beings endowed with sensation and volition - in corporeal terms, with the duality of a nervous and a muscular system - and therefore at work also in the human body. observation has shown that the activities of these two systems in man and animal are accompanied by the occurrence of different electric potentials in different parts of the body. plate a, fig. iii, shows the distribution of the two polar electric forces in the human body. the bent lines in the diagram stand for curves of equal electric potential. the straight line between them is the neutral zone. as might be expected, this line runs through the heart. what seems less obvious is its slanting position. here the asymmetry, characteristic of the human body, comes to expression. if we remember that the nervous system represents the salt-pole, and the metabolic system the sulphur-pole, of the human organism, and if we take into account the relationship between levity and gravity at the two poles, we can see from the distribution of the two electricities that the coupling of levity and gravity at the negative pole of the electrical polarity is such that levity descends into gravity, while at the positive pole gravity rises into levity. negative electricity therefore must have somehow a 'spherical' character, and positive electricity a 'radial'. this finding is fully confirmed by electrical phenomena in the realm of nature most remote from man (though it was an effort to solve the enigma of man which led to the discovery of this realm). since crookes's observations of the behaviour of electricity in a vacuum it is common knowledge that only the negative kind of electricity occurs as a freely radiating force (though it retains some properties of inertia), whereas positive electricity seems to be much more closely bound to minute particles of ponderable matter. here again we find gravity-laden levity on the negative side, levity-raised gravity on the positive. the same language is spoken by the forms in which the luminous phenomena appear at the two poles of a crookes tube. fig. i on plate a represents the whole phenomenon as far as such a diagram allows. here we see on the positive side radial forms appear, on the negative side planar-spherical forms. as symbols of nature's script, these forms tell us that cosmic periphery and earthly centre stand in a polar relation to each other at the two ends of the tube. (our optical studies will later show that the colours which appear at the anode and cathode are also in complete accord with this.) at this point in our discussion it is possible to raise, without risk of confusing the issue, the question of the distribution of the two electric forces over the pairs of substances concerned in the generation of electricity both by friction and in the galvanic way. this distribution seems to contradict the picture to which the foregoing observations have led us, for in both instances the 'sulphurous' substances (resin in one, the nobler metals in the other) become bearers of negative electricity; while the 'saline' substances (glass and the corrosive metals) carry positive electricity. such a criss-crossing of the poles-surprising as it seems at first sight - is not new to us. we have met it in the distribution of function of the plant's organs of propagation, and we shall meet a further instance of it when studying the function of the human eye. future investigation will have to find the principle common to all instances in nature where such an interchange of the poles prevails. while the electric field arising round an electrified piece of matter does not allow any recognition of the absolute characteristics of the two opposing electrical forces, we do find them revealed by the distribution of electricity in the human body. something similar holds good for magnetism. only, to find the phenomena from which to read the absolute characteristics of the two sides of the magnetic polarity, we must not turn to the body of man but to that of the earth, one of whose characteristics it is to be as much the bearer of a magnetic field as of gravitational and levitational fields. there is significance in the fact that even to-day, when the tendency prevails to look for causes of natural phenomena not in the macrocosmic expanse, but in the microscopic confines of space, the two poles of magnetism are named after the magnetic poles of the earth. it indicates the degree to which man's feeling instinctively relates magnetism to the earth as a whole. in our newly developed terminology we may say that magnetism, as a polarity of the second order, represents a field of force both of whose poles are situated within finite space, and that in the macro-telluric mother-field this situation is such that the axis of this field coincides more or less with the axis of the earth's physical body. thus the magnetic polarization of the earth as a letter in nature's script bids us rank it alongside other phenomena which in their way are an expression of the earth's being polarized in the north-south direction. the austrian geographer, e. suess, in his great work the countenance of the earth, first drew attention to the fact that an observer approaching the earth from outer space would be struck by the onesided distribution and formation of the earth's continents. he would notice that most of the dry land is in the northern hemisphere, leaving the southern hemisphere covered mainly with water. in terms of the basic elementary qualities, this means that the earth is predominantly 'dry' in its northern half, and 'moist' in its southern. in this fact we have a symbol which tells us that the earth represents a polarity of the second order, with its 'salt'-pole in the north and its 'sulphur'-pole in the south. hence the magnetism called 'north' must be of saline and therefore spherical nature, corresponding to the negative pole in the realm of electricity, while 'south' magnetism must be of sulphurous - i.e. radial-nature, corresponding to positive electricity. moreover, this must hold good equally for the fields of magnetic force generated by naturally magnetic or artificially magnetized pieces of iron. for the circumstance that makes a piece of matter into a magnet is simply that part of the general magnetic field of the earth has been drawn into it. of especial interest in this respect is the well-known dependence of the direction of an electrically produced magnetic field on the position of the poles of the electric field. * the insight we have now gained into the nature of electricity has led us to the realization that with every act of setting electromagnetic energies in motion we interfere with the entire levity-gravity balance of our planet by turning part of the earth's coherent substance into cosmic 'dust'. remembering our picture of radioactivity, in which we recognized a sign of the earth's old age, we may say that whenever we generate electricity we speed up the earth's process of cosmic ageing. obviously this is tremendously enhanced by the creation of artificial radioactivity along the lines recently discovered, whereby it has now become possible to transmute chemical elements into one another, or even to cancel altogether their gravity-bound existence. to see things in this light is to realize that with our having become able to rouse electricity and magnetism from their dormant state and make them work for us, a gigantic responsibility has devolved upon mankind. it was man's fate to remain unaware of this fact during the first phase of the electrification of his civilization; to continue now in this state of unawareness would spell peril to the human race. the fact that modern science has long ceased to be a 'natural' science is something which has begun to dawn upon the modern scientific researcher himself. what has thus come to him as a question finds a definite answer in the picture of electricity we have been able to develop. it is again eddington who has drawn attention particularly to this question: see the chapter, 'discovery or manufacture?' in his philosophy of physical science. it will be appropriate at this point to recall his remarks, for they bear not only on the outcome of our own present discussion, but also, as the next chapter will show, on the further course of our studies. eddington starts by asking: 'when lord rutherford showed us the atomic nucleus, did he find it or did he make it?' whichever answer we give, eddington goes on to say, makes no difference to our admiration for rutherford himself. but it makes all the difference to our ideas on the structure of the physical universe. to make clear where the modern physicist stands in this respect, eddington uses a striking comparison. if a sculptor were to point in our presence to a raw block of marble saying that the form of a human head was lying hidden in the block, 'all our rational instinct would be roused against such an anthropomorphic speculation'. for it is inconceivable to us that nature should have placed such a form inside the block. roused by our objection, the artist proceeds to verify his theory experimentally - 'with quite rudimentary apparatus, too: merely using a chisel to separate the form for our inspection, he triumphantly proves his theory.' 'was it in this way', eddington asks, 'that rutherford rendered concrete the nucleus which his scientific imagination had created?' one thing is certain: 'in every physical laboratory we see ingeniously devised tools for executing the work of sculpture, according to the designs of the theoretical physicist. sometimes the tool slips and carves off an odd-shaped form which he had not expected. then we have a new experimental discovery,' to this analogy eddington adds the following even more drastic one: 'procrustes, you will remember,' he says, 'stretched or chopped down his guests to fit the bed he constructed. but perhaps you have not heard the rest of the story. he measured them up before they left the next morning, and wrote a learned paper on the uniformity of stature of travellers for the anthropological society of attica.' * besides yielding a definite answer to the question of how far the seemingly discovered facts of science are manufactured facts, our newly won insight into the nature of the electric and magnetic polarties throws light also on the possibility of so handling both that their application will lead no longer to a cancellation, but to a true continuation, of nature's own creative deeds. an example of this will appear in the next part of our studies, devoted to observations in the field of optics. note that the series starts on the left with graphite, i.e. with carbon. this substance appears here as a metal among metals, and indeed as the most 'noble' of all. electricity in this way reveals a secret of carbon well known to the mediaeval alchemist and still known in our day to people in the orient. there is even a gas which assumes magnetic properties when exposed to extreme cold-oxygen in the solid state. by watering plants with water that had been exposed to heat from different sources, e. pfeiffer has shown in the chemical laboratory of the goetheanum that heat engendered by means of electricity is 'dead' heat. it follows that it is not the same for human health whether the heat used for cooking or heating purposes is obtained by burning wood or coal, or by means of electricity. chapter xiv colours as 'deeds and sufferings of light' 'as for what i have done as a poet, i take no pride in it whatever. excellent poets have lived at the same time as myself; poets more excellent have lived before me, and others will come after me. but that in my century i am the only person who knows the truth in the difficult science of colours - of that, i say, i am not a little proud, and here i have a consciousness of a superiority to many.' in these words spoken to his secretary, eckermann, in , a few years before his death, goethe gave his opinion on the significance of his scientific researches in the field of optical phenomena. he knew that the path he had opened up had led him to truths which belong to the original truths of mankind. he expressed this by remarking that his theory of colour was 'as old as the world'. if in this book we come somewhat late to a discussion of goethe's colour-theory, in spite of the part it played in his own scientific work, and in spite of its significance for the founding of a physics based on his method, the reasons are these. when goethe undertook his studies in this field he had not to reckon with the forms of thought which have become customary since the development of mechanistic and above all - to put it concisely - of 'electricalistic' thinking. before a hearing can be gained in our age for a physics of light and colour as conceived by goethe, certain hindrances must first be cleared away. so a picture on the one hand of matter, and on the other of electricity, such as is given when they are studied by goethean methods, had first to be built up; only then is the ground provided for an unprejudiced judgment of goethe's observations and the deductions that can be made from them to-day. as professor heisenberg, in his lecture quoted earlier (chapter ii), rightly remarks, goethe strove directly with newton only in the realms of colour-theory and optics. nevertheless his campaign was not merely against newton's opinions in this field. he was guided throughout by the conviction that the fundamental principles of the whole newtonian outlook were at stake. it was for this reason that his polemics against newton were so strongly expressed, although he had no fondness for such controversies. in looking back on that part of the farbenlehre which he had himself called 'polemical' in the title, he said to eckermann: 'i by no means disavow my severe dissections of the newtonian statements; it was necessary at the time and will also have its value hereafter; but at bottom all polemical action is repugnant to my nature, and i can take but little pleasure in it.' the reason why goethe chose optics as the field of conflict, and devoted to it more than twenty years of research and reflexion, amidst all the other labours of his rich life, lay certainly in his individual temperament - 'zum sehen geboren, zum schauen bestellt'. at the same time one must see here a definite guidance of humanity. since the hour had struck for mankind to take the first step towards overcoming the world-conception of the one-eyed, colour-blind onlooker, what step could have been more appropriate than this of goethe's, when he raised the eye's capacity for seeing colours to the rank of an instrument of scientific cognition? in point of fact, the essential difference between goethe's theory of colour and the theory which has prevailed in science (despite all modifications) since newton's day, lies in this: while the theory of newton and his successors was based on excluding the colour-seeing faculty of the eye, goethe founded his theory on the eye's experience of colour. * in view of the present scientific conception of the effect which a prismatic piece of a transparent medium has on light passing through it, goethe's objection to newton's interpretation and the conclusions drawn from it seems by no means as heretical as it did in goethe's own time and for a hundred years afterwards. for, as lord rayleigh and others have shown, the facts responsible for the coming into being of the spectral colours, when these are produced by a diffraction grating, invalidate newton's idea that the optical apparatus serves to reveal colours which are inherent in the original light. today it is known that these colours are an outcome of the interference of the apparatus (whether prism or grating) with the light. thus we find professor r. w. wood, in the opening chapter of his physical optics, after having described the historical significance of newton's conception of the relation between light and colour, saying: 'curiously enough, this discovery, which we are taking as marking the beginning of a definite knowledge about light, is one which we shall demolish in the last chapter of this book, for our present ideas regarding the action of the prism more nearly resemble the idea held previous to newton's classical experiments. we now believe that the prism actually manufactures the coloured light.' we find ourselves faced here with an instance of the problem, 'discovery or manufacture?' dealt with by eddington in the manner described in our previous chapter. this very instance is indeed used by eddington himself as a case in which the answer is definitely in favour of 'manufacture'. nevertheless, eddington complains, experts, in spite of knowing better, keep to the traditional way of speaking about the spectral colours as being originally contained in the light. 'such is the glamour of a historical experiment.' it is for the same reason that goethe's discovery continues to be unrecognized by the majority of scientists, who prefer, instead of examining the question for themselves, to join in the traditional assertion that 'goethe never understood newton'. * as goethe relates at the conclusion of the 'historical' part of his farbenlehre, he was drawn to study colour by his wish to gain some knowledge of the objective laws of aesthetics. he felt too close to poetry to be able to study it with sufficient detachment, so he turned to painting - an art with which he felt sufficiently familiar without being connected with it creatively - hoping that if he could discover the laws of one art they would prove applicable to others. his visit to italy, a land rich both in natural colour and in works of art, gave him a welcome opportunity to pursue this inquiry, but for a long time he made no headway. the paintings he saw suggested no inherent law in their arrangement of colours, nor could the painters he questioned tell him of one. the only qualitative distinction they seemed to recognize was between 'cold' and 'warm' colours. his own observations led him to a definite experience of the quality of the colour blue, for which he coined the phrase 'feebleness of blue' ('ohnmacht des blau'). in some way this colour seemed to him to be related to black. in order to rouse his artist friends and to stimulate their reflexions, he liked to indulge in paradoxes, as when he asserted that blue was not a colour at all. he found, however, as time went on, that in this way he came no nearer his goal. although the splendour of colour in the italian sky and the italian landscape made a powerful impression on goethe, he found not enough opportunity for systematic study to allow him to arrive at more than a dim surmise of some law underlying the occurrence of colour in nature. still, there was one thing he took home with him as a result of his labours. he had grown convinced that 'the first approach to colours as physical phenomena had to be sought from the side of their occurrence in nature, if one would gain an understanding of them in relation to art'. back at home, he strove to recollect the theory of newton as it was being taught in schools and universities - namely, that 'colours in their totality are contained in light'. hitherto he had had no occasion to doubt the correctness of this theory. like everyone else, he had heard it expounded in lectures as an incontestable result of empirical observation, though without this ever having been shown to him by way of experiment. he convinced himself by consulting a manual that his recollection was correct, but at the same time he found that the theory there set forth gave no help in answering his questions. so he decided to examine the phenomena for himself. for this purpose he borrowed a set of prisms from a friend living in near-by jena, the physicist, büttner. since, however, he had at that time no opportunity of arranging a dark chamber on newton's lines, where the necessary ray of light from a tiny hole in the window-covering was sent through a prism, he postponed the whole thing, until in the midst of all his many other interests and duties it was forgotten. in vain büttner pressed many times for the return of the prisms; at last he sent a mutual acquaintance with the injunction not to return without them. goethe then searched for the long-neglected apparatus and determined to take a rapid glance through one of the prisms before he gave them back. he recalled dimly his pleasure as a boy at the vision of the world given him through a bit of similarly shaped glass. 'i well remember that everything looked coloured, but in what manner i could no longer recollect. i was just then in a room completely white; remembering the newtonian theory, i expected, as i put the prism to my eye, to find the whole white wall coloured in different hues and to see the light reflected thence into the eye, split into as many coloured lights. 'but how astonished was i when the white wall seen through the prism remained white after as before. only where something dark came against it a more or less decided colour was shown, and at last the window-bars appeared most vividly coloured, while on the light-grey sky outside no trace of colouring was to be seen. it did not need any long consideration for me to recognize that a boundary or edge is necessary to call forth the colours, and i immediately said aloud, as though by instinct, that the newtonian doctrine is false.' for goethe, there could be no more thought of sending back the prisms, and he persuaded büttner to leave them with him for some time longer. goethe adds a short account of the progress of the experiments he now undertook as well as of his efforts to interest others in his discovery. he makes grateful reference to those who had brought him understanding, and who had been helpful to him through the exchange of thoughts. among these, apart from schiller, whom goethe especially mentions, we find a number of leading anatomists, chemists, writers and philosophers of his time, but not a single one of the physicists then active in teaching or research. the 'guild' took up an attitude of complete disapproval or indifference, and so have things remained till a hundred years after his death, as goethe himself prophesied. one of the first systematic pieces of work which goethe undertook in order to trace the cause of the newtonian error was to go through book i of newton's optics, sentence by sentence, recapitulate newton's experiments and rearrange them in the order which seemed to him essential. in so doing he gained an insight which was fundamental for all future work, and often proved very beneficial in the perfecting of his own methods. his examination of the newtonian procedure showed him that the whole mistake rested on the fact that 'a complicated phenomenon should have been taken as a basis, and the simpler explained from the complex'. nevertheless, it still needed 'much time and application in order to wander through all the labyrinths with which newton had been pleased to confuse his successors'. * it seems a small thing, and yet it is a great one, which goethe, as the above description shows, discovered almost by chance. this is shown by the conclusions to which he was led in the systematic prosecutions of his discovery. an account of them is given in his beiträge zur optik, published in , the year in which galvani came before the public with his observations in the sphere of electricity. goethe describes in this book the basic phenomena of the creation of the prismatic colours, with particulars of a number of experiments so arranged that the truth he had discovered, contrary to newton's view, comes to light through the very phenomena themselves. only much later, in the year , and after he had brought to a certain conclusion four years previously the researches which he had pursued most carefully the whole time, did he make public the actual masterpiece, entwurf einer farbenlehre. (an english translation of the didactic part appeared about ten years after goethe's death.) while leaving a more detailed description of the composition of goethe's entwurf for our next chapter, we shall here deal at once with some of the essential conclusions to which the reader is led in this book. as already mentioned, goethe's first inspection of the colour-phenomenon produced by the prism had shown him that the phenomenon depended on the presence of a boundary between light and darkness. newton's attempt to explain the spectrum out of light alone appeared to him, therefore, as an inadmissible setting aside of one of the two necessary conditions. colours, so goethe gleaned directly from the prismatic phenomenon, are caused by both light and its counterpart, darkness. hence, to arrive at an idea of the nature of colour, which was in accord with its actual appearance, he saw himself committed to an investigation of the extent to which the qualitative differences in our experience of colours rests upon their differing proportions of light and darkness. it is characteristic of goethe's whole mode of procedure that he at once changed the question, 'what is colour?' into the question, 'how does colour arise?' it was equally characteristic that he did not, as newton did, shut himself into a darkened room, so as to get hold of the colour-phenomenon by means of an artificially set-up apparatus. instead, he turned first of all to nature, to let her give him the answer to the questions she had raised. it was clear to goethe that to trace the law of the genesis of colour in nature by reading her phenomena, he must keep a look-out for occurrences of colours which satisfied the conditions of the ur-phänomen, as he had learned to know it. this meant that he must ask of nature where she let colours arise out of light and darkness in such a way that no other conditions contributed to the effect. he saw that such an effect was presented to his eye when he turned his gaze on the one hand to the blue sky, and on the other to the yellowish luminous sun. where we see the blue of the heavens, there, spread out before our eyes, is universal space, which as such is dark. why it does not appear dark by day as well as by night is because we see it through the sun-illumined atmosphere. the opposite role is played by the atmosphere when we look through it to the sun. in the first instance it acts as a lightening, in the second as a darkening, medium. accordingly, when the optical density of the air changes as a result of its varying content of moisture, the colour-phenomenon undergoes an opposite change in each of the two cases. whilst with increasing density of the air the blue of the sky brightens up and gradually passes over into white, the yellow of the sun gradually darkens and finally gives way to complete absence of light. the ur-phenomenon having once been discovered in the heavens, could then easily be found elsewhere in nature on a large or small scale-as, for instance, in the blue of distant hills when the air is sufficiently opaque, or in the colour of the colourless, slightly milky opal which looks a deep blue when one sees it against a dark background, and a reddish yellow when one holds it against the light. the same phenomenon may be produced artificially through the clouding of glass with suitable substances, as one finds in various glass handicraft objects. the aesthetic effect is due to the treated glass being so fashioned as to present continually changing angles to the light, when both colour-poles and all the intermediate phases appear simultaneously. it is also possible to produce the ur-phenomenon experimentally by placing a glass jug filled with water before a black background, illuminating the jug from the side, and gradually clouding the water by the admixture of suitable substances. whilst the brightness appearing in the direction of the light goes over from yellow and orange to an increasingly red shade, the darkness of the black background brightens to blue, which increases and passes over to a milky white. it had already become clear to goethe in italy that all colour-experience is based on a polarity, which he found expressed by painters as the contrast between 'cold' and 'warm' colours. now that the coming-into-being of the blue of the sky and of the yellow of the sun had shown themselves to him as two processes of opposite character, he recognized in them the objective reason why both colours are subjectively experienced by us as opposites. 'blue is illumined darkness - yellow is darkened light' - thus could he assert the urphenomenon, while he expressed the relation to light of colours in their totality by saying: 'colours are deeds and sufferings of light.' with this, goethe had taken the first decisive step towards his goal - the tracing of man's aesthetic experience to objective facts of nature. if we use the expressions of preceding chapters, we can say that goethe, in observing the coloured ur-phenomenon, had succeeded in finding how from the primary polarity, light-dark, the opposition of the yellow and blue colours arises as a secondary polarity. for such an interplay of light and darkness, the existence of the air was seen to be a necessary condition, representing in the one case a lightening, in the other, a darkening element. that it was able to play this double role arose from its being on the one hand pervious to light, while yet possessing a certain substantial density. for a medium of such a nature goethe coined the expression trübes medium. there seems to be no suitable word in english for rendering the term trübe in the sense in which goethe used it to denote the optical resistance of a more or less transparent medium. the following remarks of goethe's, reported by his secretary riemer, will give the reader a picture of what goethe meant by this term, clear enough to allow us to use the german word. goethe's explanation certainly shows how inadequate it is to translate trübe by 'cloudy' or 'semi-opaque' as commentators have done. 'light and dark have a common field, a space, a vacuum in which they are seen to appear. this space is the realm of the transparent. just as the different colours are related to light and dark as their creative causes, so is their corporeal part, their medium, trübe, related to the transparent. the first diminution of the transparent, i.e. the first slightest filling of space, the first disposition, as it were, to the corporeal, i.e. the non-transparent - this is trübe.' after goethe had once determined from the macrotelluric phenomenon that an interplay of light and darkness within trübe was necessary for the appearance of colour in space, he had no doubt that the prismatic colours, too, could be understood only through the coming together of all these three elements. it was now his task to examine in what way the prism, by its being trübe, brings light and darkness, or, as he also expressed it, light and shadow, into interplay, when they meet at a boundary. we must remember that on first looking through the prism goethe had immediately recognized that the appearance of colour is always dependent on the existence of a boundary between light and darkness - in other words, that it is a border phenomenon. what colours appear on such a border depends on the position of light and darkness in relation to the base of the prism. if the lighter part is nearer to the base, then blue and violet tints are seen at the border, and with the reverse position tints of yellow and red (plate b, fig. i). along this path of study goethe found no reason for regarding the spectrum-phenomenon as complete only when both kinds of border-phenomena appear simultaneously (let alone when - as a result of the smallness of the aperture through which the light meets the prism - the two edges lie so close that a continuous band of colour arises). hence we find goethe - unlike newton - treating the two ends of the spectrum as two separate phenomena. in this way, the spectrum phenomenon gave goethe confirmation that he had succeeded in expressing in a generally valid form the law of the origin of the blue and the yellow colours, as he had read it from the heavens. for in the spectrum, too, where the colour blue appears, there he saw darkness being lightened by a shifting of the image of the border between light and dark in the direction of darkness; where yellow appears, he saw light being darkened by a shifting of the image in the direction of light. (see the arrow in fig. i.) in the colours adjoining these - indigo and violet on the blue side, orange and red on the yellow side - goethe recognized 'heightened' modifications of blue and yellow. thus he had learnt from the macro-telluric realm that with decreasing density of the corporeal medium, the blue sky takes on ever deeper tones, while with increasing density of the medium, the yellow of the sunlight passes over into orange and finally red. prismatic phenomenon and macrotelluric phenomenon were seen to correspond in this direction, too. faithful to his question, 'how does colour arise?' goethe now proceeded to investigate under what conditions two borders, when placed opposite each other, provide a continuous band of colour - that is, a colour-band where, in place of the region of uncoloured light, green appears. this, he observed, came about if one brought one's eye, or the screen intercepting the light, to that distance from the prism where the steadily widening yellow-red and the blue-violet colour-cones merge (fig. ii). obviously, this distance can be altered by altering the distance between the two borders. in the case of an extremely narrow light-space, the blue and yellow edges will immediately overlap. yet the emergence of the green colour will always be due to a union of the blue and yellow colours which spread from the two edges. this convinced goethe that it is inadmissible to place the green in the spectrum in line with the other colours, as is customary in the explanation of the spectrum since newton's time. this insight into the relation of the central colour of the continuous spectrum to its other colours still further strengthened goethe's conviction that in the way man experiences nature in his soul, objective laws of nature come to expression. for just as we experience the colours on the blue side of the spectrum as cold colours, and those on the yellow side as warm colours, so does green give man the impression of a neutral colour, influencing us in neither direction. and just as the experience of the two polar colour-ranges is an expression of the objective natural law behind them, so too is the experience of green, the objective conditions of whose origin give it a neutral position between the two. with this it also became clear why the vegetative part of the plant organism, the region of leaf and stem formation, where the light of the sun enters into a living union with the density of earthly substance, must appear in a garment of green. * having in this way found the clue to the true genesis of the spectrum, goethe could not fail to notice that it called for another - a 'negative' spectrum, its polar opposite - to make the half into a whole. for he who has once learnt that light and darkness are two equally essential factors in the birth of colour, and that the opposing of two borders of darkness so as to enclose a light is a 'derived' (abgeleitet) experimental arrangement, is naturally free to alter the arrangement and to supplement it by reversing the order of the two borders, thus letting two lights enclose a darkness between them. if one exposes an arrangement like this to the action of the prism, whose position has remained unchanged, colours appear on each of the two edges, as before, but in reverse order (fig. iii). the spectral phenomenon now begins at one side with light blue and passes into indigo and violet, with uncoloured darkness in the centre. from this darkness it emerges through red and passes through orange to yellow at the other end. again, where the two interior colour-cones merge, there an additional colour appears. like green, it is of a neutral character, but at the same time its quality is opposite to that of green. in newtonian optics, which assumes colour to be derived from light only, this colour has naturally no existence. yet in an optics which has learnt to reckon with both darkness and light as generators of colour, the complete spectrum phenomenon includes this colour equally with green. for lack of an existing proper name for it, goethe termed it 'pure red' (since it was free from both the blue tinge of the mauve, and the yellow tinge of the red end of the ordinary spectrum), or 'peach-blossom' (pfirsichblüt), or 'purple' (as being nearest to the dye-stuff so called by the ancients after the mollusc from which it was obtained). it needs only a glance through the prism into the sunlit world to make one convinced of the natural appearing of this delicate and at the same time powerfully luminous colour. for a narrow dark object on a light field is a much commoner occurrence in nature than the enclosing by two broad objects of a narrow space of light, the condition necessary for the emergence of a continuous colour-band with green in the middle. in fact, the spectrum which science since the time of newton regards as the only one, appears much more rarely among natural conditions than does goethe's counter-spectrum. with the peach-blossom a fresh proof is supplied that what man experiences in his soul is in harmony with the objective facts of nature. as with green, we experience peach-blossom as a colour that leaves us in equilibrium. with peach-blossom, however, the equilibrium is of a different kind, owing to the fact that it arises from the union of the colour-poles, not at their original stage but in their 'heightened' form. and so green, the colour of the plant-world harmony given by nature, stands over against 'purple', the colour of the human being striving towards harmony. by virtue of this quality, purple served from antiquity for the vesture of those who have reached the highest stage of human development for their time. this characteristic of the middle colours of the two spectra was expressed by goethe when he called green 'real totality', and peach-blossom 'ideal totality'. from this standpoint goethe was able to smile at the newtonians. he could say that if they persisted in asserting that the colourless, so-called 'white' light is composed of the seven colours of the ordinary spectrum - red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, violet - then they were in duty bound to maintain also that the colourless, 'black' darkness is composed of the seven colours of the inverted spectrum - yellow, orange, red, purple, violet, indigo, blue. despite the convincing force of this argument, the voice of the hans andersen child speaking through goethe failed to gain a hearing among the crowd of newtonian faithful. so has it been up to the present day - regardless of the fact that, as we have shown, modern physics has reached results which make a contradiction of the newtonian concept of the mutual relation of light and colour no longer appear so heretical as it was in goethe's time. * when we compare the way in which goethe, on the one hand, and the physical scientist, on the other, have arrived at the truth that what newton held to be 'discovery' was in actual fact 'manufacture', we find ourselves faced with another instance of a fact which we have encountered before in our study of electricity. it is the fact that a truth, which reveals itself to the spectator-scientist only as the result of a highly advanced experimental research, can be recognized through quite simple observation when this observation is carried out with the intention of letting the phenomena themselves speak for their 'theory'. furthermore, there is a corresponding difference in the effect the knowledge of such truth has on the human mind. in the field of electricity we saw that together with the scientist's recognition of the absolute qualities of the two polar forms of electricity a false semblance of reality was lent to the hypothesis of the atomic structure of matter. something similar has occurred in the field of optics. here, after having been forced to recognize the fallacy of newton's theory, the spectator's mind has been driven to form a concept of the nature of light which is further than ever from the truth. for what then remains of light is - in eddington's words - a 'quite irregular disturbance, with no tendency to periodicity', which means that to light is assigned the quality of an undefined chaos (in the negative sense of this word) sprung from pure chance. moreover, as eddington shows, the question whether the optical contrivance 'sorts out' from the chaotic light a particular periodicity, or whether it 'impresses' this on the light, becomes just 'a matter of expression'. so here, too, the modern investigator is driven to a resigned acknowledgment of the principle of indeterminacy. no such conclusions are forced upon the one who studies the spectrum phenomenon with the eyes of goethe. like the modern experimenter, he, too, is faced with the question 'discovery or manufacture?' and he, too, finds the answer to be 'manufacture'. but to him nature can disclose herself as the real manufacturer, showing him how she goes to work in bringing about the colours, because in following goethe he is careful to arrange his observations in such a way that they do not veil nature's deeds. 'to see is my dower, to look my employ.' words of the tower-watcher in faust, ii, , through which goethe echoes his own relation to the world. the last chapter but two in the edition of . for the drastic and as such very enlightening way in which eddington presents the problem, the reader is referred to eddington's own description. konfession des verfassers. colour as quality being no essential factor in the scientific explanation of the spectrum. contributions to optics. outline of a theory of colour. see rudolf steiner's edition of goethe's farbenlehre under paralipomena zur chromatik, no. . goethe's own representation of the phenomenon. (the diagram is simplified by omitting one colour on each side.) this is not to be confused with the meaning of 'purple' in modern english usage. this follows from the application of fourier's theorem, according to which every vibration of any kind is divisible into a sum of periodic partial vibrations, and therefore is regarded as compounded of these. chapter xv seeing as 'deed' - i having made ourselves so far acquainted with the fundamentals of goethe's approach to the outer phenomena of colour involved in the spectrum, we will leave this for a while to follow goethe along another no less essential line of inquiry. it leads us to the study of our own process of sight, by means of which we grow aware of the optical facts in outer space. * the importance which goethe himself saw in this aspect of the optical problem is shown by the place he gave it in the didactic part of his farbenlehre. the first three chapters, after the introduction, are called 'physiological colours', 'physical colours', and 'chemical colours'. in the first chapter, goethe summarizes a group of phenomena which science calls 'subjective' colours, since their origin is traced to events within the organ of sight. the next chapter deals with an actual physics of colour - that is, with the appearance of colours in external space as a result of the refraction, diffraction and polarization of light. the third chapter treats of material colours in relation to chemical and other influences. after two chapters which need not concern us here comes the sixth and last chapter, entitled 'physical-moral effect of colour' ('sinnlich-sittliche wirkung der farben'), which crowns the whole. there, for the first time in the history of modern science, a bridge is built between physics, aesthetics and ethics. we remember it was with this aim in view that goethe had embarked upon his search for the solution of the problem of colour. in this chapter the experiencing of the various colours and their interplay through the human soul is treated in many aspects, and goethe is able to show that what arises in man's consciousness as qualitative colour-experience is nothing but a direct 'becoming-inward' of what is manifested to the 'reader's' eye and mind as the objective nature of colours. so, in one realm of the sense-world, goethe succeeded in closing the abyss which divides existence and consciousness, so long as the latter is restricted to a mere onlooker-relationship towards the sense-world. if we ask what induced goethe to treat the physiological colours before the physical colours, thus deviating so radically from the order customary in science, we shall find the answer in a passage from the introduction to his entwurf. goethe, in giving his views on the connexion between light and the eye, says: 'the eye owes its existence to light. out of indifferent auxiliary animal organs the light calls forth an organ for itself, similar to its own nature; thus the eye is formed by the light, for the light, so that the inner light can meet the outer.' in a verse, which reproduces in poetic form a thought originally expressed by plotinus, goethe sums up his idea of the creative connexion between eye and light as follows: ' unless our eyes had something of the sun, how could we ever look upon the light? unless there lived within us god's own might, how could the godlike give us ecstasy? (trans. stawell-dickinson) by expressing himself in this way in the introduction to his farbenlehre, goethe makes it clear from the outset that when he speaks of 'light' as the source of colour-phenomena, he has in mind an idea of light very different from that held by modern physics. for in dealing with optics, physical science turns at once to phenomena of light found outside man - in fact to phenomena in that physical realm from which, as the lowest of the kingdoms of nature, the observations of natural science are bound to start. along this path one is driven, as we have seen, to conceive of light as a mere 'disturbance' in the universe, a kind of irregular chaos. in contrast to this, goethe sees that to gain an explanation of natural physical phenomena which will be in accord with nature, we must approach them on the path by which nature brings them into being. in the field of light this path is one which leads from light as creative agent to light as mere phenomenon. the highest form of manifestation of creative light most directly resembling its idea is within man. it is there that light creates for itself the organ through which, as manifest light, it eventually enters into human consciousness. to goethe it was therefore clear that a theory of light, which is to proceed in accord with nature, should begin with a study of the eye: its properties, its ways of acting when it brings us information of its deeds and sufferings in external nature. the eye with its affinity to light comes into being in the apparently dark space of the mother's womb. this points to the possession by the human organism of an 'inner' light which first forms the eye from within, in order that it may afterwards meet the light outside. it is this inner light that goethe makes the starting-point of his investigations, and it is for this reason that he treats physiological colours before physical colours. * of fundamental significance as regards method is the way in which goethe goes on from the passage quoted above to speak of the activity of the inner light: 'this immediate affinity between light and the eye will be denied by none; to consider them identical in substance is less easy to comprehend. it will be more intelligible to assert that a dormant light resides in the eye, and that this light can be excited by the slightest cause from within or from without. in darkness we can, by an effort of imagination, call up the brightest images; in dreams, objects appear to us as in broad daylight; if we are awake, the slightest external action of light is perceptible, and if the organ suffers a mechanical impact light and colours spring forth.' what goethe does here is nothing less than to follow the development of sight to where it has its true origin. let us remember that a general source of illusion in the modern scientific picture of the world lies in the fact that the onlooker-consciousness accepts itself as a self-contained ready-made entity, instead of tracing itself genetically to the states of consciousness from which it has developed in the course of evolution. in reality, the consciousness kindled by outer sense-perception was preceded by a dreaming consciousness, and this by a sleeping consciousness, both for the individual and for humanity as a whole. so, too, outer vision by means of the physical apparatus of the eye was preceded by an inner vision. in dreams we still experience this inner vision; we use it in the activity of our picture-forming imagination; and it plays continuously upon the process of external sight. why we fail to notice this when using our eye in the ordinary way, is because of that dazzling process mentioned earlier in this book. goethe's constant endeavour was not to become the victim of this blindness - that is, not to be led by day-time experience to forget the night-side of human life. the passage quoted from the introduction to his farbenlehre shows how, in all that he strove for, he kept this goal in view. how inevitably a way of thinking that seeks an intuitive understanding of nature is led to views like those of goethe is shown by the following quotations from reid and ruskin, expressing their view of the relationship between the eye, or the act of seeing, and external optical phenomena. in his inquiry, at the beginning of his review of visual perceptions, reid says: 'the structure of the eye, and of all its appurtenances, the admirable contrivances of nature for performing all its various external and internal motions and the variety in the eyes of different animals, suited to their several natures and ways of life, clearly demonstrate this organ to be a masterpiece of nature's work. and he must be very ignorant of what hath been discovered about it, or have a very strange cast of understanding, who can seriously doubt, whether or not the rays of light and the eye were made for one another with consummate wisdom, and perfect skill in optics.'' the following passage from ruskin's ethics of the dust (lecture x) brings out his criticism of the scientific way of treating of optical phenomena: 'with regard to the most interesting of all their [the philosophers'] modes of force-light; they never consider how far the existence of it depends on the putting of certain vitreous and nervous substances into the formal arrangement which we call an eye. the german philosophers began the attack, long ago, on the other side, by telling us there was no such thing as light at all, unless we choose to see it. now, german and english, both, have reversed their engines, and insist that light would be exactly the same light that it is, though nobody could ever see it. the fact being that the force must be there, and the eye there, and 'light' means the effect of the one on the other - and perhaps, also - (plato saw farther into that mystery than anyone has since, that i know of) - on something a little way within the eyes.' remarks like these, and the further quotation given below, make it seem particularly tragic that ruskin apparently had no knowledge of goethe's farbenlehre. this is the more remarkable in view of the significance which turner, with whom ruskin stood in such close connexion, ascribed to it from the standpoint of the artist. for the way in which ruskin in his modern painters speaks of the effect of the modern scientific concept of colours upon the ethical-religious feeling of man, shows that he deplores the lack of just what goethe had long since achieved in his farbenlehre where, starting with purely physical observations, he had been able to develop from them a 'physical-moral' theory of colour. ruskin's alertness to the effect on ethical life of a scientific world-picture empty of all qualitative values led him to write: 'it is in raising us from the first state of inactive reverie to the second of useful thought, that scientific pursuits are to be chiefly praised. but in restraining us at this second stage, and checking the impulses towards higher contemplation, they are to be feared or blamed. they may in certain minds be consistent with such contemplation, but only by an effort; in their nature they are always adverse to it, having a tendency to chill and subdue the feelings, and to resolve all things into atoms and numbers. for most men, an ignorant enjoyment is better than an informed one, it is better to conceive the sky as a blue dome than a dark cavity, and the cloud as a golden throne than a sleety mist. i much question whether anyone who knows optics, however religious he may be, can feel in equal degree the pleasure and reverence an unlettered peasant may feel at the sight of a rainbow.' what ruskin did not guess was that the rudiments of the 'moral theory of light' for which he craved, as this passage indicates, had been established by goethe long before. * in the section of his farbenlehre dealing with 'physiological colours', goethe devotes by far the most space to the so-called 'afterimages' which appear in the eye as the result of stimulation by external light, and persist for some little time. to create such an afterimage in a simple way, one need only gaze at a brightly lit window and then at a faintly lit wall of the room. the picture of the window appears there, but with the light-values reversed: the dark cross-bar appears as light, and the bright panes as dark. in describing this phenomenon goethe first gives the usual explanation, that the part of the retina which was exposed to the light from the window-panes gets tired, and is therefore blunted for further impressions, whereas the part on which the image of the dark frame fell is rested, and so is more sensitive to the uniform impression of the wall. goethe, however, at once adds that although this explanation may seem adequate for this special instance, there are other phenomena which can be accounted for only if they are held to derive from a 'higher source'. goethe means experiences with coloured after-images. this will be confirmed by our own discussion of the subject. what we first need, however, is a closer insight into the physiological process in the eye which causes the after-images as such. wherever goethe speaks of a simple activity of the retina, we are in fact concerned with a co-operation of the retina with other parts of our organ of sight. in order to make this clear, let us consider how the eye adapts itself to varying conditions of light and darkness. it is well known that if the eye has become adjusted to darkness it is dazzled if suddenly exposed to light, even though the light be of no more than quite ordinary brightness. here we enter a border region where the seeing process begins to pass over into a pathological condition. a 'secret' of the effect of light on the eye is here revealed which remains hidden in ordinary vision, for normally the different forces working together in the eye hold each other in balance, so that none is able to manifest separately. this equilibrium is disturbed, however, when we suddenly expose the eye to light while it is adapted to darkness. the light then acts on the eye in its usual way, but without the immediate counter-action which normally restores the balance. under these conditions we notice that the sudden dazzling has a painful influence on the eye - that is, an influence in some way destructive. this will not seem surprising if we remember that when light strikes on the background of the eye, consciousness is quickened, and this, as we know, presupposes a breaking down of substance in some part of the nervous system. such a process does in fact occur in the retina, the nerve-part of the eye, when external light falls upon it. if the eye were solely a structure of nerves, it would be so far destroyed by the impact of light that it could not be restored even by sleep, as are the more inward parts of the nervous system. but the eye receives also a flow of blood, and we know that throughout the threefold human organism the blood supplies the nervous system with building-up forces, polarically opposite to the destructive ones. in sleep, as we have already seen, the interruption of consciousness allows the blood to inundate the nervous system, as it were, with its healing, building-up activity. it is not necessary, however, for the whole of the body to pass into a condition of sleep before this activity can occur. it functions to some extent also in the waking state, especially in those parts of the organism which, like the eye, serve in the highest degree the unfolding of consciousness. having established this, we have a basis for an understanding of the complete process of vision. we see that it is by no means solely the nerve part of the eye which is responsible for vision, as the spectator-physiology was bound to imagine. the very fact that the place where the optic nerve enters the eye is blind indicates that the function of mediating sight cannot be ascribed to the nerve alone. what we call 'seeing' is far more the result of an interplay between the retina carrying the nerves, and the choroid carrying the blood-vessels. in this interplay the nerves are the passive, receptive organ for the inworking of external light, while the blood-activity comes to meet the nerve-process with a precisely correlated action. in this action we find what goethe called the 'inner light'. the process involved in adaptation now becomes comprehensible. the cause of the dazzling effect of light of normal intensity on an eye adapted to the dark, is that in such an eye the blood is in a state of rest, and this prevents it from exercising quickly enough the necessary counter-action to the influence of the light. a corresponding effect occurs when one suddenly exposes to darkness the eye adapted to light. one can easily observe what goes on then, if, after looking for a time at an undifferentiated light surface such as the evenly luminous sky, one covers the opened eyes with the hollowed hands. it will then be found that the space before the eyes is filled by a sort of white light, and by paying close attention one recognizes that it streams from the eyes out into the hollowed space. it may even be several minutes before the field of vision really appears black, that is, before the activity of the inner light in the choroid has so far died away that equilibrium prevails between the non-stimulated nerves and the non-stimulated blood. with this insight into the twofold nature of the process of vision we are now able to describe more fully the negative after-image. although in this case, as goethe himself remarked, the ordinary explanation seems to suffice, yet in view of our later studies it may be well to bring forward here this wider conception. on the basis of our present findings it is no longer enough to trace the appearing of the after-image solely to a differential fatigue in the retina. the fact is that as long as the eye is turned to the bright window-pane a more intensive blood-activity occurs in the portions of the eye's background met by the light than in those where the dark window-bar throws its shadow on the retina. if the eye so influenced is then directed to the faintly illumined wall of the room, the difference in the activity of the blood persists for some time. hence in the parts of the eye adapted to darkness we experience the faint brightness as strongly luminous, even dazzling, whereas in the parts more adapted to light we feel the same degree of brightness to be dark. that the action of the inner light is responsible for the differences becomes clear if, while the negative after-image is still visible, we darken the eye with the hollowed hands. then at once in the dark field of vision the positive facsimile of the window appears, woven by the activity of the blood which reproduces the outer reality. having traced the colourless after-image to 'higher sources' - that is, to the action of the blood - let us now examine coloured afterimages. we need first to become conscious of the colour-creating light-activity which resides in the blood. for this purpose we expose the eyes for a moment to an intense light, and then darken them for a sufficient time. nothing in external nature resembles in beauty and radiance the play of colour which then arises, unless it be the colour phenomenon of the rainbow under exceptionally favourable circumstances. the physiological process which comes to consciousness in this way as an experience of vision is exactly the same as the process which gives us experiences of vision in dreams. there is indeed evidence that when one awakens in a brightly lit room out of vivid dreaming, one feels less dazzled than on waking from dreamless sleep. this indicates that in dream vision the blood in the eye is active, just as it is in waking vision. the only difference is that in waking consciousness the stimulus reaches the blood from outside, through the eye, whereas in dreams it comes from causes within the organism. the nature of these causes does not concern us here; it will be dealt with later. for the moment it suffices to establish the fact that our organism is supplied with a definite activity of forces which we experience as the appearance of certain images of vision, no matter from which side the stimulus comes. all vision, physiologically considered, is of the nature of dream vision; that is to say, we owe our day-waking sight to the fact that we are able to encounter the pictures of the outer world, brought to us by the light, with a dreaming of the corresponding after-images. just as the simple light-dark after-image shows a reversal of light-values in relation to the external picture, so in the coloured afterimages there is a quite definite and opposite relationship of their colours to those of the original picture. thus, if the eyes are exposed for some time to an impression of the colour red, and then directed to a neutral surface, not too brightly illuminated, one sees it covered with a glimmering green. in this way there is a reciprocal correspondence between the colour-pairs red-green, yellow-violet, blue-orange. to whichever of these six colours one exposes the eye, an after-image always appears of its contrast colour, forming with it a pair of opposites. we must here briefly recall how this phenomenon is generally explained on newtonian lines. the starting-point is the assumption that the eye becomes fatigued by gazing at the colour and gradually becomes insensitive to it. according to newton's theory, if an eye thus affected looks at a white surface, the sum of all the colours comes from there to meet it, while the eye has a reduced sensitivity to the particular colour it has been gazing at. and so among the totality of colours constituting the 'white' light, this one is more or less non-existent for the eye. the remaining colours are then believed to cause the contrasting colour-impression. if we apply the common sense of the hans andersen child to this, we see where it actually leads. for it says no less than this: as long as the eye is in a normal condition, it tells us a lie about the world, for it makes white light seem something that in reality it is not. for the truth to become apparent, the natural function of the eye must be reduced by fatigue. to believe that a body, functioning in this way, is the creation of god, and at the same time to look on this god as a being of absolute moral perfection, would seem a complete contradiction to the hans andersen child. in this contradiction and others of the same kind to which nowadays every child is exposed repeatedly and willy-nilly in school lessons and so on - we must seek the true cause of the moral uncertainty so characteristic of young people today. it was because ruskin felt this that he called for a 'moral' theory of light. since goethe did not judge man from artificially devised experiments, but the latter from man, quite simple reflexions led him to the following view of the presence of the contrasting colour in the coloured after-images. nature outside man had taught him that life on all levels takes it course in a perpetual interplay of opposites, manifested externally in an interplay of diastole and systole comparable to the process of breathing. he, therefore, traced the interchange of light-values in colourless after-images to a 'silent resistance which every vital principle is forced to exhibit when some definite condition is presented to it. thus, inhalation presupposes exhalation; thus every systole, its diastole. when darkness is presented to the eye, the eye demands brightness, and vice versa: it reveals its vital energy, its fitness to grasp the object, precisely by bringing forth out of itself something contrary to the object.' consequently he summarizes his reflexions on coloured afterimages and their reversals of colour in these words: 'the eye demands actual completeness and closes the colour-circle in itself.' how true this is, the law connecting the corresponding colours shows, as may be seen in the following diagram. here, red, yellow and blue as three primary colours confront the three remaining colours, green, violet and orange in such a way that each of the latter represents a mixture of the two other primary colours. (fig. .) colour and contrast-colour are actually so related that to whatever colour the eye is exposed it produces a counter-colour so as to have the sum-total of all the three primary colours in itself. and so, in consequence of the interplay of outer and inner light in the eye, there is always present in it the totality of all the colours. it follows that the appearance of the contrast-colour in the field of vision is not, as the newtonian theory asserts, the result of fatigue, but of an intensified activity of the eye, which continues even after the colour impression which gave rise to it has ceased. what is seen on the neutral surface (it will be shown later why we studiously avoid speaking of 'white light') is no outwardly existing colour at all. it is the activity of the eye itself, working in a dreamlike way from its blood-vessel system, and coming to our consciousness by this means. here again, just as in the simple opposition of light and dark, the perception of coloured after-images is connected with a breaking-down process in the nerve region of the eye, and a corresponding building-up activity coming from the blood. only in this case the eye is not affected by simple light, but by light of a definite colouring. the specific destructive process caused by this light is answered with a specific building-up process by the blood. under certain conditions we can become dreamily aware of this process which normally does not enter our consciousness. in such a case we see the contrasting colour as coloured after-image. only by representing the process in this way do we do justice to a fact which completely eludes the onlooker-consciousness - namely, that the eye produces the contrasting colour even while it is still exposed to the influence of the outer colour. since this is so, all colours appearing to us in ordinary vision are already tinged by the subdued light of the opposite colour, produced by the eye itself. one can easily convince oneself of this through the following experiment. instead of directing the eye, after it has been exposed to a certain colour, to a neutral surface, as previously, gaze at the appropriate contrasting colour. (the first and second coloured surfaces should be so arranged that the former is considerably smaller than the latter.) then, in the middle of the second surface (and in a field about the size of the first), its own colour appears, with a strikingly heightened intensity. here we find the eye producing, as usual, a contrast-colour from out of itself, as an after-image, even while its gaze is fixed on the same colour in the outer world. the heightened brilliance within the given field is due to the addition of the after-image colour to the external colour. the reader may wonder why this phenomenon is not immediately adduced as a decisive proof of the fallacy of the whole newtonian theory of the relation of 'white' light to the various colours. although it does in fact offer such a proof, we have good reason for not making this use of it here. throughout this book it is never our intention to enter into a contest of explanations, or to defeat one explanation by another. how little this would help will be obvious if we realize that research was certainly not ignorant of the fact that the opposite colour arises even when the eye is not turned to a white surface. in spite of this, science did not feel its concept of white light as the sum of all the colours to be an error, since it has succeeded in 'explaining' this phenomenon too, and fitting it into the prevailing theory. to do so is in thorough accord with spectator-thinking. our own concern, however, as in all earlier cases, is to replace this thinking with all its 'proofs' and 'explanations' by learning to read in the phenomena themselves. for no other purpose than this the following facts also are now brought forward. * besides rudolf steiner's fundamental insight into the spiritual-physical nature of the growing human being, through which he laid the basis of a true art of education, he gave advice on many practical points. for example, he indicated how by the choice of a suitable colour environment one can bring a harmonizing influence to bear on extremes of temperament in little children. to-day it is a matter of practical experience that excitable children are quietened if they are surrounded with red or red-yellow colours, or wear clothes of these colours, whereas inactive, lethargic children are roused to inner movement if they are exposed to the influence of blue or blue-green colours. this psychological reaction of children to colour is not surprising if one knows the role played by the blood in the process of seeing, and how differently the soul-life of man is connected with the blood-nerve polarity of his organism in childhood and in later life. what we have described as the polar interplay of blood and nerve in the act of sight is not confined to the narrow field of the eye. just as the nerve processes arising in the retina are continued to the optic centre in the cerebrum, so must we look for the origin of the corresponding blood process not in the choroid itself, but in the lower regions of the organism. wherever, therefore, the colour red influences the whole nerve system, the blood system as a whole answers with an activity of the metabolism corresponding to the contrasting colour, green. similarly it reacts as a whole to a blue-violet affecting the nerve system, this time with a production corresponding to yellow-orange. the reason why in later years we notice this so little lies in a fact we have repeatedly encountered. the consciousness of the grown man to-day, through its one-sided attachment to the death-processes in the nerve region, pays no attention to its connexion with the life-processes centred in the blood system. in this respect the condition of the little child is quite different. just as the child is more asleep in its nerve system than the grown-up person, it is more awake in its blood system. hence in all sense-perceptions a child is not so much aware of how the world works on its nerve system as how its blood system responds. and so a child in a red environment feels quietened because it experiences, though dimly, how its whole blood system is stimulated to the green production; bluish colours enliven it because it feels its blood answer with a production of light yellowish tones. from the latter phenomena we see once more the significance of goethe's arrangement of his farbenlehre. for we are now able to realize that to turn one's attention to the deeds and sufferings of the inner light means nothing less than to bring to consciousness the processes of vision which in childhood, though in a dreamlike way, determine the soul's experience of seeing. through placing his examination of the physiological colours at the beginning of his farbenlehre, goethe actually took the path in scientific research to which thomas reid pointed in philosophy. by adapting reid's words we can say that goethe, in his farbenlehre, proclaims as a basic principle of a true optics: that we must become again as little children if we would reach a philosophy of light and colours. wär' nicht das auge sonnenhaft, wie könnten wir das licht erblicken? lebt' nicht in uns des gottes eigne kraft, wie könnt' uns göttliches entzucken! inquiry, vi, . the italics are reid's. presumably kant and his school. schopenhauer was definitely of this opinion. as regards the principle underlying the line of consideration followed here, see the remark made in chapter v in connexion with goethe's study of the 'proliferated rose' (p. f.). chapter xvi seeing as 'deed' - ii the observation of our own visual process, which we began in the last chapter, will serve now to free us from a series of illusory concepts which have been connected by the onlooker-consciousness with the phenomena brought about by light. there is first the general assumption that light as such is visible. in order to realize that light is itself an invisible agent, we need only consider a few self-evident facts - for instance, that for visibility to arise light must always encounter some material resistance in space. this is, in fact, an encounter between light, typifying levity, and the density of the material world, typifying gravity. accordingly, wherever visible colours appear we have always to do with light meeting its opposite. optics, therefore, as a science of the physically perceptible is never concerned with light alone, but always with light and its opposite together. this is actually referred to in ruskin's statement, quoted in the last chapter, where he speaks of the need of the 'force' and of the intercepting bodily organ before a science of optics can come into existence. ruskin's 'light', however, is what we have learnt with goethe to call 'colour', whereas that for which we reserve the term 'light' is called by him simply 'force'. all this shows how illusory it is to speak of 'white' light as synonymous with simple light, in distinction to 'coloured' light. and yet this has been customary with scientists from the time of newton until today, not excluding newton's critic, eddington. in fact, white exists visibly for the eye as part of the manifested world, and is therefore properly characterized as a colour. this is, therefore, how goethe spoke of it. we shall see presently the special position of white (and likewise of black), as a colour among colours. what matters first of all is to realize that white must be strictly differentiated from light as such, for the function of light is to make visible the material world without itself being visible. to say that light is invisible, however, does not mean that it is wholly imperceptible. it is difficult to bring the perception of light into consciousness, for naturally our attention, when we look out into light-filled space, is claimed by the objects of the illuminated world, in all their manifold colours and forms. nevertheless the effect of pure light on our consciousness can be observed during a railway journey, for instance, when we leave a tunnel that has been long enough to bring about a complete adaptation of the eyes to the prevailing darkness. then, in the first moments of the lightening of the field of vision, and before any separate objects catch the attention, we can notice how the light itself exercises a distinctly expanding influence on our consciousness. we feel how the light calls on the consciousness to participate, as it were, in the world outside the body. it is possible also to perceive directly the opposite of light. this is easier than the direct perception of light, for in the dark one is not distracted by the sight of surrounding objects. one need only pay attention to the fact that, after a complete adapting of the eyes to the dark, one still retains a distinct experience of the extension of the field of vision of both eyes. we find here, just as in the case of light, that our will is engaged within the eye in a definite way; a systolic effect proceeds from dark, a diastolic effect from light. we have a distinct perception of both, but not of anything 'visible' in the ordinary sense. with regard to our visual experience of white and black, it is quite different. we are concerned here with definite conditions of corporeal surfaces, just as with other colours, although the conditions conveying the impressions of white or black are of a special character. a closer inspection of these conditions reveals a property of our act of seeing which has completely escaped scientific observation, but which is of fundamental importance for the understanding of optical phenomena dynamically. it is well known that a corporeal surface, which we experience as white, has the characteristic of throwing back almost all the light that strikes it, whereas light is more or less completely absorbed by a surface which we experience as black. such extreme forms of interplay between light and a corporeal surface, however, do not only occur when the light has no particular colour, but also when a coloured surface is struck by light of the same or opposite colour. in the first instance complete reflexion takes place; in the second, complete absorption. and both these effects are registered by the eye in precisely the same manner as those mentioned before. for example, a red surface in red light looks simply white; a green surface in red light looks black. the usual interpretation of this phenomenon, namely, that it consists in a subjective 'contrast' impression of the eye - a red surface in red light looking brighter, a green surface darker, than its surroundings, and thereby causing the illusion of white or black - is a typical onlooker-interpretation against which there stands the evidence of unprejudiced observation. the reality of the 'white' and the 'black' seen in such cases is so striking that a person who has not seen the colours of the objects in ordinary light can hardly be persuaded to believe that they are not 'really' white or black. the fact is that the white and the black that are seen under these conditions are just as real as 'ordinary' white and black. when in either instance the eye registers 'white' it registers exactly the same event, namely, the total reflexion of the light by the surface struck by it. again, when the eye registers 'black' in both cases it registers an identical process, namely, total absorption of the light. seen thus, the phenomenon informs us of the significant fact that our eye is not at all concerned with the colour of the light that enters its own cavity, but rather with what happens between the light and the surface on which the light falls. in other words, the phenomenon shows that our process of seeing is not confined to the bodily organ of the eye, but extends into outer space to the point where we experience the visible object to be. this picture of the visual process, to which we have been led here by simple optical observation, was reached by thomas reid through his own experience of how, in the act of perceiving the world, man is linked intuitively with it. we remember that he intended in his philosophy to carry ad absurdum the hypothesis that 'the images of the external objects are conveyed by the organs of sense to the brain and are there perceived by the mind'. common sense makes reid speak as follows: 'if any man will shew how the mind may perceive images of the brain, i will undertake to shew how it may perceive the most distant objects; for if we give eyes to the mind, to perceive what is transacted at home in its dark chamber, why may we not make the eyes a little longer-sighted? and then we shall have no occasion for that unphilosophical fiction of images in the brain.' (inq., vi, .) reid proceeds to show this by pointing out, first, that we must only use the idea of 'image' for truly visual perceptions; secondly, that the sole place of this image is the background of the eye, and not any part of the nervous system lying beyond; thirdly, that even this retina-image, as such, does not come to our consciousness, but serves only to direct the consciousness to the cause of the image, namely, the external object itself. in what follows we shall deal with an observation which will show how right reid was in this respect. those familiar with this observation (well known indeed to those living in the hilly and mountainous districts both here and on the continent) know that when distant features of the landscape, in an otherwise clear and sunlit atmosphere, suddenly seem almost near enough to touch, rainy weather is approaching. likewise a conspicuous increase in distance, while the sky is still overcast, foreshadows fine weather. this effect (the customary 'explanation' of which is, as usual, of no avail to us and so need not concern us here) ranks with phenomena described in optics under the name of 'apparent optical depth', a subject we shall discuss more fully in the next chapter. it suffices here to state that it is the higher degree of humidity which, by lending the atmosphere greater optical density (without changing its clarity), makes distant objects seem to be closer to the eye, and vice versa. (if we could substitute for the air a much lighter gas - say, hydrogen - then the things we see through it would look farther off than they ever do in our atmosphere.) observations such as these show us that (a) when external light strikes the retina of our eye, our inner light is stimulated to move out of the eye towards it; (b) in pressing outward, this inner light meets with a certain resistance, and the extent of this determines at what distance from the eye our visual ray comes to rest as the result of a kind of exhaustion. just as the outer light reaches an inner boundary at our retina, so does the inner light meet with an outer boundary, set by the optical density of the medium spread out before the eye, outer and inner light interpenetrate each other along the whole tract between these two boundaries, but normally we are not conscious of this process. we first become conscious of it where our active gaze - that is, the inner light sent forth through the eye - reaches the limit of its activity. at that point we become aware of the object of our gaze. so here we find confirmed a fact noted earlier, that consciousness - at least at its present state of evolution - arises where for some reason or other our volition conies to rest. * the foregoing observations have served to awaken us in a preliminary way to the fact that an essential part of our act of seeing takes place outside our bodily organ of vision and that our visual experience is determined by what happens out there between our gaze and the medium it has to penetrate. our next task will be to find out how this part of our visual activity is affected by the properties of the different colours. we shall thereby gain a further insight into the nature of the polarity underlying all colour-phenomena, and this again will enable us to move a step further towards becoming conscious of what happens in our act of seeing. we shall start by observing what happens to the two sides of the colour-scale when the optical medium assumes various degrees of density. for the sky to appear blue by day a certain purity of the atmosphere is needed. the more veiled the atmosphere becomes the more the blue of the sky turns towards white; the purer and rarer the atmosphere, the deeper the blue, gradually approaching to black. to mountain climbers and those who fly at great heights it is a familiar experience to see the sky assume a deep indigo hue. there can be no doubt that at still higher altitudes the colour of the sky passes over into violet and ultimately into pure black. thus in the case of blue the field of vision owes its darkening to a decrease in the resistance by which our visual ray is met in the optical medium. it is precisely the opposite with yellow. for here, as the density of the medium increases, the colour-effect grows darker by yellow darkening first to orange and then to red, until finally it passes over into complete darkness. this shows that our visual ray is subject to entirely different dynamic effects at the two poles of the colour-scale. at the blue pole, the lightness-effect springs from the resistant medium through which we gaze, a medium under the influence of gravity, while the darkness is provided by the anti-gravity quality of cosmic space, which as a 'negative' resistance exercises a suction on the eye's inner light. at the yellow pole it is just the reverse. here, the resistant medium brings about a darkening of our field of vision, while the lightness-effect springs from a direct meeting of the eye with light, and so with the suctional effect of negative density. our pursuit of the dynamic causes underlying our apperception of the two poles of the colour-scale has led us to a point where it becomes necessary to introduce certain new terms to enable us to go beyond goethe's general distinction between finsternis (darkness) and licht (light). following goethe, we have so far used these two terms for what appears both in blue and yellow as the respective light and dark ingredients. this distinction cannot satisfy us any more. for through our last observations it has become clear that the finsternis in blue and the licht in yellow are opposites only in appearance, because they are both caused by levity, and similarly that the lightening effect in blue and the darkening effect in yellow are both effected by gravity. therefore, to distinguish between what appertains to the primary polarity, levity-gravity, on the one hand, and their visible effects in the secondary polarity of the colours, on the other, we shall henceforth reserve the term darkness and, with it, lightness for instances where the perceptible components of the respective colours are concerned, while speaking of dark and light where reference is made to the generating primary polarity. * if we are justified in thus tracing the colour-polarity to a polarically ordered interplay between levity and gravity, we may then pursue the following line of thought. we know from earlier considerations that wherever such an interplay between the poles of the primary polarity takes place, we have to do, in geometric terms, with the polarity of sphere and radius. we may therefore conclude that the same characteristics will apply to the way in which the blue of the sky and the yellow of the sunlight are encountered spatially. now we need only observe how the blue heavens arch over us spherically, on the one hand, and how the yellow brightness of the sun penetrates the air ray-wise, on the other, in order to realize that this really is so. having thus established the connexion of the two poles of the colour-scale with the spherical and radial structure of space, we are now able to express the goethean ur-phenomenon in a more dynamic way as follows: on the one hand, we see the blue of the heavens emerging when levity is drawn down by gravity from its primal invisibility into visible, spherical manifestation. in the yellow of the sunlight, on the other hand, we see gravity, under the influence of the sun's levity, gleaming up radially into visibility. the aspect of the two colour-poles which thus arises before us prompts us to replace goethe's 'lightened dark' by earthward-dawning-levity, and his 'darkened light' by heavenward-raying-gravity. we have now to show that this picture of the dynamic relationship which underlies the appearance of the colour-polarity in the sky is valid also for other cases which are instances of the ur-phenomenon of the generation of colour in goethe's sense, but seem not to lend themselves to the same cosmic interpretation. such a case is the appearance of yellow and blue when we look through a clouded transparent medium towards a source of light or to a black background. there is no special difficulty here in bringing the appearance of yellow into line with its macrotelluric counterpart, but the appearance of blue requires some consideration. we have seen that a corporeal surface appears as black if light striking it is totally absorbed by it. thus, wherever our eye is met by the colour black, our visual ray is engaged in a process whereby light disappears from physical space. now we need only bring this process into consciousness - as we have tried to do before in similar instances - to realize that what happens here to the visual ray is something similar to what it undergoes when it is directed from the earth into cosmic space. note, in this respect, the principle of the mirror as another instance of the fact that the interplay between light and an illumined surface can have on the visual ray an effect similar to that of external space. for the optical processes which occur on the surface of a mirror are such that, whilst taking place on a two-dimensional plane, they evoke in our consciousness pictures of exactly the same nature as if we were looking through the mirror into the space behind it. * the value of our picture of the colour-polarity is shown further if we observe how natural phenomena based on the same kind of polarity in other realms of nature fit in with it. we remember that one of goethe's starting-points in his investigation of the riddle of colour was the observation that of the totality of colours one part is experienced as 'warm' and the other as 'cold'. now we can go further and say that the colours of the spherical pole are experienced as cold, those of the radial pole as warm. this corresponds precisely to the polarity of snow-formation and volcanic activity. the former, being the spherically directed process, requires physically low temperatures; the latter, being the radially directed process, requires high temperatures. here, once more, we see with what objectivity the human senses register the facts of the outer world. another realm of phenomena based on a similar polar order is that of electricity. when we studied the negative and positive poles of the vacuum tube, with regard to the polar distribution of radius and sphere, our attention was drawn to the colours appearing on the two electrodes - red at the (positive) anode, blue at the (negative) cathode. again we find a coincidence with the natural order of the colours. note how the qualitative dynamic method employed here brings into direct view the relationship between light and electricity, while it precludes the mistake of tracing light processes to those of electricity, as modern science does. nor are electric processes 'explained' from this point of view merely as variations of light processes. rather is the relation between light and electricity seen to be based on the fact that all polarities arising perceptibly in nature are creations of the same primeval polarity, that of levity and gravity. the interplay of levity and gravity can take on many different forms which are distinguished essentially by differences in cosmic age. thus the colour-polarity in its primal form, made manifest by the heavens, differs as much from the corresponding polarity shown by the vacuum tube, as does the lightning in the heights from the electric spark. * with the aid of what we have learnt here concerning outer light-processes we shall turn once more to the activity of our own inner light. we may expect by now that our eye is fitted with two modes of seeing activity, polar to each other, and that the way in which they come into operation depends on whether the interplay of positive and negative density outside the eye leads to the appearance of the blue-violet or of the yellow-red side of the colour-scale. such a polarity in the activity of the eye can indeed be established. along with it goes a significant functional difference between the two eyes (not unlike that shown of the two hands). to observe this we need simply to compare the two eyes of a person in a photograph by covering alternately the right and the left half of the face. nearly always it will be found that the right eye looks out clearly into the world with an active expression, and the left eye with a much gentler one, almost held back. artists are well aware of this asymmetry, as of others in the human countenance, and are careful to depict it. an outstanding example is raphael's sistine madonna, where in the eyes and whole countenance both of mother and child this asymmetry can be studied in a specially impressive way. inner observation leads to a corresponding experience. a convenient method is to exercise the two eyes in complete darkness, in the following way. one eye is made to look actively into the space in front of it, as if it would pierce the darkness with its visual ray, while the activity of the other eye is held back, so that its gaze rests only superficially, as it were, on the darkness in front of it. experience shows that most people find it natural to give the active note to the right eye, and the passive note to the left. once one has grown conscious of this natural difference between the two eyes, it is quite easily detected while one is looking normally into the light-filled environment. we thereby realize that for the two eyes to act differently in this way is the usual thing. as an instance where this fact is well observed and effectively made use of, that of shooting may be mentioned here, especially shooting at flying game. those who train in this sport learn to make a completely different use of the two eyes in sighting the target. the naturally more active eye - only once in about fifty cases is it the left - is called by them the 'master-eye'. whilst the less actively gazing eye is usually employed for surveying the field as a whole into which the target is expected to enter, the master-eye is used for making active contact with the target itself ('throwing' oneself on the target 'through' the eye). one further observation may be added. if one looks with rested eyes and in very faint daylight (perhaps in the early morning on awakening) at a white surface, while opening and closing the eyes alternately, then the white surface looks faintly reddish to the 'master-eye', and faintly bluish to the other. * following the lines of our treatment of after-images in the last chapter, we will next inquire into the anatomical and physiological basis of the two opposite sight-activities. in the previous instance we found this in the polarity of nerve and blood. this time we must look for it in a certain twofold structure of the eye itself. we shall best perceive this by watching the 'becoming' of the eye, thus again following a method first shown by goethe. fig. shows the human eye in different stages of its embryonic formation. the eye is clearly seen to consist of two parts essentially different in origin. growing out from the interior of the embryonic organism is a structure that is gradually pushed in, and in its further development becomes the entire posterior part of the eye, destined to carry its life-imbued functions. a second independent part grows towards this from outside; this is at first a mere thickening of the embryonic skin formation, but later it loosens itself and presses forward into the interior of the cup-shaped structure. it is gradually enclosed by this, and evolves finally into that part of the finished eye which embodies the optical apparatus functioning according to purely physical laws. this series of forms shows that in the embryonic formation of the eye we are confronted with two processes, one of spherical, and the other of radial orientation. consequently the two parts of the eye are differentiated in such a way that the posterior part, which has grown forth radially from the embryonic organism, as the life-filled element represents the sulphur-pole of the total eye, while the anterior part, with its much more crystalline nature, having grown spherically towards the organism, represents the eye's salt-pole. closer inspection into the connexion of the two visual activities of the eye with its basic corporeal parts reveals that here, at the outermost boundary of the human organism, we encounter once more that peculiar reversal of functions which we have already several times met in various realms of nature. for the anterior part of the eye - its salt-pole - which has come into being through a spherically directed formative process, seems to be the one through which we exercise the perceptive activity streaming out radially from the eye, whilst the posterior part - the eye's sulphur-pole - which has come into being through radially directed formative action, serves that form of seeing which is more receptive and is carried out in a plane-wise manner. considerations of this kind, and they alone, enable us also to draw true comparisons between the different sense-organs. take the organ of hearing. usually the ear is assumed to fill the same role in the field of hearing as does the eye in the field of seeing. in fact the ear corresponds to only one half of the eye; the other half must be looked for in the larynx. in other words, the two parts of the eye are represented in the realm of hearing by two separate organs, ear and larynx. speaking from the aspect of metamorphosis, the vital part of our eye may be regarded as our 'light-ear'; the crystalline part, as our 'light-larynx'. in order to come consciously to a perception of sight we must 'listen' to the 'deeds and sufferings' of light, while at the same time we meet them with the help of the 'speaking' of our inner light. something similar holds good for hearing. in fact, observation reveals that we take in no impression of hearing unless we accompany it with an activity of our larynx, even though a silent one. the significance of this fact for the total function of hearing will occupy us more fully later. * our insight into the polar nature of visual activity will enable us now to link the external interplay of light and dark - to which the physical colours owe their existence - to that play of forces which we ourselves set in motion when our eye meets the world of colours in their polar differentiation. we established earlier that in the cold colours the role of darkness belongs to the pole of levity or negative density, and the role of lightness to the pole of gravity or positive density, whereas in the case of the warm colours the roles are reversed. let us now unite with this the insight we have meanwhile gained into the two kinds of activity in seeing - the receptive, 'left-eyed' and the radiating, 'right-eyed' - which mediate to us the experience of the positive or negative density of space spread out before our eyes. taking together the results of outer and inner observation, we can express the polarity ruling in the realm of colour as follows. if lightness and darkness as elements of colour, meet us in such a way that lightness, by reason of its positive density, calls forth 'left-eyed' activity, and darkness, by reason of its negative density, 'right-eyed' activity, then our soul receives the impression of the colour blue and colours related to blue. if lightness and darkness meet us so that we see the former in a 'right-eyed', and the latter in a 'left-eyed' way, then we experience this as the presence of yellow and the colours related to it. the reason why we usually fail to observe the different kinds of interplay of the two modes of seeing, when we perceive one or other of the two categories of colour, is because in ordinary sight both eyes exercise each of the two activities without our becoming aware which is the leading one in a particular eye. if, however, one has come to a real experience of the inner polarity of the visual act, one needs only a little practice to realize the distinction. for example, if one looks at the blue sky, notably at noon-time, on the side away from the sun, or at the morning or evening sky, shining yellow and red, one quickly becomes conscious of how our eyes take hold of the particular contribution which light and dark make to one or other of the two colour appearances. * in the natural course of our argument we had to keep at first to the appearance of colours as they come freely before us in space. the results we have obtained, however, hold good equally well for the permanent tints of material objects, as the following example will show. a fact known to science is that red and blue surface colours, when illumined by light of steadily diminishing intensity, are seen to reverse their normal ratio of brightness. this phenomenon can be seen in nature, if, for instance, one observes a bed of blue and red flowers in the fading evening light and compares the impression with that which the same flowers make in bright daylight. if the phenomenon is reproduced artificially, the actual transition from one state to the other can be clearly observed. the easiest way is to place a red and a blue surface side by side under an electric light whose intensity can be gradually lessened by means of a sliding resistance. here, as much as in the natural phenomenon, our reason finds it difficult to acknowledge that the surface gleaming in a whitish sheen should be the one which ordinarily appears as darkling blue, and that the one disappearing into darkness should be the surface which normally presents itself as radiant red. this riddle is readily solved if we apply what we have learnt about the particular shares of lightness and darkness in these two colours, and if we link this up with the respective forms of seeing exercised by our two eyes. to the dim light, clearly, our eyes will respond more with the 'left-eyed' than with the 'right-eyed' form of vision. now we know that it is 'left-eyed' vision which is roused by the lightness-component in blue and the darkness-component in red. it is only to be expected, therefore, that these elements should become conspicuous when in the dim light our seeing is mainly 'left-eyed'. this solution of the problem makes us realize further, that the laws which goethe first found for the coming into appearance of colours freely hovering in space are indeed applicable to the fixed material colours as well. it will be well to remember here the discussion of our experience of temperature through the sense of warmth in chapter viii (p. f.). along these lines the true solution of the problem of the so-called coloured shadows will be found, goethe studied this without finding, however, a satisfactory answer. chapter xvii optics of the doer three basic concepts form the foundation for the present-day scientific description of a vast field of optical phenomena, among them the occurrence of the spectral colours as a result of light passing through a transparent medium of prismatic shape. they are: 'optical refraction', 'light-ray', and 'light-velocity' - the latter two serving to explain the first. in a science of optics which seeks its foundation in the intercourse between man's own visual activity and the doings and sufferings of light, these three concepts must needs undergo a decisive change, both in their meaning and in their value for the description of the relevant optical phenomena. for they are all purely kinematic concepts typical of the onlooker-way of conceiving things - concepts, that is, to which nothing corresponds in the realm of the actual phenomena. our next task, therefore, will be, where possible, to fill these concepts with new meaning, or else to replace them by other concepts read from the actual phenomena. once this is done the way will be free for the development of the picture of the spectrum phenomenon which is in true accord with the goethean conception of light and colour. * the first to be brought in this sense under our examination is the concept of the 'light-ray'. in present-day optics this concept signifies a geometrical line of infinitely small width drawn, as it were, by the light in space, while the cone or cylinder of light actually filling the space is described as being composed of innumerable such rays. in the same way the object producing or reflecting light is thought of as composed of innumerable single points from which the light-rays emerge. all descriptions of optical processes are based upon this conception. obviously, we cannot be satisfied with such a reduction of wholes into single geometrically describable parts, followed by a reassembling of these parts into a whole. for in reality we have to do with realms of space uniformly filled with light, whether conical or cylindrical in form, which arise through certain boundaries being set to the light. in optical research we have therefore always to do with pictures, spatially bounded. thus what comes before our consciousness is determined equally by the light calling forth the picture, and by the unlit space bordering it. remembering the results of our earlier study, we must say further of such a light-filled realm that it lacks the quality of visibility and therefore has no colour, not even white. goethe and other 'readers', such as reid and ruskin, tried continually to visualize what such a light-filled space represents in reality. hence they directed their attention first to those spheres where light manifests its form-creative activity, as in the moulding of the organ of sight in animal or man, or in the creation of the many forms of the plant kingdom - and only then gave their mind to the purely physical light-phenomena. let us use the same method to form a picture of a light-filled space, and to connect this with the ideas we have previously gained on the co-operation in space of levity and gravity. suppose we have two similar plant-seeds in germ; and let one lie in a space filled with light, the other in an unlit space. from the different behaviour of the two seeds we can observe certain differences between the two regions of space. we note that within the light-filled region the spiritual archetype of the plant belonging to the seed is helped to manifest itself physically in space, whereas in the dark region it receives no such aid. for in the latter the physical plant, even if it grows, does not develop its proper forms. this tells us, in accordance with what we have learnt earlier, that in the two cases there is a different relation of space to the cosmically distant, all-embracing plane. thus inside and outside the light-region there exists a quite different relation of levity and gravity - and this relation changes abruptly at the boundaries of the region. (this fact will be of especial importance for us when we come to examine the arising of colours at the boundary of light and dark, when light passes through a prism.) * after having replaced the customary concept of the light-bundle composed of single rays by the conception of two dynamically polar realms of space bordering each other, we turn to the examination of what is going on dynamically inside these realms. this will help us to gain a proper concept of the propagation of light through space. in an age when the existence of a measurable light-velocity seems to belong to the realm of facts long since experimentally proved; when science has begun to measure the universe, using the magnitude of this velocity as a constant, valid for the whole cosmos; and when entire branches of science have been founded on results thus gained, it is not easy, and yet it cannot be avoided, to proclaim that neither has an actual velocity of light ever been measured, nor can light as such ever be made subject to such measurement by optical means - and that, moreover, light, by its very nature, forbids us to conceive of it as possessing any finite velocity. with the last assertion we do not mean to say that there is nothing going on in connexion with the appearance of optical phenomena to which the concept of a finite velocity is applicable. only, what is propagated in this way is not the entity we comprise under the concept of 'light'. our next task, therefore, will be to create a proper distinction between what moves and what does not move spatially when light is active in the physical world. once more an historical retrospect will help us to establish our own standpoint with regard to the existing theories. the first to think of light as possessing a finite velocity was galileo, who also made the first, though unsuccessful, attempt to measure it. equally unsuccessful were attempts of a similar nature made soon afterwards by members of the accademia del cimento. in both cases the obvious procedure was to produce regular flashes of light and to try to measure the time which elapsed between their production and their observation by some more or less distant observer. still, the conviction of the existence of such a velocity was so deeply ingrained in the minds of men that, when later observations succeeded in establishing a finite magnitude for what seemed to be the rate of the light's movement through space, these observations were hailed much more as the quantitative value of this movement than as proof of its existence, which was already taken for granted. a clear indication of man's state of mind in regard to this question is given in the following passage from huygens's famous traité de la lumière, by which the world was first made acquainted with the concept of light as a sort of undulatory movement. 'one cannot doubt that light consists in the movement of a certain substance. for if one considers its production one finds that here on the earth it is chiefly produced by fire and flame, which without doubt contain bodies in rapid motion, for they dissolve and melt numberless other bodies. or, if one considers its effects, one sees that light collected, for instance, by a concave mirror has the power to heat like fire, i.e. to separate the parts of the bodies; this assuredly points to movement, at least in true philosophy in which one traces all natural activity to mechanical causes. in my opinion one must do this, or quite give up all hope of ever grasping anything in physics.' in these words of huygens it must strike us how he first provides an explanation for a series of phenomena as if this explanation were induced from the phenomena themselves. after he has drawn quite definite conclusions from it, he then derives its necessity from quite other principles - namely, from a certain method of thinking, accepting this as it is, unquestioned and unalterably established. we are here confronted with an 'unlogic' characteristic of human thinking during its state of isolation from the dynamic substratum of the world of the senses, an unlogic which one encounters repeatedly in scientific argumentation once one has grown aware of it. in circles of modern thinkers where such awareness prevails (and they are growing rapidly to-day) the term 'proof of a foregone conclusion' has been coined to describe this fact. 'proof of a foregone conclusion' is indeed the verdict at which one arrives in respect of all the observations concerned with the velocity of light - whether of existing phenomena detectable in the sky or of terrestrial phenomena produced artificially - if one studies them with the attitude of mind represented by the child in hans andersen's story. in view of the seriousness of the matter it will not be out of place if we discuss them here as briefly as possible, one by one. the relevant observations fall into two categories: observations of certain astronomical facts from which the existence of a finite velocity of light and its magnitude as an absolute property of it has been inferred; and terrestrial experiments which permitted direct observation of a process of propagation connected with the establishment of light in space resulting in the measurement of its speed. to the latter category belong the experiments of fizeau ( ) and foucault ( ) as well as the michelson-morley experiment with its implications for einstein's theory of relativity. the former category is represented by roemer's observations of certain apparent irregularities in the times of revolution of one of jupiter's moons ( ), and by bradley's investigation into the reason for the apparent rhythmic changes of the positions of the fixed stars ( ). we shall start with the terrestrial observations, because in their case alone is the entire path of the light surveyable, and what is measured therefore is something appertaining with certainty to every point of the space which spreads between the source of the light and the observer. for this reason textbooks quite rightly say that only the results drawn from these terrestrial observations have the value of empirically observed facts. (the interpretation given to these facts is another question.) now, it is a common feature of all these experiments that by necessity they are based on an arrangement whereby a light-beam can be made to appear and disappear alternately. in this respect there is no difference between the first primitive attempts made by galileo and the academicians, and the ingeniously devised experiments of the later observers, whether they operate with a toothed wheel or a rotating mirror. it is always a flash of light - and how could it be otherwise? - which is produced at certain regular intervals and used for determining the speed of propagation. evidently what in all these cases is measured is the speed with which a beam of light establishes itself in space. of what happens within the beam, once it is established, these observations tell nothing at all. the proof they are held to give of the existence of a finite speed of light, as such, is a 'proof of a foregone conclusion'. all they tell us is that the beam's front, at the moment when this beam is first established, travels through space with a finite velocity and that the rate of this movement is such and such. and they tell us nothing at all about other regions of the cosmos. that we have to do in these observations with the speed of the light-front only, and not of the light itself, is a fact fully acknowledged by modern physical optics. since lord rayleigh first discussed this matter in the eighties of the last century, physicists have learnt to distinguish between the 'wave-velocity' of the light itself and the velocity of an 'impressed peculiarity', the so-called 'group-velocity', and it has been acknowledged that only the latter has been, and can be, directly measured. there is no possibility of inferring from it the value of the 'wave-velocity' unless one has a complete knowledge of the properties of the medium through which the 'groups' travel. nevertheless, the modern mind allows itself to be convinced that light possesses a finite velocity and that this has been established by actual measurement. we feel reminded here of eddington's comment on newton's famous observations: 'such is the glamour of a historical experiment.' (chapter xiv.) let us now turn to roemer and bradley. in a certain sense roemer's observations and even those of bradley rank together with the terrestrial measurements. for roemer used as optical signals the appearance and disappearance of one of jupiter's moons in the course of its revolution round the planet; thus he worked with light-flashes, as the experimental investigations do. hence, also, his measurements were concerned - as optical science acknowledges - with group-velocity only. in fact, even bradley's observations, although he was the only one who operated with continuous light-phenomena, are exposed to the charge that they give information of the group-velocity of light, and not of its wave-velocity. however, we shall ignore these limitations in both cases, because there are quite other factors which invalidate the proofs they are held to give, and to gain a clear insight into these factors is of special importance for us. roemer observed a difference in the length of time during which a certain moon of jupiter was occulted by the planet's body, and found that this difference underwent regular changes coincident with the changes in the earth's position in relation to jupiter and the sun. seen from the sun, the earth is once a year in conjunction with jupiter, once in opposition to it. it seemed obvious to explain the time-lag in the moon's reappearance, when the earth was on the far side of the sun, by the time the light from the moon needed to cover the distance marked by the two extreme positions of the earth - that is, a distance equal to the diameter of the earth's orbit. on dividing the observed interval of time by the accepted value of this distance, roemer obtained for the velocity of light a figure not far from the one found later by terrestrial measurements. we can here leave out of account the fact that roemer's reasoning is based on the assumption that the copernican conception of the relative movements of the members of our solar system is the valid conception, an assumption which, as later considerations will show, cannot be upheld in a science which strives for a truly dynamic understanding of the world. for the change of aspect which becomes necessary in this way does not invalidate roemer's observation as such; it rules out only the customary interpretation of it. freed from all hypothetical by-thought, roemer's observation tells us, first, that the time taken by a flash of light travelling from a cosmic light-source to reach the earth varies to a measurable extent, and, secondly, that this difference is bound up with the yearly changes of the earth's position in relation to the sun and the relevant planetary body. we leave equally out of account the fact that our considerations of the nature of space in chapter xii render it impermissible to conceive of cosmic space as something 'across' which light (or any other entity) can be regarded as travelling this or that distance in this or that time. what matters to us here is the validity of the conclusions drawn from roemer's discovery within the framework of thought in which they were made. boiled down to its purely empirical content, roemer's observation tells us solely and simply that within the earth's cosmic orbit light-flashes travel with a certain measurable speed. to regard this information as automatically valid, firstly for light which is continuously present, and secondly for everywhere in the universe, rests again on nothing but a foregone conclusion. precisely the same criticism applies to bradley's observation, and to an even higher degree. what bradley discovered is the fact that the apparent direction in which we see a fixed star is dependent on the direction in which the earth moves relatively to the star, a phenomenon known under the name of 'aberration of light'. this phenomenon is frequently brought to students' understanding by means of the following or some similar analogy. imagine that a machine-gun in a fixed position has sent its projectile right across a railway-carriage so that both the latter's walls are pierced. if the train is at rest, the position of the gun could be determined by sighting through the shot-holes made by the entrance and exit of the bullet. if, however, the train is moving at high speed, it will have advanced a certain distance during the time taken by the projectile to cross the carriage, and the point of exit will be nearer the rear of the carriage than in the previous case. let us now think of an observer in the train who, while ignorant of the train's movement, undertook to determine the gun's position by considering the direction of the line connecting the two holes. he would necessarily locate the gun in a position which, compared with its true position, would seem to have shifted by some distance in the direction of the train's motion. on the other hand, given the speed of the train, the angle which the line connecting the two holes forms with the true direction of the course of the projectile - the so-called angle of aberration - provides a measure of the speed of the projectile. under the foregone conclusion that light itself has a definite velocity, and that this velocity is the same throughout the universe, bradley's observation of the aberration of the stars seemed indeed to make it possible to calculate this velocity from the knowledge of the earth's own speed and the angle of aberration. this angle could be established by comparing the different directions into which a telescope has to be turned at different times of the year in order to focus a particular star. but what does bradley's observation tell us, once we exclude all foregone conclusions? as the above analogy helps towards an understanding of the concept of aberration, it will be helpful also to determine the limits up to which we are allowed to draw valid conclusions from the supposed occurrence itself. a mind which is free from all preconceived ideas will not ignore the fact that the projectile, by being forced to pierce the wall of the carriage, suffers a considerable diminution of its speed. the projectile, therefore, passes through the carriage with a speed different from its speed outside. since, however, it is the speed from hole to hole which determines the angle of aberration, no conclusion can be drawn from the latter as to the original velocity of the projectile. let us assume the imaginary case that the projectile was shot forth from the gun with infinite velocity, and that the slowing-down effect of the wall was great enough to produce a finite speed of the usual magnitude, then the effect on the position of the exit hole would be precisely the same as if the projectile had moved all the time ' with this speed and not been slowed down at all. seeing things in this light, the scientific andersen child in us is roused to exclaim: 'but all that bradley's observation informs us of , with certainty is a finite velocity of the optical process going on inside the telescope!' indeed, if someone should claim with good reason (as we shall do later on) that light's own velocity is infinite, and (as we shall not do) that the dynamic situation set up in the telescope had the effect of slowing down the light to the measured velocity - there is nothing in bradley's observation which could disprove these assertions. * having thus disposed of the false conclusions drawn by a kinematically orientated thinking from the various observations and measurements of the velocity which appears in connexion with light, we can carry on our own studies undisturbed. two observations stand before us representing empirically established facts: one, that in so far as a finite velocity has been measured or calculated from other observations, nothing is known about the existence or magnitude of such a velocity except within the boundaries of the dynamic realm constituted by the earth's presence in the universe; the other, that this velocity is a 'group'-velocity, that is, the velocity of the front of a light-beam in process of establishment. let us see what these two facts have to tell us when we regard them as letters of the 'word' which light inscribes into the phenomenal world as an indication of its own nature. taking the last-named fact first, we shall make use of the following comparison to help us realize how little we are justified in drawing from observations of the front speed of a light-beam any conclusions concerning the kinematic conditions prevailing in the interior of the beam itself. imagine the process of constructing a tunnel, with all the efforts and time needed for cutting its passage through the resisting rock. when the tunnel is finished the activities necessary to its production are at an end. whereas these continue for a limited time only, they leave behind them permanent traces in the existence of the tunnel, which one can describe dynamically as a definite alteration in the local conditions of the earth's gravity. now, it would occur to no one to ascribe to the tunnel itself, as a lasting quality, the speed with which it had been constructed. yet something similar happens when, after observing the velocity required by light to lay hold on space, this velocity is then attributed to the light as a quality of its own. it was reserved for a mode of thought that could form no concept of the real dynamic of light and dark, to draw conclusions as to the qualities of light from experiences obtained through observing its original spreading out into space. to speak of an independently existing space within which light could move forward like a physical body, is, after what we have learnt about space, altogether forbidden. for space in its relevant structure is itself but a result of a particular co-ordination of levity and gravity or, in other words, of light and dark. what we found earlier about the qualities of the two polar spaces now leads us to conceive of them as representative of two limiting conditions of velocity: absolute contraction representing zero velocity; absolute expansion, infinite velocity (each in its own way a state of 'rest'). thus any motion with finite velocity is a mean between these two extremes, and as such the result of a particular co-ordination of levity and gravity. this makes it evident that to speak of a velocity taking its course in space, whether with reference to light or to a physical body in motion, is something entirely unreal. let us now see what we are really told by the number , miles a second, as the measure of the speed with which a light-impulse establishes itself spatially. in the preceding chapter we learnt that the earth's field of gravity offers a definite resistance to our visual ray. what is true for the inner light holds good equally for the outer light. using an image from another dynamic stratum of nature we can say that light, while appearing within the field of gravity, 'rubs' itself on this. on the magnitude of this friction depends the velocity with which a light-impulse establishes itself in the medium of the resisting gravity. whereas light itself as a manifestation of levity possesses infinite velocity, this is forced down to the known finite measure by the resistance of the earth's field of gravity. thus the speed of light which has been measured by observers such as fizeau and foucault reveals itself as a function of the gravitational constant of the earth, and hence has validity for this sphere only. the same is true for roemer's and bradley's observations, none of which, after what we have stated earlier, contradicts this result. on the contrary, seen from this viewpoint, roemer's discovery of the light's travelling with finite speed within the cosmic realm marked by the earth's orbit provides an important insight into the dynamic conditions of this realm. * among the experiments undertaken with the aim of establishing the properties of the propagation of light by direct measurements, quoted earlier, we mentioned the michelson-morley experiment as having a special bearing on einstein's conceptual edifice. it is the one which has formed the foundation of that (earlier) part of einstein's theory which he himself called the special theory of relativity. let us see what becomes of this foundation - and with it the conceptual edifice erected upon it - when we examine it against the background of what we have found to be the true nature of the so-called velocity of light. it is generally known that modern ideas of light seemed to call for something (huygens's 'certain substance') to act as bearer of the movement attributed to light. this led to the conception of an imponderable agency capable of certain movements, and to denote this agency the greek word ether was borrowed. (how this word can be used again to-day in conformity with its actual significance will be shown in the further course of our discussions.) nevertheless, all endeavours to find in the existence of such an ether a means of explaining wide fields of natural phenomena were disappointed. for the more exact concepts one tried to form of the characteristics of this ether, the greater the contradictions became. one such decisive contradiction arose when optical means were used to discover whether the ether was something absolutely at rest in space, through which physical bodies moved freely, or whether it shared in their movement. experiments made by fizeau with running water seemed to prove the one view, those of michelson and morley, involving the movement of the earth, the other view. in the celebrated michelson-morley experiment the velocity of light was shown to be the same, in whatever direction, relative to the earth's own motion, it was measured. this apparent proof of the absolute constancy of light-velocity - which seemed, however, to contradict other observations - induced einstein to do away with the whole assumption of a bearer of the movement underlying light, whether the bearer were supposed to be at rest or itself in motion. instead, he divested the concepts of space and time, from which that of velocity is usually derived, of the absoluteness hitherto attributed to them, with the result that in his theory time has come to be conceived as part of a four-dimensional 'space-time continuum'. in reality the michelson-morley experiment presents no problem requiring such labours as those of einstein for its solution. for by this experiment nothing is proved beyond what can in any event be known - namely, that the velocity of the propagation of a light-impulse is constant in all directions, so long as the measuring is confined to regions where the density of terrestrial space is more or less the same. with the realization of this truth, however, einstein's special theory loses its entire foundation. all that remains to be said about it is that it was a splendid endeavour to solve a problem which, rightly considered, does not exist. * now that we have realized that it is inadmissible to speak of light as consisting of single rays, or to ascribe to it a finite velocity, the concept of the refraction of light, as understood by optics to-day and employed for the explanation of the spectrum, also becomes untenable. let us find out what we must put in its place. the phenomenon which led the onlooker-consciousness to form the idea of optical refraction has been known since early times. it consists in the fact, surprising at first sight, that an object, such as a coin, which lies at the bottom of a vessel hidden from an observer by the rim, becomes visible when the vessel is filled with water. modern optics has explained this by assuming that from the separate points of the floor of the vessel light-rays go out to all sides, one ray falling in the direction of the eye of the observer. hence, because of the positions of eye and intercepting rim there are a number of points from which no rays can reach the eye. one such point is represented by the coin (p in fig. a). now if the vessel is filled with water, light-rays emerging from it are held to be refracted, so that rays from the points hitherto invisible also meet the eye, which is still in its original position. the eye itself is not conscious of this 'break' in the light-rays, because it is accustomed to 'project' all light impressions rectilinearly out into space (fig. b.). hence, it sees p in the position of p'. this is thought to be the origin of the impression that the whole bottom of the vessel is raised. this kind of explanation is quite in line with the peculiarity of the onlooker-consciousness, noted earlier, to attribute an optical illusion to the eye's way of working, while charging the mind with the task of clearing up the illusion. in reality it is just the reverse. since the intellect can form no other idea of the act of seeing than that this is a passive process taking place solely within the eye, it falls, itself, into illusion. how great is this illusion we see from the fact that the intellect is finally obliged to make the eye somehow or other 'project' into space the impressions it receives - a process lacking any concrete dynamic content. once more, it is not our task to replace this way of 'explaining' the phenomenon by any other, but rather to combine the phenomenon given here with others of kindred nature so that the theory contained in them can be read from them direct. one other such phenomenon is that of so-called apparent optical depth, which an observer encounters when looking through transparent media of varying optical density. what connects the two is the fact that the rate of the alteration of depth, and the rate of change of the direction of light, are the same for the same media. in present-day optics this phenomenon is explained with reference to the former. in proceeding like this, optical science makes the very mistake which goethe condemned in newton, saying that a complicated phenomenon was made the basis, and the simpler derived from the complex. for of these two phenomena, the simpler, since it is independent of any secondary condition, is the one showing that our experience of depth is dependent on the density of the optical medium. the latter phenomenon we met once before, though without reference to its quantitative side, when in looking at a landscape we found how our experiences of depth change in conformity with alterations in atmospheric conditions. this, then, served to make us aware that the way we apprehend things optically is the result of an interplay between our visual ray and the medium outside us which it meets. it is exactly the same when we look through a vessel filled with water and see the bottom of it as if raised in level. this is in no sense an optical illusion; it is the result of what takes place objectively and dynamically within the medium, when our eye-ray passes through it. only our intellect is under an illusion when, in the case of the coin becoming visible at the bottom of the vessel, it deals with the coin as if it were a point from which an individual ray of light went out.. .. etc., instead of conceiving the phenomenon of the raising of the vessel's bottom as one indivisible whole, wherein the coin serves only to link our attention to it. * having thus cleared away the kinematic interpretation of the coin-in-the-bowl phenomenon, we may pass on to discuss the optical effect through which the so-called law of refraction was first established in science. instead of picturing to ourselves, as is usually done, light-rays which are shifted away from or towards the perpendicular at the border-plane between two media of different optical properties, we shall rather build up the picture as light itself designs it into space. we have seen that our inner light, as well as the outer light, suffers a certain hindrance in passing through a physical medium - even such as the earth's gravity-field. whilst we may not describe this retardation, as is usually done, in terms of a smaller velocity of light itself within the denser medium, we may rightly say that density has the effect of lessening the intensity of the light. (it is the time required for the initial establishment of a light-filled realm which is greater within such a medium than outside it.) now by its very nature the intensity of light cannot be measured in spatial terms. yet there is a phenomenon by which the decrease of the inner intensity of the light becomes spatially apparent and thus spatially measurable. it consists in the alteration undergone by the aperture of a cone of light when passing from one optical medium to another. if one sets in the path of a luminous cone a glass-walled trough filled with water, then, if both water and surrounding air are slightly clouded, the cone is seen to make a more acute angle within the water than outside it (fig. ). here in an external phenomenon we meet the same weakening in the light's tendency to expand that we recognized in the shortening of our experience of depth on looking through a dense medium. obviously, we expect the externally observable narrowing of the light-cone and the subjectively experienced change of optical depth to show the same ratio. in order to compare the rate of expansion of a luminous cone inside and outside water, we must measure by how much less the width of the cone increases within the water than it does outside. (to be comparable, the measurements must be based upon the same distances on the edge of the cone, because this is the length of the way the light actually travels.) in fig. this is shown by the two distances, a-b and a'-b'. their ratio is the same as that by which the bottom of a vessel appears to be raised when the vessel is filled with water ( : ). thus by means of pure observation we have arrived at nothing less than what is known to physical optics as snell's law of refraction. this law was itself the result of pure observation, but was clothed in a conceptual form devoid of reality. in this form it states that a ray of light in transition between two media of different densities is refracted at their boundary surface so that the ratio of the angle which is formed by the ray in either medium with a line at right angles to the boundary surface is such that the quotient of the sines of both angles is for these media a constant factor. in symbols sin α / sin β = c. it will be clear to the reader familiar with trigonometry that this ratio of the two sines is nothing else but the ratio of the two distances which served us as a measure for the respective apertures of the cone. but whereas the measurement of these two distances is concerned with something quite real (since they express an actual dynamic alteration of the light), the measuring of the angle between the ray of light and the perpendicular is founded on nothing real. it is now clear that the concept of the ray, as it figures in the usual picture of refraction, is in reality the boundary between the luminous space and its surroundings. evidently the concept of the perpendicular on the boundary between the two media is in itself a complete abstraction, since nothing happens dynamically in its direction. to a normal human understanding it is incomprehensible why a ray of light should be related to an external geometrical line, as stated by the law of refraction in its usual form. physical optics, in order to explain refraction, had therefore to resort to light-bundles spatially diffused, and by use of sundry purely kinematic concepts, to read into these light-bundles certain processes of motion, which are not in the least shown by the phenomenon itself. in contrast to this, the idea that the boundary of a luminous cone is spatially displaced when its expansion is hindered by an optical medium of some density, and that the measure of this displacement is equal to the shortening of depth which we experience in looking through this medium, is directly evident, since all its elements are taken from observation. * from what we have here found we may expect that in order to explain the numerical relationships between natural phenomena (with which science in the past has been solely concerned), we by no means require the artificial theories to which the onlooker in man, confined as he is to abstract thinking, has been unavoidably driven. indeed, to an observer who trains himself on the lines indicated in this book, even the quantitative secrets of nature will become objects of intuitive judgment, just as goethe, by developing this organ of understanding, first found access to nature's qualitative secrets. (the change in our conception of number which this entails will be shown at a later stage of our discussions.) compare with this our account in chapter x of the rise of the atomistic-kinematic interpretation of heat. the following critical study leaves, of course, completely untouched our recognition of the devotion which guided the respective observers in their work, and of the ingenuity with which some of their observations were devised and carried out. the assumption is that the wave-velocity differs from the group-velocity, if at all, by a negligible amount. once this is realized there can be no doubt that with the aid of an adequate mathematical calculus (which would have to be established on a realistic understanding of the respective properties of the fields of force coming into play) it will become possible to derive by calculation the speed of the establishment of light within physical space from the gravitational constant of the earth. the grounds of einstein's general theory were dealt with in our earlier discussions. chapter xviii the spectrum as a script of the spirit the realization that newton's explanation of the spectrum fails to meet the facts prompted goethe to engage in all those studies which made him the founder of a modern optics based on intuitive participation in the phenomena. in spite of all that he achieved, however, he never reached a real solution of the riddle of the colour-phenomenon produced when light passes through a transparent body of prismatic shape. for his assumption of certain 'double images', which are supposed to appear as a result of the optical displacement of the boundaries between the light-filled and the dark-filled parts of space and the mutual superposition of which he believed to be responsible for the appearance of the respective colours, does not solve the problem. what hindered goethe in this field was his limited insight into the nature of the two distinct kinds of forces which, as we have noted in the course of our own inquiries, correspond to his concepts of licht and finsternis. with the aid of this distinction - which we have indeed established through a consistent application of goethe's method - we shall now be able to develop precisely that insight into the coming-into-being of the spectral colours which goethe sought. * dynamically, the process of the formation of the spectrum by light that passes through a prism divides into two clearly distinguishable parts. the first consists in the influence which the light undergoes inside the prism as a result of the latter's special shape, the other, in what happens outside the prism at the boundary between the light-space - influenced by the shape of the prism - and the surrounding dark-space. accordingly, we shall study these two parts of the process separately. as an aid to distinguishing clearly one process from the other, we shall suppose the prism experiment to be so arranged that the light area is larger than the width of the prism, which will then lie completely within it. we shall further suppose the dimensions of the whole to be such that the part observable on the screen represents only a portion of the total light-realm situated between the boundaries of the prism. the result is that the screen depicts a light-phenomenon in which there is no trace of colour. for normal eyesight, the phenomenon on the screen differs in no way from what it would be if no prism intervened in the path of the light. these two seemingly identical light-phenomena reveal at once their inner dynamic difference if we narrow the field of light from either side by introducing into it an object capable of casting shadow. if there is no prism we see simply a black shadow move into the illumined area on the screen, no matter from which side the narrowing comes. if, however, the light has come through a prism (arranged as described above) certain colours appear on the boundary between the regions of light and shadow, and these differ according to the side from which the darkening is effected. the same part of the light area may thus be made to display either the colours of the blue pole of the colour-scale, or those of the yellow pole. this shows that the inner dynamic condition of the light-realm is altered in some way by being exposed to an optically resistant medium of prismatic shape. if we are to find the cause and nature of this alteration we must revert to the prism itself, and inquire what effect it has on light in the part of space occupied by it. by proceeding in this way we follow goethe's model: first, to keep the two border-phenomena separate, and, secondly, not to ascribe to the light itself what is in fact due to certain boundary conditions. in order to realize what happens to the light in passing through the prism, let us remember that it is a characteristic of an ordinary light-beam to direct itself through space in a straight line if not interfered with, and to illuminate equally any cross-section of the area it fills. both these features are altered when the light is exposed to a transparent medium of prismatic shape - that is, to an optically resistant medium so shaped that the length of the light's passage through it changes from one side of the beam to the other, being least at the so-called refracting edge of the prism, greatest at the base opposite to that. the dimming effect of the medium, therefore, has a different magnitude at each point of the width of the beam. obviously, the ratio between levity and gravity inside such a light-realm, instead of being constant, varies from one side to the other. the result is a transverse dynamic impulse which acts from that part of the light-realm where the weakening influence of the prism is least towards the part where it is strongest (see long arrow in plate c, fig. i). this impulse manifests in the deflection of the light from its original course. apart from this, nothing is noticeable in the light itself when caught by an observation screen, the reason being that the transverse impulse now immanent in the light-realm has no effect on the reflecting surface. the situation changes when the light-realm is narrowed down from one side or the other - in other words, when an abrupt change of the field-conditions, that is, a sudden leap from light to dark or from dark to light, is introduced within this realm. in this case, clearly, the effect of the transverse field-gradient on such a leap will be different, depending on the relation between the directions of the two (see small arrows in fig. i). our eyes witness to this difference by seeing the colours of the blue pole of the colour-scale appear when the field-gradient is directed towards the leap (a), and the colours of the yellow pole when the gradient is directed away from it (b). for our further investigation it is very important to observe how the colours spread when they emerge at the edge of the shadow-casting object thus introduced into the light-realm from the one side or the other. figs, ii and iii on plate c show, closely enough for our purpose, the position of the colour-bearing areas in each case, with the dotted line indicating the direction which the light would have at the place of origin of the colours if there were no object interfering with its free expansion. we observe a distinct difference in the widening out of the two colour-areas on both sides of the original direction of the light: in each case the angle which the boundary of the colour-area forms with this direction is smaller on the side of the colours nearest the light-realm (blue and yellow respectively) than on the opposite side (violet and red). remembering what we have learnt about the dynamic characteristics of the two colour-poles, we are now in a position to state the following. when a light-area subject to a lateral gradient is narrowed down, so that the gradient is directed towards the narrowing object, colours arise in which the interaction between the two polarically opposite forms of density is such that positive density makes for lightness, and negative density for darkness. whereas, when the border is so situated that the gradient is directed away from it, the interaction is such that positive density makes for darkness, and negative density for lightness. further, the fact that on both occasions the darkness element in the colour-band increases in the outward direction tells us that in this direction there is on the blue-violet side a gradual decrease in positive, and increase in negative, density, while on the opposite side we find just the reverse. we note again that both processes occupy a considerable part of the space originally outside the boundaries of the light-area - that is, at the violet end the part towards which the light-beam is deflected, and at the red end the part from which it turns away. the visual ray, when penetrating actively into the two colour-phenomena thus described, receives evidence of a dynamic happening which may be expressed as follows. where the transverse impulse, which is due to the varying degree of trübung in the light-realm, is directed towards the latter's edge, the intermingling of the dark-ingredient and the light-ingredient, contained in that realm, is such that dark follows light along its already existing gradient, thereby diminishing steadily. hence our visual ray, meeting conditions quite similar to those occurring when we look across the light-filled atmosphere into universal space, notifies us of the presence of the blue-violet colour-pole. if, on the other hand, the edge is in the wake of the transverse impulse, then a kind of dynamic vacuum arises in that part of space from which the beam is deflected, with the effect that the dark-ingredient, imprinted on the light within the prism, is drawn into this vacuum by following a kind of suctional influence. consequently dark and light here come to oppose one another, and the former, on its way out of the light-area, gains in relative strength. on this side our visual ray meets conditions resembling those which occur when we look across the darkening atmosphere into the sun. accordingly our optical experience tells us of the presence of the yellow-red colour-pole. from our description of the two kinds of dynamic co-ordination of positive and negative density at the two ends of the spectrum it follows that the spatial conditions prevailing at one end must be quite different from those at the other. to see this by way of actual perception is indeed not difficult. in fact, if we believe that we see both ends of the spectrum lying, as it were, flatly on the surface of the observation screen, this is merely an illusion due to our superficial way of using our eyes. if we gaze with our visual ray (activated in the manner previously described) into the two sides of the spectrum, while turning our eyes alternately in one or other direction, we soon notice that the colours of the yellow-red rise towards the eye so as to give the impression of protruding almost corporeally from the surface of the screen. we feel: density obtains here in a state of fiery radiation. when turning to the other side we feel our visual ray, instead of being as before caught up in the colours, passing freely across the colours as if carried by them into the infinite. on the blue-violet side, space itself seems to fluoresce mysteriously . following goethe's conception of the physical-moral effect of colours, we may describe the experience received thus from the two poles of the spectrum by saying that an 'other-worldly' character belongs to the colours of the blue-violet pole; an 'earthly' character to those of the yellow-red; while that of green, which appears when both sides are made to overlap, witnesses to its mediating nature between the two. * in our endeavour to view the fundamental experiment of newtonian optics with the eyes of goethe we have been led from the wide expanse of the earth's sunlit periphery into the confines of the darkened experimental chamber. with the aid of the results gained from studying the artificially produced spectrum phenomenon, we shall now return to our original field of observation in order to study the same phenomenon in nature. there it meets us in the form of the rainbow, which we shall now be able to read as a chapter in the great book of nature. from what we have learnt already we can say at once that the rainbow must represent some sort of border-phenomenon, thus pointing to the existence of a boundary between two space-regions of differing illumination. our question therefore must be: what is the light-image whose boundary comes to coloured manifestation in the phenomenon of the rainbow? there can be no doubt that the image is that of the sun-disk, shining in the sky. when we see a rainbow, what we are really looking at is the edge of an image of the sun-disk, caught and reflected, owing to favourable conditions, in the atmosphere. (observe in this respect that the whole area inside the rainbow is always considerably brighter than the space outside.) once we realize this to be the true nature of the rainbow, the peculiar order of its colours begins to speak a significant language. the essential point to observe is that the blue-violet part of the spectrum lies on the inner side of the rainbow-arch - the side immediately adjoining the outer rim of the sun-image - while the yellow-red part lies on the outer side of the arch - the side turned away from the sun-image. what can we learn from this about the distribution of positive and negative density inside and outside the realm occupied by the sun-disk itself in the cosmos? we remember that along the gradient from blue to violet, negative density (light) increases and positive density (dark) decreases, while from yellow to red it is just the reverse-positive density increases and negative density decreases. the rainbow therefore indicates a steady increase of dark towards the outer rim, and of light towards the inner. evidently, what the optical image of the sun in the atmosphere thus reveals concerning the gradation of the ratio between light and dark in the radial direction, is an attribute of the entire light-realm which stretches from the sun to that image. and again, the attribute of this realm is but an effect of the dynamic relation between the sun itself and the surrounding cosmic space. the rainbow thus becomes a script to us in which we read the remarkable fact that the region occupied by the sun in the cosmos is a region of negative density, in relation to which the region surrounding the sun is one of positive density. far from being an accumulation of ponderable matter in a state of extremely high temperature, as science supposes, the sun represents the very opposite of ponderability. (it would be beyond the scope of this book to show how in the light of this fact one learns to re-read the various solar phenomena known to science.) once we realize this, our judgment of all that our terrestrially devised optical instruments, such as the telescope and spectroscope, tell us about the nature of the sun and its surroundings, will change accordingly. for it becomes clear that for the interpretation of solar phenomena shown by these instruments we cannot properly use concepts derived from observations within the earth's realm of positive density. to compare adequately solar and terrestrial phenomena, we must keep in mind that they are in every respect polar opposites. for instance, the fact that the spectroscope reveals phenomena in the sun's light which are strikingly similar to others occurring when earthly matter is first caused to emit light - that is, brought near the upper border of its ponderable existence - and then studied spectroscopically, should not impose on us the illusion that the sun consists of matter in this same condition. on the contrary, the similarity should tell us that imponderable substance, while on its way between sun and earth to ponderable existence, assumes, at the point of transition, aspects exactly like those revealed by ponderable substance at the corresponding point in its upward transformation. what we observe, when we study the sun through a spectroscope, is not the sun itself, but the conditions obtaining in this border-region, where imponderable substance enters the earth-realm. the rainbow, directly we learn to see it as the border-phenomenon that it is, tells us something of itself which revives in modern form a conception held generally in former ages, when it was seen as a mediator between the cosmic-divine and the earthly-human worlds. thus the bible speaks of it as a symbol of god's reconciliation with the human race after the great flood. thus the greeks beheld it when they saw it as the bridge of iris, messenger of the gods; and similarly the germanic mythology speaks of it as the pathway along which the souls of the fallen warriors draw near to valhalla. by recovering this old conception in a new and scientifically grounded form we are enabled also to rectify the misunderstanding from which the ancient bridge-conception of the rainbow has suffered in later days, when tradition had begun to replace direct insight into the truth. when with the rise of man's onlooker-relation to the world of the senses, the rainbow could appear to him only as a form flattened against the sky, people began to think that the ancient picture of it as a bridge had been derived from its likeness to the latter's arched form. representations of the rainbow from these times indeed show supersensible beings, such as the souls of the dead, moving upwards and downwards along the two halves of the arch. it is not in this abstract way that ancient man formed his cosmic imagery. what was seen going on between the upper and nether worlds when a rainbow appeared in the heights of the atmosphere was no traffic over the arch, but an interplay across the rainbow between the realm of levity, glimmering down in the rainbow's violet border, and the realm of gravity glowing up from the red. and this is how we have now learnt to see it again. * at one point in our optical studies (page ) we referred to some words of ruskin in which he deplored the influence exerted on the soul-life of modern man by the world-conception of science. he illustrated this by showing how much less inspiration a man trained in the science of optics receives from the sight of a rainbow than does a 'simple peasant'. one lesson of our studies is that training in optics, if it proceeds on goethean lines, has no such detrimental effect. there is, however, a further problem, outside ruskin's scope, which we are now able to approach in the same healthy way. ruskin distinguishes between three possible stages in man's relation to the world of the senses. the first stage he calls that of 'inactive reverie'; the second - in a certain respect more advanced - that of 'useful thought', the stage of scientifically awakened man to whom all things disintegrate into countable and nothing but countable parts. beyond this, ruskin conceives of a third, still higher stage, in which man becomes capable of raising himself through 'higher contemplation' into an artistic-ethical relation to the content of the sense-world. now, in the way ruskin represents the second and third stages they seem to be exclusive of one another. that was as far as he could go, in his own day. natural observation along goethean lines leads to a form of higher contemplation which unites the second and third stages by nourishing man's ethical being and at the same time furnishing him with useful knowledge-knowledge, that is, which enables him to improve the conditions of the human race on the earth. the following is an example of the practical possibilities that open up in the field we are discussing if we apply the knowledge gained through our new approach to the forces working in nature. we shall speak here of a task of experimental research which was mentioned by rudolf steiner in connexion with the renewal of natural science. rudolf steiner felt the need for pioneers who, by advancing along the paths opened up by goethe, would press forward into the realm of undiscovered phenomena on the upper border of nature, and this prompted him to give to those who were ready to listen various pointers towards new ways of experimental research. in so far as practical results have already been reached along these lines, they lie in the fields of biology and physiology (and of chemistry, in a certain respect) rather than in that of physics. now, among the indications given in this latter field, and not yet worked out, there is one which deals with a way, unknown to-day, of influencing the spectrum by the magnet. the possibility of a magnetic influence on the spectrum is, in itself, not unknown to modern physics. it was the dutchman, zeeman, who first observed a change in the appearance of certain spectral lines as a result of light passing through a magnetic field. this discovery, however, is in two respects typical of modern science. the zeeman effect consists in the splitting up of certain spectral lines into other lines - hence, of a breaking up of a whole into parts. and by seemingly providing a decisive confirmation of contemporary views concerning the electromagnetic nature of light, zeeman's discovery has formed one of the milestones in the progress of modern physical thought - with the usual result that an enlargement of man's knowledge of the behaviour of natural forces has served to entangle his conception of nature still more deeply in illusion. apart from the fact that our own way of combining observation and thought guards us against drawing theoretical conclusions from zeeman's discovery, rudolf steiner's indication opens up the prospect of achieving quite practical results, opposite in character to those of the zeeman effect. for in contradistinction to the use of a magnetic field for splitting the spectrum, rudolf steiner has made us aware of the possibility of uniting into a higher synthesis parts of the spectrum which normally appear in separated form. his indication points to nothing less than a leading over of the optically produced spectrum from its usual linear form, with two boundaries on either side, into a closed circular form, and of doing this by an adequate application - as yet undiscovered - of magnetic force. further, according to his statement, the point where the two ends of the spectrum meet will prove to be a fountain-head of certain higher natural forces which otherwise are not directly accessible. in order to understand how this is possible, we must remember that in two respects the spectrum is not a complete phenomenon. there is, to begin with, the fact that the colour-band visible on the observation screen is only apparently confined to the surface of the screen. for, as we have seen, because of the differing co-ordination of levity and gravity at the two ends of the spectrum, the conditions of space prevailing at each are polarically opposite. negative space opens up spherically behind the blue-violet colours on one side, while positive space, filled by the radially shining yellow-red colours, arises on the other. so we see that what we found earlier for the two poles of magnetism and electricity holds good also for the spectrum. that is, the two processes bringing about the relevant phenomena are not confined to the part of space which these phenomena seem to occupy; for the whole positive and negative realms of the universe share in them. hence the spectrum, though apparently bounded at its two ends, proves by its very nature to be part of a greater whole. once before we were led to recognize - though from a different aspect - that the spectrum is a phenomenon which, when rightly viewed, calls for a certain completion. in following goethe's initial observations we realized that the known spectrum, extending from red via green to violet, has a counterpart extending from violet via peach-blossom to red. the reader may have wondered why we never returned to this other spectrum, in spite of the role it played in making goethe aware of newton's error. the reason was that in order to gain the understanding we needed of the spectrum, we had to observe the two border-phenomena independently - that is, without regard to their relative positions. moreover, with ordinary optical means it is possible to produce only one type of spectrum at a time, so that each is left in need of being complemented by the other. in order to have both together in finite space, as part of one and the same phenomenon, space itself must be dynamically transformed in such a way that the continuation of the finite spectral band running through infinity enters into the finite as well. our understanding of magnetism as a specific representation of the polarity of the second order enables us to comprehend, at least in principle, how magnetism might influence - not light itself, as present-day physics erroneously believes - but the secondary polarity of the spectral colours formed out of the primary polarity light and dark. to see this in all necessary detail is a task of the future, beyond the scope of this book. we have here to continue our account of rudolf steiner's statement by communicating what he indicated concerning the particular nature of the new source of force which would appear in the normally infinite part of the spectrum, if this were brought into the region of the finite. in order to understand the significance of this indication we must turn our attention to parts of the ordinary spectrum, well known in themselves, which we have purposely left out of our study so far. these are the regions of the ultra-violet and the infra-red, invisible in themselves, but forming part of the spectrum as a whole. the ultraviolet manifests through chemical effects, the infra-red through thermal effects. we have left them out of our considerations because these regions of the spectrum differ from the visible part not only quantitatively, as present-day science believes, but qualitatively also, and in a fundamental way. we must regard them as dynamic realms of particularly extreme spherical and radial activities. as such they represent metamorphoses, in the goethean sense, of the levity-gravity interaction represented by the optically visible part of the spectrum. in this way the spectrum discloses a threefold differentiation of that region of force, which up to now we have called simply levity, into activities producing chemical, optical and thermal effects. so far physical investigation is able to lead us, but no further. if, however, we let nature herself speak to us, while holding this differentiated concept of levity in mind, she tells us that beyond the three metamorphoses envisaged so far, there must be a fourth. let us remember that it was certain phenomena of life which first made us aware of the existence of a realm of forces with the attributes of anti-gravity, and that these forces revealed themselves first as creators of form. now it is obvious that warmth, light and chemical energy, though they all play an essential part in living organisms, could never by themselves bring about that 'catching from chaos, carbon, water, lime and what not and fastening them into a given form' which ruskin describes as the activity of the spirit in the plant. in order to be in this sense an instrument of the spirit active in nature, levity must be capable of yet another metamorphosis into an activity which controls the other three, so that through their action, definitely shaped organic structures may come into being. the reason why this fourth and highest metamorphosis of light does not appear in the ordinary spectrum is because it is of too spiritual a quality to be caught by the optical apparatus. in nature herself a creative life-process requires always the presence of a germ already imbued with life. and so, in order to call this fourth metamorphosis of light into the spectrum, stronger means are needed than the mere optical transformation of light-filled spaces. this stronger agent, according to rudolf steiner, is magnetism. with the aid of this it will be possible to organize together round a common spatial centre that part of the activity of levity which escapes the optical instrument and thus remains cosmic, and that part which appears by itself in terrestrial space. once this is practically carried out, we may expect a complete colour-circle to appear as already divined by goethe. the full circle consists of twelve discernible colours, with the goethean peach-blossom diametrically opposite the green. it is in this region of the peach-blossom that - again according to rudolf steiner - we shall find a source of actively working life-forces, springing from the fourth metamorphosis of levity. such is the prospect for research work guided on the new lines. postscript the fact of our having disclosed here one of rudolf steiner's indications concerning as yet undetected possibilities of scientific research, makes it necessary to deal with an objection which may be raised, particularly by some readers who already know this indication through their own relation to rudolf steiner's work. they may object to a discussion of the subject in a publication such as this, feeling it dangerous to hand over to the world information which in the economic battles of to-day might be used in a sense contrary to the social-moral aims to which the work of rudolf steiner was dedicated. in reply it may be said that all we have gone through in this book has shown that concrete knowledge of the world cannot be gained without a certain ethical effort by the seeker. therefore, anyone who receives such knowledge with a passive attitude of soul will find it meaningless, and will be quite unable to turn it to practical account. we may therefore rest assured that the solution of the problem related here, as of any other experimental task set by rudolf steiner, will contain in itself a guarantee that no use will be made of it detrimental to the true progress of mankind. on the other hand, the present world-situation, which to so high a degree is determined by the vast liberation of the sub-physical forces of the earth, makes one feel it is essential not to close the considerations of the fields of knowledge dealt with in these chapters, without a hint at the practical possibilities which arise from a continuation of goethe's strivings in this field. see, in rudolf steiner's edition of goethe's scientific writings, his footnote to goethe's criticism of nuguet's theory of the spectrum in the historical part of the farbenlehre (vol. iv, p. , in kürschner's edition). it is obvious that the reader who wishes to appreciate fully the significance of the observations described in the following paragraphs, must, as in previous cases, carry out these observations himself. in this and the two following diagrams the light-realm has been represented as being less wide than the space obtained by the prism. to avoid unnecessary complexity the colours which, in such a case, actually appear at the border of the light-realm where it emerges from the prism are not shown in any of the diagrams. this direction can be established with sufficient exactitude by holding a very thin object right in front of the prism and marking with a stretched thread the direction which leads from the object to its shadow on the screen. the colour-producing edge must then be introduced from either side so that it just touches the thread. the difference in character of the various parts of the spectrum, as described above, comes out particularly impressively if for capturing the colour-phenomenon one uses instead of a flat white surface, a clear crystal of not too small size, or else a cluster of crystals - moving it slowly along the coloured band from one end to the other. (i am indebted to fr. julius, teacher of natural science at the free school in the hague, for this suggestion.) part iii towards a new cosmosophy chapter xix the country in which man is not a stranger i question not my corporeal or vegetative eye any more than i question a window concerning sight. i look through it and not with it. william blake. (a) introductory note a fundamental achievement along our path of study was the recognition that a force of levity exists, polar to that of gravity, and that these two together represent a primary polarity in nature which in turn is the source of nature's manifold secondary polarities. in the last part of these studies a vista opened up of an inner differentiation of levity itself into warmth, light, chemical action and the formative activity of life. our next task will be to develop a clearer conception of these four modes of action of levity. in undertaking this task, however, we shall have to extend our observations of nature beyond the frontier that can be reached by using only what we can learn from goethe. it is here that rudolf steiner comes to our aid by what he was able to impart through his researches in the realm of the supersensible itself. this turning to information given by another mind, whose sources of knowledge are beyond our own immediate reach, seems at first sight to be incompatible with the principles guiding all our studies hitherto; for in gaining insight into the how and whence of a phenomenon of the sense-world we have up to now admitted only what is yielded by an observation of the phenomenon per se (though with the aid of the 'eye of the spirit') and of other phenomena related to it. this is what we have called 'reading in the book of nature', and we have found it to be the method on which a science aspiring to overcome the onlooker-picture of the universe must be based. so we must first make sure that the step we now propose to take does not violate this principle. * the assurance we want will be found in two characteristics of the communications made by rudolf steiner from his researches. the content of these communications was acquired by way of a 'reading' which is nothing but a higher metamorphosis of the reading first employed by goethe; and the acceptance of this content by another mind is itself nothing but another act of reading, save that the direction of the reading gaze differs from the usual one. in order to understand this we must go back to what we learnt in the course of our optical studies as to the two forms of vision arising from the activity of the eye's inner light - the dream-vision and the seeing of after-images. of these two, seeing in dream is in a certain sense the purer form of inner seeing in that it arises without any outer stimulus exercised upon the physical organ of sight. on the other hand, it lacks that objective conformity to law characteristic of the after-images which mirror the order of the external world. there is an arbitrary, enigmatic element in dream-pictures, and their logic often seems to run counter to that of waking consciousness. a further characteristic of dream-perception is that we are tied to the level of consciousness prevailing in the dream. while we are dreaming we cannot awaken to the extent of being able to make the pictures the object of conscious observation. with the after-images it is different. although to begin with they are present in our consciousness with a clarity no greater than that of the dream-pictures, nevertheless we are able so to enhance our consciousness of them as to bring them under observation like any external phenomenon. as previously shown, it is possible, even while the eye is riveted on an impression from outside, to develop such awareness in the activity of the inner light called forth by this impression, that together with the results of the deeds and sufferings of the light we can perceive something of these deeds and sufferings themselves. perception of the after-images thus turns into what we may call perception of simultaneous images. (this activity of the eye corresponds with what goethe, in a different connexion, called an 'alliance of the eyes of spirit with the eyes of the body'.) these two forms of visual perception - which we may briefly call: ( ) perception of post-images, and ( ) perception of co-images - represent successive rungs on a 'spiritual ladder' pointing beyond themselves to a further rung. by the logic of succession this may be expected to consist in some sort of seeing of pre-images, with the characteristic of being a still less physical mode of seeing than the two others. this seeing must be based on an activity of the inner light which will be similar to that in dream by its arising without any stimulus from external light-impressions, yet at the same time there must be no arbitrariness in the contents of this perception. further, our consciousness in this perceptive activity must be such as to allow us to be in full control of it, as we are of ordinary day-waking seeing. this kind of pure sense-free perception does indeed exist, and it can be aroused by means of a well-ordered training from the dormant state in which it is present in every human being. anyone who learns to see in this way gains perception of the activity of cosmic light, contacting it directly with his own inner light - that is to say, without mediation of his corporeal eye which is subject to gravity. so this eye-of-the-spirit becomes capable of perceiving the levity-woven archetypes (ur-images), which underlie all that the physical eye discerns in the world of ordinary space. in respect of the intrinsic character of the world-content thus perceived, rudolf steiner called this mode of perception, imaginative perception, or, simply, imagination. by so doing he invested this word with its due and rightful meaning. from what we found in our optical studies concerning the nature of after-images (chapter xv), it is clear that the acquisition of imaginative perception rests on a re-awakening in the eye (and thus in the total organism behind the eye) of certain 'infant' forces which have grown dormant in the course of the growing up of the human being. it thus represents a fulfilment of thomas reid's philosophic demand. consequently we find among the descriptions which traherne gives of the mode of perception peculiar to man when the inner light, brought into this world at birth, is not yet absorbed by the physical eye, many helpful characterizations of the nature of imaginative perception, some of which may be quoted here. consider, in this respect, the following passage from traherne's poem the praeparative, quoted earlier. in describing the state of soul at a time when the physical senses are not yet in operation, traherne says: 'then was my soul my only all to me, a living, endless ey, whose power, and act, and essence was to see: i was an inward sphere of light or an interminable orb of sight, exceeding that which makes the days, a vital sun that shed abroad its rays: all life, all sense, a naked, simple, pure intelligence.'' this is the condition of soul of which traherne says in the same poem that through it a man is still a recipient of the 'true ideas of all things'. in this condition the object of sight is not the corporeal world which reflects the light, but light itself, engaged in the weaving of the archetypal images. in a later passage of the same poem traherne expresses this by saying: 'tis not the object, but the light that maketh hev'n. ...' and more clearly still in the following part of his poem an infant eye: 'a simple light from all contagion free, a beam that's purely spiritual, an ey that's altogether virgin, things doth see ev'n like unto the deity; that is, it shineth in an hevenly sense, and round about (unmov'd) its light dispense. 'the visiv rays are beams of light indeed, refined, subtil, piercing, quick and pure; and as they do the sprightly winds exceed, are worthy longer to endure; they far out-shoot the reach of grosser air, with which such excellence may not compare. but being once debas'd, they soon becom less activ than they were before.' how at this stage the soul experiences the act of perception in itself is shown in the following passage from the poem wonder: 'a nativ health and innocence within my bones did grow and while my god did all his glories show i felt a vigour in my sense that was all spirit: i within did flow with seas of life like wine.' utterances of this kind illustrate the fact that perception of the ur-images of the world consists in a reading with the eye-of-the-spirit, which has been rendered so strong that for its action no support from the physical eye is any longer required. this faculty of spiritual imagination (which rudolf steiner was able to exercise in advance of other human beings) is acquired on a path of training which is the direct continuation of the goethean path. it remains to show that acceptance of information obtained through spiritual imagination, without ourselves being as yet in actual command of it, is not in contradiction with the principles of 'reading'. let us, to this end, think of reading in the ordinary sense of this word, calling to mind that for the acquisition of this faculty we depend on someone who can teach it because he already has it. exactly the same holds good for the reading with which we are here concerned. here, too, a teacher already possessing this faculty is required. thus goethe became for us a teacher of reading, and it would be a mistake to imagine that he, for his part, needed no teacher. in his case this function was fulfilled partly by what he learned through his studies of the earlier fruits of man's spiritual activity, that is, from an epoch when vestiges at least of the original, instinctive faculty of spiritual imagination were still extant. a similar function on our own path of study was performed by our occupation with the old doctrine of the four elements and the basic concepts of alchemy. indispensable as is such a training in reading by turning to past conceptions of man, it does not suffice to meet the present-day demands of a scientific understanding of the universe. for this, we need a 'technique' of reading that cannot be attained along these lines alone. awareness of this fact led rudolf steiner to pursue his spiritual-scientific investigations and to communicate the results in such a way that they can be a 'school of reading' for those who study them. in point of fact we have already made use in this sense of one of the results of rudolf steiner's researches, for at the very beginning of this book his picture of the threefold psycho-physical organism of man was taken as the basis of our own investigations. the reason why the present remarks were not then included is that the relevant results of higher research were in that case of such a nature that, once known, they could be confirmed by the simplest kind of self-observation. the fact, however, remains that from the very beginning we have called upon one fully trained in reading, to help in deciphering certain facts of nature - in this case of human nature. a similar need, though now in an amplified form, arises at the present stage of our studies. and here, out of the wealth of knowledge conveyed by rudolf steiner from the realm of supersensible imagination, it is his characterization of the four modifications of levity which will now give the guidance necessary for our own observation. adopting the terminology chosen by him for the description of this sphere, we shall in future speak of it as of the 'ether' pervading the universe (thus using this word also in its true and original meaning). accordingly, we shall refer to its fourfold differentiation as to the four kinds of ether: warmth-ether, light-ether, chemical ether and life-ether. * * * (b) warmth we begin with the warmth-ether as the only modification of ether which combines certain etheric with certain physical properties. constituting as it does a border-condition between the two worlds, the warmth-ether has, on the one hand, the function of receiving the picture-weaving transmitted to it by the higher ethers, and, on the other, of bringing physical matter into the state where it becomes receptive to the working of the etheric forces. the warmth-ether achieves this by freeing matter from being controlled one-sidedly by the centre-bound forces of the earth. it thus calls forth, when acting physically, the processes of melting of solids and of evaporation of liquids: phenomena which yielded the initial observations for our introduction of the concept of levity. in processes of this kind we now recognize the physical manifestation of a universal function of the warmth-ether, namely, to divest matter of all form and to lead it over from the realm dominated by gravity into that of levity. provided we attach the right meaning to the word, we may say that the function of the warmth-ether is to bring about chaos at the upper border of physical nature. it is thus that we have already found it working in the plant, when through the union of the pollen with the seed a state of chaos is produced within the seed, which enables the type to impress anew its form-principle into it. another instance of the warmth-ether's anti-gravitational effect, also discussed earlier, is the earth's seismic activity. true, it appears at first sight as if little were gained by speaking of warmth-ether, instead, as we did previously, of levity in general. but it must not be forgotten that in the ether-realm as a whole, warmth - that is, the overcoming of earthly gravity - is only one of the four modes of etheric action, albeit the one which enables the other three to work into the physical world. we shall see, later on, that only by taking into account the action of the higher modifications of the ether is it possible to gain insight into the true causes of the apparently so arbitrary occurrences of volcanic and kindred phenomena. here, too, it is the function of the warmth-ether to produce in the physical sphere the chaos which is necessary to make the physical sphere receptive to the activities going on in higher spheres. in view of this universal function of the warmth-ether, which distinguishes it from the other modifications of ether, we may give it as a second name that of 'chaoticizing ether'. * * * (c) light the function of the light-ether, the second of the four modes of ether, can best be envisaged by thinking of the difference between a plant growing in darkness (perhaps a potato sprouting in a cellar) and another of the same species exposed to the influence of the light. on plates vii and viii two kinds of unicellular organisms are shown, of one which - the green algae - is accustomed to live in light, the other - the bacilli - in darkness. these things are, of course, well-known facts. our purpose here, however, is not merely to record them as 'fact', but, by re-creating them within ourselves, to use them to gain an experience of the function of the light-ether. the following passages from goethe's metamorphosis of plants are a classical example of observation of the activity of the light-ether in the plant. they are taken from the second part of the essay, where goethe is describing leaf-development: 'while the leaves owe their first nourishment principally to the more or less modified watery parts, which they draw from the stem, they are indebted for their increased perfection and refinement to the light and air. the cotyledons which are formed beneath the closed seed-sheath are charged, so to speak, with only a crude sap; they are scarcely and but rudely organized and quite undeveloped. in the same way the leaves are more rudely organized in plants which grow under water than in others which are exposed to the open air. indeed, even the same species of plant develops smoother and less intricately formed leaves when growing in low damp places, whereas, if transplanted to a higher region, it will produce leaves which are rough, hairy and more delicately finished.' 'so it is also with the anastomosis of the vessels which spring forth from the larger veins, seeking each other with their ends and coalescing, and thus providing the necessary basis for the leaf-skin or cuticle. all this, if not entirely caused by subtle forms of air, is at least very much furthered by them. if the leaves of many water-plants are thread-like or assume the form of antlers, we are inclined to attribute it to lack of complete anastomosis. the growth of the water buttercup, ranunculus aquatilis, shows this quite obviously, with its aquatic leaves consisting of mere thread-like veins, while in the leaves developed above water the anastomosis is complete and a connected plane is formed. occasionally, indeed, in this plant, the transition may be still more definitely observed, in leaves which are half anastomosed and half thread-like.' the second of these paragraphs describes the phenomenon of vascular anastomosis which, having already been more than once an object of our study, here reveals a new meaning. if, following goethe's method, we re-create in our mind the repeated separations and reunions of the sap-vessels, while keeping in view the fact that the leaf's outer form is the result of a purposive, many times repeated anastomosis, then the picture of the activity of weaving arises before our mind's eye. (hence the word 'tissue' for the flesh of a living being.) in truth all nature's forms are woven of light, including the crystals. how clear a picture goethe had of the conformity of man's act of thinking with nature's way of producing her forms - both being an act of supersensible weaving - is shown by the following two verses. that on the left is a passage from faust, from the scene in which mephisto (disguised as faust) instructs the young scholar. the other is an altered version of it, written by goethe at a later time to conclude an essay (bedenken und ergebung) in which he deals with the problem of the relation between experience and idea: truly, when men their thoughts conceive 'tis as if some masterpiece they weave. one thread, and a thousand strands take flight, swift to and fro the shuttles going, all unseen the threads a-flowing, one stroke, and a thousand close unite. so with a modest eye perceive her masterpiece dame nature weave. one thread, and a thousand strands take flight, swift to and fro the shuttles going, each to the other the threads a-flowing, one stroke, and a thousand close unite. - what goethe wants to show here by applying to the activity of nature the same image which he used originally to depict the act of thinking, we can express to-day by saying that it is the identity of the activity of the light-ether in human thinking and in external nature which is responsible for the fact that the objective ideas operating in nature can become the content of man's consciousness in the form of thoughts. following our previous procedure when we gave the warmth-ether a second name by calling it chaoticizing ether, we can denote the light-ether also as 'weaving ether'. * if at this point in our discussion we revert once more to the realm of physical manifestations of light, dealt with in the preceding chapters, we do so because by studying them in the present context we shall gain further insight into the fact that one plane of nature provides illustrations of processes which on another plane remain more or less veiled. at the same time this will help us to learn more about the properties of levity-space. the optical phenomenon which we shall discuss in this sense is that of the so-called pin-hole camera. (the pin-hole camera effect is easily produced by a keyhole in a closed door which on one side faces a window and on the other leads to a comparatively dark room.) the usual explanation of the appearance of the optical image on the back inside wall of such a camera is that light-rays, emanating from every point outside, cross each other in the aperture of the camera and so - again point by point - create the inverted image. no such explanation, clearly, is open to us. for the world of external objects is a whole, and so is its image appearing in the camera. equally, the light entering the camera is not a sum of single rays. pure observation leads to the following description of the optical process. by surveying the path which the light takes from the illuminated surface of the outer objects via the pin-hole to the optical image inside the camera, we realize that the light-realm engaged in this process has the shape of a double cone, with its apex in the opening of the camera. within this cone the light carries the image across the space stretching in front of the light-reflecting objects up to the point where the image becomes visible by being caught on the back wall of the camera. thus in every section of the cone the image is present in its totality - even in the very apex of the cone. there, too, the image in all its details is present as a whole, though without (ideally) any spatial extension. seen thus, on this level of its action the light-ether reveals as one of its characteristics the faculty of making present in a spaceless point an image originally expanded in space, and of letting it emerge from this point in spatial expansion. further, there is the fact that, wherever we set up a pin-hole camera, the aperture in its front will cause the formation of an optical image inside it. this shows that each point in space filled with light is the bearer of an optical image, contracted to a point, of the entire world of light-reflecting objects surrounding it. all we do with such a camera is to select a particular image and bring it to separate visibility. through these observations we grow aware of light's faculty of communicating simultaneously to space as a whole, and to each point in it, a potential image of the light-reflecting object. what we observe here in the sphere of physical light-activity is exactly what the light-ether performs on a higher level of nature when with its help the spiritual archetype of a plant takes on spatial appearance. for to this end the archetype, itself without spatial limitations, imprints its image into the tiny seed, whence the growing plant organism carries it again into space. and there is in principle no limitation to the number of such seeds, each of which will bear the complete image of the archetype. * * * (d) sound the characteristics of the third modification of ether are such that they prompted rudolf steiner to give it as a second name, besides chemical ether, that of sound-ether. in view of the fact, stressed at the beginning of this chapter, that perception of the ether is achieved by a heightening of the power of the spirit-eye, it must cause surprise to learn that a certain mode of activity of the ether has a quality which makes appeal to aural experiences. the full answer to this riddle must await the discussion that follows this chapter. two points, however, may be brought forward at once. firstly, where gravity, with its tendency to individualize, is absent, no such sharp distinctions exist between one form of perception and another as are found in the sphere of the physical senses. secondly, even in ordinary sense-perception a certain overlapping of visual and aural experiences is known to us. we need only think how common it is to give musical attributes, such as 'consonant' and 'dissonant' to colours, and to describe tones as 'light' and 'dark'. the reason is that subconsciously we accompany visual experiences with tone-sensations, and vice versa. cases are even known of human beings in whom the secondary sensation occurs with such intensity as to equal the primary one. such people say that they 'see' sounds and 'hear' colours. * everything that is true of the supersensible sphere we may expect to come to expression in some form in the world of sense-perception. the sphere of the ether is the sphere of the creative archetypes of the world, and when we learn that to one part of this world the character of sound is attributed, we must search for a phenomenon, perceptible to our senses, which reveals to us the secret of the sound's form-creating power. this we have in the so-called sound-figures, discovered by the german physicist chladni ( - ) and called after him 'chladni's sound-figures'. a short description of how they are produced will not be out of place. a round or square plate of glass or brass, fixed at its centre so that it can vibrate freely at its edges, is required. it is evenly and not too thickly covered with fine sand or lycopodium powder and then caused to vibrate acoustically by the repeated drawing of a violin-bow with some pressure across the edge of the plate until a steady note becomes audible. through the vibrations thus caused within the plate, the particles of sand or powder are set in movement and caused to collect in certain stationary parts of the plate, thereby creating figures of very regular and often surprising form. by stroking the plate at different points on the edge, and at the same time damping the vibrations by touching the edge at other points with the finger, notes of different pitch can be produced, and for each of these notes a characteristic figure will appear (fig. ). the significance for us of chladni's experiment will emerge still more clearly if we modify it in the following way. instead of directly setting the plate with the powder into vibration by stroking it with the bow, we produce a corresponding movement on a second plate and let it be transmitted to the other by resonance. for this purpose the two plates must be acoustically tuned to each other and placed not too far apart. let us imagine, further, that the whole experiment was arranged - as it well might be - in such a way that the second plate was hidden from a spectator, who also lacked the faculty of hearing. this gives us a picture of the situation in which we find ourselves whenever the higher kinds of ether by way of a tone-activity inaudible to our physical ear, cause shapeless matter to assume regularly ordered form. * this comparison of the activity of the sound-ether, as the form-creating element in nature, with chladni's phenomenon is drawn correctly only if we recognize that the conception of form, as an expression of that which is called forth through the etheric forces in nature, comprises more than the external spatially bounded shape of an organic or inorganic entity. apart from the fact already indicated, that for the formation of such entities the co-operation also of life-ether is necessary, we can judge the activity of sound-ether correctly only if we conceive it as a much more inward activity, compared with the formation in external space of chladni's figures. in the latter case, the reason why the influence of sound causes nothing beyond the ordering of form in outer space is because on this plane of nature the only changes that can occur are changes in the positions of separate physical bodies. where the forces of sound in ether-form are able to take hold of matter from within, they can produce changes of form of a quite different kind. this effect of the activity of sound-ether has given it its other name: chemical ether. we have mentioned once before that our conception of 'form' in organically active nature must not be limited merely to that of a body's spatial outline. this was in connexion with ruskin's definition of the spiritual principle active in plant-formation as 'the power that catches out of chaos charcoal, water, lime and what not, and fastens them down into a given form'. besides the external order of matter revealed in space-form, there exists also an inner qualitative order expressed in a body's chemical composition. upon this inner chemical order is based all that we encounter as colour, smell, taste, etc., of a substance, as well as its nourishing, healing or harmful properties. accordingly, all these parts of an organism, both in the plant-kingdom and within the higher organisms, have a certain inner material order, apart from their characteristic space-structure. the one is never present without the other, and in some way they are causally connected. in this inner order of substance we must see in the very first place the work of the sound or chemical ether. and we should be aware that by the word 'chemistry' in this connexion we mean something much more far-reaching than those chemical reactions which we can bring about by the reciprocal affinity of physical substances, however complicated these reactions may be. a few examples will illustrate the difference between chemical processes caused by direct influence of the chemical ether, and others in which only the physical consequences of the ether are effective. in his book, man the unknown, professor carrel shows very impressively, by an example from the human organism, the difference of quantitative ratio in externally similar processes, one of which occurs within the domain of life, the other, outside it. he compares the quantity of liquid necessary to keep artificially alive a piece of living tissue which has been reduced to pulp, with the quantity of blood doing the same within the living organism. if all the tissues of a human body were treated in this way, it would take , gallons of circulating fluid to keep them from being poisoned in a few days by their own waste products. within the living organism the blood achieves the same task with j gallons. very many chemical changes within living organisms are effected by the two polar processes of oxidation and reduction. we have discussed them repeatedly as hieroglyphs of much that occurs in nature by way of polarity. in accordance with the principle ruling the physical plane of nature, that differences of level tend to disappear, oxidation can occur by itself, whereas reduction requires the expenditure of energy. let us from this point of view compare the transformation of oxidized into reduced iron, as it takes place inside and outside the realm of life. an example of this process in its purely physical form is the reduction of iron-ore to metallic iron in blast-furnaces, where, with the help of high temperature and high pressure, carbon is made to combine with the oxygen ingredient of the ore and to impart to it its own imponderable energy. precisely the same process is going on continuously and unobtrusively within the human body under normal bodily conditions of temperature and pressure, when the oxy-haemoglobin of the arterial blood changes over into the haemoglobin of the venous blood. a macrotelluric counterpart of this is the transformation of the red river-mud into the blue-black continental mud at the bottom of the sea, around the continental shores. here, again, reduction takes place without those preliminaries that are necessary for carrying through the process by technical means. through examples of this kind we gain insight into the nature of the chemical ether as a 'magic' force (in the sense in which we have introduced this term at the beginning of the book). what the chemical ether is capable of effecting in a gentle manner, so to speak, in cooperation with the inertness-overcoming power of the warmth-ether, can be imitated physically only by an extraordinary concentration of external energy and the use of masses of material substance. at the same time the imitation is never complete. for to all that happens through the action of the chemical ether there belongs the quality of cosmic youth, while everything brought about in a purely physical manner is of necessity cosmically old. of all the provinces of nature towards which man's exploring eye has turned since the dawn of the onlooker-consciousness, none has furthered his purely quantitative thinking more than chemistry, ever since the discovery that the chemical reactions of the various substances are conditioned by a quite definite and constant numerical relationship. it was these relationships which impelled the rise of the atomic conception of matter and all its consequences. for since the onlooker-consciousness is quite unable to conceive the existence of numerical relationships in the physical world except as sums of computable units in space, it was natural for this type of consciousness to reduce all empirically established numerical relationships to correspending relationships among quantities of the smallest possible material or matter-like units. scientific thinking, if guided by knowledge of the existence of etheric forces and their action, has no need of such an interpretation of the numerical relationships revealed in the physical world; for it knows them to be nothing but the last expression of the action of the chemical ether (hence occasionally also called 'number-ether' by rudolf steiner). to do justice to the appearance of measurable numerical relationships in nature, in whatever sphere, it is necessary to free ourselves from the abstract conception of number which governs modern scientific thought and to replace it by a more concrete one. we shall rind that for the existence of a certain number there may be two quite different reasons, although the method of establishing the number itself is the same in each case. a simple example will illustrate this. let us look at a number of similar objects, say a group of five apples. we observe that the relation of the number five to the group of objects in front of us is purely external and accidental. in applying to it the conception 'five' we combine the single objects into a group and give it a name, or numerical label, which has nothing to do with the nature of the items making up the group. this way of thinking, we may observe, is of exactly the kind which the nominalists of the middle ages attributed to every conception formed by the human mind. in fact, the process of counting is a process of pure abstraction. the more differentiated are the things which we want to combine into a group through the process of counting, the further this abstraction has to go. we can count apples and pears together under the collective conception of 'fruit'; if turnips are added, we must help ourselves out with the conception 'vegetable products'; until finally we deal only with 'things', without considering any qualitative differentiation. thus the conception of number is created solely within the human mind, which applies it to things from outside. from the moment when human consciousness was unable to attribute to itself any other than a purely nominalistic mode of comprehension it was inevitable that all explanations of natural phenomena would have two results: ( ) the exclusion from observation of everything that could not be conceived in terms of numbers, and ( ) an endeavour to find for every numerical relationship capable of empirical proof an explanation which could be interpreted as the result of taking qualitatively identical units and counting them. for this method of forming conceptions is the only one which nominalism can accept with a good conscience. the fact that in so doing it is led ad absurdum has only quite lately occurred to it. for if by the logical following of this path - as in modern theoretical physics - the whole universe is dissolved into units which can no longer be distinguished from each other, then it will become impossible to count these parts, for it cannot be established whether any given one of these hypothetical elemental particles has been counted or not. none the less, eddington claimed to have found the exact number of particles composing the universe - a number with figures - by using a special calculus, but this number is valid only on the supposition that the particles cannot be counted because they are indistinguishable! however correct the nominalistic conception of number may be in such a case as that of numbering the five apples, it is wholly incorrect to restrict the concept of number itself to one valid for this kind of occurrence. we shall see this immediately if we take one of the apples and cut it across. there we find the number five confronting us in the well-known star-like figure, represented by the fivefold pericarp in the centre of the apple. what man, restricted as he was to the mode of understanding, has completely overlooked is this: although the act of counting, by which we establish the number five, is the same in both cases, the quality of the number five is totally different. for in the case of the five pericarps this number is a quality immanent in the apple, which it shares with the whole species of rosaceae. the apple itself is just as much 'five' as it is 'round', 'sweet', etc. in the supersensible type which creates in the plant its own organ of manifestation, the creation of a number - in the apple the number five - is part of the form-creating activities characteristic of the type. the numerical relationships which appear between natural phenomena depend upon the way in which the chemical ether participates. this is true equally of those discovered by chemistry in the sphere of inorganic matter and used to-day with such great success. let us be quite clear that the relationship of unity to plurality in the case of the five apples is totally different from what it is in the fivefold pericarp. in the first case unity is the smallest quantity represented by each of the five apples. there, the step from one to two is made by joining together two units from outside. the path from one to many is by way of continuous addition. in the second case the unity is represented by the pericarp - i.e. by the one comprising the many, the latter appearing as parts of the whole. in such a case two is part of one and so are three, four, five, etc. plurality arises from a continuous process of division of unity. the ancient world knew the idea of number only in the last-mentioned form. there unity appeared as an all-embracing magnitude, revealed through the universe. the world's manifoldness was felt to be not a juxtaposition of single things, externally connected, but the content of this unity, and therefore derived from it. this was expressed by the pre-socratic greek philosophers in the formula έν και Ï�αν (the one and the all). with the appearance of the arabs on the scene of history, human thought turned to the additive concept of number, and the original distributive concept receded gradually into oblivion. the acceptance of the new concept made it possible for the first time to conceive the zero. it is clear that by a continuous division of unity one is carried to a constantly growing number of constantly diminishing parts, but without ever reaching the nothing represented by the number zero. to-day we should say that in this way we can reach zero only by an infinite series of steps. yet the idea of the infinite did not exist in this form for ancient man. on the other hand, in the arabic conception of number the steps necessary to reach zero are finite. for just as by the external addition of unities we can step forward from one number to the next, so we can also step back on the same path by repeated subtractions of unities. having thus reached one, nothing can stop us from going beyond it by one more such step. the arabic numeral system, therefore, is the only one to possess its own symbol for zero. it has been correctly noted that the penetration into european thought of this additive concept of number was responsible for developing the idea of the machine; for it accustomed human beings to think calmly of zero as a quantity existing side by side with the others. in ancient man the idea of nothingness, the absolute void, created fear; he judged nature's relation to the void accordingly, as the phrase 'natura abhorret vacuum' indicates. his capacity to think fearlessly of this vacuum and to handle it thus had to be developed in order to bring about the machine age, and particularly the development of efficient steam engines. consider also the decisive part played by the vacuum in crookes's researches, through which the path to the sub-physical realm of nature was laid open. yet nature makes use of number as a regulating factor in quite a different way from its appearance in the purely electrical and gravitational connexions of inorganic matter, namely where sound-ether from the upper boundary of nature so regulates nature's dynamic that the manifold sense-qualities appear in their time-and-space order. when we interpret the arrangement of numbers found there on a nominalistic basis, as is done when the axis- and angle-relationships of crystals are reduced to a mere propinquity of the atoms distributed like a grid in space, or when the difference in angle of the position of the various colours in the spectrum is reduced to mere differences in frequency of the electromagnetic oscillations in a hypothetical ether - then we bar the way to the comprehension not only of number itself, as a quality among qualities, but also of all other qualities in nature. * (e) life as already mentioned, the three kinds of ether, warmth, light and sound, are not sufficient in themselves to bring into existence what in its proper sense we call 'life' in nature, i.e. the formation of single living organisms. this requires the action of a fourth kind of ether, the life-ether, ranged above the other three. we can best comprehend the life-ether's contribution to the total activity of the ether in nature by considering the interaction of the four kinds of ether with the four physical elements. we have seen that the warmth-ether has the double function of being at once the lowest ether and the highest physical element, thus acting as a sphere of reflexion for the other kinds of ether and the elements respectively. each stage in the etheric has its reflexion in the physical, as the above table shows. thus to the physical air the etheric light is related. (the affinity of light and air is best seen in the plant and its leaf-formation.) to bring about real changes in the material composition of the physical world requires the stronger powers of the chemical ether. therefore it is also the first ether of which we had to speak as 'magical' ether. its effects reach into the watery element which is already bound up with gravity, but by its own strength it cannot penetrate beyond that. the causation of material changes in the liquid sphere would in fact be all that these three kinds of ether could achieve together. only when the power of the life-ether is added to the three others can etheric action reach as far as the sphere of solid matter. thus the life-ether is responsible for all solid formation in nature, both in her organic and inorganic fields (the latter-crystal-formation-being the effect of external ether-action). it is to the action of the life-ether that nature owes the existence in her different realms of multitudes of separate solid forms. to mention an instance from our previous studies: in the same way as volcanic phenomena manifest the warmth-ether's gravity-overcoming power on a macrotelluric scale, so snow-formation illustrates the life-ether's matter-shaping might. through its power to bind flowing action into solid form, the life-ether is related to the sound-ether in the same way as the articulated word formed by human speaking is related to the mere musical tone. the latter by itself is as it were fluid. in human speech this fluidity is represented by the vowels. with a language consisting only of vowels man would be able to express feelings, but not thoughts. to let the word as carrier of thought arise out of sound, human speech possesses the consonants, which represent the solid element in it. the emergence of the sense-bearing word from the merely ringing sound is an exact counterpart to what takes place in nature when the play of organic liquids, regulated by the chemical ether, is caused by the life-ether to solidify into outwardly perceptible form. by reading in this way the special function of the life-ether among the other three, we are led to the term ' word-ether' as an appropriate second name for it, corresponding to the term sound-ether for the chemical ether. * thus levity presents itself to us as being engaged in the fourfold activity of chaoticizing, weaving, sounding and, lastly, speaking the form-creative cosmic word into the realm of gravity. to avoid misunderstandings, it should be emphasized that spiritual imagination is not attained by any exercise involving directly the sense of sight and its organ, the eye, but by purely mental exercises designed to increase the 'seeing' faculty of the mind. indeed, it is a misunderstanding of the whole meaning of anthroposophy when its contents are quoted - as they sometimes are even by adherents - in such a way as to suggest that by their help a better 'explanation' may be gained of matters for which there is otherwise no, or at least no satisfactory, explanation. the question: 'how does anthroposophy explain this or that?' is quite wrongly put. we ought rather to ask: 'how does anthroposophy help us to read more clearly this or that otherwise enigmatical chapter of the script of existence?' see space and the light of creation, by g. adams, where this 'weaving' is shown with the help of projective geometry. translation by j. darrell. we may recall here also the passage from ruskin's the queen of the air, quoted earlier, p. ). that the ether, apart from being supersensibly seen, is also heard, was empirically known to goethe. see the opening words of the 'prologue in heaven" (faust, i) and the call of the spirit of the elements in the first scene of the second part of the drama, which follow upon the stage direction: 'the sun announces his approach with overwhelming noise.' by attending chladni's lectures on his discovery in paris the french physicist savart became acquainted with this phenomenon and devoted himself to its study. chladni and savart together published a great number of these figures. understanding the attributes of the chemical ether enables us to see in their right perspective rudolf steiner's suggestions to farmers for the preparation of the soil and for keeping healthy the crops growing on it. attempts have been made to dismiss these suggestions by calling them 'mysticism' and 'mediaeval magic'. both terms are titles of honour if we understand by the one the form of insight into the supersensible realm of nature acquired by the higher mode of reading, and by the other a faculty of nature herself, whose magic wand is the chemical or sound-ether. see eddington's humorous and at the same time serious treatment of this problem in his philosophy of physical science. of the difference between external and internal ether-action more will be said in the concluding chapter. chapter xx pro anima thy functions are ethereal, as if within thee dwelt a glancing mind, organ of vision! and a spirit aëreal informs the cell of hearing, dark and blind. w. wordsworth (a) the well-springs of nature's deeds and sufferings as our observations have shown, gravity and levity not only exist side by side as a primary polarity; the manifold interaction of their fields gives rise to all sorts of secondary polarities. obviously, this interaction must be brought about by a further kind of force to which gravity and levity are subordinate. in what follows we shall try, so far as is possible within the scope of this book, to throw light on the nature of this force. since the direct experience of the dynamic realm constituted by it is based on faculties of the mind other than those needed for the imaginative perception of the etheric realm, we shall have to examine also the nature and origin of these faculties. this will lead us again to the study of one of man's higher senses, this time his sense of hearing, with the aim of finding the spiritual function that is hidden in it. but our order of procedure will have to differ from the one followed in the last chapter, because it will be necessary first to make ourselves acquainted with the nature of the new force and then to turn to an examination of the sense-activity concerned. * let our first object of observation be man himself in so far as he illustrates a polarity of the second order. when studying man's nature with the idea of understanding the genesis of his onlooker-consciousness, it will be remembered, we had to examine the ordering of his consciousness into waking, dreaming and sleeping in the different members of his organism. we recognized three different organic systems, the sensory-nerve system, the rhythmic system and the metabolic-limb system, as the bodily foundation of three different soul activities. these are the thought-forming activity which belongs to waking consciousness; the feeling activity which belongs to dream consciousness; and the willing activity which belongs to sleep consciousness. we then saw in these three systems representatives of the three alchemical functions - 'sulphurous' in the metabolic, 'saline' in the nervous, 'mercurial' in the mediating rhythmic system. regarded thus, man's nature reveals itself as being endowed with a physical organization, and an etheric organization, which are brought into different relationships by being acted upon by a third organization consisting of forces of the kind here to be studied. at his lower pole these forces co-ordinate the ether and physical organizations in a manner corresponding to the function of the 'sulphur'-pole of the alchemical triad. here, therefore, the warmth-ether takes the lead and acts in such a way that the higher kinds of ether are able to come to expression in material processes of the body. at the upper pole corresponding forces co-ordinate the physical and ether organizations in a way characteristic of the 'salt'-pole. this gives the lead to the life-ether, so that the physical organism provides the foundation for the activity of the ether-forces without, however, being actually penetrated by them (at least after completion of the embryonic and first post-embryonic development). as a result, consciousness lights up in this part of the body. the rhythmic sphere, being the 'mercurial' middle, is distinguished by an alternation of the two conditions described. with each diastole it becomes more akin to the pole below, and with each systole more akin to the pole above. here, therefore, the lighting up of consciousness is only partial. by means of these observations we realize that the third type of force, in so far as it is active in man, has the capacity, by co-ordinating the physical and etheric parts of the organism in one way or another, to promote happenings either of a more corporeal or a more psychical nature - namely, motion at one pole, sensation at the other, and feeling in the middle between them. remembering goethe's formula, 'colours are deeds and sufferings of light', we realize how deeply true the concepts were to which he was led by his way of developing observation and thought. what we have now brought to our awareness by studying man, holds good in some sense also for the animal. the animal, too, is polarized into motion and sensation. (what makes the animal differ from man need not concern us here, for it belongs to a dynamic realm other than the one we are now studying. this other realm will come under consideration in the next chapter.) quite a different picture arises when we turn to the plant. the plant, too, is characterized by a threefold structure, root, stem with leaves, and florescence, which in their way represent the three alchemical functions. consequently, there is also motion in the plant, although this is confined to internal movements leading to growth and formation. and at the opposite pole there is sensation, though again very different from the sensation experienced by higher living beings. what we mean here by 'sensation' can be best expressed by quoting the following passage from ruskin's the queen of the air, in which the dual activity of the dynamic which we seek to understand is brought out particularly clearly. in describing the forming of blossom in the plant as the climax of the 'spirit' active in it, ruskin says: 'its (the plant's) form becomes invested with aspects that are chiefly delightful to our own human passions; namely, first, with the loveliest outlines of shape and, secondly, with the most brilliant phases of the primary colours, blue, yellow, red or white, the unison of all; and to make it more strange, this time of peculiar and perfect glory is associated with relations of the plants or blossoms to each other, correspondent to the joy of love in human creatures and having the same object in the continuance of the race.' if we wish to understand why the same dynamic action working on the physical and etheric organisms of the plant, on the one hand, and of man and the animal, on the other, brings about effects so different, we must turn to the realm whence this action originates in both cases. for the animal and for man this realm is situated within their organisms because in addition to their individual physical and etheric organizations they are endowed also with an individual organization of the higher kind. not so with the plant. for the rhythms of its growth, the successive formation of its various organs, the production of its colours, etc., the plant depends on outer conditions. what strikes us first in this respect is the plant's dependence on the succession of the seasons. these in turn are an outcome of the changing mutual positions of earth and sun. that which forms part of the individual organism in higher living beings is located in the cosmic surroundings of the plant. in fact, it is our planetary system which provides the forces that stir the etheric and physical forces of the earth to their various interactions, thus bringing about all the manifold secondary polarities. * before we embark on a description of further phenomena which testify to the cosmic nature of the forces with which we are here concerned, it will be well (following a principle applied before) to establish the historical antecedents of the conception of the universe we are about to develop. we realize that the type of force with which we are here seeking to become familiar is the one responsible for the existence of what we commonly call 'soul'. the creation of a body-bound soul, however, is only one particular form of the activity of these forces. another is the one which we have just seen manifest in the plant. in yet another way the same forces function as movers and stirrers of the macro-telluric processes of the earth, and beyond this of the happenings in the body of our planetary system, including the movements of the various planets. this is an aspect which was by no means unfamiliar to ancient man. it was naturally lost when the onlooker-consciousness awoke. in this respect it is of historical significance that the same man, g. a. borelli ( - ), a member of the florentine academy, who was the first to inquire into the movements of the animal and human body from a purely mechanical point of view, made the first attempt to deduce the planetary movements from a purely physical cause. through this fact an impulse comes to expression which we may term contra animam, and against which we have to put our pro anima, in much the same way that we put our pro levitate against the contra levitatem call of the florentine academicians. * it will help our further descriptions if we introduce at this point the name which rudolf steiner adopted for the type of forces we are concerned with here. in view of the fact that their origin lies in the extra-terrestrial realm of the universe, he called them 'astral' forces, thereby giving back to this term, also, its true and original meaning. it is under this name that we shall speak of them henceforth. to make ourselves more familiar with the character of the astral forces, it will be well to observe them first of all in their macrotelluric form of activity. there is, as already mentioned, the rhythmic occurrence of the seasons in connexion with the varying relative positions of earth and sun. alongside this we may put the rhythm of the tides, coincident with the phases of the moon. just as the solar rhythm manifests in an alternating rise and fall of the saps in the plants, so also does the lunar rhythm. (note how this fact actually vitiates the usual explanation that the tidal rhythm of the sea is caused by a gravitational pull exerted by the moon's body on the oceanic water.) in neither instance is the change of position of the relevant cosmic body - in our examples that of the sun or moon in relation to the earth - the 'cause' of the corresponding rhythmic events on the earth. together with all other rhythmic events of equal periodicity, it is itself the effect of the activity of a force-sphere constituting the cosmic realm to which the relevant planetary body belongs. from this statement three major questions arise, which need to be answered before we can carry on our description of the astral forces themselves: firstly, by the way we have spoken of the varying relations of the sun and moon to the earth, seeing in them the effects of certain astral activities, we have treated them as if they were of like nature, namely, resulting from a movement of the relevant heavenly body round the earth. according to the copernican conception, however, only the moon rotates round the earth, whereas the apparent yearly progression of the sun is actually caused by the earth's motion round the sun. this raises the question of how far the copernican, heliocentric aspect is valid in a science which strives to embrace the astral realm of the universe in its inquiries. secondly, what roles do the other members of our planetary system play as compared with those of the sun and the moon? thirdly, if it is true that the essential solar and lunar effects - and presumably the effects of the other planets - on the earth do not spring from physical influence exerted by the visible bodies of the planets concerned, but from certain astral force-fields of which these bodies themselves form part, what is the significance of such a body within the planet's dynamic whole? starting with the answer to the first question, we shall quote the following passage from a lecture on theoretical physics given by professor planck in at the columbia university, new york: 'only the hypothesis of the general value of the principle of relativity in mechanics could admit the copernican system into physics, since this principle guarantees the independence of all processes on the earth from the progressive motion of the earth. for, if we had to make allowance for this motion, then i should, for instance, have to reckon with the fact that the piece of chalk in my hand possesses the enormous kinetic energy corresponding to a velocity of about km/sec.' the implications for us of these remarks by an eminent physicist can be expressed as follows: in a science which knows how to deal with movement as an event of absolute dynamic reality, the copernican aspect loses its significance as the only valid aspect of our cosmic system. for its application as a means of describing the dynamic happenings within this system presupposes the acceptance of einstein's relativistic conception of motion. indeed, for the building up of a picture of the dynamic structure of our system, the copernican view-point is inadequate. this statement must not be taken to deny all justification to the heliocentric view-point. there is, after all, the fact that the orbits which the heavenly bodies appear to follow when viewed in this way, assume a particular geometrical character which cannot be accidental. and more than that, when the heliocentric aspect is seen in its true setting, it forms (as will be shown later) an extremely revealing part of the script which tells us of the nature of the astral forces. all that is required is that the heliocentric picture be taken for what it is, namely, a purely kinematic aspect of the true dynamic ordering of our cosmic system, which in itself calls for quite other means of conceptual representation. from the point of view of the astral order of the universe, the earth appears in the centre of a number of force-fields which penetrate each other and in their peripheral region extend beyond one another in accordance with the respective orbits of the various planetary bodies. how many force-fields there are, and what is the respective character of each, will become clear from the following consideration, which will also provide the answer to the second of our three questions. as the originator of the secondary polarities in earthly nature the astral realm must undoubtedly itself be structured polarically, one part of it forming the cause of all the happenings by which levity is brought into interaction with gravity, the other of all the happenings by which gravity is brought into interaction with levity. there must be a further part which is responsible for the establishment of the 'mercurial' mean between the two poles of the secondary polarity. this leads us to a threefold aspect of the astral realm. closer inspection reveals a repetition of this threefold order within each of the two polar regions. in chapter xii we learnt to distinguish the material happenings at the two poles of the secondary polarity by observing their appearance in the plant as 'sublimation', on the one hand, and 'assimilation' on the other. of the former process, by which matter is carried from its gravity-bound to its gravity-free condition, we know that it takes place in three stages, of which the first implies the lifting of matter from the solid to the liquid condition, the second from the liquid to the aeriform condition, and the third to the condition of pure heat. there are three corresponding stages by which ether becomes susceptible to gravity. it is in their nature that they are not in the same degree manifest as are their polar opposites. still, properly guided observation is able to detect them and enables us to describe them as follows. at the first stage, ether, which in itself has a purely peripheral orientation, becomes linked to some all-relating point; at the second stage, the various ether-activities, already point-related, are brought into some characteristic interrelationship so as to become the cause of a particular formative action in the material realm; at the third stage, the etheric aggregate thus organized receives the impulse to link itself with some particular portion of ponderable matter. in these six forms of astral activity, observation, if guided by modern spiritual science, recognizes the characteristics of the six planetary spheres, known as 'moon', 'mercury', 'venus', on the one hand, 'saturn', 'jupiter', 'mars', on the other. in the same way the dynamic sphere of the 'sun' is found to provide the astral activity which mediates between the two groups of planetary spheres. the following observations may help us to become familiar with the different modes of activity of the force-spheres. let us start with the astral forces corresponding to the three cosmic bodies nearest to the earth - moon, mercury, venus. their activity can be discerned, for example, by watching the successive stages of plant development - the formation of the sap-bearing parts; the flower-substance already partly transformed into aeriform condition; finally the propagating processes which belong essentially to the sphere of activity of the warmth-ether. in the human organism we find the same sequence in the step-by-step transformation of nutriment right up to the moment when earthly form passes into chaos, as we learnt previously. the so-called enzyme action, ascribed by physiology to the various digestive juices, is in reality the product of an activity of the lower part of man's astral organization, for which the relevant juices exercise the function of physical 'carriers'. in the field of macrotelluric phenomena, the metamorphosis of the atmospheric moisture extending beyond the different cloud-stages up to the stage of pure warmth is an example of the activity of the same forces. within all three-stage transitions of this kind, the astral forces connected with the moon preponderate during the first stage, those connected with mercury during the second, those connected with venus during the third. we have already come across some examples of the outstanding share taken by the moon in the events of the earth's watery sphere. to these phenomena, which show by their rhythm their connexion with the moon, we may add the fertility rhythm in the female human organism which coincides, not in phase but in duration, with the rhythm set by the moon's course in the heavens. if we consider that the formation of a new human body in the womb needs the play of formative forces from out of the whole world environment, and that for this purpose matter must be brought into a receptive condition for these forces, then we can better understand the preparatory part played by the moon-forces. in order, however, that the substance of the female germ should reach that condition of chaos suitable for embryonic development, there is still necessary the influence of the supra-lunar astral forces. entry for these is provided by the union of the germ-cell with the male sperm-cell. as the three sub-solar planetary spheres are responsible for events of a 'sulphurous' (radial) character, so are the three supra-solar spheres responsible for those of a 'saline' (spherical) character. for example, we meet with saturn-activity in everything which radiates from the human head and brings about the hardening both of the head itself and of the entire skeleton. observation has shown that, even if the human being, as usually happens, stops growing in the early twenties, so that the skeleton undergoes no further lengthening, it nevertheless reaches its final shape and its final hardening only between the twenty-eighth and thirtieth years. this is the time in man's life when saturn returns for the first time to the position in which it stood relatively to the earth at his birth, or, more correctly, at his conception. if the activity of the saturn-force is most clearly manifest in the formation of the hard skull, that of jupiter, the planet of 'wisdom', is shown in the formation of the complicated structure of the brain, which enables it to co-ordinate the bodily and psychic functions of the entire man. in the realm of physical nature, man's brain is indeed the most perfect example of cosmic intelligence at work in a manner resembling that activity of human intelligence which one usually understands by 'organizing'. in order that form should come about, the forces of saturn are required; for the formative process to take place in wisdom-filled order, jupiter's forces are necessary. if form and order are to become manifest in the realm of earthly substance, both require the assistance of mars. we can best form an idea of the part which mars contributes to the coming into being of the world of form in nature if we observe what takes place when we make use of speech as a medium for expressing our thoughts. in order to be able to shape a thought we have to participate in the formative force of saturn. we depend upon jupiter to bring about logical connexion between the single thoughts. to announce them to the world, we need the motive force of mars, which enables us so to set external matter in motion that it becomes a carrier and relayer of our thoughts. (we here touch upon the field of the acoustic movements of the air which will occupy us more closely later on.) many examples of the activity of the force-spheres represented by the three exterior planets are to be found also in nature external to man. from the realm of plant life we may take the woody and bark-like formation of the trees as representing the operation of saturn-forces. similarly, all that goes on in the organizing of the single leaf, and particularly in the organization of the countless separate leaves which make up the foliage of a tree into a unified whole, the characteristic crown of a tree, is an example of the work of jupiter. both activities are assisted by the force of mars, which directs them from the cosmic periphery toward the single physical object. between the two groups of astral force operating in this manner, the sun acts as a mediating element through its double function of supporting the activity of the three lower planets by means of its heat and of conveying to the earth, through its light, the forces of the three higher planets. in the human microcosm the sun-forces accomplish a corresponding task by means of the influences which radiate from the heart through the body along the paths taken by the blood. * in what follows we shall point to a group of phenomena which show the astral interconnexion between earth and universe; we owe our knowledge of them to rudolf steiner. it is due to him, also, that experimental research into the relevant facts became possible. they concern the reflexion of the various planetary movements, observable in the sky, in the behaviour of certain mineral substances of the earth. in connexion with our discussion of electricity (chapter xiii) we spoke of the special function of the metals as bearers of the 'mercurial' quality (in the alchemical sense of the term). as one of the characteristics which reveal this function we mentioned the peculiar capacity of metals to behave as 'solid fluids'. this exceptional place among the mineral substances of the earth, the metals owe to their close association with the extra-terrestrial astral forces of the world. in this field, too, modern spiritual investigation has recovered something which was known to people of old - that among the metals there are seven which have a distinctive character, for each stands in a special relation to one of the seven planets (that is, the planetary force-spheres) of our cosmic system. this is shown in the following table: saturn	lead jupiter	tin mars	iron sun	gold venus	copper mercury	quicksilver moon	silver as compared with these seven, the other metals are products of combinations of various planetary forces. a comparison of the role of saturn as the outermost planet of our cosmic system with the role played by its metal, lead, as a final product of radioactive disintegration, leads one to conceive of the radioactive sphere of the earth as being related especially to the planets outside the orbit of saturn, namely, uranus, neptune, pluto. thanks to the work of l. kolisko who, in following rudolf steiner's indications, observed for many years the behaviour of the seven metals singly and in combination by submitting their salts to certain capillary effects, we know to-day that the" earth bears in her womb substances whose dynamic condition follows exactly the events in the planetary realm of the universe. * the picture of the universe which has thus arisen before our mind's eye is a startling one only so long as we keep comparing it with its heliocentric predecessor. how wrong it would be to regard it as something inconceivable for the modern mind, is shown by the fact that the modern physiologist has already been driven to form quite a similar picture of the human organism, as far as it concerns glandular action in this organism. his observations have taught him to distinguish between the gland as a spatially limited physical organ and the gland as a functional sphere, and to conceive of the latter as the essential gland. seen thus, 'the spatial and temporal dimensions of each gland are equal to those of the entire organism' (a. carrel). in this way we come to see the human organism as a realm of interpenetrating spheres of distinctive physiological activities. each of these activities is anchored somewhere in the physical body by the anatomically discernible gland-body, and the latter's relationship to the functional sphere is such that a gland's 'physiological individuality is far more comprehensive than its anatomical individuality'. we need only translate this statement into its macrocosmic counterpart to obtain another statement which expresses fittingly the relationship of the visible body of a planet to the functional (astral) sphere indicated by its orbit. then we shall say that 'a planet's astral individuality is far more comprehensive than its astronomical individuality'. it should be observed that the step we have here taken, by using a conception obtained through microcosmic observation to help us to find the answer to a question put to us by the macrocosm, complies with one of the fundamentals of our method of research, namely, to allow 'the heavens to explain the earth, and the earth the heavens' (r. st.). * * * (b) hearing as deed in the introductory part of the last chapter we said that we have the right to employ results of investigation carried out by higher faculties of spiritual perception without contradicting our principle of seeking to understand the phenomenal world by reading it, provided our doing so helps to enhance our own reading activity, and provided it can be shown that the acquisition of the higher faculties of perception is a direct continuation of the training we have to apply to our mind and senses to make them capable of such reading. as regards the forces of astral character, the first of these two conditions has been fulfilled by the observations we have already worked through in this chapter. we have still to show that the second condition is equally fulfilled. the faculty of the mind which permits direct investigation of the astral realm was called (spiritual) inspiration by rudolf steiner, who thereby restored to this term, also, its proper meaning. we have already indicated that this faculty resides in the sense of hearing in the same way that the faculty of imagination - as we have found - resides in the sense of seeing. in order to understand why it is this particular sense which comes into consideration here, we have to consider that the phenomena through which the astral world manifests most directly are all of a rhythmic nature. now, the sense through which our soul penetrates with direct experience into some outer rhythmic activity is the sense of hearing, our aural perceptions being conveyed by certain rhythmic movements of the air. in what follows we shall see how the study of both the outer acoustic phenomena and our own psycho-physical make-up in the region of the acoustic sense, leads to an understanding of the nature of inspiration and of how it can be trained. * among all our sense-perceptions, sound is unique in making itself perceptible in two quite different ways - via the ear as a direct sense experience and via the eye (potentially also via the senses of touch and movement) in the form of certain mechanical movements, such as those of a string or a tuning fork. hence the world-spectator, as soon as he began to investigate acoustic phenomena scientifically, found himself in a unique position. in all other fields of perception, with the exception of the purely mechanical processes, the transition to non-stereoscopic colourless observation had the effect that the world-content of the naive consciousness simply ceased to exist, leaving the ensuing hiatus to be filled in by a pattern of imagined kinematic happenings - for example, colour by 'ether'-vibrations, heat by molecular movements. not so in the sphere of acoustics. for here a part of the entire event, on account of its genuine kinetic character, remains a content of actual observation. in consequence, the science of acoustics became for the scientific mind of man a model of the required division between the 'subjective' (that is, for scientific considerations non-existent) and the 'objective' (that is, the purely kinematic) part of observation. the field of aural perception seemed to justify the procedure of collecting a mass of phenomena, stripped of all that is experienced by man's soul in meeting them, and of assembling them under a purely abstract concept, 'sound'. professor heisenberg, in his lecture (quoted at the beginning of chapter ii) on the way in which the scientific interrogation of nature has deliberately limited itself, draws attention to the fact that a full knowledge of the science of optics in its present form might be acquired merely through theoretical study by one born blind, yet without his ever getting to know what light is. heisenberg could, of course, have said the same of the science of acoustics in regard to one born deaf. but we can go a step further by asking how far a deaf and a blind person could get towards establishing the respective science. the answer must be that, whereas the person lacking sight would not of himself be in a position to establish a science of optics, it would be well within the scope of the deaf man to establish a science of acoustics. for all the processes essential to a physical acoustics are accessible to the eye and other senses. in order to make our experience of hearing a finger-post pointing the way to an understanding of the faculty of inspiration innate in man, we must first of all seek to transform acoustics from a 'deaf into a 'hearing' science, just as goethe turned the theory of colour from a colour-blind into a colour-seeing science. * following our procedure in the case of optics, we select from the total field of acoustic phenomena a defined realm specially suited to our purpose. as it was then the spectrum, so it will be now the so-called quality of sound, or tone-colour. by this term in acoustics is understood a property possessed by sound apart from pitch and volume, and dependent on the nature of the source from which a tone is derived. it is the tone-colour by which the tone of a violin, for instance, is distinguished from a tone of equal intensity and pitch produced by a flute. similarly, two musical instruments of the same kind are distinguished from each other by tone-colour. tone-colour plays a specially significant part in human and animal voices. not only has each individual voice its unique colour, but the colour varies in one and the same person or animal, according to the prevailing mood. moreover, by uttering the various vowels of his language, man is able to impart varying colour to the sounds of his speech. for the difference we experience when a tone is sung on the vowel 'a' or the vowel 'e', etc., derives from the particular colour given by the vowel to that tone. among the discoveries of the last century in the realm of acoustics, there is one which especially helped to establish a purely kinematic conception of sound. helmholtz showed that tones which to our ears seem to have a clear and definite pitch may be split up by a series of resonators into a number of different tones, each of them sounding at a different pitch. the lowest of these has the pitch which our ears attach to the entire tone. thus in any ordinary tone there may be distinguished a 'fundamental' tone and a series of 'overtones'. helmholtz further showed that the particular series of overtones into which a tone can be resolved is responsible for the colour of that tone as a whole. naturally, this meant for the prevailing mode of thinking that the experience of the colour of a tone had to be interpreted as the effect of a kind of acoustical adding together of a number of single tone perceptions (very much as newton had interpreted 'white' light as the outcome of an optical adding together of a certain number of single colour perceptions). the picture becomes different if we apply to the aural experience goethe's theorem that, in so far as we are deluded, it is not by our senses but by our own reasoning. for we then realize that sounds never occur of themselves without some tone-colour, whilst physically 'pure' tones - those that represent simple harmonic motions - exist only as an artificial laboratory product. the colour of a tone, therefore, is an integral part of it, and must not be conceived of as an additional attribute resulting from a summing up of a number of colourless tone experiences. further, if we compare our experiences of the two kinds of tone, they tell us that through the quality or colour of the natural tone something of a soul-nature, pleasant or unpleasant, speaks to us, whereas 'pure' tones have a soulless character. resolving normal tones by helmholtz's method (useful as it is for certain purposes) amounts to something like dissecting a living, ensouled organism into its members; only the parts of the corpse remain in our hands. * having thus established that the psychic content of aural experience forms an integral part of the tone-phenomenon as such, we must seek to understand how the kinetic process which is indispensable for its appearance comes to be the vehicle for the manifestation of 'soul' in the manner described. to this end we must first of all heed the fact that the movement which mediates aural sensation is one of alternating expansion and contraction. expressed in the language of the four elements, this means that the air thus set in vibration approaches alternately the condition of the watery element beneath it and of the element of fire (heat) above it. thus, in a regular rhythm, the air comes near the border of its ponderable existence. purely physical considerations make us realize that this entails another rhythmic occurrence in the realm of heat. for with each expansion of the air heat is absorbed by it and thereby rendered space-bound, while with every contraction of the air heat is set free and returns to its indigenous condition - that is, it becomes free from spatial limitations. this picture of the complete happenings during an acoustic event enables us to understand how such a process can be the vehicle for conveying certain astral impulses in such a way that, when met by them, we grow aware of them in the form of a direct sensation. taking as a model the expression 'transparent' for the perviousness of a substance to light, we may say that the air, when in a state of acoustic vibration, becomes 'trans-audient' for astral impulses, and that the nature of these vibrations determines which particular impulses are let through. what we have here found to be the true role of the kinetic part of the acoustic process applies equally to sounds which are emitted by living beings, and to those that arise when lifeless material is set mechanically in motion, as in the case of ordinary noises or the musical production of tone. there is only this difference: in the first instance the vibrations of the sound-producing organs have their origin in the activity of the astral part of the living being, and it is this activity which comes to the recipient's direct experience in the form of aural impressions; in the second instance the air, by being brought externally into a state of vibration, exerts a kind of suction on the astral realm which pervades the air, with the result that parts of this realm become physically audible. for we are constantly surrounded by supersensible sounds, and the state of motion of the air determines which of them become perceptible to us in our present state of consciousness. at this point our mind turns to a happening in the macrotelluric sphere of the earth, already considered in another connexion, which now assumes the significance of an ur-phenomenon revealing the astral generation of sound. this is the thunder-storm, constituted for our external perception by the two events: lightning and thunder. remembering what we have found earlier (chapter x) to be the nature of lightning, we are now in a position to say: a supraterrestrial astral impulse obtains control of the earth's etheric and physical spheres of force in such a way that etheric substance is thrown into the condition of space-bound physical matter. this substance is converted by stages from the state of light and heat via that of air into the liquid and, in certain cases, into the solid state (hail). to this we now add that, while in lightning the first effect of the etheric-physical interference of the astral impulse appears before our eyes, our ears give us direct awareness of this impulse in the form of thunder. it is this fact which accounts for the awe-inspiring character of thunderstorms. * the picture we have thus received of the outer part of the acoustic process has a counterpart in the processes inside the organ of hearing. hearing, like seeing, depends upon the co-operation of both poles of the human organism-nerve and blood. in the case of hearing, however, they play a reversed role. in the eye, the primary effect of light-impressions is on the nervous part; a secondary response to them comes from the blood organization. in the ear, the receptive organ for the astral impulses pressing in upon it is a part which belongs to the body's limb system, while it is the nervous organization which functions as the organ of response. for in the ear the sound-waves are first of all taken over by the so-called ossicles, three small bones in the middle ear which, when examined with the goethean eye, appear to be a complete metamorphosis of ah arm or a leg. they are instrumental in transferring the outer acoustic movements to the fluid contained in the inner ear, whence these are communicated to the entire fluid system of the body and lastly to the muscular system. we shall speak of this in detail later on. let it be stated here that the peculiar role played by the larynx in hearing, already referred to by us in chapter xvi, is one of the symptoms which tells of the participation of the muscular system in the internal acoustic process. psychologically, the difference between ear and eye is that aural perceptions work much more directly on the human will - that is, on the part of our astral organization connected with the limb system. whereas eye-impressions stimulate us in the first place to think, ear-impressions stimulate us to ... dance. the whole art of dancing, from its original sacred character up to its degenerate modern forms, is based upon the limb system being the recipient of acoustic impressions. in order to understand how the muscles respond to the outer astral impulses which reach us through our ear, we must first understand what happens in the muscles when our will makes use of them for bodily motion. in this case, too, the muscular system is the organ through which certain astral impulses, this time arising out of the body's own astral member, come to expression. moreover, the movement of the muscles, though not outwardly perceptible, is quite similar to acoustic movements outside the body. for whenever a muscle is caused to alter its length, it will perform some kind of vibration - a vibration characterized even by a definite pitch, which differs in different people. since throughout life our body is never entirely without movement, we are thus in a constant state of inward sounding. the muscular system is capable of this vibration because during the body's initial period of growth the bones increase in length to a much greater extent than do the sinews and muscles. hence the latter arrive at a condition of elastic tension not unlike that of the strings of a musical instrument. in the case of bodily movement, therefore, the muscles are tone-producers, whereas in acoustic perceptions they are tone-receivers. what, then, is it that prevents an acoustic perception from actually setting the limbs in motion, and, instead, enables our sentient being to take hold of the astral impulse invading our muscles? this impediment comes from the contribution made by the nervous system to the auditory process. in order to understand the nature of this contribution we must remember the role played by the blood in seeing. it was found by us to consist in the bringing about of that state of equilibrium without which we should experience light merely as a pain-producing agent. similarly, the perception of sound requires the presence of a certain state of equilibrium between the nerve-system and the limb-system. in this case, however, a lack of equilibrium would result not in pain, but in ecstasy. for if acoustic impressions played directly into our limb-system, with nothing to hold them in check, every tone we encounter would compel us to an outward manifestation of astral activity. we should become part of the tone-process itself, forced to transform it by the volitional part of our astral organization into spatial movement. that this does not happen is because the participation of the nervous system serves to damp down the potential ecstasy. hence it is more or less left to the sentient part of the astral organization - that is, the part free from the physical body - to partake in the astral processes underlying the tone occurrences. * our discussion has reached a point where we are able to answer a question which first arose in the course of our study of the four ethers, and which arises here anew. in studying the chemical or sound ether we were faced with the fact that part of the etheric realm, although in itself accessible to the spiritual part of the sense of sight, offers supersensible experience comparable to the perception of sound. conversely, we are now met by the fact that it is spiritual hearing which gives access to the immediate perception of a realm of forces which is not only the source of acoustic phenomena, but the origin of all that manifests in nature in the form of sulphurous, saline and mercurial events, such as the world of colours, electricity, magnetism, the manifold rhythmic occurrences on the earth (both taken as a whole .and in single organisms), etc. - all of which are taken hold of by quite other senses than that of hearing. at our first encounter with this problem we remarked that in the supersensible no such sharp distinctions exist between different sense-spheres as are found in body-bound sense-perception. at the same time we remembered that even in physical perception we are inclined to attach acoustic attributes to colours and optical attributes to tones. in fact, it was precisely an instance of this kind of experience, namely, our conception of tone-colour, which gave us our lead in discussing the acoustic sphere in general. our picture of the particular interaction of the two polar bodily systems in the acts of seeing and hearing now enables us to understand more clearly how these two spheres of perception overlap in man. for we have seen how the system which in seeing is the receiving organ, works in hearing as the responding one, and vice versa. as a result, optical impressions are accompanied by dim sensations of sound, and aural impressions by dim sensations of colour. what we are thus dimly aware of in physical sense activity, becomes definite experience when the supersensible part of the senses concerned can work unfettered by the bodily organ. clear testimony of this is again given to us by traherne in a poem entitled dumnesse. this poem contains an account of traherne's recollection of the significant fact that the transition from the cosmic to the earthly condition of his consciousness was caused by his learning to speak. the following is a passage from the description of the impressions which were his before his soul was overcome by this change: 'then did i dwell within a world of light distinct and seperat from all mens sight, where i did feel strange thoughts, and such things see that were, or seemd, only reveald to me ... '... a pulpit in my mind a temple, and a teacher i did find, with a large text to comment on. no ear, but eys them selvs were all the hearers there. and evry stone, and evry star a tongue, and evry gale of wind a curious song.' * we have obtained a sufficiently clear picture of the organization of our sense of hearing to see where the way lies that leads from hearing with the ears of the body to hearing with the ears of the spirit, that is, to the inspirative perception of the astral world. in the psycho-physical condition which is characteristic of our present day-consciousness, the participation of our astral organization in any happenings of the outer astral world depends on our corporeal motor system being stimulated by the acoustic motions of the air, or of some other suitable medium contacting our body. for it is only in this way that our astral organization is brought into the sympathetic vibrations necessary for perceiving outer astral happenings. in order that astral events other than those manifesting acoustically may become accessible to our consciousness, our own astral being must become capable of vibrating in tune with them, just as if we were hearing them - that is, we must be able to rouse our astral forces to an activity similar to that of hearing, yet without any physical stimulus. the way to this consists in training ourselves to experience the deeds and sufferings of nature as if they were the deeds and sufferings of a beloved friend. it is thus that we shall learn to hear the soul of the universe directly speaking to us, as lorenzo divined it, when his love for jessica made him feel in love with all the world, and he exclaimed: 'there's not the smallest orb which thou behold'st but in his motion like an angel sings, still quiring to the young-eyed cherubim, - such harmony is in immortal souls. but whilst this muddy vesture of decay doth grossly close it in, we cannot hear it.' * * * (c) kepler and the 'music of the spheres' 'one must choose one's saints .. . and so i have chosen mine, and before all others, kepler. in my ante-room he has ever a niche of his own, with his bust in it.' this opinion of goethe's must surprise us in view of the fact that kepler was the discoverer of the three laws called after him, one of which is supposed to have laid the foundation for newton's mechanical conception of the universe. in what follows it will be shown how wrong it is to see in kepler a forerunner of the mechanistic conception of the world; how near, in reality, his world-picture is to the one to which we are led by working along goetheanistic lines; and how right therefore goethe was in his judgment on kepler. goethe possessed a sensitive organ for the historical appropriateness of human ideas. as an illustration of this it may be mentioned how he reacted when someone suggested to him that joachim jungius - an outstanding german thinker, contemporary of bacon, van helmont, etc. - had anticipated his idea of the metamorphosis of the plant. this remark worried goethe, not because he could not endure the thought of being anticipated (see his treatment of k. f. wolff), but because this would have run counter to the meaning of man's historical development as he saw it. 'why do i regard as essential the question whether jungius conceived the idea of metamorphosis as we know it? my answer is, that it is most significant in the history of the sciences, when a penetrating and vitalizing maxim comes to be uttered. therefore it is not only of importance that jungius has not expressed this maxim; but it is of highest significance that he was positively unable to express it - as we boldly assert.' for the same reason goethe knew it would be historically unjustified to expect that kepler could have conceived an aspect of the universe implicit in his own conception of nature. hence it did not disturb him in his admiration for kepler, that through him the copernican aspect of the universe had become finally established in the modern mind - that is, an aspect which, as we have seen, is invalid as a means of forming a truly dynamic conception of the world. in forming his picture of the universe, it is true, copernicus was concerned with nothing but the spatial movements of the luminous entities discernible in the sky, without any regard to their actual nature and dynamic interrelationships. hence his world-picture - as befits the spectator-form of human consciousness which was coming to birth in his own time - is a purely kinematic one. as such it has validity for a certain sphere of human observation. when kepler, against the hopes of his forerunner and friend, tycho brahe, accepted the heliocentric standpoint and made it the basis of his observations, he did so out of his understanding of what was the truth for his own time. kepler's ideal was to seek after knowledge through pure observation. in this respect goethe took him as his model. kepler's discoveries were a proof that man's searching mind is given insight into great truths at any stage of its development, provided it keeps to the virtue of practising pure observation. it has been the error of newton and his successors up to our own day, to try to conceive the world dynamically within the limits of their spectator-consciousness and thus to form a dynamic interpretation of the universe based on its heliocentric aspect. this was just as repellent to goethe as kepler's attitude was attractive. but by so sharply distinguishing between newton and kepler, do we not do injustice to the fact that, as the world believes, kepler's third law is the parent of newton's law of gravitation? the following will show that this belief is founded on an illusory conception of the kind we met before. as we shall see, kepler's discovery, when treated in a keplerian way, instead of leading to newton, is found to be in full agreement with the very world-picture to which our own observations have led us. * it is an established conviction of the mathematical scientist that, once an observed regularity in nature has been expressed as a mathematical equation, this equation may be transformed in any mathematically valid way, and the resulting formula will still apply to some existing fact in the world. on innumerable occasions this principle has been used in the expectation of providing further insight into the secrets of nature. we came across a typical instance of this in discussing the basic theorem of kinematics and dynamics (chapter viii). another example is newton's treatment of kepler's third law, or - more precisely - the way in which newton's law of gravitation has been held to confirm kepler's observations, and vice versa, it will be our task to analyse the kepler-newton case on the very lines of our treatment of the two parallelogram theorems. this analysis will give us insight into a truth which we have to regard as one of the basic maxims of the new science. it says that whether a given formula, derived mathematically from one that was first read from nature, still expresses some fact of nature, cannot be decided by pure mathematical logic, but only by testing it against truly observable phenomena. through kepler's third law a certain relation is expressed between the spatial dimensions of the different planetary spheres and the time needed by the relevant planet to circle once round the circumference of its own sphere. it says: 'the squares of the periodic times of the planets are always in the same proportion as the cubes of their mean distances from the sun.' in mathematical symbols this reads: t / t = r / r we shall see later how kepler arrived at this law. the point is that there is nothing in it which is not accessible to pure observation. spatial distances and lengths of time are measured and the results compared. nothing, for instance, is said about the dynamic cause of the movements. the assertion is restricted - and this is true also of the first and second law - to a purely kinematic content, and so precisely to what the earthly onlooker can apprehend. now it is said that kepler's third law is a necessary consequence of newton's law of gravitation, and that - since it is based on pure observation - it therefore establishes the truth of newton's conception. in this assertion we encounter a misconception exactly like the one in the statement that the theorem of the parallelogram of forces follows by logical necessity from the theorem of the parallelogram of velocities. for: (a) the law of gravitation itself derives from newton's formula for the centripetal force acting at a point which moves along a circle, this formula being itself the result of an amplification of the formula for centripetal acceleration by the factor 'mass' (as if the latter were a pure number): centripetal acceleration: a = (Ï�^ )r / t centripetal force: p = am = (Ï�^ )mr / t (b) the formula for centripetal acceleration - and the concept of such acceleration itself - is the result of splitting circular movement into two rectilinear movements, one in the direction of the tangent, the other in the direction of the radius, and of regarding it - by a mode of reasoning typical of spectator-thinking - as composed of the two. this procedure, however, useful as it may be for the purpose of calculation, is contrary to observation. for, as we have pointed out earlier, observation tells us that all original movement - and what can be more original than the movements of the planetary bodies - is curvilinear. no insight into the dynamic reality of cosmic movement, therefore, can ever be gained by handling it mathematically in this way. (c) the transformation of kepler's formula which is necessary in order to give it a form representing the nucleus of newton's formula, is one which, though mathematically justified, deprives kepler's formula of any significance as expression of an observed fact. the following analysis will show this. kepler's formula- r ^ / r ^ = t ^ / t ^ may be written also r ^ / t ^ = r ^ / t ^ and this again in the generalized form: r / t = c. obviously, by each of these steps we diminish the reality-value of the formula. in its original form, we find spatial extension compared with spatial extension, and temporal extension with temporal extension. each of the two comparisons is a fully concrete one, because we compare entities of like nature, and only then test the ratios of the two - that is, two pure numbers against each other - to find that they are identical. to compare a spatial and a temporal magnitude, as is done by the formula in its second form, requires already a certain degree of abstraction. still, it is all spectator's work, and for the spectator time is conceivable and measurable only as a rate of spatial displacement. hence the constant number c, by representing the ratio between the spatial extension of the realm inside a planet's orbit and the time needed by it to perform one round on this orbit - a ratio which is the same for all planets - represents a definite structural element of our cosmic system. by this last operation our equation has now achieved a form which requires only one more transformation to bring it into line with newton's formula. instead of writing: r / t = c we write: r / t = c ( / r ) all that now remains to be done amounts to an amplification of this equation by the factor (Ï�^ )m, and a gathering of the constant product (Ï�^ )c under a new symbol, for which we choose the letter f. in this way we arrive at: (Ï�^ )mr / t = (Ï�^ )cm / r and finally: p = ... = fm / r which is the expression of the gravitational pull believed to be exerted by the sun on the various planetary bodies. nothing can be said against this procedure from the point of view of mathematical logic. for the latter the equation r / t = c ( / r ) is still an expression of kepler's observation. not so for a logic which tries to keep in touch with concrete reality. for what meaning, relevant to the phenomenal universe as it manifests in space and time to physical perception, is there in stating - as the equation in this form does - that: the ratio between a planet's distance from the sun and the square of its period is always proportional to the reciprocal value of the area lying inside its orbit? * once we have rid ourselves of the false conception that kepler's law implies newton's interpretation of the physical universe as a dynamic entity ruled by gravity, and gravity alone, we are free to ask what this law can tell us about the nature of the universe if in examining it we try to remain true to kepler's own approach. to behave in a keplerian (and thus in a goethean) fashion regarding a mathematical formula which expresses an observed fact of nature, does not mean that to submit such a formula to algebraic transformation is altogether impermissible. all we have to make sure of is that the transformation is required by the observed facts themselves: for instance, by the need for an even clearer manifestation of their ideal content. such is indeed the case with the equation which embodies kepler's third law. we said that in its original form this equation contains a concrete statement because it expresses comparisons between spatial extensions, on the one hand, and between temporal extensions, on the other. now, in the form in which the spatial magnitudes occur, they express something which is directly conceivable. the third power of a spatial distance (r^ ) represents the measure of a volume in three-dimensional space. the same cannot be said of the temporal magnitudes on the other side of the equation (t^ ). for our conception of time forbids us to connect any concrete idea with 'squared time'. we are therefore called upon to find out what form we can give this side of the equation so as to express the time-factor in a manner which is in accord with our conception of time, that is, in linear form. this form readily suggests itself if we consider that we have here to do with a ratio of squares. for such a ratio may be resolved into a ratio of two simple ratios. in this way the equation - r ^ / r ^ = t ^ / t ^ assumes the form- r ^ / r ^ = (t / t ) / (t / t ) the right-hand side of the equation is now constituted by the double ratio of the linear values of the periods of two planets, and this is something with which we can connect a quite concrete idea. to see this, let us choose the periods of two definite planets - say, earth and jupiter. for these the equation assumes the following form ('j' and 'e' indicating 'jupiter' and 'earth' respectively): rj^ / re^ = (tj / te) / (te / tj) let us now see what meaning we can attach to the two expressions tj / te and te / tj. during one rotation of jupiter round the sun the earth circles times round it. this we are wont to express by saying that jupiter needs earth-years for one rotation; in symbols: tj / te = / to find the analogous expression for the reciprocal ratio: te / tj = / we must obviously form the concept 'jupiter-year', which covers one rotation of jupiter, just as the concept 'earth-year' covers one rotation of the earth (always round the sun). measured in this time-scale, the earth needs for one of her rotations / of a jupiter-year. with the help of these concepts we are now able to express the double ratio of the planetary periods in the following simplified way. if we suppose the measuring of the two planetary periods to be carried out not by the same time-scale, but each by the time-scale of the other, the formula becomes: rj / re = (tj / te) / (te / tj) = period of jupiter measured in earth-years / period of earth measured in jupiter-years. interpreted in this manner, kepler's third law discloses an intimate interrelatedness of each planet to all the others as co-members of the same cosmic whole. for the equation now tells us that the solar times of the various planets are regulated in such a way that for any two of them the ratio of these times, measured in their mutual time-units, is the same as the ratio of the spaces swept out by their (solar) orbits. further, by having the various times of its members thus tuned to one another, our cosmic system shows itself to be ordered on a principle which is essentially musical. to see this, we need only recall that the musical value of a given tone is determined by its relation to other tones, whether they sound together in a chord, or in succession as melody. a 'c' alone is musically undefined. it receives its character from its interval-relation to some other tone, say, 'g', together with which it forms a fifth. as the lower tone of this interval, 'c' bears a definite character; and so does 'g' as the upper tone. now we know that each interval represents a definite ratio between the periodicities of its two tones. in the case of the fifth the ratio is : (in the natural scale). this means that the lower tone receives its character from being related to the upper tone by the ratio : . similarly, the upper tone receives its character from the ratio : . the specific character of an interval arising out of the merging of its two tones, therefore, is determined by the ratio of their ratios. in the case of the fifth this is : . it is this ratio, therefore, which underlies our experience of a fifth. the cosmic factor corresponding to the periodicity of the single tone in music is the orbital period of the single planet. to the musical interval formed by two tones corresponds the double ratio of the periods of any two planets. regarded thus, kepler's law can be expressed as follows: the spatial ordering of our planetary system is determined by the interval-relation in which the different planets stand to each other. by thus unlocking the ideal content hidden in kepler's third law, we are at the same time enabled to do justice to the way in which he himself announced his discovery. in textbooks and encyclopaedias it is usually said that the discovery of the third law was the surprising result of kepler's fantastic attempt to prove by external observation what was once taught in the school of pythagoras, namely, that (in wordsworth's language): 'by one pervading spirit of tones and numbers all things are controlled.' actually, kepler's great work, harmonices mundi, in the last part of which he announces his third law, is entirely devoted to proving the truth of the pythagorean doctrine that the universe is ordered according to the laws of music. this doctrine sprang from the gift of spiritual hearing still possessed by pythagoras, by which he could perceive the harmonies of the spheres. it was the aim of his school to keep this faculty alive as long as possible, and with its aid to establish a communicable world-conception. the pythagorean teaching became the foundation of all later cosmological thinking, right up to the age which was destined to bring to birth the spectator-relationship of man's consciousness with the world. thus it was left to copernicus to give mankind the first truly non-pythagorean picture of the universe. when kepler declared himself in favour of the heliocentric aspect, as indicated by copernicus, he acknowledged that the universe had grown dumb for man's inner ear. yet, besides his strong impulse to meet the true needs of his time, there were inner voices telling him of secrets that were hidden behind the veil woven by man's physical perceptions. one of these secrets was the musical order of the world. such knowledge, however, could not induce him to turn to older world-conceptions in his search for truth. he had no need of them, because there was yet another voice in him which told him that the spiritual order of the world must somehow manifest itself in the body of the world as it lay open to physical perception. just as a musical instrument, if it is to be a perfect means of bringing forth music, must bear in its build the very laws of music, so must the body of the universe, as the instrument on which the harmonies of the spheres play their spiritual music, bear in its proportions a reflexion of these harmonies. kepler was sure that investigation of the world's body, provided it was carried out by means of pure observation, must needs lead to a re-establishment of the ancient truth in a form appropriate to the modern mind. thus kepler, guided by an ancient spiritual conception of the world, could devote himself to confirming its truth by the most up-to-date methods of research. that his search was not in vain, our examination of the third law has shown. one thing, however, remains surprising - that kepler announced his discovery in the form in which it has henceforth engraved itself in the modern mind, while refraining from that analysis of it which we have applied to it here. yet, in this respect also kepler proves to have remained true to himself. there is, on the one hand, the form in which kepler pronounced his discovery; there is, on the other, the context in which he made this pronouncement. we have already pointed out that the third law forms part of kepler's comprehensive work, harmonices mundi. to the modern critic's understanding it appears there like an erratic block. for kepler this was different. while publishing his discovery in precisely the form in which it is conceived by a mind bent on pure observation, he gave it a setting by which he left no doubt as to his own conception of its ideal content. and as a warning to the future reader not to overlook the message conveyed by this arrangement, he introduced the section of his book which contains the announcement of the law, with the mysterious words about himself: 'i have stolen the golden vessels of the egyptians from which to furnish for my god a holy shrine far from egypt's confines.' we must here distinguish sensation from feeling proper, in which sensation and motion merge in mercurial balance. note how for ruskin the gulf which for the onlooker-consciousness lies between subject and object is bridged here - as it was for goethe in his representation of the physico-moral effect of colour. de motu animalium and theoria mediceorum planetarum ex causis physicis deducta. knowledge of this biological rhythm is still preserved among native peoples to-day and leads them to take account of the phases of the moon in their treatment of plants. a cosmic nature-wisdom of this kind has been reopened for us in modern form by rudolf steiner, and has since found widespread practical application in agriculture. see l. kolisko, the moon and plant growth. in the order of names given above we follow the ancient usage for the two planets nearest to the sun, not the reversed order in which they are used to-day. this is necessary in a cosmology which aspires at a qualitative understanding of the universe, in view of the qualities represented by these names. note also the absence of the three most distant planets, uranus, neptune and pluto. they are not to be considered as parts of the indigenous astral structure of our cosmic system - any more than radioactivity is an original feature of the earth. note the 'venus' character of ruskin's description of the plant's state of florescence quoted above (p. ). as to the time-scale of the processes brought about by mercury and venus respectively, experience shows that they reveal the cosmic rhythms less clearly than those for which the moon-activity is responsible. the same is found at the opposite pole. there it is the saturn - generated processes which show the cosmic rhythm more conspicuously than those engendered by jupiter and mars. to learn to recognize rhythmic events in nature and man as reflexions of corresponding planetary rhythms is one of the tasks which future scientific research has to tackle. a practical example of this kind will appear in the further course of this chapter. see l. kolisko: working of the stars in earthly substances, and other publications by the same author. the close connexion between the ear and the motor system of the body is shown in another way by the fact that part of the ear serves as an organ for the sense of balance. the muscle-tone can be made audible by the following means. in a room guarded against noise, press the thumbs lightly upon the ears and tense the muscles of the hands and arms - say by pressure of the fingers against the palms or by contracting the muscle of the upper arms. if this is done repeatedly, the muscle-tone will be heard after some practice with increasing distinctness. it is easily distinguished from the sound of the circulating blood as it is much higher. (as an example: the author's muscular pitch, not a particularly high one, has a frequency of approx. per sec., which puts it between treble d sharp and e.) compare also the beginning of traherne's poem wonder, quoted in chapter vi (p. ), where he says that everything he saw 'did with me talk'. for the particular reasons by which goethe justifies his assertion, see his essay leben und verdienste des doktor joachim jungius. the natural question why kepler himself did not take this step, will be answered later on. chapter xxi know thyself our inquiries have led us to a picture of man as a sensible-supersensible organism composed of three dynamic aggregates - physical, etheric, astral. as three rungs of a spiritual ladder they point to a fourth, which represents that particular power in man by which he distinguishes himself from all other beings in nature. for what makes man differ from all these is that he is not only fitted, as they are, with a once-for-all given mode of spiritual-physical existence peculiar to himself, but that he is endowed with the possibility of transforming his existence by dint of his free will - that indeed his manhood is based on this capacity for self-willed becoming. to this fourth principle in man we can give no better name than that which every human being can apply to himself alone and to no other, and which no other can apply to him. this is the name, i. in truth, we describe man in his entirety only if we ascribe to him, in addition to a physical, etheric and astral body, the possession of an i (ego). naturally, our previous studies have afforded many opportunities for observing the nature and mode of activity of the i. still, at the conclusion of these studies it is not redundant to form a concise picture of this part of man's being, with particular regard to how it works within the three other principles as its sheaths. for in modern psychology, not excluding the branch of it where efforts are made to penetrate into deeper regions of man's being, nothing is less well understood than the true nature of man's egoity. * in order to recognize the peculiar function of the i in man, we must first be clear as to how he differs from the other kingdoms of nature, and how they differ from one another with respect to the mode of action of the physical, etheric and astral forces. the beings of all the kingdoms of nature are endowed with an aggregate of physical forces in the form of a material body subject to gravity. the same cannot be said of the etheric forces. only where life is present as an inherent principle - that is, in plant, animal and man - is ether at work in the form of an individual etheric organization, while the mineral is formed by the universal ether from outside. where life prevails, we are met by the phenomena of birth and death. when a living organism comes to birth, an individual ether-body is formed out of the general etheric substance of the universe. the death of such an organism consists in the separation of the etheric from the physical body and the dissolution of both in their respective mother-realms. so long as an organism is alive, its form is maintained by the ether-body present in it. our studies have shown that the plant is not devoid of the operation of astral forces. in the plant's life-cycle this comes to clearest expression in its florescence. but it is a working of the astral forces from outside, very much as the ether works on the mineral. as a symptom of this fact we may recall the dependence of the plant on the various outer astronomical rhythms. it is only in animal and man that we find the astral forces working in the form of separate astral bodies. this accounts for their capacity for sensation and volition. besides the alternation of birth and death, they experience the rhythm of sleeping and waking. sleep occurs when the astral body leaves the physical and etheric bodies in order to expand into its planetary mother-sphere, whence it gathers new energy. during this time its action on the physical-etheric aggregate remaining upon earth is similar to that of the astral cosmos upon the plant. again, in the animal kingdom the ego-principle works as an external force in the form of various group-soul activities which control and regulate the life of the different animal species. it is in the group-ego of the species that we have to look for the source of the wisdom-filled instincts which we meet in the single animals. only in man does the ego-principle enter as an individual entity into the single physico-etheric-astral organism. here, however, the succession of stages we have outlined comes to a conclusion. for with the appearance of the i as an individual principle, the preceding evolutionary process - or, more correctly, the involutionary process - begins to be reversed. in moving up from one kingdom to the next, we find always one more dynamic principle appearing in a state of separation from its mother-sphere; this continues to the point where the i, through uniting itself with a thus emancipated physico-etheric-astral organism, arrives at the stage of self-consciousness. once this stage has been reached, however, it falls to the i to reverse the process of isolation, temporarily sanctioned by the cosmos for the sake of man. that it is not in the nature of the i to leave its sheaths in the condition in which it finds them when entering them at the beginning of life, can be seen from the activities it performs in them during the first period after birth. indeed, in man's early childhood we meet a number of events in which we can perceive something like ur-deeds of the i. they are the acquisition of the faculties of walking, speaking and thinking. what we shall here say about them has, in essentials, already been touched upon in earlier pages. here, however, we are putting it forward in a new light. once again we find our attention directed to the threefold structure of man's physical organism. for the faculty of upright walking is a result of the i's activity in the limb-system of the body; the acquisition of speech takes place in the rhythmic system; and thinking is a faculty based on the nerve-system. consequently, each of the three achievements comes to pass at a different level of consciousness-sleeping, dreaming, waking. all through the struggle of erecting the body against the pull of gravity, the child is entirely unaware of the activities of his own i. in the course of acquiring speech he gains a dim awareness, as though in dream, of his efforts. some capacity of thinking has to unfold before the first glimmer of true self-consciousness is kindled. (note that the word 'i' is the only one that is not added to the child's vocabulary by way of imitation. otherwise he would, as some mentally inhibited children do, call all other people 'i' and himself 'you'.) this picture of the three ur-deeds of the i can now be amplified in the following way. we know that the region of the bodily limbs is that in which physical, etheric and astral forces interpenetrate most deeply. consequently, the i can here press forward most powerfully into the physical body and on into the dynamic sphere to which the body is subject. here the i is active in a way that is 'magic' in the highest degree. moreover, there is no other action for which the i receives so little stimulus from outside. for, in comparison, the activity that leads to the acquisition of speech is much more of the nature of a reaction to stimuli coming from outside - the sounds reaching the child from his environment. and it is also with the first words of the language that the first thoughts enter the child's mind. nothing of the kind happens at the first stage. on the contrary: everything that confronts the i here is of the nature of an obstacle that is to be overcome. there is no learning to speak without the hearing of uttered sounds. as these sounds approach the human being they set the astral body in movement, as we have seen. the movements of the astral body flow towards the larynx, where they are seized by the i; through their help the i imbues the larynx with the faculty of producing these sounds itself. here, therefore, the i is active essentially within the astral body which has received its stimulus from outside. in order to understand what impels the i to such action, we must remember the role played by speech in human life: without speech there would be no community among human individuals on earth. an illustration of what the i accomplishes as it enters upon the third stage is provided by the following episode, actually observed. whilst all the members of a family were sitting at table taking their soup, the youngest member suddenly cried out: 'daddy spoon ... mummy spoon. ... ' (everyone in turn spoon) ' ... all spoon!' at this moment, from merely designating single objects by names learnt through imitation, the child's consciousness had awakened to connective thinking. that this achievement was a cause of inner satisfaction could be heard in the joyful crescendo with which these ejaculations were made. we know that the presence of waking consciousness within the nerves-and-senses organism rests upon the fact that the connexion between physical body and etheric body is there the most external of all. but precisely because this is so, the etheric body is dominated very strongly by the forces to which the physical head owes its formation. this, too, is not fundamentally new to us. what can now be added is that, in consequence, the physical brain and the part of the etheric body belonging to it - the etheric brain - assume a function comparable with that of a mirror, the physical organ representing the reflecting mass and the etheric organ its metallic gloss. when, within the head, the etheric body reflects back the impressions received from the astral body, the i becomes aware of them in the form of mental images (the 'ideas' of the onlooker-philosopher). it is also by way of such reflexion that the i first grows aware of itself - but as nothing more than an image among images. here, therefore, it is itself least active. if, once again, we compare the three happenings of learning to walk, to speak and to think, we find ourselves faced with the remarkable fact that the progressive lighting up of consciousness from one stage to the next, goes hand in hand with a retrogression in the activity of the i itself. at the first stage, where the i knows least of itself, it is alive in the most direct sense out of its own being; at the second stage, where it is in the dreaming state, it receives the impetus of action through the astral body; at the third stage, where the i wakens to clear self-consciousness, it assumes merely the role of onlooker at the pictures moving within the etheric body. compare with this the paths to higher faculties of knowledge, imagination and inspiration, as we learnt to know them in our previous studies. the comparison shows that exactly the same forces come into play at the beginning of life, when the i endeavours to descend from its pre-earthly, cosmic environment to its earthly existence, as have to be made use of for the ascending of the i from earthly to cosmic consciousness. only, as is natural, the sequence of steps is reversed. for on the upward way the first deed of the i is that which leads to a wakening in the etheric world: it is a learning to set in motion the etheric forces in the region of the head in such a way that the usual isolation of this part of the etheric body is overcome. regarded thus, the activity of the i at this stage reveals a striking similarity to the activity applied in the earliest period of childhood at the opposite pole of the organism. to be capable of imaginative sight actually means to be able to move about in etheric space by means of the etheric limbs of the eyes just as one moves about in physical space by means of the physical limbs. similarly, the acquisition of inspiration is a resuming on a higher level of the activity exercised by the i with the help of the astral body when learning to speak. and here, too, the functions are reversed. for while the child is stimulated by the spoken sounds he hears to bring his own organ of speech into corresponding movements, and so gradually learns to produce speech, the acquisition of inspiration, as we have seen, depends on learning to bring the supersensible forces of the speech-organ into movement in such a way that these forces become the organ for hearing the supersensible language of the universe. our knowledge of the threefold structure of man's organism leads us to seek, besides the stages of imagination and inspiration, a third stage which is as much germinally present in the body's region of movement, as the two others are in the regions of thought and speech. after what we have learnt in regard to these three, we may assume that the path leading to this third stage consists in producing a condition of wide-awake, tranquil contemplation in the very region where the i is wont to unfold its highest degree of initiative on the lowest level of consciousness. in an elementary manner this attitude of soul was practised by us when, in our earlier studies, we endeavoured to become inner observers of the activity of our own limbs, with the aim of discovering the origin of our concept of mass. it was in this way that a line of observation opened up to us which led to the recognition of the physical substances of the earth as congealed spiritual functions or, we may say, congealed utterances of cosmic will. cosmic will, however, does not work into our existence only in such a way that, in the form of old and therefore rigid will, it puts up resistance against the young will-power of the i, so that in overcoming this resistance the i may waken to self-activity. cosmic will is also present in us in an active form. we point here to the penetration by the higher powers of the universe into the forming of the destiny of humanity and of individual man. and here rudolf steiner has shown that to a man who succeeds in becoming a completely objective observer of his own existence while actively functioning within it (as in an elementary way we endeavoured to become observers of our limb actions while engaged in performing them) the world begins to reveal itself as an arena of the activities of divine-spiritual beings, whose reality and acts he is now able to apprehend through inner awareness. herewith a third stage of man's faculty of cognition is added to the stages of imagination and inspiration. when rudolf steiner chose for it the word intuition he applied this word, also, in its truest meaning. * while through imagination man comes to know of his ether-body as part of his make-up, and correspondingly through inspiration of his astral body, and thereby recognizes himself as participant in the supersensible forces of the universe, it is through intuition that he grows into full awareness of his i as a spirit-being among spirit-beings - god-begotten, god-companioned, for ever god-ward striving. the word 'body' is here used in a sense no different from our earlier use of it, when in connexion with our study of combustion (chapter xi) we referred to the 'warmth-body' as a characteristic of the higher animals and man. such a warmth-body is nothing else but the warmth-ether part of an ether-body. to use the word body for aggregations of etheric or astral forces is legitimate if one considers the fact that the physical body also is really a purely dynamic entity, that is, a certain aggregate of forces more or less self-contained. astronomical myths. [illustration] [illustration: the cliffs of flamanville.] astronomical myths, based on flammarion's "history of the heavens." by john f. blake. [illustration] london: macmillan and co. . london: r. clay, sons, and taylor, printers, bread street hill, queen victoria street. [illustration] preface. the book which is here presented to the public is founded upon a french work by m. flammarion which has enjoyed considerable popularity. it contained a number of interesting accounts of the various ideas, sometimes mythical, sometimes intended to be serious, that had been entertained concerning the heavenly bodies and our own earth; with a popular history of the earliest commencement of astronomy among several ancient peoples. it was originally written in the form of conversations between the members of an imaginary party at the seaside. it was thought that this style would hardly be so much appreciated by english as by french readers, and therefore in presenting the materials of the french author in an english dress the conversational form has been abandoned. several facts of extreme interest in relation to the early astronomical myths and the development of the science among the ancients having been brought to light, especially by the researches of mr. haliburton, a considerable amount of new matter, including the whole chapter on the pleiades, has been introduced, which makes the present issue not exactly a translation, but rather a book founded on the french author's work. it is hoped that it may be found of interest to those who care to know about the early days of the oldest of our sciences, which is now attracting general attention again by the magnitude of its recent advances. astronomy also, in early days, as will be seen by a perusal of this book, was so mixed up with all the affairs of life, and contributed so much even to religion, that a history of its beginnings is found to reveal the origin of several of our ideas and habits, now apparently quite unconnected with the science. there is matter of interest here, therefore, for those who wish to know only the history of the general ideas of mankind. [illustration: the annual revolution of the earth round the sun, with the signs of the zodiac and the constellations.] list of illustrations. the cliffs of flamanville _frontispiece._ the annual revolution of the earth round the sun, with the signs of the zodiac and the constellations page ix the earth's year, and the months " xiv an astronomer at work to face page the northern constellations " the constellations from the sea-shore " the zodiac of denderah " i. babylonian astronomers ii. druidical worship iii. chaldean astronomers iv. the zodiac and the dead in egypt v. the legends of the druids vi. the nemÆan lion vii. heavens of the fathers viii. death of copernicus ix. the solar system x. the discovery of the telescope xi. the foundation of the paris observatory xii. the legend of owen xiii. christopher columbus and the eclipse of the moon xiv. prodigies in the middle ages xv. an astrologer at work xvi. the end of the world . the earliest (aryan) representation of the earth . ancient gaulish medals, bearing astronomical signs . ancient celestial sphere . positions of the great bear on september . constellation of the bear . constellation of orion . chart of constellations in sixteenth and seventeenth centuries . flamsteed's chart . arabian sphere of the eleventh century . ancient chinese pieces of money, bearing representations of the zodiac . the zodiac . diagram illustrating the position of certain stars, b.c. . curious fifteenth century figure, representing eleven different heavens . ptolemy's astronomical system . the epicycles of ptolemy . heavens of the middle ages . emblematic drawing from ancient astronomical work . egyptian system . capella's system . the copernican system . tycho brahe's system . descartes' theory of vortices . vortices of the stars . variation of descartes' theory . the earth floating . the earth with roots . the earth of the vedic priests . hindoo earth . the earth of anaximander . plato's cubical earth . egyptian representation of the earth . homeric cosmography . the earth of the later greeks . pomponius mela's cosmography . the earth's shadow . ditto . ditto . ditto . the cosmography of cosmas . the square earth . explanation of sunrise . the earth as an egg . the earth as a floating egg . eighth-century map of the world . tenth-century maps . the map of andrea bianco . from the map in hereford cathedral . ditto . cosmography of st. denis . the map of marco polo . map on a medal of charles v . dante's infernal regions . paradise of fra mauro . the paradise of the fifteenth century . representation of a comet, sixteenth century . an egg marked with a comet . the roman calendar . diagram illustrating the order of the days of the week [illustration: the earth's year, and the months.] contents. page chapter i. the first beginnings of astronomy chapter ii. astronomy of the celts chapter iii. origin of the constellations chapter iv. the zodiac chapter v. the pleiades chapter vi. the nature and structure of the heavens according to the ancients chapter vii. the celestial harmony chapter viii. astronomical systems chapter ix. the terrestrial world of the ancients.--cosmography and geography chapter x. cosmography and geography of the church chapter xi. legendary worlds of the middle ages chapter xii. eclipses and comets chapter xiii. the greatness and the fall of astrology chapter xiv. time and the calendar chapter xv. the end of the world [illustration: an astronomer at work.] [illustration] history of the heavens. chapter i. the first beginnings of astronomy. astronomy is an ancient science; and though of late it has made a fresh start in new regions, and we are opening on the era of fresh and unlooked-for discoveries which will soon reveal our present ignorance, our advance upon primitive ideas has been so great that it is difficult for us to realize what they were without an attentive and not uninstructive study of them. no other science, not even geology, can compare with astronomy for the complete revolution which it has effected in popular notions, or for the change it has brought about in men's estimate of their place in creation. it is probable that there will always be men who believe that the whole universe was made for their benefit; but, however this may be, we have already learned from astronomy that our habitation is not that central spot men once deemed it, but only an ordinary planet circulating round an ordinary star, just as we are likely also to learn from biology, that we occupy the position, as animals, of an ordinary family in an ordinary class. that we may more perfectly realize this strange revolution of ideas, we must throw ourselves as far as possible into the feeling and spirit of our ancestors, when, without the knowledge we now possess, they contemplated, as they could not fail to do, the marvellous and awe-inspiring phenomena of the heavens by night. to them, for many an age, the sun and moon and stars, with all the planets, seemed absolutely to rise, to shine, and to set; the constellations to burst out by night in the east, and travel slowly and in silence to the west; the ocean waves to rise and fall and beat against the rock-bound shore as if endowed with life; and even in the infancy of the intellect they must have longed to pierce the secrets of this mysterious heavenly vault, and to know the nature of the starry firmament as it seemed to them, and the condition of the earth which appeared in the centre of these universal movements. the simplest hypothesis was for them the truth, and they believed that the sky was in reality a lofty and extended canopy bestudded with stars, and the earth a vast plain, the solid basis of the universe, on which dwelt man, sole creature that lifted his eyes and thoughts above. two distinct regions thus appeared to compose the whole system--the upper one, or the air, in which were the moving stars, the lights of heaven, and the firmament over all; and the lower one, or earth and sea, adorned on the surface with the products of life, and below with the minerals, metals, and stones. for a long time the various theories of the universe, grotesque and changing as they might be, were but modifications of this one central idea, the earth below, the heavens above, and on this was based every religious system that was promulgated--the very phrases founded upon it remaining to this day for a testimony to the intimate relation thus manifested between the infant ideas in astronomy and theology. no wonder that early revolutions in the conceptions in one science were thought to militate against the other. it is only when the thoughts on both are enlarged that it is seen that their connection is not necessary, but accidental, or, at least, inevitable only in the infancy of both. it is scarcely possible to estimate fully the enormous change from these ideas representing the appearances to those which now represent the reality; or to picture to ourselves the total revolution in men's minds before they could transform the picture of a vast terrestrial surface, to which the sun and all the heavenly bodies were but accessories for various purposes, to one in which the earth is but a planet like mars, moving in appearance among the stars, as it does, and rotating with a rapidity that brings a whole hemisphere of the heavens into view through the course of a single day and night. at first sight, what a loss of dignity! but, on closer thought, what a gain of grandeur! no longer some little neighbouring lights shine down upon us from a solid vault; but we find ourselves launched into the sea of infinity; with power to gaze into its almost immeasurable depths. to appreciate rightly our position, we have to plant ourselves, in imagination, in some spot removed from the surface of the earth, where we may be uninfluenced by her motion, and picture to ourselves what we should see. were we placed in some spot far enough removed from the earth, we should find ourselves in eternal day; the sun would ever shine, for no great globe would interpose itself between it and our eyes; there would be no night there. were we in the neighbourhood of the earth's orbit, and within it, most wonderful phenomena would present themselves. at one time the earth would appear but an ordinary planet, smaller than venus, but, as time wore on, unmeasured by recurring days or changing seasons, it would gradually be seen to increase in size--now appearing like the moon at the full, and shining like her with a silver light. as it came nearer, and its magnitude increased, the features of the surface would be distinguished; the brighter sea and the darker shining continents, with the brilliant ice-caps at the poles; but, unlike what we see in the moon, these features would appear to move, and, one after another, every part of the earth would be visible. the actual time required for all to pass before us would be what we here call a day and night. and still, as it rotates, the earth passes nearer to us, assumes its largest apparent size, and so gradually decreasing again, becomes once more, after the interval we here call a year, an ordinary-looking star-like planet. to us, in these days, this description is easy of imagination; we find no difficulty in picturing it to ourselves; but, if we will think for a moment what such an idea would have been to the earliest observers of astronomy, we shall better appreciate the vast change that has taken place--how we are removed from them, as we may say, _toto coelo_. but not only as to the importance of the earth in the universe, but on other matters connected with astronomy, we perceive the immensity of the change in our ideas--in that of distance, for instance. this celestial vault of the ancients was near enough for things to pass from it to us; it was in close connection with the earth, supported by it, and therefore of less diameter; but now, when our distance from the sun is expressed by numbers that we may write, indeed, but must totally fail to adequately appreciate, and the distance from the _next_ nearest star is such, that with the velocity of light--a velocity we are accustomed to regard as instantaneous--we should only reach it after a three years' journey, we are reminded of the pathetic lines of thomas hood: "i remember, i remember, the fir trees straight and high, and how i thought their slender tops were close against the sky; it was a childish fantasy, but now 'tis little joy, to know i'm further off from heaven than when i was a boy." the astronomer's answer to the last line would be that as far as the material heaven goes, we are just as much in it as the stars or as any other member of the universe; we cannot, therefore, be far off or near to it. it is probable that we are even yet but little awake to true cosmical ideas in other respects;--as to velocity, for instance. we know indeed, of light and electricity and the motions of the earth, but revelations are now being made to us of motions of material substances in the sun with such velocities that in comparison with them any motions on the earth appear infinitesimally small. our progress to our present notions, and appreciations of the truth of nature in the heavens, will thus occupy much of our thoughts; but we must also recount the history of the acquirement of those facts which have ultimately become the basis for our changes of idea. our rustic forefathers, whatever their nation, were not so enamoured of the "wonders of science"--that their astronomy was greatly a collection of theories, though theories, and wild ones, they had; it was a more practical matter, and was believed too by them to be more practical than we now find reason to believe to be the case. they noticed the various seasons, and they marked the changes in the appearances of the heavens that accompanied them; they connected the two together, and conceived the latter to be the cause of the former, and so, with other apparently uncertain events. the celestial phenomena thus acquired a fictitious importance which rendered their study of primary necessity, but gave no occasion for a theory. that we may better appreciate the earliest observations on astronomy, it may be well to mention briefly what are the varying phenomena which may most easily be noticed. if we except the phases of the moon, which almost without observation would force their recognition on people who had no other than lunar light by night, and which must therefore, from the earliest periods of human history have divided time into lunar months; there are three different sets of phenomena which depend on the arrangement of our planetary system, and which were early observed. the first of these depends upon the earth's rotation on its axis, the result of which is that the stars appear to revolve with a uniform motion from east to west; the velocity increasing with the distance from the pole star, which remains nearly fixed. this circumstance is almost as easy of observation as the phases of the moon, and was used from the earliest ages to mark the passage of time during the night. the next arises from the motion of the earth in her orbit about the sun, by which it happens that the earth is in a different position with respect to the sun every night, and, therefore, a different set of stars are seen in his neighbourhood; these are setting with him, and therefore also a different set are just rising at sunset every evening. these changes, which would go through the cycle in a year, are, of course, less obvious, but of great importance as marking the approach of the various seasons during ages in which the hour of the sun's rising could not be noted by a clock. the last depends on the proper motions of the moon and planets about the earth and sun respectively, by reason of which those heavenly bodies occupy varying positions among the stars. only a careful and continuous scrutiny of the heavens would detect these changes, except, perhaps, in the case of the moon, and but little of importance really depends on them; nevertheless, they were very early the subject of observation, as imagination lent them a false value, and in some cases because their connection with eclipses was perceived. the practical cultivation of astronomy amongst the earliest people had always reference to one or other of these three sets of appearances, and the various terms and signs that were invented were intended for the clearer exposition of the results of their observations on these points. in looking therefore into extreme antiquity we shall find in many instances our only guide to what their knowledge was is the way in which they expressed these results. we do not find, and perhaps we should scarcely expect to find, any one man or even one nation who laid the foundation of astronomy--for it was an equal necessity for all, and was probably antecedent to the practice of remembering men by their names. we cannot, either, conjecture the antiquity of ideas and observations met with among races who are themselves the only record of their past; and if we are to find any origins of the science, it is only amongst those nations which have been cultivators of arts by which their ancient doings are recorded. amongst the earliest cultivators of astronomy we may refer to the primitive greeks, the chinese, the egyptians, the babylonians, and the aryans, and also to certain traditions met with amongst many savage as well as less barbarous races, the very universality of which proclaims as loudly as possible their extreme antiquity. each of the four above-mentioned races have names with which are associated the beginnings of astronomy--uranus and atlas amongst the greeks; folic amongst the chinese; thaut or mercury in egypt; zoroaster and bel in persia and babylonia. names such as these, if those of individuals, are not necessarily those of the earliest astronomers--but only the earliest that have come down to us. indeed it is very far from certain whether these ancient celebrities have any real historical existence. the acts and labours of the earliest investigators are so wrapped in obscurity, there is such a mixture of fable with tradition, that we can have no reliance that any of them, or that others mentioned in ancient mythology, are not far more emblematical than personal. some, such as uranus, are certainly symbolical; but the very existence of the name handed down to us, if it prove nothing else, proves that the science was early cultivated amongst those who have preserved or invented them. if we attempt to name in years the date of the commencement--not of astronomy itself--for that probably in some form was coeval with the race of man itself, but of recorded observations, we are met with a new difficulty arising from the various ways in which they reckoned time. this was in every case by the occurrence of the phases of one or other of the above-mentioned phenomena; sometimes however they selected the apparent rotation of the sun in twenty-four hours, sometimes that of the moon in a month, sometimes the interval from one solstice to the next, and yet they apparently gave to each and all of these the same title--such as _annus_--obviously representing a cycle only, but without reference to its length. by these different methods of counting, hopeless confusion has often been introduced into chronology; and the moderns have in many instances unjustly accused the ancients of vanity and falsehood. bailly attempted to reconcile all these various methods and consequent dates with each other, and to prove that practical astronomy commenced "about , years before the deluge, or that it is about , years old;" but we shall see reason in the sequel for suspecting any such attempt, and shall endeavour to arrive at more reliable dates from independent evidence. perhaps the remotest antiquity to which we can possibly mount is that of the aryans, amongst whom the hymns of the _rig veda_ were composed. the short history of hebrew and greco-roman civilization seems to be lost in comparison with this the earliest work of human imagination. when seeking for words to express their thoughts, these primitive men by the banks of the oxus personified the phenomena of the heavens and earth, the storm, the wind, the rain, the stars and meteors. here, of course, it is not practical but theoretical astronomy we find. we trace the first figuring of that primitive idea alluded to before--the heaven above, the earth below. here, as we see, is the earth represented as an indefinite plane surface and passive being forming the foundation of the world; and above it the sky, a luminous and variable vault beneath which shines out the fertile and life-giving light. thus to the earth they gave the name p'rthovi, "the wide expanse;" the blue and star-bespangled heavens they called varuna, "the vault;" and beneath it in the region of the clouds they enthroned the light dyaus, _i.e._ "the luminous air." [illustration: fig. .] from hence, it would appear, or on this model, the early ideas of all peoples have been formed. among the greeks the name for heaven expresses the same idea of a hollow vault ([greek: koilos], hollow, concave) and the earth is called [greek: gê], or mother. among the latins the name _coelum_ has the same signification, while the earth _terra_ comes from the participle _tersa_ (the dry element) in contradistinction to _mare_ the wet. in this original aryan notion, however, as represented by the figure, we have more than this, the origin of the names _jupiter_ and _deus_ comes out. for it is easy to trace the connection between _dyaus_ (the luminiferous air) and the greek word _zeus_ from whence _dios_, [greek: _theos_], _deus_, and the french word _dieu_, and then by adding _pater_ or father we get _deuspater_, _zeuspater_, jupiter. these etymologies are not however matters beyond dispute, and there are at least two other modes of deriving the same words. thus we are told the earliest name for the deity was jehovah, the word _jehov_ meaning father of life; and that the greeks translated this into _dis_ or _zeus_, a word having, according to this theory, the same sense, being derived from [greek: zaô] to live. of course there can be no question of the later word _deus_ being the direct translation of _dios_. a third theory is that there exists in one of the dialects which formed the basis of the old languages of asia, a word _yahouh_, a participle of the verb _nîh_, to exist, to be; which therefore signifies the self-existent, the principle of life, the origin of all motion, and this is supposed to be the allusion of diodorus, who explaining the theology of the greeks, says that the egyptians according to manetho, priest of memphis, in giving names to the five elements have called the spirit or ether youpiter in the _proper sense_ of the word, for the spirit is the source of life, the author of the vital principle in animals, and is hence regarded as the father or generator of all beings. the people of the homeric ages thought the lightning-bearing jupiter was the commencement, origin, end, and middle of all things, a single and universal power, governing the heavens, the earth, fire, water, day and night, and all things. porphyry says that when the philosophers discoursed on the nature and parts of the deity, they could not imagine any single figure that should represent all his attributes, though they presented him under the appearance of a man, who was _seated_ to represent his immovable essence; uncovered in his upper part, because the upper parts of the universe or region of the stars manifest most of his nature; but clothed below the loins, because he is more hidden in terrestrial things; and holding a sceptre in his left hand, because his heart is the ruler of all things. there are, besides, the etymologies which assert that jupiter is derived from _juvare_ to help, meaning the assisting father; or again that he is _dies pater_--the god of the day--in which case no doubt the sun would be alluded to. it appears then that the ancient aryan scheme, though _possibly_ supplying us with the origin of one of the widest spread of our words, is not universally allowed to do so. this origin, however, appears to derive support from the apparent occurrence of the original of another well-known ancient classical word in the same scheme, that is varuna, obviously the same word as [greek: ouranos], and uranus, signifying the heavens. less clearly too perhaps we may trace other such words to the same source. thus the sun, which according to these primitive conceptions is the husband of the earth, which it nourishes and makes fruitful, was called _savitr_ and _surya_, from which the passage to the gothic _sauil_ is within the limits of known etymological changes, and so comes the lithuanian _saull_, the cymric _haul_, the greek _heilos_, the latin _sol_, and the english _solar_. so from their _nakt_, the destructive, we get _nux_, _nacht_, _night_. from _glu_, the shining, whence the participle _glucina_, and so to _lucina_, _luena_, _luna_, _lune_. turning from the ancient aryans, whose astronomy we know only from poems and fables, and so learn but little of their actual advance in the science of observation, we come to the babylonians, concerning whose astronomical acquirements we have lately been put in possession of valuable evidence by the tablets obtained by mr. smith from kouyunjik, an account the contents of which has been given by mr. sayce (_nature_, vol. xii. p. ). as the knowledge thus obtained is more certain, being derived from their actual records, than any that we previously possessed, it will be well to give as full an account of it as we are able. the originators of babylonian astronomy were not the chaldæans, but another race from the mountains of elam, who are generally called acadians. of the astronomy of this race we have no complete records, but can only judge of their progress by the words and names left by them to the science, as afterwards cultivated by the semitic babylonians. these last were a subsequent race, who entering the country from the east, conquered the original inhabitants about b.c., and borrowed their civilization, and with it their language in the arts and sciences. but even this latter race is one of considerable antiquity, and when we see, as we shortly shall, the great advances they had made in observations of the sun and moon, and consider the probable slowness of development in those early ages, we have some idea of the remoteness of the date at which astronomical science was there commenced. our chief source of information is an extremely ancient work called the _observations of bell_, supposed to have been written before b.c., which was compiled for a certain king saigou, of agave in babylonia. this work is in seventy books or parts, and is composed of numerous small earthen tablets having impressed upon them the cuneiform character in which they printed, and which we are now able to read. we generally date the art of printing from caxton, in , because it took the place of manuscript that had been previously in use in the west; but that method of writing, if in some respects an improvement on previous methods of recording ideas as more easily executed, was in others a retrogression as being less durable: while the manuscripts have perished the impressions on stone have remained to this day, and will no doubt last longer than even our printed books. these little tablets represented so many leaves, and in large libraries, such as that from which those known have been derived, they were numbered as our own are now, so that any particular one could be asked for by those who might wish to consult it. the great difficulty of interpreting these records, which are written in two different dialects, and deal often with very technical matters, may well be imagined. these difficulties however have been overcome, and a good approach to the knowledge of their contents has been made. the chaldæans, as is well known, were much given to astronomy and many of their writings deal with this subject; but they did practical work as well, and did not indulge so much in theory as the aryans. we shall have future occasion in this book to refer to their observations on various points, as they did not by any means confine themselves to the simplest matters; much, in fact, of that with which modern astronomy deals, the dates and duration of eclipses of the sun and moon, the accurate measurement of time, the existence of cycles in lunar and solar phenomena, was studied and recorded by them. we can make some approach to the probable dates of the invention of some part of their system, by means of the signs of the zodiac, which were invented by them and which we will discuss more at length hereafter. we need only say at present that what is now the sign of spring, was not reckoned so with them, and that we can calculate how long ago it is that the sign they reckoned the spring sign was so. semiramis also raised in the centre of babylon a temple consecrated to jupiter, whom the babylonians called bel. it was of an extraordinary height and served for an observatory. the whole edifice was constructed with great art in asphalte and brick. on its summit were placed the statues of jupiter, juno, and rhea, covered with gold. the egyptians have always been named as the earliest cultivators of astronomy by the grecian writers, by whom the science has been handed down to us, and the chaldæans have even been said to have borrowed from them. the testimony of such writers however is not to be received implicitly, but to be weighed with the knowledge we may now obtain, as we have noticed above with respect to the babylonians, from the actual records they have left us, whether by actual records, or by words and customs remaining to the present day. [illustration: plate i.--babylonian astronomers.] herodotus declares that the egyptians had made observations for , years and had seen the course of the sun change four times, and the ecliptic placed perpendicular to the equator. this is the style of statement on which opinions of the antiquity of egyptian astronomy have been founded, and it is obviously unworthy of credit. diodorus says that there is no country in which the positions and motions of the stars have been so accurately observed as in egypt (_i.e._ to his knowledge). they have preserved, he says, for a great number of years registers in which their observations are recorded. expositions are found in these registers of the motions of the planets, their revolutions and their stations, and, moreover, the relation which each bears to the birthdays of animals, and its good or evil influence. they often predicted the future with success. the earthquakes, inundations, the appearance of comets, and many other phenomena which it is impossible for the vulgar to know beforehand, were foreseen by them by means of the observations they had made over a long series of years. on the occasion of the french expedition to egypt, a long passage was discovered leading from karnak to lucksor. this passage was adorned on each side of the way with a range of sphinxes with the body of a lion and the head of a ram. now in egyptian architecture, the ornaments are never the result of caprice or chance; on the contrary, all is done with intention, and what often appears at first sight strange, appears, after having been carefully examined and studied, to present allegories full of sense and reason, founded on a profound knowledge of natural phenomena, that the ornaments are intended to record. these sphinxes and rams of the passage were probably the emblems of the different signs of the zodiac along the route of the sun. the date of the avenue is not known; but it would doubtless lead us to a high antiquity for the egyptian observations. the like may be said of the great pyramid, which according to piazzi smyth was built about b.c. certainly there are no carvings about it exhibiting any astronomical designs; but the exact way in which it is executed would seem to indicate that the builders had a very clear conception of the importance of the meridian line. it should, however, be stated that piazzi smyth does not consider it to have been built by the egyptians for themselves; but under the command of some older race. there seem, however, to be indications in various festivals and observances, which are met with widely over the earth's surface, as will be indicated more in detail in the chapter on the pleiades, that some astronomical observations, though of the rudest, were made by races anterior even to those whose history we partially possess; and that not merely because of its naturalness, but because of positive evidence, we must trace back astronomy to a source from whence egyptians, indians, and perhaps babylonians themselves derived it. the chinese astronomy is totally removed from these and stands on its own basis. with them it was a matter concerning the government, and stringent laws were enforced on the state astronomers. the advance, however, that they made would appear to be small; but if we are to believe their writers, they made observations nearly three thousand years before our era. under the reign of hoangti, yuchi recorded that there was a large star near the poles of the heavens. by a method which we shall enlarge upon further on, it can be astronomically ascertained that about the epoch this observation was said to be made there was a star ([greek: a] draconis) so near the pole as to appear immovable, which is so far a confirmation of his statement. in the first of a series of eclipses was recorded by them; but the value of their astronomy seems to be doubtful when we learn that calculation proves that not one of them previous to the age of ptolemy can be identified with the dates given. amongst all nations except the chinese, where it was political, and the greeks, where it was purely speculative, astronomy has been intimately mixed with religious ideas, and we consequently find it to have taken considerable hold on the mind. just as we have seen among the indians that the basis of their astronomical ideas was the two-fold division into heaven and earth, so among other nations this duality has formed the basis of their religion. two aspects of things have been noticed by men in the constitution of things--that which remains always, and that which is merely transitory, causes and effects. the heaven and the earth have presented the image of this to their minds--one being the eternal existence, the other the passing form. in heaven nothing seems to be born, increase, decrease, or die above the sphere of the moon. that alone showed the traces of alteration in its phases; while on the other hand there was an image of perpetuity in its proper substance, in its motion, and the invariable succession of the same phases. from another point of view, the heavens were regarded as the father, and the earth as the mother of all things. for the principle of fertility in the rains, the dew and the warmth, came from above; while the earth brought forth abundantly of the products of nature. such is the idea of plutarch, of hesiod, and of virgil. from hence have arisen the fictions which have formed the basis of theogony. uranus is said to have espoused ghe, or the heavens took the earth to wife, and from their marriage was born the god of time or saturn. another partly religious, and partly astronomical antagonism has been drawn between light and darkness, associated respectively with good and evil. in the days when artificial lights, beyond those of the flickering fire, were unknown, and with the setting of the sun all the world was enveloped in darkness and seemed for a time to be without life, or at least cut off entirely from man, it would seem that the sun and its light was the entire origin of life. hence it naturally became the earliest divinity whose brilliant light leaping out of the bosom of chaos, had brought with it man and all the universe, as we see it represented in the theologies of orpheus and of moses; whence the god bel of the chaldeans, the oromaza of the persians, whom they invoke as the source of all that is good in nature, while they place the origin of all evil in darkness and its god ahrinam. we find the glories of the sun celebrated by all the poets, and painted and represented by numerous emblems and different names by the artists and sculptors who have adorned the temples raised to nature or the great first cause. among the jews there are traditions of a very high antiquity for their astronomy. josephus assures us that it was cultivated before the mosaic deluge. according to him it is to the public spirit and the labour of the antediluvians that we owe the science of astrology: "and since they had learnt from adam that the world should perish by water and by fire, the fear that their science should be lost, made them erect two columns, one of brick the other of stone, on which they engraved the knowledge they had acquired, so that if a deluge should wash away the column of brick, the stone one might remain to preserve for posterity the memory of what they had written. the prescience was rewarded, and the column of stone is still to be seen in syria." whatever we may think of this statement it would certainly be interesting if we could find in syria or anywhere else a monument that recorded the ancient astronomical observations of the jews. ricard and others believe that they were very far advanced in the science, and that we owe a great part of our present astronomy to them; but such a conjecture must remain without proof unless we could prove them anterior to the other nations, whom, we have seen, cultivated astronomy in very remote times. one observation seems peculiar to them, if indeed it be a veritable observation. josephus says, "god prolonged the life of the patriarchs that preceded the deluge, both on account of their virtues, and to give them the opportunity of perfecting the sciences of geometry and astronomy which they had discovered; which they could not have done if they had not lived for years, because it is only after the lapse of years that the _great year_ is accomplished." now what is this great year or cycle of years? m. cassini, the director of the observatory of paris, has discussed it astronomically. he considers it as a testimony of the high antiquity of their astronomy. "this period," he says, "is one of the most remarkable that have been discovered; for, if we take the lunar month to be days h. m. s. we find that , - / days make , lunar months, and that this number of days gives solar years of days h. m. s. if this year was in use before the deluge, it appears very probable it must be acknowledged that the patriarchs were already acquainted to a considerable degree of accuracy with the motions of the stars, for this lunar month agrees to a second almost with that which has been determined by modern astronomers." a very similar argument has been used by prof. piazzi smyth to prove that the great pyramids were built by the descendants of abraham near the time of noah; namely, that measures of two different elements in the measurement of time or space when multiplied or divided produce a number which may be found to represent some proportion of the edifice, and hence to assume that the two numbers were known to the builders. we need scarcely point out that numbers have always been capable of great manipulation, and the mere fact of one number being so much greater than another, is no proof that _both_ were known, unless we knew that _one_ of them was known independently, or that they are intimately connected. in the case of josephus' number the cycle during which the lunar months and solar years are commensurable has been long discussed and if the number had been instead of , we should have had little doubt of its reference; yet is a very simple number and might refer to many other cycles than the complicated one pointed out by m. cassini. a similar case may be quoted with regard to the indians, which, according to our temperament, may be either considered a proof that these reasonings are correct, or that they are easy to make. they say that there are two stars diametrically opposite which pass through the zodiac in years; nothing can be made of this period, nor yet of another equally problematical one of years; but if we multiply the two together we obtain , , which is very nearly the length of the cycle for the precession of the equinoxes. in this review of the ancient ideas of different peoples, we have followed the most probable order in considering that the observation of nature came first, and the different parts of it were afterwards individualized and named. it is proper to add that according to some ancient authors--such as diodorus siculus--the process was considered to have been the other way. that uranus was an actual individual, that atlas and saturn were his sons or descendants or followers, and that because atlas was a great astronomer he was said to support the heavens, and that his seven daughters were real, and being very spiritual they were regarded as goddesses after death and placed in heaven under the name of the pleiades. however, the universality of the ideas seems to forbid this interpretation, which is also in itself much less natural. these various opinions lead us to remark, in conclusion, that the fables of ancient mythological astronomy must be interpreted by means of various keys. allegory is the first--the allegory employed by philosophers and poets who have spoken in figurative language. their words taken in the letter are quite unnatural, but many of the fables are simply the description or explanation of physical facts. hieroglyphics are another key. having become obscure by the lapse of time they sometimes, however, present ideas different from those which they originally expressed. it is pretty certain that hieroglyphics have been the source of the men with dogs' heads, or feet of goats, &c. fables also arise from the adoption of strange words whose sound is something like another word in the borrowing language connected with other ideas, and the connection between the two has to be made by fable. chapter ii. astronomy of the celts. the numerous stone monuments that are to be found scattered over this country, and over the neighbouring parts of normandy, have given rise to many controversies as to their origin and use. by some they have been supposed to be mere sepulchral monuments erected in late times since the roman occupation of great britain. such an idea has little to rest upon, and we prefer to regard them, as they have always been regarded, as relics of the druidical worship of the celtic or gaulish races that preceded us in this part of europe. if we were to believe the accounts of ordinary historians, we might believe that the druids were nothing more than a kind of savage race, hidden, like the fallow-deer in the recesses of their woods. thought to be sanguinary, brutal, superstitious, we have learned nothing of them beyond their human sacrifices, their worship of the oak, their raised stones; without inquiring whether these characteristics which scandalize our tastes, are not simply the legacy of a primitive era, to which, by the side of the tattered religions of the old paganism, druidism remained faithful. nevertheless the druids were not without merit in the order of thought. for the celts, as for all primitive people, astronomy and religion were intimately associated. they considered that the soul was eternal, and the stars were worlds successively inhabited by the spiritual emigrants. they considered that the stars were as much the abodes of human life as our own earth, and this image of the future life constituted their power and their grandeur. they repelled entirely the idea of the destruction of life, and preferred to see in the phenomena of death, a voyage to a region already peopled by friends. under what form did druidical science represent the universe? their scientific contemplation of the heavens was at the same time a religious contemplation. it is therefore impossible to separate in our history their astronomical and theological heavens. in their theological astronomy, or astronomical theology, the druids considered the totality of all living beings as divided into three circles. the first of these circles, the circle of immensity, _ceugant_, corresponding to incommunicable, infinite attributes, belonged to god alone; it was properly the absolute, and none, save the ineffable being, had a right there. the second circle, that of blessedness, _gwyn-fyd_, united in it the beings that have arrived at the superior degrees of existence; this was heaven. the third, the circle of voyages, _abred_, comprised all the noviciate; it was there, at the bottom of the abysses, in the great oceans, as taliesin says, that the first breath of man commenced. the object proposed to men's perseverance and courage was to attain to what the bards called the point of liberty, very probably the point at which, being suitably fortified against the assaults of the lower passions, they were not exposed to be troubled, against their wills, in their celestial aspirations; and when they arrived at such a point--so worthy of the ambition of every soul that would be its own master--they quitted the circle of abred and entered that of gwyn-fyd; the hour of their recompense had come. demetrius, cited by plutarch, relates that the druids believed that these souls of the elect were so intimately connected with our circle that they could not emerge from it without disturbing its equilibrium. this writer states, that being in the suite of the emperor claudius, in some part of the british isles, he heard suddenly a terrible hurricane, and the priests, who alone inhabited these sacred islands, immediately explained the phenomenon, by telling him that a vacuum had been produced on the earth, by the departure of an important soul. "the great men," he said, "while they live are like torches whose light is always beneficent and never harms any one, but when they are extinguished their death generally occasions, as you have just seen, winds, storm, and derangements of the atmosphere." the palingenetic system of the druids is complete in itself, and takes the being at his origin, and conducts him to the ultimate heaven. at the moment of his creation, as henry martyn says in his commentary, the being has no conscience of the gifts that are latent in him. he is created in the lowest stage of life, in _annwfn_, the shadowy abyss at the base of _abred_. there, surrounded by nature, submitted to necessity, he rises obscurely through the successive degrees of inorganic matter, and then through the organic. his conscience at last awakes. he is man. "three things are primarily contemporaneous--man, liberty, and light." before man there was nothing in creation but fatal obedience to physical laws; with man commences the great battle between liberty and necessity, good and evil. the good and the evil present themselves to man in equilibrium, "and he can at his pleasure attach himself to one or the other of them." it might appear at first sight that it was carrying things too far to attribute to the druids the knowledge, not indeed of the true system of the world, but the general idea on which it was constructed. but, on closer examination, this opinion seems to have some consistency. if it was from the druids that pythagoras derived the basis of his theology, why should it not be from them that he derived also that of his astronomy? why, if there is no difficulty in seeing that the principle of the subordination of the earth might arise from the meditations of an isolated spirit, should there be any more difficulty in thinking that the principles of astronomy should take birth in the midst of a corporation of theologians embued with the same ideas as the philosophers on the circulation of life, and applied with continued diligence to the study of celestial phenomena. the druid, not having to receive mythological errors, might be led by that circumstance to imagine in space other worlds similar to our own. independently of its intrinsic value, this supposition rests also upon the testimony of historians. a singular statement made by hecatæus with regard to the religious rites of great britain exhibits this in a striking manner. this historian relates that the moon, seen in this island, appears much larger than it does anywhere else, and that it is possible to distinguish mountains on its surface, such as there are on the earth. now, how had the druids made an observation of this kind? it is of not much consequence whether they had actually seen the lunar mountains or had only imagined them, the curious thing is that they were persuaded that that body was like the earth, and had mountains and other features similar to our own. plutarch, in his treatise _de facie in orbe lunæ_, tells us that, according to the druids, and conformably to an idea which had long been held in science, the surface of the moon is furrowed with several mediterraneans, which the grecian philosophers compare to the red and caspian seas. it was also thought that immense abysses were seen, which were supposed to be in communication with the hemisphere that is turned away from the earth. lastly, the dimensions of this sky-borne country were estimated; (ideas very different to those that were current in greece): its size and its breadth, says the traveller depicted by the writer, are not at all such as the geometers say, but much larger. it is through the same author, who is in accordance in this respect with all the bards, that we know that this celestial earth was considered by the theologians of the west as the residence of happy souls. they rose and approached it in proportion as their preparation had been complete, but, in the agitation of the whirlwind, many reached the moon that it would not receive. "the moon repelled a great number, and rejected them by its fluctuations, at the moment they reached it; but those that had better success fixed themselves there for good; their soul is like the flame, which, raising itself in the ether of the moon, as fire raises itself on that of the earth receives force and solidity in the same way that red-hot iron does when plunged into the water." they thus traced an analogy between the moon and the earth, which they doubtless carried out to its full development, and made the moon an image of what they knew here, picturing there the lunar fields and brooks and breezes and perfumes. what a charm such a belief must have given to the heavens at night. the moon was the place and visible pledge of immortality. on this account it was placed in high position in their religion; the order of all the festivals was arranged after that which was dedicated to it; its presence was sought in all their ceremonies, and its rays were invoked. the druids are always therefore represented as having the crescent in their hands. astronomy and theology being so intimately connected in the spirit of the druids, we can easily understand that the two studies were brought to the front together in their colleges. from certain points of view we may say that the druids were nothing more than astronomers. this quality was not less striking to the ancients in them than in the chaldæans. the observation of the stars was one of their official functions. cæsar tells us, without entering more into particulars, that they taught many things about _the form and dimensions of the earth, the size and arrangements of the different parts of heaven, and the motions of the stars_, which includes the greater part of the essential problems of celestial geometry, which we see they had already proposed to themselves. we can see the same fact in the magnificent passage of taliesin. "i will ask the bards," he says in his _hymn of the world_, "and why will not the bards answer me? i will ask of them what sustains the earth, since having no support it does not fall? or if it falls which way does it go? but what can serve for its support? is the world a great traveller? although it moves without ceasing, it remains tranquil in its route; and how admirable is that route, seeing that the world moves not in any direction." this suffices to show that the ideas of the druids on material phenomena were not at all inferior to their conceptions of the destiny of the soul, and that they had scientific views of quite another origin from the alexandrian greeks, the latins, their disciples, or the middle ages. an anecdote of the eighth century furnishes another proof in favour of druidical science. every one knows that virgilius, bishop of salzburg, was accused of heresy by boniface before the pope zacharias, because he had asserted that there were antipodes. now virgilius was educated in one of the learned monasteries of ireland, which were fed by the christian bards, who had preserved the scientific traditions of druidism. [illustration: plate ii.--druidical worship.] the fundamental alliance between the doctrine of the plurality of worlds and of the eternity of the soul is perhaps the most memorable character in the thoughts of this ancient race. the death upon earth was for them only a psychological and astronomical fact, not more grave than that which happened to the moon when it was eclipsed, nor the fall of the verdant clothing of the oak under the breath of the autumnal breeze. we see these conceptions and manners, at first sight so extraordinary, clothe themselves with a simple and natural aspect. the druids were so convinced of the future life in the stars, that they used _to lend money to be repaid in the other world_. such a custom must have made a profound impression on the minds of those who daily practised it. pomponius mela and valerius maximus both tell us of this custom. the latter says, "after having left marseilles i found that ancient custom of the gauls still in force, namely, of lending one another money to be paid back in the infernal regions, for they are persuaded that the souls of men are immortal." in passing to the other world they lost neither their personality, their memory, nor their friends; they there re-encountered the business, the laws, the magistrates of this world. they had capitals and everything the same as here. they gave one another rendezvous as emigrants might who were going to america. this superstition, so laudable as far as it had the effect of pressing on the minds of men the firm sentiment of immortality, led them to burn, along with the dead, all the objects which had been dear to them, or of which they thought they might still wish to make use. "the gauls," says pomponius mela, "burn and bury with the dead that which had belonged to the living." they had another custom prompted by the same spirit, but far more touching. when any one bade farewell to the earth, each one charged him to take letters to his absent friends, who should receive him on his arrival and doubtless load him with questions as to things below. it is to diodorus that we owe the preservation of the remembrance of this custom. "at their funerals," he says, "they place letters with the dead which are written to those already dead by their parents, so that they may be read by them." they followed the soul in thought in its passage to the other planets, and the survivors often regretted that they could not accomplish the voyage in their company; sometimes, indeed, they could not resist the temptation. "there are some," says mela, "who burn themselves with their friends in order that they may continue to live together." they entertained another idea also, which led even to worse practices than this, namely, that death was a sort of recruiting that was commanded by the laws of the universe for the sustenance of the army of existences. in certain cases they would replace one death by another. posidonius, who visited gaul at an epoch when it had not been broken up, and who knew it far better than cæsar, has left us some very curious information on this subject. if a man felt himself seriously warned by his disease that he must hold himself in readiness for departure, but who, nevertheless, had, for the moment, some important business on hand, or the needs of his family chained him to this life, or even that death was disagreeable to him; if no member of his family or his clients were willing to offer himself instead, he looked out for a substitute; such a one would soon arrive accompanied by a troop of friends, and stipulating for his price a certain sum of money, he distributed it himself as remembrances among his companions,--often even he would only ask for a barrel of wine. then they would erect a stage, improvise a sort of festival, and finally, after the banquet was over, our hero would lie down on the shield, and driving a sword into his bosom, would take his departure for the other world. such a custom, indeed, shows anything but what we should rightly call civilization, however admirable may have been their opinions; but it receives its only palliation from the fact that their indifference to death did not arise from their undervaluing life here, but that they had so firm a belief in the existence and the happiness of a life hereafter. that these beliefs were not separated from their astronomical ideas is seen from the fact that they peopled the firmament with the departed. the milky way was called the town of gwyon (coër or ker gwydion, ker in breton, caer in gaulish, kohair in gaelic); certain bardic legends gave to gwyon as father a genius called don, who resides in the constellation of cassiopeia, and who figures as "the king of the fairies" in the popular myths of ireland. the empyrean is thus divided between various heavenly spirits. arthur had for residence the great bear, called by the druids "arthur's chariot." we are not, however, entirely limited to tradition and the reports of former travellers for our information as to the astronomy of the druids, but we have also at our service numerous coins belonging to the old gauls, who were of one family with those who cultivated druidism in our island, which have been discovered buried in the soil of france. the importance which was given to astronomy in that race becomes immediately evident upon the discovery of the fact that these coins are marked with figures having reference to the heavenly bodies, in other words are astronomical coins. if we examine, from a general point of view, a large collection of gaulish medals such as that preserved in the national museum of paris, we observe that among the essential symbols that occupy the fields are types of the horse, the bull, the boar, the eagle, the lion, the horseman, and the bear. we remark next a great number of signs, most often astronomical, ordinarily accessory, but occasionally the chief, such as the sign [symbol: rotated mirrored s], globules surrounded by concentric circles, stars of five, six, or eight points, radiated and flaming bodies, crescents, triangles, wheels with four spokes, the sign [symbol: infinity], the lunar crescent, the zigzag, &c. lastly, we remark other accessory types represented by images of real objects or imaginary figures, such as the lyre, the diota, the serpent, the hatchet, the human eye, the sword, the bough, the lamp, the jewel, the bird, the arrow, the ear of corn, the fishes, &c. on a great number of medals, on the stateres of vercingetorix, on the reverses of the coins of several epochs, we recognize principally the sign of the waterer, which appears to symbolize for one part of antiquity the knowledge of the heavenly sphere. on the gaulish types this sign (an amphora with two handles) bears the name of diota, and represents amongst the druids as amongst the magi the sciences of astronomy and astrology. some of these coins are represented in the woodcut below. [illustration: fig. .] the first of these represents the course of the sun-horse reaching the tropic of cancer (summer solstice), and brought back to the tropic of capricorn (winter solstice). on the second is seen the symbol of the year between the south (represented by the sun [symbol: sun]) and the north (represented by the northern bear). in the third the calendar (or course of the year) between the sun [symbol: sun] and the moon [symbol: moon]. time the sun, and the bear are visible on the fourth. the diurnal motion of the heavens is represented on the fifth; and lastly, on the sixth, appears the watering-pot, the sun-horse, and the sign of the course of the heavenly bodies. on other groups of money the presence of the zodiac may be made out. these medals would seem to show that some part of the astronomical knowledge of the druids was not invented by themselves, but borrowed from the chaldeans or others who in other lands invented them in previous ages, and from whom they may have possibly derived them from the phenicians. we may certainly expect, however, from these pieces of money, if found in sufficient number and carefully studied, to discover a good many positive facts now wanting to us, of the religion, sciences, manners, language, commercial relation, &c. which belonged to the celtic civilization. it was far from being so barbarous as is ordinarily supposed, and we shall do more justice to it when we know it better. m. fillioux, the curator of the museum of guéret, who has studied these coins with care, after having sought for a long time for a clear and concise method of determining exactly the symbolic and religious character of the gaulish money, has been able to give the following general statements. the coins have for their ordinary field the heavens. on the right side they present almost universally the ideal heads of gods or goddesses, or in default of these, the symbols that are representative of them. on the reverse for the most part, they reproduce, either by direct types or by emblems artfully combined, the principal celestial bodies, the divers aspects of the constellations, and probably the laws, which, according to their ancient science, presided over their course; in a smaller proportion they denote the religious myths which form the base of the national belief of the gauls. as we have seen above, for them the present life was but a transitory state of the soul, only a prodrome of the future life, which should develop itself in heaven and the astronomical worlds with which it is filled. borrowed from an elevated spiritualism, incessantly tending towards the celestial worlds, these ideas were singularly appropriate to a nation at once warlike and commercial. these circumstances explain the existence of these strange types, founded at the same time on those of other nations, and on the symbolism which was the soul of the druidical religion. to this religious caste, indeed, we must give the merit of this ingenious and original conception, of turning the reverses of the coins into regular charts of the heavens. nothing indeed could be better calculated to inspire the people with respect and confidence than these mysterious and learned symbols, representing the phenomena of the heavens. not making use of writing to teach their dogmas, which they wished to maintain as part of the mysteries of their caste, the druids availed themselves of this method of placing on the money that celestial symbolism of which they alone possessed the key. the religious ideas founded on astronomical observations were not peculiar to, or originated by, the druids, any more than their zodiac. there seems reason to believe that they had come down from a remote antiquity, and been widely spread over many nations, as we shall see in the chapter on the pleiades; but we can certainly trace them to the east, where they first prevailed in persia and egypt, and were afterwards brought to greece, where they disappeared before the new creations of anthropomorphism, though they were not forgotten in the days of the poet anacreon, who says, "do not represent for me, around this vase" (a vase he had ordered of the worker in silver), "either the heavenly bodies, or the chariot, or the melancholy orion; i have nothing to do with the pleiades or the herdsman." he only wanted mythological subjects which were more to his taste. the characters which are made use of in these astronomical moneys of the druids would appear to have a more ancient origin than we are able to trace directly, since they are most of them found on the arms and implements of the bronze age. some of them, such as the concentric pointed circles, the crescent with a globule or a star, the line in zigzag, were used in egypt; where they served to mark the sun, the month, the year, the fluid element; and they appear to have had among the druids the same signification. the other signs, such as the [symbol: wave], and its multiple combinations, the centred circles, grouped in one or two, the little rings, the alphabetical characters recalling the form of a constellation, the wheel with rays, the radiating discs, &c. are all represented on the bronze arms found in the celtic, germanic, breton, and scandinavian lands. from this remote period, which was strongly impressed with the oriental genius, we must date the origin of the celtic symbolism. it has been supposed, and not without reason, that this epoch, besides being contemporaneous with the phenician establishments on the borders of the ocean, was an age of civilization and progress in gaul, and that the ideas of the druids became modified at the same time that they acquired just notions in astronomy and in the art of casting metals. at a far later period, the druidic theocracy having, with religious care, preserved the symbols of its ancient traditions, had them stamped on the coins which they caused to be struck. this remarkable fact is shown in an incontestable manner in the rougher attempts in gaulish money, and this same state of things was perpetuated even into the epoch of the high arts, since we find on the imitation statues of macedonia the old celtic symbols associated with emblems of a grecian origin. in italy a different result was arrived at, because the warlike element of the nobles soon predominated over the religious. nevertheless the most ancient roman coins, those which are known to us under the name of consular, have not escaped the common law which seems to have presided, among all nations, over the origin of money. the two commonest types, one in bronze of _janus bifrons_ with the _palus_; the other in silver, the _dioscures_ with their stars, have an eminently astronomical aspect. the comparison between the gaulish and roman coins may be followed in a series of analogies which are very remarkable from an astronomical point of view. to cite only a few examples, we may observe on a large number of pennies of different families, the impression of auriga "the coachman" conducting a quadriga; or the sun under another form (with his head radiated and drawn in profile); or diana with her lunar attributes; or the five planets well characterised; for example, venus by a double star, as that of the morning or of the evening; or the constellations of the dog, hercules, the kid, the lyre, and almost all those of the zodiac and of the circumpolar region and the seven-kine (septemtriones). in later times, under the cæsars, in the villa of borghèse, is found a calendar whose arrangements very much recall the ancient gaulish coin. the head of the twelve great gods and the twelve signs of the zodiac are represented, and the drawing of the constellations establishes a correspondence between their rising and the position of the sun in the zodiac. it may therefore be affirmed that in the coinage and works of art in italy and greece, the characteristic influence of astronomical worship is found as strongly as among the druids. nor have the western nations alone had the curious habit of impressing their astronomical ideas upon their coinage, for in china and japan coins of a similar description have been met with, containing on their reverse all the signs of the zodiac admitted by them. in conclusion, we may say, that it was cosmography, that constructed the dogmas of the druidical religion, which was, in its essential elements, the same as that of the old oriental theocracies. the outward ceremonies were addressed to the sun, the moon, the stars, and other visible phenomena; but, above nature, there was the great generating and moving principle, which the celts placed, at a later period perhaps, among the attributes of their supreme deities. [illustration: the northern constellations. the lyre--cassiopeia--the little bear--the dragon--andromeda--the great bear--capella--algol, or medusa's head.] chapter iii. origin of the constellations. when we look upon the multitude of heavenly bodies with which the celestial vault is strewed, our attention is naturally arrested by certain groupings of brilliant stars, apparently associated together on account of their great proximity; and also by certain remarkable single stars which have excessive brilliancy or are completely isolated from the rest. these natural groups seem to have some obscure connection with or dependence on each other. they have always been noticed, even by the most savage races. the languages of several such races contain different names for the same identical groups, and these names, mostly borrowed from terrestrial beings, give an imaginary life to the solitude and silence of the skies. a celestial globe, as we know, presents us with a singular menagerie, rich in curious monsters placed in inconceivable positions. how these constellations, as they are called, were first invented, and by whom, is an interesting question which by the aid of comparative philology we must endeavour now to answer. among these constellations there are twelve which have a more than ordinary importance, and to which more attention has always been paid. they are those through which the sun appears to pass in his annual journey round the ecliptic, entering one region each month. at least, this is what they were when first invented. they were called the zodiacal constellations or signs of the zodiac--the name being derived from their being mostly named after living beasts. in our own days the zodiacal constellations are no longer the signs of the zodiac. when they were arranged the sun entered each one on a certain date. he now is no longer at the same point in the heavens at that date, nevertheless he is still said to enter the same sign of the zodiac--which therefore no longer coincides with the zodiacal constellation it was named from--but merely stands for a certain twelfth part of the ecliptic, which varies from time to time. it will be of course of great interest to discover the origin of these particular constellations, the date of their invention, &c.; and we shall hope to do so after having discussed the origin of those seen in the northern hemisphere which may be more familiar even than those. we have represented in the frontispiece the two halves of the grecian celestial sphere--the northern and the southern, with the various constellations they contain. this sphere was not invented by the greeks, but was received by them from more ancient peoples, and corrected and augmented. it was used by hipparchus two thousand years ago; and ptolemy has given us a description of it. it contained constellations, of which belonged to the northern, to the southern hemisphere, and the remaining twelve were those of the zodiac, situated along the ecliptic. the constellations reckoned by ptolemy contained altogether , stars, whose relative positions were determined by hipparchus; with reference to which accomplishment pliny says, "hipparchus, with a height of audacity too great even for a god, has ventured to transmit to posterity the number of the stars!" ptolemy's catalogue contains:-- for the northern constellations stars for the zodiacal " for the southern " or ----- for all the constellations , " or, since of these are named twice , " of course this number is not to be supposed to represent the whole of the stars visible even to the naked eye; there are twice as many in the northern hemisphere alone, while there are about , in the whole sky. the number visible in a telescope completely dwarfs this, so that more than , are now catalogued; while the number visible in a large telescope may be reckoned at not less than millions. the principal northern constellations named by ptolemy are contained in the following list, with the stars of the first magnitude that occur in each:-- the great bear, or david's chariot, near the centre. the little bear, with the pole star at the end of the tail. the dragon. cepheus, situated to the right of the pole. the herdsman, or the keeper of the bear, with the star arcturus. the northern crown to the right. hercules, or the man who kneels. the lyre, or falling vulture, with the beautiful star vega. the swan, or bird, or cross. cassiopeia, or the chair, or the throne. perseus. the carter, or the charioteer, with capella ophiuchus, or serpentarius, or esculapius. the serpent. the bow and arrow, or the dart. the eagle, or the flying vulture, with altaïr. the dolphin. the little horse, or the bust of the horse. pegasus, or the winged horse, or the great cross. andromeda, or the woman with the girdle. the northern triangle, or the delta. the fifteen constellations on the south of the ecliptic were:-- the whale. orion, with the beautiful stars rigel and betelgeuse. the river endanus, or the river orion, with the brilliant achernar. the hare. the great dog, with the magnificent sirius. the little dog, or the dog which runs before, with procyon. the ship argo, with its fine alpha (canopus) and eta. the female hydra, or the water snake. the cup, or the urn, or the vase. the raven. the altar, or the perfuming pot. the centaur, whose star alpha is the nearest to the earth. the wolf, or the centaur's lance, or the panther, or the beast. the southern crown, or the wand of mercury, or uraniscus. the southern fish, with fomalhaut. the twelve zodiacal constellations, which are of more importance than the rest, are generally named in the order in which the sun passes through them in its passage along the ecliptic, and both latins and english have endeavoured to impress their names on the vulgar by embodying them in verses. the poet ausonius thus catalogues them:-- "sunt: aries, taurus, gemini, cancer, leo, virgo, libraque, scorpius, arcitenens, caper, amphora, pisces." and the english effusion is as follows:-- "the ram, the bull, the heavenly twins, and next the crab the lion shines, the virgin and the scales. the scorpion, archer, and he goat, the man that holds the watering-pot, and fish with glittering scales." these twelve have hieroglyphics assigned to them, by which they are referred to in calendars and astronomical works, some of the marks being easily traced to their origin. thus [symbol: aries] refers to the horns of the ram; [symbol: taurus] to the head of the bull; [symbol: scorpion] to the joints and tail-sting of the scorpion; [symbol: saggitarius] is very clearly connected with an archer; [symbol: capricorn] is formed by the junction of the first two letters [greek: t] and [greek: r] in [greek: tragos], the sea-goat, or capricorn; [symbol: libra] for the balance, is suggestive of its shape; [symbol: aquarius] refers to the water in the watering-pot; and perhaps [symbol: pisces] to the two fishes; [symbol: gemini] for twins may denote two sides alike; [symbol: cancer] for the crab, has something of its side-walking appearance; while [symbol: leo] for the lion, and [symbol: virgo] for the virgin, seem to have no reference that is traceable. these constellations contain the following stars of the first magnitude--aldebaran, antares, and spica. to these constellations admitted by the greeks should be added the locks of berenice, although it is not named by ptolemy. it was invented indeed by the astronomer conon. the story is that berenice was the spouse and the sister of ptolemy euergetes, and that she made a vow to cut off her locks and devote them to venus if her husband returned victorious; to console the king the astronomer placed her locks among the stars. if this is a true account arago must be mistaken in asserting that the constellation was created by tycho brahe in . the one he did add to the former ones was that of antinöus, by collecting into one figure some unappropriated stars near the eagle. at about the same time j. bayer, from the information of vespuccius and the sailors, added twelve to the southern constellations of ptolemy; among which may be mentioned the peacock, the toucan, the phoenix, the crane, the fly, the chameleon, the bird of paradise, the southern triangle, and the indian. augustus royer, in , formed five new groups, among which we may name the great cloud, the fleur-de-lis, and the southern cross. hevelius, in , added ; the most important being the giraffe, the unicorn, the little lion, the lynx, the little triangle. among these newer-named constellations none is more interesting than the southern cross, which is by some considered as the most brilliant of all that are known. some account of it, possibly from the arabs, seems to have reached dante, who evidently refers to it, before it had been named by royer, in a celebrated passage in his "purgatory." some have thought that his reference to such stars was only accidental, and that he really referred only to the four cardinal virtues of theology, chiefly on account of the difficulty of knowing how he could have heard of them; but as the arabs had establishments along the entire coast of africa, there is no difficulty in understanding how the information might reach italy. americus vespuccius, who in his third voyage refers to these verses of dante, does not mention the name of the southern cross. he simply says that the four stars form a rhomboidal figure. as voyages round the cape multiplied, however, the constellation became rapidly more celebrated, and it is mentioned as forming a brilliant cross by the florentine andrea corsali, in , and a little later by pigafetta, in . all these constellations have not been considered sufficient, and many subsequent additions have been made. thus lacaille, in , created fourteen new ones, mostly characterized by modern names--as the sculptor's studio, the chemical furnace, the clock, the compass, the telescope, the microscope, and others. lemonnier, in , added the reindeer, the solitaire, and the indian bird, and lalande the harvestman. poczobut, in , added one more, and p. hell another. finally, in the charts drawn by bode, eight more appear, among which the aerostat, and the electrical and printing machines. we thus arrive at a total of constellations. to which we may add that the following groups are generally recognized. the head of medusa, near perseus; the pleiades, on the back, and the hyades on the forehead of the bull; the club of hercules; the shield of orion, sometimes called the rake; the three kings; the staff of s. james; the sword of orion; the two asses in the crab, having between them the star cluster, called the stall, or the manger; and the kids, near capella, in the constellation of the coachman. this brings the list of the constellations to , which is the total number now admitted. a curious episode with respect to these star arrangements may here be mentioned. about the eighth century bede and certain other theologians and astronomers wished to depose the olympian gods. they proposed, therefore, to change the names and arrangements of the constellations; they put s. peter in the place of the ram; s. andrew instead of the bull; and so on. in more recent calendars david, solomon, the magi, and other new and old testament characters were placed in the heavens instead of the former constellations; but these changes of name were not generally adopted. as an example of these celestial spheres we figure a portion of one named _coeli stellati christiani hemisphericum prius_. we here see the great bear replaced by the barque of s. peter, the little bear by s. michael, the dragon by the innocents, the coachman by s. jerome, perseus by s. paul, cassiopeia by the magdalene, andromache by s. sepulchre, and the triangle by s. peter's mitre; while for the zodiac were substituted the twelve apostles. [illustration: fig. .] in the seventeenth century a proposal was made by weigel, a professor in the university of jena, to form a series of heraldic constellations, and to use for the zodiac the arms of the twelve most illustrious families in europe; but these attempts at change have been in vain, the old names are still kept. having now explained the origin in modern times of out of the constellations, there remain the which were acknowledged by the greeks, whose origin is involved in more obscurity. one of the first to be noticed and named, as it is now the most easily recognized and most widely known, is the _great bear_, which attracts all the more attention that it is one of those that never sets, being at a less distance from the pole than the latter is from the horizon. every one knows the seven brilliant stars that form this constellation. the four in the rectangle and the three in a curved line at once call to mind the form of a chariot, especially one of antique build. it is this resemblance, no doubt, that has obtained for the constellation the name of "the chariot" that it bears among many people. among the ancient gauls it was "arthur's chariot." in france it is "david's chariot," and in england it goes by the name of "king charles' wain," and by that of the "plough." the latter name was in vogue, too, among the latins (_plaustrum_), and the three stars were three oxen, from whence it would appear that they extended the idea to all the seven stars, and at last called them the _seven_ oxen, _septem-triones_, from whence the name sometimes used for the north--septentrional. the greeks also called it the chariot ([greek: hamaxa]), and the same word seems to have stood sometimes for a plough. it certainly has some resemblance to this instrument. if we take the seven stars as representing the characteristic points of a chariot, the four stars of the quadrilateral will represent the four wheels, and the three others will represent the three horses. above the centre of the three horses any one with clear sight may perceive a small star of the fifth or sixth magnitude, called the cavalier. each of these several stars is indicated, as is usual with all the constellations, by a greek letter, the largest being denoted by the first letter. thus the stars in the quadrilateral are [greek: a], [greek: b], [greek: g], [greek: d], and the tail stars [greek: e], [greek: x], [greek: ê]. the arabs give to each star its special name, which in this case are as follows:--dubhé and mérak are the stars at the back; phegda and megrez those of the front; alioth, mizat, and ackïar the other three, while the little one over mizat is alcor. another name for it is saidak, or the tester, the being able to see it being a mark of clear vision. there is some little interest in the great bear on account of the possibility of its being used as a kind of celestial time-keeper, and its easy recognition makes it all the more available. the line through [greek: a] and [greek: b] passes almost exactly through the pole. now this line revolves of course with the constellation round the pole in hours; in every such interval being once, vertical above the pole, and once vertical below, taking the intermediate positions to right and left between these times. the instant at which this line is vertical over the pole is not the same on any two consecutive nights, since the stars advance each day minutes on the sun. on the st of march the superior passage takes place at minutes to at night; on the following night four minutes earlier, or at minutes to . in three months the culmination takes place hours earlier, or at minutes to . in six months, _i.e._ on sept. , it culminates at . in the morning, being vertically below the pole at the same hour in the evening. the following woodcut exhibits the positions of the great bear at the various hours of september th. it is plain from this that, knowing the day of the month, the hour of the night may be told by observing what angle the line joining [greek: a] and [greek: b] of this constellation makes with the vertical. [illustration: fig. .] we have used the name _great bear_, by which the constellation is best known. it is one of the oldest names also, being derived from the greeks, who called it arctos megale ([greek: arktos megalê]), whence the name arctic; and singularly enough the iroquois, when america was discovered, called it okouari, their name for a bear. the explanation of this name is certainly not to be found in the resemblance of the constellation to the animal. the three stars are indeed in the tail, but the four are in the middle of the back; and even if we take in the smaller stars that stand in the feet and head, no ingenuity can make it in this or any other way resemble a bear. it would appear, as aristotle observes, that the name is derived from the fact, that of all known animals the bear was thought to be the only one that dared to venture into the frozen regions of the north and tempt the solitude and cold. [illustration: fig. .] other origins of the name, and other names, have been suggested, of which we may mention a few. for example, "ursa" is said to be derived from _versus_, because the constellation is seen to _turn_ about the pole. it has been called the screw ([greek: elikê]), or helix, which has plainly reference to its turning. another name is callisto, in reference to its beauty; and lastly, among the arabs the great and little bears were known as the great and little coffins in reference to their slow and solemn motion. these names referred to the four stars of each constellation, the other three being the mourners following the bearers. the christian arabs made it into the grave of lazarus and the three weepers, mary, martha, and their maid. next as to the little bear. this constellation has evidently received its name from the similarity of its form to that of the great bear. in fact, it is composed of seven stars arranged in the same way, only in an inverse order. if we follow the line from [greek: b] to [greek: a] of the great bear to a distance of five times as great as that between these stars we reach the brightest star of the little bear, called the pole star. all the names of the one constellation have been applied to the other, only at a later date. the new constellations were added one by one to the celestial sphere by the greeks before they arranged certain of them as parts of the zodiac. the successive introduction of the constellations is proved completely by a long passage of strabo, which has been often misunderstood. "it is wrong," he says, "to accuse homer of ignorance because he speaks only of one of the two celestial bears. the second was probably not formed at that time. the phenicians were the first to form them and to use them for navigation. they came later to the greeks." [illustration: the constellations from the sea-shore. the swan--the lyre--hercules--the crown--the herdsman--the eagle--the serpent--the balance--the scorpion--sagittarius.] all the commentators on homer, hygin and diogenes laertes, attribute to thales the introduction of this constellation. pseudo-eratosthenes called the little bear [greek: phoinikê], to indicate that it was a guide to the phenicians. a century later, about the seventeenth olympiad, cleostrates of tenedos enriched the sphere with the archer ([greek: toxotês], sagittarius) and the ram ([greek: krios], aries), and about the same time the zodiac was introduced into the grecian sphere. with regard to the little bear there is another passage of strabo which it will be interesting to quote. he says--"the position of the people under the parallel of cinnamomophore, _i.e._ , stadia south of meroe and , stadia north of the equator, represents about the middle of the interval between the equator and the tropic, which passes by syene, which is , stadia north of meroe. these same people are the first for whom the little bear is comprised entirely in the arctic circle and remains always visible; the most southern star of the constellation, the brilliant one that ends the tail being placed on the circumference of the arctic circle, so as just to touch the horizon." the remarkable thing in this passage is that it refers to an epoch anterior to strabo, when the star [greek: a] of the little bear, which now appears almost immovable, owing to its extreme proximity to the pole, was then more to the south than the other stars of the constellation, and moved in the arctic circle so as to touch the horizon of places of certain latitudes, and to set for latitudes nearer the equator. in those days it was not the _pole_ star--if that word has any relation to [greek: poleô], i turn--for the heavens did not turn about it then as they do now. the grecian geographer speaks in this passage of a period when the most brilliant star in the neighbourhood of the pole was [greek: a] of the dragon. this was more than three thousand years ago. at that time the little bear was nearer to the pole than what we now call the polar star, for this latter was "the most southern star in the constellation." if we could alight upon documents dating back fourteen thousand years, we should find the star vega ([greek: a] lyra) referred to as occupying the pole of the world, although it now is at a distance of degrees from it, the whole cycle of changes occupying a period of about twenty-six thousand years. before leaving these two constellations we may notice the origin of the names according to plutarch. he would have it that the names are derived from the use that they were put to in navigation. he says that the phenicians called that constellation that guided them in their route the _dobebe_, or _doube_, that is, the speaking constellation, and that this same word happens to mean also in that language a bear; and so the name was confounded. certainly there is still a word _dubbeh_ in arabic having this signification. next as to the herdsman. the name of its characteristic star and of itself, arcturus ([greek: arktos], bear; [greek: ouros], guardian), is explained without difficulty by its position near the bears. there are six small stars of the third magnitude in the constellation round its chief one--three of its stars forming an equilateral triangle. arcturus is in the continuation of the curved line through the three tail stars of the great bear. the constellation has also been called atlas, from its nearness to the pole--as if it held up the heavens, as the fable goes. beyond this triangle, in the direction of the line continued straight from the great bear, is the northern crown, whose form immediately suggests its name. among the stars that compose it one, of the second magnitude, is called the pearl of the crown. it was in this point of the heavens that a temporary star appeared in may, , and disappeared again in the course of a few weeks. among the circumpolar constellations we must now speak of cassiopeia, or the chair--or throne--which is situated on the opposite side of the pole from the great bear; and which is easily found by joining its star [greek: d] to the pole and continuing it. the chair is composed principally of five stars, of the third magnitude, arranged in the form of an m. a smaller star of the fourth magnitude completes the square formed by the three [greek: b], [greek: a], and [greek: g]. the figure thus formed has a fair resemblance to a chair or throne, [greek: d] and [greek: e] forming the back; and hence the justification for its popular name. the other name cassiopeia has its connection and meaning unknown. we may suitably remark in this place, with arago, that no precise drawing of the ancient constellations has come down to us. we only know their forms by written descriptions, and these often very short and meagre. a verbal description can never take the place of a drawing, especially if it is a complex figure, so that there is a certain amount of doubt as to the true form, position, and arrangement of the figures of men, beasts, and inanimate objects which composed the star-groups of the grecian astronomers--so that unexpected difficulties attend the attempt to reproduce them on our modern spheres. add to this that alterations have been avowedly introduced by the ancient astronomers themselves, among others by ptolemy, especially in those given by hipparchus. ptolemy says he determined to make these changes because it was necessary to give a better proportion to the figures, and to adapt them better to the real positions of the stars. thus in the constellation of the virgin, as drawn by hipparchus, certain stars corresponded to the shoulders; but ptolemy placed them in the sides, so as to make the figure a more beautiful one. the result is that modern designers give scope to their imagination rather than consult the descriptions of the greeks. _cassiopeia_, _cepheus_, _andromeda_, and _perseus_ holding in his hand the _head of medusa_, appear to have been established at the same epoch, no doubt subsequently to the great bear. they form one family, placed together in one part of the heavens, and associated in one drama; the ardent perseus delivering the unfortunate andromeda, daughter of cepheus and cassiopeia. we can never be sure, however, whether the constellations suggested the fable, or the fable the constellations: the former may only mean that perseus, rising before andromeda, seems to deliver it from the night and from the constellation of the whale. the head of medusa, a celebrated woman, that perseus cut off and holds in his hand, is said by volney to be only the head of the constellation virgo, which passes beneath the horizon precisely as the perseus rises, and the serpents which surround it are ophiucus and the polar dragon, which then occupies the zenith. either way, we have no account of the origin of the _names_, and it is possible that we may have to seek it, if ever we find it, from other sources--for it would appear that similar names were used for the same constellations by the indians. this seems inevitably proved by what is related by wilford (_asiatic researches_, iii.) of his conversation with his pundit, an astronomer, on the names of the indian constellations. "asking him," he says, "to show me in the heavens the constellation of antarmada, he immediately pointed to andromeda, though i had not given him any information about it beforehand. he afterwards brought me a very rare and curious work in sanscrit, which contained a chapter devoted to _upanacchatras_, or extra-zodiacal constellations, with drawings of _capuja_ (cepheus), and of _casyapi_ (cassiopeia) seated and holding a lotus flower in her hand, of _antarmada_ charmed with the fish beside her, and last of _parasiea_ (perseus) who, according to the explanation of the book, held the head of a monster which he had slain in combat; blood was dropping from it, and for hair it had snakes." as the stars composing a constellation have often very little connection with the figure they are supposed to form, when we find the same set of stars called by the same name by two different nations, as was the case, for instance, in some of the indian names of constellations among the americans, it is a proof that one of the nations copied it from the other, or that both have copied from a common source. so in the case before us, we cannot think these similar names have arisen independently, but must conclude that the grecian was borrowed from the indian. another well-known constellation in this neighbourhood, forming an isosceles triangle with arcturus and the pole star, is the lyre. lucian of samosatus says that the greeks gave this name to the constellation to do honour to the lyre of orpheus. another possible explanation is this. the word for lyre in greek [greek: chelys] and in latin (_testudo_) means also a tortoise. now at the time when this name was imposed the chief star in the lyre may have been very near to the pole of the heavens and therefore have had a very slow motion, and hence it might have been named the tortoise, and this in greek would easily be interpreted into lyre instead. indeed this double meaning of the word seems certainly to have given rise to the fable of mercury having constructed a lyre out of the back of a tortoise. circling round the pole of the ecliptic, and formed by a sinuous line of stars passing round from the great bear to the lyre, is the dragon, which owes its name to its form. its importance is derived from its relation to the ecliptic, the pole of which is determined by reference to the stars of the first coil of the body. the centre of the zodiacal circle is a very important point, that circle being traced on the most ancient spheres, and probably being noticed even before the pole of the heavens. closely associated with the dragon both in mythology and in the celestial sphere is hercules. he is always drawn kneeling; in fact, the constellation is rather a man in a kneeling posture than any particular man. the poets called it engonasis with reference to this, which is too melancholy or lowly a position than would agree well with the valiant hero of mythology. there is a story related by Æschylus about the stones in the champ des cailloux, between marseilles and the embouchure of the rhône, to the effect that hercules, being amongst the ligurians, found it necessary to fight with them; but he had no more missiles to throw; when jupiter, touched by the danger of his son, sent a rain of round stones, with which hercules repulsed his enemies. the engonasis is thus considered by some to represent him bending down to pick up the stones. posidonius remarks that it was a pity jupiter did not rain the stones on the ligurians at once, without giving hercules the trouble to pick them up. ophiucus, which comes close by, simply means the man that holds the serpent [greek: ophi-ouchos]. it is obviously impossible to know the origins of all the names, as those we now use are only the surviving ones of several that from time to time have been applied to the various constellations according to their temporary association with the local legends. the prominent ones are favoured with quite a crowd of names. we need only cite a few. hercules, for instance, has been called [greek: okalzôn korynêtês], engonasis, ingeniculus, nessus, thamyris, desanes, maceris, almannus, al-chete, &c. the swan has the names of [greek: kyknos], [greek: iktin], [greek: ornis], olar, helenæ genitor, ales jovis, ledæus, milvus, gallina, the cross, while the coachman has been [greek: ippilatês], [greek: elastippos], [greek: airôêlatês], [greek: Êniochos], auriga, acator, hemochus, erichthonus, mamsek, alánat, athaiot, alatod, &c. with respect to the coachman, in some old maps he is drawn with a whip in his left hand turned towards the chariot, and is called the charioteer. no doubt its proximity to the former constellation has acquired for it its name. the last we need mention, as of any celebrity, is that of orion, which is situated on the equator, which runs exactly through its midst. regel forms its left foot, and the hare serves for a footstool to the right foot of the hero. three magnificent stars in the centre of the quadrilateral, which lie in one straight line are called the rake, or the three kings, or the staff of jacob, or the belt. these names have an obvious origin; but the meaning of orion itself is more doubtful. in the grecian sphere it is written [greek: Ôriôn], which also means a kind of bird. the allied word [greek: ôros] has very numerous meanings, the only one of which that could be conjectured to be connected with the constellations is a "guardian." the word [greek: horion], on the contrary, the diminutive of [greek: hôros], means a limit, and has been assigned to jupiter; and in this case may have reference to the constellation being situated on the confines of the two hemispheres. in mythology orion was an intrepid hunter of enormous size. he was the same personage as orus, arion, the minotaur, and nimrod, and afterwards became saturn. orion is called _tsan_ in chinese, which signifies three, and corresponds to the three kings. [illustration: fig. .] the asiatics used not to trace the images of their constellations, but simply joined the component stars by straight lines, and placed at the side the hieroglyphic characters that represented the object they wished to name. thus joining by five lines the principal stars in orion, they placed at the side the hieroglyphics representing a man and a sword, from whence the greeks derived the figure they afterwards drew of a giant armed with a sword. we must include in this series that brightest of all stars, sirius. it forms part of the constellation of the great dog, and lies to the south of orion near the extreme limit of our vision into the southern hemisphere in our latitudes. this star seems to have been intimately connected with egypt, and to have derived its name--as well as the name of the otherwise unimportant constellation it forms part of--from that country, and in this way:-- the overflowing of the nile was always preceded by an etesian wind, which, blowing from north to south about the time of the passage of the sun beneath the stars of the crab, drove the mists to the south, and accumulated them over the country whence the nile takes its source, causing abundant rains, and hence the flood. the greatest importance attached to the foretelling the time of this event, so that people might be ready with their provisions and their places of security. the moon was no use for this purpose, but the stars were, for the inundation commenced when the sun was in the stars of the lion. at this time the stars of the crab just appeared in the morning, but with them, at some distance from the ecliptic, the bright star sirius also rose. the morning rising of this star was a sure precursor of the inundation. it seemed to them to be the warning star, by whose first appearance they were to be ready to move to safer spots, and thus acted for each family the part of a faithful dog. whence they gave it the name of the dog, or monitor, in egyptian _anubis_, in phenician _hannobeach_, and it is still the dog-star--_caniculus_, and its rising commences our _dog-days_. the intimate connection between the rising of this star and the rising of the nile led people to call it also the nile star, or simply the nile; in egyptian and hebrew, _sihor_; in greek, [greek: sothis]; in latin, _sirius_. in the same way the egyptians and others characterised the different days of the year by the stars which first appeared in the evening--as we shall see more particularly with reference to the pleiades--and in this way certain stars came to be associated in their calendar with variations of temperature and operations of agriculture. they soon took for the cause what was originally but the sign, and thus they came to talk of moist stars, whose rising brought rain, and arid stars, which brought drought. some made certain plants to grow, and others had influence over animals. in the case of egypt, no other so great event could occur as that which the dog-star foretold, and its appearance was consequently made the commencement of the year. instead, therefore, of painting it as a simple star, in which case it would be indistinguishable from others, they gave it shape according to its function and name. when they wished to signify that it opened the year, it was represented as a porter bearing keys, or else they gave it two heads, one of an old man, to represent the passing year, the other of a younger, to denote the succeeding year. when they would represent it as giving warning of the inundation they painted it as a dog. to illustrate what they were to do when it appeared, anubis had in his arms a stew-pot, wings to his feet, a large feather under his arm, and two reptiles behind him, a tortoise and a duck. there is also in the celestial sphere a constellation called the little dog and procyon; the latter name has an obvious meaning, as appearing _before_ the dog-star. we cannot follow any farther the various constellations of the northern sphere, nor of the southern. the zodiacal constellations we must reserve for the present, while we conclude by referring to some of the changes in form and position that some of the above-mentioned have undergone in the course of their various representations. these changes are sometimes very curious, as, for example, in a coloured chart, printed at paris in , we have the charioteer drawn in the costume of adam, with his knees on the milky way, and turning his back to the public; the she-goat appears to be climbing over his neck, and two little she-goats seem to be running towards their mother. cassiopeia is more like king solomon than a woman. compare this with the _phenomena of aratus_, published , where cassiopeia is represented sitting on an oak chair with a ducal back, holding the holy palm in her left hand, while the coachman, "erichthon," is in the costume of a minion of henry the third of france. now compare the cassiopeia of the greeks with that drawn in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, or the coachman of the same periods, and we can easily see the fancies of the painters have been one of the most fertile sources of change. they seem, too, to have had the fancy in the middle ages to draw them all hideous and turning their backs. compare, for instance, the two pictures of andromeda and hercules, as given below, where those on one side are as heavy and gross as the others are artistic and pretty. unfortunately for the truth of andromeda's beauty, as depicted in these designs, she was supposed to be a negress, being the daughter of the ethiopians, cepheus and cassiopeia. not one of the drawings indicates this; indeed they all take after their local beauties. [illustration: fig. .] in flamsteed's chart, as drawn above, the coachman is a female; and instead of the she-goat being on the back, she holds it in her arms. no one, indeed, from any of the figures of this constellation would ever dream it was intended to represent a coachman. [illustration: fig. .] one more fundamental cause of changes has been the confusion of names derived by one nation from another, these having sometimes followed their signification, but at others being translated phonetically. thus the latins, in deriving names from the greek [greek: arktos], have partly translated it by ursa, and partly have copied it in the form arcticus. so also with reference to the three stars in the head of the bull, called by the greeks hyades. the romans thought it was derived from [greek: hyes], sows, so they called them _suculæ_, or little sows; whereas the original name was derived from [greek: hyein], to rain, and signified stars whose appearance indicated the approach of the rainy season. more curious still is the transformation of the pearl of the northern crown (margarita coronæ) in a saint--s. marguerite. the names may have had many origins whose signification is lost, owing to their being misunderstood. thus figurative language may have been interpreted as real, as when a conjunction is called a marriage; a disappearance, death; and a reappearance, a resurrection; and then stories must be invented to fit these words; or the stars that have in one country given notice of certain events lose the meaning of their names when these are used elsewhere; as when a boat painted near the stars that accompany an inundation, becomes the ship argo; or when, to represent the wind, the bird's wing is drawn; or those stars that mark a season are associated with the bird of passage, the insect or the animal that appears at that time: such as these would soon lose their original signification. the celestial sphere, therefore, as we now possess it, is not simply a collection of unmeaning names, associated with a group of stars in no way connected with them, which have been imposed at various epochs by capricious imagination, but in most instances, if not in all, they embody a history, which, if we could trace it, would probably lead us to astronomical facts, indicating the where and the when of their first introduction; and the story of their changes, so far as we can trace it, gives us some clue to the mental characteristics or astronomical progress of the people who introduced the alterations. we shall find, indeed, in a subsequent chapter, that many of our conclusions as to the birth and growth of astronomy are derived from considerations connected with the various constellations, more especially those of the zodiac. with regard to the date when and the country where the constellations of the sphere were invented, we will here give what evidence we possess, independent of the origin of the zodiac. in the first place it seems capable of certain proof that they were not invented by the greeks, from whom we have received them, but adopted from an older source, and it is possible to give limits to the date of introduction among them. newton, who attributes its introduction to musæus, a contemporary of chiron, remarks, that it must have been settled _after_ the expedition of the argonauts, and _before_ the destruction of troy; because the greeks gave to the constellation names that were derived from their history and fables, and devoted several to celebrate the memory of the famous adventurers known as the argonauts, and they would certainly have dedicated some to the heroes of troy, if the siege of that place had happened at the time. we remark that at this time astronomy was in too infant a state in greece for them to have fixed with so much accuracy the position of the stars, and that we have in this a proof they must have borrowed their knowledge from older cultivators of the science. the various statements we meet with about the invention of the sphere may be equally well interpreted of its introduction only into greece. such, for instance, as that eudoxus first constructed it in the thirteenth or fourteenth century b.c., or that by clement of alexandria, that chiron was the originator. the oldest direct account of the names of the constellations and their component stars is that of hesiod, who cites by name in his _works and days_ the pleiades, arcturus, orion, and sirius. he lived, according to herodotus, about years before christ. the knowledge of all the constellations did not reach the greeks at the same time, as we have seen from the omission by homer of any mention of the little bear, when if he had known it, he could hardly have failed to speak of it. for in his description of the shield of achilles, he mentions the pleiades, the hyades, orion and the bear, "which alone does not bathe in the ocean." he could never have said this last if he had known of the dragon and little bear. we may then safely conclude that the greeks received the idea of the constellations from some older source, probably the chaldeans. they received it doubtless as a sphere, with figured, but nameless constellations; and the greeks by slight changes adapted them to represent the various real or imaginary heroes of their history. it would be a gracious task, for their countrymen would glory in having their great men established in the heavens. when they saw a ship represented, what more suitable than to name it the ship argo? the swan must be jupiter transformed, the lyre is that of orpheus, the eagle is that which carried away ganymede, and so on. this would be no more than what other nations have done, as, for example, the chinese, who made greater changes still, unless we consider theirs to have had an entirely independent origin. [illustration: fig. .] that the celestial sphere was a conception known to others than the greeks is easily proved. the arabians, for instance, certainly did not borrow it from them; yet they have the same things represented. above is a figure of a portion of an arabian sphere drawn in the eleventh century, where we get represented plainly enough the great and little bears, the dragon, cassiopeia, andromeda, perseus, with the triple head of medusa; the triangle, one of the fishes, auriga, the ram, the bull obscurely, and the twins. there is also the famous so-called zodiac of denderah, brought from egypt to paris. this in reality contains more constellations than those of the zodiac. most of the northern ones can be traced, with certain modifications. its construction is supposed to belong to the eighth century b.c. most conspicuous on it is the lion, in a kind of barque, recalling the shape of the hydra. below it is the calf isis, with sirius, or the dog-star, on the forehead; above it is the crab, to the right the twins, over these along instrument, the plough, and above that a small animal, the little bear, and so we may go on:--all the zodiacal constellations, especially the balance, the scorpion, and the fishes being very clear. this sphere is indeed of later date than that supposed for the grecian, but it certainly appears to be independent. the remains we possess of older spheres are more particularly connected with the zodiac, and will be discussed hereafter. from what people the greeks received the celestial sphere, is a question on which more than one opinion has been formed. one is that it was originated in the tropical latitudes of egypt. the other, that it came from the chaldeans, and a third that it came from more temperate latitudes further to the east. the arguments for the last of these are as follow: there is an empty space of about °, formed by the last constellations of the sphere, towards the south pole, that is by the centaur, the altar, the archer, the southern fish, the whale, and the ship. now in a systematic plan, if the author were situated near the equator there would be no vacant space left in this way, for in this case the southern stars, attracting as much attention as the northern, would be inevitably inserted in the system of constellations which would be extended to the horizon on all sides. but a country of sufficiently high latitude to be unable to see at any time the stars about the southern pole must be north both of egypt and chaldea. this empty space remained unfilled until the discovery of the cape of good hope, except that the star canopus was included in the constellation argo, and the river eridan had an arbitrary extension given to it, instead of terminating in latitude °. another less cogent argument is derived from the interpretation of the fable of the phoenix. this is supposed to represent the course of the sun, which commences its growth at the time of its death. a similar fable is found among the swedes. now a tropical nation would find the difference of days too little to lead it to invent such a fable to represent it. it must needs have arisen where the days of winter were very much shorter than those of summer. the book of zoroaster, in which some of the earliest notices of astronomy are recorded, states that the length of a summer day is twice as long as that of winter. this fixes the latitude in which that book must have been composed, and makes it °. whence it follows, that to such a place must we look for the origin of these spheres, and not to egypt or chaldea. [illustration: plate iii.--chaldean astronomers.] diodorus siculus speaks of a nation in that part of the world, whom he calls hyperboreans, who had a tradition that their country is the nearest to the moon, on which they discovered mountains like those on the earth, and that apollo comes there once every nineteen years. this period being that of the metonic cycle of the moon, shows that if this could have really been discovered by them, they must have had a long acquaintance with astronomy. the babylonian tablets lead us to the belief that astronomy, and with it the sphere, and the zodiac were introduced by a nation coming from the east, from the mountains of elam, called the accadians, before b.c., and these may have been the nation to whom the whole is due. on the other hand, the arguments for the egyptians, or chaldeans being the originators depend solely on the tradition handed down by many, that one or other are the oldest people in the world, with the oldest civilization, and they have long cultivated astronomy. more precise information, however, seems to render these traditions, to say the least, doubtful, and certainly incapable of overthrowing the arguments adduced above. chapter iv. the zodiac. the zodiac, as already stated, is the course in the heavens apparently pursued by the sun in his annual journey through the stars. let us consider for a moment, however, the series of observations and reflections that must have been necessary to trace this zone as representing such a course. first, the diurnal motion of the whole heavens from east to west must have been noticed during the night, and the fact that certain stars never set, but turn in a circle round a fixed point. what becomes then, the next question would be, of those stars that do descend beneath the horizon, since they rise in the same relative positions as those in which they set. they could not be thought to be destroyed, but must complete the part of the circle that is invisible _beneath the earth_. the possibility of any stars finding a path beneath the earth must have led inevitably to the conception of the earth as a body suspended in the centre with nothing to support it. but leaving this alone, it would also be concluded that the sun went with the stars, and was in a certain position among them, even when both they and it were invisible. the next observations necessary would be that the zodiacal constellations visible during the nights of winter were not the same as those seen in summer, that such and such a group of stars passed the meridian at midnight at a certain time, and that six months afterwards the group exactly opposite in the heavens passed at the same hour. now since at midnight the sun will be exactly opposite the meridian, if it continues uniformly on its course, it will be among that group of stars that is opposite the group that culminates at midnight, and so the sign of the zodiac the sun occupies would be determined. this method would be checked by comparisons made in the morning and evening with the constellations visible nearest to the sun at its rising and setting. the difficulty and indirectness of these observations would make it probable that originally the zodiac would be determined rather by the path of the moon, which follows nearly the same path as the sun, and which could be observed at the same time as, and actually associated with, the constellations. now the moon is found each night so far to the east of its position on the previous night that it accomplishes the whole circumference in twenty-seven days eight hours. the two nearest whole number of days have generally been reckoned, some taking twenty-eight, and others twenty-seven. the zodiac, or, as the chinese called it, the yellow way, was thus divided into twenty-eight parts, which were called _nakshatras_ (mansions, or hotels), because the moon remains in each of them for a period of twenty-four hours. these mansions were named after the brightest stars in each, though sometimes they went a long way off to fix upon a characteristic star, as in the sixteenth indian constellation, _vichaca_, which was named after the northern crown, in latitude °. this arose from the brightness of the moon extinguishing the light of those that lie nearest to it. this method of dividing the zodiac was very widely spread, and was common to almost all ancient nations. the chinese have twenty-eight constellations, but the word _siou_ does not mean a group of stars, but simply a mansion or hotel. in the coptic and ancient egyptian the word for constellation has the same meaning. they also had twenty-eight, and the same number is found among the arabians, persians, and indians. among the chaldeans, or accadians, we find no sign of the number twenty-eight. the ecliptic or "yoke of the sky," with them, as we see in the newly-discovered tablets, was divided into twelve divisions as now, and the only connection that can be imagined between this and the twenty-eight is the opinion of m. biot, who thinks that the chinese had originally only twenty-four mansions, four more being added by chenkung (b.c. ), and that they corresponded with the twenty-four stars, twelve to the north and twelve to the south, that marked the twelve signs of the zodiac among the chaldeans. but under this supposition the twenty-eight has no reference to the moon, whereas we have every reason to believe that it has. the siamese only reckoned twenty-seven, and occasionally inserted an extra one, called _abigitten_, or intercalary moon. they made use, moreover, of the constellations to tell the hour of the night by their position in the heavens, and their method of doing this appears to have involved their having twenty-eight constellations. the names of the twenty-eight divisions among the arabs were derived from parts of the larger constellations that made the twelve signs, the first being the horns, and the second the belly, of the ram. the twenty-eight divisions among the persians, of which we may notice that the second was formed by the pleiades, and called _pervis_, soon gave way to the twelve, the names of which, recorded in the works of zoroaster, and therefore not less ancient than he, were not quite the same as those now used. they were the lamb, the bull, the twins, the crab, the lion, the ear of corn, the balance, the scorpion, the bow, the sea-goat, the watering-pot, and the fishes. nor were the chinese continually bound to the number twenty-eight. they, too, had a zodiac for the sun as well as the moon, as may be seen on some very curious pieces of money, of which those figured below are specimens. [illustration: fig. .] on some of these the various constellations of the northern hemisphere are engraved, especially the great bear--under innumerable disguises--and on others the twelve signs of the zodiac. these are very different, however, from the grecian set--they are the mouse, the bull, the tiger, the hare, the dragon, the serpent, the horse, the ram, the monkey, the cock, the dog, and the pig. the japanese series were the same. the mongolians had a series of zodiacal coins struck in the reign of jehanjir shah ( ). he had pieces of gold stamped, representing the sun in the constellation of the lion; and some years afterwards other coins were made, with one side having the impress of the particular sign in which the sun happened to be when the coin was struck. in this way a series is preserved having all the twelve signs. tavernier tells the story that one of the wives of the sultan, wishing to immortalise herself, asked jehanjir to be allowed to reign for four-and-twenty hours, and took the opportunity to have a large quantity of new gold and silver zodiacal coins struck and distributed among the people. the twenty-eight divisions are less known now, simply from the fact that the greeks did not adopt them; but they were much used by the early asian peoples, who distinguished them, like the twelve, by a series of animals, and they are still used by the arabs. so far for the nature of the zodiac, as used in various countries, and as adopted from more ancient sources by the greeks and handed on to us. it is very remarkable that the arrangement of it, and its relation to the pole of the equator, carries with it some indication of the age in which it must have been invented, as we now proceed to show. we may remark, in the first place, that from very early times the centre of the zodiacal circle has been marked in the celestial sphere, though there is no remarkable star near the spot; and the centre of the equatorial circle, or pole, has been even less noticed, though much more obvious. we cannot perhaps conclude that the instability of the pole was known, but that the necessity for drawing the zodiac led to attention being paid to its centre. both the persians and the chinese noted in addition four bright stars, which they said watched over the rest, _taschter_ over the east, _sateris_ over the west, _venaud_ over the south, and _hastorang_ over the north. now we must understand these points to refer to the sun, the east being the spring equinox, the west the autumnal, and the north and south the summer and winter solstices. there are no stars of any brilliancy that we could now suppose referred to in these positions; but if we turn the zodiac through ° we shall find aldebaran, the antares, regulus, and fomalhaut, four stars of the first magnitude, pretty nearly in the right places. does the zodiac then turn in this way? the answer is, it does. the effect of the attraction of the sun and moon upon the equatorial protuberance of the earth is to draw it round from west to east by a very slow motion, and make the ecliptic cross the equator each year about one minute of arc to the east of where it crossed it the year before. so, then, the sidereal year, or interval between the times at which the sun is in a certain position amongst the stars, is longer than the solar year, or interval between the times at which the sun crosses the equator at the vernal equinox. now the sun's position in the zodiac refers to the former, his appearance at the equinox to the latter kind of year. each solar year then--and these are the years we usually reckon by--the equinox is at a point fifty seconds of arc to the east on the zodiac, an effect which is known by the name of the precession of the equinoxes. now it is plain that if it keeps moving continuously to the east it will at last come round to the same point again, and the whole period of its revolution can easily be calculated from the distance it moves each year. the result of such a calculation shows that the whole revolution is completed in , years, after which time all will be again as it is now in this respect. [illustration: fig. .] if we draw a figure of the zodiac, as below, and know that at this time the vernal equinox takes place when the sun is in the fishes, then, the constellation of the ram being to the west of this, the date at which the equinox was there must be before our present date, while at some time in the future it will be in aquarius. now if in any old description we find that the equinox is referred to as being in the ram or in the bull, it tells us at once how long ago such a description was a true one, and, therefore, when it was written. this is the way in which the zodiac carries with it an intimation of its date. thus in the example lately referred to of the persians and their four stars, it must have been about , years ago, according to the above calculation, that these were in the positions assigned, which is therefore the date of this part of persian astronomy, if we have rightly conjectured the stars referred to. we have already said that the signs of the zodiac are not now the same as the zodiacal constellations, and this is now easily understood. it is not worth while to say that the sun enters such and such a part of the fishes at the equinox, and changes every year. so the part of the heavens it _does_ then enter--be it fishes, or aquarius, or the ram--is called by the same name--and is called a _sign_; the name chosen is the ram or aries, which coincided with the constellation of that name when the matter was arranged. there is another equally important and instructive result of this precession of the equinox. for the earth's axis is always perpendicular to the plane of the equator, and if the latter moves, the former must too, and change its position with respect to the axis of the ecliptic, which remains immovable. and the ends of these axes, or the points they occupy among the stars, called their poles, will change in the same way; the pole of the equator, round which the heavens appear to move, describing a curve about the pole of the ecliptic; and since the ecliptic and equator are always _nearly_ at the same angle, this curve will be very nearly a circle, as represented on preceding page. [illustration: fig. .] now the pole of the equator is a very marked point in the heavens, because the star nearest to it appears to have no motion. if then we draw such a figure as above, so as to see where this pole would be at any given date, and then read in any old record that such and such a star had no motion, we know at once at what date such a statement must have been made. this means of estimating dates is less certain than the other, because any star that is nearer to the pole than any other will appear to have no motion _relatively_ to the rest, unless accurate measurements were made. nevertheless, when we have any reason to believe that observations were carefully made, and there is any evidence that some particular star was considered the pole star, we have some confidence in concluding the date, examples of which will appear in the sequel; and we may give one illustration now, though not a very satisfactory one. hipparchus cites a passage from the sphere of eudoxus, in which he says, _est vero stella quædam in eodem consistens loco, quæ quidem polus est mundi._ (there is a certain immovable star, which is the pole of the world.) now referring to our figure, we find that about b.c. the two stars, [greek: b] ursæ minoris and [greek: k] draconis were fairly near the pole, and this fact leads us to date the invention of this sphere at about this epoch, rather than a little before or a little after, although, of course, there is nothing in _this_ argument (though there may be in others), to prevent us dating it when [greek: a] draconis was near the pole, b.c. this star was indeed said by the chinese astronomers in the reign of hoangti to mark the pole, which gives a date to their observations. the chief use of this latter method is to _confirm_ our conclusions from the former, rather than to originate any. let us now apply our knowledge to the facts. in the first place we may notice that in the time of hipparchus the vernal equinox was in the first degree of the ram, from which our own arrangement has originated. hipparchus lived years b.c., or nearly , years ago, at which time the equinox was exactly at [greek: b] aries. secondly, there are many reasons for believing that at the time of the invention of the zodiac, indeed in the first dawning of astronomy, the bull was the first sign into which the sun entered at the vernal equinox. now it takes , years to retrograde through a sign, and therefore the bull might occupy this position any time between and b.c., and any nearer approximation must depend on our ability to fix on any particular _part_ of the constellation as the original equinoctial point. we may say that whoever invented the zodiac would no doubt make this point the _beginning_ of a sign, and therefore date its invention b.c.; or on the other hand, if it can be proved that the constellations were known and observed before this, we may have to put back the date to near the end of the sign, and make its last remarkable stars the equinoctial ones, say those in the horns of taurus. compare the line of virgil, "candidus auratis aperit cum cornibus annum taurus." the date in this case would be about b.c.--or once more some remarkable part of the constellation may give proof that its appearance with the sun commenced the year--and our date would be intermediate between these two. in fact, the remarkable group of stars known as the _pleiades_ actually does play this part. so much interest clusters, however, round this group, so much light is thrown by it on the past history of astronomical ideas--and so much new information has recently been obtained about it--that it requires a chapter to itself, and we shall therefore pass over its discussion here. let us now review some of the indications that some part of the constellation of the bull was originally the first sign of the zodiac. we need perhaps only mention the astrological books of the jews--the cabal--in which the bull is dealt with as the first zodiacal sign. among the persians, who designate the successive signs by the letters of the alphabet, _a_ stands for taurus, _b_ for the twins, and so on. the chinese attribute the commencement of the sun's apparent motion to the stars of taurus. in thebes is a sepulchral chamber with zodiacal signs, and taurus at the head of them. the zodiac of the pagoda of elephanta (salsette) commences with the same constellation. however, reasons have been given for assigning to the zodiac a still earlier date than this would involve. thus laplace writes:--"the names of the constellations of the zodiac have not been given to them by chance--they embody the results of a large number of researches and of astronomical systems. some of the names appear to have reference to the motion of the sun. the crab, for instance, and the he-goat, indicate its retrogression at the solstices. the balance marks the equality of the days and nights at the equinoxes, and the other names seem to refer to agriculture and to the climate of the country in which the zodiac was invented. the he-goat appears better placed at the highest point of the sun's course than the lowest. in this position, which it occupied fifteen thousand years ago, the balance was at the vernal equinox, and the zodiacal constellations match well with the climate and agriculture of egypt." if we examine this, however, we see that all that is probable in it is satisfied by the ram being at the vernal, and the balance at the autumnal equinox, which corresponds much better with other evidence. [illustration: the zodiac of denderah.] in the first instance, no doubt, the names of the zodiacal constellations would depend on the principal star or stars in each, and these stars and the portion of the ecliptic assigned to each may have been noticed before the stars round them were grouped into constellations with different names. in any case, the introduction of the zodiac into greece seems to have been subsequent to that of the celestial sphere, and not to have taken place more than five or six centuries before our era. eudemus, of rhodes, one of the most distinguished of the pupils of aristotle, and author of a history of astronomy, attributes the introduction of the zodiac to oenopides of chio, a contemporary of anaxagoras. they did not receive it complete, as at first it had only eleven constellations, one of them, the scorpion, being afterwards divided, to complete the necessary number. their zodiacal divisions too would have been more regular had they derived them directly from the east, and would not have stretched in some instances over ° to °, like the lion, the bull, the fishes, or the virgin--while the crab, the ram, and the he-goat, have only ° to °. nor would their constellations be disposed so irregularly, some to the north and some to the south of the ecliptic, nor some spreading out widely and others crammed close together, so that we see that they only borrowed the idea from the easterns, and filled it out with their ancient constellations. such is the opinion of humboldt. with regard to the origin of the names of the signs of the zodiac, we must remember that a certain portion of the zodiacal circle, and not any definite group of stars, forms each sign, and that the constellations may have been formed separately, and have received independent names, though afterwards receiving those of the sign in which they were. the only rational suggestion for the origin of the names is that they were connected with some events which took place, or some character of the sun's motion observed, when it was in each sign. thus we have seen that the balance may refer to equal nights and days (though only introduced among the _greeks_ in the time of hipparchus), and the crab to the retrogression or stopping of the sun at the solstice. the various pursuits of husbandry, having all their necessary times, which in the primeval days were determined by the positions of the stars, would give rise to more important names. thus the ethiopian, at thebes, would call the stars that by their rising at a particular time indicated the inundation, aquarius, or the waterer; those beneath which it was necessary to put the plough to the earth, the bull stars. the lion stars would be those at whose appearance this formidable animal, driven from the deserts by thirst, showed himself on the borders of the river. those of the ear of corn, or the virgin of harvest, those beneath which the harvest was to be gathered in; and the sign of the goat, that in which the sun was when these animals were born. there can be but little doubt but that such was the origin of the names imposed, and for a time they would be understood in that sense. but afterwards, when time was more accurately kept, and calendars regulated, without each man studying the stars for himself, when the precession of the equinoxes made the periods not exactly coincide, the original meaning would be lost, the stars would be associated with the animals, as though there was a real bull, a real lion, &c., in the heavens; and then the step would be easy to represent these by living animals, whom they would endow with the heavenly attributes of what they represented; and so the people came at last to pray to and worship the several creatures for the sake of their supposed influence. they asked of the ram from their flocks the influences they thought depended on the constellation. they prayed the scorpion not to spread his evil venom on the world; they revered the crab, the scarabæus, and the fish, without perceiving the absurdity of it. it is certain at least that the gods of many nations are connected or are identical with the signs of the zodiac, and it seems at least more reasonable to suppose the former derived from the latter than _vice versâ_. among the greeks indeed, who had, so to speak, their gods ready made before they borrowed the idea of the zodiac, the process appears to have been the reverse, they made the signs to represent as far as they could their gods. in the more pastoral peoples, however, of the east, and in egypt, this process can be very clearly traced. among the jews there seems to be some remarkable connection between their patriarchs and these signs, though the history of that connection may not well be made out. the twelve signs are mentioned as being worshipped, along with the sun and moon, in the book of kings. but what is more remarkable is the dream of joseph, in which the sun and moon and the other eleven stars worshipped him, coupled with the various designations or descriptions given to each son in the blessing of jacob. in reuben we have the man who is said to be "unstable as water," in which we may recognise aquarius. in simeon and levi "the brethren," we trace the twins. judah is the "lion." zebulun, "that dwells at the haven of the sea," represents fishes. issachar is the bull, or "strong ass couching down between two burdens." dan, "the serpent by the way, the adder in the path," represents the scorpion. gad is the ram, the leader to a flock or troop of sheep. asher the balance, as the weigher of bread. naphtali, "the hind let loose," is the capricorn, joseph the archer, whose bow abode in strength. brujanin the crab, changing from morning to evening, and dinah, the only daughter, represents the virgin. there is doubtless something far-fetched in some of these comparisons, but when we consider the care with which the number twelve was retained, and that the four chief tribes carried on their sacred standards these very signs--namely, judah a lion, reuben a man, ephraim a bull, and dan a scorpion--and notice the numerous traces of astronomical culture in the jewish ceremonies, the seven lights of the candlestick, the twelve stones of the high priest, the feasts at the two equinoxes, the ceremonies connected with a ram and a bull, we cannot doubt that there is something more than chance in the matter, but rather conclude that we have an example of the process by which, in the hands of the egyptians themselves, astronomical representations became at last actually deified. it has been thought possible indeed to assign definitely each god of the egyptians to one of the twelve zodiacal signs. the ram was consecrated to jupiter ammon, who was represented with a ram's head and horns. the bull became the god apis, who was worshipped under that similitude. the twins correspond to horus and harpocrates, two sons of osiris. the crab was consecrated to anubis or mercury. the lion belonged to the summer sun, osiris; the virgin to isis. the balance and the scorpion were included together under the name of scorpion, which animal belongs to typhon, as did all dangerous animals. the archer was the image of hercules, for whom the egyptians had great veneration. the capricorn was consecrated to pan or mendes. the waterer--or man carrying a water-pot--is found on many egyptian monuments. this process of deification was rendered easier by the custom they had of celebrating a festival each month, under the name _neomenia_. they characterised the neomenias of the various months by making the animal whose sign the sun was entering accompany the isis which announced the _fête_. they were not content with a representation only, but had the animal itself. the dog, being the symbol of cannulus, with which the year commenced, a living dog was made to head the ceremonial of the first neomenia. diodorus testifies to this as an eye-witness. these neomenias thus came to be called the festival of the bull, of the ram, the dog, or the lion. that of the ram would be the most solemn and important in places where they dealt much in sheep. that of the bull in the fat pasture-lands of memphis and lower egypt. that of capella would be brilliant at mendes, where they bred goats more than elsewhere. we may fortify these opinions by a quotation from lucian, who gives expression to them very clearly. "it is from the divisions of the zodiac," he says, "that the crowd of animals worshipped in egypt have had their origin. some employed one constellation, and some another. those who used to consult that of the ram came to adore a ram. those who took their presages from the fishes would not eat fish. the goat was not killed in places were they observed capricornus, and so on, according to the stars whose influence they cared most for. if they adored a bull it was certainly to do honour to the celestial bull. the apis, which was a sacred object with them, and wandered at liberty through the country, and for which they founded an oracle, was the astrological symbol of the bull that shone in the heavens." [illustration: plate iv.--the zodiac and the dead in egypt.] their use of the zodiac is illustrated in an interesting manner by a mummy found some years ago in egypt. at the bottom of the coffin was found painted a zodiac, something like that of denderah; underneath the lid, along the body of a great goddess, were drawn eleven signs, but with that of _capricornus_ left out. the inscription showed that the mummy was that of a young man, aged years, months, and days, who died the th year of trajan, on the th of the month pazni, which corresponds to the nd of june, a.d. . the embalmed was therefore born on the th of january, a.d. , at which time the sun was in the constellation of capricornus. this shows that the zodiac was the representation of the astrological theories about the person embalmed, who was doubtless a person of some importance. (see plate iv.) any such use as this, however, must have been long subsequent to the invention of the signs themselves, as it involves a much more complicated idea. chapter v. the pleiades. among the most remarkable of the constellations is a group of seven stars arranged in a kind of triangular cluster, and known as the pleiades. it is not, strictly speaking, one of the constellations, as it forms only part of one. we have seen that one of the ancient signs of the zodiac is the bull, or taurus; the group of stars we are now speaking of forms part of this, lying towards the eastern part in the shoulders of the bull. the pleiades scarcely escape anybody's observation now, and we shall not be, therefore, surprised that they have always attracted great attention. so great indeed has been the attention paid to them that festivals and seasons, calendars and years, have by many nations been regulated by their rising or culmination, and they have been thus more mixed up with the early history of astronomy, and have left more marks on the records of past nations, than any other celestial object, except the sun and moon. the interesting details of the history of the pleiades have been very carefully worked out by r. g. haliburton, f.s.a., to whom we owe the greater part of the information we possess on the subject.[ ] let us first explain what may be observed with respect to the pleiades. it is a group possessing peculiar advantages for observation; it is a compact group, the whole will appear at once; and it is an unmistakable group and it is near the equator, and is therefore visible to observers in either hemisphere. now suppose the sun to be in the same latitude as the pleiades on some particular day; owing to the proximity of the group to the ecliptic, it will be then very near the sun, and it will set with it and be invisible during the night. if the sun were to the east of the pleiades they would have already set, and the first view of the heavens at sunset would not contain this constellation; and so it would be so long as the sun was to the east, or for nearly half a year; though during some portion of this time it would rise later on in the night. during the other half year, while the sun was to the west, the pleiades would be visible at sunset, and we immediately see how they are thus led to divide the whole year into two portions, one of which might be called _the pleiades below_, and the other _the pleiades above_. it is plain that the pleiades first become visible at sunset, when they are then just rising, in which case they will culminate a little after midnight (not at midnight, on account of the twilight) and be visible all night. this will occur when the sun is about half a circle removed from them--that is, at this time, about the beginning of november; which would thus be the commencement of one half of the year, the other half commencing in may. the culmination of the pleiades at midnight takes place a few days later, when they rise at the time that the sun is really on the horizon, in which case they are exactly opposite to it; and this will happen on the same day all over the earth. the opposite effect to this would be when the sun was close to the pleiades--a few days before which the latter would be just setting after sunset, and a few days after would be just rising before sunrise. [ ] mr. haliburton's observations are contained in an interesting pamphlet, entitled _new materials for the history of man_, which is quoted by prof. piazzi smyth, but which is not easy to obtain. it may be seen, however, in the british museum. we have thus the following observations, that might be made with respect to this, or any other well-marked constellation. first, the period during which it was visible at sunset; secondly, the date of its culmination at midnight; thirdly, its setting in the evening; and fourthly, its rising in the morning: the last two dates being nearly six months removed from the second. there are also the dates of its culmination at sunrise and sunset, which would divide these intervals into two equal halves. on account of the precession of the equinoxes, as explained in the last chapter, the time at which the sun has any particular position with respect to the stars, grows later year by year in relation to the equinoctial points. and as we regulate our year by the date of the sun's entrance on the northern hemisphere, the sidereal dates, as we may call them, keep advancing on the months. as, however, the change is slow, it has not prevented years being commenced and husbandry being regulated by the dates above mentioned. any date that is regulated by the stars we might expect to be nearly the same all over the world, and the customs observed to be universal, though the date itself might alter, and in this way. so long as the date was directly obtained from the position of the star, all would agree; but as soon as a solar calendar was arranged, and it was found that at that time this position coincided with a certain day, say the pleiades culminating at midnight on november , then some would keep on the date november as the important day, even when the pleiades no longer culminated at midnight then, and others would keep reckoning by the stars, and so have a different date. with these explanations we shall be able to recognise how much the configurations of the pleiades have had to do with the festivals and calendars of nations, and have even left their traces on customs and names in use among ourselves to the present day. we have evidences from two very different quarters of the universality of the division of the year into two parts by means of the pleiades. on the one hand we learn from hesiod that the greeks commenced their winter seasons in his days by the setting of the pleiades in the morning, and the summer season by their rising at that time. and mr. ellis, in his _polynesian researches_, tells us that "the society islanders divided the year into two seasons of the pleiades, or _matarii_. the first they called _matarii i nia_, or the _pleiades above_. it commenced when, in the evening, these stars appeared at or near the horizon, and the half year during which, immediately after sunset, they were seen above the horizon was called _matarii i nia_. the other season commenced when at sunset these stars are invisible, and continued until at that time they appeared again above the horizon. this season was called _matarii i raro_, i.e. _the pleiades below_." besides these direct evidences we shall find that many semi-annual festivals connected with these stars indicate the commencement of the two seasons among other nations. one of these festivals was of course always taken for the commencement of the year, and much was made of it as new-year's day. a new-year's festival connected with and determined by the pleiades appears to be one of the most universal of all customs; and though some little difficulty arises, as we have already pointed out, in fixing the date with reference to solar calendars, and differences and coincidences in this respect among different nations may be to a certain extent accidental, yet the fact of the wide-spread observance of such a festival is certain and most interesting. the actual observance at the present day of this festival is to be found among the australian savages. at their midnight culmination in november, they still hold a new-year's _corroboree_, in honour of the _mormodellick_, as they call the pleiades, which they say are "very good to the black fellows." with them november is somewhat after the beginning of spring, but in former days it would mark the actual commencement, and the new year would be regulated by the seasons. in the northern hemisphere this culmination of the pleiades has the same relation to the autumnal equinox, which would never be taken as the commencement of the year; and we must therefore look to the southern hemisphere for the origin of the custom; especially as we find the very pleiades themselves called _vergiliæ_, or stars of spring. of course we might suppose that the rising of the constellation in the _morning_ had been observed in the northern hemisphere, which would certainly have taken place in the beginning of spring some , years ago; but this seems improbable, first, because it is unlikely that different phenomena of the pleiades should have been most noticed, and secondly, because neither april nor may are among any nations connected with this constellation by name. whereas in india the year commenced in the month they called _cartiguey_, which means the pleiades. among the ancient egyptians we find the same connection between _athar-aye_, the name of the pleiades, with the chaldeans and hebrews, and _athor_ in the egyptian name of november. the arabs also call the constellation _atauria_. we shall have more to say on this etymology presently, but in the meantime we learn that it was the phenomenon connected with the pleiades at or about november that was noticed by all ancient nations, from which we must conclude that the origin of the new-year's spring festival came from the southern hemisphere. there is some corroboration of this in the ancient traditions as to the stars having changed their courses. in the southern hemisphere a man standing facing the position of the sun at noon would see the stars rise on his right hand and move towards his left. in the northern hemisphere, if he also looked in the direction of the sun at noon, he would see them rise on his left hand. now one of a race migrating from one side to the other of the equator would take his position from the sun, and fancy he was facing the same way when he looked at it at noon, and so would think the motion of the stars to have altered, instead of his having turned round. such a tradition, then, seems to have arisen from such a migration, the fact of which seems to be confirmed by the calling the pleiades stars of spring, and commencing the year with their culmination at midnight. in order to trace this new-year's festival into other countries, and by this means to show its connection with the pleiades, we must remark that every festival has its peculiar features and rites, and it is by these that we must recognise it, where the actual date of its occurrence has slightly changed; bearing, of course, in mind that the actual change of date must not be too great to be accounted for by the precession of the equinoxes, or about seventy-one years for each day of change, since the institution of the festival, and that the change is in the right direction. now we find that everywhere this festival of the pleiades' culmination at midnight (or it may be of the slightly earlier one of their first appearance at the horizon at apparent sunset) was always connected with the memory of the dead. it was a "feast of ancestors." among the australians themselves, the _corroborees_ of the natives are connected with a worship of the dead. they paint a white stripe over their arms, legs, and ribs, and, dancing by the light of their fires by night, appear like so many skeletons rejoicing. what is also to be remarked, the festival lasts three days, and commences in the evening; the latter a natural result of the date depending on the appearance of the pleiades on the horizon at that time. the society islanders, who, as we have seen, divided their year by the appearance of the pleiades at sunset, commenced their year on the first day of the appearance, about november, and also celebrated the closing of one and the opening of a new year by a "usage resembling much the popish custom of mass for souls in purgatory," each man returning to his home to offer special prayers for the spirits of departed relatives. in the tonga islands, which belong to the fiji group, the festival of _inachi_, a vernal first-fruits' celebration, and also a commemoration of the dead takes place towards the end of october, and commences at sunset. in peru the new-year's festival occurs in the beginning of november, and is "called _ayamarca_ from _aya_, a corpse, and _marca_, carrying in arms, because they celebrated the solemn festival of the dead, with tears, lugubrious songs, and plaintive music; and it was customary to visit the tombs of relations, and to leave in them food and drink." the fact that this took place at the time of the discovery of peru on the very same day as a similar ceremony takes place in europe, was only an accidental coincidence, which is all the more remarkable because the two appear, as will be seen in the sequel, to have had the same origin, and therefore at first the same date, and to have altered from it by exactly the same amount. these instances from races south of the equator prove clearly that there exists a very general connection with new-year's day, as determined by the rising of the pleiades at sunset, and a festival of the dead; and in some instances with an offering of first-fruits. what the origin of this connection may be is a more difficult matter. at first sight one might conjecture that with the year that was passed it was natural to connect the men that had passed away; and this may indeed be the true interpretation: but there are traditions and observances which may be thought by some to point to some ancient wide-spread catastrophe which happened at this particular season, which they yearly commemorated, and reckoned a new year from each commemoration. such traditions and observances we shall notice as we trace the spread of this new-year's festival of the dead among various nations, and its connection, with the pleiades. we have seen that in india november is called the month of the pleiades. now on the th day of that month is celebrated the hindoo durga, a festival of the dead, and said by greswell to have been a new-year's commemoration at the earliest time to which indian calendars can be carried back. among the ancient egyptians the same day was very noticeable, and they took care to regulate their solar calendars that it might remain unchanged. numerous altered calendars have been discovered, but they are all regulated by this one day. this was determined by the culmination of the pleiades at midnight. on this day commenced the solemn festival of the isia, which, like the _corroborees_ of the australians, lasted three days, and was celebrated in honour of the dead, and of osiris, the lord of tombs. now the month athyr was undoubtedly connected with the pleiades, being that "in which the pleiades are most distinct"--that is, in which they rise near and before sunset. among the egyptians, however, more attention was paid to astronomy than amongst the savage races with which the year of the pleiades would appear to have originated, and they studied very carefully the connection between the positions of the stars and the entrance of the sun into the northern hemisphere, and regulated their calendar accordingly; as we shall see shortly in speaking of the pyramid builders. the persians formerly called the month of november _mordâd_, the angel of death, and the feast of the dead took place at the same time as in peru, and was considered a new-year's festival. it commenced also in the evening. in ceylon a combined festival of agriculture and of the dead takes place at the beginning of november. among the better known of the ancient nations of the northern hemispheres, such as the greeks and romans, the anomaly of having the beginning of the year at the autumnal equinox seems to have induced them to make a change to that of spring, and with this change has followed the festival of the dead, although some traces of it were left in november. the commemoration of the dead was connected among the egyptians with a deluge, which was typified by the priest placing the image of osiris in a sacred coffer or ark, and launching it out into the sea till it was borne out of sight. now when we connect this fact, and the celebration taking place on the th day of athyr, with the date on which the mosaic account of the deluge of noah states it to have commenced, "in the second month (of the jewish year, which corresponds to november), the th day of the month," it must be acknowledged that this is no chance coincidence, and that the precise date here stated must have been regulated by the pleiades, as was the egyptian date. this coincidence is rendered even stronger by the similiarity of traditions among the two nations concerning the dove and the tree as connected with the deluge. we find, however, no festival of the dead among the hebrews; their better form of faith having prevented it. we have not as yet learnt anything of the importance of the pleiades among the ancient babylonian astronomers, but as through their tablets we have lately become acquainted with their version of the story of the deluge, we may be led in this way to further information about their astronomical appreciation of this constellation. from whatever source derived, it is certain that the celtic races were partakers in this general culture, we might almost call it, of the pleiades, as shown by the time and character of their festival of the dead. this is especially interesting to ourselves, as it points to the origin of the superstitions of the druids, and accounts for customs remaining even to this day amongst us. [illustration: plate v.--the legends of the druids.] the first of november was with the druids a night full of mystery, in which they annually celebrated the reconstruction of the world. a terrible rite was connected with this; for the druidess nuns were obliged at this time to pull down and rebuild each year the roof of their temple, as a symbol of the destruction and renovation of the world. if one of them, in bringing the materials for the new roof, let fall her sacred burden, she was lost. her companions, seized with a fanatic transport, rushed upon her and tore her to pieces, and scarcely a year is said to have passed without there being one or more victims. on this same night the druids extinguished the sacred fire, which was kept continually burning in the sacred precincts, and at that signal all the fires in the island were one by one put out, and a primitive night reigned throughout the land. then passed along to the west the phantoms of those who had died during the preceding year, and were carried away by boats to the judgment-seat of the god of the dead. (plate v.) although druidism is now extinct, the relics of it remain to this day, for in our calendar we still find november marked as all saints' day, and in the pre-reformation calendars the last day of october was marked all hallow eve, and the nd of november as all souls'; indicating clearly a three days' festival of the dead, commencing in the evening, and originally regulated by the pleiades--an emphatic testimony how much astronomy has been mixed up with the rites and customs even of the english of to-day. in former days the relics were more numerous, in the hallowe'en torches of the irish, the bonfires of the scotch, the _coel-coeth_ fires of the welsh, and the _tindle_ fires of cornwall, all lighted on hallowe'en. in france it still lingers more than here, for to this very day the parisians at this festival repair to the cemeteries, and lunch at the graves of their ancestors. if the extreme antiquity of a rite can be gathered from the remoteness of the races that still perform it, the fact related to us by prescott in his _history of the conquest of mexico_ cannot fail to have great interest. there we find that the great festival of the mexican cycle was held in november, at the time of the midnight culmination of the pleiades. it began at sunset, and at midnight as that constellation approached the zenith, a human victim, was offered up, to avert the dread calamity which they believed impended over the human race. they had a tradition that the world had been previously destroyed at this time, and they were filled with gloom and dismay, and were not at rest until the pleiades were seen to culminate, and a new cycle had begun; this great cycle, however, was only accomplished in fifty-two years. it is possible that the festival of lanthorns among the japanese, which is celebrated about november, may be also connected with this same day, as it is certain that that nation does reckon days by the pleiades. these instances of a similar festival at approximately the same period of the year, and regulated (until fixed to a particular day in a solar calendar) by the midnight culmination of the pleiades, show conclusively how great an influence that constellation has had on the manners and customs of the world, and throw some light on the history of man. even where we find no festival connected with the particular position of the pleiades which is the basis of the above, they still are used for the regulation of the seasons--as amongst the dyaks of borneo. this race of men are guided in their farming operations by this constellation. "when it is low in the east at early morning, before sunrise, the elders know it is time to cut down the jungle; when it approaches mid-heaven, then it is time to burn what they have cut down; when it is declining towards the west, then they plant; and when in the early evening it is seen thus declining, then they may reap in safety and in peace;" the latter period is also that of their feast of _nycapian_, or first-fruits. we find the same regulations amongst the ancient greeks in the days of hesiod, who tells us that the corn is to be cut when the pleiades rise, and ploughing is to be done when they set. also that they are invisible for forty days, and reappear again at harvest. when the pleiades rise, the care of the vine must cease; and when, fleeing from orion, they are lost in the waves, sailing commences to be dangerous. the name, indeed, by which we now know these stars is supposed to be derived from the word [greek: plein], to sail--because sailing was safe after they had risen; though others derive it from [greek: peleiai], a flight of doves. any year that is regulated by the pleiades, or by any other group of stars, must, as we have seen before, be what is called a sidereal, and not a solar year. now a year in uncivilised countries can only mean a succession of seasons, as is illustrated by the use of the expression "a person of so many summers." it is difficult of course to say when any particular season begins by noticing its characteristics as to weather; even the most regular phenomena are not certain enough for that; we cannot say that when the days and nights become exactly equal any marked change takes place in the temperature or humidity of the atmosphere, or in any other easily-noticed phenomena. the day therefore on which spring commences is arbitrary, except that, inasmuch as spring depends on the position of the sun, its commencement, ought to be regulated by that luminary, and not by some star-group which has no influence in the matter. nevertheless the position of such a group is much more easily observed, and in early ages could almost alone be observed; and so long as the midnight culmination of the pleiades--judged of, it must be noticed, by their appearance _on the horizon_ at sunset--fairly coincided with that state of weather which might be reckoned the commencement of spring conditions, no error would be detected, because the change in their position is so slow. the solar spring is probably a later discovery, which now, from its greater reasonableness and constancy, has superseded the old one. but since the time of the sun's crossing the equator is the natural commencement of spring, whether discovered or not, it is plain that no group of stars could be taken as a guide instead, if their indication did not approximately coincide with this. if then we can determine the exact date at which the pleiades indicated by their midnight culmination the sun's passage across the equator, we can be sure that the spring could only have been regulated by this during, say, a thousand years at most, on either side of this date. it is very certain that if the method of reckoning spring by the stars had been invented at a more remote date, some other set of stars would have been chosen instead. now when was this date? it is a matter admitting of certain calculation, depending only on numbers derived from observation in our own days and records of the past few centuries, and the answer is that this date is about b.c. we have seen that, though it was probably brought from the southern hemisphere, the egyptians adopted the year of the pleiades, and celebrated the new-year's festival of the dead; but they were also advanced astronomers, and would soon find out the change that took place in the seasons when regulated by the stars. and to such persons the date at which the two periods coincided, or at least were exactly half a year apart, would be one of great importance and interest, and there seems to be evidence that they did commemorate it in a very remarkable manner. the evidence, however, is all circumstantial, and the conclusion therefore can only claim probability. the evidence is as follows:--the most remarkable buildings of egypt are the pyramids. these are of various sizes and importance, but are built very much after the same plan. they seem, however, to be all copies from one, the largest, namely, the pyramid of gizeh, and to be of subsequent date to this. their object has long been a puzzle, and the best conclusion has been supposed to be that they were for sepulchral purposes, as in some of them coffins have been found. the large one, however, shows far more than the rest of the structure, and cannot have been meant for a funeral pile alone. its peculiarities come out on a careful examination and measurement such as it has been subjected to at the devoted hands of piazzi smyth, the astronomer royal for scotland. he has shown that it is not built at random, as a tomb might be, but it is adjusted with exquisite design, and with surprising accuracy. in the first place it lies due north, south, east, and west, and the careful ascertainment of the meridian of the place, by modern astronomical instruments, could not suggest any improvement in its position in this respect. the outside of it is now, so to speak, pealed, that is to say, there was originally, covering the whole, another layer of stones which have been taken away. these stones, which were of a different material, were beautifully polished, as some of the remaining ones, now covered and concealed, can testify. the angle at which they are cut, and which of course gives the angle and elevation of the whole pyramid, is such that the height of it is in the same proportion to its circumference or perimeter, as the radius of a circle is to its circumference approximately. the height, in fact, is proved by measurement and observation to be ft., and the four sides together to be , ft., or about - / times the height. it does not seem improbable that, considering their advancement, the egyptians might have calculated approximately how much larger the circumference of the circle is than its diameter, and it is a curious coincidence that the pyramid expresses it. professor piazzi smyth goes much further and believes that they knew, or were divinely taught, the shape and size of the earth, and by a little manipulation of the length of their unit, or as he expresses it the "pyramid inch," he makes the base of the pyramid express the number of miles in the diameter of the earth. now in the interior of the apparently solid structure, besides the usual slanting passage down to a kind of cellar or vault beneath the middle of the base, which may have been used for a sepulchral resting-place, there are two slanting passages, one running north and the other running south, and slanting up at different angles. part of that which leads south is much enlarged, and is known as the grand gallery. it is of a very remarkable shape, being perfectly smooth and polished along its ascending base, as indeed it is in every part, and having a number of steps or projections, pointing also upwards at certain angles, very carefully maintained. whether we understand its use or not, it is very plain that it has been made with a very particular design, and one not easily comprehended. this leads into a chamber known as the king's chamber, whose walls are exquisitely polished and which contains a coffer known as _cheops' coffin_. this coffer has been villainously treated by travellers, who have chipped and damaged it, but originally it was very carefully made and polished. it is too large to have been brought in by the only entrance into the chamber after it was finished, and therefore is obviously no coffin at all, as is proved also by the elaborateness of the means of approach. professor piazzi smyth has made the happy suggestion that it represents their standard of length and capacity, and points out the remarkable fact that it contains exactly as much as four quarters of our dry measure. as no one has ever suggested what our "quarters" are quarters of, professor smyth very naturally supplies the answer--"of the contents of the pyramid coffer." there are various other measurements that have been made by the same worker, and their meaning suggested in his interesting book, _our inheritance in the great pyramid_, which we may follow or agree to as we can; but from all that has been said above, it will appear probable that this pyramid was built with a definite design to mark various natural phenomena or artificial measures, which is all we require for our present purpose. now we come to the question, what is the meaning of the particular angles at which the north-looking and south-looking passages rise, if, as we now believe, they must have _some_ meaning. the exits of these passages were closed, and they could not therefore have been for observation, but they may have been so arranged as to be a memorial of any remarkable phenomena to be seen in those directions. to ascertain if there be any such to which they point, we must throw back the heavens to their position in the days of the egyptians, because, as we have seen, the precession of the equinoxes alters the meridian altitude of every star. as the passages point north and south, if they refer to any star at all, it must be to their passing the meridian. now let us take the heavens as they were b.c., the date at which the pleiades _really_ commenced the spring, by their midnight culmination, and ask how high they would be then. the answer of astronomy is remarkable--"_exactly at that height that they could be seen in the direction of the southward-pointing passage of the pyramid._" and would any star then be in a position to be seen in the direction of the other or northward-looking passage? yes, the largest star in the constellation of the dragon, which would be so near the pole ( ° ´) as to be taken as the pole star in those days. these are such remarkable coincidences in a structure admittedly made with mathematical accuracy and design, and truly executed, that we cannot take them to be accidental, but must endeavour to account for them. the simplest explanation seems to be, that everything in the pyramid is intended to represent some standard or measure, and that these passages have to do with their year. they had received the year of the pleiades from a remoter antiquity than their own, they had discovered the true commencement of solar spring, as determined from the solar autumnal equinox, and they commemorated by the building of the pyramid the coincidence of the two dates, making passages in it which would have no meaning except at that particular time. whether the pyramid was built _at that time_, or whether their astronomical knowledge was sufficient to enable them to predict it and build accordingly, just as we calculate back to it, we have no means of knowing. it is very possible that the pyramid may have been built by some immigrating race more learned in astronomy, like the accadians among the babylonians. either the whole of the conclusions respecting the pyramid is founded on pure imagination and the whole work upon it thrown away, or we have here another very remarkable proof of the influence of the pleiades on the reckoning of the year, and a very interesting chapter in the history of the heavens. following the guidance of mr. haliburton, we shall find still more customs, and names depending in all probability on the influence the pleiades once exerted, and the observances connected with the feasts in their honour. the name by which the pleiades are known among the polynesians is the "tau," which means a season, and they speak of the years of the tau, that is of the pleiades. now we have seen that the egyptians had similar feasts at similar times, in relation to this constellation, and argued that they did not arise independently. this seems still further proved by their name for these stars--the atauria. now the egyptians do not appear to have derived their signs of the zodiac from the same source; these had a babylonian origin, and the constellation in which the pleiades were placed by the latter people was the bull, by whatever name he went. the egyptians, we may make the fair surmise, adopted from both sources; they took the pleiades to indicate the bull, and they called this animal after the atauria. from thence we got the latin taurus, and the german thier. it is possible that this somehow got connected with the letter "tau" in greek, which seems itself connected with the sacred scarabæus or tau-beetle of egypt; but the nature of the connection is by no means obvious. mr. haliburton even suggests that the "tors" and "arthur's seat," which are names given to british hill-tops, may be connected with the "high places," of the worship of the pleiades, but of this we have no proof. among the customs possibly derived from the ancients, through the phoenicians, though now adopted as conveying a different meaning in a christian sense, is that of the "hot cross bun," or "bull cake." it is found on egyptian monuments, signifying the four quarters of the year, and sometimes stamped with the head and horns of the bull. it is found among ourselves too, essentially connected with the dead, and something similar to it appears in the "soul cake" connected originally with all souls' day. among the scotch it was traditionally thought that on new year's eve the candlemas bull can be seen, rising at twilight and sailing over the heavens--a very near approach to a matter-of-fact statement. we have seen that among the ancient indians there was some notice taken of the pleiades, and that they in all probability guided their year by them or by some other stars: it would therefore behove them to know something of the precession of the equinoxes. it seems very well proved that their days of brahma and other periods were meant to represent some astronomical cycles, and among these we find one that is applicable to the above. they said that in every thousand divine ages, or in every day of brahma, fourteen menus are successively invested with the sovereignty of the earth. each menu transmits his empire to his sons during seventy-one divine ages. we may find a meaning for this by putting it that the equinox goes forward fourteen days in each thousand years, and each day takes up seventy-one years. these may not be the only ones among the various customs, sayings, and names that are due in one way or other to this primitive method of arranging the seasons by the positions of the stars, especially of those most remarkable and conspicuous ones the pleiades, but they are those that are best authenticated. if the connection between the pleiades and the festival of the dead, the new year and a deluge, can be clearly made out; if the tradition of the latter be found as universal as that of the former, and be connected with it in the mosaic narrative; if we can trace all these traditions to the south of the equator, and find numerous further traditions connected with islands, we may find some reason for believing in their theory who suggest that the early progenitors of the human race (? all of them) were inhabitants of some fortunate islands of even temperature in the southern hemisphere, where they made some progress in civilisation, but that their island was swallowed up by the sea, and that they only escaped by making huge vessels, and, being carried by the waves, they landed on continental shores, where they commemorated yearly the great catastrophe that had happened to them, notifying its time by the position of the pleiades, making it a feast of the dead whom they had left behind, and opening the year with the day, whether it were spring or not, and handing down to their descendants and to those among whom they came, the traditions and customs which such events had impressed upon them. whether such an account be probable, mythical, or unnatural, there are certainly some strange things to account for in connection with the pleiades. chapter vi. the nature and structure of the heavens according to the ancients. many and various have been the ideas entertained by reflecting men in former times on the nature and construction of the heavenly vault, wherein appeared those stars and constellations whose history we have already traced. is it solid? or liquid? or gaseous? each of these and many other suppositions have been duly formulated by the ancient philosophers and sages, although, as we are told by modern astronomy, it does not exist at all. in our study of the ancient ideas about the structure of the universe, we will commence with that early and curious system which considered the heavenly vault to be material and solid. the theory of a solid sky received the assent of all the most ancient philosophers. in his commentary on aristotle's work on the heavens, simplicius reveals the repugnance the ancient philosophers felt in admitting that a star could stand alone in space, or have a free motion of its own. it must have a support, and they therefore conceived that the sky must be solid. however strange this idea may now appear, it formed for many centuries the basis of all astronomical theories. thus anaximenas (in the sixth century b.c.) is related by plutarch to have said that "the outer sky is solid and crystalline," and that the stars are "fixed to its surface like studs," but he does not say on what this opinion was founded, though it is probable that, like his master anaximander, he could not understand how the stars could move without being supported. pythagoras, who lived about the same epoch, is also supposed by some to have held the same views, and it is possible that they all borrowed these ideas from the persians, whose earliest astronomers are said in the _zend avesta_ to have believed in concentric solid skies. eudoxus of cnidus, in the fifth century b.c., is said by his commentator aratus to have also believed in the solidity of the heavens, but his reasons are not assigned. notwithstanding these previously expressed opinions, aristotle (fourth century, b.c.) has for a long time been generally supposed to be the inventor of solid skies, but in fact he only gave the idea his valuable and entire support. the sphere of the stars was his eighth heaven. the less elevated heavens, in which he also believed, were invented to explain as well as they might, the proper motions of the sun, moon, and planets. the philosopher of stagira said that the motion of his eighth or outermost solid sky was uniform, nor ever troubled by any perturbation. "within the universe there is," he says, "a fixed and immovable centre, the earth; and without there is a bounding surface enclosing it on all sides. the outermost part of the universe is the sky. it is filled with heavenly bodies which we know as stars, and it has a perpetual motion, carrying round with it these immortal bodies in its unaltering and unending revolution." euclid, to whom we may assign a date of about before our present era, also considered the stars to be set in a solid sphere, having the eye of the observer as centre; though for him this conception was simply a deduction from exact and fundamental observations, namely, that their revolution took place as a whole, the shape and size of the constellation being never altered. cicero, in the last century before christ, declared himself a believer in the solidity of the sky. according to him the ether was too rarefied to enable it to move the stars, which must therefore require to be fixed to a sphere of their own, independent of the ether. in the time of seneca there seem to have been difficulties already raised about the solidity of the heavens, for he only mentions it in the form of a question--"is the sky solid and of a firm and compact substance?" (_questions_, book ii.) in the fifth century the idea of the star sphere still lingered, and in the eyes of simplicius, the commentator of aristotle, it was not merely an artifice suitable for the representation of the apparent motions, but a firm and solid reality; while mahomet and most of the fathers of the christian church had the same conception of these concentric spheres. it appears then from this review that the phrases "starry vault," and especially "fixed stars," have been used in two very distinct senses. when we meet with them in aristotle or ptolemy, it is obvious that they have reference to the crystal sphere of anaximenas, to which they were supposed to be affixed, and to move with it; but that later the word "fixed" carried with it the sense of immovable, and the stars were conceived as fixed in this sense, independently of the sphere to which they were originally thought to be attached. thus seneca speaks of them as the _fixum et immobilem populum_. if we would inquire a little further into the supposed nature of this solid sphere, we find that empedocles considered it to be a solid mass, formed of a portion of the ether which the elementary fire has converted into crystal, and his ideas of the connection between cold and solidification being not very precise, he described it by names that give the best idea of transparence, and, like lactantius, called it _vitreum cælum_, or said _cælum ærem glaciatum esse_, though we cannot suppose that he made any allusion to what we now call glass, but simply meant some body eminently transparent into which the fire had transformed the air; while so far from having any idea of cold, as we might imagine possible from observations of the snowy tops of mountains, they actually believed in a warm region above the lower atmosphere. thus aristotle considers that the spheres heat by their motion the air below them, without being heated themselves, and that there is thus a production of heat. "the motion of the sphere of fixed stars," he says, "is the most rapid, as it moves in a circle with all the bodies attached to it, and the spaces immediately below are strongly heated by the motion, and the heat, thus engendered, is propagated downwards to the earth." this however, strangely enough, does not appear to have prevented their supposing an eternal cold to reign in the regions next below, for macrobius, in his commentary on cicero, speaks of the decrease of temperature with the height, and concludes that the extreme zones of the heavens where saturn moves must be eternally cold; but this they reckoned as part of the atmosphere, beyond whose limits alone was to be found the fiery ether. it is to the fathers of the church that we owe the transmission during the middle ages of the idea of a crystal vault. they conceived a heaven of glass composed of eight or ten superposed layers, something like so many skins in an onion. this idea seems to have lingered on in certain cloisters of southern europe even into the nineteenth century, for a venerable prince of the church told humboldt in , that a large aërolite lately fallen, which was covered with a vitrified crust, must be a fragment of the crystalline sky. on these various spheres, one enveloping without touching another, they supposed the several planets to be fixed, as we shall see in a subsequent chapter. whether the greater minds of antiquity, such as plato, plutarch, eudoxus, aristotle, apollonius, believed in the reality of these concentric spheres to carry the planets, or whether this conception was not rather with them an imaginary one, serving only to simplify calculation and assist the mind in the solution of the difficult problem of their motion, is a point on which even humboldt cannot decide. it is certain, however, that in the middle of the sixteenth century, when the theory involved no less than seventy-seven concentric spheres, and later, when the adversaries of copernicus brought them all into prominence to defend the system of ptolemy, the belief in the existence of these solid spheres, circles and epicycles, which was under the especial patronage of the church, was very widespread. tycho brahe expressly boasts of having been the first, by considerations concerning the orbits of the comets, to have demonstrated the impossibility of solid spheres, and to have upset this ingenious scaffolding. he supposed the spaces of our system to be filled with air, and that this medium, disturbed by the motion of the heavenly bodies, opposed a resistance which gave rise to the harmonic sounds. it should be added also that the grecian philosophers, though little fond of observation, but rejoicing rather in framing systems for the explanation of phenomena of which they possessed but the faintest glimpse, have left us some ideas about the nature of shooting stars and aërolites that come very close to those that are now accepted. "some philosophers think," says plutarch in his life of lysander, "that shooting stars are not detached particles of ether which are extinguished by the atmosphere soon after being ignited, nor do they arise from the combustion of the rarefied air in the upper regions, but that they are rather heavenly bodies which fall, that is to say, which escaping in some way from the general force of rotation are precipitated in an irregular manner, sometimes on inhabited portions of the earth, but sometimes also in the ocean, where of course they cannot be found." diogenes of apollonius expresses himself still more clearly: "amongst the stars that are visible move others that are invisible, to which in consequence we are unable to give any name. these latter often fall to the earth and take fire like that star-stone which fell all on fire near Ægos potamos." these ideas were no doubt borrowed from some more ancient source, as he believed that all the stars were made of something like pumice-stone. anaxagoras, in fact, thought that all the heavenly bodies were fragments of rocks which the ether, by the force of its circular motion, had detached from the earth, set fire to, and turned into stars. thus the ionic school, with diogenes of apollonius, placed the aërolites and the stars in one class, and assigned to all of them a terrestrial origin, though in this sense only, that the earth, being the central body, had furnished the matter for all those that surround it. plutarch speaks thus of this curious combination:--"anaxagoras teaches that the ambient ether is of an igneous nature, and by the force of its gyratory motion it tears off blocks of stone, renders them incandescent, and transforms them into stars." it appears that he explained also by an analogous effect of the circular motion the descent of the nemæan lion, which, according to an old tradition, fell out of the moon upon the peloponnesus. according to boeckh, this ancient myth of the nemæan lion had an astronomical origin, and was symbolically connected in chronology with the cycle of intercalation of the lunar year, with the worship of the moon in nemaea, and the games by which it was accompanied. [illustration: plate vi.--the nemÆan lion.] anaxagoras explains the apparent motion of the celestial sphere from east to west by the hypothesis of a general revolution, the interruption of which, as we have just seen, caused the fall of meteoric stones. this hypothesis is the point of departure of the theory of vortices, which more than two thousand years later, by the labours of descartes, huyghens, and hooke, took so prominent a place among the theories of the world. it may be worth adding with regard to the famous aërolite of Ægos potamus, alluded to above, that when the heavens were no longer believed to be solid, the faith in the celestial origin of this, as of other aërolites, was for a long time destroyed. thus bailly the astronomer, alluding to it, says, "if the fact be true, this stone must have been thrown out by a volcano." indeed it is only within the last century that it has been finally accepted for fact that stones do fall from the sky. laplace thought it probable that they came from the moon; but it has now been demonstrated that aërolites, meteors, and shooting stars belong all to one class of heavenly bodies, that they are fragments scattered through space, and circulate like the planets round the sun. when the earth in its motion crosses this heavenly host, those which come near enough to touch its atmosphere leave a luminous train behind them by their heating by friction with the air: these are the _shooting stars_. sometimes they come so close as to appear larger than the moon, then they are _meteors;_ and sometimes too the attraction of the earth makes them fall to it, and these become _aërolites_. but to return to our ancient astronomers:-- they believed the heavens to be in motion, not only because they saw the motion with their eyes, but because they believed them to be animated, and regarded motion as the essence of life. they judged of the rapidity of the stars' motion by a very ingenious means. they perceived that it was greater than that of a horse, a bird, an arrow, or even of the voice, and cleomenas endeavoured to estimate it in the following way. he remarks that when the king of persia made war upon greece he placed men at certain intervals, so as to lie in hearing of each other, and thus passed on the news from athens to susa. now this news took two days and nights to pass over this distance. the voice therefore only accomplished a fraction of the distance that the stars had accomplished twice in the same time. the heavens, as we have seen, were not supposed to consist of a single sphere, but of several concentric ones, the arrangement and names of which we must now inquire into. the early chaldeans established three. the first was the empyreal heaven, which was the most remote. this, which they called also the solid firmament, was made of fire, but of fire of so rare and penetrating a nature, that it easily passed through the other heavens, and became universally diffused, and in this way reached the earth. the second was the ethereal heaven, containing the stars, which were simply formed of the more compact and denser parts of this substance; and the third heaven was that of the planets. the persians, however, gave a separate heaven to the sun, and another to the moon. the system which has enjoyed the longest and most widely-spread reign is that which places above, or rather round, the solid firmament a heaven of water--(the nature of which is not accurately defined), and round this a _primum mobile_, prime mover, or originator of all the motions, and round all this the empyreal heaven, or abode of the blessed. in the most anciently printed scientific encyclopædia known, the _magarita philosophica_, edited in the fifteenth century, that is, two centuries before the adoption of the true system of the world, we have the curious figure represented on the next page, in which we find no less than eleven different heavens. we here see on the exterior the solid empyreal heaven, which is stated in the body of the work to be the abode of the blessed and to be immovable, while the next heaven gives motion to all within, and is followed by the aqueous heaven, then the crystal firmament, and lastly by the several heavens of the planets, sun, and moon. the revolution of these spheres was not supposed to take place, like the motion of the earth in modern astronomy, round an imaginary axis, but round one which had a material existence, which was provided with pivots moving in fixed sockets. thus vitruvius, architect to augustus, teaches it expressly in these words:-- "the heaven turns continually round the earth and sea upon an axis, where two extremities are like two pivots that sustain it: for there are two places in which the governor of nature has fashioned and set these pivots as two centres; one is above the earth among the northern stars; the other is at the opposite end beneath the earth to the south; and around these pivots, as round two centres, he has placed little naves, like those of a wheel upon which the heaven turns continually." [illustration: fig. .] similarly curious ideas we shall find to have prevailed with respect to the meaning of everything that they observed in the heavens: thus what a number of opinions have been hazarded on the nature of the "milky way" alone! some of which we may learn from plutarch. the milky way, he says, is a nebulous circle, which constantly appears in the sky, and which owes its name to its white appearance. certain pythagoreans assert that when phaeton lit up the universe, one star, which escaped from its proper place, set light to the whole space it passed over in its circular course, and so formed the milky way. others thought that this circle was where the sun had been moving at the beginning of the world. according to others it is but an optical phenomenon produced by the reflection of the sun's rays from the vault of the sky as from a mirror, and comparable with the effects seen in the rainbow and illuminated clouds. metrodorus says it is the mark of the sun's passage which moves along this circle. parmenidas pretends that the milky colour arises from a mixture of dense and rare air. anaxagoras thinks it an effect of the earth's shadow projected on this part of the heavens, when the sun is below. democritus says that it is the lustre of several little stars which are very near together, and which reciprocally illuminate each other. aristotle believes it to be a vast mass of arid vapours, which takes fire from a glowing tress, above the region of the ether, and far below that of the planets. posidonius says that the circle is a compound of fire less dense than that of the stars, but more luminous. all such opinions, except that of democritus, are of little value, because founded on nothing; perhaps the worst is that of theophrastus, who said it was the junction between the two hemispheres, which together formed the vault of heaven: and that it was so badly made that it let through some of the light that he supposed to exist everywhere behind the solid sky. we now know that the milky way, like many of the nebulæ, is an immense agglomeration of suns. the milky way is itself a nebula, a mass of sidereal systems, with our own among them, since our sun is a single star in this vast archipelago of eighteen million orbs. the greeks called it the galaxy. the chinese and arabians call it the river of heaven. it is the path of souls among the north american indians, and the road of s. jacques de compostelle among french peasants. in tracing the history of ideas concerning the structure of the heavens among the greek philosophers, we meet with other modifications which it will be interesting to recount. thus eudoxus, who paid greater attention than others to the variations of the motions of the planets, gave more than one sphere to each of them to represent these observed changes. each planet, according to him, has a separate part of the heaven to itself, which is composed of several concentric spheres, whose movements, modifying each other, produce that of the planet. he gave three spheres to the sun: one which turned from east to west in twenty-four hours, to represent the diurnal rotation; a second, which turned about the pole of the ecliptic in - / days, and produced its annual movement; and a third was added to account for a certain supposed motion, by which the sun was drawn out of the ecliptic, and turned about an axis, making such an angle with that of the ecliptic, as represented the supposed aberration. the moon also had three spheres to produce its motions in longitude and latitude, and its diurnal motion. each of the other planets had four, the extra one being added to account for their stations and retrogressions. it should be added that these concentric spheres were supposed to fit each other, so that the different planets were only separated by the thicknesses of these crystal zones. polemarch, the disciple of eudoxus, who went to athens with his pupil calippus for the express purpose of consulting aristotle on these subjects, was not satisfied with the exactness with which these spheres represented the planetary motions, and made changes in the direction of still greater complication. instead of the twenty-six spheres which represented eudoxus' system, calippus established thirty-three, and by adding also intermediary spheres to prevent the motion of one planet interfering with that of the adjacent ones, the number was increased to fifty-six. there is extant a small work, ascribed to aristotle, entitled "letter of aristotle to alexander on the system of the world," which gives so clear an account of the ideas entertained in his epoch that we shall venture to give a somewhat long extract from it. the work, it should be said, is not by all considered genuine, but is ascribed by some to nicolas of damas, by others to anaximenas of lampsacus, a contemporary of alexander's, and by others to the stoic posidonius. it is certain, however, that aristotle paid some attention to astronomy, for he records the rare phenomena of an eclipse of mars by the moon, and the occultation of one of the gemini by the planet jupiter, and the work may well be genuine. it contains the following:-- "there is a fixed and immovable centre to the universe. this is occupied by the earth, the fruitful mother, the common focus of every kind of living thing. immediately surrounding it on all sides is the air. above this in the highest region is the dwelling-place of the gods, which is called the heavens. the heavens and the universe being spherical and in continual motion, there must be two points on opposite sides, as in a globe which turns about an axis, and these points must be immovable, and have the sphere between them, since the universe turns about them. they are called the poles. if a line be drawn from one of these points to the other it will be the diameter of the universe, having the earth in the centre and the two poles at the extremities; of these two poles the northern one is always visible above our horizon, and is called the arctic pole; the other, to the south, is always invisible to us--it is called the antarctic pole. "the substance of the heavens and of the stars is called ether; not that it is composed of flame, as pretended by some who have not considered its nature, which is very different from that of fire, but it is so called because it has an eternal circular motion, being a divine and incorruptible element, altogether different from the other four. "of the stars contained in the heavens some are fixed, and turn with the heavens, constantly maintaining their relative positions. in their middle portion is the circle called the _zoophore_, which stretches obliquely from one tropic to the other, and is divided into twelve parts, which are the twelve signs (of the zodiac). the others are wandering stars, and move neither with the same velocity as the fixed stars, nor with a uniform velocity among themselves, but all in different circles, and with velocities depending on the distances of these circles from the earth. "although all the fixed stars move on the same surface of the heavens, their number cannot be determined. of the movable stars there are seven, which circulate in as many concentric circles, so arranged that the lower circle is smaller than the higher, and that the seven so placed one within the other are all within the spheres of the fixed stars. "on the nearer, that is inner, side of this ethereal, immovable, unalterable, impassible nature is placed our movable, corruptible, and mortal nature. of this there are several kinds, the first of which is fire, a subtle inflammable essence, which is kindled by the great pressure and rapid motion of the ether. it is in this region of air, when any disturbance takes place in it, that we see kindled shooting-stars, streaks of light, and shining motes, and it is there that comets are lighted and extinguished. "below the fire comes the air, by nature cold and dark, but which is warmed and enflamed, and becomes luminous by its motion. it is in the region of the air, which is passive and changeable in any manner, that the clouds condense, and rain, snow, frost, and hail are formed and fall to the earth. it is the abode of stormy winds, of whirlwinds, thunder, lightning, and many other phenomena. "the cause of the heaven's motion is god. he is not in the centre, where the earth is a region of agitation and trouble, but he is above the outermost circumference, which is the purest of all regions, a place which we call rightly _ouranos_, because it is the highest part of the universe, and _olympos_, that is, perfectly bright, because it is altogether separated from everything like the shadow and disordered movements which occur in the lower regions." we notice in this extract a curious etymology of the word ether, namely, as signifying perpetual motion ([greek: aei teein]), though it is more probable that its true, as its more generally accepted derivation is from [greek: aithein], to burn or shine, a meaning doubtless alluded to in a remarkable passage of hippocrates, [greek: peri sarkôn]. "it appears to me," he says, "that what we call the principle of heat is immortal, that it knows all, sees all, hears all, perceives all, both in the past and in the future. at the time when all was in confusion, the greater part of this principle rose to the circumference of the universe; it is this that the ancients have called _ether_." the first greek that can be called an astronomer was thales, born at miletus b.c., who introduced into greece the elements of astronomy. his opinions were these: that the stars were of the same substance as the earth, but that they were on fire; that the moon borrowed its light from the sun, and caused the eclipses of the latter, while it was itself eclipsed when it entered the earth's shadow; that the earth was round, and divisible into five zones, by means of five circles, _i.e._ the arctic and antarctic, the two tropics, and the equator; that the latter circle is cut obliquely by the ecliptic, and perpendicularly by the meridian. up to his time no division of the sphere had been made beyond the description of the constellations. these opinions do not appear to have been rapidly spread, since herodotus, one of the finest intellects of greece, who lived two centuries later, was still so ill-instructed as to say, in speaking of an eclipse, "the sun abandoned its place, and night took the place of day." anaxagoras, of whom we have spoken before, asserted that the sun was a mass of fire larger than the peloponnesus. plutarch says he regarded it as a burning stone, and diogenes laertius looked upon it as hot iron. for this bold idea he was persecuted. they considered it a crime that he taught the causes of the eclipses of the moon, and pretended that the sun is larger than it looks. he first taught the existence of one god, and he was taxed with impiety and treason against his country. when he was condemned to death, "nature," he said, "has long ago condemned me to the same; and as to my children, when i gave them birth i had no doubt but they would have to die some day." his disciple pericles, however, defended him so eloquently that his life was spared, and he was sent into exile. pythagoras, who belonged to the school of thales, and who travelled in phoenicia, chaldea, judæa, and egypt, to learn their ideas, ventured, in spite of the warnings of the priests, to submit to the rites of initiation at heliopolis, and thence returned to samos, but meeting with poor reception there, he went to italy to teach. from him arose the _italian school_, and his disciples took the name of philosophers (lovers of wisdom) instead of that of sages. we shall learn more about him in the chapter on the harmony of the spheres. his first disciple, empedocles, famous for the curiosity which led him to his death in the crater of Ætna, as the story goes, thought that the true sun, the fire that is in the centre of the universe, illuminated the other hemisphere, and that what we see is only the reflected image of that, which is invisible to us, and all of whose movements it follows. his disciple, philolaus, also taught that the sun was a mass of glass, which sent us by reflection all the light that it scattered through the universe. we must not, however, forget that these opinions are recorded by historians who probably did not understand them, and who took in the letter what was only intended for a comparison or figure. if we are to believe plutarch, xenophanes, who flourished about b.c., was very wild in his opinions. he thought the stars were lighted every night and extinguished every morning; that the sun is a fiery cloud; that eclipses take place by the sun being extinguished and afterwards rekindled; that the moon is inhabited, but is eighteen times larger than the earth; that there are several suns and several moons for giving light to different countries. this can only be matched by those who said the sun went every night through a hole in the earth round again to the east; or that it went above ground, and if we did not see it going back it was because it accomplished the journey in the night. parmenidas was the disciple of xenophanes. he divided the earth, like thales, into zones; and he added that it was suspended in the centre of the universe, and that it did not fall because there was no reason why it should move in one direction rather than another. this argument is perfectly philosophical, and illustrates a principle employed since the time of archimedes, and of which leibnitz made so much use. such are some of the general ideas which were held by the greeks and others on the nature of the heavens, omitting that of ptolemy, of which we shall give a fuller account hereafter. we see that they were all affected by the dominant idea of the superiority of the earth over the rest of the universe, and were spoiled for want of the grand conception of the immensity of space. the universe was for them a closed space, outside of which there was _nothing_; and they busied themselves with metaphysical questions as to the possibility of space being infinite. in the meantime their conceptions of the distances separating us from other visible parts of the universe were excessively cramped. hesiod, for instance, thinks to give a grand idea of the size of the universe by saying that vulcan's anvil took seven days to fall from heaven to earth, when in reality, as now calculated, it would take no less than seventy-two years for the light, even travelling at a far greater rate, to reach us from one of the nearest of the fixed stars. chapter vii. the celestial harmony. nature presents herself to us under various aspects. at times, it may be, she presents to us the appearance of discord, and we fail to perceive the unity that pervades the whole of her actions. at others, however, and most often to an instructed mind, there is a concord between her various powers, a harmony even in her sounds, that will not escape us. even the wild notes of the tempest and the bass roll of the thunder form themselves into part of the grand chorus which in the great opera are succeeded by the solos of the evening breeze, the songs of birds, or the ripple of the waves. these are ideas that would most naturally present themselves to contemplative minds, and such must have been the students of the silent, but to them harmonious and tuneful, star-lit sky, under the clear atmosphere of greece. the various motions they observed became indissolubly connected in their minds with music, and they did not doubt that the heavenly spheres made harmony, if imperceptible to human ears. but their ideas were more precise than this. they discovered that harmony depended on number, and they attempted to prove that whether the music they might make were audible or not, the celestial spheres had motions which were connected together in the same way as the numbers belonging to a harmony. the study of their opinions on this point reveals some very curious as well as very interesting ideas. we may commence by referring to an ancient treatise by timæus of locris on the soul of the universe. to him we owe the first serious exposition of the complete harmonic cosmography of pythagoras. we must premise that, according to this school, god employed all existing matter in the formation of the universe--so that it comprehends all things, and all is in it. "it is a unique, perfect, and spherical production, since the sphere is the most perfect of figures; animated and endowed with reason, since that which is animated and endowed with reason is better than that which is not." so begins timæus, and then follows, as a quotation from plato, a comparison of the earth to what would appear to us nowadays to be a very singular animal. not only, says plato, is the earth a sphere, but this sphere is perfect, and its maker took care that its surface should be perfectly uniform for many reasons. the universe in fact has no need of eyes, since there is nothing outside of it to see; nor yet of ears, since there is nothing but what is part of itself to make a sound; nor of breathing organs, as it is not surrounded by air: any organ that should serve to take in nourishment, or to reject the grosser parts, would be absolutely useless, for there being nothing outside it, it could not receive or reject anything. for the same reason it needs no hands with which to defend itself, nor yet of feet with which to walk. of the seven kinds of motion, its author has given it that which is most suitable for its figure in making it turn about its axis, and since for the execution of this rotatory motion no arms or legs are wanted, its maker gave it none. with regard to the soul of the universe, plato, according to timæus, says that god composed it "of a mixture of the divisible and indivisible essences, so that the two together might be united into one, uniting two forces, the principles of two kinds of motion, one that which is _always the same_, and the other that which is _always changing_. the mixture of these two essences was difficult, and was not accomplished without considerable skill and pains. the proportions of the mixture were according to harmonic numbers, so chosen that it is possible to know of what, and by what rule, the soul of the universe is compounded." by harmonic numbers timæus means those that are proportional to those representing the consonances of the musical scale. the consonances known to the ancients were three in number: the diapason, or octave, in the proportion of to , the diapent, or fifth, in that of to , and the diatessaron, or fourth, in that of to ; when to these are joined the tones which fill the intervals of the consonances, and are in the proportion of to , and the semitones in that of to , all the degrees of the musical scale is complete. the discovery of these harmonic numbers is due to pythagoras. it is stated that when passing one day near a forge, he noticed that the hammers gave out very accurate musical concords. he had them weighed, and found that of those which sounded the octave, one weighed twice as much as the other; that of those which made a perfect fifth, one weighed one third more than the other, and in the case of a fourth, one quarter more. after having tried the hammers, he took a musical string stretched with weights, and found that when he had applied a given weight in the first instance to make any particular note, he had to double the weight to obtain the octave, to add one third extra only to obtain a fifth, a quarter for the fourth, and eight for one tone, and about an eighteenth for a half-tone; or more simply still, he stretched a cord once for all, and then when the whole length sounded any note, when stopped in the middle it gave the octave, at the third it gave the fifth, at the quarter the fourth, at the eighth the tone, and at the eighteenth the semi-tone. since the ancients conceived of the soul by means of motion, the quantity of motion developed in anything was their measure of the quantity of its soul. now the motion of the heavenly bodies seemed to them to depend on their distance from the centre of the universe, the fastest being those at the circumference of the whole. to determine the relative degrees of velocity, they imagined a straight line drawn outwards from the centre of the earth, as far as the empyreal heaven, and divided it according to the proportions of the musical scale, and these divisions they called the harmonic degrees of the soul of the universe. taking the earth's radius for the first number, and calling it unity, or, in order to avoid fractions, denoting it by , the second degree, which is at the distance of an harmonic third, will be represented by plus its eighth part, or . the third degree will be , plus its eighth part, or . the fourth, being a semitone, will be as to , which will give ; and so on. the eighth degree will in this way be the double of or , and represents the first octave. they continued this series to degrees, as in the following table:-- the earth. mi + / = re + / = ut : : : : si + / = la + / = sol + / = fa : : : : mi + / = re + / = ut : : : : si + / = la + / = sol + / = fa : : : : mi + / = re + / = ut : : : si + = si : : : : la + / = sol + / = fa : : : : mi + / = re + / = ut + / = si : : : : la + / = sol + / = fa : : : : mi + = mi : : : : re + / = ut + / = si : : : : la + / = sol = + the empyreal heaven. sum of all the terms, , . this series they considered a complete one, because by taking the terms in their proper intervals, the last becomes times the original number, and in the school of pythagoras this had a mystic signification, and was considered as the perfect number. the reason for considering a perfect number was curious. it is the sum of the first linear, square, and cubic numbers added to unity. first there is , which represents the point, then and , the first linear numbers, even and uneven, then and , the first square or surface numbers, even and uneven, and the last and , the first solid or cubic numbers, even and uneven, and is the sum of all the former. whence, taking the number as the symbol of the universe, and the numbers which compose it as the elements, it appeared right that the soul of the universe should be composed of the same elements. on this scale of distances, with corresponding velocities, they arranged the various planets, and the universe comprehended all these spheres, from that of the fixed stars (which was excluded) to the centre of the earth. the sphere of the fixed stars was the common envelope, or circumference of the universe, and saturn, immediately below it, corresponded to the thirty-sixth tone, and the earth to the first, and the other planets with the sun and moon at the various harmonic distances. they reckoned one tone from the earth to the moon, half a tone from the moon to mercury, another half-tone to venus, one tone and a half from venus to the sun, one from the sun to mars, a semitone from mars to jupiter, half a tone from jupiter to saturn, and a tone and a half from saturn to the fixed stars; but these distances were not, as we shall see, universally agreed upon. according to timæus, the sphere of the fixed stars, which contains within it no principle of contrariety, being entirely divine and pure, always moves with an equal motion in the same direction from east to west. but the stars which are within it, being animated by the mixed principle, whose composition has been just explained, and thus containing two contrary forces, yield on account of one of these forces to the motion of the sphere of fixed stars from east to west, and by the other they resist it, and move in a contrary direction, in proportion to the degree with which they are endowed with each; that is to say, that the greater the proportion of the material to the divine force that they possess, the greater is their motion from west to east, and the sooner they accomplish their periodic course. now the amount of this force depends on the matter they contain. thus, according to this system, the planets turn each day by the common motion with all the heavens about the earth from east to west, but they also retrograde towards the east, and accomplish their periods according to their component parts. the additions which plato made to this theory have always been a proverb of obscurity, and none of his commentators have been able to make anything of them, and very possibly they were never intended to. so far the harmony of the heavenly bodies has been explained with reference to numbers only, and we may add to this that they reckoned , stadia, or , miles, to represent a tone, which was thus the distance of the earth to the moon, and the same measurement made it , from the earth to the sun, and the same distance from the sun to the fixed stars. but plato teaches in his _republic_ that there is actual musical, harmony between the planets. each of the spheres, he said, carried with it a siren, and each of these sounding a different note, they formed by their union a perfect concert, and being themselves delighted with their own harmony, they sang divine songs, and accompanied them by a sacred dance. the ancients said there were nine muses, eight of whom, according to plato, presided over celestial, and the ninth over terrestrial things, to protect them from disorder and irregularity. cicero and macrobius also express opinions on this harmonious concert. such great motions, says cicero, cannot take place in silence, and it is natural that the two extremes should have related sounds as in the octave. the fixed stars must execute the upper note, and the moon the base. kepler has improved on this, and says jupiter and saturn sing bass, mars takes the tenor, the earth and venus are contralto, and mercury is soprano! true, no one has ever heard these sounds, but pythagoras himself may answer this objection. we are always surrounded, he says, by this melody, and our ears are accustomed to it from our birth, so that, having nothing different to compare it with, we cannot perceive it. we may here recall the further development of the idea of the soul of the universe, which was the source of this harmony, and endeavour to find a rational interpretation of their meaning. they said that nature had made the animals mortal and ephemeral, and had infused their souls into them, as they had been extracts from the sun or moon, or even from one of the planets. a portion of the unchangeable essence was added to the reasoning part of man, to form a germ of wisdom in privileged individuals. for the human soul there is one part which possesses intelligence and reason, and another part which has neither the one nor the other. the various portions of the general soul of the universe resided, according to timæus, in the different planets, and depended on their various characters. some portions were in the moon, others in mercury, venus, or mars, and so on, and thus they give rise to the various characters and dispositions that are seen among men. but to these parts of the human soul that are taken from the planets is joined a spark of the supreme divinity, which is above them all, and this makes man a more holy animal than all the rest, and enables him to have immediate converse with the deity himself. all the different substances in nature were supposed to be endowed with more or less of this soul, according to their material nature or subtilty, and were placed in the same order along the line, from the centre to the circumference, on which the planets were situated, as we have seen above. in the centre was the earth, the heaviest and grossest of all, which had but little if any soul at all. between the earth and the moon, timæus placed first water, then the air, and lastly elementary fire, which he considered to be principles, which were less material in proportion as they were more remote and partook of a larger quantity of the soul of the universe. beyond the moon came all the planets, and thus were filled up the greater number of the harmonic degrees, the motions of the various bodies being guided by the principle enunciated above. when we carefully consider this theory we find that by a slight change of name we may bring it more into harmony with modern ideas. it would appear indeed that the ancients called that "soul" which we now call "force," and while we say that this force of attraction is in proportion to the masses and the inverse square of the distance, they put it that it was proportional to the matter, and to the divine substance on which the distance depended. so that we may interpret timæus as stating this proposition: _the distances of the stars and their forces are proportional among themselves to their periodic times._ "some people," says plutarch, "seek the proportions of the soul of the universe in the velocities (or periodic times), others in the distances from the centre; some in the masses of the heavenly bodies, and others more acute in the ratios of the diameters of their orbits. it is probable that the mass of each planet, the intervals between the spheres and the velocities of their motions, are like well-tuned musical instruments, all proportional harmonically with each other and with all other parts of the universe, and by necessary consequence that there are the same relative proportions in the soul of the universe by which they were formed by the deity." it is marvellous how deeply occupied were all the best minds in greece and italy on this subject, both poets and philosophers; ocellus, democritus, timæus, aristotle, and lucretius have all left treatises on the same subject, and almost with the same title, "the nature of the universe." though somewhat similar to that of timæus, it will be interesting to give an account of the ideas of one of these, ocellus of lucania. ocellus represents the universe as having a spherical form. this sphere is divided into concentric layers; above that of the moon they were called celestial spheres, while below it and inwards as far as the centre of the earth they were called the elementary spheres, and the earth was the centre of them all. in the celestial spheres all the stars were situated, which were so many gods, and among them the sun, the largest and most powerful of all. in these spheres is never any disturbance, storm, or destruction, and consequently no reparation, no reproduction, no action of any kind was required on the part of the gods. below the moon all is at war, all is destroyed and reconstructed, and here therefore it is that generations are possible. but these take place under the influence of the stars, and particularly that of the sun, which in its course acts in different ways on the elementary spheres, and produces continual variations in them, from whence arises the replenishing and diversifying of nature. it is the sun that lights up the region of fire, that dilates the air, melts the water, and renders fertile the earth, in its daily course from east to west, as well as in this annual journey into the two tropics. but to what does the earth owe its germs and its species? according to some philosophers these germs were celestial ideas which both gods and demons scattered from above over every part of nature, but according to ocellus they arise continually under the influence of the heavenly bodies. the divisions of the heavens were supposed to separate the portion that is unalterable from that which is in ceaseless change. the line dividing the mortal from the immortal is that described by the moon: all that lies above that, inclusive, is the habitation of the gods; all that lies below is the abode of nature and discord; the latter tending constantly to destruction, the former to the reconstruction of all created things. ideas such as these, of which we could give other examples more remotely connected with harmony, whatever amount of truth we may discover in them, prove themselves to have been made before the sciences of observation had enabled men to make anything better than empty theories, and to support them with false logic. no better example of the latter can perhaps be mentioned here than the way in which ocellus pretends to prove that the world is eternal. "the universe," he says, "_having_ always existed, it follows that everything in it and every arrangement of it must always have been as it is now. the several parts of the universe _having_ always existed with it, we may say the same of the parts of these parts; thus the sun, the moon, the fixed stars, and the planets have always existed with the heavens; animals, vegetables, gold, and silver with the earth; the currents of air, winds, and changes from hot to cold, from cold to hot, with the air. _therefore_ the heaven, with all that it now contains; the earth, with all that it produces and supports; and lastly, the whole aërial region, with all its phenomena, have always existed." when this system of argument passed away, and exact observation took its place, it was soon found that so far from what the ancients had argued _must be_ really being the case, no such relation as they indicated between the distances or velocities of the planets could be traced, and therefore no harmony in the heavens in this sense. it is not indeed that we can say no sounds exist because we hear none; but considering harmony really to consist of the relations of numbers, no such relations exist between the planets' distances, as measured now of course from the sun, instead of being, as then, imagined from the earth. the gamut is nothing else than the series of numbers:-- do re mi fa sol la si do / / / / / / and is independent of our perception of the corresponding notes. a concert played before a deaf assembly would be a concert still. if one note is made by , vibrations per second, and another by , , we should hear them as an octave, but if one had only and the other , they would still be an octave, though inaudible as notes to us; so too we may speak even of the harmony of luminous vibrations of ether, though they do not affect our ears. the velocities of the planets do not coincide with the terms of this series. the nearer they are to the sun the faster is their motion, mercury travelling at the mean rate of , metres a second, venus, , , the earth , , mars , , jupiter , , saturn , , uranus , , and neptune , , numbers which are in the proportion roundly of , , , , , , , , which have no sufficient relation to the terms of an harmonic series, to make any harmony obvious. returning, however, to the ancient philosophers, we are led by their ideas about the soul of the universe to discover the origin of their gods and natural religion. they were persuaded that only living things could move, and consequently that the moving stars must be endowed with superior intelligence. it may very well be that from the number seven of the planets, including the sun and moon, which were their earliest gods, arose the respect and superstition with which all nations, and especially the orientals, regarded that number. from these arose the seven superior angels that are found in the theologies of the chaldeans, persians, and arabians; the seven gates of mithra, through which all souls must pass to reach the abode of bliss; the seven worlds of purification of the indians, and all the other applications of the number seven which so largely figure in judaism, and have descended from it to our own time. on the other hand, as we have seen, this number seven may have been derived from the number of the stars in the pleiades. we have noticed in our chapter on the history of the zodiac how the various signs as they came round and were thought to influence the weather and other natural phenomena, came at last to be worshipped. not less, of course, were the sun and moon deified, and that by nations who had no zodiac. among the egyptians the sun was painted in different forms according to the time of year, very much as he is represented in our own days in pictures of the old and new years. at the winter solstice with them he was an infant, at the spring equinox he was a young man, in summer a man in full age with flowing beard, and in the autumn an old man. their fable of osiris was founded on the same idea. they represented the sun by the hawk, and the moon by the ibis, and to these two, worshipped under the names of osiris and isis they attributed the government of the world, and built a city, heliopolis, to the former, in the temple of which they placed his statue. the phenicians in the same way, who were much influenced by ideas of religion, attributed divinity to the sun, moon, and stars, and regarded them as the sole causes of the production and destruction of all things. the sun, under the name of hercules, was their great divinity. the ethiopians worshipped the same, and erected the famous table of the sun. those who lived above meroë, admitted the existence of eternal and incorruptible gods, among which they included the sun, moon, and the universe. like the incas of peru, they called themselves the children of the sun, whom they regarded as their common father. the moon was the great divinity of the arabs. the saracens called it cabar, or the great, and its crescent still adorns the religious monuments of the turks. each of their tribes was under the protection of some particular star. sabeism was the principal religion of the east. the heavens and the stars were its first object. in reading the sacred books of the ancient persians contained in the _zendavesta_, we find on every page invocations addressed to mithra, to the moon, the stars, the elements, the mountains, the trees, and every part of nature. the ethereal fire circulating through all the universe, and of which the sun is the principal focus, was represented among the fire-worshippers by the sacred and perpetual fire of their priests. each planet had its own particular temple, where incense was burnt in its honour. these ancient peoples embodied in their religious systems the ideas which, as we have seen, led among the greeks to the representation of the harmony of heaven. all the world seemed to them animated by a principle of life which circulated through all parts, and which preserved it in an eternal activity. they thought that the universe lived like man and the other animals, or rather that these latter only lived because the universe was essentially alive, and communicated to them for an instant an infinitely small portion of its own immortality. they were not wise, it may be, in this, but they appear to have caught some of the ideas that lie at the basis of religious thought, and to have traced harmony where we have almost lost the perception of it. chapter viii. astronomical systems. in our former chapters we have gained some idea of the general structure of the heavens as represented by ancient philosophers, and we no longer require to know what was thought in the infancy of astronomy, when any ideas promulgated were more or less random ones; but in this chapter we hope to discuss those arrangements of the heavenly bodies which have been promulgated by men as complete systems, and were supposed to represent the totality of the facts. the earliest thoroughly-established system is that of ptolemy. it was not indeed invented by him. the main ideas had been entertained long before his time, but he gave it consistence and a name. we obtain an excellent view of the general nature of this system from cicero. he writes:-- "the universe is composed of nine circles, or rather of nine moving globes. the outermost sphere is that of the heavens which surrounds all the others, and on which are fixed the stars. beneath this revolve seven other globes, carried round by a motion in a direction contrary to that of the heavens. on the first circle revolves the star which men call saturn; on the second jupiter shines, that beneficent and propitious star to human eyes; then follows mars, ruddy and awful. below, and occupying the middle region, revolves the sun, the chief, prince, and moderator of the other stars, the soul of the world, whose immense globe spreads its light through space. after him come, like two companions, venus and mercury. lastly, the lowest globe is occupied by the moon, which borrows its light from the star of day. below this last celestial circle, there is nothing but what is mortal and corruptible, except the souls given by a beneficent divinity to the race of men. above the moon all is eternal. the earth, situated in the centre of the world, and separated from heaven on all sides, forms the ninth sphere; it remains immovable, and all heavy bodies are drawn to it by their own weight." the earth, we should add, is surrounded by the sphere of air, and then by that of fire, and by that of ether and the meteors. with respect to the motions of these spheres. the first circle described about the terrestrial system, namely, that of the moon, was accomplished in days, hours, and minutes. next to the moon, mercury in the second, and venus in the third, and the sun in the fourth circle, all turned about the earth in the same time, days, hours, and minutes. but these planets, in addition to the general movement, which carried them in hours round from east to west and west to east, and the annual revolution, which made them run through the zodiacal circle, had a third motion by which they described a circle about each point of their orbit taken as a centre. [illustration: fig. .--ptolemy's astronomical system.] the fifth sphere, carrying mars, accomplished its revolution in two years. jupiter took years, days, and hours to complete his orbit, and saturn in the seventh sphere took years and days. above all the planets came the sphere of the fixed stars, or firmament, turning from east to west in hours with inconceivable rapidity, and endued also with a proper motion from west to east, which was measured by hipparchus, and which we now call the precession of the equinoxes, and know that it has a period of , years. above all these spheres, a _primum mobile_ gave motion to the whole machine, making it turn from east to west, but each planet and each fixed star made an effort against this motion, by means of which each of them accomplished their revolution about the earth in greater or less time, according to its distance, or the magnitude of the orbit it had to accomplish. one immense difficulty attended this system. the apparent motions of the planets is not uniform, for sometimes they are seen to advance from west to east, when their motion is called _direct_, sometimes they are seen for several nights in succession at the same point in the heavens, when they are called _stationary_, and sometimes they return from east to west, and then their motion is called _retrograde_. we know now that this apparent variation in the motion of the planets is simply due to the annual motion of the earth in its orbit round the sun. for example, saturn describes its vast orbit in about thirty years, and the earth describes in one year a much smaller one inside. now if the earth goes faster in the same direction as saturn, it is plain that saturn will be left behind and appear to go backwards, while if the earth is going in the same direction the velocity of saturn will appear to be decreased, but his direction of motion will appear unaltered. to explain these variations, however, according to his system, ptolemy supposed that the planets did not move exactly in the circumference of their respective orbits, but about an _ideal centre_, which itself moved along this circumference. instead therefore of describing a circle, they described parts of a series of small circles, which would combine, as is easy to see, into a series of uninterrupted waves, and these he called _epicycles_. another objection, which even this arrangement did not overcome, was the variation of the size of the planets. to overcome this hipparchus gave to the sphere of each planet a considerable thickness, and saw that the planet did not turn centrally round the earth, but round a centre of motion placed outside the earth. its revolution took place in such a manner, that at one time it reached the inner boundary, at another time the outer boundary of its spherical heaven. but this reply was not satisfactory, for the differences in the apparent sizes proved by the laws of optics such a prodigious difference between their distances from the earth at the times of conjunction and opposition, that it would be extremely difficult to imagine spheres thick enough to allow of it. it was a gigantic and formidable piece of machinery to which it was necessary to be continually adding fresh pieces to make observation accord with theory. in the thirteenth century, in the times of the king-astronomer, alphonso x. of castile, there were already seventy-five circles, one within the other. it is said that one day he exclaimed, in a full assemblage of bishops, that if the deity had done him the honour to ask his advice before creating the world, he could have told him how to make it a little better, or at all events more simply. he meant to express how unworthy this complication was of the dignity of nature. [illustration: fig. .--the epicycles of ptolemy.] fracastor, in his _homocentrics_, says that nothing is more monstrous or absurd than all the excentrics and epicycles of ptolemy, and proposes to explain the difference of velocity in the planets at different parts of their orbits by the medium offering greater or less resistance, and their alteration in apparent size by the effect of refraction. the essential element of this system was that it took appearances for realities, and was founded on the assumption that the earth is fixed in the centre of the universe, and of course therefore neglected all the appearances produced by its motion, or had to explain them by some peculiarity in the other planets. although it was corrected from time to time to make it accord better with observation, it was the same essentially that was taught officially everywhere. it reigned supreme in egypt, greece, italy, and arabia, and in the great school of alexandria, which consolidated it and enriched it by its own observations. but though the same in essence, the details, and especially the means of overcoming the difficulties raised by increased observations, have much varied, and it will be interesting and instructive to record some of the chief of them. one of the most important influences in modifying the astronomical systems taught to the world has been that of the fathers of the christian church. when, after five centuries of patient toil, of hopes, ambitions, and discussions, the christian church took possession of the thrones and consciences of men, they founded their physical edifice on the ancient system, which they adapted to their special wants. with them aristotle and ptolemy reigned supreme. they decreed that the earth constituted the universe, that the heavens were made for it, that god, the angels, and the saints inhabited an eternal abode of joy situated above the azure sphere of the fixed stars, and they embodied this gratifying illusion in all their illuminated manuscripts, their calendars, and their church windows. the doctors of the church all acknowledged a plurality of heavens, but they differed as to the number. st. hilary of poitiers would not fix it, and the same doubt held st. basil back; but the rest, for the most part borrowing their ideas from paganism, said there were six or seven, or up to ten. they considered these heavens to be so many hemispheres supported on the earth, and gave to each a different name. in the system of bede, which had many adherents, they were the air, ether, fiery space, firmament, heaven of the angels, and heaven of the trinity. the two chief varieties in the systems of the middle ages may be represented as follows:-- those who wished to have everything as complete as possible combined the system of ptolemy with that of the fathers of the church, and placed in the centre of the earth the infernal regions which they surrounded by a circle. another circle marked the earth itself, and after that the surrounding ocean, marked as water, then the circle of air, and lastly that of fire. enveloping these, and following one after the other, were the seven circles of the seven planets; the eighth represented the sphere of the fixed stars on the firmament, then came the ninth heaven, then a tenth, the _coelum cristallinum_, and lastly an eleventh and outermost, which was the empyreal heaven, where dwelt the cherubim and seraphim, and above all the spheres was a throne on which sat the father, as jupiter olympus. the others who wished for more simplicity, represented the earth in the centre of the universe, with a circle to indicate the ocean, the second sphere was that of the moon; the third was that of the sun; on the fourth were placed the four planets, jupiter, mars, venus and mercury; there was a fifth for the space outside the planets, and the last outside one was the firmament; altogether seven spheres instead of eleven. as a specimen of the style of representation of the astronomical systems of the middle ages, we may take the figure on the following page:-- here we see the earth placed immovable in the centre of the universe, and represented by a disc traversed by the mediterranean, and surrounded by the ocean. round this are circumscribed the celestial spheres. that of the moon first, then that of mercury, in which several constellations, as the lyre, cassiopeia, the crown, and others, are roughly indicated, then comes the sphere of venus with sagittarius and the swan. after this comes the _celestis_ _paradisus_, and the legend that, "the paradise to which paul was raised is in this third locality; some of these must reach to us, since in them repose the souls of the prophets." in the other circles are yet other constellations: for example pegasus, andromeda, the dog, argo, the he-goat, aquarius, the fishes, and canopus, figured by a star of the first magnitude. to the north is seen near the constellation of the swan a large star with seven rays, meant to represent the brightest of those which compose the great bear. the stars of cassiopeia are not only misplaced, but roughly represented. the lyre is curiously drawn. the positions of the constellations just named are all wrong in this figure, just as we find those of towns in maps of the earth. the cartographers of the middle ages, with incredible ignorance, misplaced in general every locality. they did the same for the constellations in the celestial hemispheres. in the heaven of jupiter, and in that of saturn we read the words--seraphim, dominationes, potestates, archangeli, virtutes coelorum, principatus, throni, cherubim, all derived from their theology. a veritable muddle! the angels placed with the heroes of mythology, the immortal virgins with venus and andromeda, and the saints with the great bear, the hydra, and the scorpion! [illustration: fig. .--heavens of the middle ages.] another such richly illuminated manuscript in the library at ghent, entitled liber floridus, contains a drawing similar to this under the title _astrologia secundum bedum_. only, instead of the earth, there is a serpent in the centre with the name great bear, and the twins are represented by a man and woman, andromeda in a chasuble, and venus as a nun! several similar ones might be quoted, varying more or less from this; one, executed in a geographical manuscript of the fifteenth century, has the tenth sphere, being that of the fixed stars, then the crystalline heaven, and then the immovable heaven, "which," it says, "according to sacred and certain theology, is the dwelling-place of the blessed, where may we live for ever and ever, amen;" "this is also called the empyreal heaven." near each planet the author marks the time of its revolution, but not at all correctly. [illustration: plate vii.--heavens of the fathers.] the constructors of these systems were not in the least doubt as to their reality, for they actually measured the distance between one sphere and another, though in every case their numbers were far from the truth as we now know it. we may cite as an example an italian system whose spheres were as follows:--terra, aqua, aria, fuoco, luna, mercurio, venus, sol, marte, giove, saturno, stelle fixe, sfera nona, cielo empyreo. attached to the design is the following table of dimensions which we may copy:-- miles. from the centre of the earth to the surface , " " " " inner side of the heaven of the moon , diameter of moon , from the centre of the earth to mercury , diameter of mercury from the centre of the earth to venus , diameter of venus , from the centre of the earth to the sun , , diameter of the sun , from the centre of the earth to mars , , diameter of mars , from the centre of the earth to jupiter , , diameter of jupiter , from the centre of the earth to outside of saturn's heaven , , diameter of saturn , from the centre of the earth to the fixed stars , , the author states that he cannot pursue his calculations further, and condescends to acknowledge that it is very difficult to know accurately what is the thickness of the ninth and of the crystalline heavens! perhaps, however, these reckonings are better than those of the egyptians, who came to the conclusion that saturn was only distant miles, the sun only , and the moon . these numerous variations and adaptations of the ptolemaic system, prove what a firm hold it had taken, and how it reigned supreme over all minds. nor are we merely left to gather this. they consciously looked to ptolemy as their great light, if we may judge from an emblematic drawing taken from an authoritative astronomical work, the _margarita philosophica_, which we give on the opposite page. [illustration: fig. .] in all the systems derived from ptolemy, the order of the planets remained the same, and mercury and venus were placed nearer to the earth than the sun is. according to many authors, however, plato made a variation in this respect, by putting them outside the sun, on the ground that they never were seen to pass across its surface. he had obviously never heard of the "transit of venus." this arrangement was adopted by theon, in his commentary on the _almagesta_ of ptolemy, and afterwards by geber, who alone among the arabians departed from the strict ptolemaic system. [illustration: fig. .--egyptian system.] the egyptians improved upon this idea, and made the first step towards the true system, by representing these two planets, mercury and venus, as revolving round the sun instead of the earth. all the rest of their system was the same as that of ptolemy, for the sun itself, and the other planets and the fixed stars all revolved round the earth in the centre. this system of course accounted accurately for the motions of the two inferior planets, whose nearness to the sun may have suggested their connection with it. this system was in vogue at the same time as ptolemy's, and numbers vitruvius amongst its supporters. [illustration: fig. .--capella's system.] in the fifth century of our era martian capella taught a variation on the egyptian system, in which he made mercury and venus revolve in the same orbit round the sun. in the treatise entitled _quod tellus non sit centrum omnibus planetis_, he explains that when mercury is on this side of the orbit it is nearer to us than venus, and farther off from us than that planet when it is on the other side. this hypothesis was also adopted in the middle ages. we have here indicated the time of the revolution of the various planets, and notice that the firmament is said to move round from west to east in , years; the second heaven in , , while the _primum mobile_ outside moved in the contrary direction in twenty-four hours. these egyptian systems survived in some places the true one, as they were thought to overcome the chief difficulties of the ptolemaic without interfering with the stability of the earth, and they were known as the _common system_, _i.e._ containing the elements of both. such were the astronomical systems in vogue before the time of copernicus--all of them based upon the principle of the earth being the immovable centre of the universe. we must now turn to trace the history of the introduction of that system which has completely thrown over all these former ones, and which every one knows now to be the true one--the copernican. no revolution is accomplished, whether in science or politics, without having been long in preparation. the theory of the motion of the earth had been conceived, discussed, and even taught many ages before the birth of copernicus. and the best proof of this is the acknowledgment of copernicus himself in his great work _de revolutionibus orbium cælestium_, in which he laid down the principles of his system. we will quote the passage in which it is contained. "i have been at the trouble," he writes, "to read over all the works of philosophers that i could procure, to see if i could find in them any different opinion to that which is now taught in the schools respecting the motions of the celestial spheres. and i saw first in cicero that mætas had put forth the opinion that the earth moves. (mætam sensisse terram moveri.) afterwards i found in plutarch that others had entertained the same idea." here copernicus quotes the original as far as it relates to the system of philolaus, to the effect "that the earth turns round the region of fire (ethereal region), and runs through the zodiac like the sun and the moon." the principal pythagoreans, such as archytas of tarentum, heraclides of pontium, taught also the same doctrine, saying that "the earth is not immovable in the centre of the universe, but revolves in a circle, and is far from occupying the chief place among the celestial bodies." pythagoras learnt this doctrine, it is said, from the egyptians, who in their hieroglyphics represented the symbol of the sun by the stercoral beetle, because this insect forms a ball with the excrement of the oxen, and lying down on its back, turns it round and round with its legs. timæus of locris was more precise than the other pythagoreans in calling "the five planets the organs of time, on account of their revolutions," adding that we must conclude that the earth is not immovable in one place, but that it turns, on the contrary, about itself, and travels also through space. plutarch records that plato, who had always taught that the sun turned round the earth, had changed his opinion towards the end of his life, regretting that he had not placed the sun in the centre of the universe, which was the only place, he then thought, that was suitable for that star. three centuries before jesus christ, aristarchus of samos is said by aristotle to have composed a special work to defend the motion of the earth against the contrary opinions of philosophers. in this work, which is now lost, he laid down in the most positive manner that "the sun remains immovable, and that the earth moves round it in a circular curve, of which that star is the centre." it would be impossible to state this in clearer terms; and what makes his meaning more clear, if possible, is that he was persecuted for it, being accused of irreligion and of troubling the repose of vesta--"because," says plutarch, "in order to explain the phenomena, he taught that the heavens were immovable, and that the earth accomplished a motion of translation in an oblique line, at the same time that it turned round its own axis." this is exactly the opinion that copernicus took up, after an interval of eighteen centuries--and he too was accused of irreligion. in passing from the greeks to the romans, and from them to the middle ages, the doctrine of aristarchus underwent a curious modification, assimilating it to the system of tycho brahe, which we shall hereafter consider, rather than to that of copernicus. this consisted in making the planets move round the sun, while the sun itself revolved round the earth, and carried them with him, and the heavens revolved round all. vitruvius and macrobius both taught this doctrine. although cicero and seneca, with aristotle and the stoics, taught the immobility of the earth in the centre of the universe, the question seemed undecided, to seneca at least, who writes:--"it would be well to examine whether it is the universe that turns about the immovable earth, or the earth that moves, while the universe remains at rest. indeed some men have taught that the earth is carried along, unknown to ourselves, that it is not the motion of the heavens that produces the rising and setting of the stars, but that it is we who rise and set relatively to them. it is a matter worthy of contemplation, to know in what state we are--whether we are assigned an immovable or rapidly-moving home--whether god makes all things revolve round us, or we round them." the double motion of the earth, then, is an idea revived from the grecian philosophers. the theory was known indeed to ptolemy, who devotes a whole chapter in his celebrated _almagesta_ to combat it. from his point of view it seemed very absurd, and he did not hesitate to call it so; and it was in reality only when fresh discoveries had altered the method of examining the question that the absurdities disappeared, and were transferred to the other side. not until it was discovered that the earth was no larger and no heavier than the other planets could the idea of its revolution and translation have appeared anything else than absurd. we are apt to laugh at the errors of former great men, while we forget the scantiness of the knowledge they then possessed. so it will be instructive to draw attention to ptolemy's arguments, that we may see where it is that new knowledge and ideas have led us, as they would doubtless have led him, had he possessed them, to a different conclusion. his argument depends essentially on the observed effects of weight. "light bodies," he says, "are carried towards the circumference, they appear to us to go _up_; because we so speak of the space that is over our heads, as far as the surface which appears to surround us. heavy bodies tend, on the contrary, towards the middle, as towards a centre, and they appear to us to fall _down_, because we so speak of whatever is under our feet, in the direction of the centre of the earth. these bodies are piled up round the centre by the opposed forces of their impetus and friction. we can easily see that the whole mass of the earth, being so large compared with the bodies that fall upon it, can receive them without their weight or their velocity communicating to it any perceptible oscillation. now if the earth had a motion in common with all the other heavy bodies, it would not be long, on account of its weight, in leaving the animals and other bodies behind it, and without support, and it would soon itself fall out of heaven. such would be the consequences of its motion, which are most ridiculous even to imagine." against the idea of the earth's diurnal rotation he argued as follows:--"there are some who pretend that nothing prevents us from supposing that the heaven remains immovable, and the earth turns round upon its axis from west to east, accomplishing the rotation each day. it is true that, as far as the stars are concerned, there is nothing against our supposing this, if guided only by appearances, and for greater simplicity; but those who do so forget how thoroughly ridiculous it is when we consider what happens near us and in the air. for even if we admit, which is not the case, that the lighter bodies have no motion, or only move as bodies of a contrary nature, although we see that aërial bodies move with greater velocity than terrestrial--if we admit that very dense and heavy bodies have a rapid and constant motion of their own, whereas in reality they obey but with difficulty the impulses communicated to them--we should then be obliged to assert that the earth, by its rotation, has a more rapid motion than any of the bodies that are round it, as it makes so large a circuit in so short a time. in this case the bodies which are not supported by it would appear to have a motion contrary to it, and no cloud or any flying bird could ever appear to go to the east, since the earth would always move faster than it in that direction." the _almagesta_ was for a long time the gospel of astronomers; to believe in the motion of the earth was to them more than an innovation, it was simply folly. copernicus himself well expresses the state of opinion in which he found the question, and the process of his own change, in the following words:--"and i too, taking occasion by these testimonies, commenced to cogitate on the motion of the earth, and although that opinion appeared absurd, i thought that as others before me had invented an assemblage of circles to explain the motion of the stars, i might also try if, by supposing the earth to move, i could not find a better account of the motions of the heavenly bodies than that with which we are at present contented. after long researches, i am at last convinced that if we assign to the circulation of the earth the motions of the other planets, calculation and observation will agree better together. and i have no doubt that mathematicians will be of my opinion, if they will take the trouble to consider carefully and not superficially the demonstrations i shall give in this work." although the opinions of copernicus had been held before, it is very just that his should be the name by which they are known; for during the time that elapsed before he wrote, the adherents of such views became fewer and fewer, until at last the very remembrance of them was almost forgotten, and it required research to know who had held them and taught them. it took him thirty years' work to establish them on a firm basis. we shall make no excuse for quoting further from his book, that we may know exactly the circumstances, as far as he tells us, of his giving this system to the world. "i hesitated for a long time whether i should publish my commentaries on the motions of the heavenly bodies, or whether it would not be better to follow the example of certain pythagoreans, who left no writings, but communicated the mysteries of their philosophy orally from man to man among their adepts and friends, as is proved by the letter of lysidas to hipparchus. they did not do this, as some suppose, from a spirit of jealousy, but in order that weighty questions, studied with great care by illustrious men, might not be disparaged by the idle, who do not care to undertake serious study, unless it be lucrative, or by shallow-minded men, who, though devoting themselves to science, are of so indolent a spirit that they only intrude among philosophers, like drones among bees. "when i hesitated and held back, my friends pressed me on. the first was nicolas schonberg, cardinal of capua, a man of great learning. the other was my best friend, tideman gysius, bishop of culm, who was as well versed in the holy scriptures as in the sciences. the latter pressed me so much that he decided me at last to give to the public the work i had kept for more than twenty-seven years. many illustrious men urged me, in the interest of mathematics, to overcome my repugnance and to let the fruit of my labours see the light. they assured me that the more my theory of the motion of the earth appeared absurd, the more it would be admired when the publication of my work had dissipated doubts by the clearest demonstrations. yielding to these entreaties, and buoying myself with the same hope, i consented to the printing of my work." he tried to guard himself against the attacks of dogmatists by saying, "if any evil-advised person should quote against me any texts of scripture, i deprecate such a rash attempt. mathematical truths can only be judged by mathematicians." notwithstanding this, however, his work, after his death, was condemned by the index in , under paul v. on examining the ancient systems, copernicus was struck by the want of harmony in the arrangements proposed, and by the arbitrary manner in which new principles were introduced and old ones neglected, comparing the system to a collection of legs and arms not united to any trunk, and it was the simplicity and harmony which the one idea of the motion of the earth introduced into the whole system that convinced him most thoroughly of its truth. he knew well that new views and truths would appear as paradoxes, and be rejected by men who were wedded to old doctrines, and on this account he took such pains to show that these views had been held before, and thus to disarm them of their apparent novelty. [illustration: fig. .--the copernican system.] copernicus dealt only with the six planets then known and the sun and moon. as to the stars, he had no idea that they were suns like our own, at immense and various distances from us. the knowledge of the magnitude of the sidereal universe was reserved for our own century, when it was discovered by the method of parallaxes. we will give copernicus's own sketch of the planetary system:-- "in the highest place is the sphere of the fixed stars, an immovable sphere, which surrounds the whole of the universe. among the movable planets the first is saturn, which requires thirty years to make its revolution. after it jupiter accomplishes its journey in twelve years; mars follows, requiring two years. in the fourth line come the earth and the moon which in the course of one year return to their original position. the fifth place is occupied by venus, which requires nine months for its journey. mercury occupies the sixth place, whose orbit is accomplished in eighty days. in the midst of all is the sun. what man is there, who in this majestic temple could choose another and better place for that brilliant lamp which illuminates all the planets with their satellites? it is not without reason that the sun is called the lantern of the world, the soul and thought of the universe. in placing it in the centre of the planets, as on a regal throne, we give it the government of the great family of celestial bodies." the hypothesis of the motion of the earth in its orbit appeared simply to copernicus as a good basis for the exact determination of the ratios of the distances of the several planets about the sun. but he did not give up the excentrics and epicycles for the explanation of the irregular motions of the planets, and certain imaginary variations in the precession of the equinoxes and the obliquity of the ecliptic. according to him the earth was endowed with three different motions, the first about its axis, the second along the ecliptic, and a third, which he called the declination, moving it backwards along the signs of the zodiac from east to west. this last motion was invented to explain the phenomena of the seasons. he thought, like many other ancient philosophers, that a body could not turn about another without being fixed in some way to it--by a crystal sphere, or something--and in this case that the same surface would each day be presented to the sun, and so it requires a third rotation, by which its axis may remain constantly parallel to itself. galileo, however, afterwards demonstrated the independence of the two motions in question, and proved that the third was unnecessary. copernicus was born in the polish village of thorn, in , and died in , at warmia, of which he was canon, and where he built an observatory. the voyages of his youth, his labours, adversities, and old age at last broke him down, and in the winter of he took to his bed, and was incapable of further work. his work, which was just finished printing at nuremberg, was brought to him by his friends before he died. he soon after completely failed in strength, and passed away tranquilly on the rd of may, . [illustration: plate viii.--death of copernicus.] the copernican system required, however, establishing in the minds of astronomers generally before it took the place it now holds, and this work was done by galileo--a name as celebrated as that of copernicus himself, if not more so. this perhaps is due not only to his demonstration of the motion of the earth, but to his introduction of experimental philosophy, and his observational method in astronomy. the next advance was made by kepler, who overthrew at one blow all the excentrics and epicycles of the ancients, when by his laborious calculations he proved the ellipticity of the orbit of mars. the grecian hypotheses were the logical consequences of two propositions which were universally admitted as axioms in the early and middle ages. first, that the motions of the heavenly bodies were uniform; second, that their orbits were perfect circles. nothing appeared more natural than this belief, though false. so then when kepler, in , recognised the fact, by incontestable geometrical measurements, that mars described an oval orbit round the sun, in which its velocity varied periodically, he could not believe either his observation or his calculation, and he puzzled his brain to discover what secret principle it was that forced the planet to approach and depart from the sun by turns. fortunately for him, in this inquietude he came across a treatise by gilbert, _de magnate_, which had been published in london nine years before. in this remarkable work gilbert proved by experiment that the earth acts on magnetized needles and on bars of iron placed near its surface just as a magnet does--and by a conjectural extension of this fact, which was a vague presentiment of the truth, he supposed that the earth itself might be retained in its constant orbit round the sun by a magnetic attraction. this idea was a ray of light to kepler. it led him to see the secret cause of the alternating motions that had troubled him so much, and in the joy of that discovery he said, "if we find it impossible to attribute the vibration to a magnetic power residing in the sun, acting on the planet without any material medium between, we must conclude that the planet is itself endowed with a kind of intelligent perception which gives it power to know at each instant the proper angles and distances for its motion." in the result kepler was led to enunciate to the world his three celebrated laws:-- st. that the planets move in ellipses, of which the sun is in one of the foci. nd. the spaces described by the ideal radius which joins each planet to the sun are proportional to the times of their description. in other words, the nearer a planet is to the sun, the faster it moves. rd. the squares of the times of revolution are as the cubes of the major axes of the orbits. such were the laws of kepler, the basis of modern astronomy, which led in the hands of newton to the simple explanation by universal gravitation, which itself is now asking to be explained. we are not to suppose that the system of copernicus was universally accepted even by astronomers of note. by some an attempt was made to invent a system which should have all the advantages of this, and yet if possible save the immobility of the earth. such was that of tycho brahe, who was born three years after the death of copernicus, and died in . he was one of the most laborious and painstaking observers of his time, although by the peculiarity of fate he is known generally only by his false system. [illustration: fig. .--tycho brahe's system.] in , tycho brahe wrote a little treatise, _tychonis brahe, dani, de mundi Ætherei recentioribus phenomenis, à propos_ of a comet that had lately appeared. he speaks at length of his system as follows:--"i have remarked that the ancient system of ptolemy is not at all natural, and too complicated. but neither can i approve of the new one introduced by the great copernicus after the example of aristarchus of samos. this heavy mass of earth, so little fit for motion, could not be displaced in this manner, and moved in three ways, like the celestial bodies, without a shock to the principles of physics. besides, it is opposed to scripture! i think then," he adds, "that we must decidedly and without doubt place the earth immovable in the centre of world, according to the belief of the ancients and the testimony of scripture. in my opinion the celestial motions are arranged in such a way that the sun, the moon, and the sphere of the fixed stars, which incloses all, have the earth for their centre. the five planets turn about the sun as about their chief and king, the sun being constantly in the centre of their orbits, and accompany it in its annual motion round the earth." this system perfectly accounts for the apparent motions of the planets as seen from the earth, and is essentially a variation on the copernican, rather than on the ptolemaic system, but it lent itself less readily to future discoveries. it simply amounts, as far as the solar system is concerned, to impressing upon all the rest of it the motions of the earth, so as to leave the latter at rest; and were the sun only as large with respect to the earth as it seems, were the planets really smaller than the moon, and the stars only at a short distance, and smaller than the planets, it might seem more natural that they should move than the earth; but when all these suppositions were disproved, the very argument of tycho brahe for the stability of the earth turned the other way, and proved as incontestably that it moved. in the copernican system, however, these questions are of no consequence; if the sun be at rest, this mass makes no difference; if the earth moves like the planets, their relative size does not alter anything; and if stars are immovable they may be at any distance and of any magnitude. the objections of tycho brahe to the earth's motion were: first, that it was too heavy--we know now, however, that some other planets are heavier--and that the sun, which he would make move instead, is , times as heavy. secondly, that if the earth moved, all loose things would be carried from east to west; but we have experience of many loose things being kept by friction on moving bodies, and can conceive how, all things may be kept by the attraction of the earth under the influence of its own motion. thirdly, that he could not imagine that the earth was turned upside down every day, and that for twelve hours our heads are downwards. but the existence of the antipodes overcomes this objection, and shows that there is no up and down in the universe, but each man calls that _down_ which is nearer to the centre of the earth than himself. a variation on tycho brahe's system was attempted by one longomontanus, who had lived with him for ten years. it consisted in admitting the diurnal rotation, but not the annual revolution, of the earth; but it made no progress, and was soon forgotten. more remarkable than this was the attempt by descartes in the same direction, namely, to hold the principles of copernicus, and yet to teach the immobility of the earth. his idea of immobility was however very different from that of tycho brahe, or of any one else, and would only be called so by those who were bound to believe it at all costs. his theory of vortices, as it is called, will be best given in his own words as contained in his _les principes de la philosophie_, third part, chap. xxvi., entitled, "that the earth is at rest in its heaven, which does not prevent its being carried along with it, and that it is the same with all the planets." "i adhere," he says, "to the hypothesis of copernicus, because it seems to me the simplest and clearest. there is no vacuum anywhere in space.... the heavens are full of a universal liquid substance. this is an opinion now commonly received among astronomers, because they cannot see how the phenomena can be explained without it. the substance of the heavens has the common property of all liquids, that its minutest particles are easily moved in any direction, and when it happens that they all move in one way, they necessarily carry with them all the bodies they surround, and which are not prevented from moving by any external cause. the matter of the heaven in which the planets are turns round continually like a vortex, which has the sun for its centre. the parts that are nearest the sun move faster than those that are at a greater distance; and all the planets, including the earth, remain always suspended in the same place in the matter of the heaven. and just as in the turns of rivers, when the water turns back on itself and twists round in circles, if any twig or light body floats on it, we see it carry them round, and make them move with it, and even among these twigs we may see some turning on their own centre, and those that are nearest to the middle of the vortex moving quicker than those on the outside; so we may easily imagine it to be with the planets, and this is all that is necessary to explain the phenomena. the matter that is round saturn takes about thirty years to run its circle; that which surrounds jupiter carries it and its satellites round in twelve years, and so on.... the satellites are carried round their primaries by smaller vortices.... the earth is not sustained by columns, nor suspended in the air by ropes, but it is environed on all sides by a very liquid heaven. it is at rest, and has no propulsion or motion, since we do not perceive any in it. this does not prevent it being carried round by its heaven, and following its motion without moving itself, just as a vessel which is not moved by winds or oars, and is not retained by anchors, remains in repose in the middle of the sea, although the flood of the great mass of water carries it insensibly with it. like the earth, the planets remain at rest in the region of heaven where each one is found. copernicus made no difficulty in allowing that the earth moves. tycho, to whom this opinion seemed absurd and unworthy of common sense, wished to correct him, but the earth has far more motion in his hypothesis than in that of copernicus." [illustration: fig. .--descartes' theory of vortices.] such is the celebrated theory of vortices. the comparison of the rotation of the earth and planets and their revolution round the sun to the turning of small portions of a rapid stream, may contain an idea yet destined to be developed to account for these motions; but as used by descartes it is a mere playing upon words admirably adapted to secure the concurrence of all parties; those who believed in the motion of the earth seeing that it did not interfere with their ideas in the least, and those who believed in its stability being gratified to find some way by which they might still cling to that belief and yet adopt the new ideas. this was its purpose, and that purpose it well served; but as a philosophical speculation it was worthless. when former astronomers declared that any planet moved, whether it were the earth or any other, they had no idea of attraction, but supposed the planet fixed to a sphere; this sphere moving and carrying the planet with it was what they meant by the planet moving: the theory of vortices merely substituted a liquid for a solid sphere, with this disadvantage, that if the planet were fixed to a solid moving sphere, it _must_ move; if only placed in a liquid one, that liquid might pass it if it did not have motion of its own. [illustration: fig. .--vortices of the stars.] a variation on descartes' system of vortices was proposed in the eighteenth century, which supposed that the sun, instead of being fixed in the centre of the system, itself circulated round another centre, carrying mercury with it. this motion of the sun was intented to explain the changes of magnitude of its disc as seen from the earth, and the diurnal and annual variations in its motion, without discarding its circular path. [illustration: fig. .--variation of descartes' theory.] we have thus noticed all the chief astronomical systems that have at any time been entertained by astronomers. they one and all have given way before the universally acknowledged truth about which there is no longer any dispute. systems are not now matters of opinion or theory. we speak of facts as certain as any that can be ascertained in any branch of knowledge. we have much to learn, but what we have settled as the basis of our knowledge will never more be altered as far as we can see. of course there have been always fantastic fancies put forth about the solar system, but they are more amusing than instructive. some have said that there is no sun, moon, or stars, but that they are reflections from an immense light under the earth. some savage races say that the moon when decreasing breaks up into stars, and is renewed each month by a creative act. the indians used to say that it was full of nectar which the gods ate up when it waned, and which grew again when it waxed. the brahmins placed the earth in the centre, and said that the stars moved like fishes in a sea of liquid. they counted nine planets, of which two are invisible dragons which cause eclipses; which, since they happen in various parts of the zodiac, show that these dragons revolve like the rest. they said the sun was nearer than the moon, perhaps because it is hotter and brighter. berosus the chaldean gave a very original explanation of the phases and eclipses of the moon. he said it had one side bright, and the other side just the colour of the sky, and in turning it represented the different colours to us. before concluding this chapter we may notice what information we possess as to the origin of the names by which the planets are known. these names have not always been given to them, and date only from the time when the poets began to associate the grecian mythology with astronomy. the earlier names had reference rather to their several characters, although there appear to have been among every people two sets of names applied to them. the earliest greek names referred to their various degrees of brilliancy: thus saturn, which is not easily distinguished, was called phenon, or _that which appears_; jupiter was named phaëton, _the brilliant_; mars was pysoïs, or _flame-coloured_; mercury, stilbon, _the sparkling_; venus, phosphorus; and lucifer, _the light-bearer_. they called the latter also calliste, _the most beautiful_. it was also known then as now under the appellations of the morning star and evening star, indicating its special position. with the ancient accadians, the planets had similar names, among others. thus, "mars was sometimes called _the vanishing star_, in allusion to its recession from the earth, and jupiter the _planet of the ecliptic_, from its neighbourhood to the latter" (sayce). the name of mars raises the interesting question as to whether they had noticed its phases as well as its movements--especially when, with reference to venus, it is recorded in the "observations of bel," that "it rises, and in its orbit duly grows in size." they had also a rather confusing system of nomenclature by naming each planet after the star that it happened to be the nearest to at any point of its course round the ecliptic. among less cultivated nations also the same practice held, as with the natives of south america, whose name for the sun is a word meaning _it brings the day_; for the moon, _it brings the night_; and for venus, _it announces the day_. but even among the eastern nations, from whom the greeks and romans borrowed their astronomical systems, it soon became a practice to associate these planets with the names of the several divinities they worshipped. this was perhaps natural from the adoration they paid to the celestial luminaries themselves on account of their real or supposed influence on terrestrial affairs; and, moreover, as time went on, and heroes had appeared, and they had to find them dwelling-places in the heavens, they would naturally associate them with one or other of the most brilliant and remarkable luminaries, to which they might suppose them translated. beyond these general remarks, only conjectures can be made why any particular divinity should among the greeks be connected with the several planets as we now know them. such conjectures as the following we may make. thus jupiter, the largest, would take first rank, and be called after the name of the chief divinity. the soft and sympathising venus--appearing at the twilight--would well denote the evening star. mars would receive its name from its red appearance, naturally suggesting carnage and the god of war. saturn, or kronos, the god of time, is personified by the slow and almost imperceptible motion of that remote planet. while mercury, the fiery and quick god of thieves and commerce, is well matched with the hide-and-seek planet which so seldom can be seen, and moves so rapidly. these were the only planets known to the ancients, and were indeed all that could be discovered without a telescope. if the ancient babylonians possessed telescopes, as has been conjectured from their speaking, as we have noticed above, of the increase of the size of venus, and from the finding a crystal lens among the ruins of nineveh, they did not use them for this purpose. the other planets now known have a far shorter history. uranus was discovered by sir william herschel on the th of march, , and was at first taken for a comet. herschel proposed to call it georgium sidus, after king george iii. lalande suggested it should be named herschel, after its discoverer, and it bore this name for some time. afterwards the names, neptune, astroea, cybele, and uranus were successively proposed, and the latter, the suggestion of bode, was ultimately adopted. it is the name of the most ancient of the gods, connected with the then most modern of planets in point of discovery, though also most ancient in formation, if recent theories be correct. neptune, as everybody knows, was calculated into existence, if one may so speak, by adams and leverrier independently, and was first seen, in the quarter indicated, by dr. galle at berlin, in september, , and by universal consent it received the name it now bears. there are now also known a long series of what are called minor planets, all circulating between mars and jupiter, with their irregular orbits inextricably mingled together. their discovery was led to in a remarkable manner. it was observed that the distances of the several planets might approximately be expressed by the terms of a certain mathematical series, if one term was supplied between mars and jupiter--a fact known by the name of bode's law. when the new planet, uranus, was found to obey this law, the feeling was so strong that there must be something to represent this missing term, that strong efforts were made to discover it, which led to success, and several, whose names are derived from the minor gods and goddesses, are now well known. all these planets, like the signs of the zodiac, are indicated by astronomers by certain symbols, which, as they derive their form from the names or nature of the planets, may properly here be explained. the sign of neptune is [symbol: neptune], representing the trident of the sea; for uranus [symbol: uranus], which is the first letter of herschel with a little globe below; [symbol: saturn] is the sickle of time, or saturn; [symbol: jupiter] is the representation of the first letter of zeus or jupiter; [symbol: mars] is the lance and buckler of mars; [symbol: venus] the mirror of venus; [symbol: mercury] the wand of mercury; [symbol: sun] the sun's disc; and [symbol: moon] the crescent of the moon. [illustration: plate ix.--the solar system.] the more modern discoveries have, of course, been all made by means of the telescope, and a few words on the history of its discovery may fitly close this chapter. according to olbers, a concave and convex lens were first used in combination, to render objects less distant in appearance, in the year . in that year the children of one jean lippershey, an optician of middelburg, in zealand, were playing with his lenses, and happened to hold one before the other to look at a distant clock. their great surprise in seeing how near it seemed attracted their father's attention, and he made several experiments with them, at last fixing them as in the modern telescope--in draw tubes. on the nd of october, , he made a petition to the states-general of holland for a patent. the aldermen, however, saw no advantage in it, as you could only look with one eye instead of two. they refused the patent, and though the discovery was soon found of value, lippershey reaped no benefit. galileo was the first to apply the telescope to astronomical observations. he did not have it made in holland, but constructed it himself on lippershey's principle. this was in . its magnifying power was at first , and he afterwards increased it to , and then to . with this he discovered the phases of venus, the spots on the sun, the four satellites of jupiter, and the mountains of the moon. [illustration: plate x.--the discovery of the telescope.] kepler, in , made the first astronomical telescope with two concave glasses. huyghens increased the magnifying power successively to , , and , and discovered saturn's ring and his satellite no. . cassini, the first director of the paris observatory, brought it to , aided by auzout campani of rome, and rives of london. he observed the rotation of jupiter ( ), that of venus and mars ( ), the fifth and third satellites of saturn ( ), and afterwards the two nearer ones ( ); the other satellites of this planet were discovered, the sixth and seventh, by sir william herschel ( ), and the eighth by bond and lasel ( ). we may add here that the satellites of uranus were discovered, six by herschel from to , and two by lassel in , the latter also discovering neptune's satellite in . the rotation of saturn was discovered by herschel in , and that of mercury by schroeter in . the earliest telescopes which were reflectors were made by gregory in and newton in . the greatest instruments of our century are that of herschel, which magnifies , times, and lord rosse's, magnifying , times, the foucault telescope at marseilles, of , , the reflector at melbourne, of , , and the newall refractor. [illustration: plate xi.--the foundation of paris observatory.] the exact knowledge of the heavens, which makes so grand a feature in modern science, is due, however, not only to the existence of instruments, but also to the establishment of observatories especially devoted to their use. the first astronomical observatory that was constructed was that at paris. in colbert submitted the designs of it to louis xiv., and four years afterwards it was completed. the greenwich observatory was established in , that of berlin in , and that of st. petersburg in . since then numerous others have been erected, private as well as public, in all parts of the world, and no night passes without numerous observations being taken as part of the ordinary duty of the astronomers attached to them. chapter ix. the terrestrial world of the ancients.--cosmography and geography. with respect to the shape and position of the earth itself in the material universe, and the question of its motion or immobility, we cannot go so far back as in the case of the heavens, since it obviously requires more observation, and is not so pressing for an answer. amongst the greeks several authors appear to have undertaken the subject, but only one complete work has come down to us which undertakes it directly. this is a work attributed to aristotle, _de mundo_. it is addressed to alexander, and by some is considered to be spurious, because it lacks the majestic obscurity that in his acknowledged works repels the reader. although, however, it is not as obscure as it might be, for the writer, it is quite bad enough, and its dryness and vagueness, its mixture of metaphysical and physical reasoning, logic and observation, and the change that has naturally passed over the meanings of many common words since they were written, render it very tedious and unpleasant reading. nevertheless, as presenting us with the first recorded ideas on these questions of the nature and properties of the earth, it deserves attentive study. it is not a system of observations like those of ptolemy and the alexandrian school, but an entirely theoretical work. it is founded entirely on logic; but unfortunately, if the premisses are bad, the better the syllogism the more erroneous will be the conclusion; and it is just this which we find here. thus if he be asked whether the earth turns or the heavens, he will reply that the earth is _evidently_ in repose, and that this is the case not only because we observe it to be so, but because it is a necessity that it should be; because repose is _natural_ to the earth, and it is _naturally_ in equilibrium. this idea of "natural" leads very often astray. he is guided to his idea of what is natural by seeing what is, and then argues that what is, or appears to be, must be, because it is natural--thus arguing in a circle. another example may be given in his answer to the question, why must the stars move round the earth? he says it is natural, because a circle is a more perfect line, and must therefore be described by the perfect stars, and a circle is perfect because it has no ends! unfortunately there are other curves that have no ends; but the circle was considered, without more reason, the most perfect curve, and therefore the planets must move in circles--an idea which had to wait till kepler's time to be exploded. one more specimen of this style may be quoted, namely, his proof that every part of heaven must be eternally moving, while the earth must be in the centre and at rest. the proof is this. everything which performs any act has been made for the purpose of that act. now the work of god is immortality, from which it follows that all that is divine must have an eternal motion. but the heavens have a divine quality, and for this reason they have a spherical shape and move eternally in a circle. now when a body has a circular motion, one part of it must remain at rest in its place, namely, that which is in the centre; the earth is in the centre--therefore it is at rest. aristotle says in this work that there are two kinds of simple motion, that in a circle and that in a straight line. the latter belongs to the elements, which either go up or down, and the former to the celestial bodies, whose nature is more divine, and which have never been known to change; and the earth and world must be the only bodies in existence, for if there were another, it must be the contrary to this, and there is no contrary to a circle; and again, if there were any other body, the earth would be attracted towards it, and move, which it does not. such is the style of argument which was in those days thought conclusive, and which with a little development and inflation of language appeared intensely profound. but what brings these speculations to the subject we have now in hand is this: that when aristotle thus proves the earth to be immovable in the centre of the universe, he is led on to inquire how it is possible for it to remain in one fixed place. he observed that even a small fragment of earth, when it is raised into the air and then let go, immediately falls without ever stopping in one place--falling, as he supposed, all the quicker according to its weight; and he was therefore puzzled to know why the whole mass of the earth, notwithstanding its weight, could be kept from falling. aristotle examines one by one the answers that have been given to this question. thus xenophanes gave to the earth infinitely extended roots, against which empedocles uses such arguments as we should use now. thales of miletus makes the earth rest upon water, without finding anything on which the water itself can rest, or answering the question how it is that the heavier earth can be supported on the lighter water. anaxemenes, anaxagoras, and democritus, who make the earth flat, consider it to be sustained by the air, which is accumulated below it, and also presses down upon it like a great coverlet. aristotle himself says that he agrees with those philosophers who think that the earth is brought to the centre by the primitive rotation of things, and that we may compare it, as empedocles does, to the water in glasses which are made to turn rapidly, and which does not fall out or move, even though upside down. he also quotes with approval another opinion somewhat similar to this, namely, that of anaximander, which states that the earth is in repose, on account of its own equilibrium. placed in the centre and at an equal distance from its extremities, there is no reason why it should move in one direction rather than the other, and rests immovable in the centre without being able to leave it. the result of all is that aristotle concludes that the earth is immovable, in the centre of the universe, and that it is not a star circulating in space like other stars, and that it does not rotate upon its axis; and he completes the system by stating that the earth is spherical, which is proved by the different aspects of the heavens to a voyager to the north or to the south. such was the aristotelian system, containing far more error than truth, which was the first of any completeness. scattered ideas, however, on the shape and method of support of the earth and the cause of various phenomena, such as the circulation of the stars, are met with besides in abundance. the original ideas of the earth were naturally tinged by the prepossessions of each race, every one thinking his own country to be situated in the centre. thus among the hindoos, who lived near the equator, and among the scandinavians, inhabiting regions nearer the pole, the same meaning attaches to the words by which they express their own country, _medpiama_ and _medgard_, both meaning the central habitation. olympus among the greeks was made the centre of the earth, and afterwards the temple of delphi. for the egyptians the central point was thebes; for the assyrians it was babylon; for the indians it was the mountain mero; for the hebrews jerusalem. the chinese always called their country the central empire. it was then the custom to denote the world by a large disc, surrounded on all sides by a marvellous and inaccessible ocean. at the extremities of the earth were placed imaginary regions and fortunate isles, inhabited by giants or pigmies. the vault of the sky was supposed to be supported by enormous mountains and mysterious columns. numerous variations have been suggested on the earliest supposed form of the earth, which was, as we have seen in a former chapter, originally supposed to be an immense flat of infinite depth, and giving support to the heavens. as travels extended and geography began to be a science, it was remarked that an immense area of water circumscribed the solid earth by irregular boundaries--whence the idea of a universal ocean. when, however, it was perceived that the horizon at sea was always circular, it was supposed that the ocean was bounded, and the whole earth came to be represented as contained in a circle, beneath which were roots reaching downwards without end, but with no imagined support. [illustration: fig. .--the earth floating.] [illustration: fig. .--the earth with roots.] the vedic priests asserted that the earth was supported on twelve columns, which they very ingeniously turned to their own account by asserting that these columns were supported by virtue of the sacrifices that were made to the gods, so that if these were not made the earth would collapse. [illustration: fig. .--the earth of the vedic priests.] these pillars were invented in order to account for the passing of the sun beneath the earth after his setting, for which at first they were obliged to imagine a system of tunnels, which gradually became enlarged to the intervals between the pillars. the hindoos made the hemispherical earth to be supported upon four elephants, and the four elephants to stand on the back of an immense tortoise, which itself floated on the surface of a universal ocean. we are not however to laugh at this as intended to be literal; the elephants symbolised, it may be, the four elements, or the four directions of the compass, and the tortoise was the symbol for strength and for eternity, which was also sometimes represented by a serpent. [illustration: fig. .--hindoo earth.] the floating of the earth on water or some other liquid long held ground. it was adopted by thales, and six centuries later seneca adopts the same opinion, saying that the humid element that supports the earth's disc like a vessel may be either the ocean or some liquid more simple than water. diodorus tells us that the chaldeans considered the earth hollow and boat-shaped--perhaps turned upside down--and this doctrine was introduced into greece by heraclitus of ephesus. [illustration: fig. .--the earth of anaximander.] anaximander represents the earth as a cylinder, the upper face of which alone is inhabited. this cylinder, he states, is one-third as high as its diameter, and it floats freely in the centre of the celestial vault, because there is no reason why it should move to one side rather than the other. leucippus, democritus, heraclitus, and anaxagoras all adopted this purely imaginary form. europe made the northern half, and lybia (africa) and asia the southern, while delphi was in the centre. anaximenes, without giving a precise opinion as to the form of the earth, made it out to be supported on compressed air, though he gave no idea as to how the air was to be compressed. plato thought to improve upon these ideas by making the earth cubical. the cube, which is bound by six equal faces, appeared to him the most perfect of solids, and therefore most suitable for the earth, which was to stand in the centre of the universe. [illustration: fig. .--plato's cubical earth.] eudoxus, who in his long voyages throughout greece and egypt had seen new constellations appear as he went south, while others to the north disappeared, deduced the sphericity of the earth, in which opinion he was followed by archimedes, and, as we have seen, by aristotle. according to achilles tatius, xenophanes gave to the earth the shape of an immense inclined plane, which stretched out to infinity. he drew it in the form of a vast mountain. the summit only was inhabited by men, and round it circulated the stars, and the base was at an infinite depth. hesiod had before this obscurely said: "the abyss is surrounded by a brazen barrier; above it rest the roots of the earth." epicurus and his school were well pleased with this representation. if such were the foundations of the earth, then it was impossible that the sun, and moon, and stars should complete their revolutions beneath it. a solid and indefinite support being once admitted, the epicurean ideas about the stars were a necessary consequence; the stars must inevitably be put out each day in the west, since they are not seen to return to the place whence they started, and they must be rekindled some hours afterwards in the east. in the days of augustus, cleomedes still finds himself obliged to combat these epicurean ideas about the setting and rising of the sun and stars. "these stupid ideas," he says, "have no other foundation than an old woman's story--that the iberians hear each night the hissing noise made by the burning sun as it is extinguished, like a hot iron in the waters of the ocean." modern travellers have shown us that similar ideas about the support of the earth have been entertained by more remote people. thus, in the opinion of the greenlanders, handed down from antiquity to our own days, the earth is supported on pillars, which are so consumed by time that they often crack, and were it not that they are supported by the incantations of the magicians, they would long since have broken down. this idea of the breaking of the pillars may possibly have originated in the known sinking of the land beneath the sea, which is still going on even at the present day. [illustration: fig. .--egyptian representation of the earth.] an ancient egyptian papyrus in the library of paris gives a very curious hieroglyphical representation of the universe. the earth is here figured under the form of a reclining figure, and is covered with leaves. the heavens are personified by a goddess, which forms the vault by her star-bespangled body, which is elongated in a very peculiar manner. two boats, carrying, one the rising sun, and the other the setting sun, are represented as moving along the heavens over the body of the goddess. in the centre of the picture is the god, maon, a divine intelligence, which presides over the equilibrium of the universe. we will now pass on from the early ideas of the general shape and situation of the world to inquire into the first outlines of geographical knowledge of details. of all the ancient writings which deal with such questions, the hebrew scriptures have the greatest antiquity, and in them are laid down many details of known countries, from which a fair map of the world as known to them might be made out. the prophet esdras believed that six-sevenths of the earth was dry land--an idea which could not well be exploded till the great oceans had been traversed and america discovered. more interesting, as being more complete, and written to a certain extent for the very purpose of relating what was known of the geography of the earth, are the writings of the oldest grecian poets. the first elements of grecian geography are contained in the two national and almost sacred poems, the _iliad_ and _odyssey_. so important have these writings been considered in regard to ancient geography, that for many centuries discussions have been carried on with regard to the details, though evidently fictitious, of the voyage of ulysses, and twenty lines of the _iliad_ have furnished matter for a book of thirty volumes. the shield of achilles, forged by vulcan and described in the eighteenth book of the _iliad_, gives us an authentic representation of the primitive cosmographical ideas of the age. the earth is there figured as a disc, surrounded on all sides by the _river ocean_. however strange it may appear to us, to apply the term _river_ to the ocean, it occurs too often in homer and the other ancient poets to admit of a doubt of its being literally understood by them. hesiod even describes the sources of the ocean at the western extremity of the world, and the representation of these sources was preserved from age to age amongst authors posterior to homer by nearly a thousand years. herodotus says plainly that the geographers of his time drew their maps of the world according to the same ideas; the earth was figured with them as a round disc, and the ocean as a river, which washed it on all sides. the earth's disc, the _orbis terrarum_, was covered according to homer by a solid vault or firmament, beneath which the stars of the day and night were carried by chariots supported by the clouds. in the morning the sun rose from the eastern ocean, and in the evening it declined into the western; and a vessel of gold, the mysterious work of vulcan, carried it quickly back by the north, to the east again. beneath the earth homer places, not the habitation of the dead, the caverns of hades, but a vault called tartarus, corresponding to the firmament. here lived the titans, the enemies of the gods, and no breath of wind, no ray of light, ever penetrated to this subterranean world. writers subsequent to homer by a century determined even the height of the firmament and the depth of tartarus. an anvil, they said, would take nine days to fall from heaven to earth, and as many more to fall from earth to the bottom of tartarus. this estimate of the height of heaven was of course far too small. if a body were to fall for nine days and nights, or , seconds under the attraction of the earth, it would only pass over , miles, that is not much more than half as far again as the moon. a ray of light would only take two seconds to pass over that distance, whereas it takes eight minutes to reach us from the sun, and four hours to come from neptune--to say nothing of the distance of the stars. the limits of the world in the homeric cosmography were surrounded by obscurity. the columns of which atlas was the guardian were supported on unknown foundations, and disappeared in the systems subsequent to homer. beyond the mysterious boundary where the earth ended and the heavens began an indefinite chaos spread out--a confused medley of life and inanity, a gulf where all the elements of heaven, tartarus, and earth and sea are mixed together, a gulf of which the gods themselves are afraid. ideas such as these prevailed long after geometers and astronomers had proved the spherical form of the globe, and they were revived by the early christian geographers and have left their trace even on the common language of to-day. [illustration: fig. .--homeric cosmography.] the centre of the terrestrial disc was occupied by the continent and isles of greece, which in the time of homer possessed no general name. the centre of greece passed therefore for the centre of the whole world; and in homer's system it was reckoned to be olympus in thessaly, but the priests of the celebrated temple of apollo at delphi (known then under the name of python) gave out a tradition that that sacred place was the real centre of the habitable world. the straits which separate italy from sicily were so to speak the vestibule of the fabulous world of homer. the threefold ebb and flow, the howling of the monster scylla, the whirlpools of charybdis, the floating rocks--all tell us that we are quitting here the region of truth. sicily itself, although already known under the name of _trinacria_, was filled with marvels; here the flocks of the sun wandered in a charming solitude under the guardianship of nymphs; here the cyclops, with one eye only, and the anthropophagous lestrigons scared away the traveller from a land that was otherwise fertile in corn and wine. two historical races were placed by homer in sicily, namely the _sicani_, and the _siceli_, or _siculi_. to the west of sicily we find ourselves in the midst of a region of fables. the enchanted islands of circe and calypso, and the floating island of eolus can no longer be found, unless we imagine them to have originated, like graham's island in this century, from volcanic eruptions or elevations, and to have disappeared again by the action of the sea. the homeric map of the world terminated towards the west by two fabulous countries which have given rise to many traditions among the ancients, and to many discussions among moderns. near to the entrance of the ocean, and not far from the sombre caverns where the dead are congregated, ulysses found the _cimmerians_, "an unhappy people, who, constantly surrounded by thick shadows, never enjoyed the rays of the sun, neither when it mounted the skies, nor when it descended below the earth." still farther away, and in the ocean itself, and therefore beyond the limits of the earth, beyond the region of winds and seasons, the poet paints for us a fortunate land, which he calls _elysium_, a country where tempests and winter are unknown, where a soft zephyr always blows, and where the elect of jupiter, snatched from the common lot of mortals, enjoy a perpetual felicity. whether these fictions had an allegory for their basis, or were founded on the mistaken notions of voyagers--whether they arose in greece, or, as the hebrew etymology of the name cimmerian might seem to indicate, in the east, or in phenicia, it is certain that the images they present, transferred to the world of reality, and applied successively to various lands, and confused by contradictory explanations, have singularly embarrassed the progress of geography through many centuries. the roman travellers thought they recognised the fortunate isles in a group to the west of africa, now known as the canaries. the philosophical fictions of plato and theopompus about atlantes and meropis have been long perpetuated in historical theories; though of course it is possible that in the numerous changes that have taken place in the surface of the earth, some ancient vast and populous island may have descended beneath the level of the sea. on the other side, the poetic imagination created the _hyperboreans_, beyond the regions where the northern winds were generated, and according to a singular kind of meteorology, they believed them for that reason to be protected from the cold winds. herodotus regrets that he has not been able to discover the least trace of them; he took the trouble to ask for information about them from their neighbours, the _arimaspes_, a very clear-sighted race, though having but a single eye; but they could not inform him where the hyperboreans dwelt. the enchanted isles, where the hesperides used to guard the golden fruit, and which the whole of antiquity placed in the west, not far from the fortunate isles, are sometimes called hyperborean by authors well versed in the ancient traditions. it is also in this sense that sophocles speaks of the garden of phoebus, near the vault of heaven, and not far from the _sources of the night_, _i.e._ of the setting of the sun. avienus explains the mild temperature of the hyperborean country by the temporary proximity of the sun, since, according to the homeric ideas, it passes during the night by the northern ocean to return to its palace in the east. this ancient tradition was not entirely exploded in the time of tacitus, who states that on the confines of germany might be seen the veritable setting of apollo beyond the water, and he believes that as in the east the sun gives rise to incense and balm by its great proximity to the earth, so in the regions where it sets it makes the most precious of juices to transude from the earth and form amber. it is this idea that is embedded in the fables of amber being the tears of gold that apollo shed when he went to the hyperborean land to mourn the loss of his son Æsculapius, or by the sisters of phaëton, changed into poplars; and it is denoted by the greek name for amber, _electron_--a sun-stone. the grecian sages, long before the time of tacitus, said that this very precious material was an exhalation from the earth that was produced and hardened by the rays of the sun, which they thought came nearer to the earth in the west and in the north. florus, in relating the expedition of decimus brutus along the coast of spain, gives great effect to the epicurean views about the sun, by declaring that brutus only stopped his conquests after having witnessed the actual descent of the sun into the ocean, and having heard with horror the terrible noise occasioned by its extinction. the ancients also believed that the sun and the other heavenly bodies were nourished by the waters--partly the fresh water of the rivers, and partly the salt water of the sea. cleanthes gave the reason for the sun returning towards the equator on reaching the solstices, that it could not go too far away from the source of its nourishment. pytheas relates that in the island of thule, six days' journey north of great britain, and in all that neighbourhood, there was no land nor sea nor air, but a compound of all three, on which the earth and the sea were suspended, and which served to unite together all the parts of the universe, though it was not possible to go into these places, neither on foot nor in ships. perhaps the ice floating in the frozen seas and the hazy northern atmosphere had been seen by some navigator, and thus gave rise to this idea. as it stands, the history may be perhaps matched by that of the amusing monk who said he had been to the end of the world and had to stoop down, as there was not room to stand between heaven and earth at their junction. homer lived in the tenth century before our era. herodotus, who lived in the fifth, developed the homeric chart to three times its size. he remarks at the commencement of his book that for several centuries the world has been divided into three parts--europe, asia, and libya; the names given to them being female. the exterior limits of these countries remained in obscurity notwithstanding that those boundaries of them that lay nearest to greece were clearly defined. one of the greatest writers on ancient geography was strabo, whose ideas we will now give an account of. he seems to have been a disciple of hipparchus in astronomy, though he criticises and contradicts him several times in his geography. he had a just idea of the sphericity of the earth; but considered it as the centre of the universe, and immovable. he takes pains to prove that there is only one inhabited earth--not in this refuting the notion that the moon and stars might have inhabitants, for these he considered to be insignificant meteors nourished by the exhalations of the ocean; but he fought against the fact of there being on this globe any other inhabited part than that known to the ancients. it is remarkable to notice that the proofs then used by geographers of the sphericity of the earth are just those which we should use now. thus strabo says, "the indirect proof is drawn from the centripetal force in general, and the tendency that all bodies have in particular towards a centre of gravity. the direct proof results from the phenomena observed on the sea and in the sky. it is evident, for example, that it is the curvature of the earth that alone prevents the sailor from seeing at a distance the lights that are placed at the ordinary height of the eye, and which must be placed a little higher to become visible even at a greater distance; in the same way, if the eye is a little raised it will see things which previously were hidden." homer had already made the same remark. on this globe, representing the world, strabo and the cosmographers of his time placed the habitable world in a surface which he describes in the following way: "suppose a great circle, perpendicular to the equator, and passing through the poles to be described about the sphere. it is plain that the surface will be divided by this circle, and by the equator into four equal parts. the northern and southern hemispheres contain, each of them, two of these parts. now on any one of these quarters of the sphere let us trace a quadrilateral which shall have for its southern boundary the half of the equator, for northern boundary a circle marking the commencement of polar cold, and for the other sides two equal and opposite segments of the circle that passes through the poles. it is on one such quadrilateral that the habitable world is placed." he figures it as an island, because it is surrounded on all sides by the sea. it is plain that strabo had a good idea of the nature of gravity, because he does not distinguish in any way an upper or a lower hemisphere, and declares that the quadrilateral on which the habitable world is situated may be any one of the four formed in this way. the form of the habitable world is that of a "chlamys," or cloak. this follows, he says, both from geometry and the great spread of the sea, which, enveloping the land, covers it both to the east and to the west and reduces it to a shortened and truncated form of such a figure that its greatest breadth preserved has only a third of its length. as to the actual length and breadth, he says, "it measures seventy thousand stadia in length, and is bounded by a sea whose immensity and solitude renders it impassable; while the breadth is less than thirty thousand stadia, and has for boundaries the double region where the excess of heat on one side and the excess of cold on the other render it uninhabitable." the habitable world was thus much longer from east to west than it was broad from north to south; from whence come our terms _longitude_, whose degrees are counted in the former direction, and _latitude_, reckoned in the latter direction. eratosthenes, and after him hipparchus, while he gives larger numbers than the preceding for the dimensions of the inhabited part of the earth, namely, thirty-eight thousand stadia of breadth and eighty thousand of length, declares that physical laws accord with calculations to prove that the length of the habitable earth must be taken from the rising to the setting of the sun. this length extends from the extremity of india to that of iberia, and the breadth from the parallel of ethiopia to that of ierne. that the earth is an island, strabo considers to be proved by the testimony of our senses. for wherever men have reached to the extremities of the earth they have found the sea, and for regions where this has not been verified it is established by reasoning. those who have retraced their steps have not done so because their passage was barred by any continent, but because their supplies have run short, and they were afraid of the solitude; the water always ran freely in front of them. it is extraordinary that strabo and the astronomers of that age, who recognised so clearly the sphericity of the earth and the real insignificance of mountains, should yet have supposed the stars to have played so humble a part, but so it was; and we find strabo arguing in what we may call quite the contrary direction. he says, "the larger the mass of water that is spread round the earth, so much more easy is it to conceive how the vapours arising from it are sufficient to nourish the heavenly bodies." [illustration: fig. .--the earth of the later greeks.] among the latin cosmographers we may here cite one who flourished in the first century after christ, pomponius mela, who wrote a treatise, called _de situ orbis_. from whatever source, whether traditional or otherwise, he arrived at the conclusion, he divided the earth into two continents, our own and that of the antichthones, which reached to our antipodes. this map was in use till the time of christopher columbus, who modified it in the matter of the position of this second continent, which till then remained a matter of mystery. [illustration: fig. .--pomponius mela's cosmography.] of those who in ancient times added to the knowledge then possessed of cosmography, we should not omit to mention the name of pytheas, of marseilles, who flourished in the fourth century before our era. his chief observations, however, were not so closely related to geography as to the relation of the earth with the heavenly bodies. by the observation of the gnomon at mid-day on the day of the solstice he determined the obliquity of the ecliptic in his epoch. by the observation of the height of the pole, he discovered that in his time it was not marked by any star, but formed a quadrilateral with three neighbouring stars, [greek: b] of the little bear and [greek: k] and [greek: a] of the dragon. chapter x. cosmography and geography of the church. after the writers mentioned in the last chapter a long interval elapsed without any progress being made in the knowledge of the shape or configuration of the earth. from the fall of the roman empire, whose colonies themselves gave a certain knowledge of geography, down to the fifteenth century, when the great impetus was given to discovery by the adventurous voyagers of spain and portugal, there was nothing but servile copying from ancient authors, who were even misrepresented when they were not understood. even the peninsula of india was only known by the accounts of orientals and the writings of the ancients until the beginning of the fifteenth century. vague notions, too, were held as to the limits of africa, and even of europe and asia--while of course they knew nothing of america, in spite of their marking on their maps an antichthonal continent to the south. denys, the traveller, a greek writer of the first century, and priscian, his latin commentator of the fourth, still maintained the old errors with regard to the earth. according to them the earth is not round, but leaf-shaped; its boundaries are not so arranged as to form everywhere a regular circle. macrobius, in his system of the world, proves clearly that he had no notion that africa was continued to the south of ethiopia, that is of the tenth degree of n. latitude. he thought, like cleanthus and crates and other ancient authors, that the regions that lay nearest the tropics, and were burnt by the sun, could not be inhabited; and that the equatorial regions were occupied by the ocean. he divided the hemisphere into five zones, of which only two were habitable. "one of them," he said, "is occupied by us, and the other by men of whose nature we are ignorant." orosus, writing in the same century (fourth), and whose work exercised so great an influence on the cosmographers of the middle ages and on those who made the maps of the world during that long period, was ignorant of the form or boundaries of africa, and of the contours of the peninsulas of southern asia. he made the heavens rest upon the earth. s. basil, also of the fourth century, placed the firmament on the earth, and on this heaven a second, whose upper surface was flat, notwithstanding that the inner surface which is turned towards us is in the form of a vault; and he explains in this way how the waters can be held there. s. cyril shows how useful this reservoir of water is to the life of men and of plants. diodorus, bishop of tarsus, in the same century, also divided the world into two stages, and compared it to a tent. severianus, bishop of gabala, about the same time, compared the world to a house of which the earth is the ground floor, the lower heavens the ceiling, and the upper, or heaven of heavens, the roof. this double heaven was also admitted by eusebius of cæsaræa. in the fifth, sixth, and seventh centuries science made no progress whatever. it was still taught that there were limits to the ocean. thus lactantius asserted that there could not be inhabitants beyond the line of the tropics. this father of the church considered it a monstrous opinion that the earth is round, that the heavens turn about it, and that all parts of the earth are inhabited. "there are some people," he says, "so extravagant as to persuade themselves that there are men who have their heads downwards and their feet upwards; that all that lies down here is hung up there; that the trees and herbs grow downwards; and that the snow and hail fall upwards.... those people who maintain such opinions do so for no other purpose than to amuse themselves by disputation, and to show their spirit; otherwise it would be easy to prove by invincible argument that it is impossible for the heavens to be underneath the earth." (divine institution). saint augustin also, in his _city of god_, says: "there is no reason to believe in that fabulous hypothesis of the antipodes, that is to say, of men who inhabit the other side of the earth--where the sun rises when it sets with us, and who have their feet opposed to ours." ... "but even if it were demonstrated by any argument that the earth and world have a spherical form, it would be too absurd to pretend that any hardy voyagers, after having traversed the immensity of the ocean, had been able to reach that part of the world and there implant a detached branch of the primæval human family." in the same strain wrote s. basil, s. ambrose, s. justin martyr, s. chrysostom, procopius of gaza, severianus, diodorus bishop of tarsus, and the greater number of the thinkers of that epoch. eusebius of cæsaræa was bold enough on one occasion to write in his commentaries on the psalms, that, "according to the opinion of some the earth is round;" but he draws back in another work from so rash an assertion. even in the fifteenth century the monks of salamanca and alcala opposed the old arguments against the antipodes to all the theories of columbus. [illustration: fig. .--the earth's shadow.] in the middle of the sixteenth century gregory of tours adopted also the opinion that the intertropical zone was uninhabitable, and, like other historians, he taught that the nile came from the unknown land in the east, descended to the south, crossed the ocean which separated the antichthone from africa, and then alone became: visible. the geographical and cosmographical ideas that were then prevalent may also be judged of by what s. avitus, a latin poet of the sixth century and nephew of the emperor flavius avitus, says in his poem on the creation, where he describes the terrestrial paradise. "beyond india," he writes, "_where the world commences_, where the confines of heaven and earth are joined, is an exalted asylum, inaccessible to mortals, and closed by eternal barriers, since the first sin was committed." in a treatise on astronomy, published a little after this in , by apian and gemma frison, they very distinctly state their belief in a round earth, though they do not go into details of its surface. the argument is the old one from eclipses, but the figures they give in illustration are very amusing, with three or four men of the size of the moon disporting themselves on the earth's surface. as, however, they all have their feet to the globe representing the earth, and consequently have their feet in opposite directions at the antipodes, the idea is very clearly shown. [illustration: fig. .] "if," they say, "the earth were square, its shadow on the moon would be square also. "if the earth were triangular, its shadow, during an eclipse of the moon, would also be triangular. [illustration: fig. .] "if the earth had six sides, its shadow would have the same figure. [illustration: fig. .] "since, then, the shadow of the earth is round, it is a proof that the earth is round also." this of course is one of the proofs that would be employed in the present day for the same purpose. the most remarkable of all the fantastical systems, however, the _chef d'oeuvre_ of the cosmography of that age, was the famous system of the square earth, with solid walls for supporting the heavens. its author was _cosmas_, surnamed _indicopleustes_ after his voyage to india and ethiopia. he was at first a merchant, and afterwards a monk. he died in . his manuscript was entitled "christian topography," and was written in . it was with the object of refuting the opinions of those who gave a spherical form to the earth that cosmas composed his work after the systems of the church fathers, and in opposition to the cosmography of the gentiles. he reduced to a systematic form the opinions of the fathers, and undertook to explain all the phenomena of the heavens in accordance with the scriptures. in his first book he refutes the opinion of the sphericity of the earth, which he regarded as a heresy. in the second he expounds his own system, and the fifth to the ninth he devotes to the courses of the stars. this mongrel composition is a singular mixture of the doctrines of the indians, chaldeans, greeks, and christian fathers. with respect to his opponents he says, "there are on all sides vigorous attacks against the church," and accuses them of misunderstanding scripture, being misled by the eclipses of the sun and moon. he makes great fun of the idea of rain falling upwards, and yet accuses his opponents of making the earth at the same time the centre and the base of the universe. the zeal with which these pretended refutations are used proves, no doubt, that in the sixth century there were some men, more sensible and better instructed than others, who preserved the deposit of progress accomplished by the grecian genius in the alexandrian school, and defended the labours of hipparchus and ptolemy; while it is manifest that the greater number of their contemporaries kept the old indian and homeric traditions, which were easier to understand, and more accessible to the false witness of the senses, and not improved by combination with texts of scripture misinterpreted. in fact, cosmographical science in the general opinion retrograded instead of advancing. according to cosmas and his map of the world, the habitable earth is a plane surface. but instead of being supposed, as in the time of thales, to be a disc, he represented it in the form of a parallelogram, whose long sides are twice the shorter ones, so that man is on the earth like a bird in a cage. this parallelogram is surrounded by the ocean, which breaks in in four great gulfs, namely, the mediterranean and caspian seas, and the persian and arabian gulfs. beyond the ocean in every direction there exists another continent which cannot be reached by man, but of which one part was once inhabited by him before the deluge. to the east, just as in other maps of the world, and in later systems, he placed the _terrestrial paradise_, and the four rivers that watered eden, which come by subterranean channels to water the post-diluvian earth. after the fall, adam was driven from paradise; but he and his descendants remained on its coasts until the deluge carried the ark of noah to our present earth. on the four outsides of the earth rise four perpendicular walls, which surround it, and join together at the top in a vault, the heavens forming the cupola of this singular edifice. the world, according to cosmas, was therefore a large oblong box, and it was divided into two parts; the first, the abode of men, reaches from the earth to the firmament, above which the stars accomplish their revolutions; there dwell the angels, who cannot go any higher. the second reaches upwards from the firmament to the upper vault, which crowns and terminates the world. on this firmament rest the waters of the heavens. cosmas justifies this system by declaring that, according to the doctrine of the fathers and the commentators on the bible, the earth has the form of the tabernacle that moses erected in the desert; which was like an oblong box, twice as long as broad. but we may find other similarities,--for this land beyond the ocean recalls the atlantic of the ancients, and the mahomedans, and orientals in general, say that the earth is surrounded by a high mountain, which is a similar idea to the walls of cosmas. [illustration: fig. .--the cosmography of cosmas.] "god," he says, "in creating the earth, rested it on nothing. the earth is therefore sustained by the power of god, the creator of all things, supporting all things by the word of his power. if below the earth, or outside of it, anything existed, it would fall of its own accord. so god made the earth the base of the universe, and ordained that it should sustain itself by its own proper gravity." after having made a great square box of the universe, it remained for him to explain the celestial phenomena, such as the succession of days and nights and the vicissitudes of the seasons. [illustration: fig. .--the square earth.] this is the remarkable explanation he gives. he says that the earth, that is, the oblong table circumscribed on all sides by high walls, is divided into three parts; first the habitable earth, which occupies the middle; secondly, the ocean which surrounds this on all sides; and thirdly, another dry land which surrounds the ocean, terminated itself by these high walls on which the firmament rests. according to him the habitable earth is always higher as we go north, so that southern countries are always much lower than northern. for this reason, he says, the tigris and euphrates, which run towards the south, are much more rapid than the nile, which runs northwards. at the extreme north there is a large conical mountain, behind which the sun, moon, planets, and comets all set. these stars never pass below the earth, they only pass behind this great mountain, which hides them for a longer or shorter time from our observation. according as the sun departs from or approaches the north, and consequently is lower or higher in the heavens, he disappears at a point nearer to or further from the base of the mountain, and so is behind it a longer or shorter time, whence the inequality of the days and nights, the vicissitudes of the seasons, eclipses, and other phenomena. this idea is not peculiar to cosmas, for according to the indians, the mountain of someirat is in the centre of the earth, and when the sun appears to set, he is really only hiding behind this mountain. his idea, too, of the manner in which the motions are performed is strange, but may be matched elsewhere. "all the stars are created," he says, "to regulate the days and nights, the months and the years, and they move, not at all by the motion of the heaven itself, but by the action of certain divine beings, or _lampadophores_. god made the angels for his service, and he has charged some of them with the motion of the air, others with that of the sun, or the moon, or the other stars, and others again with the collecting of clouds and preparing the rain." similar to this were the ideas of other doctors of the [illustration: fig. .--explanation of sunrise.] church, such as s. hilary and theodorus, some of whom supposed that the angels carried the stars on their shoulders like the _omophores_ of the manichees; others that they rolled them in front of them or drew them behind; while the jesuit riccioli, who made astronomical observations, remarks that each angel that pushes a star takes great care to observe what the others are doing, so that the relative distances between the stars may always remain what they ought to be. the abbot trithemus gives the exact succession of the seven angels or spirits of the planets, who take it in turns during a cycle of three hundred and fifty-four years to govern the celestial motions from the creation to the year . the system thus introduced seems to have been spread abroad, and to have lingered even into the nineteenth century among the arabs. a guide of that nationality hired at cairo in , remarked to two travellers how the earth had been made square and covered with stones, but the stones had been thrown into the four corners, now called france, italy, england, and russia, while the centre, forming a circle round mount sinai, had been given to the arabians. alongside of this system of the square was another equally curious--that of the egg. its author was the famous venerable bede, one of the most enlightened men of his time, who was educated at the university of armagh, which produced alfred and alcuin. he says: "the earth is an element placed in the middle of the world, as the yolk is in the middle of an egg; around it is the water, like the white surrounding the yolk; outside that is the air, like the membrane of the egg; and round all is the fire which closes it in as the shell does. the earth being thus in the centre receives every weight upon itself, and though by its nature it is cold and dry in its different parts, it acquires accidentally different qualities; for the portion which is exposed to the torrid action of the air is burnt by the sun, and is uninhabitable; its two extremities are too cold to be inhabited, but the portion that lies in the temperate region of the atmosphere is habitable. the ocean, which surrounds it by its waves as far as the horizon, divides it into two parts, the upper of which is inhabited by us, while the lower is inhabited by our antipodes; although not one of them can come to us, nor one of us to them." [illustration: fig. .--the earth as an egg.] this last sentence shows that however far he may have been from the truth, he did not, like so many of his contemporaries, stumble over the idea of up and down in the universe, and so consider the notion of antipodes absurd. [illustration: fig. .--the earth as a floating egg.] a great number of the maps of the world of the period followed this idea, and drew the world in the shape of an egg at rest. it was broached, however, in another form by edrisi, an arabian geographer of the eleventh century, who, with many others, considered the earth to be like an egg with one half plunged into the water. the regularity of the surface is only interrupted by valleys and mountains. he adopted the system of the ancients, who supposed that the torrid zone was uninhabited. according to him the known world only forms a single half of the egg, the greater part of the water belonging to the surrounding ocean, in the midst of which earth floats like an egg in a basin. several artists and map-makers adopted this theory in the geographical representations, and so, whether in this way or the last, the egg has had the privilege of representing the form of the earth for nearly a thousand years. the celebrated raban maur, of mayence, composed in the ninth century a treatise, entitled _de universo_, divided into twenty-two books. it is a kind of encyclopædia, in which he gives an abridged view of all the sciences. according to his cosmographic system the earth is in the form of a wheel, and is placed in the middle of the universe, being surrounded by the ocean; on the north it is bounded by the caucasus, which he supposes to be mountains of gold, which no one can reach because of dragons, and griffins, and men of monstrous shape that dwell there. he also places jerusalem in the centre of the earth. the treatise of honorus, entitled _imago mundi_, and many other authors of the same kind, represent, st, the terrestrial paradise in the most easterly portion of the world, in a locality inaccessible to man; nd, the four rivers which had their sources in paradise; rd, the torrid zone, uninhabited; th, fantastic islands, transformed from the atlantis into _antillia_. [illustration: fig .--eighth century map of the world.] in a manuscript commentary on the apocalypse, which is in the library of turin, is a very curious chart, referred to the tenth, but belonging possibly to the eighth century. it represents the earth as a circular planisphere. the four sides of the earth are each accompanied by a figure of a wind, as a horse on a bellows, from which air is poured out, as well as from a shell in his mouth. above, or to the east, are adam, and eve with the serpent. to their right is asia with two very elevated mountains--cappadocia and caucasus. from thence comes the river _eusis_, and the sea into which it falls forms an arm of the ocean which surrounds the earth. this arm joins the mediterranean, and separates europe from asia. towards the middle is jerusalem, with two curious arms of the sea running past it; while to the south there is a long and straight sea in an east and west direction. the various islands of the mediterranean are put in a square patch, and rome, france, and germany are indicated, while thula, britannia, and scotia are marked as islands in the north-west of the ocean that surrounds the whole world. [illustration: fig. .--tenth century maps.] we figure below two very curious maps of the world of the tenth century--one of which is round, the other square. the first is divided into three triangles; that of the east, or asia, is marked with the name of _shem_; that of the north, or europe, with that of _japhet_; that of the south, or africa, with that of _cham_. the second is also divided between the three sons of noah; the ocean surrounds it, the mediterranean forms the upright portion of a cross of water which divides the adamic world. omons, the author of a geographical poem entitled _the image of the world_, composed in , who was called the lucretius of the thirteenth century, was not more advanced than the cosmographers of the former centuries of which we have hitherto spoken. the cosmographical part of his poem is borrowed from the system of pythagoras and the venerable bede. he maintains that the earth is enveloped in the heavens, as the yoke in the white of an egg, and that it is in the middle as the centre is within the circle, and he speaks like pythagoras of the harmony of the celestial spheres. omons supposed also that in his time the terrestrial paradise was still existing in the east, with its tree of life, its four rivers, and its angel with a flaming sword. he appears to have confounded hecla with the purgatory of st. patrick, and he places the latter in iceland, saying that it never ceases to burn. the volcanoes were only, according to him, the breathing places or mouths of the infernal regions. the latter he placed with other cosmographers in the centre of the earth. another author, nicephorus blemmyde, a monk who lived during the same century, composed three cosmographical works, among them the following: _on the heavens and the earth, on the sun and moon, the stars, and times and days_. according to his system the earth is flat, and he adopts the homeric theory of the ocean surrounding the world, and that of the seven climates. nicolas of oresmus, a celebrated cosmographer of the fourteenth century, although his celebrity as a mathematician attracted the attention of king john of france, who made him tutor to his son charles v., was not wiser than those we have enumerated above. he composed among other works a _treatise on the sphere_. he rejected the theory of an antichthonal continent as contrary to the faith. a map of the world, prepared by him about the year , represents the earth as round, with one hemisphere only inhabited, the other, or lower one, being plunged in the water. he seems to have been led by various borrowed ideas, as, for instance, theological ones, such as the statement in the psalms that god had founded the earth upon the waters, and grecian ones borrowed from the school of thales, and the theories of the arabian geographers. in fact we have seen that edrisi thought that half of the earth was in the water, and aboulfeda thought the same. the earth was placed by nicolas in the centre of the universe, which he represented by painting the sky blue, and dotting it over with stars in gold. leonardo dati, who composed a geographical poem entitled _della spera_, during this century, advanced no further. a coloured planisphere showed the earth in the centre of the universe surrounded by the ocean, then the air, then the circles of the planets after the ptolemaic system, and in another representation of the same kind he figures the infernal regions in the centre of the earth, and gives its diameter as seven thousand miles. he proves himself not to have known one half of the globe by his statement of the shape of the earth--that it is like a t inside an o. this is a comparison given in many maps of the world in the middle ages, the mean parallel being about the th degree of north latitude, that is to say at the straits of gibraltar; the mediterranean is thus placed so as to divide the earth into two equal parts. john beauvau, bishop of angiers under louis xl, expresses his ideas as follows:-- "the earth is situated and rests in the middle of the firmament, as the centre or point is in the middle of a circle. of the whole earth mentioned above only one quarter is inhabited. the earth is divided into four parts, as an apple is divided through the centre by cutting it lengthways and across. if one part of such an apple is taken and peeled, and the peel is spread out over anything flat, such as the palm of the hand, then it resembles the habitable earth, one side of which is called the east, and the other the west." the arabians adopted not only the ideas of the ancients, but also the fundamental notions of the cosmographical system of the greeks. some of them, as _bakouy_, regarded the earth as a flat surface, like a table, others as a ball, of which one half is cut off, others as a complete revolving ball, and others that it was hollow within. others again went as far as to say that there were several suns and moons for the several parts of the earth. in a map, preserved in the library at cambridge, by henry, canon of st. marie of mayence, the form of the world is given after herodotus. the four cardinal points are indicated, and the orientation is that of nearly all the cartographic monuments of the middle ages, namely, the east at the top of the map. the four cardinal points are four angels, one foot placed on the disc of the earth; the colours of their vestments are symbolical. the angel placed at the boreal extremity of the earth, or to the north of the scythians, points with his finger to people enclosed in the ramparts of gog and magog, _gens immunda_ as the legend says. in his left hand he holds a die to indicate, no doubt, that there are shut up the jews who cast lots for the clothes of christ. his vestments are green, his mantle and his wings are red. the angel placed to the left of paradise has a green mantle and wings, and red vestments. in his left hand he holds a kind of palm, and by the right he seems to mark the way to paradise. the position of the other angels placed at the west of the world is different. they seem occupied in stopping the passage beyond the _columns_ (that is, the entrance to the atlantic ocean). all of them have golden aureolas. the surrounding ocean is painted of a clear green. another remarkable map of the world is that of andrea bianco. in it we see eden at the top, which represents the east, and the four rivers are running out of it. much of europe is indicated, including spain, paris, sweden, norway, ireland, which are named, england, iceland, spitzbergen, &c., which are not named. the portion round the north pole to the left is indicated as "cold beneath the pole star." in these maps the systematic theories of the ancient geographers seem mixed with the doctrines of the fathers of the church. they place generally in the red sea some mark denoting the passage of the hebrews, the terrestrial paradise at the extreme east, and jerusalem in the centre. the towns are figured often by edifices, as in the list of theodosius, but without any regard to their respective positions. each town is ordinarily represented by two towers, but the principal ones are distinguished by a little wall that appears between these two towers, on which are painted several windows, or else they may be known by the size of the edifices. st. james of compostella in gallicia and rome are represented by edifices of considerable size, as are nazareth, troy, antioch, damascus, babylon, and nineveh. [illustration: fig. .--the map of andrea bianco.] one of the most remarkable monuments of the geography of the last centuries of the middle ages is the map in hereford cathedral, by richard of haldingham, not only on account of its numerous legends, but because of its large dimensions, being several square yards in area. on the upper part of this map is represented the last judgment; jesus christ, with raised arms, holding in his hands a scroll with these words, _ecce testimonium meum_. at his side two angels carry in their hands the instruments of his passion. on the right hand stands an angel with a trumpet to his mouth, out of which come these words, _levez si vendres vous par_. an angel brings forward a bishop by the hand, behind whom is a king, followed by other personages; the angel introduces them by a door formed of two columns, which seems to serve as an entrance to an edifice. the virgin is kneeling at the feet, of her son. behind her is another woman kneeling, who holds a crown, which she seems ready to place on the head of the mother of christ, and by the side of the woman is a kneeling angel, who appears to be supporting the maternal intercessor. the virgin uncovers her breast and pronounces the words of a scroll which is held by an angel kneeling in front of her, _vei i b' fiz mon piz de deuiz lauele chare preistes--eles mame lettes dont leit de virgin qui estes--syes merci de tous si com nos mesmes deistes.--r ... em ... ont servi kaut sauveresse me feistes_. to the left another angel, also with a trumpet to his mouth, gives out the following words, which are written on a scroll, _leves si alles all fu de enfer estable_. a gate, drawn like that of the entrance, represents probably the passage by which those must go out who are condemned to eternal pains. in fact the devil is seen dragging after him a crowd of men, who are tied by a cord which he holds in his hand. [illustration: fig. .--from the map in hereford cathedral.] the map itself commences at its upper part, that is, the east, by the terrestrial paradise. it is a circle, in the centre of which is represented the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. adam and eve are there in company with the serpent that beguiled them. the four legendary rivers come out of the base of the tree, and they are seen below crossing the map. outside eden the flight of the first couple, and the angel that drove them away, are represented. at this extreme eastern portion is the region of giants with the heads of beasts. there, too, is seen the first human habitation, or town, built by enoch. below appears the tower of babel. near this are two men seated on a hill close to the river jaxartes; one of them is eating a human leg and the other an arm, which the legend explains thus:--"here live the essedons, whose custom it is to sing at the funerals of their parents; they tear the corpses with their teeth, and prepare their food with these fragments of flesh, mixed with that of animals. in their opinion it is more honourable to the dead to be enclosed in the bodies of their relations than in those of worms." [illustration: fig. .--from the map in hereford cathedral. tower of babel. essedons. dragons. pigmies. the monoceros. the mantichore. a sphinx. the king of the cyclops. blemmye. parasol lip. monocle.] below are seen dragons and pigmies, always to the east of asia, and a little further away in the midst of a strange country, _the king of the cyclops_. this extraordinary geography shows us in india the "mantichore, who has a triple range of teeth, the face of a man, blue eyes, the red colour of blood, the body of a lion, and the tail of a scorpion; its voice is a whistle." on the north of the ganges is represented a man with one leg, shading his head with his foot, which is explained by the following legend:--"in india dwell the monocles, who have only one leg, but who nevertheless move with surprising velocity; when they wish to protect themselves from the heat of the sun they make a shadow with the sole of their foot, which is very large." the blemmys have their mouth and eyes in their chest; others have their mouths and eyes on their shoulders. the parvini are ethiopians that have four eyes. to the east of syene is a man seated who is covering his head with his lip, "people who with their prominent lip shade their faces from the sun." above is drawn a little sun, with the word _sol_. then comes an animal of human form, having the feet of a horse and the head and beak of a bird; he rests on a stick, and the legend tells us it is a satyr; the fauns, half men and half horses; the cynocephales--men with the head of a dog; and the cyanthropes--dogs with the heads of men. the sphinx has the wings of a bird, the tail of a serpent, the head of a woman. it is placed in the midst of the cordilleras, which are joined to a great chain of mountains. here lastly is seen the _monoceros_, a terrible animal; but here is the marvel: "when one shows to this _monoceros_ a young girl, who, when the animal approaches, uncovers her breast, the monster, forgetting his ferocity, lays his head there, and when he is asleep may be taken defenceless." near to the lake meotides is a man clothed in oriental style, with a hat that terminates in a point, and holding by the bridle a horse whose harness is a human skin, and which is explained thus by the latin legend: "here live the griffins, very wicked men, for among other crimes they proceed so far as to make clothes for themselves and their horses out of the skins of their enemies." more to the south is a large bird, the ostrich; according to the legend, "the ostrich has the head of a goose, the body of a crane, the feet of a calf; it eats iron." not far from the riphean mountains two men with long tunics and round bonnets are represented in the attitude of fighting; one brandishes a sword, the other a kind of club, and the legend tells us, "the customs of the people of the interior of scythia are somewhat wild; they inhabit caves; they drink the blood of the slain by sucking their wounds; they pride themselves on the number of people they have slain--not to have slain any one in combat is reckoned disgraceful." near the river that empties itself into the caspian sea it is written: "this river comes from the infernal regions; it enters the sea after having descended from mountains covered with wood, and it is there, they say, that the mouth of hell opens." to the south of this river, and to the north of hyrcania, is represented a monster having the body of a man, the head, tail, and feet of a bull: this is the minotaur. further on are the mountains of armenia, and the ark of noah on one of its plateaux. here, too, is seen a large tiger, and we read: "the tiger, when he sees that he has been deprived of his young, pursues the ravisher precipitately; but the latter, hastening away on his swift horse, throws a mirror to him and is safe." elsewhere appears lot's wife changed into a pillar of salt; the lynx who can see through a stone wall; the river lethe; so called because all who drink of it forget everything. numerous other details might be mentioned, but enough has been said to show the curious nature and exceeding interest of this map, in which matters of observation and imagination are strangely mixed. another very curious geographical document of that epoch is the map of the world of the _grandes chroniques de saint-denis_. this belongs to the fourteenth century. the capitals here too are represented by edifices. the mediterranean is a vertical canal, which goes from the columns of hercules to jerusalem. the caspian sea communicates with it to the north, and the red sea to the south-east, by the nile. it preserves the same position for paradise and for the land of gog and magog that we have seen before. the geography of europe is very defective. britannia and anglia figure as two separate islands, being represented off the west coast of spain, with allemania and germania, also two distinct countries, to the north. the ocean is represented as round the whole, and the various points of the compass are represented by different kinds of winds on the outside. [illustration: fig. .--cosmography of st. denis.] this was the general style of the maps of the world at that period, as we may perceive from the various illustrations we have been able to give, and it curiously initiates us into the mediæval ideas. sometimes they are surrounded by laughable figures of the winds with inflated cheeks, sometimes there are drawn light children of eolus seated on leathern bottles, rotating the liquid within; at other times, saints, angels, adam and eve, or other people, adorn the circumference of the map. within are shown a profusion of animals, trees, populations, monuments, tents, draperies, and monarchs seated on their thrones--an idea which was useful, no doubt, and which gave the reader some knowledge of the local riches, the ethnography, the local forms of government and of architecture in the various countries represented; but the drawings were for the most part childish, and more fantastic than real. the language, too, in which they were written was as mixed as the drawings; no regularity was preserved in the orthography of a name, which on the same map may be written in ten different ways, being expressed in barbarous latin, roman, or old french, catalan, italian, castilian, or portuguese! during the same epoch other forms of maps in less detail and of smaller size show the characters that we have seen in the maps of earlier centuries. marco polo, the traveller, at the end of the fourteenth century, has preserved in his writings all the ancient traditions, and united them in a singular manner with the results of his own observations. he had not seen paradise, but he had seen the ark of noah resting on the top of ararat. his map of the world, preserved in the library at stockholm, is oval, and represents two continents. in that which we inhabit, the only seas indicated are the mediterranean and the black sea. asia appears at the east, europe to the north, and africa to the south. the other continent to the south of the equator, which is not marked, is antichthonia. in a map of the world engraved on a medal of the fifteenth century during the reign of charles v. there is still a reminiscence of the ideas of the concealed earth and meropides, as described by theopompus. we see the winds as cherubim; europe more accurately represented than usual; but africa still unknown, and a second continent, called brumæ, instead of antichthonia, with imaginary details upon it. [illustration: fig. --the map of marco polo.] if such were the ideas entertained amongst the most enlightened nations, what may we expect among those who were less advanced? it would take us too long to describe all that more eastern nations have done upon this point since the commencement of our present era, but we may give an example or two from the arabians. [illustration: fig. .--map on a medal of charles v.] in the ancient arabian chronicle of tabari is a system founded on the earth being the solid foundation of all things; we read: "the prophet says, the all-powerful and inimitable deity has created the mountain of kaf round about the earth; it has been called the foundation pile of the earth, as it is said in the koran, 'the mountains are the piles.' this world is in the midst of the mountain of kaf, just as the finger is in the midst of the ring. this mountain is emerald, and blue in colour; no man can go to it, because he would have to pass four months in darkness to do so. there is in that mountain neither sun, nor moon, nor stars; it is so blue that the azure colour you see in the heavens comes from the brilliancy of the mountain of kaf, which is reflected in the sky. if this were not so the sky would not be blue. all the mountains that you see are supported by kaf; if it did not exist, all the earth would be in a continual tremble, and not a creature could live upon its surface. the heavens rest upon it like a tent." another arabian author, benakaty, writing in , says: "know that the earth has the form of a globe suspended in the centre of the heavens. it is divided by the two great circles of the meridian and equator, which cut each other at light angles, into four equal parts, namely, those of the north-west, north-east, south-west, and south-east. the inhabited portion of the earth is situated in the southern hemisphere, of which one half is inhabited." ibn-wardy, who lived in the same century, adopted the idea of the ocean surrounding all the earth, and said we knew neither its depth nor its extent. this ocean was also acknowledged by the author of the kaf mountain; he says it lies between the earth and that mountain, and calls it bahr-al-mohith. the end of the fifteenth century saw the dawn of a new era in knowledge and science. the discoveries of columbus changed entirely the aspect of matters, the imagination was excited to fresh enterprises, and the hardihood of the adventurers through good or bad success was such as want of liberty could not destroy. nevertheless, as we have seen, columbus imagined the earth to have the shape of a pear. not that he obtained this idea from his own observations, but rather retained it as a relic of past traditions. it is probable that it really dates from the seventh century. we may read in several cosmographical manuscripts of that epoch, that the earth has the form of a cone or a top, its surface rising from south to north. these ideas were considerably spread by the compilations of john of beauvais in , from whom probably columbus derived his notion. although columbus is generally and rightly known as the discoverer of the new world, a very curious suit was brought by pinzon against his heirs in . pinzon pretended that the discovery was due to him alone, as columbus had only followed his advice in making it. pinzon told the admiral himself that the required route was intimated by an inspiration, or revelation. the truth was that this "revelation" was due to a flock of parrots, flying in the evening towards the south-west, which pinzon concluded must be going in the direction of an invisible coast to pass the night in the bushes. certainly the consequences of columbus resisting the advice of pinzon would have been most remarkable; for had he continued to sail due west he would have been caught by the gulf stream and carried to florida, or possibly to virginia, and in this case the united states would have received a spanish and catholic population, instead of an english and protestant one. the discoveries of those days were often commemorated by the formation of heraldic devices for the authors of them, and we have in this way some curious coats of arms on record. that, for instance, of sebastian cano was a globe, with the legend, _primus circumdedisti me_. the arms given to columbus in consisted of the first map of america, with a range of islands in a gulf. charles v. gave to diego of ordaz the figure of the peak of orizaba as his arms, to commemorate his having ascended it; and to the historian oviedo, who passed thirty-four years without interruption ( - ) in tropical america, the four beautiful stars of the southern cross. we have arrived at the close of our history of the attempts that preceded the actual discovery of the form and constitution of the globe; since these were established our further progress has been in matters of detail. there now remains briefly to notice the attempts at discovering the size of the earth on the supposition, and afterwards certainty, of its being a globe. the earliest attempt at this was made by eratosthenes, years before our era, and it was founded on the following reasoning. the sun illuminates the bottom of pits at syene at the summer solstice; on the same day, instead of being vertical over the heads of the inhabitants of alexandria, it is - / degrees from the zenith. seven-and-a-quarter degrees is the fiftieth part of an entire circumference; and the distance between the two towns is five thousand stadia; hence the circumference of the earth is fifty times this distance, or thousand stadia. a century before our era posidonius arrived at an analogous result by remarking that the star canopus touched the horizon at rhodes when it was degrees minutes above that of alexandria. these measurements, which, though rough, were ingenious, were, followed in the eighth century by similar ones by the arabian caliph, almamoun, who did not greatly modify them. the first men who actually went round the world were the crew of the ship under magellan, who started to the west in ; he was slain by the philippine islanders in , but his ship, under his lieutenant, sebastian cano, returned by the east in . the first attempt at the actual measurement of a part of the earth's surface along the meridian was made by fernel in . his process was a singular, but simple one, namely, by counting the number of the turns made by the wheels of his carriage between paris and amiens. he made the number , , and accurate measurements of the distance many years after showed he had not made an error of more than four turns. the astronomer picard attempted it again under louis xiv. by triangulation. the french astronomers have always been forward in this inquiry, and to them we owe the systematic attempts to arrive at a truer knowledge of the length of an arc of the meridian which were made in - in lapland and in peru; and later under mechain and delambre, by order of the national assembly, for the basis of the metrical system. observations of this kind have also been made by the english, as at lough foyle in ireland, and in india. the review which has here been made of the various ideas on what now seems so simple a matter cannot but impress us with the vast contrast there is between the wild attempts of the earlier philosophers and our modern affirmations. what progress has been made in the last two thousand years! and all of this is due to hard work. the true revelation of nature is that which we form ourselves, by our persevering efforts. we now know that the earth is approximately spherical, but flattened by about / at the poles, is three-quarters covered with water, and enveloped everywhere by a light atmospheric mantle. the distance from the centre of the earth to its surface is , miles, its area is million square miles, its volume is , millions of cubic miles, its weight is six thousand trillion tons. so, thanks to the bold measurements of its inhabitants, we know as much about it as we are likely to know for a long time to come. chapter xi. legendary worlds of the middle ages. the legends that were for so many ages prevalent in europe had their foundation in the attempt to make the accounts of scripture and the ideas and dogmas of the fathers of the church fit into the few and insignificant facts that were known with respect to the earth, and the system of which it forms a part, and the far more numerous imaginations that were entertained about it. we are therefore led on to examine some of these legends, that we may appreciate how far a knowledge of astronomy will effect the eradication of errors and fantasies which, under the aspect of truth, have so long enslaved the people. no doubt the authors of the legendary stories knew well enough their allegorical nature; but those who received them supposed that they gave true indications of the nature of the earth and world, and therefore accepted them as facts. some indeed considered that the whole physical constitution of the world was a scaffold or a model, and that there was a real theological universe hidden beneath this semblance. no one omitted from his system the spiritual heaven in which the angels and just men might spend their existence; but in addition to this there were places whose reality was believed in, but whose locality is more difficult to settle, and which therefore were moved from one place to another by various writers, viz., the infernal regions, purgatory, and the terrestrial paradise. we will here recount some of those legends, which wielded sufficient sway over men's minds as to gain their belief in the veritable existence of the places described, and in this way to influence their astronomical and cosmographical ideas. and for the first we will descend to the infernal regions with plutarch and thespesius. this thespesius relates his adventures in the other world. having fallen head-first from an elevated place, he found himself unwounded, but was contused in such a way as to be insensible. he was supposed to be dead, but, after three days, as they were about to bury him, he came to life again. in a few days he recovered his former powers of mind and body; but made a marvellous change for the better in his life. he said that at the moment that he lost consciousness he found himself like a sailor at the bottom of the sea; but afterwards, having recovered himself a little, he was able to breathe perfectly, and seeing only with the eyes of his soul, he looked round on all that was about him. he saw no longer the accustomed sights, but stars of prodigious magnitude, separated from each other by immense distances. they were of dazzling brightness and splendid colour. his soul, carried like a vessel on the luminous ocean, sailed along freely and smoothly, and moved everywhere with rapidity. passing over in silence a large number of the sights that met his eye, he stated that the souls of the dead, taking the form of bubbles of fire, rise through the air, which opens a passage above them; at last the bubbles, breaking without noise, let out the souls in a human form and of a smaller size, and moving in different ways. some, rising with astonishing lightness, mounted in a straight line; others, running round like a whipping-top, went up and down by turns with a confused and irregular motion, making small advance by long and painful efforts. among this number he saw one of his parents, whom he recognised with difficulty, as she had died in his infancy; but she approached him, and said, "good day, thespesius." surprised to hear himself called by this name, he told her that he was called arideus, and not thespesius. "that was once your name," she replied, "but in future you will bear that of thespesius, for you are not dead, only the intelligent part of your soul has come here by the particular will of the gods; your other faculties are still united to your body, which keeps them like an anchor. the proof i will give you is that the souls of the dead do not cast any shadow, and they cannot move their eyes." further on, in traversing a luminous region, he heard, as he was passing, the shrill voice of a female speaking in verse, who presided over the time thespesius should die. his genius told him that it was the voice of the sibyl, who, turning on the orbit of the moon, foretold the future. thespesius would willingly have heard more, but, driven off by a rapid whirlwind, he could make out but little of her predictions. in another place he remarked several parallel lakes, one filled with melted and boiling gold, another with lead colder than ice, and a third with very rough iron. they were kept by genii, who, armed with tongs like those used in forges, plunged into these lakes, and then withdrew by turns, the souls of those whom avarice or an insatiable cupidity had led into crime; after they had been plunged into the lake of gold, where the fire made them red and transparent, they were thrown into the lake of lead. then, frozen by the cold, and made as hard as hail, they were put into the lake of iron, where they became horribly black. broken and bruised on account of their hardness, they changed their form, and passed once more into the lake of gold, and suffered in these changes inexpressible pain. in another place he saw the souls of those who had to return to life and be violently forced to take the form of all sorts of animals. among the number he saw the soul of nero, which had already suffered many torments, and was bound with red-hot chains of iron. the workmen were seizing him to give him the form of a viper, under which he was destined to live, after having devoured the womb that bore him. the locality of these infernal regions was never exactly determined. the ancients were divided upon the point. in the poems of homer the infernal regions appear under two different forms: thus, in the _iliad_, it is a vast subterranean cavity; while in the _odyssey_, it is a distant and mysterious country at the extremity of the earth, beyond the ocean, in the neighbourhood of the cimmerians. the description which homer gives of the infernal region proves that in his time the greeks imagined it to be a copy of the terrestrial world, but one which had a special character. according to the philosophers it was equally remote from all parts of the earth. thus cicero, in order to show that it was of no consequence where one died, said, wherever we die there is just as long a journey to be made to reach the "infernal regions." the poets fixed upon certain localities as the entrance to this dismal empire: such was the river lethe, on the borders of the scythians; the cavern acherusia in epirus, the mouth of pluto, in laodicoea, the cave of zenarus near lacedæmon. in the map of the world in the _polychronicon_ of ranulphus uygden, now in the british museum, it is stated: "the island of sicily was once a part of italy. there is mount etna, containing the infernal regions and purgatory, and it has scylla and charybdis, two whirlpools." ulysses was said to reach the place of the dead by crossing the ocean to the cimmerian land, Æneas to have entered it by the lake of avernus. xenophon says that hercules went there by the peninsula of arechusiade. much of this, no doubt, depends on the exaggeration and misinterpretation of the accounts of voyagers; as when the phoenicians related that, after passing the columns of hercules, to seek tin in thule and amber in the baltic, they came, at the extremity of the world, to the fortunate isles, the abode of eternal spring, and further on to the hyperborean regions, where a perpetual night enveloped the country--the imagination of the people developed from this the elysian fields, as the places of delight in the lower regions, having their own sun, moon, and stars, and tartarus, a place of shades and desolation. in every case, however, both among pagans and christians, the locality was somewhere in the centre of the earth. the poets and philosophers of greece and rome made very detailed and circumstantial maps of the subterranean regions. they enumerated its rivers, its lakes, and woods, and mountains, and the places where the furies perpetually tormented the wicked souls who were condemned to eternal punishment. these ideas passed naturally into the creeds of christians through the sect of the essenes, of whom josephus writes as follows:--"they thought that the souls of the just go beyond the ocean to a place of repose and delight, where they were troubled by no inconvenience, no change of seasons. those of the wicked, on the contrary, were relegated to places exposed to all the inclemencies of the weather, and suffered eternal torments. the essenes," adds the same author, "have similar ideas about these torments to those of the greeks about tartarus and the kingdom of pluto. the greater part of the gnostic sects, on the contrary, considered the lower regions as simply a place of purgatory, where the soul is purified by fire." amongst all the writings of christian ages in which matters such as we are now passing in review are described, there is one that stands out beyond all others as a masterpiece, and that is the magnificent poem of dante, his _divine comedy_, wherein he described the infernal regions as they presented themselves to his lively and fertile imagination. we have in it a picture of mediæval ideas, painted for us in indelible lines, before the remembrance of them was lost in the past. the poem is at once a tomb and a cradle--the tomb of a world that was passing, the cradle of the world that was to come: a portico between two temples, that of the past and that of the future. in it are deposited the traditions, the ideas, the sciences of the past, as the egyptians deposited their kings and symbolic gods in the sepulchres of thebes and memphis. the future brings into it its aspirations and its germs enveloped in the swaddling clothes of a rising language and a splendid poetry--a mysterious infant that is nourished by the two teats of sacred tradition and profane fiction, moses and st. paul, homer and virgil. the theology of dante, strictly orthodox, was that of st. thomas and the other doctors of the church. natural philosophy, properly so called, was not yet in existence. in astronomy, ptolemy reigned supreme, and in the explanation of celestial phenomena no one dreamt or dared to dream of departing in any way from the traditionally sacred system. in those days astronomy was indissolubly linked with a complete series of philosophical and theological ideas, and included the physics of the world, the science of life in every being, of their organisation, and the causes on which depended the aptitudes, inclinations, and even in part the actions, of men, the destinies of individuals, and the events of history. in this theological, astronomical, and terrestrial universe everything emanated from god; he had created everything, and the creation embraced two orders of beings, the immaterial and the corporeal. the pure spirits composed the nine choirs of the celestial hierarchy. like so many circles, they were ranged round a fixed point, the eternal being, in an order determined by their relative perfection. first the seraphim, then the cherubim, and afterwards the simple angels. those of the first circle received immediately from the central point the light and the virtue which they communicated to those of the second; and so on from circle to circle, like mirrors which reflect, with an ever-lessening light, the brilliancy of a single luminous point. the nine choirs, supported by love, turned without ceasing round their centre in larger and larger circles according to their distance; and it was by their means that the motion and the divine inflatus was communicated to the material creation. this latter had in the upper part of it the empyreal, or heaven of pure light. below that, was the _primum mobile_, the greatest body in the heavens, as dante calls it, because it surrounds all the rest of the circle, and bounds the material world. then came the heaven of the fixed stars; then, continuing to descend, the heavens of saturn, jupiter, mars, the sun, venus, mercury, the moon, and lastly, the earth, whose solid and compact nucleus is surrounded by the spheres of water, air, and fire. as the choirs of angels turn about a fixed point, so the nine material circles turn also about another fixed point, and are moved by the pure spirits. let us now descend to the geography of the interior of the earth. within the earth is a large cone, whose layers are the frightful abodes of the condemned, and which ends in the centre, where the divine justice keeps bound up to his chest in ice the prince of the rebellious angels, the emperor of the kingdom of woe. such are the infernal regions which dante describes according to ideas generally admitted in the middle ages. the form of the infernal regions was that of a funnel or reversed cone. all its circles were concentric, and continually diminished; the principal ones were nine in number. virgil also admitted nine divisions--three times three, a number sacred _par excellence_. the seventh, eighth, and ninth circles were divided into several regions; and the space between the entrance to the infernal regions and the river acheron, where the resting-place of the damned really commenced, was divided into two parts. dante, guided by virgil, traversed all these circles. it was in that the poet, "in the midst of the course of life," at the age of thirty-five, passed in spirit through the three regions of the dead. lost in a lonely, wild, and dismal forest, he reached the base of a hill, which he attempted to climb. but three animals, a panther, a lion, and a thin and famished wolf, prevented his passage; so, returning again where the sun was powerless, into the shades of the depths of the valley, there met him a shadow of the dead. this human form, whom a long silence had deprived of speech, was virgil, who was sent to guide and succour him by a celestial dame, beatrice, the object of his love, who was at the same time a real and a mystically ideal being. virgil and dante arrived at the gate of the infernal regions; they read the terrible inscription placed over the gate; they entered and found first those unhappy souls who had lived without virtue and without vice. they reached the banks of acheron and saw charon, who carried over the souls in his bark to the other side; and dante was surprised by a profound sleep. he woke beyond the river, and he descended into the limbo which is the first circle of the infernal regions. he found there the souls of those who had died without baptism, or who had been indifferent to religion. they descended next to the second circle, where minos, the judge of those below, is enthroned. here the luxurious are punished. the poet here met with francesca of rimini and paul, her friend. he completely recovered the use of his senses, and passed through the third circle, where the gourmands are punished. in the fourth he found plutus, who guards it. here are tormented the prodigal and the avaricious. in the fifth are punished those who yield to anger. dante and virgil there saw a bark approaching, conducted by phlegias; they entered it, crossed a river, and arrived thus at the base of the red-hot iron walls of the infernal town of dite. the demons that guarded the gates refused them admittance, but an angel opened them, and the two travellers there saw the heretics that were enclosed in tombs surrounded by flames. the travellers then visited the circles of violence, fraud, and usury, when they came to a river of blood guarded by a troop of centaurs; suddenly they saw coming to them geryon, who represents fraud, and this beast took them behind him to carry them across the rest of the infernal space. [illustration: fig. .--dante's infernal regions.] the eighth circle was divided into ten valleys, comprising: the flatterers; the simoniacal; the astrologers; the sorcerers; the false judges; the hypocrites who walked about clothed with heavy leaden garments; the thieves, eternally stung by venomous serpents; the heresiarchs; the charlatans, and the forgers. at last the poets descended into the ninth circle, divided into four regions, where are punished four kinds of traitors. here is recounted the admirable episode of count ugolin. in the last region, called the region of judas, lucifer is enchained. there is the centre of the earth, and dante, hearing the noise of a little brook, reascended to the other hemisphere, on the surface of which he found, surrounded by the southern ocean, the mountain of purgatory. such was the famous _inferno_ of dante. not only was the geography of the infernal regions attempted in the middle ages, but even their size. dexelius calculated that the number of the damned was a hundred millions, and that their abode need not measure more than one german mile in every direction. cyrano of bergerac amusingly said that it was the damned that kept turning the earth, by hanging on the ceiling like bats, and trying to get away. in an english clergyman, dr. swinden, published a book entitled, _researches on the nature of the fire of hell and the place where it is situated_. he places it in the sun. according to him the christians of the first century had placed it beneath the earth on account of a false interpretation of the descent of jesus into hell after his crucifixion, and by false ideas of cosmography. he attempted to show, st, that the terrestrial globe is too small to contain even the angels that fell from heaven after their battle; nd, that the fire of hell is real, and that the closed globe of earth could not support it a sufficiently long period; rd, that the sun alone presents itself as the necessary place, being a well-sustained fire, and directly opposite in situation to heaven, since the empyreal is round the outside of the universe, and the sun in the centre. what a change to the present ideas, even of doctors of divinity, in a hundred years! so far, then, for mediæval ideas on the position and character of hell. next as to purgatory. the voyage to purgatory that has met with most success is certainly the celebrated irish legend of st. patrick, which for several centuries was admitted as authentic, and the account of which was composed certainly a century before the poem of dante. this purgatory, the entrance to which is drawn in more than one illuminated manuscript, is situated in ireland, on one of the islands of lough derg, county donegal, where there are still two chapels and a shrine, at which annual ceremonies are performed. a knight, called owen, resolved to visit it for penance; and the chronicle gives us an account of his adventures. first he had his obsequial rites performed, as if he had been dead, and then he advanced boldly into the deep ravine; he marched on courageously, and entered into the semi-shadows; he marched on, and even this funereal twilight abandoned him, and "when he had gone for a long time in this obscurity, there appeared to him a little light as it were from a glimmer of day." he arrived at a house, built with much care, an imposing mansion of grief and hope, a marvellous edifice, but similar nevertheless to a monkish cloister, where there was no more light than there is in this world in winter at vesper-time. the knight was in dreadful suspense. suddenly he heard a terrible noise, as if the universe was in a riot; for it seemed certainly to him as if every kind of beast and every man in the world were together, and each gave utterance to their own cry, at one time and with one voice, so that they could not make a more frightful noise. then commenced his trials, and discourse with the infernal beings; the demons yelled with delight or with fury round him. "miserable wretch," said some, "you are come here to suffer." "fly," said others, "for you have not behaved well in the time that is passed: if you will take our advice, and will go back again to the world, we will take it as a great favour and courtesy." [illustration: plate xii.--the legend of owen.] owen was thrown on the dark shadowy earth, where the demons creep like hideous serpents. a mysterious wind, which he scarcely heard, passed over the mud, and it seemed to the knight as if he had been pierced by a spear-head. after a while the demons lifted him up; they took him straight off to the east, where the sun rises, as if they were going to the place where the universe ends. "now, after they had journeyed for a long time here and there over divers countries, they brought him to an open field, very long and very full of griefs and chastisements; he could not see the end of the field, it was so long; there were men and women of various ages, who lay down all naked on the ground with their bellies downwards, who had hot nails driven into their hands and feet; and there was a fiery dragon, who sat upon them and drove his teeth into their flesh, and seemed as if he would eat them; hence they suffered great agony, and bit the earth in spite of its hardness, and from time to time they cried most piteously 'mercy, mercy;' but there was no one there who had pity or mercy, for the devils ran among them and over them, and beat them most cruelly." the devils brought the knight towards a house of punishment, so broad and long that one could not see the end. this house is the house of baths, like those of the infernal regions, and the souls that are bathed in ignominy are there heaped in large vats. "now so it was, that each of these vats was filled with some kind of metal, hot and boiling, and there they plunged and bathed many people of various ages, some of whom were plunged in over their heads, others up to the eyebrows, others up to the eyes, and others up to the mouth. now all in truth of these people cried out with a loud voice and wept most piteously." scarcely had the knight passed this terrible place, and left behind in his mysterious voyage that column of fire which rose like a lighthouse in the shades, and which shone so sadly betwixt hope and eternal despair, than a vast and magnificent spectacle displayed itself in the subterranean space. this luminous and odorescent region, where one might see so many archbishops, bishops, and monks of every order, was the terrestrial paradise; man does not stay there always; they told the knight that he could not taste too long its rapid delights; it is a place of transition between purgatory and the abodes of heaven, just as the dark places which he had traversed were made by the creator between the world and the infernal regions. "in spite of our joys," said the souls, "we shall pass away from here." then they took him to a mountain, and told him to look, and asked of him what colour the heavens seemed to be there where he was standing, and he replied it was the colour of burning gold, such as is in the furnace; and then they said to him, "that which you see is the entrance to heaven and the gate of paradise." the attempts at identification of hell and purgatory have not been so numerous, perhaps because the subjects were not very attractive, except as the spite of men might think of them in reference to other people; but when we come to the terrestrial paradise, quite a crowd of attempts by every kind of writer to fix its position in any and every part of the globe is met with on every side. in the seventeenth century, under louis xiv., daniel huet, bishop of avranches, gave great attention to the question, and collected every opinion that had been expressed upon it, with a view to arriving at some definite conclusion for himself. he was astonished at the number of writings and the diversity of the opinions they expressed. "nothing," he says, "could show me better how little is really known about the situation of the terrestrial paradise than the differences in the opinions of those who have occupied themselves about the question. some have placed it in the third heaven, some in the fourth, in the heaven of the moon, in the moon itself, on a mountain near the lunar heaven, in the middle region of the air, out of the earth, upon the earth, beneath the earth, in a place that is hidden and separated from man. it has been placed under the north pole, in tartary, or in the place now occupied by the caspian sea. others placed it in the extreme south, in the land of fire. others in the levant, or on the borders of the ganges, or in the island of ceylon, making the name india to be derived from eden, the land where the paradise was situated. it has been placed in china, or in an inaccessible place beyond the black sea; by others in america, in africa, beneath the equator, in the east, &c. &c." notwithstanding this formidable array, the good bishop was bold enough to make his choice between them all. his opinion was that the dwelling-place of the first man was situated between the tigris and euphrates, above the place where they separate before falling into the persian gulf; and, founding this opinion on very extensive reading, he declared that of all his predecessors, calvin had come nearest to the truth. among the other authors of greater or less celebrity that have occupied themselves in this question, we may instance the following:-- raban maur (ninth century) believed that the terrestrial paradise was at the eastern extremity of the earth. he described the tree of life, and added that there was neither heat nor cold in that garden; that immense rivers of water nourished all the forest; and that the paradise was surrounded by a wall of fire, and its four rivers watered the earth. james of vitry supposed pison to come out of the terrestrial paradise. he describes also the garden of eden; and, like all the cosmographers of the middle ages, he placed it in the most easterly portion of the world in an inaccessible place, and surrounded by a wall of fire, which rose up to heaven. dati placed also the terrestrial paradise in asia, like the cosmographers that preceded him, and made the nile come from the east. stenchus, the librarian of st. siége, who lived in the sixteenth century, devoted several years to the problem, but discovered nothing. the celebrated orientalist and missionary bochart wrote a treatise on this subject in . thévenot published also in the seventeenth century a map representing the country of the lybians, and adds that "several great doctors place the terrestrial paradise there." an armenian writer who translated and borrowed from st. epiphanius (eighth century) produced a _memorial on the four rivers of the terrestrial paradise_. he supposes they rise in the unknown land of the amazons, whence also arise the danube and the hellespont, and they deliver their waters into that great sea that is the source of all seas, and which surrounds the four quarters of the globe. he afterwards says, following up the same theory, that the rivers of paradise surround the world and enter again into the sea, which is the universal ocean." gervais and robert of st. marien d'auxerre taught that the terrestrial paradise was on the eastern border of the _square_ which formed the world. alain de lille, who lived in the thirteenth century, maintained in his _anticlaudianus_ that the earth is circular, and the garden of eden is in the east of asia. joinville, the friend of st. louis, gives us a curious notion of his geographical ideas, since, with regard to paradise, he assures us that the four great rivers of the south come out of it, as do the spices. "here," he says, referring to the nile, "it is advisable to speak of the river which passes by the countries of egypt, and comes from the terrestrial paradise. where this river enters egypt there are people very expert and experienced, as thieves are here, at stealing from the river, who in the evening throw their nets on the streams and rivers, and in the morning they often find and carry off the spices which are sold here in europe as coming from egypt at a good rate, and by weight, such as cinnamon, ginger, rhubarb, cloves, lignum, aloes, and several other good things, and they say that these good things come _from the terrestrial paradise_, and that the wind blows them off the trees that are growing there." and he says that near the end of the world are the peoples of gog and magog, who will come at the end of the world with antichrist. we find, however, more than descriptions--we have representations of the terrestrial paradise by cartographers of the middle ages, some of which we have seen in speaking of their general ideas of geography, and we will now introduce others. [illustration: fig. .--paradise of fra mauro.] fra mauro, a religious cosmographer of the fifteenth century, gives on the east side of a map of the world a representation which shows us that at that epoch the "garden of delights" had become very barren. it is a vast plain, on which we see jehovah and the first human couple, with a circular rampart surrounding it. the four rivers flow out of it by bifurcating. an angel protects the principal gate, which cannot be reached but by crossing barren mountains. the cosmographical map of gervais, dedicated to the emperor otho iv., shows the terrestrial paradise in the centre of the earth, which is square, and is situated in the midst of the seas. adam and eve appear in consultation. the map of the world prepared by andreas bianco, in the fifteenth century, represents eden, adam and eve, and the tree of life. on the left, on a peninsula, are seen the reprobated people of gog and magog, who are to accompany antichrist. alexander is also represented there, but without apparent reason. the paradisaical peninsula has a building on it with this inscription, "ospitius macarii." formalconi says, on this subject, that a certain macarius lives near paradise, who is a witness to all that the author states, and as bianco has indicated, his cell was close to the gates of paradise. this legend has reference to the pilgrims of st. macarius, a tradition that was spread on the return of the crusaders, of three monks who undertook a voyage to discover the point where the earth and heaven meet, that is to say, the place of the terrestrial paradise. the map of rudimentum, a vast compilation published at lübeck in by the dominican brocard, represents the terrestrial paradise surrounded by walls, but it is less sterile that in the last picture, as may be seen on the next page. in the year , when varthema, the adventurous bolognian, went to the indies by the route of palestine and syria, he was shown the evil-reputed house which cain dwelt in, which was not far from the terrestrial paradise. master gilius, the learned naturalist who travelled at the expense of francis i., had the same satisfaction. the simple faith of our ancestors had no hesitation in accepting such archæology. [illustration: fig. .--the paradise of the fifteenth century.] the most curious and interesting of all attempts to discover the situation of paradise was that made half unconsciously by columbus when he first found the american shore. in his third voyage, when for the first time he reached the main land, he was persuaded not only that he had arrived at the extremity of asia, but that he could not be far from the position of paradise. the orinoco seemed to be one of those four great rivers which, according to tradition, came out of the garden inhabited by our first parents, and his hopes were supported by the fragrant breezes that blew from the beautiful forests on its banks. this, he thought, was but the entrance to the celestial dwelling-place, and if he had dared--if a religious fear had not held back him who had risked everything amidst the elements and amongst men, he would have liked to push forward to where he might hope to find the celestial boundaries of the world, and, a little further, to have bathed his eyes, with profound humility, in the light of the flaming swords which were wielded by two seraphim before the gate of eden. he thus expresses himself on this subject in his letter to one of the monarchs of spain, dated hayti, october, . "the holy scriptures attest that the lord created paradise, and placed in it the tree of life, and made the four great rivers of the earth to pass out of it, the ganges of india, the tigris, the euphrates (passing from the mountains to form mesopotamia, and ending in persia), and the nile, which rises in ethiopia and goes to the sea of alexander. i cannot, nor have been ever able to find in the books of the latins or greeks anything authentic on the site of this terrestrial paradise, nor do i see anything more certain in the maps of the world. some place it at the source of the nile, in ethiopia; but the travellers who have passed through those countries have not found either in the mildness of the climate or in the elevation of the site towards heaven anything that could lead to the presumption that paradise was there, and that the waters of the deluge were unable to reach it or cover it. several pagans have written for the purpose of proving it was in the fortunate isles, which are the canaries. st. isidore, bede, and strabo, st. ambrosius, scotus, and all judicious theologians affirm with one accord that paradise was in the east. it is from thence only that the enormous quantity of water can come, seeing that the course of the rivers is extremely long; and these waters (of paradise) arrive here, where i am, and form a lake. there are great signs here of the neighbourhood of the terrestrial paradise, for the site is entirely conformable to the opinion of the saints and judicious theologians. the climate is of admirable mildness. i believe that if i passed beneath the equinoctial line, and arrived at the highest point of which i have spoken, i should find a milder temperature, and a change in the stars and the waters; not that i believe that the point where the greatest height is situated is navigable, or even that there is water there, or that one could reach it, but i am convinced that _there_ is the terrestrial paradise, where no one can come except by the will of god." in the opinion of this illustrious navigator the earth had the form of a pear, and its surface kept rising towards the east, indicated by the point of the fruit. it was there that he supposed might be found the garden where ancient tradition imagined the creation of the first human couple was accomplished. we can scarcely think without astonishment of the great amount of darkness that obscured scientific knowledge, when this great man appeared on the scene of the world, nor of the rapidity with which the obscurity and vagueness of ideas were dissipated almost immediately after his marvellous discoveries. scarcely had a half century elapsed after his death, than all the geographical fables of the middle ages did no more than excite smiles of incredulity, although during his life the universal opinion was not much advanced upon the times of the famous knight john of mandeville, who wrote gravely as follows:-- "no mortal man can go to or approach this paradise. by land no one can go there on account of savage beasts which are in the deserts, and because of mountains and rocks that cannot be passed over, and dark places without number; nor can one go there any better by sea; the water rushes so wildly, it comes in so great waves, that no vessel dare sail against them. the water is so rapid, and makes so great a noise and tempest, that no one can hear however loud he is spoken to, and so when some great men with good courage have attempted several times to go by this river to paradise, in large companies, they have never been able to accomplish their journey. on the contrary, many have died with fatigue in swimming against the watery waves. many others have become blind, others have become deaf by the noise of the water, and others have been suffocated and lost in the waves, so that no mortal man can approach it except by the special grace of god." with one notable exception, no attempts have been made of late years to solve such a question. that exception is by the noble and indefatigable livingstone, who declared his conviction to sir roderick murchison, in a letter published in the _athenæum_, that paradise was situated somewhere near the sources of the nile. those generally who now seek an answer to the question of the birthplace of the human race do not call it paradise. since man is here, and there was a time quite recent, geologically speaking, when he was not, there must have been some actual locality on the earth's surface where he was first a man. whether we have, or even can hope to have, enough information to indicate where that locality was situated, is a matter of doubt. we have not at present. those who have attended most to the subject appear to think some island the most probable locality, but it is quite conjectural. the name "paradise" appears to have been derived from the persian, in which it means a garden; similarly derived words express the same idea in other languages; as in the hebrew _pardês_, in the arabian _firdaus_, in the syriac _pardiso_, and in the armenian _partes_. it has been thought that the persian word itself is derived from the sanscrit _pradesa_, or _paradesa_, which means a circle, a country, or strange region; which, though near enough as to sound, does not quite agree as to meaning. "eden" is from a hebrew root meaning delights. chapter xii. eclipses and comets. we have seen in the earlier chapters on the systems of the ancients and their ideas of the world how everything was once supposed to have exclusive reference to man, and how he considered himself not only chief of animate objects, but that his own city was the centre of the material world, and his own world the centre of the material universe; that the sun was made to shine, as well as the moon and stars, for his benefit; and that, were it not for him they would have no reason for existence. and we have seen how, step by step, these illusions have been dispelled, and he has learnt to appreciate his own littleness in proportion as he has realised the immensity of the universe of which he forms part. if such has been his history, and such his former ideas on the regular parts, as we may call them, of nature, much more have similar ideas been developed in relation to those other phenomena which, coming at such long intervals, have not been recognised by him as periodic, but have seemed to have some relation to mundane affairs, often of the smallest consequence. such are eclipses of the sun and moon, comets, shooting-stars, and meteors. among the less instructed of men, even when astronomers of the same age and nation knew their real nature, eclipses have always been looked upon as something ominous of evil. among the ancient nations people used to come to the assistance of the moon, by making a confused noise with all kinds of instruments, when it was eclipsed. it is even done now in persia and some parts of china, where they fancy that the moon is fighting with a great dragon, and they think the noise will make him loose his hold and take to flight. among the east indians they have the same belief that when the sun and the moon are eclipsed, a dragon is seizing them, and astronomers who go there to observe eclipses are troubled by the fears of their native attendants, and by their endeavours to get into the water as the best place under the circumstances. in america the idea is that the sun and moon are tired when they are eclipsed. but the more refined greeks believed for a long time that the moon was bewitched, and that the magicians made it descend from heaven, to put into the herbs a certain maleficent froth. perhaps the idea of the dragon arose from the ancient custom of calling the places in the heavens at which the eclipses of the moon took place the head and tail of the dragon. in ancient history we have many curious instances of the very critical influence that eclipses have had, especially in the case of events in a campaign, where it was thought unfavourable to some projected attempt. thus an eclipse of the moon was the original cause of the death of the athenian general nicias. just at a critical juncture, when he was about to depart from the harbour of syracuse, the eclipse filled him and his whole army with dismay. the result of his terror was that he delayed the departure of his fleet, and the athenian army was cut in pieces and destroyed, and nicias lost his liberty and life. plutarch says they could understand well enough the cause of the eclipse of the sun by the interposition of the moon, but they could not imagine by the opposition of what body the moon itself could be eclipsed. one of the most famous eclipses of antiquity was that of thales, recorded by herodotus, who says:--"the lydians and the medes were at war for five consecutive years. now while the war was sustained on both sides with equal chance, in the sixth year, one day when the armies were in battle array, it happened that in the midst of the combat the day suddenly changed into night. thales of miletus had predicted this phenomenon to the ionians, and had pointed out precisely that very year as the one in which it would take place. the lydians and medes, seeing the night succeeding suddenly to the day, put an end to the combat, and only cared to establish peace." another notable eclipse is that related by diodorus siculus. it was a total eclipse of the sun, which took place while agathocles, fleeing from the port of syracuse, where he was blockaded by the carthaginians, was hastening to gain the coast of africa. "when agathocles was already surrounded by the enemy, night came on, and he escaped contrary to all hope. on the day following so complete an eclipse of the sun took place that it seemed altogether night, for the stars shone out in all places. the soldiers therefore of agathocles, persuaded that the gods were intending them some misfortune, were in the greatest perturbation about the future. agathocles was equal to the occasion. when disembarked in africa, where, in spite of all his fine words, he was unable to reassure his soldiers, whom the eclipse of the sun had frightened, he changed his tactics, and pretending to understand the prodigy, "i grant, comrades," he said, "that had we perceived this, eclipse before our embarkation we should indeed have been in a critical situation, but now that we have seen it after our departure, and as it always signifies a change in the present state of affairs, it follows that our circumstances, which were very bad in sicily, are about to amend, while we shall indubitably ruin those of the carthaginians, which have been hitherto so flourishing." we are reminded by this of the story of pericles, who, when ready to set sail with his fleet on a great expedition, saw himself stopped by a similar phenomenon. he spread his mantle over the eyes of the pilot, whom fear had prevented acting, and asked him if that was any sign of misfortune, when the pilot answered in the negative. "what misfortune then do you suppose," said he, "is presaged by the body that hides the sun, which differs from this in nothing but being larger?" with reference to these eclipses, when their locality and approximate date is known, astronomy comes to the assistance of history, and can supply the exact day, and even hour, of the occurrence. for the eclipses depend on the motions of the moon, and just as astronomers can calculate both the time and the path of a solar eclipse in the future, so they can for the past. if then the eclipses are calculated back to the epoch when the particular one is recorded, it can be easily ascertained which one it was that about that time passed over the spot at which it was observed, and as soon as the particular eclipse is fixed upon, it may be told at what hour it would be seen. thus the eclipse of thales has been assigned by different authors to various dates, between the st of october, b.c., and the rd of february, b.c. the only eclipse of the sun that is suitable between those dates has been found by the astronomer-royal to be that which would happen in lydia on the th of may, b.c., which must therefore be the date of the event. so of the eclipse of agathocles, m. delaunay has fixed its date to the th august, b.c. in later days, when christopher columbus had to deal with the ignorant people of america, the same kind of story was repeated. he found himself reduced to famine by the inhabitants of the country, who kept him and his companions prisoners; and being aware of the approach of the eclipse, he menaced them with bringing upon them great misfortunes, and depriving them of the light of the moon, if they did not instantly bring him provisions. they cared little for his menaces at first; but as soon as they saw the moon disappear, they ran to him with abundance of victuals, and implored pardon of the conqueror. this was on the st of march, , a date which may be tested by the modern tables of the moon, and columbus's account proved to be correct. the eclipse was indeed recorded in other places by various observers. eclipses in their natural aspect have thus had considerable influence on the vulgar, who knew nothing of their cause. this of course was the state with all in the early ages, and it is interesting to trace the gradual progress from their being quite unexpected to their being predicted. it is very probable, if not certain, that their recurrence in the case of the moon at least was recognised long before their nature was understood. [illustration: plate xiii.--christopher columbus and the eclipse of the moon.] among the chinese they were long calculated, and, in fact, it is thought by some that they have pretended to a greater antiquity by calculating backwards, and recording as observed eclipses those which happened before they understood or noticed them. it seems, however, authenticated that they did in the year b.c. observe an eclipse of the sun, and that at that date they were in the habit of predicting them. for this particular eclipse is said to have cost several of the astronomers their lives, as they had not calculated it rightly. as the lives of princes were supposed to be dependent on these eclipses, it became high treason to expose them to such a danger without forewarning them. they paid more attention to the eclipses of the sun than of the moon. among the babylonians the eclipses of the moon were observed from a very early date, and numerous records of them are contained in the observations of bel in sargon's library, the tablets of which have lately been discovered. in the older portion they only record that on the th day of such and such a (lunar) month an eclipse takes place, and state in what watch it begins, and when it ends. in a later portion the observations were more precise, and the descriptions of the eclipse more accurate. long before b.c. the discovery of the lunar cycle of lunar months had been made, and by means of it they were able to state of each lunar eclipse, that it was either "according to calculation" or "contrary to calculation." they dealt also with solar eclipses, and tried to trace on a sphere the path they would take on the earth. accordingly, like the eclipses of the moon, these too were spoken of as happening either "according to calculation" or "contrary to calculation." "in a report sent in to one of the later kings of assyria by the state astronomer, abil islar states that a watch had been kept on the th, th, and th of sivan, or may, for an eclipse of the sun, which did not, however, take place after all. the shadow, it is clear, must have fallen outside the field of observation." besides the more ordinary kind of solar eclipses, mention is made in the observations of bel of annular eclipses which, strangely enough, are seldom alluded to by classical writers. a record of a later eclipse has been found by sir henry rawlinson on one of the nineveh tablets. this occurred near that city in b.c. , and from the character of the inscription it may be inferred that it was a rare occurrence with them, indeed that it was nearly, if not quite, a total eclipse. this has an especial interest as being the earliest that we have any approximate date for. it is possible that the remarkable phenomenon, alluded to by the prophet isaiah, of the shadow going backwards ten degrees on the dial of ahaz, may be really a record of an eclipse of the sun, such as astronomy proves to have occurred at jerusalem in the year b.c. we have very little notice of the calculation of eclipses by the egyptians; all that is told us is more or less fabulous. thus diogenes laertius says that they reckoned that during a period of , years, eclipses of the sun and eclipses of the moon had occurred, which is far fewer than the right number for so long a time, and which, of course, has no basis in fact. among the greeks, anaxagoras was the first who entertained clear ideas about the nature of eclipses; and it was from him that pericles learnt their harmlessness. plutarch relates that helicon of cyzicus predicted an eclipse of the sun to dionysius of syracuse, and received as a reward a talent of silver. livy records an eclipse of the sun as having taken place on the th of quintilis, which corresponds to the th of july. it happened during the appollinarian games, b.c. the same author tells us of an eclipse of the moon that was predicted by one gallus, a tribune of the second legion, on the eve of the battle of pydna--a prediction which was duly fulfilled on the following night. the fact of its having been foretold quieted the superstitious fears of the soldiers, and gave them a very high opinion of gallus. other authors, among them cicero, do not give so flattering a story, but state that gallus's part consisted only in explaining the cause of the eclipse after it had happened. the date of this eclipse was the rd of september, b.c. ennius, writing towards the end of the second century b.c., describes an eclipse which was said to have happened nearly two hundred years before ( , b.c.), in the following remarkable words:--"on the nones of july the moon passed over the sun, and there was night." aristarchus, three centuries before christ, understood and explained the nature of eclipses; but the chief of the ancient authors upon this subject was hipparchus. he and his disciples were able to predict eclipses with considerable accuracy, both as to their time and duration. geminus and cleomedes were two other writers, somewhat later, who explained and predicted eclipses. in later times regular tables were drawn up, showing when the eclipses would happen. one that ptolemy was the author of was founded on data derived from ancient observers--callipus, democritus, eudoxus, hipparchus--aided by his own calculations. after the days of ptolemy the knowledge of the eclipses advanced _pari passu_ with the advance of astronomy generally. so long as astronomy itself was empirical, the time of the return of an eclipse was only reckoned by the intervals that had elapsed during the same portion of previous cycles; but after the discovery of elliptic orbits and the force of gravitation the whole motion of the moon could be calculated with as great accuracy as any other astronomical phenomenon. in point of fact, if the new moon is in the plane of the ecliptic there must be an eclipse of the sun; if the full moon is there, there must be an eclipse of the moon; and if it should in these cases be only partially in that plane, the eclipses also will be partial. the cycle of changes that the position of the moon can undergo when new and full occupies a period of eighteen years and eleven days, in which period there are forty-one eclipses of the sun and twenty-nine of the moon. each year there are at most seven and at least two eclipses; if only two, they are eclipses of the sun. although more numerous in reality for the whole earth, eclipses of the sun are more rarely observed in any particular place, because they are not seen everywhere, but only where the shadow of the moon passes; while all that part of the earth that sees the moon at all at the time sees it eclipsed. we now come to comets. the ancients divided comets into different classes, the chief points of distinction being derived from the shape, length, and brilliancy of the tails. pliny distinguished twelve kinds, which he thus characterised:--"some frighten us by their blood-coloured mane; their bristling hair rises towards the heaven. the bearded ones let their long hair fall down like a majestic beard. the javelin-shaped ones seem to be projected forwards like a dart, as they rapidly attain their shape after their first appearance; if the tail is shorter, and terminates in a point, it is called a sword; this is the palest of all the comets; it has the appearance of a bright sword without any diverging rays. the plate or disc derives its name from its shape, its colour is that of amber, it gives out some diverging rays from its sides, but not in large quantity. the cask has really the form of a cask, which one might suppose to be staved in smoke enveloped in light. the retort imitates the figure of a horn, and the lamp that of a burning flame. the horse-comet represents the mane of a horse which is violently agitated, as by a circular, or rather cylindrical, motion. such a comet appears also of singular whiteness, with hair of a silver hue; it is so bright that one can scarcely look at it. there are bristling comets, they are like the skins of beasts with their hair on, and are surrounded by a nebulosity. lastly, the hair of the comet sometimes takes the form of a lance." pingré, a celebrated historian of comets, tells us that one of the first comets noticed in history is that which appeared over rome forty years before christ, and in which the roman people imagined they saw the soul of cæsar endowed with divine honours. next comes that which threw its light on jerusalem when it was being besieged and remained for a whole year above the city, according to the account of josephus. it was of this kind that pliny said it "is of so great a whiteness that one can scarcely look at it, and _one may see in it the image of god in human form_." diodorus tells us that, a little after the subversion of the towns of helix and bura, there were seen, for several nights in succession, a brilliant light, which was called a beam of fire, but which aristotle says was a true comet. plutarch, in his life of timoleon, says a burning flame preceded the fleet of this general until his arrival at sicily, and that during the consulate of caius servilius a bright shield was seen suspended in the heavens. the historians sazoncenas and socrates relate that in the year a.d. a comet in the form of a sword shone over constantinople, and appeared to touch the town just at the time when great misfortunes were impending through the treachery of gainas. the same phenomenon appeared over rome previous to the arrival of alaric. in fact the ancient chroniclers always associated the appearance of a comet with some terrestrial event, which it was not difficult to do, seeing that critical situations were at all times existing in some one country or other where the comet would be visible, and probably those which could not be connected with any were not thought worthy of being recorded. it is well known that the year a.d. was for a long time predicted to be the end of the world. in this year the astronomers and chroniclers registered the fall of an enormous burning meteor and the appearance of a comet. pingré says: "on the th of the calends of january"--that is the th of december--"the heavens being dark, a kind of burning sword fell to the earth, leaving behind it a long train of light. its brilliancy was such that it frightened not only those who were in the fields, but even those who were shut up in their houses. this great opening in the heavens was gradually closed, and then was seen the figure of a dragon, whose feet were blue, and whose head kept continually increasing. a comet having appeared at the same time as this chasm, or meteor, they were confounded." this relation is given in the chronicles of seigbert in hermann corner, in the chronique de tours, in albert casin, and other historians of the time. bodin, resuscitating an idea of democritus, wrote that the comets were the souls of illustrious personages, who, after having lived on the earth a long series of centuries, and being ready at last to pass away, were carried in a kind of triumph to heaven. for this reason, famine, epidemics, and civil wars followed on the apparition of comets, the towns and their inhabitants finding themselves then deprived of the help of the illustrious souls who had laboured to appease their intestinal feuds. one of the comets of the middle ages which made the greatest impression on the minds of the people was that which appeared during holy week of the year , and frightened louis the debonnaire. the first morning of its appearance he sent for his astrologer. "go," he said, "on to the terrace of the palace, and come back again immediately and tell me what you have seen, for i have not seen that star before, and you have not shown it to me; but i know that this sign is a comet: it announces a change of reign and the death of a prince." the son of charlemagne having taken counsel with his bench of bishops, was convinced that the comet was a notice sent from heaven expressly for him. he passed the nights in prayer, and gave large donations to the monasteries, and finally had a number of masses performed out of fear for himself and forethought for the church committed to his care. the comet, however, was a very inoffensive one, being none other than that known as halley's comet, which returned in . while they were being thus frightened in france, the chinese were observing it astronomically. the historian of merlin the enchanter relates that a few days after the _fêtes_ which were held on the occasion of the erection of the funeral monument of salisbury, a sign appeared in heaven. it was a comet of large size and excessive splendour. it resembled a dragon, out of whose mouth came a long two-forked tongue, one part of which turned towards the north and the other to the east. the people were in a state of fear, each one asking what this sign presaged. uter, in the absence of the king, ambrosius, his brother, who was engaged in pursuing one of the sons of vortigern, consulted all the wise men of britain, but no one could give him any answer. then he thought of merlin the enchanter, and sent for him to the court. "what does this apparition presage?" demanded the king's brother. merlin began to weep. "o son of britain, you have just had a great loss--the king is dead." after a moment of silence he added, "but the britons have still a king. haste thee, uter, attack the enemy. all the island will submit to you, for the figure of the fiery dragon is thyself. the ray that goes towards gaul represents a son who shall be born to thee, who will be great by his achievements, and not less so by his power. the ray that goes towards ireland represents a daughter of whom thou shalt be the father, and her sons and grandsons shall reign over all the britons." these predictions were realised; but it is more than probable that they were made up after the event. the comet of was regarded as a presage of the conquest under william of normandy. in the bayeaux tapestry, on which matilda of flanders had drawn all the most memorable episodes in the transmarine expedition of her husband, the comet appears in one of the corners with the inscription, _isti mirantur stellam_, which proves that the comet was considered a veritable marvel. it is said even to be traditionally reported that one of the jewels of the british crown was taken from the tail of this comet. nevertheless it was no more than halley's comet again in its periodical visit every seventy-six years. in july, , a brilliant comet appeared which was lost to view on the same day as the pope, urban iv., died, _i.e._ the third of october. in june, , a similar body of enormous size, with a very long and extraordinarily bright tail, put all christendom in a fright. the pope, calixtus iii., was engaged in a war at that time with the saracens. he showed the christians that the comet "had the form of a cross," and announced some great event. at the same time mahomet announced to his followers that the comet, "having the form of a yataghan," was a blessing of the prophet's. it is said that the pope afterwards recognised that it had this form, and excommunicated it. nevertheless, the christians obtained the victory under the walls of belgrade. this was another appearance of halley's comet. in the early months of appeared a large comet, which historians agree in saying was very horrible and alarming. belleforest said it was a hideous and frightening comet, which threw its rays from east to west, giving great cause for fear to great people, who were not ignorant that comets are the menacing rods of god, which admonish those who are in authority, that they may be converted. pingré, who has told us of so many of the comets that were seen before his time, wrote of this epoch: "comets became the most efficacious signs of the most important and doubtful events. they were charged to announce wars, seditions, and the internal movements of republics; they presaged famines, pestilence, and epidemics; princes, or even persons of dignity, could not pay the tribute of nature without the previous appearance of that universal oracle, a comet; men could no longer be surprised by any unexpected event; the future might be as easily read in the heavens as the past in history. their effect depended on the place in the heavens where they shone, the countries over which they directly lay, the signs of the zodiac that they measured by their longitude, the constellations they traversed, the form and length of their tails, the place where they went out, and a thousand other circumstances more easily indicated than distinguished; they also announced in general wars, and the death of princes, or some grand personage, but there were few years that passed without something of this kind occurring. the devout astrologers--for there were many of that sort--risked less than the others. according to them, the comet threatened some misfortune; if it did not happen, it was because the prayers of penitence had turned aside the wrath of god; he had returned his sword to the scabbard. but a rule was invented which gave the astrologers free scope, for they said that events announced by a comet might be postponed for one or more periods of forty years, or even as many years as the comet had appeared days; so that one which had appeared for six months need not produce its effect for years." [illustration: fig. .--representation of a comet, th century.] the most frightful of the comets of this period, according to simon goulart, was that of . "it put some into so great a fright that they died; others fell sick. it was seen by several thousand people, and appeared very long, and of the colour of blood. at the summit was seen the representation of a curved arm, holding a large sword in its hand, as if it would strike; at the top of the point of the sword were three stars, but that which touched the point was more brilliant than the others. on the two sides of the rays of this comet were seen large hatchets, poignards, bloody swords, among which were seen a great number of men decapitated, having their heads and beards horribly bristling." a view of this comet is given in the _history of prodigies_. there was another comet remarked in , and another in , like the head of an owl, followed by a mantle of scattered light, with pointed ends. of this comet we read in the same book that recorded the last described: "the comet is an infallible sign of a very evil event. whenever eclipses of the sun or moon, or comets, or earthquakes, conversions of water into blood, and such like prodigies happen, it has always been known that very soon after these miserable portents afflictions, effusion of human blood, massacres, deaths of great monarchs, kings, princes, and rulers, seditions, treacheries, raids, overthrowings of empires, kingdoms, or villages; hunger and scarcity of provisions, burning and overthrowing of towns; pestilences, widespread mortality, both of beasts and men; in fact all sorts of evils and misfortunes take place. nor can it be doubted that all these signs and prodigies give warning that the end of the world is come, and with it the terrible last judgment of god." but even now comets were being observed astronomically, and began to lose their sepulchral aspect. a remarkable comet, however, which appeared in , was not without its fears for the vulgar. we are told that it was recognised as the same which appeared the year of cæsar's death, then in , and afterwards in , having a period of about years. the terror it produced in the towns was great; timid spirits saw in it the sign of a new deluge, as they said water was always announced by fire. while the fearful were making their wills, and, in anticipation of the end of the world, were leaving their money to the monks, who in accepting them showed themselves better physicists than the testators, people in high station were asking what great person it heralded the death of, and it is reported of the brother of louis xiv., who apparently was afraid of becoming too suddenly like cæsar, that he said sharply to the courtiers who were discussing it, "ah, gentlemen, you may talk at your ease, if you please; you are not princes." this same comet gave rise to a curious story of an "extraordinary prodigy, how at rome a hen laid an egg on which was drawn a picture of the comet. "the fact was attested by his holiness, by the queen of sweden, and all the persons of first quality in rome. on the th december, , a hen laid an egg on which was seen the figure of the comet, accompanied by other marks such as are here represented. the cleverest naturalists in rome have seen and examined it, and have never seen such a prodigy before." of this same comet bernouilli wrote, "_that if the body of the comet is not a visible sign of the anger of god, the tail may be_." it was this too that suggested to whiston the idea that he put forward, not as a superstitious, but as a physical speculation, that a comet approaching the earth was the cause of the deluge. [illustration: fig. .--an egg marked with a comet.] the last blow to the superstitious fear of the comets was given by halley, when he proved that they circulated like planets round the sun, and that the comets noticed in , , , , , , were all one, whose period was about years, and which would return in , which prediction was verified, and the comet went afterwards by the name of this astronomer. it returned again in , and will revisit us in . even after the fear arising from the relics of astrology had died away, another totally different alarm was connected with comets--an alarm which has not entirely subsided even in our own times. this is that a comet may come in contact with the earth and destroy it by the collision. the most remarkable panic in this respect was that which arose in paris in . at the previous meeting of the academy of sciences, m. lalande was to have read an interesting paper, but the time failed. it was on the subject of comets that could, by approaching the earth, cause its destruction, with special reference to the one that was soon to come. from the title only of the paper the most dreadful fears were spread abroad, and, increasing day by day, were with great difficulty allayed. the house of m. lalande was filled with those who came to question him on the memoir in question. the fermentation was so great that some devout people, as ignorant as weak, asked the archbishop to make a forty hours' prayer to turn away the enormous deluge that they feared, and the prelate was nearly going to order these prayers, if the members of the academy had not persuaded him how ridiculous it would be. finally, m. lalande, finding it impossible to answer all the questions put to him about his fatal memoir, and wishing to prevent the real evils that might arise from the frightened imaginations of the weak, caused it to be printed, and made it as clear as was possible. when it appeared, it was found that he stated that of the sixty comets known there were eight which could, by coming too near the earth, say within , miles, occasion such a pressure that the sea would leave its bed and cover part of the globe, but that in any case this could not happen till after twenty years. this was too long to make it worth while to make provision for it, and the effervescence subsided. a similar case to this occurred with respect to biela's comet, which was to return in . in calculating its reappearance in this year, damoiseau found that it would pass through the plane of the earth's orbit on the th of october. rushing away with this, the papers made out that a collision was inevitable, and the end of the world was come. but no one thought to inquire where the earth would be when the comet passed through the plane in which it revolved. arago, however, set people's minds at rest by pointing out that at that time the earth would be a month's journey from the spot, which with the rate at which the earth is moving would correspond to a distance of sixty millions of miles. this, like other frights, passed away, but was repeated again in and with like results, and even in a similar end to the world was announced to the public for the th of august, on the supposed authority of a professor at geneva, but who had never said what was supposed. but in reality all cause of fear has now passed away, since it has been proved that the comet is made of gaseous matter in a state of extreme tenuity, so that, though it may make great show in the heavens, the whole mass may not weigh more than a few pounds; and we have in addition the testimony of experience, which might have been relied on on the occasions above referred to, for in lexele's comet was seen to pass through the satellites of jupiter without deranging them in the least, but was itself thrown entirely out of its path, while there is reason to believe that on the th of june, , the earth remained several hours in the tail of a comet without having experienced the slightest inconvenience. as to the nature of comets, the opinions that have been held have been mostly very vague. metrodorus thought they were reflections from the sun; democritus, a concourse of several stars; aristotle, a collection of exhalations which had become dry and inflamed; strabo, that they are the splendour of a star enveloped in a cloud; heracletes of pontus, an elevated cloud which gave out much light; epigenes, some terrestrial matter that had caught fire, and was agitated by the wind; boecius, part of the air, coloured; anaxagoras, sparks fallen from the elementary fire; xenophanes, a motion and spreading out of clouds which caught fire; and descartes, the débris of vortices that had been destroyed, the fragments of which were coming towards us. it is said that the chaldæans held the opinion that they were analogous to planets by their regular course, and that when we ceased to see them, it was because they had gone too far from us; and seneca followed this explanation, since he regarded them as globes turning in the heavens, and which appear and disappear in certain times, and whose periodical motions might be known by regular observation. we have thus traced the particular ideas that have attached themselves to eclipses and comets, as the two most remarkable of the extraordinary phenomena of the heavens, and have seen how the fears and superstitions of mankind have been inevitably linked with them in the earlier days of ignorance and darkness, but they are only part of a system of phenomena, and have been no more connected with superstition than others less remarkable, except in proportion to their remarkableness. other minor appearances that are at all unusual have, on the same belief in the inextricable union of celestial and terrestrial matters, been made the signs of calamities or extra-prosperity; the doleful side of human nature being usually the strongest, the former have been chosen more often than the latter. according to seneca, the tradition of the chaldees announced that a universal deluge would be caused by the conjunction of all the planets in the sign of capricorn, and that a general breaking up of the earth would take place at the moment of their conjunction in cancer. "the general break-up of the world," they said, "will happen when the stars which govern the heaven, penetrated with a quality of heat and dryness, meet one another in a fiery triplicity." [illustration: plate xiv.--prodigies in the middle ages.] everywhere, and in all ages of the past, men have thought that a protecting providence, always watching over them, has taken care to warn them of the destinies which await them; thence the good and evil _presages_ taken from the appearance of certain heavenly bodies, of divers meteors, or even the accidental meeting of certain animate or inanimate objects. the indian of north america dying of famine in his miserable cabin, will not go out to the chase if he sees certain presages in the atmosphere. nor need we be astonished at such ideas in an uncultivated man, when even among europeans, a salt-cellar upset, a glass broken, a knife and fork crossed, the number thirteen at dinner, and such things are regarded as unlucky accidents. the employment of sorcery and divination is closely connected with these superstitions. besides eclipses and comets, meteors were taken as the signs of divine wrath. we learn from s. maximus of turin, that the christians of his time admitted the necessity of making a noise during eclipses, so as to prevent the magicians from hurting the sun or moon, a superstition entirely pagan. they used to fancy they could see celestial armies in the air, coming to bring miraculous assistance to man. they thought the hurricanes and tempests the work of evil spirits, whose rage kept them set against the earth. s. thomas aquinas, the great theologian of the thirteenth century, accepted this opinion, just as he admitted the reality of sorceries. but the full development, as well as the nourishment of these superstitious ideas, was derived from the storehouse of astrology, which dealt with matters of ordinary occurrence, both in the heavens and on the earth--and to the history of which our next chapter is devoted. chapter xiii. the greatness and the fall of astrology. our study of the opinions of the ancients on the various phenomena of astronomy, leads us inevitably to the discussion of their astrology, which has in every age and among every people accompanied it--and though astrology be now no more as a science, or lingers only with those who are ignorant and desirous of taking advantage of the still greater ignorance of others--yet it is not lacking in interest as showing the effect of the phenomena of the heavens on the human mind, when that effect is brought to its most technical and complete development. we must distinguish in the first place two kinds of astrology, viz., natural and judicial. the first proposed to foresee and announce the changes of the seasons, the rains, wind, heat, cold, abundance, or sterility of the ground, diseases, &c., by means of a knowledge of the causes which act on the air and on the atmosphere. the other is occupied with objects which would be still more interesting to men. it traced at the moment of his birth, or at any other period of his life, the line that each must travel according to his destiny. it pretended to determine our characters, our passions, fortune, misfortunes, and perils in reserve for each mortal. we have not here to consider the natural astrology, which is a veritable science of observation and does not deserve the name of astrology. it is rather worthy to be called the meteorological calendar of its cultivators. more rural than their descendants of the nineteenth century, the ancients had recognised the connection between the celestial phenomena and the vicissitudes of the seasons; they observed these phenomena carefully to discover the return of the same inclemencies; and they were able (or thought they were) to state the date of the return of particular kinds of weather with the same positions of the stars. but the very connection with the stars soon led the way to a degeneracy. the autumnal constellations, for example, orion and hercules, were regarded as rainy, because the rains came at the time when these stars rose. the egyptians who observed in the morning, called sirius "the burning," because his appearance in the morning was followed by the great heat of the summer: and it was the same with the other stars. soon they regarded them as the cause of the rain and the heat--although they were but remote witnesses. the star sirius is still connected with heat--since we call it the dog-star--and the hottest days of the year, july nd to august rd, we call dog-days. at the commencement of our era, the morning rising of sirius took place on the earlier of those days--though it does not now rise in the morning till the middle of august--and , years ago it rose about the th of june, and preceded the annual rise of the nile. the belief in the meteorological influence of the stars is one of the causes of judicial astrology. this latter has simply subjected man, like the atmosphere, to the influence of the stars; it has made dependent on them the risings of his passions, the good and ill fortune of his life, as well as the variations of the seasons. indeed, it was very easy to explain. it is the stars, or heavenly bodies in general, that bring the winds, the rains, and the storms; their influences mixed with the action of the rays of the sun modify the cold or heat; the fertility of the fields, health or sickness, depend on these beneficial or injurious influences; not a blade of grass can grow without all the stars having contributed to its increase; man breathes the emanations which escaping from the heavenly bodies fill the air; man is therefore in his entire nature subjected to them; these stars must therefore influence his will and his passions; the good and evil passages in his career, in a word, must direct his life. as soon as it was established that the rising of a certain star or planet, and its aspect with regard to other planets, announced a certain destiny to man, it was natural to believe that the rarer configurations signified extraordinary events, which concerned great empires, nations, and towns. and lastly, since errors grow faster than truth, it was natural to think that the configurations which were still more rare, such as the reunion of all the planets in conjunction with the same star, which can occur only after thousands of centuries, while nations have been renewed an infinity of times, and empires have been ruined, had reference to the earth itself, which had served as the theatre for all these events. joined to these superstitious ideas was the tradition of a deluge, and the belief that the world must one day perish by fire, and so it was announced that the former event took place when all the planets were in conjunction in the sign of the fishes, and the latter would occur when they all met in the sign of the lion. the origin of astrology, like that of the celestial sphere, was in all probability in upper asia. there, the starry heavens, always pure and splendid, invited observation and struck the imagination. we have already seen this with respect to the more matter-of-fact portions of astronomy. the assyrians looked upon the stars as divinities endued with beneficent or maleficent power. the adoration of the heavenly bodies was the earliest form of religion among the pastoral population that came down from the mountains of kurdestan to the plains of babylon. the chaldæans at last set apart a sacerdotal and learned caste devoted to the observation of the heavens; and the temples became regular observatories. such doubtless was the tower of babel--a monument consecrated to the seven planets, and of which the account has come down to us in the ancient book of genesis. a long series of observations put the chaldæans in possession of a theological astronomy, resting on a more or less chimerical theory of the influence of the celestial bodies on the events of nations and private individuals. diodorus siculus, writing towards the commencement of our era, has put us in possession of the most circumstantial details that have reached us with regard to the chaldæan priests. at the head of the gods, the assyrians placed the sun and moon, whose courses and daily positions they had noted in the constellation of the zodiac, in which the sun remained, one month in each. the twelve signs were governed by as many gods, who had the corresponding months under their influence. each of these months were divided into three parts, which made altogether thirty-six subdivisions, over which as many stars presided, called gods of consultation. half of these gods had under their control the things which happen above the earth, and the other half those below. the sun and moon and the five planets occupied the most elevated rank in the divine hierarchy and bore the name of gods of interpretation. among these planets saturn or old bel, which was regarded as the highest star and the most distant from us, was surrounded by the greatest veneration; he was the interpreter _par excellence_--the revealer. each of the other planets had his own particular name. some of them, such as _bel_ (jupiter), _merodaez_ (mars), _nebo_ (mercury), were regarded as male, and the others, as _sin_ (the moon), and _mylitta_ or _baulthis_ (venus), as females; and from their position relative to the zodiacal constellations, which were also called _lords_ or masters of the _gods_, the chaldæans derived the knowledge of the destiny of the men who were born under such and such a conjunction--predictions which the greeks afterwards called horoscopes. the chaldæans invented also relations between each of the planets and meteorological phenomena, an opinion partly founded on fortuitous coincidences which they had more or less frequently observed. in the time of alexander their credit was considerable, and the king of macedonia, either from superstition or policy, was in the habit of consulting them. it is probable that the babylonian priests, who referred every natural property to sidereal influences, imagined there were some mysterious relations between the planets and the metals whose colours were respectively somewhat analogous to theirs. gold corresponded to the sun, silver to the moon, lead to saturn, iron to mars, tin to jupiter, and mercury still retains the name of the planet with which it was associated. it is less than two centuries ago, since the metals have ceased to be designated by the signs of their respective planets. alchemy, the mother of chemistry, was an intimately connected sister of astrology, the mother of astronomy. egyptian civilisation dates back to a no less remote period than that of babylon. not less careful observers than the babylonish astrologers of the meteors and the atmospheric revolutions, they could predict certain phenomena, and they gave it out that they had themselves been the cause of them. diodorus siculus tells us that the egyptian priests pretty generally predicted the years of barrenness or abundance, the contagions, the earthquakes, inundations, and comets. the knowledge of celestial phenomena made an essential part of the theology of the egyptians as it did of the chaldæans. they had colleges of priests specially attached to the study of the stars, at which pythagoras, plato, and eudoxus were instructed. religion was besides completely filled with the symbols relating to the sun or moon. each month, each decade, each day was consecrated to a particular god. these gods, to the number of thirty, were called in the alexandrine astronomy _decans_ ([greek: dekavoi]). the festivals were marked by the periodical return of certain astronomical phenomena, and those heliacal risings to which any mythological ideas were attached, were noted with great care. we find even now proof of this old sacerdotal science in the zodiac sculptured on the ceilings of certain temples, and in the hieroglyphic inscriptions relating to celestial phenomena. according to the egyptians, who were no less aware than the greeks, of the influence of atmospheric changes on our organs, the different stars had a special action on each part of the body. in the funeral rituals which were placed at the bottom of the coffins, constant allusion is made to this theory. each limb of the dead body was placed under the protection of a particular god. the divinities divided between them, so to speak, the spoils of the dead. the head belonged to ra, or the sun, the nose and lips to anubis, and so on. to establish the horoscope of anyone, this theory of specific influences was combined with the state of the heavens at the time of his birth. it seems even to have been the doctrine of the egyptians, that a particular star indicated the coming of each man into the world, and this opinion was held also by the medes, and is alluded to in the gospels. in egypt, as in persia and chaldæa, the science of nature was a sacred doctrine, of which magic and astrology constituted the two branches, and in which the phenomena of the universe were attached very firmly to the divinities or genii with which they believed it filled. it was the same in the primitive religions of greece. the thessalian women had an especially great reputation in the art of enchantments. all the poets rival one another in declaring how they are able, by their magical hymns, to bring down the moon. menander, in his comedy entitled _the thessalian_, represents the mysterious ceremonies by the aid of which these sorcerers force the moon to leave the heavens, a prodigy which so completely became the type of enchantments that nonnus tells us it is done by the brahmins. there was, in addition, another _cultus_ in greece, namely, that of hecate with mysterious rays, the patron of sorcerers. lucian of samosate--if the work on astrology which is ascribed to him be really his--justifies his belief in the influence of the stars in the following terms:--"the stars follow their orbit in the heaven; but independently of their motion, they act upon what passes here below. if you admit that a horse in a gallop, that birds in flying, and men in walking, make the stones jump or drive the little floating particles of dust by the wind of their course, why should you deny that the stars have any effect? the smallest fire sends us its emanations, and although it is not for us that the stars burn, and they care very little about warming us, why should we not receive any emanations from them? astrology, it is true, cannot make that good which is evil. it can effect no change in the course of events; but it renders a service to those who cultivate it by announcing to them good things to come; it procures joy by anticipation at the same time that it fortifies them against the evil. misfortune, in fact, does not take them by surprise, the foreknowledge of it renders it easier and lighter. that is my way of looking at astrology." very different is the opinion of the satirist juvenal, who says that women are the chief cultivators of it. "all that an astrologer predicts to them," he says, "they think to come from the temple of jupiter. avoid meeting with a lady who is always casting up her _ephemerides_, who is so good an astrologer that she has ceased to consult, and is already beginning to be consulted; such a one on the inspection of the stars will refuse to accompany her husband to the army or to his native land. if she only wishes to drive a mile, the hour of departure is taken from her book of astrology. if her eye itches and wants rubbing, she will do nothing till she has run through her conjuring book. if she is ill in bed, she will take her food only at the times fixed in her _petosiris_. women of second-rate condition," he adds, "go round the circus before consulting their destiny, after which they show their hands and face to the diviner." when octavius came into the world a senator versed in astrology, nigidius figulus, predicted the glorious destiny of the future emperor. livia, the wife of tiberius, asked another astrologer, scribius, what would be the destiny of her infant; his reply was, they say, like the other's. the house of poppea, the wife of nero, was always full of astrologers. it was one of the soothsayers attached to her house, ptolemy, who predicted to otho his elevation to the empire, at the time of the expedition into spain, where he accompanied him. the history of astrology under the roman empire supplies some very curious stories, of which we may select an illustrative few. octavius, in company with agrippa, consulted one day the astrologer theagenes. the future husband of julia, more credulous or more curious than the nephew of cæsar, was the first to take the horoscope. theagenes foretold astonishing prosperity for him. octavius, jealous of so happy a destiny, and fearing that the reply would be less favourable to him, instead of following the example of his companion, refused at first to state the day of his birth. but, curiosity getting the better of him, he decided to reply. no sooner had he told the day of his birth than the astrologer threw himself at his feet, and worshipped him as the future master of the empire. octavius was transported with joy, and from that moment was a firm believer in astrology. to commemorate the happy influence of the zodiacal sign under which he was born, he had the picture of it struck on some of the medals that were issued in his reign. the masters of the empire believed in astrological divination, but wished to keep the advantages to themselves. they wanted to know the future without allowing their subjects to do the same. nero would not permit anyone to study philosophy, saying it was a vain and frivolous thing, from which one might take a pretext to divine future events. he feared lest some one should push his curiosity so far as to wish to find out when and how the emperor should die--a sort of indiscreet question, replies to which lead to conspiracies and attempts. this was what the heads of the state were most afraid of. tiberius had been to rhodes, to a soothsayer of renown, to instruct himself in the rules of astrology. he had attached to his person the celebrated astrologer thrasyllus, whose fate-revealing science he proved by one of those pleasantries which are only possible with tyrants. whenever tiberius consulted an astrologer he placed him in the highest part of his palace, and employed for his purpose an ignorant and powerful freedman, who brought by difficult paths, bounded by precipices, the astrologer whose science his majesty wished to prove. on the return journey, if the astrologer was suspected of indiscretion or treachery, the freedman threw him into the sea, to bury the secret. thrasyllus having been brought by the same route across these precipices, struck tiberius with awe while he questioned him, by showing him his sovereign power, and easily disclosing the things of the future. cæsar asked him if he had taken his own horoscope, and with what signs were marked that day and hour for himself. thrasyllus then examined the position and the distance of the stars; he hesitated at first, then he grew pale; then he looked again, and finally, trembling with astonishment and fear, he cried out that the moment was perilous, and he was very near his last hour. tiberius then embraced him and congratulated him on having escaped a danger by foreseeing it; and accepting henceforth all his predictions as oracles, he admitted him to the number of his intimate friends. tiberius had a great number of people put to death who were accused of having taken their horoscope to know what honours were in store for them, although in secret he took the horoscopes of great people, that he might ascertain that he had no rivalry to fear from them. septimus severus was very nearly paying with his head for one of those superstitious curiosities that brought the ambitious of the time to the astrologer. in prosperous times he had gained faith in their predictions, and consulted them about important acts. having lost his wife, and wishing to contract a second marriage, he took the horoscopes of the well-connected ladies who were at the time open to marriage. none of their fortunes, taken by the rules of astrology, were encouraging. he learnt at last that there was living in syria a young woman to whom the chaldæans had predicted that she should be the wife of a king. severus was as yet but a legate. he hastened to demand her in marriage, and he obtained her; julia was the name of the woman who was born under so happy a star; but was he the crowned husband which the stars had promised to the young syrian? this reflection soon began to perplex severus, and to get out of his perplexity he went to sicily to consult an astrologer of renown. the matter came to the ears of the emperor commodus; and judge of his anger! the anger of commodus was rage and frenzy; but the event soon gave the response that severus was seeking in sicily,--commodus was strangled. divination which had the emperor for its object at last came to be a crime of high treason. the rigorous measures resorted to against the indiscreet curiosity of ambition took more terrible proportions under the christian emperors. under constantine, a number of persons who had applied to the oracles were punished with cruel tortures. under valens, a certain palladius was the agent of a terrible persecution. everyone found himself exposed to being denounced for having relations with soothsayers. traitors slipped secretly into houses magic formulæ and charms, which then became so many proofs against the inhabitant. the fear was so great in the east, says ammienus marcellinus, that a great number burned their books, lest matter should be found in them for an accusation of magic or sorcery. one day in anger, vitellius commanded all the astrologers to leave italy by a certain day. they responded by a poster, which impudently commanded the prince to leave the earth before that date, and at the end of the year vitellius was put to death; on the other hand, the confidence accorded to astrologers led sometimes to the greatest extremes. for instance, after having consulted babylus, nero put to death all those whose prophecies promised the elevation of heliogabalus. another instance was that of marcus aurelius and his wife faustina. the latter was struck with the beauty of a gladiator. for a long time she vainly strove in secret with the passion that consumed her, but the passion did nothing but increase. at last faustina revealed the matter to her husband, and asked him for some remedy that should restore peace to her troubled soul. the philosophy of marcus aurelius could not suggest anything. so he decided to consult the chaldæans, who were adepts at the art of mixing philters and composing draughts. the means prescribed were more simple than might have been expected from their complicated science; it was that the gladiator should be cut in pieces. they added that faustina should afterwards be anointed with the blood of the victim. the remedy was applied, the innocent athlete was immolated, and the empress afterwards only dreamed of him with great pleasure. the first christians were as much addicted to astrology as the other sects. the councils of laodicea ( , a.d.), of arles ( ), of agdus ( ), orleans ( ), auxerre ( ), and narbonne ( ), condemned the practice. according to a tradition of the commencement of our era, which appears to have been borrowed from mazdeism, it was the rebel angels who taught men astrology and the use of charms. under constantius the crime of high treason served as a pretext for persecution. a number of people were accused of it, who simply continued to practise the ancient religion. it was pretended that they had recourse to sorceries against the life of the emperor, in order to bring about his fall. those who consulted the oracles were menaced with severe penalties and put to death by torture, under the pretence that by dealing with questions of fate they had criminal intentions. plots without number multiplied the accusations; and the cruelty of the judges aggravated the punishments. the pagans, in their turn had to suffer the martyrdom which they had previously inflicted on the early disciples of christ--or rather, to be truer, it was authority, always intolerable, whether pagan or christian, that showed itself inexorable against those who dared to differ from the accepted faith. libanius and jamblicus were accused of having attempted to discover the name of the successor to the empire. jamblicus, being frightened at the prosecution brought against him, poisoned himself. the name only of philosopher was sufficient to found an accusation upon. the philosopher maximus diogenes alypius, and his son hierocles, were condemned to lose their lives on the most frivolous pretence. an old man was put to death because he was in the habit of driving off the approach of fever by incantations, and a young man who was surprised in the act of putting his hands alternately to a marble and his breast, because he thought that by counting in this way seven times seven, he might cure the stomach-ache, met with the same fate. theodosius prohibited every kind of manifestation or usage connected with pagan belief. whoever should dare to immolate a victim, said his law, or consult the entrails of the animals he had killed, should be regarded as guilty of the crime of high treason. the fact of having recourse to a process of divination was sufficient for an accusation against a man. theodosius ii. thought that the continuation of idolatrous practices had drawn down the wrath of heaven, and brought upon them the recent calamities that had afflicted his empire--the derangement of the seasons and the sterility of the soil--and he thundered out terrible threats when his faith and his anger united themselves into fanaticism. he wrote as follows to florentius, prefect of the prætorium in , the year that preceded his death:-- "are we to suffer any longer from the seasons being upset by the effect of the divine wrath, on account of the atrocious perfidy of the pagans, which disturbs the equilibrium of nature? for what is the cause that now the spring has no longer its ordinary beauty, that the autumn no longer furnishes a harvest to the laborious workman and that the winter, by its rigour, freezes the soil and renders it sterile?" perhaps we are unduly amused with these ideas of theodosius so long as we retain the custom of asking the special intervention of providence for the presence or absence of rain! in the middle ages, when astrology took such a hold on the world, several philosophers went so far as to consider the celestial vault as a book, in which each star, having the value of one of the letters of the alphabet, told in ineffaceable characters the destiny of every empire. the book of _unheard-of curiosities_, by gaffarel, gives us the configuration of these celestial characters, and we find them also in the writings of cornelius agrippa. the middle ages took their astrological ideas from the arabians and jews. the jews themselves at this epoch borrowed their principles from such contaminated sources that we are not able to trace in them the transmission of the ancient ideas. to give an example, simeon ben-jochai, to whom is attributed the famous book called _zohar_, had attained in their opinion such a prodigious acquaintance with celestial mysteries as indicated by the stars, that he could have read the divine law in the heavens before it had been promulgated on the earth. during the whole of the middle ages, whenever they wanted to clear up doubts about geography or astronomy, they always had recourse to this oriental science, as cultivated by the jews and arabians. in the thirteenth century alphonse x. was very importunate with the jews to make them assist him with their advice in his vast astronomical and historical works. nicholas oresmus, when the most enlightened monarch in europe was supplying du guesclin with an astrologer to guide him in his strategical operations, was physician to charles v. of france, who was himself devoted to astrology, and gave him the bishopric of lisieux. he composed the _treatise of the sphere_, of which we have already spoken. a few years later, a learned man, the bishop peter d'ailly, actually dared to take the horoscope of jesus christ, and proved by most certain rules that the great event which inaugurated the new era was marked with very notable signs in astrology. mathias corvin, king of hungary, never undertook anything without first consulting the astrologers. the duke of milan and pope paul also governed themselves by their advice. king louis xi., who so heartily despised the rest of mankind, and had as much malice in him as he had weakness, had a curious adventure with an astrologer. it was told him that an astrologer had had the hardihood to predict the death of a woman of whom the king was very fond. he sent for the wretched prophet, gave him a severe reprimand, and then asked him the question, "you, who know everything, when will _you_ die?" the astrologer, suspecting a trick, replied immediately, "sire, three days before your majesty." fear and superstition overcame the monarch's resentment, and the king took particular care of the adroit impostor. it is well known how much catherine de medicis was under the influence of the astrologers. she had one in her hôtel de soissons in paris, who watched constantly at the top of a tower. this tower is still in existence, by the wool-market, which was built in on the site of the hotel. it is surmounted by a sphere and a solar dial, placed there by the astronomer pingré. one of the most celebrated of the astrologers who was under her patronage was nostradamus. he was a physician of provence, and was born at st. reny in . to medicine he joined astrology, and undertook to predict future events. he was called to paris by catherine in , and attempted to write his oracles in poetry. his little book was much sought after during the whole of the remainder of the sixteenth century, and even in the beginning of the next. according to contemporary writers many imitations were made of it. it was written in verses of four lines, and was called _quatrains astronomiques_. as usual, the prophecies were obscure enough to suit anything, and many believers have thought they could trace in the various verses prophecies of known events, by duly twisting and manipulating the sense. a very amusing prophecy, which happened to be too clear to leave room for mistakes as to its meaning, and which turned out to be most ludicrously wrong, was one contained in a little book published in with this title:--_prognostication touching the marriage of the very honourable and beloved henry, by the grace of god king of navarre, and the very illustrious princess marguerite of france, calculated by master bernard abbatio, doctor in medicine, and astrologer to the very christian king of france._ first he asked if the marriage would be happy, and says:--"having in my library made the figure of the heavens, i found that the lord of the ascendant is joined to the lord of the seventh house, which is for the woman of a trine aspect, from whence i have immediately concluded, according to the opinion of ptolemy, haly, zael, messahala, and many other sovereign astrologers, that they will love one another intensely all their lives." in point of fact they always detested each other. again, "as to length of life, i have prepared another figure, and have found that jupiter and venus are joined to the sun with fortification, and that they will approach a hundred years;" after all henri iv. died before he was sixty. "our good king of navarre will have by his most noble and virtuous queen many children; since, after i had prepared another figure of heaven, i found the ascendant and its lord, together with the moon, all joined to the lord of the fifth house, called that of children, which will be pretty numerous, on account of jupiter and also of venus;" and yet they had no children! "jupiter and venus are found domiciled on the aquatic signs, and since these two planets are found concordant with the lord of the ascendant, all this proves that the children will be upright and good, and that they will love their father and mother, without doing them any injury, nor being the cause of their destruction, as is seen in the fruit of the nut, which breaks, opens, and destroys the stock from which it took its birth. the children will live long, they will be good christians, and with their father will make themselves so benign and favourable towards those of our religion, that at last they will be as beloved as any man of our period, and there will be no more wars among the french, as there would have been but for the present marriage. god grant us grace that so long as we are in this transitory life we may see no other king but charles ix., the present king of france." and yet these words were written in the year of the massacre of st. bartholomew's day! and the marriage was broken off, and henri iv. married to marie de medici. so much for the astrological predictions! the aspect in which astrology was looked upon by the better minds even when it was flourishing may be illustrated by two quotations we may make, from shakespeare and voltaire. our immortal poet puts into the mouth of edmund in _king lear_:--"this is the excellent foppery of the world, that when we are sick in fortune (often the surfeit of our own behaviour) we make guilty of our disasters the sun, the moon, and the stars, as if we were villains by necessity; fools by heavenly compulsion; knaves, thieves, and treacherous, by spherical predominance; drunkards, liars, and adulterers by an enforced obedience of planetary influence; and all that we are evil in, by a divine thrusting on. an admirable evasion of a libertine to lay his goatish disposition to the charge of a star! my father married my mother under the dragon's tail; and my nativity was under _ursa major_; so that it follows i am rough lecherous. tut, i should have been that i am, had the maidenliest star in the firmament twinkled on my birth." voltaire writes thus:--"this error is ancient, and that is enough. the egyptians, the chaldæans, the jews could predict, and therefore we can predict now. if no more predictions are made it is not the fault of the art. so said the alchemists of the philosopher's stone. if you do not find to-day it is because you are not clever enough; but it is certain that it is in the clavicle of solomon, and on that certainty more than two hundred families in germany and france have been ruined. do you wonder either that so many men, otherwise much exalted above the vulgar, such as princes or popes, who knew their interests so well, should be so ridiculously seduced by this impertinence of astrology. they were very proud and very ignorant. there were no stars but for them; the rest of the universe was _canaille_, for whom the stars did not trouble themselves. i have not the honour of being a prince. nevertheless, the celebrated count of boulainvilliers and an italian, called colonne, who had great reputation in paris, both predicted to me that i should infallibly die at the age of thirty-two. i have had the malice already to deceive them by thirty years, for which i humbly beg their pardon." the method by which these predictions were arrived at consisted in making the different stars and planets responsible for different parts of the body, different properties, and different events, and making up stories from the association of ideas thus obtained, which of course admitted of the greatest degree of latitude. the principles are explained by manilius in his great poem entitled _the astronomicals_, written two thousand years ago. according to him the sun presided over the head, the moon over the right arm, venus over the left, jupiter over the stomach, mars the parts below, mercury over the right leg, and saturn over the left. among the constellations, the ram governed the head; the bull the neck; the twins the arms and shoulders; the crab the chest and the heart; the lion the stomach; the abdomen corresponded to the sign of the virgin; the reins to the balance; then came the scorpion; the archer, governing the thighs; the he-goat the knees; the waterer the legs; and the fishes the feet. albert the great assigned to the stars the following influences:--saturn was thought to rule over life, changes, sciences, and buildings; jupiter over honour, wishes, riches, and cleanness; mars over war, prisons, marriages, and hatred; the sun over hope, happiness, gain, and heritages; venus over friendships and amours; mercury over illness, debts, commerce, and fear; the moon over wounds, dreams, and larcenies. each of these stars also presides over particular days of the week, particular colours, and particular metals. the sun governed the sunday; the moon, monday; mars, tuesday; mercury, wednesday; jupiter, thursday; venus, friday; and saturn, saturday; which is partially indicated by our own names of the week, but more particularly in the french names, which are each and all derived from these stars. the sun represented yellow; the moon, white; venus, green; mars, red; jupiter, blue; saturn, black; mercury, shaded colours. we have already indicated the metals that corresponded to each. the sun was reckoned to be beneficent and favourable; saturn to be sad, morose, and cold; jupiter, temperate and benign; mars, vehement; venus, benevolent and fertile; mercury, inconstant; and the moon, melancholy. among the constellations, the ram, the lion, and the archer were hot, dry and vehement. the bull, the virgin, and the he-goat were heavy, cold, and dry; the twins, the balance, and the waterer were light, hot, and moist; the crab, scorpion, and the fishes were moist, soft, and cold. [illustration: plate xv.--an astrologer at work.] in this way the heavens were made to be intimately connected with the affairs of earth; and astrology was in equally intimate connection with astronomy, of which it may in some sense be considered the mother. the drawers of horoscopes were at one time as much in request as lawyers or doctors. one thurneisen, a famous astrologer and an extraordinary man, who lived last century at the electoral court of berlin, was at the same time physician, chemist, drawer of horoscopes, almanack maker, printer, and librarian. his astrological reputation was so widespread that scarcely a birth took place in families of any rank in germany, poland, hungary, or even england without there being sent an immediate envoy to him to announce the precise moment of birth. he received often three and sometimes as many as ten messages a day, and he was at last so pressed with business that he was obliged to take associates and agents. in the days of kepler we know that astrology was more thought of than astronomy, for though on behalf of the world he worked at the latter, for his own daily bread he was in the employ of the former, making almanacks and drawing horoscopes that he might live. chapter xiv. time and the calendar. the opinions of thinkers on the nature of time have been very varied. some have considered time as an absolute reality, which is exactly measured by hours, days, and years, and is as known and real as any other object whose existence is known to us. others maintain that time is only a matter of sensation, or that it is an illusion, or a hallucination of a lively brain. the definitions given of it by different great writers is as various. thus kant calls it "one of the forms of sensibility." schelling declares it is "pure activity with the negation of all being." leibnitz defines it "the order of successions" as he defined space to be the order of co-existences. newton and clarke make space and time two attributes of the deity. a study of the astronomical phenomena of the universe, and a consideration of their teaching, give us authority for saying, that neither space nor time are realities, but that the only things absolute are eternity and infinity. in fact, we give the name of time to the succession of the terrestrial events measured by the motion of the earth. if the earth were not to move, we should have no means of measuring, and consequently no idea of time as we have it now. so long as it was believed that the earth was at rest, and that the sun and all the stars turned round us, this apparent motion was then, as the real motion of the earth is now, the method of generating time. in fact, the fathers said that at the end of the world the diurnal motion would cease, and there would be no more time. but let us examine the fact a little further. suppose for an instant that the earth was, as it was formerly believed to be, an immense flat surface, which was illuminated by a sun which remained always immovable at the zenith, or by an invariable diffused light--such an earth being supposed to be alone by itself in the universe and immovable. now if there were a man created on that earth, would there be such a thing as "time" for him? the light which illumines him is immovable. no moving shadow, no gnomon, no sun-dial would be possible. no day nor night, no morning nor evening, no year. nothing that could be divided into days, hours, minutes, and seconds. in such a case one would have to fall back upon some other terminating events, which would indicate a lapse of time; such for instance as the life of a man. this, however, would be no universal measure, for on one planet the life might be a thousand years, and on another only a hundred. or we may look at it in another way. suppose the earth were to turn twice as fast about itself and about the sun, the persons who lived sixty of such years would only have lived thirty of our present years, but they would have seen sixty revolutions of the earth, and, rigorously speaking, would have lived sixty years. if the earth turned ten times as fast, sixty years would be reduced to ten, but they would still be sixty of those years. we should live just as long; there would be four seasons, days, &c., only everything would be more rapid: but it would be exactly the same thing for us, and the other apparently celestial motions having a similar diminution, there would be no change perceived by us. again, consider the minute animals that are observable under the microscope, which live but for five minutes. during that period, they have time to be born and to grow. from embryos they become adult, marry, so to speak, and have a numerous progeny, which they develop and send into the world. afterwards they die, and all this in a few minutes. the impressions which, in spite of their minuteness, we are justified in presuming them to possess, though rapid and fleeting, may be as profound for them in proportion as ours are to us, and their measure of time would be very different from ours. all is relative. in absolute value, a life completed in a hundred years is not longer than one that is finished in five minutes. it is the same for space. the earth has a diameter of , miles, and we are five or six feet high. now if, by any process, the earth should diminish till it became as small as a marble, and if the different elements of the world underwent a corresponding diminution, our mountains might become as small as grains of sand, the ocean might be but a drop, and we ourselves might be smaller than the microscopic animals adverted to above. but for all that nothing would have changed for us. we should still be our five or six feet high, and the earth would remain exactly the same number of our miles. a value then that can be decreased and diminished at pleasure without change is not a mathematical absolute value. in this sense then it may be said that neither time nor space have any real existence. or once again. suppose that instead of our being on the globe, we were placed in pure space. what time should we find there? no time. we might remain ten years, twenty, a hundred, or a thousand years, but we should never arrive at the next year! in fact each planet makes its own time for its inhabitants, and where there is no planet or anything answering to it there is no time. jupiter makes for its inhabitants a year which is equal to twelve years of ours, and a day of ten of our hours. saturn has a year equal to thirty of ours, and days of ten hours and a quarter. in other solar systems there are two or three suns, so that it is difficult to imagine what sort of time they can have. all this infinite diversity of time takes place in eternity, the only thing that is real. the whole history of the earth and its inhabitants takes place, not in time, but in eternity. before the existence of the earth and our solar system, there was another time, measured by other motions, and having relation to other beings. when the earth shall exist no longer, there may be in the place we now occupy, another time again, for other beings. but they are not realities. a hundred millions of centuries, and a second, have the same real length in eternity. in the middle of space, we could not tell the difference. our finite minds are not capable of grasping the infinite, and it is well to know that our only idea of time is relative, having relation to the regular events that befall this planet in its course, and not a thing which we can in any way compare with that, which is so alarming to the ideas of some--eternity. we have then to deal with the particular form of time that our planet makes for us, for our personal use. it turns about the sun. an entire circuit forms a period, which we can use for a measure in our terrestrial affairs. we call it a year, or in latin _annus_, signifying a circle, whence our word _annual_. a second, shorter revolution, turns the earth upon itself, and brings each meridian directly facing the sun, and then round again to the opposite side. this period we call a _day_, from the latin _dies_, which in italian becomes _giorne_, whence the french _jour_. in sanscrit we have the same word in _dyaus_. the length of time that it takes for the earth to arrive at the same position with respect to the stars, which is called a sidereal year, amounts to · days. but during this time, as we have seen, the equinox is displaced among the stars. this secular retrogression brings it each year a little to the east of its former position, so that the sun arrives there about eleven minutes too soon. by taking this amount from the sidereal we obtain the tropical year, which has reference to the seasons and the calendar. its length is · days, or days, hours, minutes, · seconds. in what way was the primitive year regulated? was it a solar or a sidereal year? there can be no doubt that when there was an absence of all civilisation and a calendar of any sort was unknown, the year meant simply the succession of seasons, and that no attempt would be made to reckon any day as its commencement. and as soon as this was attempted a difficulty would arise from there not being an exact number of days in the year. so that when reckoned as the interval between certain positions of the sun they would be of different lengths, which would introduce some difficulty as to the commencement of the year. be this the case, however, or not, mr. haliburton's researches seem to show that the earliest form of year was the sidereal one, and that it was regulated by the pleiades. in speaking of that constellation we have noticed that among the islanders of the southern hemisphere and others there are two years in one of ours, the first being called the pleiades above and the second the pleiades below; and we have seen how the same new year's day has been recognised in very many parts of the world and among the ancient egyptians and hindoos. this year would begin in november, and from the intimate relation of all the primitive calendars that have been discovered to a particular day, taken as november by the egyptians, it would appear probable that for a long time corrections were made both by the egyptians and others in order to keep the phenomenon of the pleiades just rising at sunset to one particular named day of their year--showing that the year they used was a sidereal one. this can be traced back as far as b.c. among the egyptians, and to b.c. among the hindoos. there seem to have been in use also shorter periods of three months, which, like the two-season year, appear to have been, as they are now among the japanese, regulated by the different positions of the pleiades. among the siamese of the present day, there are both forms of the year existing, one sidereal, beginning in november, and regulated by the fore-named constellation; and the other tropical, beginning in april. whether, however, the year be reckoned by the stars or by the sun, there will always be a difficulty in arranging the length of the year, because in each case there will be about a quarter of a day over. it seems, too, to have been found more convenient in early times to take days as the length of the year, and to add an intercalary month now and then, rather than and add a day. thus among the earliest egyptians the year was of days, which were reckoned in the months, and five days were added each year, between the commencement of one and the end of the other, and called unlucky days. it was the belief of the egyptians that these five days were the birthdays of their principal gods; osiris being born on the first, anieris (or apollo) on the second, typhon on the third, isis on the fourth, nephys (or aphrodite) on the fifth. these appear to have some relation with similar unlucky days among the greeks and romans, and other nations. the days of the egyptian year were represented at acantho, near memphis, in a symbolical way, there being placed a perforated vessel, which each day was filled with water by one of a company of priests, each priest having charge over one day in the year. a similar symbolism was used at the tomb of osiris, around which were placed pitchers, one of which each day was filled with milk. on the other hand, the days were represented by the tomb of osymandyas, at thebes, being surrounded by a circle of gold which was one cubit broad and cubits in circumference. on the side were written the risings and settings of the stars, with the prognostications derived from them by the egyptian astrologers. it was destroyed, however, by cambyses when the persians conquered egypt. they divided their year according to herodotus into twelve months, the names of which have come down to us. even with the days, which their method of reckoning would practically come to, they would still be a quarter of a day each year short; so that in four years it would amount to a whole day, an error which would amount to something perceptible even during the life of a single man, by its bringing the commencement of the civil year out of harmony with the seasons. in fact the first day of the year would gradually go through all the seasons, and at the end of solar years there would have been completed civil years, which would bring back the day to its original position. this period represents a cycle of years in which approximately the sun and the earth come to the same relative position again, as regards the earth's rotation on its axis and revolution round the sun. this cycle was noticed by firmicius. another more accurate cycle of the same kind, noticed by syncellus, is obtained by multiplying by , making , years, which takes into account the defect which the extra hours over have from six. the egyptians, however, did not allow their year to get into so large an error, though it was in error by their using sidereal time, regulating their year, and intercalating days, first according to the risings of the pleiades, and after according to that of sirius, the dog-star, which announced to them the approaching overflowing of the nile, a phenomenon of such great value to egypt that they celebrated it with annual fêtes of the greatest magnificence. among the babylonians, as we are informed by mr. sayce, the year was divided into twelve lunar months and days, an intercalary month being added whenever a certain star, called the "star of stars," or icu, also called dilgan, by the ancient accadians, meaning the "messenger of light," and what is now called aldebaran, which was just in advance of the sun when it crossed the vernal equinox, was not parallel with the moon until the third of nisan, that is, two days after the equinox. they also added shorter months of a few days each when this system became insufficient to keep their calendar correct. they divided their year into four quarters of three months each; the spring quarter not commencing with the beginning of the year when the sun entered the spring equinox, proving that the arrangement of seasons was subsequent to the settling of the calendar. the names of their months were given them from the corresponding signs of the zodiac; which was the same as our own, though the zodiac began with aries and the year with nisan. they too had cycles, but they arose from a very different cause; not from errors of reckoning in the civil year or the revolution of the earth, but from the variations of the weather. every twelve solar years they expected to have the same weather repeated. when we connect this with their observations on the varying brightness of the sun, especially at the commencement of the year on the first of nisan, which they record at one time as "bright yellow" and at another as "spotted," and remember that modern researches have shown that weather is certainly in some way dependent on the solar spots, which have a period _now_ of about eleven years, we cannot help fancying that they were very near to making these discoveries. the year of the ancient persians consisted of days. the extra quarter of a day was not noticed for years, at the end of which they intercalated a month--in the first instance, at the end of the first month, which was thus doubled. at the end of another years they inserted an intercalary month after the second month, and so on through all their twelve months. so that after years the series began again. this period they called the intercalary cycle. the calendar among the greeks was more involved, but more useful. it was _luni-solar_, that is to say, they regulated it at the same time by the revolutions of the moon and the motion about the sun, in the following manner:-- the year commenced with the new moon nearest to the th or st of june, the time of the summer solstice; it was composed in general of twelve months, each of which commenced on the day of the new moon, and which had alternately twenty-nine and thirty days. this arrangement, conformable to the lunar year, only gave days to the civil year, and as this was too short by ten days, twenty-one hours, this difference, by accumulation, produced nearly eighty-seven days at the end of eight years, or three months of twenty-nine days each. to bring the lunar years into accordance with the solstices, it was necessary to add three intercalary months every eight years. the phases of the moon being thus brought into comparison with the rotation of the earth, a cycle was discovered by meton, now known as the metonic cycle, useful also in predicting eclipses, which comprised nineteen years, during which time lunations will have very nearly occurred, and the full moons will return to the same dates. in fact, the year and the lunation are to one another very nearly in the proportion of to . by observing for nineteen years the positions and phases of the moon, they will be found to return again in the same order at the same times, and they can therefore be predicted. this lunar cycle was adopted in the year b.c. to regulate the luni-solar calendar, and it was engraved in letters of gold on the walls of the temple of minerva, from whence comes the name _golden number_, which is given to the number that marks the place of the given year in this period of nineteen. caliphus made a larger and more exact cycle by multiplying by four and taking away one day. thus he made of , days julian years, during which there were lunations. the roman calendar was even more complicated than the greek, and not so good. romulus is said to have given to his subjects a strange arrangement that we can no longer understand. more of a warrior than a philosopher, this founder of rome made the year to consist of ten months, some being of twenty days and others of fifty-five. these unequal lengths were probably regulated by the agricultural works to be done, and by the prevailing religious ideas. after the conclusion of these days they began counting again in the same order; so that the year had only days. the first of these ten months was called _mars_ after the name of the god from whom romulus pretended to have descended. the name of the second, aprilis, was derived from the word _aperire_, to open, because it was at the time that the earth opened; or it may be, from aphrodite, one of the names of venus, the supposed grandmother of Æneas. the third month was consecrated to _maïa_, the mother of mercury. the names of the six others expressed simply their order--quintilis, the fifth; sextilis, the sixth; september, the seventh; and so on. numa added two months to the ten of romulus; one took the name of _januarius_, from _janus_: the name of the other was derived either from the sacrifices (_februalia_), by which the faults committed during the course of the past year were expiated, or from _februo___, the god of the dead, to which the last month was consecrated. the year then had days. these roman months have become our own, and hence a special interest attaches to the consideration of their origin, and the explanation of the manner in which they have been modified and supplemented. each of them was divided into unequal parts, by the days which were known as the calends, nones, and ides. the calends were invariably fixed to the first day of each month; the nones came on the th or th, and the ides the th or th. the romans, looking forward, as children do to festive days, to the fête which came on these particular days, named each day by its distance from the next that was following. immediately after the calends of a month, the dates were referred to the nones, each day being called seven, six, five, and so on days before the nones; on the morrow of the nones they counted to the ides; and so the days at the end of the month always bore the name of the calends of the month following. to complete the confusion the nd day before the fête was called the rd, by counting the fête itself as the st, and so they added one throughout to the number that _we_ should now say expressed our distance from a certain date. since there were thus ten days short in each year, it was soon found necessary to add them on, so a supplementary month was created, which was called mercedonius. this month, by another anomaly, was placed between the rd and th of february. thus, after february rd, came st, nd, rd of mercedonius; and then after the dates of this supplementary month were gone through, the original month was taken up again, and they went on with the th of february. and finally, to complete the medley, the priests who had the charge of regulating this complex calendar, acquitted themselves as badly as they could; by negligence or an arbitrary use of their power they lengthened or shortened the year without any uniform rule. often, indeed, they consulted in this nothing but their own convenience, or the interests of their friends. the disorder which this license had introduced into the calendar proceeded so far that the months had changed from the seasons, those of winter being advanced to the autumn, those of the autumn to the summer. the fêtes were celebrated in seasons different from those in which they were instituted, so that of ceres happened when the wheat was in the blade, and that of bacchus when the raisins were green. julius cæsar, therefore, determined to establish a solar year according to the known period of revolution of the sun, that is days and a quarter. he ordained that each fourth year a day should be intercalated in the place where the month mercedonius used to be inserted, _i.e._ between the rd and th of february. the th of the calends of march in ordinary years was the th of february; it was called _sexto-kalendas_. when an extra day was put in every fourth year before the th, this was a second th day, and was therefore called _bissexto-kalendas_, whence we get the name bissextile, applied to leap year. but it was necessary also to bring back the public fêtes to the seasons they ought to be held in: for this purpose cæsar was obliged to insert in the current year, b.c. (or a.u.c.), two intercalary months beside the month mercedonius. there was, therefore, a year of fifteen months divided into days, and this was called the year of confusion. cæsar gave the strictest injunctions to sosigenes, a celebrated alexandrian astronomer whom he brought to rome for this purpose; and on the same principles flavius was ordered to compose a new calendar, in which all the roman fêtes were entered--following, however, the old method of reckoning the days from the calends, nones, and ides. antonius, after the death of cæsar, changed the name of quintilis, in which julius cæsar was born, into the name _julius_, whence we derive our name july. the name of _augustus_ was given to the month _sextilis_, because the emperor augustus obtained his greatest victories during that month. tiberius, nero, and other imperial monsters attempted to give their names to the other months. but the people had too much independence and sense of justice to accord them such a flattery. the remaining months we have as they were named in the days of numa pompilius. [illustration: fig. .--the roman calendar.] a cubical block of white marble has been found at pompeii which illustrates this very well. each of the four sides is divided into three columns, and on each column is the information about the month. each month is surmounted by the sign of the zodiac through which the sun is passing. beneath the name of the month is inscribed the number of days it contains; the date of the nones, the number of the hours of the day, and of the night; the place of the sun, the divinity under whose protection the month is placed, the agricultural works that are to be done in it, the civil and ecclesiastical ceremonies that are to be performed. these inscriptions are to be seen under the month january to the left of the woodcut. the reform thus introduced by julius cæsar is commonly known as the _julian reform_. the first year in which this calendar was followed was b.c. the julian calendar was in use, without any modification, for a great number of years; nevertheless, the mean value which had been assigned to the civil year being a little different to that of the tropical, a noticeable change at length resulted in the dates in which, each year, the seasons commenced; so that if no remedy had been introduced, the same season would be displaced little by little each year, so as to commence successively in different months. the council of nice, which was held in the year of the christian era, adopted a fixed rule to determine the time at which easter falls. this rule was based on the supposed fact that the spring equinox happened every year on the st of march, as it did at the time of the meeting of the council. this would indeed be the case if the mean value of the civil year of the julian calendar was exactly equal to the tropical year. but while the first is · days, the second is · days; so that the tropical year is too small by minutes and seconds. it follows hence that after the lapse of four julian years the vernal equinox, instead of happening exactly at the same time as it did four years before, will happen minutes seconds too soon; and will gain as much in each succeeding four years. so that at the end of a certain number of years, after the year , the equinox will happen on the th of march, afterwards on the th, and so on. this continual advance notified by the astronomers, determined pope gregory xiii. to introduce a new reform into the calendar. it was in the year that the _gregorian reform_ was put into operation. at that epoch the vernal equinox happened on the th instead of the st of march. to get rid of this advance of ten days that the equinox had made and to bring it back to the original date, pope gregory decided that the day after the th of october, , should be called the th instead of the th. this change only did away with the inconvenience at the time attaching to the julian calendar; it was necessary to make also some modification in the rule which served to determine the lengths of the civil years, in order to avoid the same error for the future. so the pope determined that in each years there should be only bissextile years, instead of , as there used to be in the julian calendar. this made three days taken off the years, and in consequence the mean value of the civil year is reduced to · days, which is not far from the true tropical year. the gregorian year thus obtained is still too great by · of a day; the date of the vernal equinox will still then advance in virtue of this excess, but it is easy to see that the gregorian reform will suffice for a great number of centuries. the method in which it is carried out is as follows:--in the julian calendar each year that divided by four when expressed in its usual way, by a.d., was a leap year, and therefore each year that completed a century was such, as , and so on--but in the gregorian reform, all these century numbers are to be reckoned common years, unless the number without the two cyphers divides by four; thus , will be a common year and , a leap year. it is easy to see that this will leave out three leap years in every years. the gregorian calendar was immediately adopted in france and germany, and a little later in england. now it is in operation in all the christian countries of europe, except russia, where the julian calendar is still followed. it follows that russian dates do not agree with ours. in , the difference was ten days, and this difference remained the same till the end of the seventeenth century, when the year was bissextile in the julian, but not in the gregorian calendar, so the difference increased to eleven days, and now in the same way is twelve days. next to the year, comes the day as the most natural division of time in connection with the earth, though it admits of less difference in its arrangements, as we cannot be mistaken as to its length. it is the natural standard too of our division of time into shorter intervals such as hours, minutes, and seconds. by the word _day_ we mean of course the interval during which the earth makes a complete revolution round itself, while _daytime_ may be used to express the portion of it during which our portion of the earth is towards the sun. the greeks to avoid ambiguity used the word _nyctemere_, meaning night and day. no ancient nation is known that did not divide the day into twenty-four hours, when they divided it at all into such small parts, which seems to show that such a division was comparatively a late institution, and was derived from the invention of a single nation. it would necessarily depend on the possibility of reckoning shorter periods of time than the natural one of the day. in the earliest ages, and even afterwards, the position of the sun in the heavens by day, and the position of the constellations by night, gave approximately the time. instead of asking what "o'clock" is it? the greeks would say, "what star is passing?" the next method of determining time depended on the uniform motion of water from a cistern. it was invented by the egyptians, and was called a clepsydra, and was in use among the babylonians, the greeks, and the romans. the more accurate measurement of time by means of clocks was not introduced till about b.c., when trimalcion had one in his dining chamber. the use of them, however, had been so lost that in a.d. they were considered quite novelties. the clocks, of course, have to be regulated by the sun, an operation which has been the employment of astronomers, among other things, for centuries. each locality had its own time according to the moment when the sun passed the meridian of the place, a moment which was determined by observation. before the introduction of the hour, the day and night appear to have been divided into watches. among the babylonians the night was reckoned from what we call a.m. to p.m., and divided into three watches of four hours each--called the "evening," "middle," and "morning" watch. these were later superseded by the more accurate hour, or rather "double hour" or _casbri_, each of which was divided into sixty minutes and sixty seconds, and the change taking place not earlier than , b.c. whether the babylonians (or accadians) were the inventors of the hour it is difficult to say, though they almost certainly were of other divisions of time. it is remarkable that in the ancient jewish scriptures we find no mention of any such division until the date at which the prophecy of daniel was written, that is, until the jews had come in contact with the babylonians. some nations have counted the twenty-four hours consecutively from one to twenty-four as astronomers do now, but others and the majority have divided the whole period into two of twelve hours each. the time of the commencement of the day has varied much with the different nations. the jews, the ancient athenians, the chinese, and several other peoples, more or less of the past, have commenced the day with the setting of the sun, a custom which perhaps originated with the determination of the commencement of the year, and therefore of the day, by the observation of some stars that were seen at sunset, a custom continued in our memory by the well-known words, "the evening and the morning were the first day." the italians, till recently, counted the hours in a single series, between two settings of the sun. the only gain in such a method would be to sailors, that they might know how many hours they had before night overtook them; the sun always setting at twenty-four o'clock; if the watch marked nineteen or twenty, it would mean they had five or four hours to see by--but such a gain would be very small against the necessity of setting their watches differently every morning, and the inconvenience of never having fixed hours for meals. among the babylonians, syrians, persians, the modern greeks, and inhabitants of the balearic isles, &c., the day commenced with the rising of the sun. nevertheless, among all the astronomical phenomena that may be submitted to observation, none is so liable to uncertainty as the rising and setting of the heavenly bodies, owing among other things to the effects of refraction. among the ancient arabians, followed in this by the author of the _almagesta_, and by ptolemy, the day commenced at noon. modern astronomers adopt this usage. the moment of changing the date is then always marked by a phenomenon easy to observe. lastly, that we may see how every variety possible is sure to be chosen when anything is left to the free choice of men, we know that with the egyptians, hipparchus, the ancient romans, and all the european nations at present, the day begins at midnight. copernicus among the astronomers of our era followed this usage. we may remark that the commencement of the astronomical day commences twelve hours _after_ the civil day. of the various periods composed of several days, the week of seven days is the most widely spread--and of considerable antiquity. yet it is not the universal method of dividing months. among the egyptians the month was divided into periods of ten days each; and we find no sign of the seven days--the several days of the whole month having a god assigned to each. among the hindoos no trace has been found by max müller in their ancient vedic literature of any such division, but the month is divided into two according to the moon; the _clear_ half from the new to the full moon, the _obscure_ half from the full to the new, and a similar division has been found among the aztecs. the chinese divide the month like the egyptians. among the babylonians two methods of dividing the month existed, and both of them from the earliest times. the first method was to separate it into two halves of fifteen days each, and each of these periods into three shorter ones of five days, making six per month. the other method is the week of seven days. the days of the week with them, as they are with many nations now, were named after the sun and moon and the five planets, and the th, th, th, st, and th days of each month--days separated by seven days each omitting the th--were termed "days of rest," on which certain works were forbidden to be done. from this it is plain that we have here all the elements of our modern week. we find it, as is well known, in the earliest of hebrew writings, but without the mark which gives reason for the number seven, that is the names of the seven heavenly bodies. it would seem most probable, then, that we must look to the accadians as the originators of our modern week, from whom the hebrews may have--and, if so, at a very early period--borrowed the idea. it is known that the week was not employed in the ancient calendars of the romans, into which it was afterwards introduced through the medium of the biblical traditions, and became a legal usage under the first christian emperors. from thence it has been propagated together with the julian calendar amongst all the populations that have been subjected to the roman power. we find the period of seven days employed in the astronomical treatises of hindoo writers, but not before the fifth century. dion cassius, in the third century, represents the week as universally spread in his times, and considers it a recent invention which he attributes to the egyptians; meaning thereby, doubtless, the astrologers of the alexandrian school, at that time very eager to spread the abstract speculations of plato and pythagoras. if the names of the days of the week were derived from the planets, the sun and moon, as is easy to see, it is not so clear how they came to have their present order. the original order in which they were supposed to be placed in the various heavens that supported them according to their distance from the earth was thus:--saturn, jupiter, mars, the sun, venus, mercury, the moon. one supposition is that each hour of the day was sacred to one of these, and that each day was named from the god that presided over the first hours. now, as seven goes three times into twenty-four, and leaves three over, it is plain that if saturn began the first hour of saturday, the next day would begin with the planet three further on in the series, which would bring us to the sun for sunday, three more would bring us next day to the moon for monday, and so to mars for tuesday, to mercury for wednesday, to jupiter for thursday, to venus for friday, and so round again to saturn for saturday. the same method is illustrated by putting the symbols in order round the circumference of a circle, and joining them by lines to the one most opposite, following always in the same order as in the following figure. we arrive in this way at the order of the days of the week. [illustration: fig. .] all the nations who have adopted the week have not kept to the same names for them, but have varied them according to taste. thus sunday was changed by the christian church to the "lord's day," a name it still partially retains among ourselves, but which is the regular name among several continental nations, including the corrupted _dimanche_ of the french. the four middle days have also been very largely changed, as they have been among ourselves and most northern nations to commemorate the names of the great scandinavian gods tuesco, woden, thor, and friga. this change was no doubt due to the old mythology of the druids being amalgamated with the new method of collecting the days into weeks. we give below a general table of the names of the days of the week in several different languages. +------------+-----------+------------+------------+------------------+ | english. | french. | italian. | spanish. | portuguese. | +------------+-----------+------------+------------+------------------+ | sunday. | dimanche. | domenica. | domingo. | domingo. | | monday. | lundi. | lunedi. | luneo. | secunda feira. | | tuesday. | mardi. | marteti. | martes. | terça feira. | | wednesday. | mercredi | mercoledi. | miercoles. | quarta feira. | | thursday. | jeudi. | giovedi. | jueves. | quinta feira. | | friday. | vendredi. | venerdi. | viernes. | sexta feira. | | saturday. | samedi. | sabbato. | sabado. | sabbado. | +------------+-----------+------------+------------+------------------+ +------------+--------------+-------------+---------------+-----------+ | german. | anglo-saxon. | ancient | ancient | dutch. | | | | frisian. | northmen. | | +------------+--------------+-------------+---------------+-----------+ | sonntag. | sonnan däg. | sonna dei. | sunnu dagr. | zondag. | | montag. | monan däg. | mona dei. | mâna dagr. | maandag. | | dienstag. | tives däg. | tys dei. | tyrs dagr. | dingsdag. | | mitwoch. | vôdenes däg. | werns dei. | odins dagr. | woensdag. | | donnerstag.| thunores däg.| thunres dei.| thors dagr. | donderdag.| | freitag. | frige däg. | frigen dei. | fria dagr. | vrijdag. | | samstag. | soeternes | sater dei. | laugar dagr | zaturdag. | | | däg. | | (washing day)| | +------------+--------------+-------------+---------------+-----------+ the cycle which must be completed with the present calendar to bring the same day of the year to the same day of the week, is twenty-eight years, since there is one day over every ordinary year, and two every leap year; which will make an overlapping of days which, except at the centuries, will go through all the changes in twenty-eight times, which forms what is called the solar cycle. there is but one more point that will be interesting about the calendar, namely, the date from which we reckon our years. among the jews it was from the creation of the world, as recorded in their sacred books--but no one can determine when that was with sufficient accuracy to make it represent anything but an agreement of the present day. different interpreters do not come within a thousand years of one another for its supposed date; although some of them have determined it very accurately to their own satisfaction--one going so far as to say that creation finished at nine o'clock one sunday morning! in other cases the date has been reckoned from national events--as in the olympiads, the foundation of rome, &c. the word we now use, Æra, points to a particular date from which to reckon, since it is composed of the initials of the words ab exordio regni augusti "from the commencement of the reign of augustus." at the present day the point of departure, both forwards and backwards, is the year of the birth of jesus christ--a date which is itself controverted, and the use of which did not exist among the first christians. they exhibited great indifference, for many centuries, as to the year in which jesus christ entered the world. it was a monk who lived in obscurity at rome, about the year , who was a native of so unknown a country that he has been called a scythian, and whose name was denys, surnamed _exiguus_, or the little, who first attempted to discover by chronological calculations the year of the birth of jesus christ. the era of denys the little was not adopted by his contemporaries. two centuries afterwards, the venerable bede exhorted christians to make use of it--and it only came into general use about the year . among those who adopted the christian era, some made the year commence with march, which was the first month of the year of romulus; others in january, which commences the year of numa; others commenced on christmas day; and others on lady day, march . another form of nominal year was that which commenced with easter day, in which case, the festival being a movable one, some years were shorter than others, and in some years there might be two nd, rd, &c., of april, if easter fell in one year on the nd, and next year a few days later. the st of january was made to begin the year in germany in . an edict of charles ix. prescribes the same in france in . but it was not till that the change was made in england by lord chesterfield's act. the year , as the year that had preceded it, began on march th, and it should have lasted till the next lady day; but according to the act, the months of january, february, and part of march were to be reckoned as part of the year . by this means the unthinking seemed to have grown old suddenly by three months, and popular clamour was raised against the promoter of the bill, and cries raised of "give us our three months." such have been the various changes that our calendar has undergone to bring it to its present state. chapter xv. the end of the world. perhaps the most anxious question that has been asked of the astronomer is when the world is to come to an end. it is a question which, of course, he has no power to answer with truth; but it is also one that has often been answered in good faith. it has perhaps been somewhat natural to ask such a question of an astronomer, partly because his science naturally deals with the structure of the universe, which might give some light as to its future, and partly because of his connection with astrology, whose province it was supposed to be to open the destiny of all things. yet the question has been answered by others than by astronomers, on grounds connected with their faith. in the early ages of the church, the belief in the rapid approach of the end of the world was universally spread amongst christians. the apocalypse of st. john and the acts of the apostles seemed to announce its coming before that generation passed away. afterwards, it was expected at the year ; and though these beliefs did not rest in any way on astronomical grounds, yet to that science was recourse had for encouragement or discouragement of the idea. the middle ages, fall of simple faith and superstitious credulity, were filled with fear of this terrible catastrophe. as the year approached, the warnings became frequent and very pressing. thus, for example, bernard of thuringia, about , began to announce publicly that the world was about to end, declaring that he had had a particular revelation of the fact. he took for his text the enigmatical words of the apocalypse: "at the end of one thousand years, satan shall be loosed from his prison, and shall seduce the people that are in the four quarters of the earth. the book of life shall be open, and the sea shall give up her dead." he fixed the day when the annunciation of the virgin should coincide with good friday as the end of all things. this happened in , but nothing extraordinary happened. during the tenth century the royal proclamations opened by this characteristic phrase: _whereas the end of the world is approaching_.... in the astrologers frightened europe by announcing a conjunction of all the planets. rigord, a writer of that period, says in his _life of philip augustus_: "the astrologers of the east, jews, saracens, and even christians, sent letters all over the world, in which they predicted, with perfect assurance, that in the month of september there would be great tempests, earthquakes, mortality among men, seditions and discords, revolutions in kingdoms, and the destruction of all things. but," he adds, "the event very soon belied their predictions." some years after, in , another alarm of the end of the world was raised, but this time it was not dependent on celestial phenomena. it was said that antichrist was born in babylon, and therefore all the human race would be destroyed. it would be a curious list to make of all the years in which it was said that antichrist was born; they might be counted by hundreds, to say nothing of the future. at the commencement of the fourteenth century, the alchemist arnault of villeneuve announced the end of the world for . in his treatise _de sigillis_ he applies the influence of the stars to alchemy, and expounds the mystical formula by which demons are to be conjured. st. vincent ferrier, a famous spanish preacher, gave to the world as many years' duration as there were verses in the psalms--about . the sixteenth century produced a very plentiful crop of predictions of the final catastrophe. simon goulart, for example, gave the world an appalling account of terrible sights seen in assyria--where a mountain opened and showed a scroll with letters of greek--"the end of the world is coming." this was in ; but after that year had passed in safety, leovitius, a famous astrologer, predicted it again for . louis gayon reports that the fright at this time was great. the churches could not hold those who sought a refuge in them, and a great number made their wills, without reflecting that there was no use in it if the whole world was to finish. one of the most famous mathematicians of europe, named stoffler, who flourished in the th century, and who worked for a long time at the reform of the calendar proposed by the council of constance, predicted a universal deluge for . this deluge was to happen in the month of february, because saturn, jupiter, and mars were then together in the sign of the fishes. everyone in europe, asia, and africa, to whom these tidings came, was in a state of consternation. they expected a deluge, in spite of the rainbow. many contemporary authors report that the inhabitants of the maritime provinces of germany sold their lands for a mere trifle to those who had more money and less credulity. each built himself a boat like an ark. a doctor of toulouse, named auriol, made a very large ark for himself, his family, and his friends, and the same precautions were taken by a great many people in italy. at last the month of february came, and not a drop of rain fell. never was a drier month or a more puzzled set of astrologers. nevertheless they were not discouraged nor neglected for all that, and stoffler himself, associated with the celebrated regiomontanus, predicted once more that the end of the world would come in , or at least that there would be frightful events which would overturn the earth. this new prediction was a new deception; nothing extraordinary occurred in . the year , however, witnessed a strange phenomenon, capable of justifying all their fears. an unknown star came suddenly into view in the constellation of cassiopeia, so brilliant that it was visible even in full daylight, and the astrologers calculated that it was the star of the magi which had returned, and that it announced the second coming of jesus christ. the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries were filled with new predictions of great variety. even our own century has not been without such. a religious work, published in , by the count sallmard montfort, demonstrated perfectly that the world had no more than ten years to exist. "the world," he said, "is old, and its time of ending is near, and i believe that the epoch of that terrible event is not far off. jacob, the chief of the twelve tribes of israel, and consequently of the ancient church, was born in of the world, _i.e._, b.c. the ancient church, which was the figure of the new, lasted years. hence the new one will only last till a.d." similar prophecies by persons of various nations have in like manner been made, without being fulfilled. indeed, we have had our own prophets; but they have proved themselves incredulous of their own predictions, by taking leases that should _commence_ in the year of the world's destruction. but we have one in store for us yet. in , pierre louis of paris calculated that the end would be in , and he calculated in this way:--the apocalypse says the gentiles shall occupy the holy city for forty-two months. the holy city was taken by omar in . forty-two months of years is , which brings the return of the jews to , which will precede by a few years the final catastrophe. daniel also announces the arrival of antichrist , days after the establishment of artaxerxes on the throne of persia, b.c., which again brings us to . some again have put it at a.d., which will make , years, as they think, from the creation; these are the days of work; then comes the , years of millennial sabbath. we are led far away by these vain speculations from the wholesome study of astronomy; they are useful only in showing how by a little latitude that science may wind itself into all the questions that in any way affect the earth. indeed, since the world began, the world will doubtless end, and astronomers are still asked how could it be brought about? certainly it is not an impossible event, and there are only too many ways in which it has been imagined it might occur. the question is one that stands on a very different footing from that it occupied before the days of galileo and copernicus. _then_ the earth was believed to be the centre of the universe, and all the heavens and stars created for it. _then_ the commencement of the world was the commencement of the universe, its destruction would be the destruction of all. _now_, thanks to the revolution in feeling that has been accomplished by the progress of astronomy, we have learned our own insignificance, and that amongst the infinite number of stars, each supporting their own system of inhabited planets, our earth occupies an infinitesimally small portion, and the destruction of it would make no difference whatever--still less its becoming uninhabitable. it is an event which must have happened and be happening to other worlds, without affecting the infinite life of the universe in any marked degree. nevertheless, for ourselves, the question remains as interesting as if we were the all in all, but must be approached in a different manner. numerous hypotheses have been put forth on the question but they may mostly be dismissed as vain. buffon calculated that it had taken , years for the earth to cool down to its present temperature, and that it will take , years more before it would be too cold for men to live upon it. but sir william thomson has shown that the internal heat of the earth, supposed to be due to its cooling from fusion, cannot have seriously modified climate for a long series of years, and that life depends essentially on the heat of the sun. another hypothesis, the most ancient of all, is that which supposes the earth will be destroyed by fire. it comes down from zoroaster and the jews; and on the improbable supposition of the thin crust of the earth over a molten mass, this is thought possible. however, as the tendency in the past has been all the other way, namely, to make the effect of the inner heat of the earth less marked on the surface, we have no reason to expect a reversal. a third theory would make the earth die more gradually and more surely. it is known that by the wearing down of the surface by the rains and rivers, there is a tendency to reduce mountains and all high parts of the earth to a uniform level, a tendency which is only counteracted by some elevating force within the earth. if these elevating forces be supposed to be due to the internal heat--a hypothesis which cannot be proved--then with the cooling of the earth the elevating forces would cease, and, finally, the whole of the continent would be brought beneath the sea and terrestrial life perish. another interesting but groundless hypothesis is that of adhémar on the periodicity of deluges. this theory depends on the fact of the unequal length of the seasons in the two hemispheres. our autumn and our winter last days. in the southern hemisphere they last days. these seven days, or hours, of difference, increase each year the coldness of the pole. during , years the ice accumulates at one pole and melts at the other, thereby displacing the earth's centre of gravity. now a time will arrive when, after the maximum of elevation of temperature on one side, a catastrophe will happen, which will bring back the centre of gravity to the centre of figure, and cause an immense deluge. the deluge of the north pole was , years ago, therefore the next will be , hence. it is very obvious to ask on this--_why_ should there be a _catastrophe_? and why should not the centre of gravity return _gradually_ as it was gradually displaced? another theory has been that it would perish by a comet. that it will not be by the shock we have already seen from the light weight of the comet and from experience; but it has been suggested that the gas may combine with the air, and an explosion take place that would destroy us all; but is not that also contradicted by experience? another idea is that we shall finally fall into the sun by the resistance of the ether to our motion. encke's comet loses in thirty-three years a thousandth part of its velocity. it appears then that we should have to wait millions of centuries before we came too near the sun. in reality, however, we are simply dependent on our sun, and our destiny depends upon that. in the first place, in its voyage through space it might encounter or come within the range of some dark body we at present know nothing of, and the attraction might put out of harmony all our solar system with calamitous results. or since we are aware that the sun is a radiating body giving out its heat on all sides, and therefore growing colder, it may one day happen that it will be too cold to sustain life on the earth. it is, we know, a variable star, and stars have been seen to disappear, or even to have a catastrophe happen to them, as the kindling of enormous quantities of gas. a catastrophe in the sun will be our own end. fontenelle has amusingly described in verse the result of the sun growing cold, which may be thus englished:-- "of this, though, i haven't a doubt, one day when there isn't much light, the poor little sun will go out and bid us politely--good-night. look out from the stars up on high, some other to help you to see; i can't shine any longer, not i, since shining don't benefit me. "then down on our poor habitation what numberless evils will fall, when the heavens demand liquidation, why all will go smash, and then all society come to an end. soon out of the sleepy affair his way will each traveller wend, no testament leaving, nor heir." the cooling of the sun must, however, take place very gradually, as no cooling has been perceived during the existence of man; and the growth of plants in the earliest geological ages, and the life of animals, prove that for so long a time it has been within the limits within which life has been possible--and we may look forward to as long in the future. it is not of course the time when the sun will become a dark ball, surrounded by illuminated planets, that we must reckon as the end of the earth. life would have ceased long before that stage--no man will witness the death of the sun. [illustration: plate xvi.--the end of the world.] the diminution of the sun's heat would have for its natural effect the enlargement of the glacial zones! the sea and the land in those parts of the earth would cease to support life, which would gradually be drawn closer to the equatorial belt. man, who by his nature and his intelligence is best fitted to withstand cold climates, would remain among the last of the inhabitants, reduced to the most miserable nourishment. drawn together round the equator, the last of the sons of earth would wage a last combat with death, and exactly as the shades approached, would the human genius, fortified by all the acquirements of ages past--give out its brightest light, and attempt in vain to throw off the fatal cover that was destined to engulf him. at last, the earth, fading, dry, and sterile, would become an immense cemetery. and it would be the same with the other planets. the sun, already become red, would at last become black, and the planetary system would be an assemblage of black balls revolving round a larger black ball. of course this is all imaginary, and cannot affect ourselves, but the very idea of it is melancholy, and enough to justify the words of campbell:-- "for this hath science searched on weary wing by shore and sea--each mute and living thing, or round the cope her living chariot driven and wheeled in triumph through the signs of heaven. oh, star-eyed science, hast thou wandered there to waft us home the message of despair?" in reality, as we know nothing of the origin, so we know nothing of the end of the world; and where so much has been accomplished, there are obviously infinite possibilities enough to satisfy the hopes of every one. while some stars may be fading, others may be rising into their place, and man need not be identified with one earth alone, but may rest content in the idea that the life universal is eternal. the end. london: p. clay, sons, and taylor, printers. transcriber's notes: . passages in italics are surrounded by _underscores_. . images have been moved from the middle of a paragraph to the closest paragraph break. . the original text includes greek characters. for this text version these letters have been replaced with transliterations, for example, [greek: a] represents first greek letter alpha. . the original text includes certain symbols for planets and zodiac signs. for this text version these symbols are replaced by text name of the corresponding symbol. for example, [symbol: sun] replaces the symbolic representation of sun. . in this text version, fractions are represented using hyphen and forward slash. for example, - / stands for three and a half. . certain words use oe ligature in the original. . obvious errors in punctuation and a few misprints have been silently corrected. . other than the corrections listed above, printer's inconsistencies in hyphenation and ligature usage have been retained.