LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. 
 
 ip. .^.rHlopijttgift t*< 
 Shelf.-L.-2r.... 
 
 UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 
 
NATURE'S HARMONY. 
 
 BY 
 
 FRANCIS D. LACY. 
 
 
 NEW YOKK: 
 
 THE TRUTH SEEKER PUBLISHING HOUSE. 
 
 21 Clinton Place. 
 
BU 
 
 58 
 
 Copyright, 1883, by Francis D. Lacy. 
 
TO THE PUBLIC. 
 
 This is an age when, substantial facts are called for, 
 and the field of dogmatic speculation no longer has 
 any charm for well cultured minds. 
 
 The limits of man's intellectual range are broader 
 to-day than ever before, yet are very narrow when 
 compared with the illimitable fields for research that 
 he may never be able to explore; and the higher he 
 ascends in the scale of wisdom the more easily he 
 discerns how unfathomable the ocean of knowledge 
 and how incapable his mentality for ever measuring 
 it. But the world is in a state of progression, and 
 
 While generations thus succeed from infancy to age, 
 
 Each stamps its history on each leaf in lines from page to page; 
 
 And as the wheel of progress rolls from earth's primeval state, 
 
 Through all the changes undergone down to this present date, 
 
 The fields of earth assume by far a more exalted phase, 
 
 And man aspires to moral worth and seeks more godly ways. 
 
 All animated nature shows the progress of its kind, 
 
 In physical perfection wrought, likewise in power of mind 
 
 And vegetation, too, assumes a far more high degree 
 
 Than did it in those early days, we evidently see ; 
 
 For in comparison with mind our very food is made 
 
 More pure for each existing kind to render progress aid. 
 
 The fruits on which we now regale in luscious flaior show 
 
 Developments which ne'er were known five hundred years ago. 
 
 Unto the surface of the earth imbedded riches rise, 
 
 And to the increase of all life comes forth increased supplies ; 
 
 And man is mightLr by far than in the ancient past, 
 
 For nature in her progress saves the best until the last. 
 
 Therefore the times demand intellectual food of 
 rich and substantial character, as well as that which 
 
4 PKEFACE. 
 
 is new and agreeably seasoned, and I hav earnestly 
 labored in preparing this volume to meet the requi- 
 sitions of the times. However I fully realize and 
 willingly acknowledge my inability of presenting to 
 3 T ou a work as well polished and skilfully written upon 
 this subject as the world rightfully demands. 
 
 I hav watched for many years the groveling igno- 
 rance and unrestrained promulgation of religious 
 bondage, embodying what appear to me the grossest 
 delusions and vilest superstitions that man in his de- 
 pravity could conjecture, and in opposition to this 
 hav beheld a power as far off of its fulcrum, leaning 
 the other way, earnestly endeavoring to hold society 
 on a balance, and now after having carefully weighed 
 the pro and con by many years of diligent study I 
 hav resolved to present to the world a natural religion 
 based upon moral principles and scientific facts. 
 
 In this theory we acknowledge that an infinit in- 
 tellectuality pervades the universe and controls all 
 things, but in conceding to this must sustain that the 
 universal intelligence acts only with consistent prin- 
 ciples of natural law; making all of the evolutions 
 subject to the conditions "that the means must be 
 equivalent to the end." Such divinity, you will read- 
 ily see, characterizes the highest attributes, and at 
 the same time leaves no particle of knowledge to man 
 that such an intelligence pervades. 
 
 You will also discern from the title that I accept 
 the doctrin of a future existence, or, in other words, 
 a perpetuation of consciousness, into a new sphere, 
 to where it is literally born, carrying with it a tangi- 
 ble physical body, for further developments. This 
 theory I advocate, not as a matter of faith, but as the 
 solution of a problem upon the basis of scientific in- 
 
PREFACE. O 
 
 vestigation, and though it may be difficult to estab- 
 lish this fact in the minds of others, we hope at least 
 to impress the minds of many with the merits of it. 
 
 For many years I neither believed in a supreme 
 intelligence or a future state, but in studying upon 
 the subject constantly, reasoning only from natural 
 law, at last I felt an assurance that the problem was 
 solved, and since that time I often hav wondered 
 why all others hav not beheld the subject in the 
 same light. 
 
 When the new theory first flashed across my mind 
 I felt that the world had changed from an illusion to 
 a reality, and I not only felt an uneasiness, but a duty 
 to present it to the public. I hav endeavored to do 
 so in my rough way, and should it prove to my read- 
 ers the consolation and sublimity of thought and 
 feeling that I realize, then I shall hav accomplished 
 my object. 
 
 I hav found it impossible to use in this work the 
 technicalities acceptable to my scientific friends; and 
 the bungling manner in which I hav presented these 
 facts is not so much a frailty on my own part as a 
 necessity in order to meet the wants of the people. 
 
 With no vivid expectation of controling more than 
 a moderate patronage for the sale of this work, I 
 await with ardent hopes that some more able author 
 will perfect it, and in a more polished manner offer 
 it to the public. 
 
 With many thanks to my readers, I would most 
 respectfully subscribe 
 
 Yours for moral virtue and intellectual develop- 
 ment, Francis D, Lacy, 
 
PLANETARY DEVELOPMENT. 
 
 Since planets exist for the satisfaction of intel- 
 lectuality, the inference is that without mind there 
 would need be no such principle as matter. Both, 
 in nature, are absolute necessities, nor will we be 
 partial as to which is the dominant principle, since 
 either alone is a cipher, while both, united, are a uni- 
 verse. 
 
 Since from nothing nothing arises, while from 
 something something must forever exist, it is evi- 
 dent that nothing tangible was ever created, and 
 in no way can ever be ultimately lost. If all mat- 
 ter is self-existent, then all the qualities that it car- 
 ries with it must be self-existent, also, and whatever 
 form material may assume, the results of evolution 
 call for all the principles and forces necessary to 
 correspond with the developments. "When we con- 
 sider the planets in a state of formation as having 
 been evolved from a condition of nebular or gaseous 
 fluid, the harmonious order in which they are gov- 
 erned indicates that a principle of intellectuality has 
 pervaded and is still controling the operations of all 
 nature. 
 
 The conditions attending one planet in its for- 
 mation are equivalent to those attending all others 
 in like stages of development. Our world is a 
 sample planet, from which data we reason, and 
 the elements, species, varieties, principles, tempera- 
 
nature's harmony. 
 
 tures, climates, habits of animals, and even the 
 enterprises of man in this world, are representativ 
 of those in any other at a similar period of its de- 
 velopment. 
 
 Man, the highest order of animated nature here, 
 is doubtless the highest order in any other world 
 where the conditions of development are adapted 
 for the existence of man, and his intellectual excel- 
 lences depend upon the natural progress of the earth 
 in her development. Doubtless the highest intel- 
 lectual abilities of man existed once nearer the poles 
 or in a higher latitude than now; but at the present 
 time, what intellectuality lies between the thirty- 
 seventh and forty-eighth degrees, north and south 
 latitudes, is worth more than five times the human 
 intelligence of nil the rest of the world. But ten 
 thousand years hence (not doubting but the earth 
 will stand ten times ten thousand years) the highest 
 intelligence will exist nearer the equator, as by that 
 time the climate at this latitude will be much colder 
 than now. 
 
 The rigor of cold climates impedes the progress of 
 enterprise, while the hot climates nurse man in his 
 indolence. "Necessity, the mother of invention," 
 spurs man to enterprise where the conditions best 
 afibrd the opportunities for him to pursue. 
 
 The theory that those planets furthest from the 
 sun are necessarily colder is not at all reasonable. 
 All require the same temperatures in the progress 
 of their developments. The principle caloric is 
 existent in the planet's own body, while the light 
 received and heat absorbed by a heavenly body is 
 as much enhanced by magnitude as detracted by 
 distance, hence the larger planets, and least devel- 
 
PLANETARY DEVELOPMENT. V 
 
 oped ones, in the economy of nature, are furthest 
 from the sun. 
 
 The absence of caloric is indicativ of a planet's 
 death. The moon originating at the same period as 
 the earth, and being about forty-nine times smaller, 
 without doubt has developed to her maturity, and 
 is now expiring with old age. The heated volume 
 being less than that of the earth, it required pro- 
 portionately less time to cool; and now while ice- 
 bergs surround her surface, her sister, earth, pre- 
 sents an appearance of her most fascinating bloom 
 The moon is now held subservient to our use, giving 
 light by night, creating various essential effects 
 upon the earth, and acting as a balance-wheel, 
 equalizing the motion of the earth in her diurnal and 
 annual revolutions. 
 
 The asteroids, now in formation, indicate a vast 
 quantity of nebulous fluid between Mars and Jupiter, 
 which the attractiv force of neither was sufficient to 
 collect. These small planets increase in size by 
 receiving through their attractiv forces the gaseous 
 substance surrounding them. The attractiv force of 
 each will rarefy the condition of the gaseous mate- 
 rial surrounding, so that in each succeeding century 
 each will receive proportionately less substance from 
 meteoric showers and gradual accumulation. Some 
 of the asteroids will doubtless eventually collide, 
 owing to the close proximity of their orbits, forming 
 a single planet of respectable dimensions, where now 
 are several of these comparativly small bodies. 
 
 As the internal heat subsides fastest where a 
 planet's diurnal motion is least, there is where vege- 
 tation first germinates, and there, from the exceed- 
 ing cold, is where it first ceases to grow. And thus 
 
10 nature's harmony. 
 
 as the internal heat subsides, the surface grows 
 colder, until earth, like the moon, will die. And 
 such, eventually, will be the fate of all the planets 
 in existence, and each in succession will be swallowed 
 in as food for the sun. 
 
 Thus the sun is supported, while in exchange he is 
 throwing out over the regions of his dominions the 
 refined and subtil fluid in the way of light for the 
 formation of a new generation of planets. Thus 
 formation, progression, maturity, and destruction by 
 evolution is the grand order of nature. 
 
 The atmosphere grows rarefied, and the earth, 
 with stifled breath, from lack of surface, heat, and 
 force, grows paralyzed in death; and as a cold, re- 
 flectiv ball in death-like paleness run, and every 
 revolution made crowds nearer to the sun; till when 
 five million times or more she circles in her course, 
 into the sun's deep, molten heat will plunge with 
 awful force. Nor in suspense need we await to 
 shun that awful day. The age of man unto the 
 world flies rapidly away; and we shall pass a thou- 
 sand spheres as transient as this one, and nature's 
 clock shall never tire, but grandly onward run. 
 
 As has been stated, when the planets hav reached 
 their highest degree of perfection and accomplished 
 all the material that is in them will allow, nature 
 will then work them over and use the material for 
 new worlds. Hence the process that the earth is 
 now undergoing. 
 
 The outer crust, from age to age, doth deeper 
 downward lead, and from the surface of the earth 
 the water doth recede; and many ports along the 
 shore shall be of no avail, and roads upon the earth 
 be trod where ships on water sail; and many fair 
 
PLANETARY DEVELOPMENT. 11 
 
 and fertil fields we worthless or accursed, and famin 
 rage, and man and beast die hungered and of thirst; 
 and even where the torrid band doth circle earth 
 around, no vegetation there shall spring or animals 
 abound. 
 
 I would further state : That for some purpose the 
 universe exists, and to that purpose all materiality is 
 appropriated. The problem of the origin we shall 
 leave for the unsophisticated to cavil upon, since it 
 is sufficient for us to deal with matter as we find it, 
 accepting both the spiritual and the material as being 
 but one, and that self-existent and eternal. For the 
 present we shall endeavor to consider some of the 
 formations, evolutions, and general developments 
 achieved by nature, and from the result of our con- 
 clusions see what inference is shown for the existence 
 of a pervading intellectuality. 
 
 First. Since the spirit of nature abhors idleness, 
 action is the order of the universe. Every animated 
 being or particle of material is forever seeking its 
 equilibrium, while the elements throughout the uni- 
 verse are kept in a continual state of agitation and 
 warfare. Every creature or insect of life, from the 
 greatest magnitude to the infinitesimal, livs in view 
 of but one object — self-preservation ! But not a 
 creature among the innumerable species, not man ex- 
 cepted, while fulfilling his selfish mission, is able to 
 understand in the aggregate the grand work he is 
 accomplishing for nature, and why he fills a place in 
 the great ocean of life. This principle of self-preser- 
 vation is a stimulant, creating activ life, which if 
 denied to animation would also debar all inheritance 
 of intellectuality, making all nature a blank. 
 
 An individual bee at work in the hive seeks only 
 
12 nature's harmoky. 
 
 its natural requirements, but guided by a principle 
 of intelligence, unknown to itself, it works in unison 
 with others in the colony, and how grand is the re- 
 sult in the aggregate ! The coral insect, though but 
 a minute creature of life, in seeking self-preservation 
 iabors with the millions of its kind, and though its 
 life is but momentary, note how from year to year, 
 and century to century, they continue diligently at 
 their colossal works. In this way the coral reefs, 
 from a carbonate of lime deposit, hav been reared 
 along the Florida coast, and islands of considerable 
 extent hav been formed in defiance to the dashing- 
 waters of the ocean, by the long-continued diligence 
 of tnese short-lived little insects. "Whence the intel- 
 lectuality that guides these instinctiv natures to ac- 
 complish so much in the world's development? 
 
 But here it would not be out of order to state that 
 these minute creatures occupy a more extensiv range 
 than doubtless has generally been supposed; and 
 perhaps all the various operations of chemical affin- 
 ity might reasonably be ascribed to the labor of in- 
 finitesimal insects unknown to the eye of man. In 
 relation to this, however, I would say that of late we 
 hav made some extensiv and interesting microscopic 
 observations, and that the public may hav some of the 
 benefits of our researches we will extend an idea, 
 truthful to the letter, however fictitious it may ap- 
 pear to some of our readers. In presenting this 
 idea it would only be philosophic to state that all 
 the material in the universe is composed of particles 
 or atoms. But in seeking to find these ultimate par- 
 ticles with the most powerful lens, we fail to reach 
 them, but we find our way, in whatever material we 
 select, lined and blockaded with innumerable ani- 
 
PLANETARY DEVELOPMENT. 13 
 
 malcules, from those of the larger sizes to the most 
 minute infinitesimals, then blending into what ap- 
 pears a continued mass of infinitly small animated 
 creatures or insects. These observations were taken 
 under the most favorable circumstances, and my 
 companion asserted that in all reason all the ulti- 
 mate atoms were virtually animated identities. It 
 is certain, as far as our demonstrations could go, we 
 found nothing else, and the inference was strong in 
 favor of his conclusion. But it is difficult to get the 
 faintest idea of the ultimatum from all we can get 
 in a microscopic view. The comparison would be 
 like unto pumpkins, potatoes, and mustard-seed, 
 mixed in one grand batch. The pumpkins we can 
 see, the potatoes guess at, and the mustard-seed we 
 shall never know anything about. The latter pro- 
 portionately would be like magnifying a particle of 
 sunlight, and that is too delicate for me, hence I will 
 stop as others hav done, where nature proclaims, 
 "So far shalt thou go and no farther." 
 Tis ours to fancy but not understand 
 A world of beings on a grain of sand, 
 And doubtless some there seeking to explore 
 A mammoth cave or some far distant shore. 
 'Tis ours to view ten thousand orbs afar, 
 And state the distance to the dimmest star ; 
 Survey the planets, weigh them, and control, 
 But not to analyze the human soul. 
 
 The foregoing we hav presented in order that the 
 mind of the reader may fully realize the infinit 
 minuteness of the particles of all material substance, 
 and also that the largest things in the universe are 
 productions of actual growth, the composition of 
 which is a multiplication of infinitesimal atoms, the 
 existence of which is known, yet beyond the power 
 
14 nature's harmony. 
 
 of man to find. Again, in showing the worlds 
 beneath us, and the worlds above us, it is our object 
 to impress this principle upon the mind: that mag- 
 nitude can only be considered in comparison to the 
 mind that considers it. The sphere in which man 
 acts makes things around him appear of certain 
 dimensions, and distance also proportionately corre- 
 sponds with his nature. But what do the thousands 
 of animalcules, living and sporting in their boundless 
 ocean, the aqueous fluid of a person's eye, know of 
 the infinitude of space outside ? Or, in the way of 
 illustration, what if the earth were an intellectual be- 
 ing (which in my judgment it is) and we but parasites, 
 digging and biting and frolicking upon her back, 
 with what insignificance would we be regarded by 
 such an immense being, and what more would she 
 know of us than we of the little creatures beneath 
 the ability of our eyes to discern ? And again, time 
 or duration is a principle in its nature never varying, 
 yet adapted to the appreciation of any existence of 
 thought, proportionate to the sphere and requisi- 
 tions such existence or being demands. To the 
 minute insect, whose lifetime is but for an instant, to 
 the realization of its identity, it may appear an age, 
 while the duration of our lifetime to a planetary be- 
 ing might be regarded as a second of time is real- 
 ized by us. 
 
 In the formation and development of planets and 
 solar systems it is a process requiring great duration, 
 but it is hardly possible that all the planets in any 
 solar system ever originated at once, but are born, 
 develop, mature, and perish, one by one, analogous 
 to the origin and growth of the species, and thus 
 from generation to generation are perpetuated. It 
 
PLANETARY DEVELOPMENT. 15 
 
 is doubtless a fact that tlie space occupied by our 
 solar region around and between the planets in a 
 state of development contains a sufficient amount of 
 gaseous fluid to compose as many more heavenly 
 bodies as are now flying in their elliptical orbits 
 around the sun, but in order to perpetuate the exist- 
 ence of this great family it is essential that new 
 generations should gradually arise to take the place 
 of the older planets which are continually passing 
 away; consequently it is absolutely necessary that 
 nature should keep in reserve a sufficient quantity of 
 rarefied material to answer the requirements. It 
 might be questioned where the worn-out, or rather 
 the dead, planets go when no longer useful for nature s 
 purpose. We would answer in all reason that they 
 go to the great source from which the material of 
 their composition was radiated, the sun, in accordance 
 with the law of nature's just compensation, for 
 obviously the labor assigned for the sun to perform 
 is to supply the solar space with the new and refined 
 material for the sustenance of the old planets and 
 the formation of new, consequently planets as they 
 are developing continue to run in their orbits, but at 
 every circuit made arrive a little nearer to one of 
 nature's great heavenly tombs. The progress is slow 
 but sure, and it is only a matter of time when each 
 in turn shall be swallowed in as food for the sun. 
 
 In the formation of new planets these little chil- 
 dren of the solar system are subject to many misfor- 
 tunes. Often it occurs that a nucleus commences in 
 such close proximity to some partially developed 
 planet that the attractiv force of the greater body 
 receives the lesser at a very early stage of its exist- 
 ence. Specimens of this kind frequently come to 
 
16 nature's harmony. 
 
 the earth in the form of meteoric showers, or in a 
 more dense condition of stone. Perhaps there are 
 many of these infant formations in the limits of this 
 solar system at the present time, and yet possibly 
 not one out of ten thousand will ever develop. In 
 the progress of a planet's growth no doubt many burst 
 in the heavens and resolve back into their former 
 condition of nebular fluid, while others more nearly 
 developed are subject to the most terrible volcanic 
 eruptions and convulsiv commotions that the mind is 
 able to conceive. The earth shows signs of such in 
 every mountain range on her surface, and still she 
 belches forth her fire and smoke from time to time 
 from her numerous volcanoes. 
 
 Upon the principles of philosophy no planetary 
 nucleus can form and develop except where in the 
 economy of nature it will be needed in the heavens 
 to assist in keeping order and harmony. It is plain 
 to understand that in the formation of a heavenly 
 body, it would receive all the material adjacently sur- 
 rounding that its attractiv force is capable of collect- 
 ing, and its attractiv force is increasing in proportion 
 to its volume and weight. Hence any density in the 
 heavens, aside from the planets, must be sufficiently 
 foreign from them to justify an amount of material 
 adequate to build up a body large enough for practi- 
 cal utility to nature, else the work will be counted 
 among the buds that never blossom; for nature 
 never works without a purpose, and this is one of 
 the reasons why we infer that intellectuality rules the 
 universe. 
 
 Say, whence that nature's wondrous power her first projectil 
 hurled, 
 
PLANETARY DEVELOPMENT. 17 
 
 Or where in broad eternity shall land each rolling world? 
 Or further to infinitude probe with thy wondering soul, 
 Seek intellectual origin, or trace it to its goal ? 
 
 For what the sable vaults of sky, where worlds unnum- 
 bered run, 
 And why through space so swiftly fly, encircling their sun ? 
 What is the object thus attained, as years like lightning speed, 
 And what the ultimatum growth of nature's primal seed? 
 
 Dost through this awful realm of space, and in these worlds 
 
 that roll, 
 Pervade supreme intelligence all nature to control ? 
 And does this same eternal power scorn atoms ne'er so fine, 
 Or otherwise sublimely rule with master hand divine ? 
 
 "Why do these worlds from atoms spring ? From what con- 
 
 troling force ? 
 For what the purpose they exist? "What destiny their 
 
 course ? 
 Why through these vast celestial fields do stars in luster 
 
 shine, 
 And by pulsations waft their light along their glittering 
 
 line? 
 
 Do worlds by billions roll beyond the reach of mortal sight, 
 Devoid of all intelligence, yet robed with rays of light? 
 Do they exist, yet unapplied for intellectual use ? 
 Is nature's grand economy thus squandered in abuse ? 
 
 Oh, no; the object of these worlds most clearly is defined; 
 From them arise organic life, and likewise thinking mind. 
 The forces operating through the elements of earth 
 Create the evolutions giving animation birth. 
 
 A world without the principles of intellectual force 
 Would be a blank, unguided mass, and useless in its course. 
 But in this great economy such planet could not roll, 
 Nor be developed into space without the inner soul. 
 
18 natube's harmony. 
 
 A mind without a body at the origin would show 
 
 That substance were not needed whereby other minds miglit 
 
 grow, 
 Proving matter is eternal, self -existent, ever young, 
 And as rich, wise, strong, and weighty as when "morning 
 
 stars first sung." 
 
 Say not that man is royal, then, in intellectual sway, 
 Since but a speck of vital force thus groveling on his way, 
 And but a product of the earth engendered by the sun, 
 Which, like a bubble, vanishes and evermore is gone. 
 
 PKOGKESS OF INTELLECTUAL DEVELOP- 
 MENT. 
 
 Everything in the universe is essential to fill its 
 place, and by nature adapted to do so. The laws 
 governing materiality operate from causes to effects, 
 and the effects, conjoining, act as causes for other 
 effects still to follow. Through these principles, all 
 action, change, or evolution is produced, nor are any 
 of the results occurring subject to either accident or 
 mistake, but through absolute necessity each cause 
 or missil sent strikes with definit precision, every 
 point producing results m the line of its destiny. 
 Consequently nothing had the power of creating 
 itself, but everything was forced to exist, and is 
 wholly passiv to the natural principles controling it. 
 Natural laws are inherent with materiality, self- 
 existent and eternal, but in the absence of material 
 substance would be non-existent; for they only per- 
 vade whereby to control matter, and no laws would 
 be required were there no matter to control. 
 
INTELLECTUAL DEVELOPMENT. 19 
 
 That matter is the production of mind is evidently 
 illusiv, for how mind could exist without matter 
 is incomprehensible, and out of the order of both 
 nature and reason. If any conceivable mind could 
 possess creativ power, then absolutely it must con- 
 tain all the possibilities of what it could create; 
 therefore, as the means are adequate to the end, this 
 also comes under the law of cause and effect, conse- 
 quently there lies no miracle. Hence the axiom that 
 something cannot be produced from nothing, nor the 
 tangible ever be rendered extinct. 
 
 The idea of mind existing without matter dispenses 
 with the necessity of matter ever existing. Even 
 though an infinit intellectuality, with all the imag- 
 inary supreme attributes, could exist from all eter- 
 nity, and pervade throughout illimitable space devoid 
 of all materiality, we must naturally question what 
 did it exist for, and why the necessity of manufac- 
 turing worlds ? Could not a finite mind get along as 
 well without a body as an infinit one? Then sing: 
 
 Mind and matter dwell together; without either 
 can be neither; both possess their power in one. 
 Ever changing, never failing; ever using, never los- 
 ing; neither can exist alone. From eternity behind 
 us to eternity ahead, throughout wondrous evolu- 
 tions, mind and matter onward tread. From the 
 world sublimely rolling through immensity of space, 
 down to atoms 'neath our vision, grandly onward is 
 the race. From beyond the orbs that twinkle to 
 minute worlds 'neath our sight, on the business runs 
 in order, mind and matter still unite. Without ne 
 wherefore the other? What is substance without 
 thought? Worlds unnumbered, known to nothing, 
 are equivalent to nought. Wherefore thought o'er 
 
20 nature's harmony. 
 
 nought to labor ? What accomplishments are made ? 
 What a barren, idle heaven, without elements for aid. 
 
 Changing the form does not affect the quantity, 
 nor destroy any of the principles that matter pos- 
 sesses. Could the universe hav been weighed a bill- 
 ion of years ago, and again at the present time, the 
 difference wou]d not "stir the scale or rock the 
 beam," nor since that time would any of the princi- 
 ples hav been lost. 
 
 Everything is in a state of growth, yet nature in 
 the aggregate never progresses or retrogrades; yet 
 development borders closely on destruction, and the 
 building up of one thing is equivalent to the tearing 
 down of another; therefore, dissolution is but reor- 
 ganization. The course of nature is origin, develop- 
 ment, and decay; hence birth is but a token that 
 death is to follow; yet the dead, to nature, are worth 
 just as much as the living. Then sing: 
 
 Crowd on, thou restless forces of infinity sublime, 
 and bear, from all eternity to never-ending time, the 
 self-existent principles that never can astray, in all 
 this endless ocean while evolving on their way. To 
 that which through development surrenders up and 
 dies, shall be applied new forces, and the same again 
 shall rise; nor smallest of identities be unto nature 
 lost, for could the least be stricken out, so likewise 
 might the most. 
 
 But in the sense of organization, that which had 
 its origin must hav its end, else all the evolutions of 
 nature would at once be at a standstill. For illus- 
 tration : if the cosmogony of worlds ever took place, 
 which is scarcely a question, then their destruction 
 is certain, for the principles that evolve are identi- 
 cally the same that destroy. 
 
INTELLECTUAL DEVELOPMENT. 21 
 
 To contemplate the fact that all the densities 
 within our observation, and all existing in the in- 
 numerable worlds of the universe, were once in an 
 ethereal condition, perhaps a thousand times more 
 rarefied than our common air, and that the rapid 
 action by which come forth the vegetable produc- 
 tions, and the wonderful phenomena of forcing into 
 being the myriads of living identities, were all occa- 
 sioned by the operations of certain natural forces 
 existing inherent in the material itself, it creates 
 a wide stretch of the imagination, but develops 
 a truth as patent as the fact that we liv and realize 
 our existence. 
 
 Could the mind but possess a sufficiently extensiv 
 knowledge of the chemical affinities, electric forces, 
 and philosophical working of atoms, ifc would not be 
 difficult to trace their course from the condition they 
 occupy in ethereal space t© the densified and organ- 
 ized bodies they form. 
 
 Why the atoms in rarefied condition tend to de- 
 velop into vegetable productions and animal life 
 just as they do after forming into planets, suns, and 
 comets is a question presupposing a guide antece- 
 dent to such developments. How results can 
 come without their causes would overthrow our 
 course of logic; and any substance or forces, pro- 
 ceeding from whatsoever source they may, presup- 
 poses a fountain adequate to such results. How 
 inorganic material in ethereal form can build 
 cities, construct railroads and steamboats for trans- 
 portation of some of the same material that actually 
 proceeded from the celestial regions before being 
 organized into worlds, brings a solid fact to ques- 
 tion; nor does it matter through what course of de- 
 
22 nature's harmony. 
 
 velopment the material has come to produce man, 
 yet still man's works are but a secondary condition 
 of nature, and his grandest intellectual developments 
 are but the results of molecules at work, guided by a 
 certain intellectual force onward to this end. 
 
 The origin of the species, to our understanding, 
 seems to be the commencement of intellectual de- 
 velopment; but is it possible for nature to produce 
 what she does not possess ? If not, then she held in 
 possession, billions of years ago, all the possibilities 
 of what she possesses to-day. If this be so, then the 
 thinking principle existing in all animated creatures, 
 at the present time, must hav eternally formed some 
 portion of the guiding principle controling the uni- 
 verse, and, in accordance with our reasoning, neces- 
 sarily forms some portion of that controling principle 
 yet. 
 
 Now as a sign which may answer for an inference, 
 we here would ask if in the construction of a clock 
 we discover any principle of design ? Most certainly, 
 for it is easy to appreciate the labor of our own 
 kind. But compare the rough mechanism of the 
 clock to the systematic, wonderful, and harmonious 
 formation of the solar system, and then with the 
 universe, and see which indicates the grandest de- 
 sign. But you say that these celestial bodies, with 
 their harmonious action, are the work of nature. 
 That is very true ; so also is the clock ; but the one 
 came through the agency of man, and the other 
 came through an agency still higher than man. 
 That which is above the human understanding may 
 appear as illusiv as that which we know to be 
 erroneous. It is difficult for man to comprehend a 
 higher intellectuality than himself, but he overlooks 
 
INTELLECTUAL DEVELOPMENT. 23 
 
 the thousands of proofs constantly surrounding him. 
 Not that I would lead the mind to the miraculous 
 attributes of heathen deities, but that if man has 
 thinking power, then why hav not greater things 
 than man thinking power also ? Does not the earth 
 require, as an organized being, as much thought to 
 traverse her course with lightning speed, in the path 
 of her orbit, as man to pursue the habits of his 
 sphere? You say, no; for man labors for self-pres- 
 ervation, and the earth is controled by natural prin- 
 ciples. That is true, but it is also true that the 
 earth and all heavenly bodies are laboring for self- 
 preservation, as well as man, while man is governed 
 also by natural principles as much as they. 
 
 Now here is a fact worthy of consideration. 
 There is a reason why intellectual beings exist, and 
 as has already been shown, this principle of men- 
 tality is the most precious portion of nature. Now 
 if this be the most important part, as is plainly seen, 
 that without an appreciation of what exists the uni- 
 verse would be but a blank; then why not this 
 principle be diffused as extensivly throughout the 
 universe as it is in the power of nature to develop ? 
 If a small portion of this quality is essential, a 
 larger portion is still more desirable. Therefore, if 
 it is possible for a world to possess, as an organized 
 being or body, living and thinking qualities, then 
 such would be necessary prerequisits in nature's 
 economy. When I first presented this theory by 
 lecture and. through newspaper communications, I 
 received the scoff of ridicule from some, and the eye 
 of pity from others, but those who scorn my theory 
 or pity my mania fail to present any tangible oppo- 
 sition. The conditions whereby inorganic ma- 
 
24 nature's harmony. 
 
 terial is evolved into organized bodies, possessing 
 life and intellectuality, certainly do not deny that a 
 planet may possess a realization of life, and a 
 sense of its identity, but on the contrary, substan- 
 tially, declare that it must possess and sustain these 
 qualities within itself, and without these qualities 
 it could never act as the fountain from which intel- 
 lectual beings spring forth. For illustration, let us 
 consider the physiological conditions necessary to 
 sustain life in the body and produce thought. "We will 
 consider the human system, as it is the most interest- 
 ing to contemplate, and the highest order of anima- 
 tion known to us. In the first place, in the nature of 
 every living or thinking creature or being, exist 
 three definit qualities, namely, the living, moving, 
 and thinking principles. These constitute three 
 definit and separate systems, yet it is necessary that 
 they all harmoniously conjoin that any may be po- 
 tently manifested. The action of these parts is but 
 the result of material organization and physiologi- 
 cal condition. Material elements are necessarily 
 the tangible constituents whereby all bodily action 
 is produced, and in order to sustain in operation the 
 physical functions new material must be regularly 
 supplied. Withhold it and the system famishes, and 
 a sense of realization in the body is no more. The 
 living principle relates to all the involuntary action 
 manifested in the body, which may be represented as 
 operating upon the food from the time it is received 
 into the mouth until it is assimilated to the removal 
 of the worn-out tissues, unfit for further service, and 
 cast away. The desire that is felt to enjoy the taste 
 creates a natural inclination for mastication, and na- 
 ture has provided a means to accomplish it. Next, 
 
INTELLECTUAL DEVELOPMENT. 25 
 
 how peculiar is the muscular action of the esopha- 
 gus to convey the same to the stomach, never forget- 
 ting which end to commence swallowing at. The 
 stomach, concomitant with the esophagus, is ready 
 to receive the new supply of food, and is made to 
 feel its requirements from a peculiar pain created in 
 the numerous nerves thereof from the absence of food, 
 which are sensitiv to the conditions, being tributa- 
 ries to the eighth pair of sympathetic nerves. 
 
 Next, nature made no mistake in the office to 
 which she applied the stomach. While its action 
 upon the food is truly wonderful, in one sense it is 
 almost laughable. Let us consider for a moment the 
 principles of digestion, how a fluid is secreted, of 
 such materials as pepsin, salivary matter, mucus, lac- 
 tic acid, and salin matters so associated together 
 as to produce a solution of the most powerfully dis- 
 solving nature upon the food at the temperature of 
 its action of any combination of materials known. 
 
 Let the best practical chemist in existence associ- 
 ate the elements most natural for food, and then at a 
 temperature of only ninety-eight and one-dalf de- 
 grees bring to bear the most powerful dissolvent ma- 
 terials, with the most artful device he is master of, 
 for fermentation and digestion, and my word for it, 
 the stomach will do more for it in two hours than 
 the chemist can in ten, while at the same time nature 
 is running both machines. But while the stomach 
 prepares the food, adapted to pass on to receive the 
 next process, the chemist has left his substances 
 poisonous to the system, and well calculated to in- 
 flame the tissues and clog the circulation. 
 
 It is interesting to notice the construction, or 
 rather formation, of the mucous membrane or villous 
 
26 nature's harmony. 
 
 coat, and its secretion, and the rapid action thereof. 
 Suffice to say that nothing in any other form, or any 
 different quality of secretion, could do the business 
 so well, or, in other words, could do it at all. Next 
 consider the muscular fibers, which unite to form 
 the tissue of the mucous membrane, the powerful 
 and rapid action of this membrane, and its adapta- 
 tion to either the large or small quantity of food 
 that may be in the stomach. Consider, also, how 
 the pylorus guards the food from passing out of the 
 stomach until it is in a proper condition of chyme, to 
 be chemicalized into chyle by the excretions of the 
 liver and pancreas, while passing through the duode- 
 num, before reaching the lacteals in the intestins. 
 Were it possible to discern and understand the chem- 
 ical action of the bile and pancreatic juice, and the 
 lightning quickness of their dissolvent effects upon 
 the chyme while in the duodenum, before any por- 
 tion of it is in proper condition to be received 
 through the lacteals into the thoracic duct, it would 
 beggar all attempt at description, and leave the 
 mind in awe at the wonderful workings of the ele- 
 ments in our own physical systems. 
 
 Then, again, let us consider how this material is 
 pumped up by the muscular action of the heart, to 
 unite with the venous blood to be forced through the 
 pulmonary arteries to the lungs, there to undergo 
 another chemical change of lightning quickness, be- 
 fore being arterialized to return to the heart. Back to 
 the heart through the pulmonary veins it is drawn, 
 whereby to be forced through the left portion of the 
 heart with such powerful pressure into the arteries as 
 to send the blood to the uttermost extremities of the 
 body, where these millions of channels, separated, 
 
INTELLECTUAL DEVELOPMENT. 27 
 
 ramify with such delicate minuteness that it would 
 be impossible for the cuticle to be pierced with the 
 finest cambric needle without puncturing one or 
 more of them. Through these millions of delicate 
 hoses they hav deposited on their way their new 
 loads of material to each and every portion, where- 
 by to renew every particle of tissue throughout the 
 whole spiritual tenement. 
 
 Then we find that where the arteries terminate, 
 the capillaries, which are tributaries to the veins, 
 arise. The worn-out material is judiciously collected 
 up, and by rigid economy is conducted to the glands 
 to be cleansed, or separated, the waste portion to be 
 conveyed from the system, and the remainder, ac- 
 ceptable for further use, to be conveyed back through 
 the heart and to the lungs for arterialization. In 
 this way, with what is added by respiration, every 
 portion of the body is supplied with the neces- 
 sary material required to sustain life in the or- 
 ganization. 
 
 But in addition to all that it is possible to describe 
 here, relativ to the vital system, there are many func- 
 tionary features, of which it would be discouraging 
 to attempt to render the faintest idea. 
 
 Then here we hav the living principle of the hu- 
 man being, and the mind of the reader will not fail 
 to notice that all creatures, as well as human, are 
 possessed with similar circulatory organizations. 
 
 But were it possible that this vital system could 
 exist without the nervous, then such an organization 
 would not know that it possessed an identity; and if 
 void of the muscular alliance, then the vital and 
 nervous, although they were . able to liv and think, 
 yet they could not act, or stir, or render any mani- 
 
28 
 
 NATURE S HARMONY. 
 
 festation whatever. Therefore, here coines in na- 
 ture's absolute necessities, whereby in order to con- 
 stitute a living, moving, and thinking being, these 
 conditions must be provided. 
 
 The circulatory system renders nourishment for 
 the support of the nervous system, whereby these 
 various and numerous fibers may act as electric con- 
 ductors, ramifying to every portion of the physical 
 organization, and centering at the medulla oblongata 
 or cerebellum (the backward portion of the brain), 
 whereby an electro-magnetic battery is produced. 
 Now, since we hav reached this principle of nervous 
 control, let us revert back to the fact that the vital 
 power of the system could not exist for an instant 
 without it, neither could the motor, but that each 
 alike depends equally upon the others, thereby con- 
 stituting a harmonious trio, necessary to the exist- 
 ence of animation. Now, here is a principle of gen- 
 eral government which presides throughout the or- 
 ganism, and a mutual agreement of bones, muscles, 
 nerves, and blood, and all their varied action. "What- 
 ever was essential to create the necessary results 
 has been provided just to a sufficiency. First, the 
 physical framework of articulation at every point 
 needed, and nowhere unless required. Second, the 
 attachment of the muscles to the bones, and the 
 philosophical perfection with which they are applied, 
 and the number necessary by which every member, 
 joint, or organ, can act in every way the habits of 
 the creature or being may demand. And it is inter- 
 esting to consider the fact that the fibers of which 
 these powerful muscular tissues are composed are 
 finer than the unassisted eye is able to discern. 
 It takes, as nearly as can be estimated, 11,500 
 
INTELLECTUAL DEVELOPMENT. 29 
 
 of them, when laid side by side upon a plain surface, 
 to span an inch, and yet these fibers are so woven, 
 spliced, and plaited as to possess contractiv power 
 equal to thousands of pounds in weight. For illus- 
 tration, extend the arm, its length upon a table, then 
 place a twenty-five pound weight upon the hand, and 
 raise it to the shoulder. Now, in imitation of the 
 arm, fix a mechanical contrivance to raise as nearly 
 parallel to it as with the arm, and make the attach- 
 ment proportionately the same; then apply your 
 windlass and raise the twenty-five-pound weight. I 
 scarcely need state what an immese cord it may re- 
 quire to raise it, or the force to be applied, but suf- 
 fice to say, the draft of a good team will scarcely be 
 able to accomplish the feat. This is no exaggera- 
 tion, but on the contrary the exaggeration goes the 
 other way, and beyond all conjecture; but here you 
 hav an excuse that the volition of the will associates 
 an electric force together with the mechanical prin- 
 ciples and muscular action that in no other way can 
 be applied. Now, let us here pause a moment to 
 consider whence the primary influence of this enor- 
 mous force. You discover at once that it proceeds 
 from the electric center. But how wonderful it is 
 that when we seek at this nervous center no force is 
 to be discovered, and so delicate it is that the softest 
 silk would soon paralyze all action thereof, and it 
 could not stand the puncture of the finest cambric 
 needle without separating the spiuit from the body! 
 Therefore to fill the requirements nature has pro- 
 vided the motor nerves in order to operate the mus- 
 cular system. Next to consider here were numerous 
 organs of the body, that must act in unison with 
 each other. Now as the mind of person or ani- 
 
30 nature's harmony. 
 
 mal has no control over those functions, therefore 
 nature has furnished the requisitions. Consequently 
 there are for the purpose named certain pairs of 
 sympathetic nerves, which neither feel, nor are 
 operated through any volition of will, but by na- 
 ture are instructed through involuntary action to 
 work mutually together, whereby to keep in regula- 
 tion and harmonious order the operations of all this 
 physical machinery. Without this necessary pre- 
 requisit of the tenement all circulation would at once 
 be at a stand-still. Yet still here come in another 
 necessity. The various parts of the organization are 
 liable to violence and to get deranged, to become 
 poisoned and inflamed, ruptured, broken, or detached ; 
 and there are no means, as yet, from anything re- 
 ferred to, by which the person can realize such 
 injury. Nature makes a special provision. She 
 provides another set of nerves, which shall neither 
 act upon the muscles nor in any way work physi- 
 cally upon the tissues, but whose sole business is to 
 act as guard against the approach of all danger from 
 violence, and render timely warning. These are the 
 nerves of sensation, and it is interesting to contem- 
 plate how justly, systematically, and economically 
 they are distributed. Where the danger is greatest 
 there the sensation is rendered most acute, and when 
 any injury is received the tidings are instantly tele- 
 graphed to the nervous center. These nerves are 
 very numerous, so extensiv as to defy the point oi 
 the finest needle to thrust the person without coming 
 in contact with one or more, which may readily be 
 known by the sensation felt. A volume might be 
 written on the natural adaptation and law of com- 
 pensation displayed in the working of the humar 
 
INTELLECTUAL DEVELOPMENT. 31 
 
 system, but before a person is able to even describe 
 the outlines of his physical being he becomes lost 
 in his nothingness, and will decide that a lifetime is 
 too short to learn a hundredth part of what he pos- 
 sesses in his own being. 
 
 It is obvious that nature has used the material at 
 the best advantage, and incorporated the greatest 
 force in the smallest space she was capable pf. There 
 is not a feature to be questioned but what returns a 
 useful answer, and the inference would go to show 
 that it is a very costly house for the short time it is 
 occupied. Perhaps to build a mechanical structure 
 in imitation, in all the minutiae, of the human organ- 
 ization, it would not cost less than a million of dol- 
 lars, but the work would need to be as large as a 
 small world in order to find room for half of the 
 parts. 
 
 It is interesting to notice how appropriate every 
 feature of the organism is for its use, and the lesson 
 which this grand phenomenon carries will scarcely 
 fail to be seen. 
 
 Consequently in summing up we conclude, since 
 every prerequisit is exquisitly represented for the 
 accomplishment of nature's grand end and aim, so 
 man livs for a purpose far greater than that known 
 to himself. The material substance of the body, 
 carrying inherent with it the principles creating the 
 physical forces, operating through electric cur- 
 rents, connecting at one great center, results in the 
 establishment of the realization of an identity, or in 
 other words, a thinking soul. On this principle, why 
 might not any electric battery be representativ of 
 an identity ? "We would reply that electricity, like 
 light, color, sound, and heat, is transmitted by vibra- 
 
32 nature's harmony. 
 
 tory waves, and their varied effects are in accordance 
 with the tensity or intensity of vibrations. With the 
 action of electricity on the nervous fibers, the force 
 is confined, and the vibratory effect is exceedingly 
 intensified, doubtless reaching to millions of waves 
 per second, or at least to such a degree that the 
 necessary effect is produced. There is a very similar 
 operation in relation to the vibratory waves of light, 
 by which the principle of vision is effected. The 
 mere mechanism of the eye is not difficult to compre- 
 hend, and the sensation of the optic nerve is inti- 
 mately connected with the nervous center; but how 
 we are made conscious of objects at a distance, when 
 in reality the perception is exactly and only at the 
 retina, is the point in question. In experience of 
 some years ago, while experimenting with colors, I 
 found that if color could be made of precisely the 
 right tint, and placed exactly at a certain distance 
 between the eye and a background made also of a 
 certain tint, the object between would be invisible 
 to the eye, while at the same time it would hide an 
 object placed directly behind it upon the background. 
 This is occasioned by the peculiar effect that the 
 color has upon the eye, owing to the exceeding 
 intensity of the vibrations by which it is rendered 
 invisible. We may hav occasion to refer in the 
 course of this volume to the fact that the clearest eye 
 may, from a similar reason, be unable to behold 
 objects which actually exist in the atmosphere close 
 before it and in the presence of daylight. In exert 
 ing the eye to behold something that the principles 
 of vision will not permit to be seen, either through 
 imagination or else from discerning more nearly the 
 fact, the air almost appears vaporized and in a meas- 
 
INTELLECTUAL DEVELOPMENT. 33 
 
 ure unclear to the sight. Some hav learned certain 
 lessons from this which from fear of taxing the 
 credulity of my readers I will for the present forbear 
 to state, but will do so anon. 
 
 In returning to the conditions of our theorized man, 
 che inference will doubtless be by some that when 
 dissolution takes place with this electro-magnetic 
 mactine, the identity to which we hav referred will 
 be absolutely a nonentity; but we promis not to 
 clash with any inconsistencies, or let slip a cog in 
 the course of our logic, in the event of showing to 
 the contrary. But for the present we must return to 
 the subject of our living, acting, and thinking planets. 
 In the event of showing the conditions upon which 
 an animated creature or being sustains a realization 
 of its identity, as a necessity, those forces which giv 
 rise to the phenomenon of thought in one creature are 
 identical with those which render thought to another. 
 All animals, birds, beasts, fish, and insects, are of 
 thinking nature as well as human; and the indentical 
 principle pervading one pervades all. Each is organ- 
 ized to act in its sphere, and is therefore endowed 
 with intellectuality and inclinations corresponding 
 therewith. Do not call it instinct with one any more 
 than with another, for it is too easy a way of dispos- 
 ing of the subject, and the word is too nearly devoid 
 of all meaning. The sphere in which any creature 
 acts develops the organism through the influence of 
 inclination in accordance with the law of compensa- 
 tion. Consequently each is compelled to nil his 
 place, since unadapted to fill any other. 
 
 The insect is just as wise in its sphere as man in 
 his, and if any principle exists whereby the identity 
 of man is perpetuated from life to death, and death 
 
34 NATURE'S HARMON?. 
 
 to birth, the infinitesimal creature has just as strong a 
 claiEn as the ego. If the fly obliterated with the 
 lash does not retain a consciousness of its entity, then 
 man is forever nothing beyond the physical dissolu- 
 tion. But we shall see anon. 
 
 An organism so constituted as to absorb electric 
 force and throw off the same, to the degree of action 
 with which this force operates, so in the same de- 
 gree is the life principle manifested in the creature. 
 This is the reason why some are activ and strong, 
 and others weak and sluggish. The difference is 
 occasioned by the difference of the physical perfec- 
 tion and texture of system. It matters not what the 
 form of the organism may be, as far as the necessary 
 prerequisits of thought may depend, only that there 
 must of necessity exist an electric center, also cur- 
 rents of electricity tending from all of the living 
 parts to that center. 
 
 We hav in the organization of a world all of the 
 qualities and conditions essential to the development 
 of thought; and since this is nature's most important 
 object, and, in the way of her business, costs her 
 nothing, the inference is plausible that earth, as well 
 as all heavenly bodies, is a being of intelligence. 
 And since all that animation can receive must neces- 
 sarily come from the source of the world on which 
 it livs, the sun's rays of light and heat considered, 
 how is it possible for the planet to supply all crea- 
 tures with the principle of thought and possess it 
 not for herself? 
 
 If the organization of the human system could be 
 regarded as a work of mental calculation, what a 
 giant mind it would hav required to produce 
 it! Were any of the species originated through the 
 
INTELLECTUAL DEVELOPMENT. 35 
 
 exercise of an intelligence, how far beyond man's 
 abilities must the attributes of such a nature neces- 
 sarily reach! But we hav the results, and something 
 has produced them, and it makes no difference what 
 name you apply, whether blind nature or infinit in- 
 telligence; as long as animation exists, there also 
 must exist the fountain of its nature. The universe 
 is full of testimony to this effect, but man's practical 
 nature, constantly riveted to the one object of self- 
 preservation, is unable to discern this substantial 
 evidence before him, and the use of words cannot 
 express a meaning sufficient to lead an unapprecia- 
 tiv mind to the facts to which his nature is blind. 
 
 In surveying any department of nature, we find 
 everything definitly systematized. There are no 
 accidental hits or malformations except they are 
 occasioned by obstructions. These nature endeavors 
 to overthrow, that her work may be always of 
 definit precision. In the mechanisms of man the 
 accomplishments are comparativly rude, and the 
 grand results of all man's enterprises how illy com- 
 pare with nature's most insignificant designs ! 
 
 Grand results proceed from proportionately grand 
 causes, and if we rest upon the existence of no intel- 
 lectual forces outside of animated manifestations, it 
 looks like a poor basis for the wisdom displayed in 
 the formation of solar systems, the origin of the 
 species, the evolutionary changes, progress of intel- 
 lectual development, and, in fact, the harmonious or- 
 der of the universe. 
 
 We behold the rapid changes that matter is con- 
 stantly undergoing, and while in the earthly form we 
 exist, we can only discern the changes taking place 
 in the material substance visible to our eyes: lut in 
 
36 
 
 viewing all this we realize not at all the ultimate 
 causes producing such results. It is the power that 
 lies hidden from our vision that accomplishes the 
 work. You know the affinities of certain elemental 
 substances and the effect of their combination, but 
 the cause whereby they operate so you are unable to 
 fully comprehend. Therefore to proclaim that there 
 is nothing where there is nothing to be seen is very 
 doubtful reasoning. The machinery by which the 
 railroad trains are drawn possesses in itself no force, 
 but is operated by the application of power that lies 
 hidden. Therefore all tangible effects arise from 
 invisible causes. 
 
 For any creature or being to decide that it exists 
 merely for its own satisfaction is assuming more 
 than is justifiable. In the mechanism of human in- 
 genuity, works are not executed for the satisfaction 
 of the work, but for the satisfaction of man, and 
 man, not the originator of himself, consequently 
 does not liv merely for his own satisfaction. 
 
 We are but agents for a higher power, working 
 for the accomplishment of something to which we 
 are entire strangers. The mere matter of living 
 from day to day during this transient life, and then 
 dying to all eternity, is not an object worthy of 
 nature's design. It would be too much like the fickle 
 undertakings of man. It is too mysterious how we 
 come to occupy this sphere at all if death closes the 
 scene forever. Might it not be possible that some 
 natural principle could perpetuate our identities to 
 another sphere quite as consistently as to originate 
 us into this one ? 
 
NATUKAL ADAPTATION. 37 
 
 NATURAL ADAPTATION. 
 
 In treating further on the progress of intellectual 
 development, it is interesting to notice how the laws 
 of adaptation and compensation facilitate in the 
 accomplishment of this great work. This is a sub- 
 ject so commonly treated that there are but few new 
 phases to be presented ; but, in order to reach certain 
 points in relation to my theme, I must invite your at- 
 tention to a few suggestions well worthy of consid- 
 eration. If we were more given to reasoning upon 
 the affairs of e very-day occurrence, the very things 
 which are continually exhibited before us would 
 offer a far better elucidation of this subject than is 
 possible to render with the pen; but it is surprising 
 that we may liv a life-time, and yet the most common 
 things around us seldom appeal to our understanding. 
 
 It is not a wonder that all creatures are organized 
 so as to travel in the direction they look; but, having 
 always seen them do so, it would seem a botched job 
 in nature were any organism to see in one direction 
 and travel in the other. However, it might be 
 argued that if the creature had been so fashioned, it 
 would never hav known any difference ; which may be 
 so, yet it would certainly be a great source of incon- 
 venience. But as matter was forced to develop into 
 living creatures, on the conditions of "struggle for 
 life," no creature could ever hav had its origin with- 
 out the means being afforded for its self-preservation. 
 Consequently all the characteristics of the creature 
 are of necessity made to correspond with the position 
 it is to occupy, and the mental nature is also adapted 
 to the physical structure. The peculiar inclination 
 of thought either has a controling influence to shape 
 
38 nature's harmony. 
 
 the physical organization, or else the form of the 
 body can admit no other mental inclination to dwell 
 within it. Whether the mind shapes the body, or 
 the body shapes the mind, has been questioned ; but 
 our answer is that they act by mutual agreement, 
 therefore the premises are equal. What develops 
 the mind to its sphere is condition, and what devel- 
 ops the body to its sphere is condition also; conse- 
 quently the form of the animal or the being repre- 
 sents its mental characteristics For illustration, the 
 dog has a peculiar sphere to fill, and his mental char- 
 acteristics and natural inclinations adapt him to his 
 sphere; and his physical make-up precisely corre- 
 sponds therewith. His keen scent for meandering the 
 track of animals he is trained to pursue gives him a 
 knowledge of the animal fleeing from him and ren- 
 ders him able to run with his nose close to the 
 ground. The action of running in this way would 
 be most unnatural, aside from the development of it, 
 alone through the power of scent. The tail of the 
 dog is a necessary appendage whereby to facilitate 
 in turning. It is controled by powerful muscles, 
 and is forcibly exercised upon the atmosphere on 
 occasions of sudden turns, or when rapid gyrations 
 are to be made. His ability of looking forward 
 while the nose is pointed to the ground is a feature 
 most natural to the canine orders, or more partic- 
 ularly those animals which are guided by scent. 
 The muscular action of the ear, by which he is en- 
 abled to close out the noise from behind and open 
 up to that ahead, is another feature of facilitation 
 by which he is aided in the chase. Now the incli- 
 nations of the dog is such that he enjoys the sport, as 
 well as being by organization adapted to it. On the 
 
NATURAL ADAPTATION. 39 
 
 other hand, let us consider the game pursued. The 
 eyes of such timid animals as the hare, rabbit, deer, 
 antelope, etc., are so set that they can see behind 
 them when running, and their ears can be securely 
 closed to the noise ahead and open to that behind 
 them. Organized to run and flee from danger as 
 their only means of defense, their forms are slim 
 and lithe, and. their bones and muscles of the finest 
 texture. Being pursued, they are therefore necessi- 
 tated to make sudden turns to escape the enemy; 
 consequently the tail appendage would be an incum- 
 brance, therefore it is only provided as a roof, or 
 shelter, to protect the body. We therefore notice 
 that while one is endowed with the faculties to pur- 
 sue, the other is provided the means of escape; and 
 in this way nature has rendered nearly an equal 
 chance for self-preservation to all of her species. 
 It might look like a contradiction that one animal 
 must hav a long tail in order to turn quick, and 
 another one have none at all for the same purpose, 
 but the fact of one fleeing to escape, and the other 
 running to overtake, accounts for the difference, the 
 former making the track for the latter to follow. 
 
 If carnivorous animals possessed an inclination to 
 eat hay and grass as well as the flesh of animals, they 
 would find it very inconvenienc doing so with the 
 same kind of teeth and stomach furnished them; but 
 if it were possible for them to sustain life upon veg- 
 etable productions, and they were compelled to sub- 
 sist, nature would gradually change the character of 
 the teeth, stomach, and physical make-up generally, 
 to correspond with the kind of food the animal was 
 compelled to live upon. The first generations would 
 be but slightly changed, but each succeeding one 
 
40 
 
 would become more and more adapted to the condi- 
 tions, and they would eventfully become herbivorous. 
 So in the same way, by a gradual development, 
 might the herbivorous be grown into carnivorous 
 natures. Nor would such results be necessarily im- 
 possible to accomplish. The elements which are in 
 *meats are the same as those in vegetation, and it is 
 doubtless a fact that, by an established change of 
 diet, the character of the animal might be greatly 
 modified, and in the course of many generations be 
 entirely changed. 
 
 The physical habits of animals, as well as form of 
 organization, doubtless could be as greatly changed 
 by gradual development through the course of suc- 
 cessiv generations as the nature of food and mode 
 of living. For example, the hog, domesticated to the 
 habit of gluttony, originally was an animal lean and 
 thin, and very fleet, also a terrible foe to encounter. 
 Compare the fat hog, with lopped ears, grunting 
 lazily in his pen, with the ferocious wild boar, with 
 his long legs and lean, lank sides, and ears almost 
 firm enough to answer for horns; who could imagin 
 any relationship ever existed there ? Still, as strange 
 as it may seem, even a greater difference might be 
 made, and the hog, as unnatural as it might appear, 
 by a certain course of diet, education, and treatment, 
 could be developed into a roadster, to draw a buggy, 
 and travel with good speed. 
 
 There is no animal that may not be domesticated, 
 and any in being subject to the control of the human 
 will is greatly modified in its nature. If some 
 change is made by moderate training, a greater 
 change might be effected by more rigid and tortur- 
 ous handling. In considering this subject to the ul- 
 
NATUBAL ADAPTATION. 41 
 
 timatum, it might seem to some that we carry this 
 cultivation of physical and mental training beyond 
 all bounds; still we have reason to feel justified in 
 the following suggestions. 
 
 In the origin of man we are of the opinion that he 
 has arisen from no particular source, but from the 
 general source of all animation; however animation; 
 like vegetation, is definitly classified. The same ele- 
 ments may exist in various kinds of vegetable growth, 
 yet a wide contrast be represented in the productions. 
 In like manner the principle of animation, awaking to 
 consciousness all the various grades of creatures, arises 
 from the same great fountain, but in being appor- 
 tioned out to fit different tenements, for the purpose 
 of filling various spheres, the numerous species are 
 thereby established, and in order sustained and per- 
 petuated. The physical and intellectual progress of 
 undomesticated animals is not apparent. The 
 physical strength and mental qualities of birds, 
 beasts, fishes, and insects were equal four thousands 
 of years ago to what they are to-day. In no degree 
 do any of these species approximate any nearer to 
 the human than they ever did. How, then, has man 
 originated through gradations of animal develop- 
 ment tending to his sphere ? This would infer that 
 man was as definitly man, as corn is corn or whf at 
 wheat. Still it is easy to discern that of all the 
 category of the animated species there is not one to 
 be found that does not resemble man to some extent 
 in physical form ; and it maybe said of all the differ- 
 ent seeds in existence, the germs developing the 
 embryo in symmetry are the same ; still the grain of 
 corn can never be made to produce the stalk of 
 wheat, nor the potato bring forth the pumpkin. 
 
42 
 
 Yet we must positivly assert that the life principle 
 controling all centralized identities is definitly the 
 same, and that which givs rise to all vegetable pro- 
 ductions the same also. But new species arise from 
 the effects of miscegenation, higher in grade, and 
 more excellent in quality, in grains, fruits, plants, 
 and flowers; and the same laws reign throughout an- 
 imated nature. Here, however, it would not be out 
 of place t® remark that all admixtures are not good, 
 but originally when grades and varieties were less 
 definitly defined, the results of engrafting were 
 more extensivly representing. In the progress of 
 the earth's developments, it is a law that the highest 
 qualities supersede ; therefore, in the propagation of 
 wide contrasting grades, the redeeming excellencies 
 of both survive, while in the engrafting of similar 
 stock, the excellencies of one are buried in the other, 
 and the progeny is liable to be impaired. Two sim- 
 ilar substances combined assimilate smoothly, while 
 a positiv and a negativ result in the generation of 
 force superseding either. 
 
 The effect of torture, to a certain extent, exalts 
 both physically and mentally, while an excess of it 
 degrades. It requires action to strengthen, while 
 over-action weakens. 
 
 The natural inclination of all animation is to 
 seek enjoyment, which illusivly infers a state of 
 rest, but which in reality requires a condition of ac- 
 tivity. An over-amount of rest creates uneasiness 
 and leads to stupidity, and occasions an abnormal con- 
 dition of both body and mind, and were this desire 
 indulged in, the world would retrograde. Nature 
 has a remedy in the necessity of all creatures being 
 compelled to seek their own sustenance, in the " battle. 
 
NATURAL ADAPTATION. 43 
 
 for life." Hence, where physical action is but little 
 required, mental qualities are poorly developed. 
 
 Rigid and long training out of the natural course 
 of the animal or the being gradually changes their 
 physical and mental characters. 
 
 For illustration, if the dog were made to ambulate 
 on his hinder feet, and never allowed to put his fore- 
 feet to the ground, and continue so to do for many 
 generations, the effects of such training would be 
 transmitted to the progeny, until nature would adapt 
 the creature to the conditions. It is hardly necessary 
 to state the many physical changes that would, occur 
 in reaching such a state of development. While, 
 on the other hand, if man could be enslaved to the 
 brutal torture of ambulating as a quadruped, for a 
 series of generations, he would at length become 
 adapted to the conditions; for in acting to fill the 
 place of a beast he would become one. 
 
 From this it will be seen that while each species is 
 definitly represented, sustained, and perpetuated 
 when acting in its natural sphere, yet it is subject to 
 modifications by the influences of circumstances. 
 Even the change of climate, which necessarily 
 changes the habits, in the course of time changes 
 the nature of the animals, and as great a difference 
 is wrought in vegetation. 
 
 Therefore it is not the different nature of the 
 life principle that establishes the different species, 
 but the condition of existence to which the creature 
 by nature is subjected. All are of one life, subsist 
 on the same elements, breathe the same atmosphere, 
 and equally realize their identities. The existence 
 of the merest insect is as dear to itself as man is to 
 himself, for the realization of its identity is equally 
 
44 nature's harmony. 
 
 as strong, consequently on the basis of self-preserva- 
 tion the species are perpetuated. 
 
 Besides the natural inclination that each creature 
 possesses to protect itself, it is furnished by nature 
 with other qualities for defense. Through the 
 sense of smell and taste the presence of poison may 
 be known, unless other means are provided by which 
 to ascertain; therefore the animals readily reject 
 poisonous herbs without having to experience their 
 direful effects. Infectious atmosphere in the same 
 way reveals itself. Man is more liable to the effects 
 of poison than animals, being governed by reason 
 more than by intuition, also from seeking various 
 artificial ways of perverting the appetite, whereby 
 the habits are cultivated for imbibing poisonous 
 substances for the impregnation of the blood. Un- 
 natural appetites in this way are created, which are 
 often entailed upon posterity, and as a due punish- 
 ment nature robs the intuitiv ability of always 
 deciding upon what is most wholesome; but, agree- 
 able to her laws, she even adapts the system to the 
 assimilation of poison, and in man's extravagance 
 compels him to keep up the supply. 
 
 In an abnormal condition of health, the struggle 
 of the system against the foe is a battle of the hot- 
 test kind, and artificial remedies are usually a poor 
 dependence, the administration thereof proving in 
 nine cases out of ten inefficacious in aiding nature, 
 and really injurious. The philosophy in adminis- 
 tering is but to aid the system in conquering the 
 disease. 
 
 Another of nature's protections is shown in the 
 manner in which the arteries are deeply laid or im- 
 bedded beneath the surface and the guard rendered 
 
Natural adaptation. 45 
 
 by the distribution of the nerves of sensation out- 
 side of them. The veins being distributed between 
 th« arteries and the surface, consequently are more 
 liable of being severed; but in the event of a vein 
 being injured, it is not apt to result in the loss of 
 much blood, while if the arteries were distributed 
 as close to the surface as the veins, the death of 
 most persons would be likely to be that of hemor- 
 rhage. A nice provision in the human and animal 
 orgnizations. 
 
 Another fine example is shown in the transforma- 
 tion of the larvae into the chrysalis and the provisions 
 made by which it shall endure a long cold winter, 
 with occasional temperatures at zero and lower, yet 
 gorgeously unfold and cast off the old case of long 
 protection, to rise and sport ethereal in the sun of 
 spring and summer, subject to being made a victim 
 of the aerial tribes, yet strange to notice that the 
 mode by which nature has endowed it to migrate 
 through the air is illusiv to the keenest eye of the 
 bird for reason of the zigzag motion, aecompanied 
 by the dips, scollops, and circles, whereby the eye is 
 deceived, and the attempt at seizure results in a 
 failure. 
 
 The protection rendered to progeny is also another 
 feature of nature's tender care. The influence of 
 parental love is displayed among all living creatures, 
 and more hardships can be borne, more privations 
 endured, for the children we are called to provide 
 for than in any other way. That this might be so 
 it becomes the highest source of enjoyment to ad- 
 minister to their wants on all occasions our most 
 fostering care with the sincerest affections. It is a 
 wise and generous dog that will carry food to the 
 
46 
 
 child when lost in the woods, but an un merciful bird 
 that would fail to furnish sustenance for her young. 
 
 Another feature we also discover in the instinctive 
 feeling for safety displayed by all birds, beasts, 
 fishes, and insects in fleeing from danger. Take 
 from animation these various guards of natural pro- 
 tection and it would be but a short time before the 
 world would be deprived of animal life. 
 
 It will be seen from the foregoing that the prin- 
 ciple of intellectuality mu9t pervade in some way 
 throughout all the universe, or else how can the 
 manifestation of such wisdom be so grandly dis 
 played in every department of nature. The very 
 fact that centralized intelligences hav their origin 
 is a proof positiv that there must be a fountain 
 from which they come in accordance with the math- 
 ematical principles of the means equaling the ends. 
 
 ORIGIN OF VEGETATION AND ANIMATION. 
 
 In the grand economy of nature, the evolutions 
 tend toward the production of that which has thought 
 and feeling. Not that there shall ever be any in- 
 crease of the intellectuality of the universe, in the 
 aggregate, but that in the operation of a portion 
 thereof being separately developed, the divisions and 
 sub-divisions extend almost to infinity in the produc- 
 tion of centralized identities. This progress is not 
 rapid, from the appreciation of our understanding, 
 but copious and as certain to come about as though 
 it were but a day; and although it has required a pe- 
 riod of not less than five and a half millions of 
 years for each from the gathering nebulous fluid, at 
 
VEGETATION AND ANIMATION. 47 
 
 the origin of the earth, up to the present state in 
 which we now view it, yet this immense duration has 
 made no change from what it was to be. 
 
 Let us now contemplate the earth in her formation 
 from her infancy, through the lapse of countless 
 ages, down to the present condition of development. 
 At first, slowly forming her nucleus, in the ethereal 
 space, lately fertilized by some passing comet, and 
 gradually collecting the material from the rarified 
 condition of nebulous ether, less a hundred times in 
 its density than the common air, yet the atoms, as 
 minute as particles of sunlight, continue to unite, un- 
 til far, far away in the great ocean of space, an ac- 
 cumulation of material but slightly denser than the 
 rest of dungeon space, was floating there, left free 
 to the waves and tides far in the sable heavens, and 
 subject only to the spirit of the universe to comfort 
 and control. View once again, when a million 
 years have past (if years we may apply) at this stu- 
 penduous work of celestial fields — instead of this 
 light, mild, and gentle vapor, heaving smoothly on 
 the ethereal ocean, behold its compact center, glaring 
 white with livid heat; and the broad globular boun- 
 dary, spanning from her furnace center of roaring, 
 fiery vapor, a million .miles away, to where her 
 gentle border floats, in tranquil, quietude, far from 
 another shore. 
 
 Now once again, a million years have fled — be- 
 hold the scene ! A plastic ball, far lessened in its 
 size, with denser portion central, molten with intens- 
 est heat, and blazing gases reaching far away, and 
 by degrees the wasting boundary vanishing in gloom. 
 
 Again, a million years gone by — the livid sea, 
 slow-cooling, tranquilly subsides, and glaring wave 
 
48 nature's habmony. 
 
 of liquid fire has solid grown, into a mass of deep, 
 impenetrable rock, in either polar zone ; hut wide be- 
 tween, the equatorial band to heaven displays the 
 awful map of melted earth; by force centrifugal 
 high-raised in plastic ring, encircling earth around ; 
 while awful winds in heated fury rage, and with 
 tempestuous roar drive maddened on. 
 
 Once more in vision view another million years 
 past by. The solar orb has in the nebular mist, in 
 redness just commenced to shine; but earth in awful 
 agony is heaving forth in huge commotion, and rend- 
 ing wide and long her surface crust. This awful 
 lava, thrown far to the hights of air, falls back upon 
 the lap of earth and sinks beneath with penetrating 
 force ; then with a heaving surge the chasm levels up 
 and closes in. Not yet has oxygen and hydrogen 
 combined to form the watery element, and while 
 the dryer gases concentrate to form the densities of 
 earth, the intense heat drives far outside, where in 
 a state more rarified dwells the hot, misty vapor, 
 which now doth form the oceans of the world. 
 
 And still another million years doth flee, the 
 watery vapors of the heavens doth form the waters 
 of the earth. No land exists upon the surface now; 
 'tis but as one grand globe of dashing sea. Where 
 there no water was, now unto heaven, nought but 
 water doth appear, and darkness long had covered 
 o'er this boundless ocean wide. 
 
 The elements are now at work, and long at work 
 shall be, before the land or rock shall rise to view 
 above the wild and dashing sea. As this enormous 
 furnace globe doth deeper in its progress cool, the 
 waters more with earth combines, and earth unto the 
 process yields. And still the surging waves do roll, 
 
VEGETATION AND ANIMATION. 49 
 
 while wild tornadoes rush along; and as the heavenly- 
 music swells in accents of celestial song, behold 
 anew the earth is rent from Arctic sea to Southern 
 pole, all nature trembles at the vent, throughout 
 celestial regions roll ; and echoes back to earth again as 
 pours the lava far and wide upon the dashing watery- 
 plain, which boiling in its angry roar, drowns every 
 other noise besides; and thus from this condition 
 gradually continuing onward in its progress, the 
 earth laboring under the forces that control and 
 guide it forward to its grand object and end, in the 
 course of many thousands of years reached that con- 
 dition of development when the natural forces, 
 through chemical affinities, operating in the elements 
 sent forth vegetation. Therefore, as a necessary ori- 
 gin of all vegetation, we must look to the elemental 
 principles existing in the earth, preceding the exist- 
 ence of any centralized seed or root, as a source from 
 which to grow. Consequently, according to the 
 nature of the soil, locality, or climate, came forth 
 the numerous varieties of plants, trees, fruits, and 
 flowers, as fast as the conditions of the earth and 
 fertilizing influence of the sun would allow them to 
 develop. But why did all of these peculiar varieties 
 arise, and whence the word that said grow, and they 
 groweth ? Why are they so detinitly classified and 
 earnestly perpetuated? In reply, these were the 
 hidden qualities that nature forever inherently pos- 
 sessed, and the principle of origin as virtually ex- 
 isted for each class or kind, a billion years before it 
 presented its delicate growth to light, as on the day 
 it came forth. The operations of nature are not 
 without a purpose, and the formation of worlds is 
 for their being appropriated to important use. There- 
 
50 
 
 fore if nothing was accomplished by their existence 
 in nature's economy, they never would hav been. 
 Consequently something must grow from them. The 
 production of vegetation is one of nature's indis- 
 pensable resources, without which each would be but 
 a blank or a cipher. The necessity of vegetable 
 growth is shown in the non-existence of animal life 
 without it; for in the development of vegetation it 
 is in reality equivalent to the ushering into being a 
 lower order of animation. Nor was it necessary 
 that a special provision should have been made for 
 the origin of plants, fruit?, or flowers, beasts, birds, 
 fishes, and insects, or man, to hav put in their first 
 appearance in any particular place, wherefrom to be 
 distributed to all parts of the world ; but on the con- 
 trary, the origin of each variety of either' animal or 
 vegetable productions depended wholly upon the 
 conditions of the material elements and principles 
 pervading therein, or, in other words, the laws of 
 evolution. Consequently the origin of all of earth's 
 productions was as general as their after-growth, on 
 the conditions that what the material of earth and 
 climate would sustain and perpetuate it would also 
 originate. This might appear at first thought incon- 
 sistent with the facts of rearing in one locality and 
 transplanting to another, but we must not forget that 
 in those primeval times man did not exist to culti- 
 vate and improve, and what comes forth must come 
 wholly from the hand of nature, and man himself 
 was a portion of her divine labor. The primeval 
 condition of neither vegetation nor animation was 
 rich in perfection, as now represented to our view. 
 It is astonishing when we know the source from 
 whiqji some of our most luscious fruits hav pro* 
 
VEGETATION AND ANIMATION. 51 
 
 ceeded; also the great improvement that the prog- 
 ress of time has developed in all domesticated stock; 
 and the intellectual development of man, by retrac- 
 ing the progress of history, is quite as apparent in 
 the general course of nature as any other improve- 
 ment to be noticed. Therefore, as we hav already 
 seen that all things which depend upon the earth 
 for their growth and development must also depend 
 upon the progress of the earth in her developments to 
 reach their highest perfection. All the works of art, 
 in one sense, are but the works of nature, and all the 
 imperfections, as we view them, are only occasioned 
 from the lack of perfect developments. While the 
 great wheel rolling represents the progress of nature, 
 the wheel .within that wheel represents the progress 
 of art, and the slow or rapid progress of the smaller 
 wholly depends upon the progress of the greater. 
 In viewing earth through the various phases we hav 
 represented her, in our visionary description, it hides 
 from our understanding the existence of any central- 
 ized germs for either vegetation or animation ; but 
 now that we see these productions around us, we 
 know that nature possessed the principles of genera- 
 tion for them all in the natural forces that material 
 possesses ; consequently this does away with the erro- 
 neous theories on the distribution of the species, 
 some of which hav even inferred a particular local- 
 ity on the earth for them all to hav had their ori- 
 gin. New species of both animal and vegetable 
 growth are still coming into existence, while some of 
 the old are going out, which shows that the present 
 age of the earth is non-supporting to certain produc- 
 tions which at a different or past age she once sump- 
 tuously sustained. It is unnecessary to offer illus- 
 
52 
 
 t rations to exemplify these facts, as nature shows it 
 more clearly in both the vegetable and animal king- 
 doms, and in more ways than I hav time to show 
 with the per- 
 
 Eich production, whether animal or vegetable, 
 has its time in the age of the world; but as the spe- 
 cies are comparativly few when properly classified, 
 it is not common to notice a new species appear or an 
 old one to become extinct. Certain vegetable growth 
 is concomitant with certain animal life, therefore 
 both abide during the same period of the earth's age. 
 Man, originating from a general source, not in any 
 particular locality, came at a late period in the age 
 and developments of the world, being far less perfect 
 in his organization and mentality than we now view 
 him, but more hardy to withstand the conditions of 
 his natal birth. Originally gross, both in organiza- 
 tion and in intellectuality, even more so than those 
 nearest to the " connecting link " of to-day, yet 
 through successiv generations he has developed into 
 his present state of enlightenment. Still the grand 
 acme of human perfection is not yet reached. We 
 may look back with horror upon the barbarity of 
 ancient times, while those living but a century hence 
 may regard the best of us, in a social sense of view, 
 in a state of semi-barbarism. But there is an end to 
 all perfection, and when that end is reached by man 
 what more has nature to accomplish by his existence 
 being perpetuated ? When grain and fruit are ripe 
 the time for harvest has come, as much so with the 
 crops that grow for nature as with those which na- 
 ture makes grow for man. More anon. 
 
 As a theory we now claim that there is no material 
 substance in the world but what possesses the prin- 
 
VEGETATION AND ANIMATION. 58 
 
 ciples of vegetable and animal life, and if it were 
 possible to trace any material down to its atomic 
 minuteness it would disclose either one or the other 
 or both. The electric effect of any material is kidic- 
 ativ of the life principle pervading it. In the com- 
 bination of simples for the formation of compounds 
 lie the principles of decomposition and reconstruc- 
 tion. The life principle pervading the former in 
 molecular forms is either reorganized in the latter 
 and by miscegenation transformed to a class of life 
 on a medium line proportionate to the parts involved 
 in the admixture, or else dies to that composition and 
 in the form of other life escapes by effervescence to 
 mingle with the atmosphere. 
 
 The dual qualities of gender are inherent in any 
 or every substance, and these extend from organiza- 
 tions through molecular conditions down to atomic 
 minuteness. These are the positiv and negativ 
 principles that all mp.tter possesses, producing the 
 magnetic affinity that controls the particles in the 
 formation of densities, and generate the electric force 
 productiv of all' the motion in the universe. It is 
 equivalent to the attractiv and repulsiv forces that 
 all matter possesses, without which all matter would 
 stand forever silent and still; even the winds would 
 cease to blow, and all nature would be virtually dead. 
 
 Then, in conclusion to our theory of spontaneous 
 generation, we must decide that the grand principle 
 of germinatiou must lie in matter in its minutest di- 
 vision. Therefore, reasoning in this wise, we arrive 
 at the following facts: Since matter is susceptible 
 of divisions and subdivisions beyond the ultimatum 
 of our discernment, the atoms which are matter in 
 its minutest form must involve the germs of all pro- 
 
54 
 
 .NATURE'S HARMONY. 
 
 ductioD, for there is where that all growth begins, 
 and from these points infinitly small is where all 
 nature's accomplishments are outlaid. On these all 
 nature's varieties and species are based, and within 
 them dwells the " leaven which goes to leaven the 
 whole lump," and in them lies the latent germs from 
 which all productions arise. 
 
 And life, which in them ever reigns, shall never, 
 never die, whether imbedded in the earth or regions 
 of the sky. A million years may pass away, the 
 atoms are the same ; a million ways they may apply 
 unaltered as they came. And still in activ unison 
 most freely they combine as willing agents to ac- 
 complish nature's grand design. But, what is na- 
 ture ? would you ask, and what would she attain ? Is 
 not her labor all a farce, nonsensical, and vain ? If 
 not, vouchsafe to tell us now the object and the end 
 of her great wheel of progress, and how far it will 
 extend. 
 
 In answer to this problem come the mystical replies, 
 from this field of speculation many vagaries arise ; 
 but according to our theory the end will ne'er 
 appear, each life is in the present and adapted to its 
 sphere; so with atoms, planets, systems, through the 
 universal whole; all substance nature's body and all 
 intellect, her soul; and her life is all eternity, there- 
 fore, can never end, and her works of evolution up 
 from particles extend. / 
 
 Then, as has been shown, everything that has 
 growth was originally of spontaneous production; 
 and this being true, if all the species were non-ex- 
 istent to-day, and every seed and root obliteratedj 
 the most of them would be reproduced. But the 
 older the earth becomes, the less able she is to giv 
 
VEGETATION AND ANIMATION. 55 
 
 spontaneous origin, as she is gradually passing that era 
 of her generating power. The new species that arise 
 at the present period are mostly allied to some of the 
 classes at present extant, and most of them, doubtless 
 the result of miscegenation. The lack of spontaneous 
 power is occasioned from the fact that all of the life 
 force at the present time centralized in vegetable 
 and animal growth once existed in latent condition 
 indiscriminately mingling undeveloped in the mate- 
 rial; but now all the forces that are displayed in 
 the growth of vegetation, or manifested by anima- 
 tion, or appreciated for the operation of all machin- 
 ery; all alike are generated from nature's great 
 common fountain, and all that are appropriated in 
 one way cannot cannot be elsewhere, as nature pos- 
 sesses just so much and no more of each and every 
 principle, and what is in one place cannot be in any 
 other. Were all of these forces here alluded to at 
 once robbed from animation and vegetation, and let to 
 return to inorganic material, then all manifested life, 
 as we view it, would be dead; but this power inor- 
 ganic material could not retain, hence the life force 
 would again result in the origin of the species, the 
 same as it has done. 
 
56 NATUKJa's UABAIONY. 
 
 INTELLECTUAL DEVELOPMENT. 
 
 Since all the evolutions of nature are accomplished 
 by action, therefore action is the grand order of the 
 universe. But as motion implies the existence of 
 something to be moved, it is obvious that devoid of 
 matter a dead silence would reign. Nothing is in a 
 state of immobility, for all planets move, and, with 
 their motion, carry everything else, while all atoms 
 are continually changing their positions in whatever 
 substance they exist. 
 
 Then, next to the broad principle of matter, comes 
 the action thereof, and having already decided on 
 uhe eternity of the elements, since it is impossible to 
 imagin at what particular time this great universal 
 machinery was set to running, we shall likewise de- 
 cide on the eternity of motion. However, there are 
 substantial causes for evolutionary changes, but, like 
 all other principles, the causes dwell inherent in the 
 elements. 
 
 Then, as a rule, every atom is at work, forever has 
 been, and forever shall be, but the action thereof is 
 controled by a law, inexorable, yet forever silent and 
 still. This law is subject to no modifications, and no 
 power can ever transgress thereupon, still it forever 
 abides as the fountain of all force without its power 
 being in the least diminished. And this is the law 
 that calls all things to a common center, namely, 
 that of gravitation. And this, also, is the funda- 
 mental principle of all action, for upon the basis of 
 it not a thing can move, however diminutiv, without 
 leaving behind it a proportionate vortex to be filled, 
 
INTELLECTUAL DEVELOPMENT. 57 
 
 thereby displacing some other material adjacent to 
 it. From this it will be seen on how sensitiv a con- 
 dition the universe is established, and how infi- 
 nitly extensiv, through both distance and dura- 
 tion, the slightest action may render its effects. 
 
 In the action of force there illusivly appears to be 
 two counteracting principles, the one to make a 
 projectil go ahead and the other to make it stop. 
 To these w« apply the name of centrifugal and cen- 
 tripetal, the former being allied to attraction and 
 the other to repulsion; but both are governed by the 
 Uw of gravitation. In the first place, without this 
 \dw no generation of force could occur, and if with- 
 out it action could originate, there would be no way 
 to expend the force; therefore it could never stop. 
 This in a degree is verified by the heavenly bodies 
 revolving in their orbits ; the heavens are so rarified 
 they offer but little obstruction, while the attraction 
 of the sun yields outward nearly as much to the cen- 
 trifugal as it takes inward to the centripetal. 
 
 As a rule, all the forces generated from the earth 
 react upon it to the extent of the power exerted. 
 For example, it is the attraction of gravitation that 
 lifts the bombshell upward when fired from the mor- 
 tar, and the action backward is just in proportion to 
 the force exerted forward, and the same law creates 
 the concussion by the force exerted upon the atmos- 
 phere, without which no report could occur. This 
 attractiv force upon the air occasions that which is 
 lighter than air to rise, just as much as that which is 
 heavier to fall. Therefore we establish on the basis 
 of universal gravitation that all forces generated 
 from the earth correspondingly react upon it. The 
 atmosphere, the fluid in which we liv, is illusivly re- 
 
58 nature's harmony. 
 
 garded next thing to a mere nothing, but it is vir- 
 tually a portion of the earth, and a ton of birds in 
 their flight press just as heavily upon the earth as 
 though standing contiguous to it. Therefore the 
 forces exerted in the use of machinery press some- 
 where upon the earth an amount corresponding to 
 such forces applied. 
 
 Two things are said to hav a repulsion for each 
 other when there is no affinity between them, but 
 each, having a greater affinity for everything else 
 than for each other, necessarily must move apart in- 
 stead of together. Hence, primarily the law of 
 gravitation is the cause of repulsion. It might be 
 said that the earth has a repulsion for a balloon, 
 therefore it causes the balloon to rise from it, but it 
 needs no explanation to show that the earth has the 
 same proportionate attraction for it as for anything 
 else, but its volume being greater for its weight than 
 the atmosphere, it must therefore rise instead of 
 fall. 
 
 Weight is based upon the laws of gravitation, and 
 is a reliable guide as to the amount of downward 
 pressure any material or commodity may exert in 
 the same density of atmosphere. But the further 
 we rise from the level of the sea the more ranfied 
 the air, so likewise proportionately lees the force of 
 attraction upon a body, as well as upon the scale 
 used in weighing; therefore the same body will 
 weigh very nearly the same on the top of a high 
 mountain that it will on the level. 
 
 Then, to conclude, we decide that all force is pres- 
 sure, and all pressure is weight, and all weight is 
 based on the law of gravitation. 
 
 The principles of attraction and repulsion when ap- 
 
INTELLECTUAL DEVELOPMENT. 59 
 
 plied to the voluntary actions of animated creatures 
 is worthy of notice. So peculiar is the condition of 
 each creature in life that each is compelled to move 
 in order to obtain the means to gratify its necessities, 
 and humanity is reckoned with the rest. Therefore 
 what we desire we seek to obtain ; and, agreeable to 
 the law that prevails with inorganic material, we too 
 are moved by that which attracts us. Therefore, 
 when hungry we seek food; when thirsty, drink; and 
 when weary we seek a place for rest; and all of our 
 actions when fully analyzed tend to the satisfaction 
 of our selfish natures; consequently, " self-love, the 
 spring of motion, acts the soul." Many of our ac- 
 tions are for the happiness of our fellow-beings, but 
 this benevolence is as much for the gratification of 
 our feeling as an act of a more sordid nature, and 
 our reward is far greater for the performance of it. 
 Therefore, by our voluntary actions we never do any- 
 thing that we do not want to do, but illusivly it ap- 
 pears, so, however under the circumstances, all 
 things considered, those things which we do that we 
 would hav desired not to do, we would even pay 
 something for the opportunity to perform. 
 
 Oh, wondrous is the f ountain whence the forces take their flight! 
 Unchangeable the la^s pervade secluded from our s : ghl; 
 So telling is the action which they generate through space 
 That the elements all tremble from their power in every place. 
 Thus while in hidden silence doth that awful fountain lie, 
 Her agents beat commotion far through regions of the sky. 
 In the heated breath of summer doth earth's fluids wildly play, 
 Hot air through tunneled whirlwinds fast ascends and soars 
 
 While a tempest blast comes onward sweeping swiftly o'er the 
 
 plain, 
 Pouring in a cooler current with the roar of hail and rain. 
 
60 NATUltJfi's HAKMOJNY. 
 
 And the earthquake's awful heaving from her aching bowels 
 
 display 
 The dreadful power of motion which no forces can allay. 
 Thus nature all he" labor doth, with industry pursue, 
 And work's o'er old material to build up bodies new. 
 Hence action is the order whereby nature's work is done, 
 And onward to eternity flies time as it begun 
 But the agents of commotion, sweeping all things in their 
 
 course, 
 Rise up from that great fountain of great gravitating force. 
 
 SOUND. 
 
 Closely allied to motion lies the principle of sound 
 — a principle wholly designed to represent nature per- 
 forming her labor; therefore, as a rule, everything 
 that makes a noise represents the character of it; 
 but the question is, Whom does it represent it to ? 
 In this question comes the answer that such a qual- 
 ity as sound would never hav been but from the fact 
 that there are intelligent auditors to listen and ap- 
 preciate. Not to infer that ears existed before 
 sound, but that a design is expressed by it that ears 
 should exist to diffuse knowledge through the sense 
 of hearing. So if out of the qualities and proper- 
 ties that nature possesses, the ear of understanding 
 originates, then the inference is that in the past, 
 present, and future the ear of understanding was, is, 
 and forever shall be. How can nature form the ear 
 without the appreciation of sound itself, whereby 
 the necessity of this organ is known ? 
 
 There are many curious and very illusiv things in 
 relation to acoustics, but it is not our province here 
 to expatiate upon them. Iu the first place, without 
 
SOUND. 61 
 
 motion there could be no noise, for sound is conveyed 
 by motion. The universe is constantly full of music 
 — the waves of sound are forever vibrating wherever 
 there is the least manifestation of action. There is 
 no place to be found where a sensitiv ear cannot 
 hear a noise of some kind. We cannot hide from 
 it. But even outside of the various noises audible 
 to us, there are thousand* of noises that we do not 
 hear, as the audiphone attests, showing that nature's 
 music will pervade, whether animated ears listen 
 thereto or not. The waves of sound vibrate upon 
 the densities and through the atmosphere, from all 
 the action of nature, until a perpetual roar is cre- 
 ated by the everlasting commotion of noises. But 
 the ear becomes unconscious to many of the noises 
 made, especially to those that foiever dwell upon it, 
 while other sounds less in violence and power are 
 distinctly heard. The sea-faring man scarcely real- 
 izes the roaring of the ocean, while the landsman 
 when on the ocean's shore can scarcely hear anything 
 else. 
 
 As a rule, the waves of vibration are weakened in 
 proportion to the distance they hav traversed, but 
 doubtless they extend much further than is generally 
 supposed, judging from the data of our inaeute ears. 
 
 In the conveyance of sound, a corresponding mo- 
 tion attends it, and the sensitiv qua'ity of material is 
 clearly exemplified by the necessary trembling of 
 every atom or fiber of substance by which, it is con- 
 veyed. The key or pitch of sound is represented by 
 the number of vibrations per second, therefore the 
 tensity or intensity of the vibrations represents the 
 key; and upon this basis the science of music is 
 established. Too slow a degree of vibrations is pro- 
 
62 nattjbe's harmony. 
 
 ductiv of no perceivable sound, while too great an 
 intensity is followed by a similar result. 
 
 In applying this portion of the subject to our 
 theme, we include, as we hav already inferred, that 
 this quality is established in nature, in behalf of 
 animated creatures and intelligent beings; first, as a 
 warning for the preservation of life; second, as a 
 means of communication; and thirdly, as an inoentiv 
 to intellectuality. 
 
 How clothed in hidden mystery, the principles of sound ; 
 How great the variations which doth everywhere abound ! 
 Why does the constant music in our ears forever pour, 
 Likewise this wild commotion with its eveilastir g roar ? 
 Why need the fields and woodlands all th^e choristers sat 
 
 free, 
 With such exultant music to express their joyful alee ? 
 Why needs the hunter's rifle to so potently declare, 
 The danger of the missil swiftly hurtling through the air ? 
 Go listen to the billows wildly beating on the strand, 
 Go step unto the accents of some instrumental band, 
 Or else pray turn your footsteps to the cool, sequestered grove, 
 Listen to the lowing cattle there, likewise the cooing dove, 
 Or hearken to the church bell, which sublimely tolls the hour 
 When man's praises shall be offered to appease God's awful 
 
 power. 
 Listen to all nature's music, which in wisdom was designed, 
 As mandate to the hearing for development cf mind, 
 Then ask, Would these grand principles eternally pervade 
 Except they were to be applied for intellectual aid ? 
 
 LIGHT. 
 
 Another of nature's essential qualities is light. 
 Without it not a plant could vegetate ; not an animal 
 could organize, and to our understanding the uni- 
 
LIGHT. 63 
 
 verse would be of no practical utility, because it 
 would make everything else useless also, and of no 
 more value than a blank, barren infinity of nothing- 
 ness. Like sound, it is closely allied to gravitation, 
 primarily depending upon it for its generativ prod- 
 uct; being wholly subject to the action of material- 
 ity for its existence. Light, like sound, is one of the 
 imponderable agents, but both possess more power- 
 ful effects than many other things of actual weight; 
 and a noise sufficiently violent will create deafness, 
 and a light sufficiently brilliant will create blindness, 
 showing that too much of either than intended for 
 the eye or ear will even destroy them. 
 
 As a rule, excluded from the light, all nature 
 sleeps; and with returning light everything assumes 
 the wakeful state of action. This is the case with 
 all vegetation, and it is the natural time for sleep 
 with all animation. Hence the provision of day and 
 night ; the former for labor, the latter for rest. 
 The earth's diurnal motion renders these regular 
 changes to every side of it, while the earth's inclina- 
 tion to the plane of her orbit brings the seasons 
 in order, whereby nature makes the great solar 
 lamp, the sun, the most useful possibly for the pur- 
 pose. Other worlds are also lighted up by the same 
 great luminary, and the fact will not be overlooked 
 that nearly every one is set in the heavens on an in- 
 clination to the plane of its orbit, thus accommo- 
 dating them all as far as possible to all the advan- 
 tages of light and heat. 
 
 But since to us daily appears and disappears this 
 great orb of light, we are prone to question what it 
 is, of what it consists, and what constitutes the light. 
 How was this light originally produced? and why 
 
64 .nature's harmony. 
 
 was not our world as much heir to such a divine leg- 
 acy as the sun, or any other heavenly body? It is 
 impossible to reason correctly from any other hy- 
 pothesis than from established facts, and conse- 
 quently from tv hat we know. Now there are certain 
 conditions upon which light is made manifest, and 
 is displayed in various way*, from the innocent taper 
 up to the dreadful conflagration. What is it? Sim- 
 ply the rapid dissolution of material under the dis- 
 organizing influence of gaseous combination. This 
 operation is characterized by an exceeding friction 
 from the rapid action of oxygen in combustion with 
 imflammable gaseous substance, whereby heat is gen- 
 erated, and when this heat reaches a high enough 
 degree of temperature ignition takes place. There- 
 fore the same conditions that create heat, when in- 
 tensified, create fire, consequently productiv of light- 
 Now nature is judicious in her work, and economical 
 in her principles, and since we discover on what con- 
 ditions the light of fire is produced, may it not seem 
 plausible that the same, when enlarged and intensi- 
 fied, would be productiv of proportionately more ex- 
 tensiv illumination ? 
 
 A word mce in reference to heat and fire may not 
 be out of place here. Nothing is truly inflammable 
 until it is reduced to a gaseous state. Wood will not 
 burn, but heat will reduce it to a condition of car- 
 bonic acid gas, and as soon as this begins to combine 
 with oxygen ignition is the result. Now this is one 
 way by which light can be produced, and as nature 
 has but one way to accomplish one object, therefore 
 be it established that friction makes heat; that heat 
 makes fire, and that fire maked lignt. Then the idea 
 of the sun's being a livid body of fire, claimed long 
 
LIGHT. 65 
 
 since to hav been exploded, we resume again; and 
 his radiant beams of gushing effulgence, making 
 glad both ocean and land, vegetation and animation, 
 with serene daylight, are but the radiation of light, 
 produced from the great fire of all fires. 
 
 But some will question if the phosphorescence dis- 
 played from beneath the delicate wings of the fire- 
 fly, or that exhibited by the glow-worm brushing its 
 body with its tail, is not an exception to our estab- 
 lished rule ? We must answer, No ! Some material 
 manifests the presence of light at a very moderate 
 degree of temperature. Even the rapid decomposi- 
 tion undergoing with touch- wood, or amimal matter 
 when in a state of putrefaction, at a time when it is 
 heated and the dew is falling upon it, a misty halo 
 has been known to float above it from the effects of 
 phosphorescent effervescence. While some things 
 will light into a flame at a temperature that you can 
 submit your hand to the blaze without injury, others 
 will burn to a blister without coming in contact with 
 them, even before their color has changed to redness. 
 A temperature of sufficient intensity creates redness, 
 and by increasing the intensity to a high enough 
 degree it reaches the utmost perfection of whiteness. 
 
 It seems mysterious how a ball of fire in the 
 heavens can continue to burn for millions of years 
 without any diminution of either light or heat, and 
 furnish both to as many as two hundred heavenly 
 bodies, which are revolving around it in this solar 
 system, penetrating a distance of over twenty-seven 
 hundred millions of miles of dungeon darkness, and 
 thrice colder than zero, and yet offering to all in 
 kindness his genial rays of warmth and light, as each 
 rolls onward in its magnificent grandeur, basking 
 
66 nature's babmony. 
 
 in rich flood, pouring forth in beneficent glory 
 from this most royal and heavenly fireside. But 
 when we reckon the mass of material in the aggre- 
 gate, which the said two hundred heavenly bodies 
 revolving around the sun would constitute, and find 
 that it would take ten hundred thousand times as 
 large a mass as all of them would make to equal the 
 dimensions of the sun, and then consider the fact 
 that a portion of material from him, equally hot and 
 light as his entire mass, of the size of a small marble 
 would afford as much heat as a good parlor stove, 
 and as much light as ten or a dozen good kerosene 
 lamps, we will no longer wonder at his brilliancy, 
 glaring heat, or sublime power. 
 
 We will here not forget to state that while the 
 utmost darkness is the most perfect transmitter of 
 light, the lowest degree of temperature in the rari- 
 fied space of the heavens is the most perfect trans- 
 mitter of heat. Neither the light nor the heat is 
 absorbed in its transit, so that when they strike 
 a heavenly body the whole force of both are ren- 
 dered. But a few miles away from the earth it is not 
 only very cold, but quite dark, for the light and heat 
 reaching there are not radiated directly from the 
 sun, but reflected from the earth. 
 
 In the appropriation of this principle to my theme 
 its appliance is allied to the organ of vision. Had 
 nature found it unnecessary to hav provided the uni- 
 verse with light her creatures would hav needed no 
 eyes wherewith to grovel in darkness. This is ex- 
 emplified by the absence of eyes with the fish found 
 in the caves, and some animals living entirely se- 
 cluded from the light. 
 
LIGHT. 67 
 
 ODE TO THE SUN. 
 Behold the radiant orb of light in rich effulgence rise, 
 And, gushingly saluting all, mount upward to the skies ! 
 How broad and generous thy light shines equally on all, 
 As, highly- favored, forward rolls each grand celestial ball ! 
 Each day and year, forever yielding thy accustomed force, 
 Thou seemest as each planet turns to circle in thy course. 
 All basking in voluptuous warmth, thy children round thee run 
 As if each conscious that th-ir life depended on the sun. 
 Our little world, a sample sphere, awakens to thy light, 
 The hum of busy toil supplants the hush of silent night. 
 All eyes are open to behold the glory of thy beams, 
 Which were in darkness closed in sleep and laboring in dreams. 
 Imponderable thy light and heat, yet powerful thy sway. 
 If- thou wert stricken out no life could scarce abide a day. 
 The deviations of our earth by inclinations made 
 How forcibly by all is felt and earnestly obeyed ! 
 The rays of incidence, when bent but slightly more oblique, 
 Bring wintry blasts instead of summer breezes mild and meek, 
 And revolutionizes all such portions of our globe, 
 And spreads, instead of carpet-green, a snow and icy robe. 
 "Rut earth glides onward in her course, and, turning as she flies, 
 Brings down more vertical thy rays and genial warmth sup- 
 plies — 
 Returns again the sarpet-green and smiling, flowery lawn, 
 More charming far in loveliness for having long been gone — 
 Returns again on rapid wings the warblers of the air, 
 To liv the summer season here beneath thy loving care. 
 And this great change from summer's heat to winter's piercing 
 
 cold 
 Rests subject to thy radiant power and by thy heat controled ; 
 And this great change from brilliant day to dark and tilent 
 
 night 
 Rests subject to thy power through the agency of light. 
 Then kindle up thy fires with the worlds that circle near 3 
 Renew thy force of light and heat, though dark spots should 
 
 appear ; 
 Diffuse thy rays through solar space — like lightning let them fly 
 In darkness on electric wings forever through the sky. 
 
NATURKS HA.UMONY. 
 
 INTELLECTUAL DEVELOPMENT. 
 
 COLOR. 
 
 We hav but little space to appropriate to this sub- 
 ject, and must use it at the best advantage. Color 
 is but the effect produced upon the mind through the 
 agency of the eye, from the different conditions of 
 light, and is therefore immaterialistic, and only 
 the product of the different degrees that material 
 possesses of absorbing the light. Pure sunlight 
 contains the qualities of developing seven pri- 
 mary or prismatic colors, and by the blending of 
 these colors pure white light is the result. This is 
 easily demonstrated by the use of the solar spectrum, 
 showing that by the refraction of a prism the light 
 is dispersed so as to create these seven colors on the 
 screen, and these are displayed in their order in pro- 
 portion to the degree of intensity the different re- 
 fracts powers of the prism renders to the dispersion 
 of the light, giving the effects of violet, indigo blue, 
 green, yellow, orange, and red. This phenomenon, 
 you will notice, is accomplished without the addition 
 of any substance whatever, demonstrating that pure 
 white light possesses all the constituents from which 
 all these colors originate. 
 
 Now, while these prismatic colors are made to 
 remain on the screen, they are true colors as virtually 
 as though painted there to remain a hundred years; 
 
COLOR. 69 
 
 yet by your removing the prism, therewith you 
 remove the action of the light creating the colors, 
 and a flood of pure light will take their place. 
 
 The refractiv effect of the light by the use of the 
 prism is such that by its dispersion it creates the 
 various diverging rays by trillions of angles, which 
 originates the colors; but by the use of another prism 
 in addition to the former, set at the same anglp, what 
 the former prism does the latter undoes, leaving the 
 light to shine through upon the screen without color, 
 the same as if no prisms were there. 
 
 An interesting experiment is to nicely paint on the 
 plane of a wheel, cut from thin wood or pasteboard, 
 the seven prismatic colors in their order, so as to just 
 go around; then place it in a good ligh% and hav it 
 fixed so that you can revolve it very rapidly. By 
 doing this you so blend the colors that your whpel or 
 dial will present an appearance purely white. In 
 this way you can dispose of the fixed colors for the 
 time being, thereby showing that color is bnt a phan- 
 tom, and only occasioned by the different degrees by 
 which different substances absorb the light; therefore 
 it is only by what the material renders to the eye that 
 different shades are created. 
 
 Doubtless the reason why one substance presents 
 a different appearance from another is the fact that 
 the vibrations by which the light conveys the nature 
 of the material to the eye are more or less intensified, 
 accordingly as the tint or shade is represented, while 
 the effect rendered to the mind is purely electric. 
 
 In utilizing this quality of nature to man's intel- 
 lectuality, its application is most sublimely exhibited. 
 It is consistent with nature to paint everything on the 
 outside, »o as to indicate its inner qualities, and she 
 
70 
 
 always proves true to her text and all her optical illu- 
 sions are merely the result of man's ignorance. Take 
 from the world all these different shades and tints with 
 which the extensiv varieties of animated creatures 
 are adorned, the blushing loveliness by which the 
 numerous vegetable productions are variegated, and 
 the glittering luster by which the various minerals 
 are made to sparkle in our eyes, it would rob from us 
 one of our greatest primary sources of happiness. 
 The grand earthly expanse, now variegated in pris- 
 matic beauty, would become barren of all loveliness, 
 and our eyes would willingly close forever to such a 
 scene of monotony. But behold, nature has arrayed 
 all of her works with outward colors adapted to the 
 inner qualities; therefore we need not be deceived as 
 to the value or worthlessness of any creature, min- 
 eral, plant, fruit, or flower, even though there were 
 nothing but the color to recommend it to us, were 
 we sufficiently acquainted with the indications where- 
 by nature presents them to our understanding. 
 How, from the brilliant sunlight clear, these magic tints arise ; 
 How in that which no color hath, such dazzling beauty lies. 
 So common, yet unto our view such grandeur is displayed, 
 We lose the loveliest features of these softest tints of shade. 
 
 Though but a phantom of the eye, conducted to the brain, 
 Yet through the mysteries of time this phantom will remain. 
 The colors by the prism shown most clearly on the wall 
 Are by refraction decomposed, and by dispersion fall. 
 
 But colors fixed in spot or place, on flower, leaf, or fruit, 
 Are there to speak their qualities, although in language mute ; 
 For nature represents within, by honest outward dress, 
 And tells more clearly to the eye than words can well express ; 
 
 ' And thus conveys unto the mind through hues, rich, dull, or 
 bright, 
 
COLOR. 71 
 
 The character as rendered by this agency of light. 
 This gracious gift from nature's hand appeals unto the eye; 
 The blessings which it daily yields no mortal need deny. 
 Behold the sky of melting blue, while earth is robed with 
 
 green, 
 How never tiring to the view though nought displayed between. 
 The fragrant flowers in richest bloom, with petals all arrayed, 
 How kindly to the sight appeal in sympathetic aid ! 
 
 The savage who dares upon them gaze, forsakes his knife and 
 
 spear, 
 And loses half bis vengeance while he dares to linger near. 
 Bright colors — charmers of the eye — enshrine the heart with 
 
 love, 
 Show fairer prospects here below than fancied ones above. 
 
72 
 
 OUTLINES AND CHARACTERISTICS. 
 
 Everything in nature is peculiarly identified by its 
 shape, and is perceivable by the eye where the 
 density meets the light; and the shape they assume 
 is necessary to individualize one thing from another, 
 and is a provision whereby each thing may be known 
 by its form and the space that it occupies. To the 
 common observer, this idea seems simple, but to the 
 second strata of thought it is sublime. When we be- 
 hold the world of promiscuous beings, creatures, and 
 things — and yet no two, either in character or out- 
 lines, the same — we are led to meditate upon the ex- 
 tent of the different forms that nature assumes. Na- 
 ture, as if struggling to fill the void, has given place 
 to the various kinds of life represented by the ex- 
 tensiv species of animation and vegetation, and she 
 has organized each precisely for the position it must 
 fill; so that each, in the struggle for life, may seek 
 its self-preservation without too much intrusion on 
 the others, and at the same time hav the room 
 economically, occupied. Hence everything has a 
 form of its own, by which it is identified to the un- 
 derstanding. This quality of shape, with the addi- 
 tion of color, strongly establishes the true character 
 of each being, creature, or thing to the eye of intel- 
 ligence, on the conditions that each object is formed 
 to fill its place, and, in the sense that it is appropri- 
 ated, is an exact fit. The condition upon which each 
 
Outlines and characteristics. 73 
 
 object assumes its shape makes it wholly passiv to 
 the forces operating to form it. The stick of timber 
 submitted to the turning- lathe may take the form of 
 an ax-helve or a pudding-stick, as circumstances re- 
 quire; and so it is with everything inanimate formed 
 by the hand of art; which shows that everything, 
 for its shape, is subject to the will of its maker. 
 Now the mechanisms of art are but a secondary pro- 
 duction of nature, because nature originates all art; 
 consequently all that is must be subject to some 
 intelligence for its existence. But the htfman mind 
 is wholly unable to appreciate attributes afcove itself, 
 and it may be a heavy surge upon the imagination 
 to consider all animated productions as passiv to the 
 hand of nature as the various artificial appliances 
 are to the hand of art. But as man is only a part of 
 nature, both his physical and mental developments 
 being purely the result of nature's operations, the 
 very fact of his works indicating a design proves as 
 conclusivly that all nature's works must indicate a 
 design also. 
 
 The inorganic material which goes to form an or- 
 ganized creature acts under the influence of chemical 
 affinity, unconscious of the use to which it is to be 
 applied, while the creature subject to the formation 
 is likewise unconscious as to what form it will as- 
 sume, or in what sphere, and for what purpose it 
 will act. But when the creature is developed, we 
 find it admirably adapted in its organization to its 
 spiritual inclinations, and precisely fitted for the 
 conditions of its sphere. 
 
 In visiting the zoological gardens, it will be found 
 that each animal of the whole collection shows in its 
 very outlines its habits of life, and also shows how 
 
74 
 
 far the range of its intellectual nature would neces- 
 sarily hav to extend in order to sustain life in the 
 sphere it must act in. In the works of man we often 
 question why this or that portion of the mechanism 
 was constructed, or to what use some certain ma- 
 chinery is to be applied; but this question seldom 
 occurs in relation to the various physical parts pos- 
 sessed by the different birds, beasts, fishes, reptils, 
 and insects; but it is obvious that they are not with- 
 out their uses, and yet do still greater works than 
 man in his mechanisms is able to accomplish. 
 
 Behold the universe, complete, in all that has been done I 
 See how the planets onward roll, as time doth onward run; 
 See, also, minor things of earth harmoniously combined, 
 Each acting in its proper sphere, exactly as designed. 
 How nature's mold for each is given, endowed with form and 
 
 size, 
 To fit the nature of the life which inward she supplies; 
 So all upon the stage of life may swing and promenade, 
 And though in warfare deadly fops, in peace a social aid. 
 Look to the pleasures pastoral, where sheep and cattle graze, 
 How well their outlines represent their natures, use, and ways; 
 A total stranger to the herd, in wisdom could decide, 
 How people from such reservoirs with milk could be supplied; 
 And from the wool upon the flock would leadily appear 
 How well the fibers would unite, and rigidly adhere. 
 The head with horns, hugely arrayed, most clearly represents 
 The means of warfare introduced in battling for defense. 
 The tails of cattle made to swing to bruah the flies away, 
 Infers a common enemy each moment of the day; 
 And all the qualities possessed, displayed unto the eye, 
 Show well their adaptation to the spheres they occupy. 
 
 Now seek the poisonous serpent which in charming luster lies, 
 Acknowledge the mesmeric power that glitters in his eyes; 
 Or watch how he meanders in his oscillating trail, 
 Or like a broken branch suspends his body by the tail. 
 
OtJTLINBS AND CHAEACTBBISTICS. 75 
 
 See with what awful power he draws the muscles of his frame, 
 To crush his food, the body of his unsuspicious game; 
 And watch his wide elastic throat capaciously expand, 
 While holding in dread agony some creature at command. 
 Now, satiate the hunger which the fast of months has made, 
 He basks in the warm sunshine, and dens in some rocky shade. 
 And with lethargic indolence, he drags his lazy length, 
 Half conscious of surrounding game, nor mindful of his 
 
 strength; 
 But scarcely can I here describe all animals of earth, 
 And demonstrate their habits or the object of their birth; 
 Suffice, as has been stated, that each represents his sphere 
 By shape, power, and dimension, as will potently appear. 
 
 Ask why the bee can migrate so precisely in its course ; 
 Ask why the eagle can command such great inflativ force. 
 Why wings the butterfly its way in such a zigzag flight, 
 Or why the owl perceives its prey more clearly in the night. 
 Seek thou the curlew's habits, with its long projecting bill; 
 Note how his fishing qualities surpass all human skill; 
 Observe, then, how all long-billed birds seek to obtain their 
 
 food- 
 How natural they should be found near sea shore, lake, or mud. 
 
 Next view the hawk with crooked bill, strong legs, and savage 
 
 claws, 
 His inclinations therefore must lead to carnivorous laws; 
 So as a rule all crooked bills are ravenous for prey, 
 This sign when in the human nose speaks strongly in that way. 
 The gentler birds, granivorous, more innocent appear; 
 Not formed for battle, shun the strife and flee away with fear. 
 
 The crane, well-formed for wading in some shallow pond or 
 
 brook, 
 Shows better skill for angling than art with line and hook; 
 The very shape his legs assume, through water smoothly glide, 
 And scarcely is a ripple seen behind his cautious stride. 
 
 Next view the fowls aquatic, sporting on the glassy lake, 
 
 See them promenade in order, duck close following the drake; 
 
 Goose following her gander lord, which proudly takes the lead, 
 
76 Nature's harmony. 
 
 And favored all with nature's oars to render rapid speed. 
 The features most peculiar, though, to all the fowls that swim, 
 The foot so formed to paddle and the strong developed limb; 
 And feathers closely matted, that the body may keep dry, 
 And strong inflativ powers to assist them as they fly. 
 Observe their inclination , and the broad, flat bills they wear, 
 You'll find are well adapted to secure their chosen fare. 
 But this theme ornithological I willingly will close; 
 To treat it in minutia needs a lengthy book of prose; 
 But each must do his thiuking, while the outlines I will draw, 
 And you'll find in the minutia all things subject to the law. 
 
 Now turn to ichthyology, a moment to detain, 
 You with the fish inhabiting fresh lakes and briny main. 
 We'll first call to your notice why some are short, some long, 
 Some m Id in their deportment, and some warlike, huge, and 
 
 strong; 
 Some well adapted to make food for others to enjoy; 
 Some broad of mouth and armed with thorns, for others to 
 
 destroy; 
 Some, like the turbot, broad and thin, to swim both high and 
 
 low; 
 Some long and like an arrow, slim, like lightning made to go; 
 The sword-fish, with projecting jaw, must havit well applied, 
 Attacks presumptuously the whale in belly or his side; 
 And sometimes in his hunger will attack a sh'p for prey, 
 And many hav been scuttled with his long sword in this way. 
 But not detaining to describe all species in my song, 
 Note how the faculties of each unto it doth belong; 
 Note how the inner feelings correspond with outward signs, 
 And how this principle is shown in creatures of all kinds. 
 But this is the first lesson I desire to impart; 
 The second is, What makes them so surpass the hand of art? 
 Is not there in material some guiding hand thus shown, 
 Or is there no intelligence except in man alone? 
 If this your firm decision, then please tell us if you can, 
 How came this wise intelligence so portioned out to man ? 
 
ACEPHALOUS SPECIES. 77 
 
 ORGANISMS AND FACULTIES. 
 
 It has been seen from the foregoing that each 
 creature is organized to fill its sphere, and we now 
 desire to show that the higher the order of animated 
 existence the greater the necessary qualifications re- 
 quired to sustain its self-preservation. Now, as the 
 scale of life ascends from the lowest orders of proto- 
 plasmic species of acephalous character, and develops 
 through molluscan cephalopods and further upward, 
 we discern that from the earliest appearance of 
 cephalic or head development the condition of the 
 creature proportionately assumes a more activ nature 
 in order to obtain its subsistence. The acephalous 
 species, possessing no power of assisting themselves 
 to liv, necessarily are forced to exist through the 
 action of chemical affinity, and by absorption the 
 material is appropriated to the growth of their bod- 
 ies. In this it would appear that nature was in small 
 business were it not for the fact that every creature 
 that ever existed originally has had to ascend this 
 scale, and must even yet, from the time that fecunda- 
 tion takes place, ascend this scale before fetal devel- 
 opment is perfected for birth. Consequently this is 
 a primary work and chief in all of nature's requisi- 
 tions in furnishing centralized identities to earth. 
 Now, all the life quality in the universe is virtually 
 the same, and what characterizes the creature of one 
 species from the creature of another is the source from 
 which the seed arises ; for it is a law in nature that 
 
78 nature's harmony. 
 
 the development must land in the sphere from which 
 the seed sprung. 
 
 Now the lowest condition of animation was neces 
 sarily the first condition, since all animal life must 
 hav originally arisen from nature's evolutions; and 
 as we hav seen that nature provides for the life be- 
 fore it is able to help provide for itself, this must 
 hav been the situation in their earliest originality. 
 When there came a parent to foster the progeny, then 
 nature resigned her office as nurse. But when she 
 gave the species their introduction she rendered an 
 impetus for perpetuation by providing each with the 
 power of propagation, and we scarcely need add how 
 inclined they all are to make use of those faculties 
 
 The life-principle exists in any piece of matt rial 
 substance, and under favorable circumstances the 
 vitalizing force is quickened, and by chemical affinity 
 a vital nucleus is produced and increases through a 
 natural law of accumulation. Thus in the form of 
 protozoans these life centers lie incorporated in sub- 
 stance silent and still, and passiv to outside action. 
 At length the head begins to form, the pensation 
 becomes more acute, and the creature, for it now be- 
 gins to be one, feels the need of something thit it is 
 compelled to obtain by its own exertion. But rature 
 is very kind, and she does not mike rcq lir 'meats 
 without furnishing the means of accomplishment. 
 She therefore renders the prerequisites for aaibuli- 
 tion. Action commences which stimulates physical 
 force, creating a rapid development for still greater 
 requisitions. » The means of ambulation become per- 
 fected by then application and adapted to the char- 
 acter and inclinations of the animal. The organs of 
 
OKGANISMS AND FACULTIES. 79 
 
 vision, hearing, mastication, and digestion, also, be- 
 come developed for service, and all of these addi- 
 tional advantages are associated with proportionately 
 additional requirements. Therefore, the higher the 
 sphere of life the higher the source from which it 
 receives its subsistence, and comparativly the more 
 difficult to obtain. 
 
 Now, all of these intellectual or mind qualities 
 possessed by the various species of animation must, 
 of necessity, be the outgrowth of their physical or- 
 ganizations, or otherwise the spiritual inclinations, 
 must hav given form to their physical characters. 
 But whichever way it may be, it does not change the 
 fact of the mind exactly corresponding with the 
 body. Then, this being the case, it evidently shows 
 that the office of the mind has no necessary jurisdic- 
 tion further than seeking protection and subsistence 
 for the material requirements of the body and the 
 common comforts that may attend it. In reasoning 
 from the data of the human species we find this idea 
 clearly exemplified; we seek the development of 
 mind as a means of increasing power, for we learn 
 that knowledge in many cases supplants physical 
 force and accomplishes what blind strength could 
 never achieve. Hence intellectual ability is the 
 standard of human greatness, and also the mark of 
 excellence whereby man predominates over the 
 brute, and yet all of his extensiv intelligence centers 
 wholly upon his material wants. 
 
 By the increase of population or the multiplication 
 of the animal species it is evident that nature is not 
 merely in pursuit of bodily development, for if this 
 were the case, when maturity was once reached she 
 would save the products of her labor; but, on the 
 
80 nature's harmony. 
 
 oontrary, they only barely arrive at that point when 
 she sends these physical structures crumbling back 
 to earth to become inorganic once more ; yet there 
 must be a definit object for which she is laboring, 
 but it would be premature to state it here. 
 
 The tangible facts that our physical forms are 
 transient, need no explanatftm. While new beings 
 are daily arriving, others are continually passing 
 away, and if this operation, together with the marks 
 that each leaves benind, is the only grand end and 
 aim, it would seem that nature has made a grand 
 fizzle of it all. 
 
 Now, if it were the general order of things for the 
 species to degenerate instead of improve, then the 
 indications would point to an absolute extinction of 
 all life in the form ; but, on the contrary, the order 
 is to fill the world to its fulness, and the extensiv 
 gradations are given in order to afford greater lati- 
 tude to each; thus onward and upward is the prog- 
 ress, and the end is not yet. 
 
 But each identical life is a world within itself, 
 and the vicissitudes attending it attend all of the 
 same order. Alike in material organization, each 
 alike requires the same food, and is subject to the 
 same conditions in getting it; and the annihilation 
 of one individual creature, in the sense of life iden- 
 tity, is equivalent to the annihilation of all creatures 
 and beings on the earth or in the universe, for the 
 aggregate extends no further than individuality, and 
 the joys and sorrows of one are equal to the joys and 
 sorrows of all. 
 
 We would infer, in respect to each birth, that na- 
 ture adds one and loses one by each death ; but this 
 cannot be so, for there are two sides to nature's 
 
OBGANISMS AJSD FACULTIES. 81 
 
 operations, and from our standpoint we can discern 
 but one; therefore, the birth here that indicates a 
 death on the other side, and the death that indicated 
 a birth on the other side, is beyond the light of our 
 common vision, and to some will seem like fishing in 
 deep water for speculation; but we are reasoning 
 from the data of what we know, and when we say 
 ihat nature is no richer or poorer from a birth or p, 
 death, we merely would infer that she holds the 
 principles in her own hands of both giving and tak- 
 ing away. Bat whence the source of what she givs, 
 and what does she do with the vital principle that 
 frhe takes away? We cannot understand the exist- 
 ence of anything without a cause, nor why nature 
 should labor without an object; and we therefore 
 conclude that everything taking place is based on 
 design; hence the question arises as to what the de- 
 sign is ? Man has a design in his works, and, as we 
 hav said, he is but a portion of nature ; so also has 
 nature her designs, and she embodies therein the 
 operations of man as well as all else. 
 
 Now, we notice that all creatures, including man, 
 procreate through the impulse of amativ ardency; 
 but none, through the influence of mechanical en- 
 dowments, studies the result of their accomplish- 
 ments. Still, nature takes her course, and, through 
 natural law, the embyrotic seed is deposited, the 
 fetal development takes place, and the infant crea- 
 ture is ushered to earth. Do you see that hero ar ; 
 results beyond all finite power, and that they must b i 
 the work of natural laws ? Then, in this, and all 
 else, can you perceive any design ? 
 
 It has been shown that life and feeling are neces- 
 sary to the origin of an animated body; and if this 
 
83 
 
 be true, which cannot be denied, then this same life 
 and feeling must pervade in the nucleus of all phys- 
 ical organization, and therein represent all of the 
 parts of the developed creature or being. For ex- 
 ample, examin the animalcules of the masculin 
 seminal fluid, and do not use a fifty-cent microscope 
 for the purpose, but one displaying at least the 
 broadest held for research that you can find. Ar 
 range it to the light with the strictest exercise of 
 ingenuity, and make your researches in a tempera 
 ture of ninety degrees. Now see that you discrimi- 
 nate what you are looking for from the great ocean 
 in which it floats. Now, agreeable to the theory 
 which I hav presented, I w*nt you to find in the 
 form of spermatozoa, or life-germs, in this^uid repre- 
 senting the character of the creature or beiag from 
 which it came. And do not stop at regarding it as 
 a mere animalcule, in form of an eel shaped wiargler. 
 Examin still more carefully, and through the trans- 
 parent film that enwraps it, discern therein the full 
 representation of the creature or man, as the case 
 may be. You will also find that these life-germs 
 violently manifest the action of the life that dwells 
 within them, and are presented to view by millions, 
 showing the infinit extent of this line of stock. Now 
 these infinitesimals hav their birth, an^ do eat and 
 develop to the extent of their sphere and die in the 
 masculin body; but they are not produced by sexual 
 procreation, but originate from atomic action. This 
 atomic life is produced by the duil affinity of the 
 pancreatic and biliary excretion?, and the same are 
 received by the lacteals and are quickened bv tbo 
 arterialization of oxygen gas, after which they ar, 
 commissioned to fill the place of the dead uUeri *| 
 
ORGANISMS AND FACULTIES. 83 
 
 which is being cast away as waste matter. I hav 
 Ung felt confident that these animalcules actually 
 exist in the serum, but in a different type of life than 
 is discernible in the seminal fluid; however, with 
 any means that I hav, I am unable to identify them 
 in any portion of the common blood. Their non- 
 appearance in the blood proper doubtless may be 
 accounted for from the fact of their comparativly 
 dormant state; but when they are issued from the 
 masculin body through the genitiv organs, and 
 are transported from their testicle reservoirs in the 
 great flood of seminal fluid, another fluid proceeding 
 from the visiculoe seminales, two glandular reser- 
 voirs located on the male bladder, and the peculiar 
 affinity of these two fluids for each other is such 
 that when they meet in the urethra, the animalcule 
 becomes vivified, at which time action is strongly 
 manifested, and in this condition it is transported, 
 through the assistance of a liquid furnished by the 
 f eminin body to the ovary, where it is deposited for 
 development- As our theme does not call us to giv 
 a treatis on the subject of procreation, we therefore 
 will not tarry here to investigate all of the chances 
 that take place in the embryotic and fetal develop- 
 ment, but will merely suggest how similar is the em- 
 bryo of the human, in certain stages of its growth, 
 to various other embryos in the lower creatures at 
 various periods in the course of their progress. You 
 may attach what meaning you will to this sublime 
 fact, but to me the idea stands out in bold charac- 
 ters, that all creatures are of one life, and the only 
 difference between them is occasioned from the shape 
 into which the parcel is molded. Now when we 
 look upon the giant proportions of the great ele- 
 
84 
 
 phant, or the huge leviathan of the ocean, and con- 
 sider that the germinating principle of their enor- 
 mous bodies w.ere once too small to be discernible by 
 the unassisted eye, it proclaims to us how teetotally 
 unable we are to fathom the operations of nature's 
 most common works. Still a few facts we can learn 
 to a demonstration, and among them we know that 
 the creature livs, but we do not know at what point 
 of time it first received its nucleus of identity. 
 We know that the youngest child can realize its 
 existence as clearly as the oldest man or those of any 
 other age, for this the experience of life tells us, and 
 the manifestations of the merest insect shows that it 
 feels just as acutely its existence as man does his. 
 And from this fact we must attach the same impor- 
 tance to the origin of one creature as to the origin of 
 another. But though each creature feels its identity 
 clearly enough, still not one of all the catalog could 
 realize at just what point of time it commenced to 
 liv; nor can it ever know at what point of time it 
 will cease to liv, even were it consistent with nature 
 that such a climax as the annihilation of the identity 
 could ever occur. Consequently the soul principle 
 can never lose anything of its own providing it should 
 in what we call death literally cease to be ; from the 
 fact that it was not its own possessor. It was from 
 natural principles that each was forced to liv in the 
 present sphere ; by natural law that each is sustainedj 
 and it is by natural law that each is forced to depart; 
 and each animal or being is in the pos3essorship of 
 a higher power, and none are the owners of them- 
 selvs, on the basis of the axiom that nothing can be 
 its own maker. 
 In relation to the being, we would not say that he 
 
OBGAHISMS AND FACULTIES. 85 
 
 first existed because he wanted to liv; because if he 
 did not liv in some primary form, he necessarily 
 was wholly passiv to the power that gave him origin. 
 It is therefore evident that each creature of being 
 has a mission to perform for nature or primary im- 
 portance to that of its personal or selfish satisfaction, 
 which it performs without knowledge of what the 
 grand object may be. We fill in this sphere a very 
 narrow circle, and a very transient span, but long 
 enought to develop our natures to the conditions of 
 this abode; but as we grow older and become 
 stronger and wiser, our exactions upon the comforts 
 that the world can afford, become proportionately 
 enhanced, and a continuation of life and vigor, for 
 an indefinit length of time, would eventually create 
 a monotony intolerable to bear. Though nature has 
 marked no limits to the sublime grandeur of her works, 
 but the mind is constitutionally capable of fathom- 
 ing only so far; after which all new ideas gained 
 are at the expense of old ones lost. Consequently 
 the field for thought in time would grow stale if the 
 mind were compelled to pasture too long thereupon. 
 Therefore a provision is made when the physical de- 
 velopments shall hav reached the climax of decrepi- 
 tude, that the spirit may depart and no longer be 
 burdened with its shackles. Then again, owing to 
 the low and gross state of moral virtue, which doubt- 
 less is more refined at the present age than ever was 
 before, we are subject to many ills in life, injuries, 
 sorrows, and sickness, not all from our own evils, 
 but many from the sins of those going before us, 
 which a more perfect state of society, and a higher 
 standard of moral excellence and physical perfection, 
 might easily prevent. The punishment from the bad 
 
86 nature's harmony. 
 
 usee that we make of our physical structures is sure 
 to follow; and aches and pains and lives clipped in 
 the bud is a just compensation therefor. 
 
 But this is a natural consequence from the age, and 
 nature demands it to enhance her progress to intel- 
 lectual development; and we shall hold man re- 
 sponsible no farther than he has the power to guard 
 against the apparent evil; for when we are made to 
 see that greater rewards, and a higher plain of hap- 
 piness, attend the conduct of purity and wisdom, 
 even the grossest will strive to reach so enviable a 
 position. The force of habit makes us all slaves, 
 either for exalted duty or for works of degradation, 
 and our mental qualities develop proportionately to 
 the channels in which our thoughts hav run. But 
 the censure is not upon man, for if nature has so 
 organized him as to be lured to feast on reptils, 
 vermin, and carrion in preference to good bread and 
 butter and beefsteak set before him, then, for the 
 present, we must expect him to follow the bent of 
 his mind. But all humanity is not so depraved, for 
 we hav the specimens of various social grades, reach- 
 ing all the way from Darwin's missing link up to 
 the most refined state of moral purity; still the best, 
 compared with what the best eventually ought, will 
 and must be, border but closely on a state of barbar- 
 ism. But for fear of the odium that this idea may 
 cast, perhaps the following picture will be found 
 appropriate : 
 
 THE POETS DREAM. 
 
 Enwrapped in dream, he passed from earth, transported swift and 
 
 far, 
 Through ether space of frigid gloom, on heaven's celestial car, 
 And far upon the dazzling world of Yenus was let down, 
 
ORGANISMS AND FACULTIES. 87 
 
 There to ^njoy the bright scenes and richest luxuries of town. 
 
 He thought he was a delegate to represent this world, 
 
 And had by some mysterious power been to that planet hurled. 
 
 It seemed that a committee there received him as he came, 
 
 But were such grand and noble men, he fairly blushed with 
 
 shame. 
 Before them, with embarrassment, he stood in awe and fear, 
 To stake the reputation of this low-developed sphere ; 
 But they, in noble manhood, clasped him warmly by the hand, 
 And freely bade him welcome, and awaited his command. 
 They led him to a palace hall, most gorgeous, high, and wide, 
 Where seated to its distant length, and filled from side to side. 
 The people had assembled there in honor to his name, 
 Where he was to address them, in his dream of earthly fame. 
 
 He rose, and his unworthiness proceeded to allow, 
 
 When they all rose to honor him, and made a gracious bow, 
 
 Which stimulated confidence, and inspiration thrilled, 
 
 Awaking powers, unknown before, as though it had been willed. 
 
 And here it is, in substance, something like to what he spoke, 
 Though much of beauty has been lost to mind since he awoke: 
 I'm here a lonely pilgrim, to explore your radiant land, 
 Unworthy of the honors, though, my presence doth command; 
 
 Surrounded by such intellects as our world never knew, 
 
 It is with some embarrassment that I appear to you ; 
 
 But you will make allowance for our undeveloped state, 
 
 Perhaps Time, in his magic course, may make us good and great 
 
 But 'tis with shame that I confess how low and vile we are 
 Compared with your endowments, in this bright and blazing- star; 
 But 'twill not do to mention here our grossest deeds of vice ; 
 You'll think me an impostor, or grow, giddy with surprise. 
 
 Omr selfish qualities are worst, though grown from perfect seeds, 
 But their perversion leads from sin to'f oul and murderous deeds ; 
 And create lying, thieving, lusting, fighting, near and far, 
 And often causes nations to indulge in bloody war. 
 
 It makes the orphan cry for bread, and chill for want of clothes, 
 And poverty and wretchedness still daily count their woes ; 
 
88 nature's harmony. 
 
 And -often turns the beggar who comes groping blind and lame, 
 Out. of the door of opulence, much to the miser's shame. " 
 
 It makes the aged matron,* with her haggard features spare, 
 And palsied hand, strive to obtain the means of scanty fare, 
 And sometimes then be beaten by some cruel, drunken lord. 
 Who robs from her gaunt stomach, the last morsel from the board 
 
 It fills with foul licentiousness the low dens of ill-fame, 
 
 And makes the maiden bear through life the burden of her shame 
 
 Creates a loathsome invalid of some devoted wife, 
 
 And fills the veins of infant blood with horrors during life. 
 
 Yea, more, I've seen some rosy youth, who might in life aspire, 
 Oft vanquished by a poisonous drink that sets his blood on fire, 
 And then in wild confusion rage, with demons in his soul, 
 And all from selfish appetite, that reason can't control. 
 
 "Woe, woe, the dreadful evils that continually assail, 
 In vain the transient penalty of prison walls or jail, 
 Are able to confine the crimes that daily mar our peace, 
 And in the very face of it our evils still increase. 
 
 But 'tis beyond description, for no language can portray 
 The state of our depravity, to you so far away; 
 Although, between our world and yours, I'll draw a parallel, 
 The difference, tho', will be as broad as heaven is from helL 
 
 The facial features of our people living on the earth, 
 Show not, like yours, the highest type of intellectual worth ; 
 And in my want of knowledge, I now fail to understand 
 Why you so highly honor me, from such a savage land. 
 
 The men of honor in our world, in countenance look mean, 
 Their facial furrows show the marks of villainy between; 
 Their eyes display a glassy lust as vile as serpent's slime, 
 Their crumbling teeth convey the stench of nicotine and lime 
 
 Their barren capots, at the base, are circled with thin hair, 
 Although their brazen cheeks assume a proud and haughty air. 
 I see some hobbling on their way, assisted with their cane, 
 I hear some groaning day by day, with agony and pain; 
 And when I question who they are, and learn their titled name 
 T find that some who look the worst are of heroic fame. 
 
ORGANISMS AND FACULTIES. 89 
 
 Yet, to your great astonishment, they wallow in low vice, 
 And easily are bought and sold to such as pay their price. 
 And many in official chairs who guide the ship of state 
 "Would sink the nation to become illustrious and great ; 
 
 Too strong in selfish ardency, and weak in wisdom's lore, 
 To gain the sacred laurels that abide for evermore. 
 And striving to ascend so high in glory find too late 
 They're weighed in justice's balance to their everlasting fate. 
 
 Then, some who gain a worthy mark by some heroic deed, 
 On eulogy and flattery so sumptuously feed 
 That they're unmanned for future use ; and in their silly face 
 Is shown how smart they think they are by their affected grace. 
 
 But quite too many selfish actions in our world appear 
 Tor time allowing me to tell or patience you to hear ; 
 Nor till a higher social state was favored thus to see, 
 "Were such depravity of earth so clearly known to me. 
 
 Here all I view are great and good ; your noble faces shine, 
 Tour eyes with inspiration glow with radiance divine. 
 Your cheeks all hav the rosy blush of health and joy serene, 
 And love and charity there dwell in glowing beauty seen. 
 
 Your, heads, adorned with auburn locks that glisten in the light, 
 Display the gold and silver tints in luster clear and bright, 
 Which indicate fine quality of body, blood, and brain, 
 As well as moral excellence, that in your natures reign. 
 
 The cranial development would readily decide 
 An intellectual caliber, deep, clear, acute, and wide ; 
 And frontal lobes of reason, how precisely correspond 
 "With engineering faculties the bassilcr surround. 
 
 Your teeth in evenness are set, and white as ocean pearls, 
 And vie in rarest beauty with those rich and glowing curls ; 
 And were your great longevity by their perfection told 
 A half a dozen centuries would scarcely make you old 
 
 But 'tis not your grand qualities I labor to extol, 
 
 But nature's high developments exemplified in all; 
 
 Nor do I envy such a state of high exalted worth, 
 
 But pray that such attainments we may sometimes reach on earth. 
 
90 
 
 But will some leading character vouchsafe to me explain 
 Why you are able to control the weather, wind, and rain? 
 How you can grandly migrate so ethereal and high, 
 And regulate your ballast for the surface or the sky? 
 
 How you from water can produce the fuel for your fire, 
 And how with fire you reduce the rock to plastic wire ? 
 How you produce a solid wall of marble, polished white, 
 Without the signs of seam to show were sections doth unite. 
 
 And tell me how you thus unite phosphorus with a gas, 
 To giv perpetual light by night within your walls of glass; 
 And how that steel you thus combine with copper for its aid, 
 To make a non-corrosiv knife with keenest cutting blade ? 
 
 I learn that all electric lights long since were out of date, 
 But never were their brilliant jets known to us till of late; 
 I see you use the telegraph, but how do you convey 
 The sound so perfect without wire stretched along the way? 
 
 You also hav the railroads still in operation here, 
 But grander in comparison as Yenus to our sphere; 
 Your roadbeds are of solid rock, your rails of polished steel, 
 And they that ride upon your trains no danger ever feel. 
 
 Your coaches glitter in the light drawn by electric force, 
 And run more rapid with no noise proceeding from their source ; 
 Their inside finish, far more rich and gorgeous to behold, 
 All decked with drapery of silk and burnished with pure gold. 
 
 How oft the rails upon our roads are twisted, cracked, or bruised, 
 And recklessly sometimes are left, when dangerous to be used ; 
 I'v heard of railroad accidents, where bridges breaking through, 
 Hav maimed the passengers for life, and some bade earth adieu. 
 
 A broken rail once caused a wreck when I was on the train ; 
 The sight was sickening to behold, of wounded and the slain. 
 I noticed in the papers I was numbered with the list 
 Of those who met misfortunes — mine a dislocated wrist. 
 
 But scenes like these are common there, and 'tis rot worth your 
 
 time 
 To listen to disasters so unworthy of my rhyme ; 
 
ORGANISMS AND FACULTIES. 91 
 
 So let me still interrogate more wonders that I see, 
 Or what at least are wonders to the ignorant like me. 
 
 How is it that your barge3 glide so swiftly in their course,. 
 And with no manifested power propelled with lightning force ? 
 Their motion seems so rapid that they skip instead of plow. 
 Their transits must be dangerous, you doubtless will allow. 
 
 How are you able to apply electric force and steam, 
 
 To meet the requisitions of all necessary team ? 
 
 And make them thrice more ready than our horses to obey, 
 
 And travel three times further and much cheaper every day. 
 
 And tell how you through power of will are able to control 
 Material unorganized as though possessed of soul ? 
 How can a life concentrate in a thing that does not liv, 
 And where the spirit to obey the orders that you giv? 
 
 Another thing astonishing I cannot understand, 
 
 How you make mountains shudder by the music of the band; 
 
 Or could, if you desired, lay your towers and buildings low 
 
 By sounding on their key-note when that key-note once you know. 
 
 But many are the questions that in weakness I might ask, 
 But how to comprehend them all is no such easy task ; 
 Yet still I yearn for knowledge, and I long to hav you giv 
 My soul full to its limits while I ardently receive. 
 
 I hav some fortune on the earth which gladly I would pay 
 To see our world as far ahead as Yenus is to-day; 
 But no such gross developments as ours can reach so far, 
 Though I will ne'er forget the love I bear the blazing star. 
 
 At this the poet meekly bowed, expecting soon to hear 
 The answers to his questions, when a hornet stung his ear ; 
 Xot long to make the transit, through the heavens did he roam, 
 But on the hornet's business end . soon landed safely home. 
 
 However, there's a moral worth attention in this dream, 
 And has its application in connection with our theme — 
 It shows the onward progress that each planet doth attend, 
 And how the lower forms of life develop and ascencl. 
 
94 nature's 
 
 ORGANISMS AND FACULTIES.— CONTINUED- 
 
 In our visionary description of Venus, we hav in- 
 ferred that her people were far in advance of those 
 on earth in the arts and sciences, also in moral excel- 
 lence, as well as physical perfection; but to hav any 
 actual knowledge of such a fact, we would not claim, 
 yet we hav our conjectures, and will take pleasure in 
 presenting them for what they are worth. 
 
 In the first place, as we are unable to pursue suc- 
 cessfully the intellectual faculties pertaining to the 
 various grades of animated creatures, without con- 
 sidering the source from which they all sprung, we 
 are compelled to make reference to the organisms 
 represented in the great family of the solar system. 
 
 If the solar system be regarded as a family circle, 
 then, reasoning from analogy, some of the children 
 would naturally be older than others, strongly infer, 
 ring that no two planets are of the same age. We 
 hav, then, in the solar system, an association of 
 primary planets, asteroids, or diminutiv planets, and 
 also secondary satellite planets, all positioned at 
 different distances from the sun or solar center, each 
 continually performing revolutions around that great 
 common center, and all together constituting one 
 grand and magnificent wheel, with all parts running 
 the same way, and all revolving on the same plain. 
 
 There hav been discovered, by astronomical obser- 
 yations, over two hundred members of this great 
 
 
ORGANISMS AND FACULTIES 
 
 95 
 
 celestial family, and yet, in the vast expanse of our 
 solar region, it is probable that there are thousands 
 yet undiscovered, too diminutiv to be reached by the 
 telescope. 
 
 Of the heavenly bodies known to the intelligence 
 of man, these various members present very different 
 aspects, showing that no two are alike in any pecul- 
 iarity, and yet all are similar in their organizations. 
 But while some approximate close to the solar 
 center, some hold a medium line, and others are 
 balanced in ethereal space, and floating onward in 
 their orbits far to the outer limits. 
 
 Now, in studying the nature of these heavenly 
 bodies, we discover that they are all defimtly organ- 
 ized and systematized, and as we know of nothing in 
 nature so constituted except that it had an origin 
 and is of progressiv development, we shall believe, 
 and, on the basis of analogy, feel confident that 
 these celestial bodies are of actual birth, growth, 
 and maturity, and also that their dissolution will 
 eventually be certain. There seems to be a certain 
 design displayed, by the existence of each individual 
 thing, being, or creature, and when the climax of 
 that design is reached, they all disappear. And, as 
 it is so with all else, the planets are subject to the 
 same conditions. 
 
 In considering the progressiv developments of the 
 planets, there is one of which we know more of than 
 any of the rest, and that is the one on which we liv; 
 therefore, in studying the characters of the others, 
 we will use earth as a data upon which to base our 
 reasoning. The design of earth, in a measure, we 
 can understand, and the other planets, being similar 
 in organization, would infer a similar design; and 
 
96 nature's harmony. 
 
 having all come out of the same great ocean of ma- 
 terial, it would be only reasonable to suppose that 
 they were all possessed of the same elemental prop- 
 erties, which inference, the use of the spectroscope 
 substantiates; and, as we hav already stated, what 
 earth will produce at a certain age, another planet 
 will produce at a similar age of its development. 
 
 It is doubtless impossible to arrive, with any pre- 
 cision, at the age of any planet, but by certain con- 
 ditions known to us, we can approximate > ery closely 
 to their comparativ ages, thereby reaching almost to 
 a degree of certainty their true conditions of devel- 
 opment; however, there are many modifications to be 
 considered, as well as numerical calculations to be 
 made, in order to grasp such knowledge. 
 
 The principles by which therlistances are com- 
 puted, the volumes measured, the weights attained, 
 the specific gravities sought, the axial rotation known, 
 and the velocities of motion in their orbits obtained, 
 are all easy to the practical astronomer, and from 
 the data of these conditions we base our theory of 
 progressiv development. 
 
 We notice that the nearer the planets are posi- 
 tioned to the sun, the greater is their specific grav- 
 ity, and the slower their axial rotation, and the f aste r 
 they move in their orbits. There is some deviation 
 from this rule, but it is occasioned from certain modi- 
 fications, clearly to be understood, but too intricate 
 to describe to make practical here. For example, we 
 will suppose a planet eleven millions of miles from 
 the sun, to which we will apply the name of Anti- 
 Mercury, and in proportion to his nearness to the sun 
 we will consider him 2,000 miles in diameter, being 
 very solidified, his internal heat having nearly sub- 
 
ORGANISMS AND FACULTIES. 97 
 
 sided. To his exceeding compactness, we will render 
 a specific gravity of nine, and make his comparativ 
 attractiv force with the sun to correspond, whereby, 
 in order to sustain his equilibrium, he must run in 
 his orbit at the velocity of about eighty miles per 
 second ; and in order to make his axial rotation cor- 
 respond with such powerful gravitating force, it 
 must take him at least forty hours to revolve on his 
 axis. 
 
 Now we will come to the established fact of Mer- 
 cury proper, positioned in his orbit thirty-six millions 
 of miles from the sun, running at a velocity of thirty 
 miles per second, and sustaining a specific gravity of 
 seven, or seven times heavier per volume than water. 
 His magnitude being much less than that of earth, 
 being only about 3,000 miles in diameter, his axial 
 rotation is about twenty-four hours and six minutes; 
 but with a magnitude equal that of the earth, it 
 would require more time to revolve on his axis. 
 
 Now Anti-Mercury we regard as being much 
 older than Mercury proper, from the fact that his 
 gravity is so much greater, which shows that he has 
 had more time to mature. He has passed the ulti- 
 matum of his maturity, lost nearly all of his internal 
 heat, and is now from surface heat in a gradual state 
 of expansion. 
 
 Venus, our favorit planet, sixty-seven millions of 
 miles from the sun, has a specific gravity of only 
 about five, which indicates that she is younger than 
 Mercury, having more internal heat and consequently 
 less solidity. She is also still younger than the 
 earth, as the specific gravity of earth is found to be 
 nearly six. Venus being considerably nearer to the 
 sun than the earth, she would naturally develop more 
 
98 nature's harmony. 
 
 rapidly. Her closer proximity to the sun, and nearly 
 equal magnitude with the earth, render a gravitat- 
 ing force of the sun upon her greater than upon the 
 earth, thereby forcing her in her orbit twenty-one 
 miles per second, while the earth has a velocity of 
 only eighteen. 
 
 Hdw a planet may be younger, and yet nearer 
 to the sun, is for the reason that it commenced its 
 formation nearer, while those that form nearer the 
 outer limits hav a longer time to develop while 
 approximating toward the center, and are compara- 
 tivly larger when they reach their maturity. 
 
 In our calculating the age of planets, for conven- 
 ience, we reckon as per specific gravity, each pound, 
 as per volume of water, representing a million years. 
 This givs the age of our imaginary planet, the one 
 nearest to the sun, as nine millions of years, and 
 Mercury seven millions, Venus five millions, earth 
 six millions, Mars four millions; asteroids varying 
 from a half to three millions; Jupiter one and a half 
 million, Saturn about seven hundred and fifty thou- 
 sand years, and Uranus and Neptune -each about a 
 million. Now, by reference to practical astronomy, 
 it will be found that the lighter the planet per vol- 
 ume, the more rapidly it turns on its axis, and the 
 slower it runs in its orbit. They are all governed in 
 this on philosophical principles, and with such exact- 
 ness as to allow risking our conclusions on the result 
 of numerical calculations; then, on such conditions, 
 with some of the planets nearer and some further 
 from the sun than the earth, it givs us data whereby 
 to calculate with a degree of correctness as to the 
 period a planet has existed. Then, from the best 
 calculations we can make, the planets farthest to 
 
ORGANISMS AND FACULTIES VX 
 
 the outside in the system are in an undeveloped 
 state, and for the present unable to sustain animal or 
 Tegetable life; therefore, Mars, earth, and Venus are 
 probably the only heavenly bodies in the solar sys- 
 tem that are inhabited, Mercury having passed his 
 age of productivness. 
 
 There are many things in relation to the solar sys- 
 tem that we would take pleasure in referring to, but 
 as we hav already touched on planetary development, 
 we will not weary the reader with a treatis on astron- 
 omy, further than the subject belongs to our theme. 
 
 There is one feature in relation to the planet 
 Saturn which we will mention. The peculiarity of 
 his rings has excited a considerable interest with as- 
 tronomers, both ancient and modern. This planet is 
 but a little more densified than a heavy compression 
 of nebular fluid or vaporous accumulation, and the 
 rings and satellites are of material in about the same 
 condition. These rings are so set in the heavens as 
 to hold the planet a certain number of degrees in- 
 clined to the plane of his orbit, and similar rings ac- 
 companied every planet at a certain stage of its 
 formation. The larger the planet the larger the 
 scale by which the rings will be represented. They 
 are a great aid to facilitate the formation, as they 
 collect the material from a greater expanse of the 
 heavens, which eventually must all go to make up 
 the main body of the planet, except what is necessary 
 to form the satellites required during the develop- 
 ments of age. Such operations as these are con- 
 troled by the intellectuality pervading the forma- 
 tion of these heavenly bodies. 
 
 Now, the masculin quality which fertilizes the 
 celestial fielos, furnishing the nucleus for the origin 
 
100 
 
 of a planet, according to our theory, proceeds from 
 the comets. Just what effect they giv to the 
 ethereal gas in order to produce such a result, 
 would be impossible to describe; but we know that 
 the planets must hav their origin, and we also know 
 that there must be a cause for it. 
 
 The nucleus of every organism must be an iden- 
 tity, and each identity, conscious of its existence, 
 must hav had a nucleus with a sense of realization; 
 but it is not from any sense of realization the nucleus 
 may possess that the development of organization 
 takes place, but from a principle acting wholly out- 
 side of it, and the force reflecting upon the germ of 
 origin, for nothing can make itself, but some hidden 
 force gives rise to all organic structures. 
 
 But " a little leaven leaveneth the whole lump," 
 and the nucleus once vitalized assimilates congenial 
 atoms to the building up through the entire develop- 
 ment of structure. Yet all growth has its limits, the 
 ultimatum of which depends upon the life-germ as 
 well as the congenial conditions. 
 
 A i>lanet, as much as any vitalized being, feels the 
 importance of its existence from the time the life- 
 germ is planted in the heavens, and, like any creature 
 or man, realizes the same sense of identity from its 
 earliest infancy to the ultimate extent of old age. 
 Through all the various changes of evolution, no 
 change in the realization of self can ever take place. 
 
 The fruit of no tree is yielded till the tree is hard- 
 ened to a degree of maturity; neither does progeny 
 come forth till puberty is reached, nor do worlds 
 usher to life vegetation or animation until they are 
 enabled to sustain them. Then all organic produc- 
 tions spontaneously arise, for the means are equal to 
 
 
ORGANISMS AND FACULTIES. 10l 
 
 the end, and the forces are all in the earth, and air 
 for all the growth that originates. 
 
 Then, returning to the earth, as a sample planet 
 by which to represent a like object for which all 
 other worlds were designed, when she furnishes the 
 material to build up an organism, she likewise fur- 
 nishes the principle with which to vitalize it. Hav- 
 ing the material, she is able to supply it, but through 
 what f orces does she render it up ? The material we 
 can see, but that which actuates it lies forever hid- 
 den. The earth is the great fountain of both quali- 
 ties, but inorganic material manifests no sense of 
 realization. Then whence originates the organism? 
 Where there is no vital germ, no embryo can germi- 
 nate; therefore the life-germ must lie enwrapped in 
 slumber, ready to be quickened by atomic affinity, 
 as early as congenial conditions will permit its 
 growth and development. 
 
 But the life principle and centralized identity, 
 creating an animated body and an intellectual soul 
 in a planet, is just as essential for its existence as the 
 corresponding qualities are for the creature or man. 
 An animated organism must essentially possess the 
 material of which the structure is built, but there 
 with it must possess, also, the life quality and a sense 
 of its existence. Without them the body could not 
 know whether it existed or not, for it would be as it 
 is when the sense of feeling has left it. The ele- 
 mental gubstanc* s may appear to be all there for the 
 animated structure, yet the organism be inanimate, 
 because the vitalizing quality of soul is not there ! 
 
 The earth is the great reservoir whence proceeds 
 all physical growth and mental force upon it, and of 
 course it will not be denied that she possesses within 
 
102 nature's harmony. 
 
 her, in the aggregate, all the forces she hag powef 
 to manifest through her vegetation and animation. 
 And if this be conceded you mus grant to either 
 earth or something higher, an intellectual quality, 
 not only equal, but greater than all that is or can be 
 manifested by her transient beings, for the means 
 must be equal to the ends. 
 
 Now, we reason only from what we know, and we 
 know that there is such a principle as identity and 
 intellectuality, and we furthermore know that these 
 principles could never be concentrated in the various 
 organisms that manifest them, unless they came from 
 somewhere. It is evident that small quantities of 
 material, are taken from larger quantities, since a 
 larger cannot proceed from a smaller, and it is just 
 as evident that all the forces that are inherent with 
 material are subject to the same law. There is 
 sufficient life force in a world to vitalize all vegeta- 
 tion and animation, besides the unknown quantity 
 left, and it cannot be denied that it is of the same 
 kind that she holds within her, that she evolves into 
 all beings and creatures upon her. Now, the greater 
 the amount of material, the greater the weight; so, 
 also, the greater the amount of concentrated life 
 force, the greater the capacity for intelligence. Not 
 to be understood that an elephant should be more 
 intellectual than a man, for as much, and more, de- 
 pends on the form of organization, its quality as 
 well as quantity, and the sphere that the creature 
 or being must sustain. 
 
 But each creature is alike wise for the sphere it fills, 
 for knowledge is only given as a means of self-pres- 
 ervation, and beyond that, from the realm of our 
 understanding, it is never needed. The creature only 
 
ORGANISMS AND FACULTIES. 103 
 
 struggles to obtain the means of physical support, 
 and all his adjunctiv faculties center wholly upon 
 that primary object; but when the bodily structure 
 is dead, no intelligence is further needed to render 
 it support, for consciousness is then gone from it, 
 and the object of holding "soul and body" together 
 is then forever lost. However, in this, we must not 
 lose sight of the fact that there are three distinct 
 conditions of life or spheres, that each identity must 
 pass before the developments reach their destination 
 in this life. And these we know of, if scientific 
 facts and logical reasoning are worthy of being a 
 guide. 
 
 We hav already made reference to the life-germ 
 as a masculin principle, preceding the embryotic 
 position of development in the womb, and that both 
 of these conditions precede the life we are now living 
 becomes an easy fact to comprehend. In considering 
 the transmission of the life-germ in the seminal fluid 
 to the ovary, and through the embryotic stage of 
 development, it is evident that the animalcule dies 
 to its former position of life, undergoes a metamor- 
 phosis, and then develops and dies to its embryotic 
 position, at which time the being is ushered into this 
 life. That the same identity existed in the seminal 
 fluid which was developed in the womb and trans 
 mitted to this sphere, is not a question of doubt with 
 us, and that the same will be perpetuated through- 
 out the same circle to a new life on earth, on propor- 
 tionately a higher plane, is the theory that we intend 
 to sustain, both by analogy and scientific principles. 
 
 The metamorphosis of the caterpillar into the 
 chrysalis, and then its development into the butterfly, 
 is only analogous to the above representation; and 
 
104 nature's harmony. 
 
 » hroughout these changes it is obvious that the same 
 sense of realization prevails, in one as in another, 
 for how or why should it or could it change ? And 
 even though the material of the entire tenement 
 undergoes an entire transformation, still the new 
 body tenaciously holds the spirit of the old one. 
 The progress is upward, but when the gay butterfly 
 falls in death to earth, its animation is no longer 
 manifested, though to claim that there is no spiritual 
 identity existent, because we cannot see it, is very 
 bad logic, for that is a principle that never was visi- 
 ble, and yet it is a principle which is most important 
 and precious of all, and we will leave the testimony 
 of each to decide. We are unable to see the fluid in 
 which we liv, though oxygen and nitrogen are grossly 
 combined with various other substances which com- 
 mingle to form it, yet cities will burn down, and 
 the material will ascend, and oceans of vapor will 
 rise; and while in its comparativ density we ambu- 
 late, still we behold it not, for the oxygen has crys- 
 tallized it all, and rendered it invisible to the eye. 
 How then shall we discern the essence of the soul, 
 which is a thousand timps- more ethereal ? , 
 
 Yet the perpetuation of the soul in man is not all 
 to be considered The merest insect may, with the 
 same propriety, assert its claim, for nature acts with 
 impartiality, and were it not for the spiritual perpet- 
 uation of the inferior orders their developments 
 could never have ascended to the superior. Like 
 begets like, and the animal spirit will only fit the 
 animal body, and that of its own species; but in 
 ascending the scale the superior survive, and that is 
 where the missing link is to be found, connecting the 
 higher orders of animals with the lower orders of 
 
ORGANISMS AND FACULTIES 105 
 
 humanity. We therefore do not see from our stand- 
 point the amalgamations which ascend the scale and 
 approximate toward intellectual perfection; but one 
 thing we do know, that if all the species are of spon- 
 taneous production, originally, then the highest on 
 earth must hav been the outgrowth of the lowest, for 
 the best geological researches hav found no traces 
 of original productions except those of the lowest 
 orders of life. Now it is self-evident that there was 
 some way by which man has got here, but from our 
 theory it is no more mysterious how he came to exist 
 than how a bug or fly ; for by the existence of the 
 low orders, and from an actual knowledge of their 
 progressiv development, the existence of the higher 
 is a necessary consequence. The first man of ancient 
 tradition, mechanically made of clay, with the breath 
 of life literally breathed into his nostrils, whereby 
 he became a living soul, we reverence for his old age, 
 and would glory in having had so holy an ancestry. 
 But the light of scientific investigation has rather dis- 
 countenanced the old antediluvian, while we are com- 
 pelled to trace our ancestral lineage back to the 
 baboon, ape, and lizard, and frankly acknowledge 
 our low origin. 
 
 As we hav ascended from that low sphere, our 
 mental faculties hav called for physical faculties to 
 correspond, although in all of the spheres that we 
 hav occupied the spiritual identity has been the same, 
 and for ages to come it will remain the same. The 
 number of lives we hav lived in all is in reality but 
 one, and we are still living that same life, but the 
 number of forms and spheres we hav occupied are 
 many, and the end is not yet. The realization of our 
 being continues right on, and although we always 
 
106 
 
 know when our spirit is going to depart from the 
 tenement, yet no being or creature ever knew when 
 they died; and when transmitted to the next body or 
 sphere, none will ever realize that they hav ever 
 lived before. It may seem like poor satisfaction to 
 know this, when we consider the "the sacred ties 
 that bind our hearts in kindred love," but we hav a 
 sample life on earth, and it is obvious that we cannot 
 look back with remembrance to any other that went 
 before it, yet the satisfaction of kindred friends is 
 sufficient while we are permitted to enjoy their 
 society, and we found them all when we arrived here, 
 and in departing to the next sphere we shall be in 
 like manner favored. As we take on new life, all 
 reminiscences of the old is forever lost in oblivion. 
 Our memory, even in this world, is often but a poor 
 reliance, being frequently unable to remember our 
 dreams, after we hav fully awakened ; then why shall 
 we expect to be able to carry a remembrance of this 
 world to the next ? A moment's reflection will de- 
 cide to any reasoning mind the inconsistency of the 
 events of this sphere being associated in memory 
 wish those of any other. Had such been the order 
 of nature, then there need have been but one con- 
 tinued sphere, and such lasting monotony would hav 
 created a disgust for life, rather than a love for it. 
 And again, thig sphere is designed to be enjoyed 
 while we are in it, and when we reach another that 
 will doubtless be the same. The Lord's docket will 
 never be read of our present deportment, and no 
 criminal cases here will be tried in the next world. 
 But the next life, as we will call it, is to be on earth, 
 and not in the clouds or in imaginary space, and let 
 us see why ! 
 
ORGANISMS AND FACULTIES. 107 
 
 First, all of our happiness on earth tends wholly 
 to our material wants ; and although we may imagin 
 4< celestial joys of heavenly love," we will be enjoy- 
 ing a real sc*enerylike "sweet fields arrayed in living 
 green, and rivers of delight," and fancy that " the 
 gates are richly set with pearls, the streets are lined 
 with gold." Now, if such are the conditions, we 
 shall require some place that will afford a good solid 
 footing, and since nature has been laboring for mill- 
 ions of years to make worlds for all creatures and 
 beings to enjoy, it is doubtful if any can conjure up 
 a better institution for the purpose. But the good, 
 substantial qualities of terra firma do not seem to 
 su't the fancies of all; some want to go fast and fly, 
 and some want a mansion in the sky, and some are 
 willing everlastingly to die. 
 
 But the actual facts are governed by natural law, 
 and neither belief, hope, nor prayer is going to mod- 
 ify or change the nature of the future state, for it is 
 under a jurisdiction that is unchanejable. All the 
 world might join in concert with unison of feeling in 
 prayer, for nature to veto one of her laws, yet inex- 
 orably she would fulfill them all just the same. Not 
 the prayer of a multitude could remove a grain of 
 mustard seed, without the manifestation of physical 
 action. 
 
 But the higher the intellectual standard in this 
 sphere, the higher will be the next, for raising the 
 standard is the only design shown by nature's evolu- 
 tion ; so to assist nature by becoming exilted in in- 
 tellectual and moral excellence is our highest object 
 of life, and renders the greatest happiness to us while 
 here, as well as fits us for proportionately a higher 
 plane in the next sphere. Thi3 fact h exemplified in 
 
108 
 
 the progeny of well-tutored animals, as shown by 
 their docility, and it is an established fact that per- 
 fect parents beget perfect children, both physically 
 and intellectually. 
 
 In the production of the new body, it is fashioned 
 from the pattern and molded to the conditions, there- 
 fore every seed must produce after its kind, which 
 shall indicate that the intellectual qualities are as 
 strongly stamped as the physical. Hence human 
 spirit will only fit human body; horse spirit, horse 
 body; and bird spirit, bird body, and so with all. 
 
 The habits of a preceding sphere are transmitted 
 to this, giving an impetus for good or evil as the case 
 may be ; but the instinctiv natures more clearly rep- 
 resent this fact than the human, whose intelligence 
 is more a matter of culture. The bird builds its nest 
 with the same perfection for the first time that it 
 ever does, for its soul has been the same kiad of a 
 bird form perhaps a hundred times before, and that 
 instinctiv quality is carried forward from generation 
 to generation. 
 
 There is a peculiar feature possessed by every crea- 
 ture in existence, which creates an inclination in 
 each to reach a higher degree of power. This is 
 what givs that feeling of ectasy in the animal pro- 
 pensity when the victorious one vanquishes his foe. 
 This ardent desire to be strong excites a correspond- 
 ing degree of will force, aiding both to enhance 
 the assurance as well as to stimulate the physical 
 strength. Such a continual pressure of feeling in all 
 the animal species in nature, prevailing from gener- 
 ation to generation, necessarily urges each onward 
 and upward to a higher standard of life. This 
 aspiring faculty is never allayed in any sphere of 
 
ORGANISMS AND FACULTIES. 109 
 
 life. And where the desire is lost to wield by phys 
 ical force, the exhalted ambition of intellectual 
 superiority commences. When all the animation of 
 earth was in brute form, which preceded the human 
 origin, then no influence of culture could hav been 
 exercised of social bearing, which would rapidly 
 stimulate what we regard as exalted qualities. But 
 now that animation has ascended to the scale of 
 humanity, the influence of man has a bearing on the 
 mental proclivities of nearly every animal. The 
 horse in his wild state was not so well adapted for 
 physical labor as he now is, since being domesticated 
 and applied to use by the hand of man. It has 
 made him assume a different shape, as well as given 
 him a look of docility which originally he did not 
 wear, and all this change has been occasioned by his 
 being associated with a higher order of intelligence 
 and subservient to a superior will. Therefore, the 
 horse, associated with man, imbibes a certain amount 
 of man's nature ; and man in return receives a certain 
 amount of horse nature. But while the horse is be- 
 ing tortured, and brought in that way from his wild, 
 ungoverned condition, up to the docil and obedient 
 servant of man, no characteristics of human excel- 
 lence are lost in the operation of taming, but, on the 
 contrary, further qualifications of human devices are 
 introduced. 
 
 So it is with all animals made subservient to the 
 will of man. And it will not be denied that through 
 the influence of domestication each animal is made 
 superior to what it was in its wild state. It will 
 therefore be seen that each creature, as soon as 
 ushered to birth, is constantly urged onward and 
 upward to a higher sphere. Even the necessary 
 
110 nature's harmojsy. 
 
 conditions that must attend life are in a measure a 
 continual course of torture, and the greater the agita- 
 tion the faster the being or creature thinks. They 
 that are nursed in indolence are the least conscious 
 of the things around them, while those who are con- 
 tinually spurred to aggravation, maddened to con- 
 tempt, harrassed to petulancy, and grieved to dis- 
 couragement, are those which by nature are chas- 
 tened whereby that they may be exalted. Then, 
 from the foregoing we infer that to liv is necessarily 
 a condition to improve, and that nature's great de- 
 sign is to work as much intelligence out of the ma- 
 terial in the aggregate into centralized identities as 
 is in her power. 
 
 We hav already stated that human spirit will 
 ^nly fit human body, and animal spirit animal body, 
 but the animal that approximates nearest to human, 
 and from long associations has imbibed human char- 
 acteristics, in death its spirit of identity may become 
 the vitalizing principle of a human tenement. The 
 question has often arisen, Why is it that certain per- 
 sons hav a look that so reminds us of some kind of 
 an animal ? In our acquaintance we know of a per- 
 son who has received the appellation of "Horse 
 John," from the peculiar resemblance his facial feat- 
 ures bear to those of a horse. There are many 
 cases that we might recite of a similar kind, and, 
 although this inference might seem far-fetched, yet 
 by an extensiv study of physiognomy we shall find 
 that there is scarcely a countenance we meet but 
 what represents, in some feature, a resemblance of a 
 like feature in some certain animal. It i*, also, fre- 
 quently the case that the progeny of a succeeding 
 generation strongly resembles in character and ap- 
 
ORGANISMS AND FACULTIES 111 
 
 pearaa«e those of a person far back in the ancestral 
 lineage; and the wild and fiery colt which is some- 
 times the offspring of gentleness and docility in both 
 sire and dame is not without a meaning. 
 
 In conversation with some parties, of professional 
 merit, on this subject, they seemed tenacious to sus- 
 tain the idea that the mind or sense of realization 
 was virtually equivalent to the intellectuality, but 
 we regard it differently. We acknowledge it as the 
 source of all intelligence incorporated in the body, 
 but not the intelligence itself; and we will try and 
 show you why. 
 
 We hav already said that centralized intellectual- 
 ity is only needed as a means whereby to sustain the 
 body, and through this instrumentality we seek our 
 support. Now, if we knew no more than an infant 
 knows, it is evident that somebody would hav to look 
 to our wants, or otherwise we should fail to get a 
 living. But because a child is weak in knowledge, 
 that does not go to show that it is weak in feeling^ 
 On the contrary, we know that it realizes its exist- 
 ence just as acutely as a grown person does. We hav 
 our own remembrance to substantiate this fact; but 
 we hav no remembrance when we felt less clearly 
 our existence because of our early age The feelings 
 of a child are even more acute than those of an adult, 
 for the reason of its physical system being more 
 sensitiv, and less accustomed to pains from injuries 
 and sickness. Consequently our consciousness of life 
 is not a principle subject to development, while on 
 the contrary our knowledge is wholly so. 
 
 But intellectual development renders an impetus 
 reaching to the next sphere, impressing the mental 
 nucleus with an innate power proportionate to the 
 
112 nature's harmony. 
 
 germ of life and favorable conditions of parentage. 
 From this fact we find that some children seem to 
 possess an instinctiv knowledge of almost everything 
 that is to be learned; receiving ideas from intuitio^ 
 as though they were facts previously known in the 
 sphere from which they departed. 
 
 There are many points in relation to the foregoing 
 that we may hav occasion to refer to before we reach 
 the close of this volume, but we shall endeavor to 
 keep on a parallel with scientific facts, so that no 
 lover of science who reads will need be disgusted 
 with theories based on a false hypothesis, or without 
 plausible reasons to defend them. 
 
 SUMMARY TO PLANETARY FORMATION. 
 
 Through the eras of time, o'er the fields never ending, 
 "We gaze and we reason from what we behold , 
 
 Through all past evolutions, to the present still blending, 
 We read the grand order by nature controled. 
 
 From ethereal gases spread wide through heaven, 
 
 By the sun's radiation of forces unfurled, 
 Spring forth the young centers, with the spirits that leaven 
 
 The ether, creating the growth of each world. 
 
 On nature's grand basis, they form in proportion 
 To the volume of matter each center controls, 
 
 And wax in the course of their endless excursion, 
 By the force of attraction, and onward each rolls. 
 
 Thus fed and sustained by the ether each enters, 
 
 And governed by laws universal outside, 
 They form and develop while revolving their centers, 
 
 And balanced divinely, they never cohide. 
 
 And therefore they run in harmonious order, 
 And form a grand system of members sublime ; 
 
 Each filling his mission, from center to border, 
 Appointed to space and allotted to time. 
 
ORGANISMS AND FACULTIES. 1J3 
 
 All conscious of life from their early existence, 
 Yielding physical bodies for spiritual force ; 
 
 And bequeathing life forces against all resistance, 
 To the creatures they bear, as they fly on their course. 
 
 SUMMARY TO SPIRITUAL IDENTITIES. 
 
 From the action of matter, through the forces pervading, 
 All the species of earth did spontaneously rise- 
 
 In atomic minuteness dwells the quality aiding, 
 And inherently hidden the central seed lies. 
 
 The substance so quickened, doth vibrate with action, 
 And trembles at even the slightest touch made ; 
 
 And the vitalized center, by magnetic attraction, 
 Applies all congenial material to aid. 
 
 The form, embryotic, in innocence starting, 
 Grows greater in volume and stronger in force ; 
 
 While the sun is emitting his light and imparting 
 His warmth to engender the life-giving source. 
 
 Thus the atoms by millions in order uniting, 
 Organize the molecules wkioh to the life join; 
 While the lively sensation electricity thrilling, 
 Creates the existence to fill the design 
 
 In relation to the origin of organisms there are 
 many important features to be considered. Having 
 heretofore shown that the basis of all nature's opera- 
 tions is the material she employs in her never-end- 
 ing evolutions, and also having seen that a universe 
 of material would be useless without the pervading 
 forces which actuate it, we will now attempt to show 
 the impossibility of a universe of life in the aggre- 
 gate, and a universe of vitalized atoms, individually 
 existing, without the necessary consequence of giving 
 rise to various orders of animated organisms. Rea- 
 soning from the standpoint from which we look, the 
 very fact that animal life now exists, and that it once 
 did not, is all we would require to substantiate the 
 
114 
 
 theory of spontaneous production; but positiv facts, 
 almost reaching to axioms, are often supplanted by 
 mystified faiths, and it requires a great exertion to 
 make some minds see straight. I am confident that 
 many more writers on natural history would freely 
 accept these premises were it not for a lingering sus- 
 picion that it conflicted with ancient traditionary 
 tales of the creation. Still a few suggestions will 
 not be out of place for the readers in general. 
 
 The action prevailing in any organized physical 
 system we attribute to an inherent life-principle in- 
 corporated therein, and it is not difficult to under- 
 stand that the material in the aggregate must pos- 
 sess corresponding actuating qualities, from which 
 great fountain the organism receives its principle of 
 life force. If every atom in the universe possesses 
 its due share of life force, then the incorporation of 
 atoms, in whatsoever form they may be, must not 
 only proportionately multiply the inherent atomic 
 forces, but enhance by the affinities and create a 
 magnetic center, which incorporates all the power in 
 one. Were not this a true theory in relation to the 
 action of matter, then we must frankly own that it 
 is beyond our power to understand how any evolu- 
 tions or action of matter could ever take place. 
 Otherwise all nature would be dead. 
 
 The atoms of each of the sixty-four recognized 
 elemental substances differ in form, size, and electric 
 or magnetic power, and the latent force of any is 
 scarcely manifested within itself, while from the 
 effects of elemental combination great results take 
 place. No action of growth can ever take place 
 where but one element is employed, and not even 
 the accumulation of one element can occur without 
 
ORGANISMS AND FACULTIES. 115 
 
 the forces of other material acting with or upon it. 
 Nature has use for them all, and although the pres- 
 ence of but few of the simples are discernible in 
 most of the things presented to our notice, yet 
 doubtless the action of all are in some way brought 
 to bear in all the operations of nature. All were 
 originally common to the ethereal gases, and no ele- 
 ment can come in contact with oxygen and nitrogen 
 but what in some degree will either unite or mingle 
 with them. Any substance may be reduced to a 
 condition of ether and diffused through the air, and 
 not one of the catalog of elements but what either in 
 a state of simple or in combination with others may 
 be made combustible. Gold and platinum, two of the 
 heaviest metals known, and noted for their fineness 
 of texture and non-corroding qualities, both are sub- 
 ject to certain dissolvent effects, and in a condition of 
 fine dust either will scintillate and be reduced to 
 gaseous ether by the effects of heat. Mercury, an- 
 other heavy element, under certain conditions be- 
 comes very volatil, acting when rarely diffused 
 through the atmosphere as an admirable purifier, or 
 carrying in its more dense vapor a corroding gas of 
 deadly poison. The diamond may be reduced to car- 
 bonic acid gas, and be made to flash with a flame 
 and rise to unite with the oxygen and nitrogen com- 
 posing the atmosphere. All of the various elements 
 were once subject to ether space, and like ones are 
 cow indiscriminately diffused throughout the celestial 
 regions of the universe, and, in the formation of 
 planets, are in their proper proportions woven into 
 the organization. These primary elements being ab- 
 solutely essential to compose the earth, in order to 
 accomplish the design for which she was organized, 
 
116 nature's harmony. 
 
 doubtless the same elements, a ad in about the same 
 proportions, unite to form the constituents of any and 
 every planet of the universe. However, this sugges- 
 tion might appear to be based on a very doubtful 
 hypothesis, but on the conditions that similar agen- 
 cies produce similar results, we are inclined to think 
 that the premises will plausibly sustaia us. 
 
 To a casual observer these elemental substances 
 are often found very much out of place, but the vari- 
 ous complex ways in which they combine, in order 
 that two or more simples may produce such numer- 
 ous kinds of commodities, are even more wonderful 
 to the well-skilled chemist than to the unsophisti- 
 cated. For example, if we were going to manufac- 
 ture sugar, we would hardly expect to reduce it 
 from such a commodity as charcoal, and yet the only 
 elements to be found in the one are identical with the 
 other, only in different proportions; and at first it 
 seemed like the actions of a crazy person to attempt 
 such an enterprise as producing the precious diamond 
 by a concentration of the most refined particles of 
 carbon extracted from charcoal. But the chemist 
 was in earnest and meant business, and accomplished 
 his object, and when the operation becomes 
 thoroughly facilitated it will be lucrativ till a de- 
 cline of price takes place in the diamond trade. 
 
 A thousand similar examples might be presented 
 to show the widely different products, resulting 
 from the same simple elements, when differently 
 combined. But we must pass on. 
 
 The stimulated action that it renders to the simple 
 elements by uniting them to form certain composi- 
 tions is wonderful to notice. Two or three of the 
 most harmless ones, whea separate, may beoome the 
 
ORGANISMS AND FACULTIES. 117 
 
 most dangerous to handle when in certain proportions 
 compounded; while on the other hand, two elements 
 which exist with a natural dual affiaity for each 
 other, as oxygen and nitrogen or oxygen and hydro- 
 gen, are innocent when combined, generating life- 
 force to all that inhale or imbibe them, but become 
 deadly in their effects when separated. 
 
 From the foregoing it will be seen how admirably 
 associated are these elements, to accomplish the ob- 
 ject for which they exist. Although we hav al- 
 ready stated that there are but few of these simples 
 that enter extensivly into the organic structure of 
 either animal or vegetable life; yet as the earth has 
 use for them all, as wa hav already implied; they 
 doubtless allhavtheir effects in generating lift; force, 
 and sustaining the electricity necessary to giv action 
 and sensation to all living creatures. It might seem 
 like fine figuring or a a far-fetched idea to assert that 
 total absence of any one of these primary elements 
 would in time render all life on the earth extinct; and 
 what might seem still more vague, those very ones 
 apparently least essential, if their necessities were 
 clearly understood, would be found quite as import- 
 ant as any others. Suffice it to say that they are all 
 in some way essential to the production and preser- 
 vation of animated existence, or assist in the trans- 
 mutation of identities from sphere to sphere. 
 
 We must here remark that it cmnot too impera- 
 tivly render our regard to the works of nature for eo 
 divinely administering to the wants of all living and 
 conscious creatures and beings, afcer having produced 
 them by the generativ effects of her quickened ma- 
 terial; and when we observe the perfection in which 
 all of these evolutions are conducted, we are assured 
 
118 
 
 with implicit reliance that in none of her works hag 
 she given either too little or too much, and that if 
 there was either a deficiency or overplus in any re- 
 spect, it might doubtless in some way create direful 
 results. But how limited, comparativly, is the human 
 understanding ! Not the plainest thing to be deci- 
 phered can we trace to its ultimate source, nor 
 scarcely conjecture the necessity of the inferior crea- 
 tures ever having existed in myriads, in order that 
 man should hav had his origin; but when the door 
 is opened to the mind which clearly leads to this 
 avenue of thought, we are made to feel the potency 
 of the truth. 
 
 It is wonderful to contemplate the action of the 
 material elements to preserve even the egg of the 
 infinitesimal creature, or how preciously in the hands 
 of nature, the youngling, too small for the natural 
 eye to discern, is carefully protected, fostered, and 
 maintained. For example, a certain inferior fly de- 
 posits an egg too small to be seen beneath the infant 
 leaf of the black oak, which is on the feathery side 
 of the leaf, after which she emits a fluid of a gluey 
 nature in order to hold the egg securely to the leaf, 
 and then delivers her work into the care of nature. 
 The charge is freely accepted, and preparations duly 
 made for its safety. The leaf does not die, but in 
 its growth it gradually incloses and folds around the 
 egg in the form of a ball, until it is impossible to 
 see where the edges of the leaf unite. At the first 
 appearance these little balls are very minute, not 
 larger than a pin-head; but they increase by growth 
 the same as a leaf, until they sometimes reach the size 
 of a small apple. During this time the insect in- 
 closed is undergoing certain developments which will 
 
ORGANISMS AND FACULTIES. 119 
 
 eventually giv it birth to the outside world. At first 
 it is fastened to the center by a kind of core which 
 appears to hav been furnished by a luxuriant growth 
 of feathery appearance, like to what is common to 
 the growth of the under side of the leaf, but made 
 more profuse by its being less exposed and stimu- 
 lated by the presence of the insect. In my early 
 youth I relished the taste of these " oak apples," for 
 they were green and tender, and the shells were bu f , 
 a little thicker than the leaves of the tf ee. 
 
 At length a brother older created in me a grea', 
 disgust for them by showing me that it was no ap- 
 ple, but merely the house of a worm which lived in 
 the center. I wondered what business the little crea 
 ture had in there, and sought to find one that was 
 not thus inhabited. My search was fruitless, and I 
 came to the conclusion that the growth was one ex- 
 pressly for the protection of the insect, instead of 
 being the natural fruit of the tree. This was one of 
 my first lessons in natural history, and I must own 
 that its effects were so impressiv and deeply sublime 
 that it not only left a lasting imprint upon my mem- 
 ory, but stimulated the desire to investigate the sub- 
 ject still further. As we now survey the habits of 
 the myriads of zoophytic life, and watch the ovipos- 
 itors in their precaution to secure their eggs in a po- 
 sition for a safe incubation, or trace the course of 
 development from the egg to the larvae, and the 
 larvae to the beetle, or to the chrysalis, and thence 
 to the butterfly or lepidopterous order, or stop a mo- 
 ment to contemplate the complicated machinery of 
 the saw-fly, or investigate the history of the numer- 
 ous sea-urchins, pausing carefully to watch the trans- 
 migratory life of the cirriped to its development into 
 
120 
 
 the barnacle, and thousands of as interesting phe- 
 nomena, many of which must from their minute- 
 ness be displayed by the use of the microscope, which 
 now continue to throng our path, we are led to ex- 
 claim that the infinitesimal lives in the minutiae are 
 infinit life in the aggregate. 
 
 There are myriads of these zoophytes governed by 
 similar habits, and some of which, it is almost un- 
 necessary to add, in the end, become entirely differ- 
 ent in nature and habit from the original ancestry. 
 This, however, is not exactly in harmony with the 
 idea of every creature bringing forth after its kind, 
 but is one of the exceptions to that rule. Who 
 studies the true history of the cirriped, or barnacle, 
 and fully comprehends it, will then no longer won- 
 der how a bud from a plant can grow into an insect 
 when dropped into the sea, or how that hairs placed 
 in a rain-trough can become creatures of sufficient 
 life to migrate through the water, or how that thou- 
 sands of equally wonderful phenomena can con- 
 stantly occur, is beyond the range of our observa- 
 tion. 
 
 We would here state that we do not wish to evade 
 the fact by any doubtful feeling of discretion; that 
 we most decidedly hold to the theory of original 
 spontaneous production; nor do we even stop there. 
 The same laws that once would originate the organ- 
 isms of animation will, under favorable circum- 
 stances, do so now; and that same onward and up- 
 ward progress, ever since the earth has been in a 
 condition to sustain animal lifp, has been going on, 
 and still continues; and yet the world, till lately, 
 has never been able to look the fact squarely in the 
 face. Traditionary mysticism has doubtless been a 
 
OEGANISMS TND FACULTIES. 121 
 
 great obstacle to the progression of science, and 
 often, when leading minds hav aimed at truth, pub- 
 lic favor has so juggled the senses the shot has gone 
 wide from the target. 
 
 ASCENSION OF ORGANIC LIFE. 
 
 The spirit of nature permeating all matter, 
 Doth quicken each atom with separate life ; 
 
 Which forever doth mingle through earth air and water, 
 In harmonions action or contending strife. 
 
 No particle easy, each ever is moving,, 
 
 And always pursuing some object for rest; 
 Some joining, some pulling, some clashing and shoving, 
 
 "While some to a nucleus center are pressed. 
 
 Some depart with repulsion, some join and commingle, 
 
 AH acting as lively as billions of bees ; 
 Too minute for conception, each atom when single, 
 
 But united creating the land and the seas. 
 
 Unbounded that wisdom — whatever you call it — 
 
 The power that reigns universal — divine ; 
 Controling each atom in whatever befall it, 
 
 And applying them all in majestic design. 
 
 All the principles extant for orders and classes, 
 
 "Were eternally stamped through all cycles unknown ; 
 
 And made to prevail where development passes 
 The era for worlds to bear fruit of their own. 
 
 Forced to rise ; sprung to life by material action, 
 Ten thousand low creatures the seas could maintain ; 
 
 Comprising those kinds, putting forth no exaction, 
 Against the foul gases which around them did reign. 
 
 The world rolling onward, in age still progressing, 
 During each passing era, develops still more ; 
 
 And heaves to her surface her bounties, expressing 
 The wealth of her bosom still treasured in store. 
 
122 
 
 As the poisonous gases into densities harden, 
 The creatures more activ awaken to light ; 
 
 StiJl no mortal can liv in the " Paradise Garden," 
 Till, cycles uncounted, the earth wheels in flight. 
 
 And ages roll on while the surface formation, 
 Successivly changes from water to land ; 
 
 Supplying new strata in the course of creation, 
 Renewing her products with species more grand. 
 
 Of eras full fifty or more we discover, 
 From the Azoac time to the Mammalian age ; 
 
 And a million of years must hav slowly passed over; 
 Till man from the mollusk arose to the stage. 
 
 Let us delve Cenozoic, and the fossils examin, 
 For time has recorded by traces there shown. 
 
 How the gradual steps from low orders — Mammalian— 
 Hav reached to this glory we boast as our own. 
 
 Next explore Mesozoic, the period Reptilian, 
 Seek there for the records of life in that day : 
 
 Seek how the ascension points to the Mammalian, 
 "While onward and upward doth progress make way. 
 
 Next downward still, go to the age Paleozoic, 
 And read what was written indelibly there ; 
 
 How the strata record in their various divisions, 
 Higher orders of life to each stratum next higher. 
 
 How the creatures aquatic link with semi-aquatic, 
 And develop in water to inhabit the land, 
 
 "Which connect the Reptilian with species Devonian, 
 For onward and upward was then the command. 
 
 Still another long stride through the strata Silurian, 
 To those the most ancient that man has explored; 
 
 And though buried a million of yea v s in oblivion, 
 Still the Molluscan types doth their records afford. 
 
 All these creatures of life, but a few, are still extant, 
 Showing clearly to-day how the lineage ran; 
 
 And no link in the chain is yet disunited, 
 
 From the lowest of orders up to reasoning man. 
 
 
CORRESPONDING MENTAL PROCLIVITIES. 123 
 
 It would beggar all reason, that man's introduction, 
 Was suddenly wrought through no series of life ; 
 
 Such a sudden appearance would soon meet destruction, 
 Unable to combat such violent strife. 
 
 How that man, undeveloped to worldly conditions, 
 Provided with neither his raiment nor food ; 
 
 Possessing no knowledge to sustain his position, 
 Could liv, do pray tell us, or inform why he should. 
 
 The sphere unadapted for such initiation, 
 
 TJnhardened to climate, uncultured to act ; 
 Man would need to depend on the ravens for ration, 
 
 And fig-trees for raiment, if such were the fact. 
 
 But the question is settled, accept or reject it, 
 
 For science has fathomed its depth and its hight ; 
 
 But some will still hold to old faith — we expect it — 
 Instead of embracing the glory of light. 
 
 CORRESPONDING MENTAL PROCLIVITIES. 
 
 Man possesses all the propensities to a certain de- 
 gree common to animals, but animals are devoid of 
 the higher faculties possessed by man. The grada- 
 tions are physically represented from the lowest 
 orders without a link broken, all the way to the hu- 
 man, and the shades of difference are very nicely 
 blended, reaching to all kinds and classes, and yet 
 gradually continuing the onward and upward march. 
 That the mental proclivities should be as nicely 
 blended as the physical is not inconsistent with our 
 theory, neither is it with fact. It will not be over- 
 looked that the dissimilarity of the various animal 
 organizations is mostly represented by the shapes 
 they assume, while the elemental substances com- 
 posing their different bodies are nearly the same 
 
124 nature's harmony. 
 
 throughout the whole catalog of species, especially so 
 among the mammalian types. All of the latter bear 
 a strong semblance in blood, bone, and muscle, and 
 the same principle is shown in the ligament attach- 
 ments, and frame articulation, also in the veinous and 
 arterial, or rather the circulatory, system ; likewise in 
 the systems of nerves in their ramifications. Even in 
 the constitution of man nature has given no better 
 material for his organization than for the organiza- 
 tion of the lower mammalian types, and no partiality 
 has been shown except in the form of the make-up, 
 and that Iris more extensiv development earnestly de- 
 manded. If the texture of the human system in one 
 sense be finer than that of the animal, so as to sus- 
 tain more electric force, making a comparativly 
 strongly electric center for the body, it is only what 
 is justly due, from the fact of having passed through 
 a more extended series of lives. 
 
 It is obvious to all that some animals are much 
 more intelligent, and approximate more in shape 
 toward man, than others, enough so that where the 
 lowest order of the human connects with the highest 
 of the orang-outang and ape species, the dissimilarity 
 is not greater thpu the difference between the lowest 
 and the highest of the human species. That so great a 
 change may be wrought as making the step of ascen- 
 sion at the period when transmutation takes place is 
 not at all miraculous, for beneath our eyes we witness 
 greater transmutations which scarcely occasion a com- 
 ment. Even the egg under a state of incubation tun- 
 ing to a chicken is a far greater change, and you apply 
 this principle to every creature coming into life while 
 in embryotic state, and it is far greater and more won- 
 derful than the one to which we hav cited your atten- 
 
CORRESPONDING MENTAL PROCLIVITIES. 125 
 
 tion. The same life principle that exists in the frog 
 doubtless existed in the tadpole, yet the spirit of the 
 tadpole has developed into a new body — that of the 
 frog, which is of entirely different habits. The many 
 such evidences that nature has placed before us it 
 would require much time and space to mention, but 
 the mind of a thinking person once directed to this 
 fact, it will discover more examples in proof of our 
 statement than we hav time or room to offer. 
 
 There are but few persons but what believe in the 
 perpetuation of the soul beyond this sphere, but the 
 nature of their future states, for each person seems to 
 hav an idea of his own, is almost ludicrous to con- 
 template, and when the inconsistencies of their various 
 views are portrayed, some feel almost angry at "being 
 robbed of so pleasant a delusion; but the facts that 
 nature's evidences thoroughly demonstrate are so 
 close that they are continually overlooked, and only 
 with the utmost difficulty can be pointed out. It re- 
 minds of the picture puzzle, representing the head 
 and face of a person, but executed so in the style of a 
 wild and rocky landscape that it was almost impossi- 
 ble to point out the design to a stranger to the pict- 
 ure, but when once seen it appeared astonishing why 
 everybody else could not also see it. 
 
 There is a peculiar sensation that everything feels 
 that has consciousness, occasioned from the peculiar 
 effect of the atmospheric or fluid pressure bearing 
 constantly upon the outer surface af the body, and 
 the corresponding pressure in the body bearing con- 
 stantly outward. The surface pressure of the atmos- 
 phere on a man of medium stature equals about thirty 
 thousand pounds, and the pressure when in water is 
 much greater than that of the air. This creates a 
 
126 
 
 normal effect upon every living creature, making each 
 to clearly realize the space it occupies, and answers 
 in a degree as a guard and protector, and givs each 
 to understand the nature of its existence. The organi- 
 zation is a piece of natural machinery, the life-force, 
 the power that drives it, and the mentality, the qual- 
 ity that guides it where to go. The body is con- 
 stantly changing; it is sometimes in a state of normal 
 action, and sometimes in a low depressed condition, 
 and all conditions of modification attend it; and the 
 manifestation of life-force will always be found to 
 correspond with the physical conditions There is 
 not a muscle that moves, or the action of a pulsation, 
 or the slightest motion, either voluntary or involun- 
 tary, without it changes, in some slight degree, eyery 
 particle of matter that assists to make up the physi- 
 cal system, and the continual action that the body is 
 undergoing is constantly manufacturing thought, so 
 that every creature that livs is constantly dying, and 
 also perpetually taking on new life. Therefore one 
 thought can never be thought but once, for, to the 
 degree that the body changes, to that same degree 
 the mind must change, and any particular idea recur- 
 ring to mind will always be clothed in a little different 
 garment, or in some way be blended with thoughts 
 which were not before associated with it. Conse- 
 quently one event can never be lived but once, how- 
 ever closely thousands of others may shade upon it. 
 Every change that takes place in the expression of 
 the face imperativly must be associated with a differ- 
 ent thought. Not a foot can be moved, not a finger 
 can be raised, nor the slightest change in the attitude 
 occur without a corresponding effect upon the men- 
 tality. In order to demonstrate this fact, try and 
 
CORRESPONDING MENTAL PROCLIVITIES. 127 
 
 think of the same thing twice, and if you hav power 
 to take cognizance of your own thoughts you will 
 find that the second time you will associate something 
 else with it; then next to test how the attitude 
 changes the impression of feeling and thought, first 
 lean your head to one side and attempt to solve a 
 difficult problem, after which try with your head bal- 
 anced upright, and watch the result, and see if there 
 is any advantage in being level-headed. 
 
 It is well understood that all of the emotions are 
 represented by corresponding facial expressions or 
 physical demonstrations; for these various emotions 
 are what excite the nerves with the electric force, to 
 act upon the facial muscles so as to designate every 
 shade of feeling realized at the soul's center. There 
 are certain expressions which are indicativ of certain 
 feelings, and where the emotions are complex, they 
 all manifest their grievances, proportionately as they 
 are felt, by telegraphing the same to the several neg- 
 ativ poles of nerves excited, which ramify externally, 
 and occasion a corresponding action of facial muscles, 
 thereby representing the inner feeling to the outer 
 world. We would enjoy giving a short treatis on 
 " facial index/' but the subject is so intricate and 
 difficult to demonstrate in writing, and so easily 
 studied from the never-ending examples in nature, 
 that we would direct the reader to the actual demon- 
 strations which forever present themselvs, in prefer- 
 ence to anything we could offer. 
 
 To affect the positiv end of the nerve poles, which 
 is at the seat of thought, affects proportionately the 
 negativ, which governs the facial expression; then 
 since the electric force can act one way as well as the 
 other, to affect the negativ end by any mechanical or 
 
128 nature's harmony. 
 
 natural means must in a degree affect the emotions 
 of the soul. Many persons laugh when they do not 
 know what they are laughing about, for the reason 
 that their faces get into a convenient shape for laugh- 
 ing, and it perpetuates the emotion. It is often the 
 Same with children in crying, and angry expressions 
 will prompt angry feelings; and feigned sorrow will 
 for the moment create sorrow. The emotion of fear, 
 wonder, jealousy, indifference, love, self-importance, 
 and every inward feeling, is as clearly written by na- 
 ture on the face as it is felt at the soul's center. The 
 ability to read nature's handwriting, with many, is 
 very limited, but those who hav turned their atten- 
 tion to the reading of the emotions by physiognomi- 
 cal indications will readily concede to the facts of the 
 foregoing. Some persons are mentally more obtuse 
 than others, and some are able to conceal certain 
 feelings by the art of deception, but all of these feel- 
 ings are also portrayed on the countenance. 
 
 Even though grotesque features are made, the 
 whole mind is comparativly acted upon. The actor 
 of comedy or tragedy being aware of this fact, he en- 
 deavors by art to incorporate the genuin reality in 
 his soul for the time being, in order to giv a good 
 demonstration of effect upon the minds of the spec- 
 tators. We are acquainted with dramatic performers 
 who state that in acting some sensational parts they 
 hav cried or felt as genuinly terrified, or realized all 
 the depth of emotions that ever the original character 
 of the tragedy could hav experienced. This expres- 
 tion and manner is what robes fiction in the garb of 
 reality, and creates an effect almost equal to the gen- 
 uin scene. 
 
 The attitude that a person assumes when the mind 
 
 
CORRESPONDING MENTAL PROCLIVITIES. 129 
 
 is under the influence of any particular emotions of 
 thought or meditation is a subject of great import- 
 ance to the detectiv, sculptor, and painter. The pic- 
 ture painted to represent the ungoverned impulse of 
 anger, portrays the person in an attitude of wild in- 
 dignation, with all the terror of his combativ force 
 exercised to its most heated ardency, and even a 
 child would readily discern what passion was in the 
 representation manifested. The same principle holds 
 good in relation to all the different traits of character, 
 and you will find it nicely illustrated by artistic skill 
 all over the world, and in nature clearly everywhere 
 displayed by actual demonstration. 
 
 It being a well settled fact that the mind directs 
 the body, the character of the thoughts evidently 
 must establish the character of the actions. The per- 
 son who is delicate and tasty in his mentality must 
 necessarily manifest the same in all he does, and his 
 peculiar characteristics are in a degree represented 
 by every act he performs. If a person be a reasoner, 
 he cannot utter a sentence without it carries with it 
 a cast of rationality, clearly showing the index to his 
 character; while, on the other hand, if he is awkward 
 in thought, and given to delusions, every action 
 and manifestation of feeling will either lack precision, 
 be clouded and indefinit, or meet with no satisfactoiy 
 result. 
 
 Graceful feelings, graceful manners, and each action meets success, 
 For the labor of the genius doth his faculties express ; 
 While the clumsy awkward fellow blunders blindly on his way, 
 His soul forever guides at random, ever leading him astray 
 
 See the man in meditation, bowing with the weight of thought, 
 Watch his manner, mild and silent, witness what his mind has 
 wrought ; 
 
130 nature's harmony. 
 
 Note how different the Indian, glancing quickly there and here, 
 Guided by his keen perception, governed by malicious fear. 
 
 Watch the manner of that lady, delicate in her physique, 
 Fine and exquisit in feeling, taking pride in being weak. 
 How unlike that bouncing Betty, strong and burly in her mien, 
 Moving with unpolished action, like some ponderous machine. 
 
 See that faint and silly lover, with insipid weakness shown ; 
 How disgusting, lolling over her he fears to call his own. 
 Compare him with the gallant suitor, with some stamina of mind, 
 Noble, brave, and independent, firm, yet amiable and kind. 
 
 See the miser grasp his money with a visage hell might shame ; 
 Watch his glassy eye, suspicious, feasting on his treasured claim ; 
 Now behold the human features of whom gladly would bestow, 
 Comforts to his needy neighbor, kindness to all creatures show. 
 
 It makes the countenance look noble, for his soul is full of love: 
 And the blessings shower upon him from the unknown source 
 above. 
 
 See that face of awful sorrow pictured from that woman's mind; 
 The last of her sweet darling children, all unto the tomb con- 
 signed. 
 Look the other way and witness mirth-distorting features wild ; 
 How unlike the weeping mother, mourning o'er her dying child. 
 
 More examples we might offer, more emotions to portray, 
 Showing how the feelings govern, for the features to obey. 
 But the subject being easy, it is needless to prolong 
 This department any further in the limits of our song. 
 
 Each creature has its natural range of thought, and 
 certain faculties adapting it to its sphere, many of 
 which are common to man. The first life principle 
 is the consciousness of being, the second is the anxi- 
 ety to sustain that being, the third is the desire to 
 perpetuate the species, and the fourth is the dual 
 feeling of sexual love. These faculties are common 
 to all creatures, except to those of spontaneous pro- 
 duction, which come into life without any regular 
 
CORRESPONDING MENTAL PROCLIVITIES. 131 
 
 course of procreation. The love of progeny is an 
 earlier principle manifested by the creature than that 
 of sexual love, and is an inherent quality that nature 
 implants in order to stimulate sexual desires. In the 
 perverted nature of humanity this principle seems to 
 be generally reversed. 
 
 As the lower classes ascend, new traits develop, 
 raising the creature in the scale of intellectuality, 
 calling for still further perquisits to facilitate the on- 
 ward march, and along with the actual necessities 
 come the desires for comfort which relates to a higher 
 state of happiness, bearing with it fostered hopes of 
 to-morrow. Being inspired to look to the future for 
 greater enjoyment, resting a faith on fond anticipa- 
 tion, the creature verges into humanity. How far 
 this feeling extends beneath the sphere of man we 
 hav no means of ascertaining, but it is strongly allied 
 to the faculty of memory, and is doubtlessly realized 
 in a degree by some of the quadrupeds, but can in 
 no way be manifested. Another trait exercised in a 
 degree by some of the animals is that of treasuring up 
 the means for coming necessities. This reaches t© 
 their seeking a place to burrow or of protection, and 
 a competence of food for a short period of time. The 
 squirrels provide for winter, and the bees lay up their 
 stock of winter provisions, also a few other species of 
 animals and insects. In man there are no limits to 
 his acquisitivness, yet this faculty springs from the 
 principle of self-preservation in both man and animal, 
 but proportionally as the latter is beneath the former 
 its wants are more easily supplied. 
 
 The harmony of musical sounds is displayed in 
 some classes of birds as a source of rendering them- 
 selvs agreeable to others of their kind, and, although 
 
132 nature's harmony. 
 
 a natural propensity, is greatly subject to cultivation. 
 A love for music is expressed by many animals that 
 hav no faculty to execute it. Therefore this trait, 
 like others, not only keeps in pace with the develop- 
 ment of the organs for the execution of music nat- 
 ural to the creature, but is subject to being culti- 
 vated and often felt with a degree of pleasure in those 
 that hav no power to make it. 
 
 The power of communication among the animals no 
 doubt extends much further than has generally been 
 supposed, and their abilities to understand each 
 other in many respects to the extent that their nat- 
 ural language requires is doubtless very clear. 
 
 There also other faculties possessed by man which 
 are manifested in some degree by some of the ani- 
 mals that we might mention, but we hav given the 
 foregoing examples merely to show the mental rela- 
 tions existing between all animated natures, and that 
 all were ultimately of one originality, and that all are 
 on their way upward to the grand acme of intellectu- 
 ality. 
 
 The object of living man" only realizes as being for 
 this temporary happiness, but nature has a higher 
 object to attain, which fact seems to be universally 
 overlooked. Life is just exactly what it is shown to 
 be through the very demonstrations of birth, devel- 
 opment, and death, and the object is clearly displayed, 
 for when we hav reached to a certain degree and ac- 
 complished our mission, nature receives us for a new 
 mission which the operations of this sphere fully por- 
 tray. And so goes life; while a tide of the new is 
 continually pouring forth, the old is passing away. 
 And so it is with all animation, and what is it for ? 
 The universal laws at work are in earnest, and the 
 

 CORRESPONDING MENTAL PROCLIVITIES. 133 
 
 spirit of nature is fooling away no time. She has a 
 purpose to accomplish, and that is a higher object 
 than merely for a creature to liv and die. If that 
 were all that is meant by the grand operations of a 
 universe of worlds, who can help but remark that 
 nature has strained hard to accomplish so little? But 
 it is not all, for as the elemental substances are ever- 
 lasting, so also are the living identites; and no more 
 can the life of the least insect be annihilated than 
 that all the life-force and spiritual power of the uni- 
 verse be rendered extinct. Nature does not forever 
 labor for the accomplishment of but one thing, and 
 if animation was born but for to die, and this was 
 the sequel of it all, then one generation would suffice, 
 nor would she continue generation after generation 
 merely for no other object than the amusement of re- 
 peating. But there is a higher object, and one that 
 is easy to be seen. Onward and upward is the order; 
 and through the series of lives that each soul has ex- 
 perienced, man has reached the present standard of 
 intellectual perfection that he now sustains; and when 
 he turns and looks back over the path he has trav- 
 eled, and views the various transmutations he has 
 undergone, he can behold the flocks and herds and 
 swarms on the upward march, occupying the same 
 sjmere to-day that man occupied many thousands of 
 years ago. 
 
 You tell us that an ape is an ape, a horse is a horse, 
 and a dog is a dog, and they were so four' thousand 
 years ago. We admit this fact, and even acknowledge 
 that some of them may not be any higher to-day than 
 they were then; but we would ask if by domestica- 
 tion any of these lower animals absorbs any human 
 proclivities, and if it would be natural for the mental 
 
134 nature's harmony. 
 
 and physical developments that they receive through 
 human instruction to raise the standard of their men- 
 tality ? If so, then we will here state that the soul 
 identity that survives the natural body assumes the 
 form of a globe, and at the time when transmutation 
 takes place, which is between death and reproduction, 
 on the basis of natural laws, this identity may become 
 intermingled in the physical blood of man to form a 
 human organization for an earthly sphere. 
 
 It is obvious that it would be useless for any life in 
 the organization to exist, unless some object was ac- 
 complished by it, and is it not apparent that nature 
 can deal with small things as judiciously as with 
 large ? and if so, when we hav thoroughly canvassed 
 the grandeur of solar systems, and carefully studied 
 the strict economy displayed in all her works, need 
 we doubt the possibilities of her laws of evolution, 
 resulting in all we hav pointed out ? Would it not be 
 folly and useless if when this transient course were 
 finished, no benefits were to be derived from it either 
 to nature or ourselvs ? And do not we see those 
 above us, and also those below us, and is it not rea- 
 sonable to question how that this came to be ? Then 
 again, if we liv but to die and die but to liv, and so 
 continue from generation to generation, what is the 
 final end to be ? "We must reply to this that there is 
 no final end; but the time will come when the har- 
 vest will be ripe on earth, at which time the spiritual 
 force of this planet will be transported, by certain 
 natural laws, to an orb of grander resources, and the 
 frozen elements of the earth will continue to glide 
 onward in their orbit, till at last the sun shall receive 
 them to vivify his energies for the production of new 
 worlds. 
 
THE NERVOUS SYSTEM AND LIFE PRINCIPLES. 135 
 
 THE NERVOUS SYSTEM AND LIFE PRINCI- 
 PLES. 
 
 In order to comprehend the true nature of an ani- 
 mated being, the cause of consciousness, and the 
 reason why the intellectual force is based upon phys- 
 ical developments, we must understand the action of 
 the nervous system; for upon it the whole organiza- 
 tion of body as well as the production of mentality 
 depends. 
 
 We will not here attempt to dissect the physical 
 system, or name the numerous divisions and almost 
 innumerable subdivisions of the nervous tissue, and 
 the parts to which they ramify, but in a general sense 
 attempt to show the laws and forces controlling its 
 action. 
 
 The nervous system consists of the cerebrum, cer- 
 ebellum, medulla oblongata, the spinal column, and 
 their various branches; and all together constitute 
 the vital center and the numerous conductors distrib- 
 uted to every portion of the body. 
 
 The brain is the great reservoir of nervous force, 
 and is to the whole constitution what the boiler with 
 its steam pressure is to the mill. Here is where the 
 electric force it concentrated after being generated 
 in the body from the food we eat, the air we breathe, 
 and the water we drink. These resources supply the 
 blood, which renews the nervous tissue as well as the 
 vital and motiv. You will therefore see that the op- 
 eration by which the nervous force is supplied to the 
 brain is like unto the process of keeping up steam in 
 the boiler, in order to make the mill go; and the ex- 
 penditure of tne nervous force, by rendering action 
 
136 nature's harmony. 
 
 to the body, is like unto the exhaustion of the steam 
 whereby the machinery of the mill is kept running. 
 
 The medulla oblongata, being the most central 
 point of nervous action, is the great distributor of the 
 electric force through the system, and corresponds 
 with the steam engin, which brings to bear all the 
 steam force in the boiler upon the main-shaft, from 
 which it is distributed by the various attachments 
 and counter-attachments to the different sections of 
 machinery in the mill. 
 
 As it requires a belt, friction, or segment bearing, 
 in order to convey the force exerted upon the main- 
 shaft to any other part of the machinery, so in like 
 manner it requires a nerve extending from the 
 great center of nervous force as an electro-motor con- 
 ductor, in order that any volition of consciousness 
 may be exerted to either contract or relax any mus- 
 cle; and as it requires the action of the main-shaft in 
 order to run any portion of the mill, so, also, it re- 
 quires the action of the nervous center in order to 
 create the slightest volition of the will. 
 
 In the business of the mill, there is a jurisdiction 
 controling its running, but the mill has no knowledge 
 of what it is laboring to accomplish, and in like man- 
 ner nature's machinery is controlled and kept in op- 
 eration without any exertion on the part of its own 
 mentality. Nature prompts all animation to seek its 
 subsistence, not only furnishing the requisit material 
 but providing the creature with the power of obtain- 
 ing it; but the natural action of circulation and res- 
 piration being involuntary, they are not necessarily 
 controlled by thought. 
 
 As the mill is not the maker of itself, it therefore 
 is not the possessor of itself, and this in ]ike manner 
 
THE NERVOUS SYSTEM AND LIFE PRINCIPLES. 137 
 
 applies to man; for as the mill could do nothing 
 without man's aid, neither could man without nature's 
 aid, and as the mill must depend upon external influ- 
 ences in order to run, so also must man in order to liv. 
 
 All voluntary action is from the effect of thought, 
 and all thought producing voluntary action arises 
 wholly from external influences, or that external to 
 the mind. The spirit of consciousness, being a passiv 
 principle, only acts as it is acted upon. Consequently 
 if all external objects could be removed, and all re- 
 membrance of such objects obliterated, then nothing 
 could be known or realized; and this idea is equiva- 
 lent to the fact that if the consciousness could be 
 obliterated and all sense of realization gone, then to 
 such appreciation it would be the same as that all the 
 universe were stricken out of existence. 
 
 If the soul before being robed with mortality, as 
 the conditions of this sphere indicate, were conscious 
 of its existence, then it must hav been a life-germ, 
 and it would be plausible to suppose that it was an 
 eternal principle of vitality acting subservient to a 
 higher spiritual influence. It would therefore be 
 passiv to the conditions surrounding, and only moved 
 by the forces acting upon it. 
 
 From the above it will be seen that the life-germ, 
 although conscious, has no jurisdiction over what 
 form it may take on, or when or where be ushered 
 into this sphere of life. As it was unable to control 
 the circumstances of being ushered or forced into 
 this life, the consciousness is still left subject and 
 wholly passiv to the surrounding influences for the 
 development of the intellectual nature. To illustrate, 
 a child born among the cannibals is submitted to 
 such society, and it is needless to say that through 
 
138 
 
 the impetus of its inborn nature and the customs of 
 the people, that offspring would naturally follow in 
 the trail of its ancestry; hence Indian parents, Indian 
 children; heathen people, heathen posterity; and in- 
 telligent communities, illustrious aspirations. 
 
 Now from the foregoing it is evident that the mind 
 has but a partial jurisdiction over the body, and what 
 controlling influence it has comes wholly from the 
 source of external objects, conditions, and circum- 
 stances. The stock of images received by the intel- 
 lectual eye may subsequently permit of a certain 
 range for the deduction of ideas, but all of these im- 
 pressions were but the result of images previously re- 
 ceived to the mind. Consequently, while the mind 
 may illusivly realize itself as able to control the cir- 
 cumstances, in reality it is wholly indebted for its or- 
 igin and development to the control of circumstances. 
 
 But if all the ideas of the mind result from 
 external objects, then it might be questioned as to 
 just what effect an object must hav in order to create 
 a thought ? "We would reply that it is the picture 
 or images of objects, either real or imaginary, brought 
 to bear upon the nervous center, through some of the 
 five sensorial channels, or else through certain im- 
 pressions not easily to be demonstrated, which create 
 all the ideas of the mind. Any outlines, image, .or 
 object, whether real or imaginary, when brought to 
 bear upon the mind, is transformed into an idea, and 
 the means by which they are conveyed to the under- 
 standing, must be purely of an electric nature. The 
 effect of an idea first givs action to the nervous sys- 
 tem by the transmission of electric force either 
 through the sense of seeing, hearing, feeling, smelling 
 or tasting, and then reflects upon the muscular sys- 
 
THE NERVOUS SYSTEM AND LIFE PRINCIPLES. 139 
 
 tern, by way of the motor nerves, proportionately as 
 the nervous center is excited. For illustration, a per- 
 son seeing his house on fire is electrified from the ef- 
 fect of such a scene; the excitement of mind acts 
 upon the motor nerves and givs a corresponding ac- 
 tion to the muscular system, and vigor is displayed 
 in the attempt to put out the fire. Again, a person 
 may feel in a very pleasant and passiv state of mind 
 and be enjoying the pleasures of brilliant prospects, 
 when placidly he may reach and take up the daily, 
 just fresh from the press, and read of a railroad dis- 
 aster with the name appearing of his wife, son, or 
 daughter, either dead or suffering the horrors of the 
 wreck. The effect upon both mind and body is in- 
 stantly spasmodic, yet he has seen nothing to occasion 
 it but simple ink impressed in a certain way upon in- 
 nocent white paper; but he receives an idea which 
 has pictured all the terrors of the disaster upon his 
 imagination, consequently the result. 
 
 Through the sense of seeing the visible objects are 
 made known to us, but it is a question of doubt as to 
 whether the various objects are seen in positions they 
 occupy, or if a representation of them is only realized 
 in the camera obscura of the intellectual reflector. If 
 the latter be true, then it is clear that the mind is but 
 a negativ representing the positiv, which in reality is 
 never seen. For illustration, a large, pure, and per- 
 fect mirror will reflect the objects or landscapes to 
 such a degree of perfection that the beholder posi- 
 tioned just right will be unable to tell the real from 
 the reflected scenes; yet while he unknowingly may 
 gaze upon the representation, believing it to be true 
 scenery of nature, he is only looking to the distance 
 
140 
 
 NATUBES HARMONY. 
 
 of a few feet against a thin plate of glass with a 
 quicksilver coating behind it. 
 
 In relation to our sense of hearing, it is obvious 
 that only the effect of material commotion ia conveyed 
 to the auditory nerve whereby we are made conscious 
 of the clashes and collisions vibrating upon the at- 
 mosphere, instead of any actual material arising from 
 such effects ever reaching the nervous center. This, 
 you will see, is another provision by which the spir- 
 itual nature receives a knowledge of the material ac- 
 tion surrounding it, and also an evidence that in or- 
 der to constitute the real it is necessary to include 
 the ideal. 
 
 The sense of feeling arises from the action of the 
 nerves of sensation, which constitute a system for 
 that purpose, as has already been explained. These 
 nerves act as conductors, delivering messages to the 
 consciousness, revealing to the understanding the na- 
 ture of whatever the body comes in contact with. 
 Through this agency tbe mind is enabled to 
 guard the body from injuries and direct it to ben- 
 efits. Feeling is an effect upon the nerves which acts 
 by degrees of intensity. That which in moderation 
 produces pleasure in intensity creates pain. For il- 
 lustration, to place the ends of the fingerr upon a 
 smooth table and move them gently back and forward 
 causes a pleasant sensation, but violently moving 
 them in this way occasions friction, generating heat, 
 and consequently creates pain. In this way all tli3 
 various phases of touch may be realized. Thus, what 
 when lightly touched appears soft when more vio- 
 lently touched or struck appears hard, because of the 
 increased intensity. Pain is an indication of physi- 
 cal injury, for something must come in contact with 
 
THE NERVOUS SYSTEM AND LIFE PRINCIPLES. 141 
 
 the person which injures before the pain is felt, but 
 it is hardly probable that any real substance must 
 come in contact with the nervous center, or be trans- 
 mitted to the brain, before the consciousness is sus- 
 ceptible of the physical damage being done. The 
 ringer or toe, or any part of the person that is hurt, 
 is wholly unable to realize the fact, but receives the 
 information by an e^e^tric message sent to the ner- 
 vous center, and not until a reply to that information 
 is returned does the injured part recoil. But it is not 
 the tangible alone that can bruise and mangle, for an 
 entire exclusion of all material, could a part or the 
 whole of the body be submitted to such a test, doubt- 
 less would be still more disastrous. For illustration, 
 a perfect vacuum, or as nearly so as it is possible for 
 matter to approximate in the heavens, as in the dis- 
 charge of electricity, occasioning thunder and light- 
 n'ng, even the power of the partial vacuum upon the 
 surrounding material is doubtless far greater than 
 though a bolt of solid steel of equal magnitude were 
 projected with the same lightning rapidity. This is 
 to show that a perfect nothing would be far more de- 
 monstrate upon everything around it, than so much 
 space occupied with the strongest material. A finger 
 placed upon an anvil and struck a heavy blow with 
 the hammer would be badly mashed, but if it were 
 possible to submit the finger to a perfect vacuum it 
 would le instantly obliterated, and completely ethe- 
 realized to occupy the space of the vacuum. 
 
 As the senso of feeling is purely electric, the nerves 
 of sensation are most acute where thev are brought 
 most into action. In the human, the ends of the fin- 
 gers being most convenient to act as a testing agent 
 for the mind, they are therefore the most acutely de- 
 
142 nature's harmony. 
 
 veloped to the sense of touch. However, there are cer- 
 tain delicate parts, the eye, for example, which is very 
 sensitiv to foreign matter, which serves as a protec- 
 tion, but the mind cannot judge correctly as to the 
 kind of speck, mote, or fiber offering the intrusion; 
 while the ends of the fingers, in many cases, will even 
 serve in the place of vision, and with those deprived 
 of eyesight may become so acutely developed as 
 to enable the person to read from raised letters with 
 great facility, and even judge wi^h accuracy the ma- 
 terial and texture of fabrics, and some under a test 
 hav told correctly the colors of various kinds of cloth 
 and also the shades of different paintings. In touch- 
 ing the ends of the fingers to any object, an exchange 
 of electricity from the person to the ocject, and the 
 object to the person, instantly takes place. If the 
 object be a good conductor, the electrical effect ex- 
 tends to every part of it with lightning quickness 
 while that which comes from the object to the ends 
 of the fingers goes with lightning rapidity to the seat 
 of consciousness. The natural application of the 
 s^nse of feeling shows the necessity of such a provis- 
 ion in order to fill the requirements of men as well as 
 all other animated creatures. Animals, however, hav 
 the nerves of sensation the most acutely developed 
 at the nose instead of the foot, for the reason that it 
 is made to come in contact with all the animal sub- 
 sists on, in the absence of hands for transporting the 
 food to the mouth; yet there are some exceptions to 
 this, as is the case with squirrels, apes, and monkeys, 
 while the elephant is provided with a long trunk, 
 which is but an extension of the nasal appendage, 
 such being an absolute necessity, since without it the 
 animal would hav no means of getting his food to his 
 
THE NERVOUS SYSTEM AND LIEE PRINCIPLES. 143 
 
 mouth. The elephant's trunk, though apparently a 
 cumbersome organ, yet from the use to which it is 
 applied, the nerves of sensation are developed to a 
 wonderful degree of acuteness. 
 
 Animals and insects with habits which keep them 
 constantly secluded in darkness are never favored 
 with the organs of vision, from the fact of there being 
 no application. Such animals at all portions of the 
 bodily surface are peculiarly act tb to the sense of 
 feeling. For example, such a creature, when exposed 
 to the light, having no eyes, would be as much in 
 darkness as though in a dungeon, and yet they most 
 vehemently manifest the change; and although the 
 elements of their atmosphere may not perceptibly 
 differ from those of the light, still the creature so sub- 
 jected in a short time will die. This is probably oc- 
 casioned by the light's diffusing the electric force 
 which the creature otherwise would imbibe. The 
 mole, particularly the species that has come under 
 our observation, is wholly devoid of eyes; and it livs 
 constantly in the ground and in total darkness. The 
 same encaged in the light, although fed with its nat- 
 ural food and supplied with fresh earth, can liv but a 
 short time. The fish found in the caves where they 
 are constantly in darkness show signs of great uneas- 
 iness as soon as ushered to the light, although wholly 
 devoid of the organs of vision. They hav an acute- 
 ness of feeling doubtless sufficient to answer in the 
 absence of eyes, as it is wonderful to notice with what 
 facility and swiftness they will shoot between the 
 crevices of rocks, seldom coming in contact with 
 them, as if an electric effect of the rocks or other 
 substances of obstruction were clearly felt upon the 
 body as it approximates near. No doubt that if 
 
144 nature's harmony. 
 
 these various creatures of darkness were grad- 
 ually accustomed to the light until hardened to its 
 effects, and so kept for a series of generations, they 
 would eventually grow less acute of surface sensation 
 and at the same time a development of eyes would 
 take place. 
 
 The sense of taste, also of smell, constitute the two 
 other channels through which external objects appeal 
 to our reason, but it is not any more reasonable to 
 suppose that either the gustatory or olfactory nerves 
 convey more than the effect of substance to the seat 
 of thought, the same as those already mentioned, in- 
 stead of the substance itself. And yet how perfectly 
 the mind can realize the slightest shades of difference 
 among the numerous kinds of substances which ap- 
 peal to these senses. Now while the gustatory nerves 
 act as a perfect guide to the unperverted appetite, 
 they are conduciv to the pleasure afforded by appro- 
 priate food adapted to nourish the system, and as 
 much may be said in behalf of the olfactory nerves. 
 The rich savor from the cooking of wholesome food, 
 arising into the air, appeals to the famishing stomach, 
 through the agency of the olfactory nerves, as the 
 smell of fresh meat to the hungry lion; while the nox- 
 ious vapors arising, which if inhaled largely would poi- 
 son the blood, the stomach manifests its aversion to by 
 way of the olfactory nerves, which carry the mes- 
 sage to the consciousness, with the information of 
 the poisonous intrusion, which information is con- 
 veyed to the stomach by other nerves, when against 
 such intrusion the stomach revolts. So it will be seen 
 that the contrasting principles of pain and pleasure 
 are very delicately associated with all the nerves rep- 
 resenting the different senses, and the more acutely 
 
 
THE NERVOUS SYSTEM AND LIEE PRINCIPLES. 145 
 
 developed are these nerves the more keenly will be 
 the mind to discriminate the character of the material 
 coming in contact with them. Therefore people or 
 animals most accustomed to testing the nature of dif- 
 ferent substances by any particular sense, of course, 
 are most reliable to judge in that way. 
 
 Now here are a few points to consider. First, in 
 the nature of things, an actual principle of conscious- 
 ness must exist, for, as we hav shown in a preceding 
 chapter, without it the existence of all else would 
 be useless. Next, there must be some means to con- 
 vey a knowledge of things surrounding us to our 
 consciousness, else there could be no development of 
 intellectuality; hence the requisition of the senses. 
 Life and consciousness may be felt in certain species 
 of the lowest animation, including the acephalous 
 orders, without the application of the senses, but 
 their life-dream is passed without the power of 
 thought, and unconscious to all else except themselvs. 
 An electric center is sustained in their bodies by an 
 absorbent quality that matter possesses, but no nerve 
 conductors are distributed for that purpose. Their 
 sustenance depends upon the chemical affinity be- 
 tween their bodies and the surrounding material 
 rendering to their growth. The same is displayed in 
 the formation of the shells of molluscan types, inclos- 
 ing and protecting the development of the inner life. 
 
 Next to consider is the object attained by Nature, 
 regarding her as an intellectual principle, in the 
 progress of her physical and intellectual develop- 
 ments. We hav already made reference to this, but 
 desire to investigate still further. Although Nature 
 may be just as rich with all these forces existing as 
 
146 nature's harmony. 
 
 one great ocean of spirit, yet as there could be no 
 action in an infinit unity of power, the universal ju- 
 risdiction can only be manifested through infinit 
 divisions and subdivisions of divine authority, and 
 yet all acting in one universal harmony. That there 
 is a power of supreme intelligence we will not ques- 
 tion, for we know that out of the infinit fountain 
 comes forth all appreciation of understanding; for, 
 were this not so, then the universe would lack this 
 most important principle for which purpose matter 
 only exists. If all matter and all mind could mani- 
 fest their power only as a unity, then all matter would 
 move relativly together, which would be equivalent 
 to no action at all, and all mind move therewith 
 without any possible opposition, which would be 
 equivalent to a grand time with nobody to it. But 
 with the divisions and subdivisions of life and 
 thought it givs counteraction, storms and wild com- 
 motion, and while everything is seeking its rest, 
 everything else is preventing any rest being had. 
 Therefore, instead of there being but one supreme 
 power of intelligence, acting eternally for its own 
 glory, there are innumerable centralized existences, 
 each as important to itself as the great power 
 that rules the universe is to itself. Each of these 
 beings and creatures, though some so small the glass 
 cannot discern them, holds a life within itself as dear 
 to its realization of existence as the whole universe 
 is in relation to it; and if it were possible that the 
 spirit entity of even the smallest of these creatures 
 could be rendered extinct, then there could be no 
 power to reproduce it, any more than though it were 
 the greatest consciousness that pervades in nature. 
 But this realization of being is quite different from 
 
THE NERVOUS SYSTEM AND LIFE PRINCIPLES. 147 
 
 any of the senses through which the knowledge of 
 external objects is conveyed to it. The insect may 
 feel as intensely that it livs as man, and struggle as 
 vehemently to flee from danger. And we see that 
 Nature has shown no partiality in letting one liv for- 
 ever in this sphere any more than the other, but even 
 find that some of the lower orders are favored with 
 the greater longevity. Then, assuming as a fact that 
 one is perpetuated beyond this sphere of life, it is 
 positivly an assumption that all must be. We hav 
 already shown that man is but a product from an 
 animalcule, and even though it requires millions to 
 combine to form the embryotic life, yet it is a posi- 
 tiv proof that the animalcule has its future. But 
 from this course of reasoning we hav not so good 
 evidence that man livs beyond the present; still, the 
 analogy is a plausible reason that he does. But 
 while this may be so, it is obvious that when a sep- 
 aration of soul and body takes place, at that instant 
 all of the senses are gone, for the reason that there is 
 no application for them, and no organs to work upon 
 even though there were. But you see that this is a 
 heavy stroke upon all idea of futurity. However, let 
 those who dote so largely upon it not get anxious, as 
 the way is still clear, as I will endeavor to show 
 you by and by. 
 
 That the life of each creature is supreme in impor- 
 tance to itself, I think no one will deny, when we 
 bring the idea home; for although one may be far 
 more useful and important to the world than an- 
 other, still the inferior is superior when considered 
 by himsef. This is an important lesson to consider 
 when regarding the rights of our fellow-beings, but 
 somewhat off from our subject. It shows, however, 
 
148 nature's harmony. 
 
 that we are but a sample life, and in this respect on 
 a parallel with all other living things, therefore the 
 mere magnitude of body does not necessarily add tq 
 this principle of being. 
 
 The only way that a creature can rank itself with 
 others is by comparison; hence if one should liv 
 wholly secluded from all others it might regard itself 
 either the greatest or smallest of all, or even the only 
 one there was. But associated with others, it soon 
 learns to what power it must yield, and over what it 
 holds supremacy. This principle holds good with 
 man, although he can boast of superiority over the 
 beasts, birds, fishes, and insects. Yet he is not the 
 highest in authority, for he, like the rest of animation, 
 must yield to natural law. Now those who are un- 
 willing to accept of an intelligent jurisdiction above 
 us, may vaguely ask, " Where is it? " not being able to 
 discern the physical make-up of such a power, or in 
 which such an intelligence, or rather intelligences, 
 for there are millions above us as well as millions 
 below us, may dwell. I am very glad to see that the 
 state of society is such as to reject the idea of any 
 old barbarous deity, as represented by ancient myth- 
 ology, but in leaning so heavily from it, in the assur- 
 ance of right, the question is as to whether we do not 
 go as far off of balance the other way. Man posses- 
 ses wonderful faculties, which the constituents of his 
 being, all arising out from the great fountain, hav 
 given him, but we cannot see those faculties — they 
 are principles, as we hav already said, which lie hid- 
 den, yet we attribute them all to the sphere of man, 
 because we can discern the organizations from which 
 they are manifested; but while those principles are 
 everlasting, these physical organizations are only 
 
THE NEKVOUS SYSTEM AND LITE PRINCIPLES. 149 
 
 transient, and sink to rise no more. Then whose 
 faculties were these before being received by man, 
 and whose are they after man's physical tenement 
 has gone ? Let us suppose that every atom that goes 
 to form man's physical organization were in itself a 
 living creature, possessing certain faculties adapted 
 to its sphere, and that these billions of little creatures 
 liv and die, in an instant of time, and generation 
 follows after generation, through all the period of our 
 lives; what could they know of the great creature, 
 man, whom they in the aggregate constitute, and 
 what could they understand of the attributes of his 
 nature ? Now suppose we apply this principle to the 
 aggregate of material, including the organic as well 
 as the inorganic, or what is so termed, that form the 
 constituents of a world. Then, on this basis, a world 
 or planet has the quality of thought and understand- 
 ing, as well as we; and, if so, doubtless proportion- 
 ately greater. But how can the earth think ? In re- 
 ply we would say that if our theory as to how any 
 creature or man is enabled to think be true, then, 
 upon the same conditions can a world think, for it is 
 undeniable that all electric force contained in the 
 constituents are possessed by the world in the ag- 
 gregate; and the fact of the earth's having an at- 
 tractiv center is evidence that she has an electric 
 center. We hav shown that in order for a person to 
 manifest any action, there must be a proportionate 
 amount of electric force exhausted to correspond 
 with the action, and the same may be said in relation 
 to the material substance of the body; and in order 
 that the person may keep living, it necessarily must 
 keep taking on an equal amount of both material 
 substance and electric force to the amount that is 
 
150 
 
 constantly being exhausted. The same principle 
 holds good in relation to the earth. It has been es- 
 timated that several millions of tons of material sub- 
 stance is annually received by the earth from the 
 surrounding heavens through which it rolls, while at 
 the same time she is receiving largely of heat, light, 
 and electricity from the sun; but in the face of 
 all this, the earth is in one sense losing con- 
 stantly instead of gaining; she is throwing off ca- 
 loric and electricity, as she travels through the low 
 temperature of the heavens, in excess of all she is re- 
 ceiving, and gradually losing her central heat, which 
 in time will exhaust all her powers. This, however, 
 is not the case with planets in a state of formation, be- 
 cause they are less dense, and sustain a higher degree 
 of caloric, especially so at the surface, from the effect 
 of chemical action occasioned from the combination 
 of all the material elements being associated together. 
 This shows how that the natural quality of caloric is 
 generated from the combination of the elements; but 
 our earth is getting past that age, as is shown by 
 the various densified strata of geological formation. 
 But according to the nature of all life, as the body 
 wanes, the intelligence matures, and so with earth in 
 her development; hence, during this period, and for 
 a few thousands of years to come, she will be lifting 
 her excellences to the surface, during which time all 
 animation and vegetation will display i,heir most 
 brilliant qualities. 
 
 But while the earth possesses her various adjunctiv 
 qualities, she is made to act as an adjunctiv princi- 
 ple of the sun ; and thus, in a like manner, the elec- 
 tric forces connect in one great social economy all 
 the attendants in the solar system with the sun. For, 
 
THE NERVOUS SYSTEM AND LIFE PRINCIPLES. 151 
 
 as e sun is the center of attraction, so also is it the 
 center of electric force, thereby establishing a still 
 greater point of jurisdiction, by which all of the sur- 
 rounding planets in this system are controled. But 
 it will be seen that the sun is constantly exhausting 
 his treasury of forces in contributing to the necessi- 
 ties of his subjects, and it is evident that unless there 
 were corresponding resources, or a natural taxation 
 upon these attendants, his brilliant and renovating 
 rays of light and heat would eventually cease to radi- 
 ate. Now, as a rule, whatever is supplied from any 
 great reservoir in time must return to that reservoir; 
 and this we find exemplified in thousands of ways, 
 and in small things as well as in great. For illus- 
 tration, the ocean is taxed to supply the land with 
 moisture, that vegetation and animation may liv, and 
 in turn the land is giving back a corresponding 
 amount through her numerous rivers and tributaries. 
 A. national metropolis may afford sufficient supplies 
 for the consumption of all her colonies, and enact 
 wholesome laws for the protection of all her people; 
 but in return she must hav an equivalent, else the 
 Dutside would flourish at the sacrifice of the center, 
 svhich eventually would be disastrous to the whole 
 commonwealth. Now, as Nature is economical with 
 aer general principles, the same justly applies to the 
 sun in relation to his subjects. Thus, while he is 
 acting as the head-center of a great celestial com- 
 monwealth, he demands the necessary resources to 
 keep up his regular supply of forces; therefore, 
 through his immense attractiv power, he calls to his 
 need the nebulous matter surrounding — the continual 
 rain of meteoric showers, the thousands of infant 
 planets which commenced their growth in too close 
 
152 nature's harmony. 
 
 a proximity to ever develop, together with the larger 
 planets as they, in their useless conditions, hav at 
 last reached their final destination — and all of this 
 material, with the same judicious economy that is 
 forever characteristic with Nature, he appropriates 
 to the most perfect advantage to supply light and 
 heat to the children of his family, which by radia- 
 tion is sent to the very outer limits of his celestial 
 fields, some of which is to be appropriated for the 
 building up of new planets. But the material of the 
 worlds that undergoes this ordeal, as they plunge 
 into the sun, is rarefied by the intensity of the heat, 
 and distributed in every direction through billions of 
 miles of space. This is a fair representation, with 
 the exception of the intensity of the heat, of how the 
 physical bodies of all animate beings are distributed 
 through space, when dissolution takes place. 
 
 Where, then, will hav gone the spirit of the earth, 
 and where then will hav gone the spirits of all the 
 other worlds ? But getting still nearer home, where 
 then will hav gone the spirits of all that liv upon the 
 earth and all of the other worlds ? Be not anxious, 
 ye who are unwilling to yield up your consciousness 
 of existence, for upon this subject we are not to be. 
 taken by storm. But wait a little longer and we. 
 shall see. 
 
 Now you see from the course of our reasoning that 
 from out of the great ocean of spirit originate all of 
 the organizations of animated nature, their identities 
 and spiritual intellectualities; and do you see that 
 there was eternally a capacity in nature to render up 
 these lives ? Then from what did they spring except 
 from the principles that nature holds in the aggre- 
 gate ? The material composing our bodies is sub- 
 
THE NERVOUS SYSTEM AND LITE PRINCIPLES. 153 
 
 ject to infinit changes of separation, combination, and 
 distribution, which changes are constantly going on 
 even in our present condition of living, and we hav 
 shown such to be the case from the smallest of living 
 creatures up to the dissolution of worlds into sun- 
 light; therefore to depend upon any special condition 
 that matter may assume, for our immortality, would 
 be a vague and ridiculous calculation. But hav we 
 not already shown that matter in the aggregate car- 
 ries with it all the principles that nature possesses, 
 from the fact that there would be no principles to 
 govern were there no material to be governed ? We 
 hav shown what the constituent principles are that 
 are associated to form the animated being, and as you 
 see we found nothing but matter and the laws by 
 which matter is controled, where, then, was the 
 spirit before the organization originated, and where 
 will it be after the organization has dissolved ? Now 
 we hav reached the bottom rock of the annihilation 
 theory, and the heaviest argument we can master 
 against the idea of immortality; but while these argu- 
 ments are based upon facts of scientific investigation, 
 still, my friends, as we do not wish to beg this ques- 
 tion, stand by me a little longer. 
 
 We hav already shown the importance of electric 
 force as a constituent of animation, also its necessity 
 in all the operations of material action; we hav like- 
 wise seen how that this agent may be collected from 
 the common atmosphere by which to charge the gal- 
 vanic battery. We hav assured you of the fact that 
 there is no more and no less of this agent in the uni- 
 verse at any one time than another, and that what 
 one thing possesses of it more than its usual share is 
 borrowed from something else which for the time 
 
154 nature's harmony. 
 
 being possesses proportionally less. Now in the con^ 
 struction of the electric battery, certain things and 
 materials are appropriated and adjusted so as to 
 create the desired results, and the larger the scale 
 upon which the apparatus is constructed, all things 
 else being comparativly equal, of course the greater 
 are the effects manifested. Then here we hav a dem- 
 onstration of power which is generated by the con- 
 centration of a force that is natural to materiality, 
 and which to a certain degree is made subservient to 
 the will of man. But destroy the battery and where 
 then has gone the agent that manifested this power ? 
 Then when the great earthly battery is destroyed 
 whence goes its enormous demonstration of power ? 
 And when these transient tenements of ours are de- 
 stroyed, whence goes the electric force from which 
 all of our actions are manifested ? 
 
 Then " dust returns to dust again," and there is no 
 organism left to retain this concentration of force. 
 Then the great question is, What is there left as the 
 nucleus of another animated body? Now we need 
 not console ourselvs to think that there is an imagi- 
 nary something which is entirely devoid of material, 
 that we may call the soul or spirit, left to soar to a 
 heaven that is made of nothing, where there is perfect 
 Elysius constituted out of nothing, and where a 
 grand nothing pervades, and everybody there to 
 enjoy it, for the inconsistency of such an idea is at 
 once apparent, consequently whatever our faith may 
 be, it is advisable to cling fast to the substantial 
 qualities of matter. But you say that in our theory 
 we hav robbed the soul of all its material, leaving it 
 nothing to cling to, and no powers for clinging ! Well 
 what are you going to do about it ? We caja see 
 
MISCELLANEOUS SUMMARY. 155 
 
 nothing except that yon let us conduct you on through 
 this darkness as we propose to do ! 
 
 But before I go further, do not call this a mysti- 
 cated subject. Do not for a moment consider, as 
 some are prone to claim, that we are laboring en- 
 tirely in a field of speculation; but, on the contrary, 
 remember that we reason from the axioms that we do 
 exist; that ice icere introduced into this sphere, do develop, 
 and shall take our departure; that there were causes which 
 produced us, and that we are living for apuipose. Now, 
 with these undeniable facts before us, this theme is 
 but equivalent to a mathematical problem, the means 
 being given by which to arrive at the end. 
 
 MISCELLANEOUS SUMMARY. 
 
 See how all creatures are endowed, allotted to this sphere, 
 With power to scent, to taste or touch, or else to see or hear, 
 To bring the knowledge of external objects to the mind, 
 Inferring that some master hand these qualities designed. 
 
 "What guides the atoms that unite to form this transient frame ? 
 Tell whence the nucleus arose, from what great source it came? 
 Teil why was ushered into life such forms of flesh and bone, 
 And tempered to the latitude of hot or frigid zone ? 
 
 Note the systematic order by which everything is run, 
 From the atoms 'neath our vision to the proud, majestic sun ! 
 From the scenes of creeks and rivers winding onward in their 
 
 course, 
 To the broad expanse of heaven, the unbounded universe; 
 How that all in seeming warfare doth in harmony conjoin, 
 As the waters of the rivers with the ocean all combine. 
 
 Go seek the smallest insect that your lenses can discern ; 
 From its modus operandi and organic parts, pray learn 
 If the hand that guides the universe, by either freak or flaws, 
 Has failed in one iota there to carry out her laws. 
 
156 nature's harmony. 
 
 Go view some monstrous animal of any kind or class ; 
 Compare it with the insect you examined with the glass, 
 And note in either creature how sublimely are displayed 
 The faculties thus furnished and adjusted to their aid. 
 
 Though richly they're provided, the economy is such, 
 Each is filled unto the measure, but is granted none too much; 
 And thus through all eternity nought ever is misplaced — 
 There is just enough material, but none to go to waste. 
 
 And is this all an accident of matter without mind? 
 And is it all the work of chance, unguided or designed ? 
 If this be so, pray tell us why that wisdom finds a place 
 In such half-savage mortals as our low developed race ? 
 
 You ask me where that power exists, if dwelling high or low? 
 And in sarcastic vagary would challenge me to show; 
 But of all Nature's forces, is there one that can be viewed ? 
 If so, then make it visible, since you hav been so shrewd. 
 
 A boy once caught a garter-snake and held it 'neath a rail, 
 And then began dissecting it, commencing at the tail. 
 And being asked his object, he replied, "I want to know 
 Just where the life is located that serves to make it go. 
 It must indeed be funny, and a dollar I will wage, 
 If I hav luck to catch it once, I'll tame it in a cage 1" 
 
 Now, he who looks no higher than a creature of his kind 
 For never-ending principles, or universal mind, 
 "Would be as inconsistent in attempting to explore 
 The infinit capacity, unlimited in power. 
 
 The evidence is everywhere, in flower, leaf, or tree, 
 In every verdant landscape and in every raging sea; 
 In every bud that blossoms, in plant, fruit, grass, or grain, 
 But while they're smiling on us, still 'tis evidence in vain. 
 
 Bright prodigies are offered us fresh from the hand divine, 
 But by us viewed regardless, as r ch jewels are by swine. 
 Above us and below us, and around on every side. 
 The proofs are clearly shining, yet they boldly are denied. 
 
 "We don't condemn the insect, though, for being weak and small, 
 Nor censure those molesting us for their unwelcome call. 
 
MISCELLANEOUS SUMMARY. 157 
 
 They know not their intrusion, nor requirements of our will, 
 Yet in our self-protection we are justified to kill. 
 
 "We, too, are like the insect m one sense, if not in more : 
 Regardless of the spheres above, unconscious of their power. 
 Our ignorance is innocence ; yet, every breath we draw, 
 "We're subject to the penalties of some offended law. 
 
 The ravenous mosquito, quite unconscious that we feel, 
 Seeks but its self-protection, and directed to its weal, 
 While peacefully partaking, like the babe upon the breast, 
 Is crushed into eternity, or painfully is pressed. 
 
 Again, the ones destroying our garden trees or vine, 
 And forced to liv by Nature, or by Nature's laws divine, 
 On food the most adapted and allotted to their claim, 
 Which innocently they partake, not feeling any blame. 
 
 Yet still we cast the poison which they fatally receive, 
 Opposing that great power which created them to liv ; 
 But Nature in all tenderness accepts them as they come, 
 And through our willing agency thus kindly calls them home. 
 
 Who knows what hvs above us, and their powers to destroy ? 
 Who knows but what in many ways their peace we may annoy? 
 Who knows but what the violence so often we hav felt, 
 Has from some higher agency, designedly been dealt? 
 
 Who knows but what infections, pestilential in their course, 
 Are from some higher agency of intellectual source ? 
 Whose poisons hav been sifted from the regions far above, 
 And yet in death they welcome us in sympathy and love ? 
 
 Just think of dire contagions which mysteriously appear, 
 Which make the dying pass to death, the living shake with fear ; 
 Or note the wars and famin which oft devastate our land, 
 And how to name their origin we scarcely understand. 
 
 Now, this is speculation but the moral don't evade; 
 How limited our power to know, with all of Nature's aid, 
 How broad the field for knowledge is that man can ne'er survey, 
 And what the attributes that guide all nature to obey? 
 
 We speak not of the heathen gods in form of man or brute, 
 Nor of imaginary ones of any kind to suit ; 
 
158 nature's harmony. 
 
 But of illimitable force unbounded by a shore, 
 
 Which permeates where finite creature never can explore. 
 
 Thus vital force of every sphere, through all gradations linked, 
 Reach from the higher grades of life to lower ones extinct; 
 And as the steps are taken, and one foot below is pressed, 
 The other "o'er the river on a grander shore doth rest. 
 
 Thus from the lowest creatures up, each verges on some goal, 
 And, link by link united, form the universal whole ; 
 And each adapted to its sphere is happy there to reign, 
 And hidden from all future life is anxious to remain. 
 
 But when developed to this state, no longer can we stay ; 
 While darkness hides the book of fate, we're forced upon our way. 
 Thus all from atoms spring to life, and all to atoms go, 
 And yet a principle is left no power can o'erthrow. 
 
 We may be partial to the thought, that when this life is o'er 
 The dormant body sinks to earth, and sinks to rise no more. 
 But mere opinions can't control, howeT er nice the aim, 
 The laws of Nature reign supreme, the facts are just the same. 
 
 Though sacred ardor may be felt, and hope on faith may rest, 
 With strong assurance that in death the soul is to be blessed, 
 And that a kingdom far away, wilh God upon the throne, 
 By his tribunal separates the evil from his own ; 
 
 And that a mansion wide and high, not made with human hand, 
 And round the infinit estate are fields and rivers grand; 
 And crowns with sparkling diadems, made by the hand divine, 
 And garments which the longer worn the more in luster shine ; 
 
 Where we may meet our friends of earth, who long had passed 
 
 before, 
 And in sweet harmony may dwell henceforth forever more. 
 The picture is too lovely, most, for any hand to mar — 
 So may this grand delusion rest on some bright, shining star. 
 
 They who hav hope and faith so strong this firmly to believe, 
 While groveling through this vale of tears, some joy they may 
 
 receive ; 
 Yet 'tis a mansion of the mind, so gorgeous, wide and high, 
 And which if any ever find, 'twill all be in their eye. 
 
MISCELLANEOUS SUMMARY. 159 
 
 Therefore the real and ideal may differ all must know, 
 Mere faith that this or that is fact can never make it so. 
 But what may constitute our joy contrasting scenes reveal, 
 And on the other hand display the fears we're doomed to feel. 
 
 And while our fancied pictures doth celestial pleasures show, 
 The doubt of reaching such a port doth picture pain and woe. 
 Instead of charming sceneries and everlasting songs? 
 The writhing of dread agony unto that place belongs; 
 
 The fires that rage within those souls forever in despair, 
 
 For which proud heaven can ne'er atone, by either hope or 
 
 prayer ; 
 And as we realize the joys surrounding us above, 
 Suppose we view below the hearts once linked with ours in love; 
 
 Suppose it be a darling wife, near kin, or only child, 
 
 How suddenly would we be plunged in anguish deep and wild ! 
 
 No more the charms of heavenly bliss would thrill with sacred 
 
 love, 
 We'd leap into that dread abyss, forsaking all above. 
 
 A pure and sympathetic heart, with love both deep and true, 
 "Would sooner share such agony than such a prospect view. 
 But, glorious to contemplate, such vagaries cannot wave 
 The jurisdiction which controls the power to damn or save. 
 
 How fortunate that crazy dreams ne'er made a heaven or hell, 
 And that the laws of nature run the business wise and well 1 
 That they impartially preside, just as they did of old, 
 Ne'er bent or broken by man's wish, nor ever bought or soldi 
 
 And still a yearning yet is felt, that we should liv again, 
 So strong that hope has introduced ten thousand creeds to reign ; 
 And while that science doth ignore these dark delusions taught, 
 Yet still the masses of mankind are in their meshes caught. 
 
 How strong the pressure seems to urge man to some future goal, 
 For of all who denounce this claim, how few can I enrolll 
 Yet in the face of such belief, when death comes all is o'er, 
 We're like the ship that sailed away, and ne'er was heard of more. 
 
 Now why did this idea arise, apparently untrue, 
 In opposition to our eyes, and scientific clew? 
 
160 nature's harmony. 
 
 And 3-et how much would we desire, as temporary gain, 
 To sell all chance, when we expire, to ever liv again ? 
 
 Just send to me one single mind who would not hesitate, 
 To say in honor he ne'er dreamed of any future state. 
 But what the nature of that state it puzzles man to tell; 
 Hence all the phases are displayed, from heaven down to hell. 
 The thought occurs that "we now liv," a thought deep and sub- 
 lime ; 
 And if we ne'er can liv again, why liv we now this time ? 
 But to assert a future sphere, asserts we've lived before, 
 Or else the ends are close each side, and we shall liv no more. 
 But we emphatically hav shown three spheres that all hav passed, 
 And therefore most emphatically deny this being last. 
 "We've shown that nature's forces, too, in no way can be spent. 
 But are eternal as to time, infinit in extent ; 
 And act from smallest particles through universal spaco. 
 Her work is ne'er completed, and unlimited her race; 
 And yet like perfect clock-work the machinery so runs 
 That while the greater she achieves the lesser never shuna. 
 How can such perfect order all be accident or chance ? 
 How can all run unguided, yet so gloriously advance ? 
 And how can such developments judiciously arise, 
 "Without the jurisdiction of some unknown power wise? 
 Still as you caniot fathom this infinity of mind, 
 You argue in your ignorance that nothing was designed ; 
 That all acts through necessity, by laws from day to day, 
 Which laws are self-adjusted, and all matter must obey. 
 
 You tell us that they rule supreme, nor wisdom doth preside; 
 That from celestial forces planets never can collide 
 And yet we fail to understand how they can form and roll 
 In such exquisit harmony without some thinking soul. 
 
 There's something in attractiv force compelling them to act, 
 But how to nicely balance and fly onward so exact, 
 "With no intelligence to guide, is easier to deny 
 Than that a ruler infinit doth guard them as they fly. 
 
 "We know small creatures do exist, with corresponding mind ; 
 "We view these demonstrations, in every form and kind ; 
 
MISCELLANEOUS SUMMARY. 161 
 
 We know how circumscribed their spheres and limited their sway, 
 From those abiding many years to those of but a day. 
 
 And would it seem most reasonable, these creatures large and 
 
 small, 
 And man included with the rest, includes the minds of all ? 
 "When stars unnumbered twinkle through the heavens to our gaze, 
 With distance beyond measurement, seen in all different ways. 
 
 And can we for a moment feel that there's no power higher; 
 Nor any sphere beyond this one for which we should aspire? 
 That all our fond reliance must on human kind be cast, 
 Whose life is but a transient dream, then evermore is 
 
 When creatures so inferior appreciate so far, 
 
 Why not the copious magnitude of every shining star? 
 
 And why not some capacity beyond our power to know, 
 
 That may in wisdom guide them in the path that each should go? 
 
 If there's no giand intelligence above the thoughts of man, 
 What is it that exalts us so to traverse this brief span ? 
 And why in all our trials does reliance rest above, 
 And trembling fear seek solace through our prayers of faith arid 
 love? 
 
 Would not the sorrows of this world oft land us in despair, 
 And often all our courage fail, devoid of faith and prayer? 
 For even those denying God, not feeling any wrong, 
 Oft pray for temporal results, most ardently and strong. 
 
 From whence arises to the heart, the prayer for things we need, 
 
 Not to be spoken, but confined, in order to succeed ? 
 
 Unto what principle doth go the deep desires we feel, 
 
 And from what fountain deep doth flow the blessings of our weal? 
 
 Who undertakes an enterprise, unhopeful of success. 
 Grows weary in his indolence, or labors in distress ; 
 But when some kind encouragement assures him of his share, 
 His mind is filled with energy, and heart with hope and prayer. 
 
 Rob from us suffering mortals this grand principle of hope, 
 There's not an obstacle in life with which we'd dare to cope; 
 Nor would in any enterprise be willing to engage, 
 But each would in discouragement write finis on his page. 
 
162 nature's harmony. 
 
 But do we scarcely ever dream, on whom our hopes may rest, 
 Or stop to reason from what source our hearts are to be blest? 
 And yet we're conscious if no force were exercised to gain, 
 Our faith and prayer till doomsday might be offered up in vain. 
 
 And still the monitor excites the muscles to perform, 
 
 And fills the mind with firmness to combat the raging storm ; 
 
 But when at last our hopes are lost we readily giv o'er, 
 
 And sink when with a stronger faith we might hav reached the 
 
 shore. 
 Oh, how delightful then is prayer, to all who can believe, 
 Since, asking with a deep desire, and working, we receive ; 
 Since, wishing with all energy of faith, mind, heart, and soul, 
 And striving with all diligence, we're bound to reach the goal. 
 
 The motiv and the monitor in harmony combine, 
 To stimulate the muscles for achieving the design, 
 But all our fond reliance felt would quickly pass away, 
 "Were there no generous principles our wishes to obey. 
 
 No doubt that most the worshiping, with vague, delusiv prayers, 
 Arose at first from selfish fears in temporal affairs ; 
 But leading from the natural, so spiritual became, 
 It landed millions in the gulf of superstition's shame. 
 
 Still, religion is a sacred rite, though vague in many ways ; 
 The need of such a field for thought the fruit itself displays. 
 Although man's qualities were such in his primeval time, 
 His doctrins for these modern days a _ e not the most sublime. 
 
 Of course the attributes of God, as they taught and believed, 
 Were of the grandest character their intellects conceived ; 
 And, as a rule, what then was true to-day is true but odd — 
 Each in proportion to himself was author of his god. 
 Hence, those of low depravity to dreadful gods wou'd bow, 
 But minds of greater moral worth such gods would not allow; 
 Thus dark delusions are displayed in each religious clan, 
 But 'tis no god that makes it so, but ignorance of man. 
 
 And those who follow in the trail of vague traditions old 
 Are living far behind the times, nor grander lights behold, 
 "While those who seek new doctrins and proclaim some greater lord 
 Plunge into new delusions as atrocious and absurd. 
 
MISCELLANEOUS SUMMAESf. 163 
 
 Therefore, to reach the solid facts in heavenly faith, go slow ; 
 But study laws and principles, and judge from what you know, 
 Nor yield unto some lunacy of mansions in the sky — 
 'Tis dangerous to shun the earth and strive to soar so high. 
 
 Although a thousand ways are shown where air are to be blest; 
 Where all our sorrows hay an end, and souls in peace may rest, 
 Yet if we canvass any one, though pictured e'er so well, 
 The tinsel of romantic charms departs and leaves a hell. 
 
 If to the spirit world we soared and carefully surveyed 
 
 The prospects for eternal joy, as fiction has displayed, 
 
 How soon we'd view the pro and con, contrasting joy and bliss, 
 
 And struggle as from prison there, to reach a world like this. 
 
 'Tis but delusion of the^mind that makes the heaven so fair, 
 But only is adapted for the self-same mind to share; 
 But not the pleasures of such home need envy seek to rob, 
 Since all who proudly pass the gate will gladly jump the job. 
 
 You know the Indian has his heaven, which suits him to a "t," 
 But all such charms wonld make a hard old place for you and 
 
 me; 
 And yet he makes it natural — more like the life he leads — 
 And therefore full more rational than many other creeds. 
 
 "What constitutes his pleasure now he wants to liv again, 
 And, just like others, would escape all sorrow, grief, and pain. 
 But any fancied future state our faith and hope behold 
 Would grow no doubt quite tedious ere growing very old; 
 For though we joined in praises and continued it in song, 
 We'd tire of this monotony from such a noisy throng; 
 And were we of the chosen few, invited there to shout, 
 More eagerly than e'er get in we'd struggle to get out. 
 So 'tis a blessing if these fancied joys we never gain. 
 Since what is wholesome food for one oft proves another's 
 
 bane; 
 But of all evils that arise, what other could compare 
 With the indulgence of our faith through vague and selfish 
 
 prayer ? 
 
 But oh, the glories of this world let each with joy receive, 
 For 'tis no world of fiction, but in earnest life we liv — 
 
164 
 
 In every feature just adapted to us every way, 
 
 And 'tis no wonder we desire so long hereon to stay. 
 
 But laws and principles hav fixed the boundaries of life; 
 This transient span is short at bef i and mingled in with sirife, 
 And soon or late each mortal shall approach the fatal shore, 
 And when the solemn scene has passed, 'tis passed forevermore. 
 
 But since the power that controls has ushered all things forth. 
 Since from the unknown fountain we are forced upon the earth, 
 In nature's possibilities the principles remain, 
 Whereby this self-same consciousness may come to earth again. 
 
 And this succession shall advance frem birth to closing scene, 
 While on each side the curtain hangs to separate between ; 
 And thus the soul's development ascends from sphere to sphere, 
 And scarcely passes into death 'ere into lif 3 appears. 
 
 But why return to earth again, nor scale the clouds afar, 
 And seek a happier world than this upon some brilliant star ? 
 Why pass through trials of the earth and suffer all its pain, 
 And thus evolve from life to death and death to life again? 
 
 Just follow and I'll tell you why, recount from age to age, 
 And note the grand developments as shown on history's page ; 
 The centuries are fresh* to trace, the records being fine, 
 When three small vessels sailed six months to cross Atlantic's 
 brine. 
 
 Note here the vast extended wild that spread from shore to shore, 
 And savage tribes that roamed hereon for centuries before ; 
 And view the gradual progress since that period up to date, 
 And now behold the cities vast, that dot this broad estate. 
 
 See railroads joining shore to shore, and many more mapped 
 
 down, 
 With tracks that cross like spiderwebs, connecting town to town. 
 And whereupon the trains are hurled along at rapid rate, 
 And bring the news to every door, nor leaves us long to wait. 
 
 And see the cultivated fields displaying fertil soil, 
 
 Where man can feel a noble pride in agricultural toil, 
 
 And watch the giant stalks collide, and bow with loaded grain, 
 
 And wave before the gushing breeze, far o'er the rising plain. 
 
 
MISCELLANEOUS SUMMARY. 165 
 
 And see the thronging populace with hurried steps go by, 
 And hear the steady roar of feet, upon the sidewalk ply; 
 And view the wealth of millionaires, in giant blocks sublime, 
 And built to stand a thousand years, the common wear of time 
 
 List to the puffing of the mills, the clicking of the wire, 
 The ponderous hammer beating bars, heat by the furnace fire; 
 The busy hum of factories, which scatter o'er the land, 
 And many more progressing arts around on every hand. 
 
 And these are new developments of scarce a century's time, 
 And still the future promises a record more sublime ; 
 So as we shall not see it all, we need not scorn the earth, 
 But liv again and seek to know what future may bring forth. 
 
 You who reflect upon the past, repenting your sad course, 
 Seek from this day to mend your way, nor go from bad to 
 
 worse ; 
 Ascend the scale of moral worth, while here we may abide, 
 For where we end we shall begin anew the other side. 
 
 Select the best of moral seed, for 'tis not hard to know 
 The harvest shall be of the same, " We reap from what we sow." 
 The thistles, tares, and noxkms weeds no culture need be shown ; 
 They grow luxuriant and rank, while fought to be kept down. 
 
 All labor has its just reward, all virtue has its pay, 
 "While vice and folly set us back upon our former way; 
 Thus all who would in glory rise to fill that grander sphere, 
 May well improve the present, for the future fast draws near.